Guan Yu flooded the Seventh Army in the Battle of Xiangfan, surrendered to the ban, and beheaded Pound, forcing Cao Cao to want to move the capital and flee, which for a time threatened Huaxia. However, it soon fell to the peak in the middle of the Cao Cao Group and the Sun Quan Group, and ended up with a tragic end of defeat in Maicheng. Why was Guan Yu's performance in the Battle of Xiangfan known as Wei Zhen Huaxia, and why did this battle have such a great influence at that time?
The course of the Battle of Xiangfan
The Battle of Xiangfan was an offensive campaign against Cao Cao's defensive zone launched from Jingzhou by Liu Bei's number one general Guan Yu from Jingzhou in the twenty-fourth year of Jian'an, and this campaign could be divided into two stages.
The first stage: Guan Yu set out from Nan Commandery in Jingzhou to attack Xiangyang and Fancheng, which Cao Cao controlled, and Cao Ren, who was stationed there, insisted on waiting for help. Upon hearing the news, Cao Cao immediately dispatched his forbidden soldiers to rescue him, and Guan Yu took advantage of the continuous heavy rain and the surge of Han Water to prepare boats in advance, taking advantage of the flooding of Cao Wei's army to attack quickly, not only capturing more than 30,000 Cao troops, but also forcing Yu Ban, one of Cao Cao's five sons and generals, to surrender, and beheading the general Pound De, who was unwilling to surrender after being captured. For a time, Guan Yu's troops were shocked in Huaxia, Cao Ren was trapped in the isolated city, and Xuchang, where Emperor Xiandi of Han was located, was exposed to Guan Yu.
Stage 2: Hearing the news of Guan Yu's "flooded Seventh Army", Cao Cao's first thought was to move the capital and escape, so as to avoid Emperor Xian of Han from being taken by Guan Yu. However, after Sima Yi and others offered a plan, taking advantage of the contradiction between Sun Quan's group and Liu Bei's group, especially the contradiction between Sun Quan and Guan Yu, and insisting on waiting for change, sure enough, Sun Quan's group took advantage of the empty opportunity of Guan Yu's northward rear, and Lü Meng's "white clothes crossing the river" secretly attacked Guan Yu's old lair, which directly caused Guan Yu to be attacked on his stomach and back, and finally defeated Maicheng and was captured and killed.
Judging from the two stages, Guan Yu's deeds in the history books, which are known as Wei Zhen Huaxia, are the first stage of the Battle of Xiangfan, and the latter stage is the end of Guan Yu's defeat. So why would a battle in which Guan Yu lost first and then lost, and on the whole, Guan Yu lost a lot, and Liu Bei's group suffered heavy losses, would be so highly evaluated for Guan Yu?
The enormous impact of flooding the Seventh Army
The core of the first phase of the Xiangfan Campaign was the "Flooded Seventh Army", and Guan Yu let the "Seventh Army" led by Yu Ban and Pound de come to the rescue at this stage, except for the 30,000 captured people, which could almost be regarded as the total annihilation of the army. This battle was brilliantly fought from the tactical level, enough to reflect Guan Yu's personal military command ability, but in a larger way, this battle did have a huge impact on Cao Cao and Liu Bei's clique.
Political situation: The direct impact of this battle was that the "three divisions of the world" pattern of Jingzhou County was broken, Jingzhou evolved into a "three divisions of the world" pattern after the Battle of Chibi, the area north of the Yangtze River in Jingzhou was occupied by the Cao Cao clique, and the land of the six counties south of the Yangtze River was "friendly" divided by Liu Bei and Sun Quan. However, after the "flooded Seventh Army", Cao Cao's group had only a few thousand people of Cao Ren trapped in the isolated city, and Guan Yu had broken through Cao Cao's Jingxiang defense line and could threaten Xuchang at any time. In Xuchang City, however, there lived the golden signboard of Cao Cao's blackmail of tianzi to order the princes, Liu Xie, the emperor of Han Xian, so Cao Cao's clique was very panicked, and once Emperor Xian of Han was taken away, this was to make Cao Cao lose the political signboard on which he had started.
