Jinting Han people

Chapter 733 Wang Mi Crossing the Sea

From the very beginning of this battle, Wang Mi's offensive focused on the Three Wu regions.

The reason is not hard to understand. Although the scholars of the Three Wu regions nominally submitted to the Southern Han, they had long been de facto independent. Almost everyone was aware of this, and Liu Xian was concerned about this. In order to ensure the smooth progress of the first round of reforms without excessively provoking the scholars of the Three Wu regions, he unprecedentedly divided most of Yangzhou to establish the State of Jin'an. In this way, he ensured the economic and political privileges of the Wu people in their homeland in exchange for their overall political concessions.

Wang Mi naturally saw this as well. It would be very difficult for Qi and Han to defeat the Han army militarily on their own. They would have to use political means to assist them, and the best breakthrough point was the Three Wu regions.

This was an extremely bold decision, because judging from past battles, the Han army already had a very strong navy. If they rashly led a large army across the river to attack the Three Wu, they would most likely face a naval battle. For the Qi people, who were good at mobile warfare, this was undoubtedly using their own weakness to attack the enemy's strength.

Therefore, when Wang Mi proposed this plan, it caused considerable controversy within Qi Han. However, Liu Bogen ultimately overruled the objections and supported Wang Mi's plan. He persuaded everyone by saying, "Even you do not believe that our army will attack the Three Wu regions. I suppose Liu Xian would be even less likely to guess. This is the principle of catching people off guard and launching an attack when they are unprepared."

So the people of Qi began extensive logging around Mount Tai, and then built seagoing ships in the Chengyang and Changguang areas. These ships were all over ten zhang long and four zhang wide, each capable of carrying two hundred people. Although they couldn't carry as many as multi-story ships, they were more stable and faster, able to withstand wind and waves, and moved more smoothly on the river than on flat ground. In the past year, Wang Mi built over five hundred seagoing ships, which were then used for training between Yuzhou and Qu County for half a year.

In mid-August of the sixth year of Qiming, with Wang Mi having completed the construction of the Hefei Dam, these ships finally sailed from Yuzhou to Guangling Jiangdu. Subsequently, the Qi army moved to Guangling and launched a large-scale crossing of the river, heading south to Jingkou.

Jingkou was a ferry crossing located more than a hundred miles northeast of Jianye, the former capital of the Wu Kingdom.

As early as the thirteenth year of Jian'an in the Later Han Dynasty, after the Battle of Red Cliffs, Sun Quan, on Liu Bei's advice, moved his garrison to Moling (i.e., Jianye) and decided to make it his capital. He then led his troops to survey the surrounding area and discovered that the two hundred li stretch from Stone City to Jingkou was entirely mountainous, except for this flat and open natural ferry crossing. Further east, for over seventy li to the sea, the terrain consisted of either towering peaks, muddy rivers, or numerous islets; the twenty-eight harbors, as the locals called them, were all shallow, narrow, and difficult to navigate. It can be said that east of Jianye, the only suitable ferry crossing for crossing the river was Jingkou.

Therefore, Sun Quan built a city at the foot of Beigu Mountain, named Jingcheng, to protect the east side of Jianye. This ferry crossing was also named Jingkou. Together with Shitoucheng to the west of Jianye, and even Niuzhuji further east, they were known as the Three Ferry Crossings of Yangzhou.

However, the difficulty of crossing the river varies among these three crossing points. Niuzhuji is the safest, Shitoucheng is the most convenient, while Jingkou is the most remote, the most dangerous, and the widest.

When Cao Pi became emperor, he attempted a southern campaign. Considering his father Cao Cao's repeated failures to breach Sun Wu's defenses around Ruxu, he decided to take another route. He set out from Guangling (Jiangdu) and headed south to cross the Yangtze River and attack Jingkou. However, after his army of over 100,000 was stationed in Jiangdu, the Han Canal froze over, preventing large ships from crossing. Cao Pi, seeing the vast and boundless Yangtze River, forty or fifty li wide, with its turbulent waves and dramatic curves resembling mountain peaks, was even more disheartened. He abandoned his southern campaign, famously lamenting to his attendants:

"Alas! This is why Heaven separates the North and South!"

