The Battle
Sun Quan appointed Ling Cao as leader of the vanguard fleet and ordered him to mobilize first, while he kept the larger vessels with himself for a slower advance. On the other hand, Huang Zu led his army from Jiangxia to Xiakou and set up a defense line in anticipation of the enemy.
En route to Jiangxia, Ling Cao's fleet encountered Huang Zu's navy at the Xiakou riverbank, with Huang's large vessels spread out far and wide. Even though Ling Cao was at a numerical disadvantage then, he considered it his duty as a vanguard leader to eliminate any enemy standing in his lord's path. Undaunted, Ling Cao charged ahead of his men and dashed uninterruptedly into the heart of Huang Zu's fleet. Since Huang Zu did not expect such a small unit to engage his larger force, he was unprepared for Ling Cao's attack. Before Huang Zu could react to the situation, Ling Cao had cleared a path in front of him. Fearing for his life, Huang Zu abandoned his flagship and boarded a small boat, leaving his navy impaired to function. When Huang Zu's soldiers saw their commander fleeing towards their home base, they started to desert their posts and scrambled to retreat, resulting in a total collapse of the naval formation.
Ling Cao gave pursuit to Huang Zu and boarded a light vessel in the midst of chaos and fighting. However, when he was close to claiming Huang Zu's head, he was hit by an arrow fired by Huang's subordinate Gan Ning and died; thus Huang was able to retreat to Jiangxia safely. Huang Zu remained in Jiangxia thereafter and did not respond to the challenges of Sun Quan's main army. Unable to breach Jiangxia's walls, Sun Quan soon withdrew his troops back to Jiangdong to deal with the Shanyue tribes who constantly raided his lands.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Xiakou
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