Reading History (Land Tour)
Yan Liangwen knew what was the benefit, and Guan Yu Zhang Fei was killed and injured. Waiting is the number of the human trumpet, Taishan Ning is more than a millimeter.
An overview of Guan Yu's defeat
First of all, a simple restoration of the process of Guan Yu's defeat. Liu Bei won the "Battle of Hanzhong", and ordered Meng Da and Liu Feng to capture the three counties of Xicheng, Fangling, and Shangyong between Hanzhong and Xiangyang, setting up a point of force against Xiangyang. At this time, it was only one step away from the first condition of "Longzhong Pair", "crossing the jing, benefiting", that is, conquering Xiangyang. So Guan Yu launched a correct campaign at the wrong time (the "Battle of Hanzhong" and the "Battle of Fangling Shangyong" had just passed, and there was no energy to echo and support Guan Yu anymore) and launched a correct campaign - the Northern Expedition to Xiangyang and Fancheng.
Jingzhou was located in the upper reaches of Yangzhou, and Guan Yu's attitude towards the Jiangdong clique was extremely bad, causing Sun Quan to be jealous. Moreover, Sun Quan repeatedly failed to open up the situation in the Northern Expedition, and also turned his attention to Jingzhou in the west. Guan Yu used water conservancy in Fancheng to defeat and capture 30,000 people of the Seventh Army, which were forbidden, and sent them back to Jingzhou, where they arbitrarily moved the grain of Xiangguan in order to feed these prisoners. This became the fuse for the outbreak of contradictions and the excuse for the Jiangdong people to betray their alliances. Lü Meng crossed the river to take Jingzhou, and treated the people of Jingzhou well; Lu Xun and other generals blocked Guan Yu's crossing along the waterway into the river. The news reached Guan Yu in the front, and Guan Yu sent emissaries to inquire about the situation, and found that Jingzhou Shishu was treated well by Lü Meng, causing the Jingzhou soldiers to lose their fighting spirit; Guan Yu was unable to enter the river and retreated to the north, only to be beheaded by Pan Zhang's Sima Mazhong.
Guan Yu's retreat was on the wrong route
Judging from Guan Yu's retreat route, it is clear that Guan Yu wanted to retake Jingzhou, and only fled to the northwest after finding that nothing could be done, and his route should be from the "Three Eastern Counties" to Hanzhong. In this way, Guan Yu wasted too much time. In fact, although Guan Yu was defeated by Xu Huang on the battlefields of Xiangyang and Fancheng, Guan Yu's water army still controlled hanshui. At this time, Jingzhou was captured, and Guan Yu could directly enter the "East Three Counties" along the Han River, rather than going south to seize Jiangling. In this way, one avoids the defeat and death of the soldiers, while preserving the water army of Jingzhou; the other is to stabilize the "Eastern Three Counties", even if Jingzhou is lost, there is also a chance to continue to send troops from the "Eastern Three Counties" to attack Xiangyang.
However, Guan Yu chose to go south at the first time, thus falling into a situation of losing ground. Honestly, Guan Yu's idea of retaking Jiangling was not very clever. The Jingzhou water army at this time belonged entirely to a lonely army, even if Guan Yu did not send emissaries to Jingzhou, the morale would not be too high; the second Jingzhou water army was not logistically insufficient, originally before Guan Yu went out on the expedition, Mi Fang and Fu Shiren did not prepare the military resources properly, let alone fight such a long siege battle; third, during Guan Yu's operation of Jingzhou, he strengthened the defense of Jiangling City, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack, and even Let Guan Yu himself be deterred. Combining the total elements, Guan Yu's hope of regaining Jingzhou was very slim.
The relationship between Guan Yu's wrong retreat route and the "Battle of Yiling"
The mistake of Guan Yu's retreat route not only led to his own death, but also lost the Jingzhou water army. This is not unrelated to the fiasco of the "Battle of Yiling". In Liu Bei's clique, the only general of the water army who could get on the table was Guan Yu. When Liu Chun surrendered and Liu Bei went south, it was Guan Yu who led a water army of more than 10,000 people; later Guan Yu sat alone in Jingzhou to prevent Eastern Wu from protecting the Yangtze River, and the Northern Expedition had to take the Han River, and the water army was indispensable; in the "Battle of Xiangfan", it was also Guan Yu's water army that made a miracle, flooding the Seventh Army, and threatening Huaxia. Unfortunately, this water army was scattered on Guan Yu's way south, which also caused Liu Bei to have no water army available in the "Battle of Yiling".
It cannot be said that Liu Bei has no water army at all, after all, the main passage from Xichuan to Nanjun is the waterway. However, Liu Bei's water army was not applied to the frontal battlefield of the "Battle of Yiling". As can be seen from the map of Nan County, if attacked by land, the terrain is narrow and long, and the Yidao road is blocked on the narrow exit of the mountain range and the Yangtze River; the pavilion that can open the situation into the flat terrain is also occupied by Lu Xun. This is also the reason why Liu Bei wanted to form a long company camp, because due to the limitations of the geographical environment, the troops could not be deployed at all.
If there is a water army on the Yangtze River, then this cramped situation will change. Although the land route of shu Han was not smooth, but the water route had the advantage of going down the river, if it defeated the Eastern Wu army in a water battle and controlled the waterway of the Yangtze River, it could take advantage of the advantage of speed to land and encircle the rear of the Pavilion or Yidao; even if it could not defeat the Eastern Wu water army, as long as it was not defeated, it could also act as a barrier to the Shu Han army on the land road, preventing the Insertion, cutting, and encirclement of the Eastern Wu water army.
Lu Xun was originally very worried about the Shu Han army advancing on land and water. However, Liu Bei did not do this, but "gave up the boat and walked, and camped everywhere", which also made some scholars in later generations feel very confused. Abandoning the water army meant that all control of the Yangtze River was handed over to the Wu people, which made the Shu Han army camped on the land have a sword hanging from the back. Did Liu Bei really not know the soldiers? Although it is not impossible to do so, xiaobian thinks that Liu Bei has spent his whole life on horseback, spent a long time in Jingzhou, which relies on the benefits of the Yangtze River, and also participated in large-scale water battles such as the "Battle of Chibi", and should not fail to understand the reason. So why did Liu Bei still make such a military deployment? Some scholars believe that it is because it is easy to march down the river, it is difficult to retreat, and it is extremely inconvenient to fail, so Liu Bei did not dare to throw himself into the water army. However, Xiao Bian thought that Liu Bei also had his own grievances, and the fundamental reason was that he lacked a sufficiently good water army to confront Eastern Wu on the river.
Guan Yu sat in Jingzhou for a long time, and had such a water army in his hands, but it was not brought back to Yizhou; Yizhou was surrounded by mountains on all sides, focusing more on mountain warfare, which although it also had developed waterways, but it was mostly used for transportation, so Liu Bei did not need to train a strong water army in Yizhou. The water army did not give strength, and Liu Bei certainly did not dare to rely too much on the water army, which led to the consequences of "giving up the ship and walking". Lu Xun also took advantage of this opportunity to first use fire to disrupt the Shu Han army, and then used the water army to cut and surround the company camp, defeating Liu Bei in one fell swoop and completing the victory of this defensive battle.
References: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Notes on the Water Classics, Zizhi Tongjian, Commentary on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Historical Atlas of China