The Battle of Chibi refers to the battle in which the combined forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei in the late Eastern Han Dynasty broke through Cao Cao's army in the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208) around the Yangtze River Chibi (northwest of present-day Chibi, Hubei Province). The Battle of Chibi is one of the famous battles in Chinese history in which the small victory is more and the weak victory over the strong, the most famous of the "three major battles" in the Three Kingdoms period, and the first large-scale river operation in the Yangtze River Basin in Chinese history. In this battle, Sun Liu's combined forces finally attacked Cao's army with fire, Cao Cao returned north, and Sun and Liu each captured part of Jingzhou, laying the foundation for the establishment of the Three Kingdoms. Among them, as far as Liu Bei was concerned, after the Battle of Chibi, he led the people to conquer the four southern counties of Jingzhou, Wuling Taishou Jinxuan, Changsha Taishou Hanxuan, Guiyang Taishou Zhao Fan, and Lingling Taishou Liu Du all surrendered.
As a result, for Jingzhou, four of the seven counties were captured by Liu Bei at once. As for Sun Quan of Jiangdong, who contributed the most in the Battle of Chibi, he only seized the land of Nan County after the Battle of Chibi, and from the perspective of the number of counties, it is obvious that Liu Bei became the biggest winner of the Battle of Chibi. So, the question is, after the Battle of Chibi, Liu Bei attacked and occupied the four counties of Jingnan, why didn't Sun Quan stop it? As we all know, the Sun clan of Jiangdong has always been very covetous of Jingzhou, and before Liu Biao's death, Sun Quan had already led his army to attack Jingzhou many times. If this was the case, why didn't Sun Quan preemptively attack the four counties of Jingnan?
One
First, in December of the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208), Liu Bei joined forces with Sun Quan and defeated Cao Cao at Chibi with a coalition led by Zhou Yu and Cheng Pu. Liu Bei and wu jun marched by land and water and pursued them to Nan Commandery. In response, Cao Cao led his army north, leaving Cao Ren to guard The Southern County. In the fourteenth year of Jian'an (209), Liu Bei and Zhou Yu jointly attacked Cao Ren at Nan Commandery, forcing Cao Ren to retreat at Jiangling City. Because Jiangling City was strong and difficult to overcome for a while, Liu Bei led the people to conquer the four southern counties of Jingzhou, Wuling Taishou Jinxuan, Changsha Taishou Hanxuan, Guiyang Taishou Zhao Fan, and Lingling Taishou Liu Du all surrendered. Thus, it is very obvious that after the Battle of Chibi, Sun Quan's side focused on attacking Nan County, which gave Liu Bei the opportunity to attack the four southern counties of Jingzhou.
According to the introduction, the Battle of NanJun was a battle fought by Sun Liu's alliance with the Cao army after the Battle of Chibi to capture NanJun. The battle began in the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208) and ended in the fourteenth year of Jian'an (209), and the battle lasted for nearly one year. After a year of stalemate, Sun Quan's army killed and wounded many people. Cao Ren abandoned the city and retreated after suffering heavy losses. Nan County was then owned by Eastern Wu. The Battle of Nan County was another victory for Sun Liu's forces after the Battle of Chibi. During the battle between Zhou Yu and Cao Ren, Guan Yu led an army to cut off the northern provinces and intercepted all the reinforcements supporting Nan County.
Two
In the Battle of Nan County, not only did Sun Quan send tens of thousands of troops, but for Liu Bei's side, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and others also joined in to assist Eastern Wu in capturing Nan County. Therefore, after the Battle of Chibi, Sun Liu and Liu probably reached a tacit agreement, that is, Liu Bei contributed to help Sun Quan capture Nan County, and Sun Quan could not interfere with Liu Bei's capture of the four counties of Jingnan. Further, after Zhou Yu launched the Battle of Nan County, Sun Quan did not have the extra troops to capture the four counties of Jingzhou. At that time, Zhou Yu had already led tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, and in the Jianghuai region of Hefei, Sun Quan still needed to leave enough soldiers and horses to defend Cao Cao, which made Jiangdong at that time already stretched.
