Guan Yu kept his fleet anchored around Xiangyang and Fancheng for two very good reasons.
The first was a headache. A geographic, bureaucratic, infuriating headache. Sun Wu of Jiangdong held Jiangxia, right where the Han River poured into the Yangtze. Every ship entering or leaving the main waterways had to report to Jiangdong authorities. Forms. Inspections. Smug-faced officials with wooden tablets asking where you sailed, what you carried, and whether your papers bore the right seal. Infuriating beyond measure.
The second reason was simpler. The fleet at Xiangfan dominated all of northern Jingzhou's waterways. Even if the northern army collapsed against Cao Cao, the ships could block every river crossing. Cao Cao would have to smash through the fleet before he could set foot in Jingzhou.
Then Lu Meng ruined everything.
Lu Meng had attacked and surrounded Jiangling. The Sun-Liu alliance was dead, stabbed in the back while Liu Bei was grinding through war in the north. There was no fixing this. No negotiation. No reconciliation. Just betrayal and open war.
With the alliance voided, Guan Yu saw no reason to keep his magnificent fleet idle any longer.
Cao Cao sat safe in his northern tents, no doubt rubbing his hands in anticipation. He clearly hoped Jiangdong would repeat their great triumph at Red Cliffs. He wanted his enemies to bleed each other dry so he could stroll in afterward and carve Jingzhou like a roast duck set out for a feast.
Guan Yu felt a very personal obligation to disappoint him.
Yet the northern border remained thick with Cao infantry. The fighting had settled into a muddy, grinding stalemate. But the sheer weight of enemy numbers meant neither Guan Yu nor Xu Shu could leave their posts. They couldn't abandon the north. They couldn't hand command to another.
Which meant someone else must take the fleet south.
Gan Gui was practically vibrating with energy. Standing on the dock receiving his orders, he couldn't stay still, shifting from foot to foot like a hunting dog that had just heard its master say the word "go."
Guan Yu watched him, stroked his long beard, a thoughtful look crossing his face.
"I recall now," Guan Yu said. "Half a year ago, you told Ma Liang that if we ever hoped to win the Shanyue tribes to our side, our floating fortresses must first stand before the gates of Jianye. Only then might we strike at the very heart of Jiangdong."
Xu Shu stood nearby, arms folded, and chuckled. He waved the thought aside. "Foreseeing what Gan Gui would choose to do is hardly a feat of wisdom, Yunchang. Anyone could have guessed. The boy's got his father's blood and his father's lack of patience."
---
"If we want to save Jiangling," Gan Gui said, leaning against the mast like he had all the time in the world, "we have to hit the one place those Jiangdong bastards actually give a damn about."
He wasn't shouting. He wasn't pacing. He just stood there, picking something from between his teeth, looking like a man who had already figured out the punchline before the joke was even told.
Eight hundred weathered veterans watched him in dead silence. His father's original crew. Men who had seen Gan Ning carve through a dozen fleets. Men who had sailed the Yangtze when it was still red with blood. Most young officers would have dissolved into a puddle of nerves facing this crowd.
Gan Gui just grinned and flicked a piece of dried meat off his finger.
"Now, we could sail straight down and smash our heads against their blockade at Jiangling," he continued, gesturing vaguely at the river. "That's the brave thing to do. The honorable thing. The stupid thing. But I've never been particularly fond of getting my crew killed for someone else's sense of pride."
He pushed off the mast and started walking, hands clasped behind his back like a philosopher with a hangover.
"Why hammer the front gate when we can just walk around the wall, find the back door, and let ourselves in?"
He stopped, turned, and pointed east with a lazy flick of his wrist.
"I say we sail these floating fortresses straight into the soft, undefended belly of Jiangdong. Right up to Jianye. Let those silk-wearing lords see what real fear looks like. Let them hear the sound of our crossbows being cocked from their bedroom windows. Let us drop anchor at Sun Quan's front door, knock politely, and when he opens it, we shoot him in the face."
The old river men roared.
"STORM THE CAPITAL!" A veteran slammed his spear against the deck.
"PUT A BOLT THROUGH SUN QUAN'S SMUG FACE!" another howled.
"BRING BACK GENERAL GAN NING HOME!" The chant swelled from three voices, to ten, to a hundred, to all eight hundred roaring it at the heavens.
Gan Gui just stood there, hands in his belt, nodding slowly like a man who had just heard a particularly good song.
"There, you see? The lads get it. Simple, really. It's not about fighting fair. It's about fighting smart. And if Sun Quan happens to soil his fancy robes while we're at it, well, that's just a bonus."
He winked at no one in particular, then strolled toward the prow like he was out for an evening walk.