This can be seen as a microcosm of all the previous southern campaigns. From Cao Pi's southern campaign to Wang Jun's army of Yizhou rushing straight to Stone City to destroy Wu, and then to Chen Min crossing the river to control Jiangdong, for nearly a hundred years, no one had tried to cross the river from Jingkou to fight.

This time, however, Wang Mi deliberately chose to face the challenge head-on, determined to cross the river from Jingkou. He believed that those who truly achieve great things must be able to do what others cannot and dare to do what others dare not; otherwise, even if they are blessed with good fortune, they will be unable to accomplish anything.

The autumn flood season was not yet over. The first batch of Qi soldiers had to cross the river by boat. The soldiers from the coastal areas of Qing and Xu were fine, but the soldiers from Yan and Yu provinces were not so calm. They lived on flat land and had no idea what rivers and seas were. Looking out from the side of the boat, they saw that the opposite bank was shrouded in clouds and mist, and the mountain peaks were barely visible. Only the boundless waves rolled back and forth, as if they could be swept into the waves at any moment.

But Wang Mi's will was very firm. He encouraged everyone, saying, "Back then, Deng Ai took the Yinping Road and ended up in dire straits. He had to roll down the mountain wrapped in a blanket, but he still managed to achieve the great feat of destroying Shu. Wasn't that much more difficult than what we are going through today? Our army now has ships, and the Wu people are unprepared. We will surely win if we fight!"

So, as the commander-in-chief, he personally boarded the first boat to cross the river, indicating that he would be the first to reach the south bank. This finally inspired the Qi people who were with him. They carried bows and swords onto the boat, preparing for this unprecedented battle to cross the river.

In fact, many things are that simple. From the moment the Qi people truly crossed the river southward from Jiangdu, the victory in the river-crossing battle already belonged to Wang Mi. The Wu people in Jiangnan never dreamed that the Qi people would dare to cross the river directly, especially from Jingkou, before the important city of Huainan was completely pacified. At that time, the defense of Jingkou consisted of only a thousand men.

At this time, the commander-in-chief of Jingkou was Min Hong, a renowned scholar from Wu. Although Min Hong was ranked alongside Xue Jian, Ji Zhan, Gu Rong, and He Xun as one of the "Five Talents of Jiangzuo," his prowess was mainly due to his literary talent, and he was not particularly skilled in military affairs. These days, he had nothing to do and didn't feel that the war was affecting him, so he spent his days in Jingkou inviting friends to drink and compose poetry. Just the night before the Qi army was to cross the river, he and his friend Teng Bing had been drinking heavily until late into the night, and he was still completely drunk.

When the first batch of Qi soldiers crossed the more than forty li of waves and arrived at the ferry, they hurriedly came to Min Hong for advice. Min Hong, however, had just woken from a nightmare; his head was throbbing, and he was barely conscious. When he finally regained his sense of language and heard that a large Qi army had crossed the river, he was immediately startled and nearly fell off his bed. He quickly threw on his robe and went to the city wall to check. The first batch of Qi soldiers was already arrayed below the city walls.

Seeing that the Qi army crossing the river outnumbered his own by several times or even dozens of times, Min Hong had no interest in defending the city. His first thought was: Could it be that all the important towns north of the river had fallen? Was the Han army in Huainan finished? Otherwise, how could the Qi army have crossed the river here? Only after being reminded by his subordinates did he belatedly realize whether he should hold out here.

The answer was, of course, no. In recent days, Min Hong hadn't paid any attention to the city's defenses; supplies and preparations were severely lacking. A forced defense would be suicidal. Besides, the soldiers defending the city were mostly his personal retainers—what was there to worry about? Jingkou, though called a city, was essentially a military fortress, much like Hefei. To prevent the southward-bound invaders from breaching the city, it only had gates on the south and west sides. The Qi people couldn't scale them quickly enough; now was the time to leave. So Min Hong turned tail and ran, abandoning this crucial gateway to the Jiangzuo region to the Qi people.