Military structure: After the Battle of Chibi, although the trend of the three divisions of the world is not particularly clear, it is already difficult for the Cao Cao clique to cross the Yangtze River. Therefore, Cao Cao turned to Pass through Guanzhong and Hanzhong, while Sun Quan attacked Jiaotong and Hefei, while Liu Bei immediately marched into Yizhou after reaching an agreement with Sun Quan to divide Jingzhou equally, and then competed with Cao Cao for Guanzhong. By the twenty-fourth year of Jian'an, Liu Bei had repelled Cao Cao at the Battle of Hanzhong, and Sun Quan had also pacified The Crossing and attacked Cao Cao's clique in the Hefei area. For a time, Cao Cao's clique turned to the defensive position in an all-round way, and the three key points of defense were to defend Liu Bei from Hanzhong to the north in Guanzhong, Sun Quan to the north in Hefei, and Guan Yu and Lü Meng's two armies to the north on the Jingxiang battlefield. It can be said that in the long line of defense, the Cao Cao clique did not dare to have a big defeat at any point, because once there was a fiasco, it was likely to lead to the collapse of the entire defense line, and it was likely to break the pattern of "three legs standing tall, Cao Wei being the strongest". Because of this, Cao Cao did not dare to fight Liu Bei in Hanzhong and took the initiative to withdraw. In the same way, Guan Yu's great victory on the Jingxiang battlefield was enough to make Cao Cao worry that the entire defensive line would collapse completely, and Liu Bei and Sun Quan would go out in two ways, and Cao Cao would be unable to do so.
Cao Cao's plan to seize power: Although Cao Cao did not directly usurp the throne in the end, he obviously began to prepare for Cao's replacement of Liu after the Battle of Chibi. Therefore, he began to slow down the pace of attacking other separatist forces, except for Guanzhong, the other regions of the battle for Cao Cao did not do his best, and his main energy was focused on internal stability. However, because cao Cao shifted from Chibi to the defensive position, the instability factors in the area controlled by Cao Cao began to come alive, especially after Guan Yu's "flooded the Seventh Army", Xuchang was shaken, and there was already a rebellion in response to Guan Yu's military action. Such a momentum was extremely rare since Cao Cao occupied the Central Plains, which shows the great impact of Guan Yu's military actions at that time.
The deep impact of the Battle of Xiangfan
In addition to the above-mentioned influences, the Xiangfan Campaign can actually be seen from the strategic choices of the three major groups of Cao Cao, Sun Quan, and Liu Bei.
The bankruptcy of Liu Bei's "Longzhong Pair" strategy: Guan Yu's military operations were as Zhuge Liang had envisioned in the "Longzhong Pair" strategic plan, Liu Bei occupied Bashu, and sent another general to the Northern Expedition from Jingxiang, advancing in two directions, and reviving the Han Dynasty. It can be said that this campaign launched by Guan Yu was the actual implementation of the military deduction of the "Longzhong Pair". The result can not only prove the operability of Zhuge Liang's "Longzhong Pair" strategy and the threat to the Cao Cao clique, but also can counter-prove the deep meaning of Guan Yu's military action, that is, the offensive strategy envisaged by the Cao Cao clique in the face of the "Longzhong Pair" is very tricky, so the entire Cao Wei clique and the world at that time were shocked by this deep influence. However, Guan Yu's understanding of Longzhong's understanding may be thorough at the military strategic level, but the political and diplomatic level does not seem to have understood, although he has achieved Wei Zhen Huaxia with his military ability, and it seems to have created a strategic posture of two ways to advance side by side and restore the Han Dynasty. However, Longzhong's strategic premise: "Externally marry Sun Quan, internally repair the political system; there will be changes in the world" was completely forgotten by Guan Yu.
Prompting Cao Sun to repair: Guan Yu seems to be arrogant since he was in Zhenshounan County, not only often posing as the number one general and the second person in the internal frame, but also looking down on other generals of the Shu Han Dynasty. Moreover, the courtship of Sun Quan, the boss of the Eastern Wu regime, was also wantonly humiliated, and there was no political vision at all. As a result, although Xiangfan won a great victory over the Cao army in the First World War, it also made the Sun Quan clique hiding behind the red eyes, one was that half of the land of Jingzhou was divided, and the other was the eye red Liu Bei clique won successive great victories, annexed Yizhou in a short period of time, occupied Hanzhong, and now broke the pattern of "three divisions of the world" in Jingzhou, and it seemed that it was going to take advantage of the victory to occupy the Central Plains. Sun Quan's clique already had the need to curb Liu Bei's excessively rapid development from the overall political situation, and coupled with Guan Yu's arrogance, Sun Quan had a motive to join forces with Cao cao to curb Liu. As a result, the Cao Cao clique and the Sun Quan clique, which had been in a hostile relationship after Chibi, tacitly began to attack Guan Yu. The formation of this situation is also enough to prove that Guan Yu's flooding of the Seventh Army in the Battle of Xiangfan had a huge impact on the two major groups of Cao Cao and Sun Quan, causing the two sides to put aside their hatred and jointly fight against Guan Yu, who threatened to shock Huaxia.
In the end, the Xiangfan Campaign launched by Guan Yu was not only about besieging Fancheng, lowering yu ban, and beheading Pound. Instead, from the political, military, diplomatic and other aspects to promote Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Quan three major separatist cliques, directly led to these separatist cliques changed the development strategy at that time and for a period of time afterwards. It can be seen that Guan Yu's influence in this battle is so great that the history books call Wei Zhen Huaxia not a word of nonsense.