Chapter 270: Success Comes Naturally

"Huh! Yuan Shu's warships are moving."

"What is this for? Lining up and then stopping? Are they trying to throw their lives away?"

Gan Ning looked at the hundreds of assault warships of Yuan Shu, and the sudden change also left him very surprised.

"They aren't throwing their lives away; they are preparing to cut off their tail to survive!"

Guo Jia stood beside Gan Ning and said in a low voice, "Clearly they have also realized that their warships are no match for ours. If things continue like this, they will be slowly devoured by us sooner or later."

"On Yuan Shu's side, someone must have seen the danger. Once their warships are gone, the transport ships behind them will be finished too."

"Right now, they are abandoning these hundreds of warships just to protect the transport ships behind them. Sacrificing the chariot to save the commander—it seems this Yuan Shu has some decisiveness."

Guo Jia chuckled slightly. In the past, he hadn't thought much of Yuan Shu, but the other party's ability could not be underestimated; this decisiveness alone was something ordinary people could not compare to.

To discard hundreds of warships and nearly one hundred thousand naval troops just like that was not something an ordinary person could do.

According to what he knew, Yuan Shu did not have many naval troops under his command, totaling less than three hundred thousand.

Losing one-third all at once could already be considered a severe blow to their vitality.

"Hehe! Sacrificing the chariot to save the commander—that's only if he can actually save him."

Upon hearing this, a bloodthirsty smile appeared on Gan Ning's face.

"Strategist, stay here; I will be back shortly."

After speaking, without waiting for Guo Jia's response, he immediately began to wield the command flags to issue orders. Since Yuan Shu's army had begun to shift, he naturally had to make a response.

In an instant, peculiar warships surged out from behind the main force. These warships were very long but narrow, yet their speed was extremely fast.

They looked like swordfish in the sea, speeding rapidly across the surface of the river.

In the blink of an eye, they had already charged toward Yuan Shu's linked warships.

Yuan Shu's naval forces moved quickly, with rows of assault warships connecting in a line on the river, forming an iron chain across the river.

And those swordfish-like warships were specifically built to deal with this kind of situation.

These warships each turned into arrowheads, charging directly into Yuan Shu's iron-chained warships.

Boom, boom, boom!

When the Swordfish Warships approached Yuan Shu's naval warships, they immediately exploded one by one, along with Yuan Shu's assault warships. Soon, the explosions stirred up huge waves on the river.

"Haha! Advance the army!"

Seeing this, Gan Ning quickly spotted the gap in the Yuan army on the river, so he waved his command flag, and the warships behind him also surged forward rapidly.

This time, to crush Yuan Shu, he naturally would not let Yuan Shu's army escape easily. As long as this army of Yuan Shu was wiped out, Yuan Shu would suffer a major blow to his vitality.

Such an opportunity was not easy to find, and now only Yuan Shu and Liu Biao remained in the south; the other warlords had all fallen one after another.

Once a top-tier warlord like Yuan Shu was defeated, their Xuzhou would also see its reputation soar.

Now that their Xuzhou troops had endured for so many years, they could finally take full action.

The situation in the world was also very clear now. Among the major warlords, the Imperial Court still occupied the land of Sili, and through slow development over these years, their strength had increased quite a bit.

Especially with Cao Cao voluntarily defecting to them, plus the Bingzhou Army under Lv Bu—because the Imperial Court held the moral high ground, Lv Bu was very obedient and had no thoughts of independence.

As a result, the strength of the Imperial Court was truly not bad; an army of one million was still enough to deter the surrounding areas. It was just that the power struggles within the imperial court kept them unable to step out of the Sili region, which made them inferior to other warlords by a margin.

For example, Yuan Shao in the north finally defeated Gongsun Zan in the eighth year of Chuping and besieged him in Youbei Ping for six months, eventually forcing the other party to commit suicide by self-immolation.

With this, in the northern lands, Yuan Shao had taken over most of the territory of Youzhou.

However, shortly after, the Yellow Turbans of the Taihang Mountains broke out in Jizhou. This time, the Yellow Turban Army was not like the previous Yellow Turban Rebellion.

This time, the number of Yellow Turban soldiers was smaller, but they were much more elite, and their weapons and equipment were also quite good; a small portion even wore Iron Armor.

Coupled with the existence of the Yellow Turban Warriors, they fought back and forth with Yuan Shao's army in Jizhou.

This made it impossible for Yuan Shao, who had originally wanted to continue expanding, to do so.

Because once he sent out troops, the Yellow Turbans would stab at his home base, and as it happened, the Yellow Turban Army's main base was in the Taihang Mountains.

Even if Yuan Shu's army wanted to attack the Yellow Turban Army's lair, it was very difficult to do so.

Therefore, Yuan Shao in the north was trapped once again.

Besides these, there were also Liu Biao of Jingzhou and Liu Zhang of Yizhou among the major warlords.

On the surface, the power of the Yuan Clan was the most formidable; one in the south and one in the north, the two Yuan brothers occupied nearly four provinces of the world.

Moreover, whether it was Yuzhou or Jizhou, they were both major provinces since before the Divine Han, existing at the forefront in terms of economy and population.

In the eyes of most, the two Yuan brothers were among the top three warlords currently, so if they could defeat Yuan Shu, it would be a significant boost to the morale of Xuzhou.

By now, Su Fan no longer needed to hide himself; there were not many forces left in the surrounding areas. He was the controller of Xuzhou, and Yuzhou was Yuan Shu's territory.

However, after being constantly ravaged by Yuan Shu, the potential of Yuzhou had greatly declined.

After all, in the great battle with Sun Jian, Yuan Shu had to constantly mobilize troops from Yuzhou. Where did the troops come from if not from the common people at the bottom of Yuzhou?

Yuan Shu was not Su Fan, and he did not have that kind heart. Once an order came down, no matter how it was done, the people had to be conscripted.

Added to that, under his rule, the scholar-official clans committed all kinds of evil, constantly devouring the interests of those around them, making the lives of the common people at the bottom worse than death.

The hearts of the people were withering.

In terms of potential, Yuzhou was far inferior to Xuzhou.

As for Yanzhou, the Imperial Court had managed to control two commanderies with the help of Cao Cao, but in the end, the potential of Yanzhou was extremely poor, much the same as Qingzhou.

And as for Qingzhou, on the surface it still belonged to the Imperial Court, but every part of it had been harassed by Guan Hai, and it had no strength at all.

Taking down Yuan Shu meant that over there, he would be the sole power, and his strength would advance by leaps and bounds.

Therefore, no matter what, this time, Yuan Shu's army could not be let go.

For this reason, this time Su Fan had brought almost eighty percent of his military officers, and as for the naval battlefield, it was almost more than half.

By deploying hundreds of thousands of elites, he had to take down this army of Yuan Shu no matter what.

So even if Yuan Shu wanted to cut off his tail to survive, Su Fan would not give him the chance.

All the warships suddenly accelerated, charging directly toward Yuan Shu's assault warships. With the destruction caused by the Swordfish Warships, Yuan Shu's warships could not block the entire river surface at all.

Very quickly, countless battlefields broke through the blockade of Yuan Shu's battlefield.

Gazing at Yuan Shu's thousands of Transport Ships, Gan Ning and the other martial generals showed no mercy and ordered a direct bombardment of these Transport Ships.

Unless they surrendered, they were to be bombarded and sunk directly.