This was Min Hong's first mistake, but his second mistake was the one that truly led to disaster. Perhaps because he lost Jingkou without firing a single arrow, he felt ashamed to face Zhou Qi, or perhaps because he felt the situation was hopeless. He didn't stop along the way and led his troops directly back to the Min family manor in Yuqian County without sending any messengers to report the matter to Zhou Qi.

This allowed all 110,000 Qi soldiers to cross the river in the next three days. Meanwhile, the rest of Yangzhou remained unaware of the fall of Jingkou. Wang Mi was also unaware of this, but once his entire army had crossed the river, he knew that the most difficult hurdle was over. He couldn't help but point to the sky and laugh loudly, saying to his trusted followers, "Heaven blesses our Han Dynasty! Divine intervention has been divinely granted! The great undertaking is accomplished!"

He immediately began the next step of the plan. Since Wang Mi was unaware that the Wu people were still unclear about the enemy's situation, and since Jingkou was still quite a distance from Jianye, he was cautious and did not choose to directly attack Jianye, the former capital of Eastern Wu. Instead, he turned to attack Dantu County, which was adjacent to Jingkou, as the first stronghold for the campaign in Jiangzuo.

Dantu County was the seat of Piling Commandery, and at this time it was garrisoned by the Piling Prefect Zhuge Hui. However, due to the fact that most of the troops had been transferred to Jianye and Shitoucheng, there were only three thousand soldiers left to guard the city. When Zhuge Hui saw that the city was suddenly surrounded by a large number of Qi people, he was just as terrified as Min Hong. However, his situation was even worse than Min Hong's. Min Hong was able to escape by relying on the unique fortified village structure of Jingkou, but Dantu was flat and easy to surround by the Qi people from all sides. He had nowhere to escape.

Under these circumstances, Zhuge Hui believed his death was imminent and merely urged his soldiers to prepare to defend the city. Unexpectedly, after seeing the Zhuge banners raised in Dantu County, Wang Mi sent an envoy to the city walls to inquire about the city lord's identity. Upon learning that the city lord, Zhuge Hui, was from the Langya Zhuge clan, the grandson of Zhuge Dan, the former General Who Conquered the East of Cao Wei, and the son of Zhuge Liang, the Grand Marshal of Sun Wu, Wang Mi decided to spare his life and persuade him to surrender.

Surrounded by a large army, Zhuge Hui also considered his family's reputation. After much deliberation, he said to his eldest son, Zhuge Han, with trembling hands, "Since the Jian'an period, the name Zhuge has been renowned throughout the land. Everyone knows that my family is a family of prime ministers and loyal and righteous men. Although I do not have the extraordinary talent of my father and grandfather, nor the ambition to support the country like my uncles and great-uncles, if I lose even my loyalty as a subject and tarnish the reputation of the name Zhuge, how can I face my ancestors after death?"

Even though Zhuge Hui was terrified of death, he gritted his teeth and replied to Wang Mi, "Thank you for your concern, Your Excellency, but the Zhuge family has never had a scoundrel who surrenders without a fight!" This was to show his resolve and to make a futile resistance against the Qi people.

Upon hearing this, Wang Mide didn't waste any time. With a single order, tens of thousands of Qi soldiers immediately sprang into action, driving the local populace to fill in the moat and constructing earthen mounds from all sides, launching a general offensive. The defenders of Dantu were not Zhuge Hui's own troops, but rather private soldiers contributed by local Wu people. After defending for about a day and a night, with over a hundred dead or wounded, they felt they could no longer hold out. Therefore, early the next morning, the clerk Ding Wu, along with the soldiers, staged a coup within the city, bound Zhuge Hui, and surrendered the city.

