Chapter 1006: The Battle of Jingkou, A Strategy to Win Hearts

On the north bank of the Yangtze, ever since the edict to pacify the south arrived, great armies had been set in motion. From Yangzi City to Guazhou Ferry, over thirty li of Han army camps stretched in an unbroken line, banners covering the fields, martial might soaring to the clouds. The sound of drums and horns caused every soldier and civilian south of the river to change color.

As for Li Gu, the moment he received the edict, he moved the headquarters of the Grand Marshal for Pacifying the South to Guazhou, facing Jingkou directly, pressing close against Runzhou on the southern shore, putting on a fierce appearance of attempting a frontal breakthrough.

At the same time, combat between the two armies had already begun, opening with a naval battle. Yangzhou's river fleet against Runzhou's river fleet — the Han army fielded two hundred and fifty warships of various sizes and thirteen thousand naval soldiers. The southern army had considerably more of both warships and soldiers, nearly twenty thousand troops, and was personally led into battle by Lin Renzhao.

By surface strength comparison, adding the southerners' natural talent for watercraft and the command of a fine general like Lin Renzhao, the southern army's advantage could be said to be immense. Yet the result often defied expectation — the southern army was utterly defeated.

The two sides fought a great battle on the Yangtze for an entire day. Gunpowder smoke filled the river surface as masts and oars turned to ash and dust. Li Gu, as commander-in-chief, watched from the riverbank with a portion of his troops, providing support with crossbows.

The southern army's defeat lay mainly in two points.

First, though their forces were numerous, they were composed of two separate elements. The nearly ten thousand naval troops from Jinling were neither well-trained nor elite, their orders were not unified, and their will to fight was plainly weak. Before half a day had passed, they withdrew from battle on their own authority and fled back to Jinling — not only devastating southern morale but also leaving Lin Renzhao completely exposed to danger.

The Runzhou river fleet that Lin Renzhao had reorganized and trained did possess considerable fighting strength, but it was still that old story — a single beam cannot support a house. The Han army was different. Their soldiers had basically all been replaced with troops of Jianghuai origin, many of them converted from the old Tang army of earlier years. They were long-trained and well-equipped, commanded by Zhang Yanqing, a fine naval general, and moved like an extension of his arm. Thus, though fewer in number, they were in no way inferior in other human factors, and their morale was high — the Han army had a foundation that could absorb mistakes.

Second, it lay in the improvement of Han naval techniques, especially the innovation of naval weapons. Ships like the tower vessels had completely abandoned close-combat devices such as the old grappling booms, replacing them with long-range striking power — fire arrows, fire cannons, thunderclap cannons — supplemented by boarding actions.

These weapons were essentially all deadly instruments powered by gunpowder. This campaign to pacify the south was also a test of many of the Great Han's weapons. Though it is people who ultimately decide the course of war, no one would refuse the use of superior weapons.

The south was not entirely ignorant of gunpowder's application, but weapons that could both burn and explode with such devastating force — the southern army simply had no answer for them.

Of course, the southern army was not without means of counterattack. Fire-oil bombs, for instance, they were also researching and employing, and they displayed them in this naval battle, inflicting no small losses on the Han army as well.

In the moment of crisis, Lin Renzhao proved himself formidable and brave — fearless in the face of danger, resolute of will, commanding with composure, heedless of casualties, leading the southern army in close combat against the Han forces. But a mantis's arm could not ultimately reverse a losing battle. From the moment the Jinling fleet fled in cowardice, his efforts were doomed to be in vain, adding only a touch of tragic heroism to the Runzhou fleet's confrontation with the Han army.

In the end, Lin Renzhao was wounded and, protected by his personal guards, retreated in defeat to the Jingkou naval stockade. Fewer than forty warships escaped with him, carrying some three thousand men. Most of the rest perished on the river — killed, burned, or drowned — with fewer than a thousand taken prisoner and rescued.

Had the Han army not been equally exhausted from the prolonged battle and voluntarily given up the pursuit, the southern army's losses would have been even greater. Even so, this single naval battle secured an auspicious opening victory for the campaign to pacify the south, winning a good omen.

Even counting the several naval engagements during the Huainan war, the Battle of Jingkou could be called the first true large-scale confrontation between the navies of north and south — a head-on contest. The result proved that the Great Han of today was no longer strong only in infantry and cavalry; its naval warfare was likewise unmatched in the world, supremely sharp, equally capable of riding the wind and waves and galloping across rivers and seas. And the Yangzhou fleet was merely one of the Great Han's many naval forces — the main strength lay with the Lai and Mi fleets, which were true ocean-going navies.

Post-battle tallies showed Han casualties at two thousand one hundred sixty-nine. The desperate resistance Lin Renzhao had mounted with his forces had indeed inflicted no small losses on the Han army. Yet compared to the gains, these losses were acceptable.

Additionally, the two sides together had destroyed nearly three hundred warships, and of the Han army's captures, only some thirty were in usable condition. "Masts and oars turned to ash and dust" was not merely a figure of speech.

Moreover, the significance of the Battle of Jingkou went beyond that — in a single engagement, it had virtually annihilated the main force of the Runzhou fleet that Lin Renzhao had trained for years. To have trained troops for so long, only to see them shattered in one battle — the blow can well be imagined.

