Chapter 357: Night Attack
Relying on the advantage of the warship, although Gan Ning was much more cautious, he still launched an attack on Zhou Yu without hesitation.
The existence of this navy is always a threat.
Tian Ze attached great importance to the waters around the Bohai Sea and would never allow any navy to linger around there in order to ensure the safety of core areas such as Liaodong.
So Gan Ning was also anxious to destroy Zhou Yu's navy.
However, over the past ten days, the two sides have fought several times, but the outcome was always evenly matched, and Gan Ning never gained any advantage.
"How could this happen?" Gan Ning couldn't help scratching his head as he looked at the battle summary in his hand.
There are many special departments in Tianze’s army that are used to summarize the war situation and make plans. The battle summaries they provide are extremely accurate and to the point.
To sum up, although Gan Ning consciously had the upper hand in the past few days, he was able to suppress Zhou Yu most of the time.
But in fact, according to calculations, the casualty ratio of both sides was almost firmly controlled between one to three and one to two, which was not very high.
And the most important thing is that the casualty ratio in this battle is constantly narrowing, and Zhou Yu seems to be getting stronger and stronger.
It was not only because he gradually became familiar with Gan Ning's combat methods, but also because in every battle, Zhou Yu would quietly, through command and dispatch, lure some of Gan Ning's navy into being surrounded unconsciously.
They then concentrated their firepower on it and devoured it, seizing a number of advanced warships to arm themselves.
These advanced warships, ordinary water generals have never been in contact with them, so it is difficult for them to exert their power. However, in front of Zhou Yu, this conclusion was undoubtedly directly broken.
After just a few days, Zhou Yu had become even more skilled at operating these advanced warships than Gan Ning. He figured out all kinds of tricks and maximized their effectiveness, which quickly narrowed the gap in combat power between the two sides.
The enemy became stronger and stronger, and Gan Ning felt helpless, feeling a little bit like Sun Ce.
"Zhou Gongjin is truly a natural born talent!" Tian Hu exclaimed with awe in his eyes.
The quality of the 100,000 naval forces of the Eastern Wu was not very strong, and their warships were very backward in their eyes. If they were replaced by ordinary naval generals, even Chunyu Qiong and Cai Mao, they would be beaten by them.
After all, the gap between the two sides' warships is so huge that it is difficult to make up.
But in Zhou Yu's hands, it turned decay into magic.
The people are still the same people, the ships are still the same ships, and Zhou Yu can do all kinds of things.
The seemingly simple deployment and subtle changes made this navy like a swamp, causing Gan Ning's army to sink deeper and deeper and be swallowed up silently.
Even the burly Tian Hu felt a strange sense of beauty when watching Zhou Yu commanding the army. Everything seemed so natural and logical.
The seemingly casual conducting is like a series of exquisite notes, just right.
This terrifying ability truly made Tian Hu admire him.
Upon hearing this, Gan Ning snorted in dissatisfaction, but did not refute.
He once thought he was invincible in the naval forces, but he was taught a lesson by Zhou Yu near the Yangtze River and suffered a great loss.
He thought he would be able to regain his face now that he had a more elite and larger navy and extremely advanced warships, but in the end he lost face completely.
Zhou Yu's attainments in commanding large armies had reached a point that was beyond his comprehension.
Gan Ning felt that he would never be able to achieve this in his lifetime.
At this moment, he was deeply aware of a sentence that Tian Ze once said.
Success is 99% hard work and 1% talent, but that 1% talent far exceeds 99% hard work.
He once called himself a genius, but many people could never reach the level he achieved when he was young in their entire lives.
But after meeting Zhou Yu, he realized that there is a huge gap between genius and evildoer. In front of an evildoer like Zhou Yu, genius is just a threshold to see him.
Just like the mentality of many counselors under Tian Ze and many scholars in the Jixia Academy towards Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi and others, at this moment Gan Ning had to silently bow his head in his heart.
If you are not as skilled as others, you are not as skilled as others. There is no way to hide it.
Gan Ning is a proud man who never hides his own shortcomings, but is also able to face up to the strengths of others.
But he won't give up.
So what if there is a gap in ability? It is not impossible to make up for it in other ways.
After all, there are still talents in this world.
He also had a vague idea of Zhou Yu's talent, which was probably his absolute superiority in command ability and meticulous command of large-scale operations.
Otherwise, Gan Ning could not explain why he had such ability at such a young age. Even if Huangfu Song was there, he might not be able to defeat this guy.
"Night attack?" Tian Hu couldn't help but widen his eyes and looked at Gan Ning in disbelief.
"General, the person opposite us is Zhou Gongjin!"
"Your Majesty has specifically instructed us to be extremely cautious in dealing with Zhou Gongjin and not to take any risky moves, otherwise we will be outmaneuvered by him."
Gan Ning's face darkened: "I know."
"But now we can no longer defeat them in a naval battle. If we continue to fight like this, although we will not lose, we will not be able to drive them away from the Bohai Sea. This will be too threatening."
Being at the mouth of the Yellow River, Gan Ning could call upon the navy of Jiang Qin and other generals to come to his rear for support at any time, so he was not worried about defeat.
But Zhou Yu became stronger and stronger as the battles went on, and that was one thing that remained unchanged.
Although those warships had extremely high technological content and were specially designed, and their cost was extremely high, there was no worry about the technology being leaked or being imitated by Zhou Yu.
But it would be troublesome if they fell into Zhou Yu's hands and were used directly by him. Gan Ning still wanted to give it a try to see if he could inflict heavy damage on Zhou Yu and destroy these warships.
Seeing Tian Hu's still worried look, Gan Ning patted him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry. I plan to launch this night attack by land."
"The land combat capability of these Jiangdong navy is totally vulnerable. Even if they set up an ambush, I am confident that I can escape unscathed."
"Besides, you are familiar with my talent. It will definitely not be discovered by the enemy." Gan Ning said confidently.
Tian Hu nodded slightly.
Although he was still worried, he knew Gan Ning's character. Now no matter what he said, he couldn't stop him.
"General, you personally led the army to launch a surprise attack, but I don't know how many troops you are prepared to use?"
Gan Ning pondered for a moment, "Zhou Gongjin has tens of thousands of troops, and he is a genius in military management and command. If the troops are too few, even if the sneak attack is successful, the effect will be limited. If the troops are too many, they will be easily discovered."
"In this case, I only need to bring 5,000 elite soldiers."
Tian Hu heard this and said, "General, if that's the case, I will lead 10,000 troops to follow you a little further behind, just in case."
"Also, let Chen Qi lead the remaining navy. He is careful and cautious."
"We will launch a sneak attack. We must not let the other side trick us. We will launch a counter-sneak attack."
(End of this chapter)
