Can I get to the other side?

In Tongling Ferry, corpses were everywhere.

With Lu Meng's suicide, the remaining Sun army soldiers either chose to commit suicide or surrender, and no one resisted.

Cao Cao also rushed over quickly. When he saw the bodies of many Cao army soldiers in the ferry, he couldn't help but feel deeply heartbroken.

Because the loss this time was heavy.

Not to mention the 3,000 defenders originally stationed in the ferry, just this battle just now made him lose no less than a thousand people.

Thinking of this, Cao Cao's eyes became more violent, and he coldly ordered Le Jin: "Kill all the captives! Throw the bodies into the river to feed the fish!"

These guys caused him such heavy losses.

It deserves this end!

"Yes!"

Le Jin clasped his fists and accepted the order, and then ignored the curses and pleas for mercy from the surrendered soldiers, killed them all, and threw them into the river together with Lu Meng's body.

Cheng Yu saw this scene and immediately showed regret.

What a good ration, what a waste.

Shaking his head and retracting his gaze, Cheng Yu said: "My Lord, this time Sun's army used despicable means to cross the river, we need to be careful next time."

"We can't continue to relocate the people, and we must check the people and merchants who come and go in the future to prevent today's incident from happening again."

Normally, there is no need to check ordinary people and merchants, but now that such a thing has happened, we have to be careful.

Who can guarantee that the enemy will continue to disguise themselves as civilians to cross the Yangtze River?

This time, we were lucky enough to successfully recapture the ferry before Sun Quan's army arrived, but next time, it's hard to say, we will learn from our mistakes.

Cao Cao's eyes changed when he heard this, and he snorted coldly and said: "Pass on my military order, stop relocating the people, block all the ferry, and prohibit any people, merchants, and ships from traveling!"

"Anyone who dares to cross the river without permission will be killed without mercy!"

Even though he was reluctant to give up the people and supplies that had not yet been relocated from Jiangbei, he had no choice now.

I can only reluctantly give up Yuzhou and the counties in Jiangbei!

Li Dian couldn't help asking: "My lord, General Cao Ren is still resisting Lu Bu in Guandu. If you give up Yuzhou, then they..."

"I have my own arrangements."

Cao Cao said, turning away expressionlessly.

...

Jiujiang County, Yinling.

Originally occupied by Cao's army, but Cao Cao did not deploy many troops here, so Sun Quan sent Lu Meng to secretly cross the river to seize Tongling Ferry while sending troops to attack here.

It's not that Sun Quan didn't want to lead his troops into Jiangbei earlier, but doing so would expose his intentions and arouse Cao Cao's vigilance, so he just chose to capture Jiujiang County first.

Jiujiang County has many waterways, which can enter the Yangtze River downstream. The fleet can reach Tongling Ferry in at most five days along the river, which is convenient for him to rush to Lu Meng at any time.

However, the change of things still exceeded his expectations.

It had been several days since Lu Meng took Tongling Ferry. He dispatched all his fleets to Tongling Ferry early in the morning, but Cao Cao's reaction speed was much faster than he expected, and the fleet encountered many obstacles on the Yangtze River.

"Can't the fleet break through if it is blocked? Cao Cao's troops are all from the Central Plains. Can they still beat our fleet on the water?"

Sun Quan was furious in the study.

As time passed, he became more and more anxious, because every day that passed meant that Lu Meng and others who were alone in the deep were more dangerous!

Zhou Tai replied helplessly: "My lord, although the Cao army is not good at water battles, they have a large number of warships and dare to use them to hit our fleet directly."

"Or they can use iron chains to chain the warships across the river to prevent our fleet from passing. We really have no way."

In terms of water battles, the Cao army really can't beat them, but they dare to hit them directly with ships. They don't treat the ships as ships. What can we do?

Hearing this, Sun Quan clenched his fists.

His eyes were filled with anger.

Cao Cao did not have so many warships, but he could take out so many warships to stop his fleet, which meant that he had the support of the major families in Jiangdong!

"A bunch of shameless villains!"

Sun Quan was extremely angry. If he could return to Jiangdong, he would definitely deal with all these families who were watching the wind and changing their course!

Taking a deep breath to suppress the anger in his heart, Sun Quan ordered in a cold voice: "Abandon the water route, and the army will march by land instead!"

"At any rate, we must reach Tongling Ferry within three days!"

They didn't have much time left. If the Cao army arrived at Tongling Ferry before them, the ferry they had just seized would be lost again.

His only hope of returning to Jiangdong was gone!

"Yes!"