"I am going to sail this floating fortress right up to Sun Quan's palace," he declared to the river, to the sky, to anyone who cared to listen, "and I'm going to keep shooting until that bastard learns some goddamn manners."
---
To reach the heart of Jiangdong, the fleet had to sail down the Han River and join the Yangtze. To do that, they had to force their way past Jiangxia.
Lu Meng had anticipated this. The man planned for everything. Unfortunately for everyone else, he was very good at it. Before marching west to lay siege to Jiangling, he had left very clear and very destructive orders behind.
Ruin the river.
The garrison had labored for weeks. They dug deep diversion channels into the banks, draining the water away from the main channel.
Then, to make absolutely certain, they sank heavy barges across the shallows, creating a submerged barrier of sharp timbers, iron chains, and stone. A wall beneath the waves. Impassable. So the plan claimed.
The Jiangdong soldiers assigned to guard this stretch were bored out of their minds.
They sat on the mud bank all day, staring at the same still water, the same treeline, the same dragonflies. They cursed their luck with the deep, personal bitterness of men who had drawn the absolute worst post in the army.
"They say Jiangling's walls are about to surrender," a spearman named Kou Lian muttered, kicking a stone into the mud. He did this every day, kicked a stone, made a prediction, was always wrong. "What a time to be stuck out here. Think of all the gold and silk inside. We're missing every bit of the good plunder."
"Oh, just shut up, Kou Lian," another soldier scoffed, slumping against his shield like a man who had long since surrendered all dignity. "You have been saying that for two weeks. Two whole weeks and Jiangling still stands. That city is as solid as Hefei."
For a heartbeat, nobody moved.
Comparing anything to Hefei was the most brutal joke in the entire Jiangdong army. Hefei. Sun Quan's greatest humiliation. A massive army hurled against a small garrison, and somehow, they had lost. To speak of Hefei was dangerous. Bordering on insubordination. And impossibly funny.
Once the laughter died down, mostly because their sergeant looked ready to burst a blood vessel, a nervous corporal cleared his throat and steered the conversation away from treason.
"Speaking of things that stand firm. Who exactly are we supposed to be stopping anyway? We drained half the river. Sank a whole fleet. There is barely water enough to float a skiff. Even if General Lu Meng himself tried to sail a warship through here..."
"He would run around and have to walk home, wouldn't he?" someone put in.
More laughter. Weary laughter this time. The kind shared by men who had told the same jokes for three weeks because there was nothing else to do.
Kou Lian kicked another pebble and drew breath to make yet another prediction.
The sentry by the water's edge shot upright.
"Hey."
Nobody paid him any mind.
"Hey."
Still nothing. Kou Lian was already mid-sentence about Jiangling's imminent fall.
"HEY!" The sentry's voice cracked. "Are those ships?"
The laughter died instantly. Heads snapped toward the river. Eyes squinted through the morning mist.
Far downriver, shapes emerged through the grey fog, so vast they seemed to swallow the light around them. Behind them, a swarm of smaller vessels moved in tight formation, a fleet advancing in a disciplined wedge.
And flying no flag of Jiangdong.
The watchers got to their feet slowly, like men waking from a dream they didn't want to end.
The leading vessel was beyond reason. A floating fortress. A mountain of wood. It looked less like a ship and more like someone had torn a city gate from its foundations, nailed a hull beneath it, and told it to sail. Standard warships flanked it like pups trailing an enraged mother bear.
Drawing near, the massive fortress dropped anchor and held station. The rest of the fleet kept formation.
Then, from the wings, dozens of swift, low boats peeled away. They ignored the flagship and rowed straight toward the ruined channel. Toward the trenches. Toward the sunken barricade.
"What's Guan Yu playing at?" an officer muttered, scratching his chin. "Scout boats against our barricade?"
"Maybe they're here to surrender?" someone offered hopefully.
A few men pointed. Others squinted harder, trying to convince themselves they were looking at ordinary warships. They had drained the channel. Made this passage impossible. No warship could sail through mud. Unless they planned to wade through waist-deep muck, the blockade was unbreakable.
"LOOK AT THEIR DRAFT!"
The shout came from a corporal, his voice tight with fear.
"Those boats are riding deep! They're not carrying soldiers! They're packed with sand! Heavy river sand!"
"They're heading for the trenches!" another voice joined in. "The ones we dug!"
"So what?" the sergeant called back, trying to sound steady. "The water rises, sure, but the barricade still..."
The first boat hit the mouth of an artificial trench. The Jingzhou sailors moved fast. Axes swung. Not at them. At their own hulls. The planks split. Water poured in. Laden with sand, the boats sank directly into the opening, sealing it tight.