As a result, Sun Quan could only watch Liu Bei expand his territory in Jingzhou. On the other hand, Sun Quan and Zhou Yu wanted to attack the four counties of Jingnan, but in fact they were also unknown. As we all know, Jingzhou was originally the territory of Mu LiuBiao in Jingzhou. In 208, after the death of Liu Biao, the mu of Jingzhou, Liu Chun surrendered to Cao Cao and left Jingzhou. Therefore, as far as Liu Qi, the eldest son of Liu Biao, is concerned, he naturally has a relatively high prestige in the counties of Jingzhou. In the fourteenth year of Jian'an (209), Liu Bei submitted to the imperial court, promoted Liu Qi as the assassin of Jingzhou, and in his name captured the four counties of Jingnan (Wuling, Changsha, Lingling, and Guiyang). In the same year, Liu Qi died of illness.
Three
From this, it is very obvious that Liu Bei successfully captured the four counties of Jingnan in the name of Liu Qi. Before Liu Qi's death, Sun Quan and Zhou Yu had no excuse to attack the four counties of Jingnan. Further, before the Battle of Chibi, Sun Quan and Liu Biao fought each other many times, which also made the wenchen generals in Jingzhou more resistant to Sun Quan. For example, from the eighth year of Jian'an to the thirteenth year of Jian'an (203-208), Sun Quan attacked Jiangxia County three times, eventually killing Huang Zu and annexing most of Jiangxia County. Because of the long-term war, the relationship between Jingzhou and Jiangdong was undoubtedly relatively poor, which would increase the difficulty of Sun Quan's seizure of Jingzhou County.
Correspondingly, when Liu Bei defected to Jingzhou during the Battle of Guandu, he knew how to establish prestige in Jingzhou, and gradually won the support of Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong and other Jingzhou scholars. And this naturally helped Liu Bei to pacify the four counties of Jiangnan. In addition, under the premise of Sun Liu's alliance, Sun Quan was naturally not good at preventing Liu Bei from attacking the four counties of Jingnan, because once Sun Quan and Liu Bei went to war, then Cao Cao, who had suffered a defeat at the Battle of Chibi, would probably lead a large army to make a comeback. Therefore, starting from the overall situation of Sun Liu's alliance, although Sun Quan contributed the most in the Battle of Chibi, he could only acquiesce to the result of Liu Bei's capture of the four counties of Jingnan.
Four
Finally, after the Chibi War, Sun Quan relied more and more on Lu Su and called him his own Deng Yu. As we all know, among the civil and military generals of Eastern Wu, Lu Su played a crucial role in the establishment and consolidation of Sun Liu's alliance. In 209 AD, Liu Bei made Sun Quan the acting general of Che Qi, concurrently serving as The Pastor of Xuzhou. Sun Quan and Liu Bei met at Jingkou, and the meeting between the two consolidated Sun Liu's alliance. After Zhou Yu's death, Lu Su considered the overall situation and persuaded Sun Quan to lend Jingzhou to Liu Bei, so that Sun Liu could unite and jointly resist Cao. Lu Su said, "Although you (Sun Quan) are a god and martial artist, Cao Cao's power is too great. We have just taken possession of Jingzhou, and Ende Xinyi has not yet spread to the people. If you lend Jingzhou to Liu Bei and let him appease the people, it is really the best policy. Because in this way, Cao Cao has one more enemy and we have one more friend. Sun Quan agreed with Lu Su's claim. When Cao Cao heard the news that Sun Quan had lent Jingzhou to Liu Bei, he was writing a letter, and in surprise, he fell to the ground.
Therefore, from the perspective of Sun Liu's joint resistance against Cao, Liu Bei's capture of the four southern counties of Jingzhou and the borrowing of Nan County from Jiangdong helped to attract Cao Cao's attention and thus share the pressure of Eastern Wu to a certain extent. If after the Battle of Chibi, Liu Bei was still struggling to survive, or even destroyed by Cao Cao, then sun Quan alone would be difficult to bear the pressure brought by Cao Cao alone. After all, in the Battle of Jingzhou, Cao Cao's lost soldiers and horses were mainly the soldiers who surrendered from Jingzhou, and for Cao Cao, he still had the strength to launch a large-scale attack, which became one of the reasons why Sun Quan did not prevent Liu Bei from expanding his territory. What do you think about that?