Numerous battles of strength and wit ensued, both on land and on water, eventually culminating in the battle of Red Cliff. During the battle, two thousand ships were burned. According to foreignercn.
Zhou Yu felt that the talented Zhuge Liang would become a future threat to East Wu and tried several times to kill Zhuge, but failed. Cao Cao's mighty army swiftly conquers the southern province of Jingzhou and the Battle of Changban is ignited when Cao Cao's cavalry unit starts attacking the civilians who are on an exodus led by Liu Bei. During the battle, Liu Bei's followers, including his sworn brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, give an excellent display of their legendary combat skills by managing to hold off the enemy while buying time for the civilians to retreat.
The warrior Zhao Yun fights bravely to rescue his lord Liu Bei's entrapped family but only succeeded in rescuing Liu's infant son. Sun Quan was initially in the midst of a dilemma of whether to surrender or resist, but his decision to resist Cao Cao hardens after Zhuge Liang's clever persuasion and a subsequent tiger hunt with his Grand Viceroy Zhou Yu and his sister Sun Shangxiang.
Meanwhile, naval commanders Cai Mao and Zhang Yun from Jingzhou pledge allegiance to Cao Cao and were received warmly by Cao, who placed them in command of his navy. The intrigue games plotted by all three camps involved to outwit one another prior to the battle, the dramatic twists and turns during the course of battle, as well as the impacts and developments after the battle, are so fascinating as to have triggered much discussion and study among posterity.
There are wily generals who do very clever things. If they run out of arrows, they send a boat down the river past the enemy camp, and the enemy thinks, 'Goodness me what is this?
And they capture them in straw, and so that's how you get spare arrows. But there is more scheming to come from Liu Bei and friends. Consequently, when Cao Cao's army sees the defector's ship heading toward them, they do not do anything about it. They are expecting him. They say that the Red Cliffs, the cliffs that give their name to both the famous battle and the John Woo movie are still charred black to this day because of smoke from the burning fleet.
Hardly can any other times throughout Chinese history rival this brief period in such a sublime showing of a galaxy of talents. Across all three camps, there was no shortage of a gifted persona: intelligent strategists as well as valiant warriors emerging and rising all at the same time. Facilitated by human's habitual choosing of sides, reinforced or incited further by fictionalized rendering in the popular novels and dramas, generations of enthusiastic fans cheer their favorite figures of their choice while perusing this part of history.
They were all best of the best. Their vivid persona and dynamic talents marked an era full of great tension, momentum, and drama. Before and after the Battle of Red Cliff, and into the times of the Three Kingdoms, the leaders of Wei, Shu, and Wu did all they could to entice the best over to their camps from all possible sources, to the extent that Cao Cao once made three consecutive "Talent Scout" announcements explicitly looking for talents regardless of the candidates' character.
It was a controversial move; however, the motivation was really no different from Liu Bei's paying three persistent visits to Zhuge, both indicative of an urgent "thirst" for talents. These larger-than-life historical figures, either in their dashing, heroic acts, or poetic mood of utterances, each with his unique talents exemplified classical paragons for us to admire. Is it the Times itself helping perpetuate the Heroes, or the Heroes themselves helping glorify the Times?
In Three Kingdoms we might divine some inspirations. As Cao Cao prepares his huge navy to invade southern China and destroy them both, geniuses like Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu devise a grand strategy.
They hope to destroy Cao Cao's 10, ships with fire upon the river, but must first trick Cao Cao into chaining his ships together, and then change the direction of China's famous and freezing North Wind. While these two struggle to put aside the rivalry between Liu Bei and Sun Quan's forces, they must hatch their legendary schemes before Cao Cao is ready.
The battle then begins with Sun Shangxiang leading a light cavalry unit to lure Cao Cao's vanguard army into the Eight Trigrams Formation laid down by the allied forces. Cao Cao's vanguard army is utterly defeated by the allies but Cao Cao shows no disappointment and proceeds to lead his main army to the riverbank directly opposite the allies' main camp where they laid camp. While the allies throw a banquet to celebrate their victory, Zhuge Liang thinks of a plan to send Sun Shangxiang to infiltrate Cao Cao's camp and serve as a spy for them.
The duo maintain contact by sending messages via a pigeon. The film ends with Zhou Yu lighting his miniaturised battleships on a map based on the battle formation, signifying his plans for defeating Cao Cao's navy. Meanwhile, Cao Cao's army is seized with a plague of typhoid fever which kills a number of his troops. Cao Cao cunningly orders the corpses to be sent to the allies' camp, hoping to pass the plague on to his enemies. The allied army's morale is affected when some unsuspecting soldiers let the plague in, and eventually a disheartened Liu Bei leaves with his forces while Zhuge Liang stays behind to assist the Eastern Wu forces.
