Battle of Red Cliffs

By 208 Cao Cao, who controlled the Han emperor and that year became Imperial Chancellor, had unified the north and marched south to take Jing province. Its governor Liu Biao died, his son Liu Cong surrendered with the provincial fleet and its base at Jiangling, and Liu Bei, routed at Changban, fled to Xiakou. Zhuge Liang went to Sun Quan, ruler of the lower Yangtze, and helped persuade him — together with Sun Quan’s own advisers Lu Su and Zhou Yu — to resist. Zhou Yu and Cheng Pu led about 30,000 men upriver to join Liu Bei and Liu Biao’s eldest son Liu Qi, who had some 20,000 by Zhuge Liang’s perhaps inflated count. The figures for Cao Cao’s army are unreliable: in a letter to Sun Quan he boasted of 800,000 men, while Zhou Yu reckoned his real strength at 150,000–160,000 northern troops and 70,000–80,000 former soldiers of Liu Biao of doubtful loyalty.

After a first clash at the Red Cliffs Cao Cao withdrew to Wulin on the north bank, and the allies faced him from the south. Zhou Yu’s officer Huang Gai sent Cao Cao a letter feigning surrender and then released ships packed with dry reeds, kindling and oil, which a southeasterly wind drove into the enemy fleet; many men and horses burned to death or drowned. Cao Cao retreated overland along the Huarong road through the marshes, and disease and hunger thinned his army further. The sources weigh the causes differently: the biographies of the Wu commanders stress the fire attack, while Cao Cao himself wrote to Sun Quan that only the sickness in his army made him burn his ships and withdraw.

By the end of 209 Zhou Yu had taken Jiangling, and Liu Bei occupied the four commanderies south of the Yangtze. The north, the lower Yangtze and later the southwest stayed in separate hands — the future states of Wei, Wu and Shu. The exact site of the battle is disputed; the most widely accepted location is near the modern city of Chibi in Hubei. The battle is one of the best-known episodes of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and it inspired Su Shi’s poems on the Red Cliff (written at a different cliff, near Huangzhou) and John Woo’s film Red Cliff (2008–2009).