Zhou Tai clasped his fists and accepted the order.

But before he could leave, Han Dang hurried into the study without notifying him, and said to Sun Quan with a sad face: "My Lord, something bad has happened!"

Hearing this, Sun Quan's face changed slightly.

He felt something was wrong.

But he remained calm on the surface and asked: "General Han, what happened?"

Han Dang gritted his teeth and said in a deep voice: "Just now, the news came that Cao's troops have arrived at Tongling Ferry. General Lu Meng and General Xu Sheng defended the ferry and fought a bloody battle with the enemy. Our army was defeated!"

"Tongling Ferry... was taken back!"

This sudden news made it difficult for Sun Quan to remain calm. His face turned pale in an instant, as if someone had poured a basin of cold water on his head in the middle of winter.

His mind was blank and he had difficulty breathing.

Tongling Ferry was recaptured, Lü Meng, Xu Sheng and two thousand elite soldiers were all annihilated, and his last hope of returning to Jiangdong was gone, and he also lost two generals!

For a moment, waves of confusion and helplessness emerged from Sun Quan's heart, and he suddenly felt that the road ahead became gloomy.

Whether it was the death of his elder brother Sun Ce before, he urgently took over the Sun family's foundation, stabilizing the major families in Jiangdong while fighting against Lü Bu; or being stolen by Cao Cao and having his retreat cut off, it was not as big a blow to him as this news.

Crossing the river in white clothes was a strategy that he gambled on his reputation and all his hopes, but now it has failed again!

"My lord, my lord!"

Han Dang and Zhou Tai looked at Sun Quan's dull and distraught appearance, and couldn't help but feel extremely worried, and shouted.

At the call of the two, Sun Quan slowly came back to his senses. He subconsciously looked around and said in a trembling voice: "Where is Gongjin? Hurry up and call Gongjin over!"

At this moment, facing such a desperate situation, the first person who came to his mind was Zhou Yu.

A few years ago, his elder brother Sun Ce died. When he took over Jiangdong, he was only sixteen years old. It was Zhou Yu who stood by his side and helped him solve one trouble after another.

Now he realized how important Zhou Yu was.

As long as Zhou Yu was there, he had a backbone. Even if he was in a desperate situation, Zhou Yu could help him out.

Zhou Tai and Han Dang looked at each other.

Then Zhou Tai said carefully: "My lord, have you forgotten? Zhou Gongjin is now in Xiapi, Xuzhou, and did not come with the army."

Zhou Yu was dismissed from the position of the Grand Commander, and he was still guilty, so he stayed in Xiapi.

After hearing Zhou Tai's words, Sun Quan remembered this matter, and felt lost and in a very complicated mood.

He admired and envied Zhou Yu.

He admired Zhou Yu's talent, but he was jealous that Zhou Yu's prestige was higher than his lord. Not only was he recognized and appreciated by Cao Cao, but even Lu Su helped him for Zhou Yu's sake.

He was obviously the lord!

But at this desperate moment, he found that he subconsciously wanted to rely on Zhou Yu and seek help from him. How ironic.

"I can do it without him!"

A trace of determination flashed in Sun Quan's eyes.

He didn't believe that without Zhou Yu's help, he couldn't find a way out by his own ability!

At this time, Han Dang asked: "Lord, Tongling Ferry has been taken back by Cao's army. Should we continue to go there or withdraw our troops back to Xiapi?"

There are only two ways before them now, either choose to march to Tongling Ferry or withdraw our troops.

"Bring the map!"

Sun Quan did not answer directly, but ordered.

Zhou Tai ran to get the geomancy map.

Sun Quan knelt beside the table, looking at his position on the geomancy map, frowning and thinking.

The current situation is not optimistic.

The method of crossing the river in white clothes cannot be used once, Cao Cao will definitely be alert, and the only way to return to Jiangdong is to attack by force.

But the problem is that he had fought with Zhang Liao for a long time in Xuzhou before, and his army suffered a lot of losses. Later, he also suffered many casualties in several counterattacks against Danyang and Guangling.

With his current military strength, he cannot attack Jiangdong by force.

In addition, there is not much food left. He currently needs to replenish his troops and food, and make plans after recuperating.

Thinking of this, he looked at a certain place on the geomancy map.

His eyes moved slightly.

"General Zhou, have Cao Cao gathered many people and materials in Huainan County and have not yet moved them across the river?"

Zhou Tai nodded and said, "Yes, the transportation capacity of Tongling Ferry is limited after all, and it is troublesome to move people and materials, so Cao Cao has not yet completed the migration."