Cao Cao hears that the alliance had collapsed and is overjoyed. At the same time, his naval commanders Cai Mao and Zhang Yun propose a new tactic of interlocking the battleships together with iron beams to minimize rocking when sailing on the river and reduce the chances of the troops falling seasick.
The Eastern Wu forces look on as Liu Bei leaves the alliance. They agreed that whoever fails to complete his mission will be punished by execution under military law. Zhuge Liang's ingenious strategy of borrowing of arrows with straw boats brought in over , arrows from the enemy and aroused Cao Cao's suspicions about the loyalty of Cai and Zhang towards him.
Both Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu's respective plans complement each other when Cao Cao is convinced, despite earlier having doubts about Jiang Gan's report, that Cai and Zhang were indeed planning to assassinate him by deliberately 'donating' arrows to the enemy.
Cai and Zhang are executed and Cao Cao realised his folly afterwards but it was too late. Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang decide to attack Cao Cao's navy with fire after knowing that there is a special climatic condition known only to Eastern Wu's forces, that the South-East Wind to their advantage would blow sometime soon.
Before the battle, the forces of Eastern Wu have a final moment together, feasting on glutinous rice balls to celebrate the Winter Festival. Meanwhile, Zhou Yu's wife Xiao Qiao heads towards Cao Cao's camp alone secretly, in hope of persuading Cao Cao to give up his ambitious plans but she fails and decides to distract him instead to buy time for the Eastern Wu forces.
The battle begins when the South-East Wind starts blowing in the middle of the night and the Eastern Wu forces launch their full-scale attack on Cao Cao's navy. On the other hand, Liu Bei's forces, which had apparently left the alliance, start attacking Cao Cao's forts on land. The allied forces launch another offensive on Cao Cao's ground army, stationed in his forts, and succeeded in breaking through using testudo formation despite suffering heavy casualties.
Although Cao Cao is besieged in his main camp, he manages to holds Zhou Yu hostage after catching him off guard together with Cao Hong. Xiahou Jun appears as well holding Xiao Qiao hostage and causes the allied forces to hesitate. In the nick of time, Zhao Yun manages to reverse the situation by rescuing Xiao Qiao with a surprise attack and put Cao Cao at the mercy of the allied forces instead.
Eventually, the allied forces decide to spare Cao Cao's life and tell him never to return before leaving for home. In the final scenes, Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang are seen having a final conversation before Zhuge Liang walks away into the far distance with the newborn foal Mengmeng. To commemorate these trips, Su wrote two rhapsodies that would earn him universal praise in the annals of Chinese literature: "Odes to the Red Cliff. In his rhapsodies Su yearned nostalgically for the daring bravura of heroes who fought at Red Cliff centuries earlier, while also facing the realities of life's brevity and the hypocritical nature of people.
The allies, led by Zhou Yu and Liu Bei, gave chase over land and water until they reached Nan Commandery; combined with famine and disease, this decimated Cao Cao's remaining forces. The allied counterattack might have vanquished Cao Cao and his forces entirely.
However, the crossing of the Yangtze River dissolved into chaos as the allied armies converged on the riverbank and fought over the limited number of ferries.
To restore order, a detachment led by Sun Quan's general Gan Ning established a bridgehead in Yiling to the north, and only a staunch rearguard action by Cao Ren prevented further catastrophe. The borders of the land under Cao Cao's control contracted about kilometres 99 mi , to the area around Xiangyang.
The control of Jing Province provided Liu Bei with virtually unlimited access to the passage into Yi Province and important waterways into Wu southeastern China and dominion of the southern Yangtze River. Never again would Cao Cao command so large a fleet as he had at Jiangling, nor would a similar opportunity to destroy his southern rivals present itself again.
Quick facts for kids. Close to the Yangtze River , China. Precise location is debated. Referred to as Chibi Red Cliffs , on the southern bank of the Yangtze.
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Cite this article:. This page was last modified on 16 July , at Suggest an edit. Part of the wars at the end of the Han dynasty. Engravings on a cliff-side mark one widely accepted site of Chibi, near modern Chibi City , Hubei. Unbeknownst to Cao Cao, this was all part of a ploy by the allies to set up an ambush against the numerical superior northern army. A squadron of allied ships were converted into fire ships, packed with incendiary materials such as dry reeds and fatty oil.
The flaming southern ships crashed into the northern fleet, causing a fiery inferno to ensue. This was compounded by the fact that Cao Cao had chained all of his ships together in an effort to lower seasickness being experienced by his northern soldiers. During the pandemonium the allies led an assault on the disorganized northern army, and were able to score a huge victory due to the chaos. Many northern soldiers burned to death or drowned before this assault. Cao Cao ordered a retreat after realizing that the battle was lost, and his army began to flee up the Huarong Road.
This was equally as disastrous for the northern army as rain had made the road almost impossible to traverse. The northern army was totally lost at fighting over the water, as many northerners rarely had the need to utilize naval combat.
Seasickness compounded the issue and morale stayed low.
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