In 208 AD, Cao Cao led an army south to attack Jingzhou. At that time, Liu Biao died of illness, and Liu Biao's second son Liu Qi, under the support of Cai Mao and others, became the new Jingzhou Mu. However, Liu Chun was worried that after Jingzhou was attacked by Cao Cao, he would have no place to live, and the native warriors of Jingzhou did not want their property and territory to be damaged by the war, so they persuaded Liu Chun to surrender to Cao Cao, and in this case, Liu Chun left the city and surrendered, and Jingzhou submitted to Cao Cao. By the time Liu Bei, who was in Xinye, learned of this, Cao Cao's army had already arrived near Wancheng, and in desperation, Liu Bei could only flee south and rush to Jiangling. Unfortunately, Liu Bei could not bear to give up following his people, and the efficiency of the march was very slow, so that Liu Bei's army was caught up by Liu Bei's army near Changbanpo, and if it were not for Guan Yu's water army coming to meet him, he was afraid that Liu Bei would really die in Changbanpo.
However, after this, things took a turn for the better, and at Xiakou, Liu Bei and Lu Su, after a period of conversation, became involved with Eastern Wu, and the two families formed an alliance, after which Cao Cao met Sun Liu's alliance in the Chibi area, and the two armies confronted each other. At this critical juncture, the governor Zhou Yu found the opportunity and took the initiative to attack, he used Huang Gai to set up a trick to surrender, and successfully launched a fire attack, burning Cao Cao's warships in the Chibi area, and took the opportunity to launch a general attack, thus defeating Cao Cao. Some people believe that if Cao Cao did not explicitly attack Liu Bei, but attacked Sun Quan first, then wouldn't it be possible for Liu Bei and Sun Quan to join forces?
In fact, such a situation is very difficult to happen, after all, Cao Cao did not open the perspective of God at that time, and the reason why Cao Cao did not attack Sun Quan first was because the target of Cao Cao's conquest was Liu Bei at the beginning. What's more, at that time, Cao Cao had just pacified the north, and had received overtures from Liu Zhang and other princes, and Ma Teng and Han Sui of Xiliang had hostages in Yicheng, so cao Cao was naturally proud under such circumstances.
And this time, Cao Cao personally led more than 100,000 troops to the south, all the way like a bamboo, so that Liu Bei abandoned his wife and fled in a hurry, under such circumstances, Cao Cao naturally did not think of dealing with Sun Quan first, and then dealing with Liu Bei. After all, Sun Quan was also full of fear for Cao Cao's pro-conquest, and if it were not for Lu Su and Zhou Yu to support him, he was afraid that Sun Quan would also listen to Zhang Zhao and others and go out of the city to surrender. It was precisely because under the circumstances at that time, no matter who Cao Cao attacked, no one would be able to bear it, so Cao Cao would never have the conditional choice to attack Sun Quan first, and then attack Liu Bei, after all, according to Cao Cao's offensive route, at that time, he went down the river to attack Liu Bei.
The author believes that for Cao Cao, it does not matter who the opponent is, and his marching route at that time was to fight Liu Bei first, so he would never attack Sun Quan first, and Sun Liu's alliance was also destined to be realized.