After getting a positive answer, Sun Quan made up his mind and said, "In this case, let's take Huainan County first and take down the three counties in Jiangbei!"

The three counties in Jiangbei are Huainan County, Lujiang County, and Jiujiang County.

As long as he takes these three counties, he can not only quickly replenish his strength with the materials and population in them, but also gain a firm foothold!

Han Dang hesitated and said, "But my lord, Zhang Liao has now led his troops into Huainan County. If we attack Huainan County, won't we have to compete with him?"

Fighting for Huainan County is equivalent to a fallout between the two sides.

Although they pretended to surrender to the court in order to gain a breathing space, Han Dang felt that it was too fast to fall out now.

"There is no other way."

Sun Quan said expressionlessly, his eyes were very deep, "We will eventually continue to fight with the court, and before that we must do everything we can to improve our strength."

"There are a large number of young and strong people and supplies and food in Huainan County. If we take Huainan County, we can greatly improve our strength."

"Zhang Liao only brought 10,000 people into Huainan County this time. If we suddenly launch an attack, we may be able to destroy him and the 10,000 troops."

"In this way, we will have one less powerful enemy."

It is impossible to surrender to the court. Not to mention whether his generals are willing or not, even he himself does not believe the promise of the emperor.

Since we have to fight sooner or later.

Why not strike first!

After solving Zhang Liao and taking Huainan County, the remaining troops of the court will not be able to do anything to him for a while, and he will have a chance to breathe.

After listening to Sun Quan's words, Han Dang and Zhou Tai were also somewhat moved, after all, they were both pro-war factions.

"My lord, Zhang Liao is currently stationed in Hefei. After he entered Yangzhou, he dispersed his troops to various places to gather and appease the people."

"If we want to take Huainan County, now is the best time to attack!"

Zhou Tai said excitedly, full of fighting spirit.

Sun Quan nodded deeply and ordered: "Immediately send a message to General Cheng, asking him to stop leading the troops to Tongling Ferry and march towards Huainan County instead."

"We also led a group of soldiers and horses to Hefei, captured Huainan County in one go, and captured and killed Zhang Liao!"

Zhou Tai and Han Dang respectfully accepted the order.

…

Huainan County, Hefei.

It has been some time since Zhang Liao led his troops into Huainan County. The first thing he did when he came here was to clean up Cao's army in Huainan County and rescue the people.

The people were basically forced to migrate, and many of them even came from Yanzhou. Because Cao Jun could not move all these people to Jiangdong for a while, a large number of them stayed in Yangzhou and Yuzhou.

After long-distance migration and trekking, many people died of starvation, disease, or even exhaustion. Fortunately, it was not winter right now, otherwise even more people would have died.

It is a very troublesome task to receive, rectify and appease these people, but as the imperial army, of course it is impossible to ignore these people.

Therefore, after Zhang Liao cleaned up Cao's army, he began to engage in a new round of busyness, but at the same time, he did not forget to pay attention to Sun Quan's situation.

He was quite surprised when he learned that Sun Quan had captured Tongling Ferry by crossing the river in white clothes.

"How can this guy be so despicable and shameless?"

"On par with Thief Cao."

Zhang Liao was astonished that Cao Cao and Sun Quan broke the alliance and stabbed their allies in the back, while the other in white crossed the river to break through the bottom line of the march.

There is no way to say who is more shameless between the two. I can only say that the two rats bumped into each other and were on par with each other.

Qu Yi said: "This is news a long time ago. Tongling Ferry has been taken back by Cao Cao, and all the soldiers and horses of Sun Quan who crossed the river have been annihilated."

Zhang Liao frowned when he heard this and said, "What is this Sun Quan kid doing? Why didn't he notify me when he won Tongling Crossing?"

His troops were in Huainan County. If Sun Quan had notified him immediately after seizing Tongling Ferry, he would have been able to cross the Yangtze River and lead his troops into Jiangdong.

But now the ferry has been taken back again, and such a good fighter plane has been lost in vain!

"I don't know either."

Qu Yi shook his head. He heard that the scouts reported that a large number of Cao Cao's warships had arrived at Tongling Ferry, and a fierce battle broke out at the ferry, so he sent someone to inquire about the situation, and finally learned that Sun Quan had sent troops to pretend to be ordinary people. The matter of crossing the river.

Otherwise, they may be kept in the dark.

Zhang Liao's eyes were slightly cold and he hummed: "This blue-eyed thief is indeed dishonest. I'm afraid he has ulterior motives when he agrees to surrender this time!"

"I just don't know what conspiracy he has?"