Wang Mi thus gained entry into Dantu City. Upon seeing Zhuge Hui bound before him, he laughed loudly, "Although Lord Zhuge has backbone, he seems unable to command respect!" Zhuge Hui was initially ashamed upon hearing this, but after a moment of silence, he said, "Fish and birds share the same boat, so it is only natural. I only wish for a swift death and have nothing more to say."

Zhuge Hui was only thirty years old at the time and a direct descendant of the Zhuge clan. Since Wang Mi had captured him alive, he naturally wouldn't waste his talent and simply behead him. Instead, he laughed and said, "If Lord Zhuge is complaining about fish and birds sharing a boat, then go to Daxing to find the phoenix tree. Why must you die for love with the fish?" After saying this, he ordered his trusted men to send Zhuge Hui's family to Daxing as quickly as possible and officially report the news of the Qi people crossing the Yangtze River to Liu Bogen.

However, when facing the remaining three thousand Wu people who had voluntarily surrendered, Wang Mi was stern and showed no mercy. He first declared, "Our army has already conquered Huainan, beheaded He Pan, and killed tens of thousands of enemies. Now, we are leading a million-strong royal army across the river, determined to take it. You all should tell the nobles of the three Wu regions that those who have defected now will still be granted titles and honors. Anyone who still wants to resist will not be able to resist." He then ordered his men to cut off one of Ding Wu's ears and others, and gave each of them ten bolts of silk, so that they could spread the word throughout the Wu region and force the Wu people to surrender.

This move drew criticism from Chen Wang Gaoliang, who advised Wang Mi: "Isn't the General being too harsh? Emperor Gaozu killed Ding Gong and rewarded Ji Bu, but he waited until after defeating Xiang Yu! In the current situation, won't your humiliation of them make the Wu people want to fight again?"

Wang Mi laughed and said, "King Chen only knows one thing, not the other. Whether to punish or reward depends mainly on the person. Ding Gong sought an official position for personal gain, which was disobeying the Emperor's authority, so Emperor Gaozu killed him. Ji Bu fled and begged for mercy, which was because he was convinced of the Emperor's rule, so Emperor Gaozu pardoned him. Whether Emperor Gaozu killed or rewarded, it was nothing more than a display of power."

"My actions today are solely for the purpose of displaying my power. Don't be fooled by the fickle nature of the Wu people these past few years. Back then, when Sun Ce marched south to Jiangdong, he slaughtered countless people in the Three Wu regions and still managed to secure his rule. And it wasn't just Sun Ce; the chaos of the two palaces during Sun Quan's reign and Sun Hao's skinning and stuffing of people with straw—weren't they all the same? The Wu people are merely afraid of power, not of virtue."

At this point, Wang Mi's expression changed, and he sighed solemnly, "Although we have crossed the river, our reputation is still inferior to Liu Xian's. If we do not use this method, the Wu people will definitely be half-hearted and unwilling to ride on the same boat as us. The most urgent task is to send troops south immediately. We must not show the slightest weakness and force the Wu people in various places to surrender in one fell swoop. Once they are on my boat, even if Liu Xian comes in person, he will be helpless."

After capturing Dantu, Wang Mi continued to send troops south. This time, he divided his forces into two routes. One route went from Qu'a and Wuxi north of Taihu Lake, through Wuxian and down to Jiaxing. The other route went south across Taihu Lake, through Yangshang and Wucheng, and then approached Wukang.

Just as Wang Mi had predicted, the people of Wu were terrified when they saw the Qi army marching south. They dared not confront them directly and surrendered one after another. This made the two Qi armies invincible. In just half a month, they approached Qiantang, the capital of the present-day Jin'an Kingdom.

Meanwhile, realizing that the main Qi army had departed, Du Tao and Tao Kan launched another attack on Hefei Weir by boat. After several days of fierce fighting, under the vanguard of Du Zeng, they finally repelled the Qi troops guarding the city. They then dug the weir, releasing the floodwaters and relieving Hefei from the siege. (End of Chapter)