Since the great Huainan campaign, Lin Renzhao had essentially served as Jiangnan's guardian general, a pillar and great wall of the state, a trend only strengthened after Liu Renshan's death. Throughout, he had been the core general of the southern army's resistance against the imperial court — one could say its sole pillar.

Yet for such a figure to be defeated in a single battle — the impact on southern morale was incalculable. Already weakened, matters now became even more unmanageable. If the naval battle was lost, how far off was the land battle?

In fact, before the Battle of Jingkou, when the Yangzhou fleet took the initiative to attack, the southern army had debated whether to sally forth. Most generals opposed going out to meet the enemy, hoping instead to rely on strong stockades and solid fortifications for defensive, conservative resistance against the Han army.

However, in the end, Lin Renzhao overruled all objections and resolved to attack. As Jiangnan's last famous general, he understood the perilous situation of his side all too clearly — if they defended passively, there was absolutely no path to survival. Only by taking the initiative to attack was there the faintest hope of winning a thread of possibility. Yet even attacking, the cards available to Lin Renzhao were far too few.

Moreover, setting aside the grand strategy, regarding the situation at Jingkou specifically — if the Runzhou fleet cowered in defense, once trapped by the Han army's blockade, the fleet would be useless, and the southern army would fall into complete passivity. As for relying on Jingkou's defensive fortifications, that was even more wishful thinking. The Han army was not stupid; why would they recklessly assault strongholds? Lin Renzhao himself would not do such a thing.

And the Runzhou fleet had been trained by him for a long time. Using it as the foundation, sallying forth certainly carried risk, but if they could defeat the Yangzhou fleet, the effect would be remarkable. It could strike the Han army a blow to the head, crush their morale, interrupt their crossing of the river, and greatly boost southern morale, strengthening their confidence in resistance.

Lin Renzhao's thinking was sound, but the result, unfortunately, defied expectations — not only failing to meet the minimum expectations, but instead creating the very situation he least wanted to face. Though the Jinling fleet's desertion under fire was a factor, was this not also an inevitability forced by the tide of events? Even if the Jinling fleet had fought to the death, could they truly have defeated the Yangzhou fleet? Perhaps it would only have cost the Han army a few more warships and soldiers, adding to their achievements...

After securing victory at the Battle of Jingkou, it could be said that the lower reaches of the Yangtze were essentially under Han army control. And the complete naval victory met Li Gu's requirements. Thereafter, Li Gu dispatched fifty light boats with over a thousand naval soldiers to sail along the Yangtze, shooting tens of thousands of pre-prepared pacification edicts into the towns and camps of Jiangnan.

Liu Chengyou's edict to pacify the south was written by Li Fang, the Crown Prince's guest, enumerating Li Yu's crimes one by one. The first was contempt for the Son of Heaven and failure to obey imperial edicts. Others included secretly harboring ambitions, gathering troops for rebellion, employing treacherous ministers, indulging in sensual pleasures, neglecting governance and throwing the state into chaos, levying exorbitant taxes, and mistreating the common people — whether true or not, a full ten crimes were listed against Li Yu. The saving grace was that this was five fewer than Liu Chang had been charged with, vividly molding Li Yu, that "Ci Emperor," into a completely unprincipled tyrant and a cruel oppressor of the people...

Many times, the writer's pen is truly a knife that kills without drawing blood. That document was both a declaration of war and a summons to surrender. When the soldiers and civilians of Jinling learned of it, hearts were greatly unsettled.

Li Gu was skilled in the art of attacking the heart. Pacifying Jiangnan lay not in glorious military exploits, but in how to preserve the vitality of the Jiangnan region and reduce the war's harm to the common people there. On this point, even without the Emperor's reminder, Li Gu operated according to this goal.

Li Gu, Shi Shouxin, Zhao Yanjin, and Zhang Yongde — these four could be considered the core senior generals of the Jianghuai headquarters. After the Battle of Jingkou, Li Gu convened a military council and once again confirmed the operational strategy: advance on multiple routes, press against Jingkou, strike from two sides, feint east while attacking west, advance steadily and surely, with the objective of Jinling.

Li Gu deployed his forces at Guazhou, with Zhang Yongde as a separate army, gathering the elite of Jianghuai to seek an opportunity to cross the river at Dangtu. On the north bank of the Yangtze, the mobilized imperial army and Jianghuai troops, plus local soldiers from various prefectures, totaled seventy thousand men across land and naval forces.

Counting the conscripted laborers serving before and behind the army, the number exceeded one hundred thousand. Therefore, including the soldiers and civilians of the other routes, describing this campaign to pacify the south as employing three hundred thousand men was no empty boast.

With such abundant forces, such overwhelming strength, a sufficiently wise sovereign, and commanders with powerful leadership, the campaign to pacify the south should have simply rolled over the enemy — the author could not bear to pad the word count by deliberately manufacturing twists and turns.

And when news of the Battle of Jingkou's result reached Jinling, the sovereign of Jiangnan, Li Yu, was still indulging in romantic pursuits, sparing a moment to inquire about the autumn imperial examination, preparing to select a few fellow poets.