The second boat. The third. The fourth. One after another, they rowed in, split their hulls, and sank into the channels. The sailors dove overboard and swam back, leaving their vessels to block the flow.
The trenches were plugged. The river had nowhere to go.
The water started rising.
The watchers watched the river creep up the bank. An inch. Two. Three. The current began to stir.
But the barricade held. The sunken barges sat in the middle of the channel, a jagged wall of timber and chains. The rising water washed over them but couldn't shift them. The current clawed at the barricade and failed.
"There," the sergeant breathed, relief cracking his voice. "Still holds. They can't get through. They'll have to pull back, and when they do, we launch the fireships and..."
He stopped.
The floating fortress was raising anchor.
Upon its deck, the crew moved in perfect order. Sails were lowered flat against the masts. Furled. Not spread to catch the wind. Useless.
And yet, the ship began to move.
"There is no wind!" a soldier shrieked, pointing at the motionless trees. Not a leaf stirred. Not a breath blew. "HOW DOES IT MOVE?!"
The fortress gathered speed, slow at first, then faster. Water churned and foamed white along its hull.
Then they saw them mounted low on either flank. Two massive wooden wheels, turning and churning the river into froth. This was no wind or current driving the ship forward. No oars either. Just gears and cranks, raw mechanical power forcing the vessel ahead by main strength.
It did not sail. It was driven.
Rising water, strengthening current, and the relentless thrust of those wheels. All three forces combined and focused on a single point: the iron-reinforced prow of a floating fortress now rushing straight for the barricade at full speed.
Nobody reached for a bow. Nobody even remembered they were carrying one. Several men simply forgot to breathe.
The fortress struck.
There was no long grinding struggle. No slow push and sway. The blow was swift and terrible. The steel prow crashed into the barrier with the weight of a falling mountain. Timber shattered, beams snapped like dry twigs, iron chains parted like rotten thread. Weeks of labor, weeks of digging, weeks of sinking and chaining and building, were blasted into splinters and foam in one single shattering instant.
The fortress did not slow. It did not even shudder. It crushed the barrier beneath its keel, gathered speed, and left splintered timbers drifting harmlessly in its wake.
The Jiangdong soldiers stood rooted to the muddy bank, mouths hanging open as the wooden fortress glided past their defenses as easily as though passing through a hanging curtain.
A young man stood upon the prow with his arms spread wide, laughing as though the entire river belonged to him. Loud, wild, unmistakable laughter.
Gan Gui cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed across the water, his voice carrying over the churning river and straight into the hearts of every terrified soldier on the bank.
"TELL LU MENG HE CAN HAVE JIANGLING! I'M TAKING HIS CAPITAL INSTEAD! LET'S SEE WHO BLINKS FIRST, YOU COWARDLY BASTARDS!"
The fleet sailed onward with the fortress at its head and warships trailing behind. They passed Jiangxia without firing a single arrow, without pausing, without even glancing at the garrison standing paralyzed on the bank. Then they joined the broad current of the Yangtze, unfurled their sails to catch the wind, and turned east.
Straight toward the heart of the enemy realm.
It took long minutes for the sails to vanish beyond the horizon. Minutes more before the spell broke and the men stirred, still staring at empty water.
"Jianye? Did he say Jianye?"
"That ship sails for our capital!"
"MOUNT AND RIDE! WARN GENERAL LU MENG AT ONCE!"
The bank erupted into chaos as officers shouted orders and messengers sprinted in every direction. Men rushed about without purpose, and one poor soul slipped and fell face first into the mud, with nobody stopping to help him up.
Yet beneath the shouting and panic, a cold thought settled upon every man there. They had all heard the challenge. They all understood its meaning.
We shall see who takes their city first.
It was no empty boast. It was a question. A practical, unsettling question that no one dared answer.
Every soldier in Jiangdong had heard the stories. Guan Yu's ships had flattened Fancheng, turned its walls to rubble. And now those same ships were heading straight for their capital.
No one knew if Jianye's walls could hold against such fire.
And no one particularly wanted to be the first to find out.
---
The urgent dispatch reached Lu Meng's siege lines outside Jiangling half a day later. The rider fell half dead from exhaustion and thrust the sealed message straight into the hands of the nearest officer.
Lu Meng read it standing in his command tent. All around him lay maps and calculations, the careful work of weeks of planning.
He read it once, then set the paper down. His face had gone pale, not with rage or terror, but with the look of a man who suddenly realizes he has left his own gate wide open while he went to plunder his neighbor's yard. His hands, resting on the map table, did not move.
"Turn the fleet around," Lu Meng said, his voice flat and steady. "We march to defend Jianye. At once."