The Romance of the Three Kingdoms should not be unfamiliar with the Battle of Chibi, the most famous of the "Three Great Battles" in the Three Kingdoms period, and the first large-scale river operation in the Yangtze River Basin in Chinese history, and finally formed the prototype of the three divisions of the world, laying the foundation for the establishment of the Three Kingdoms.
Speaking of one of the main reasons for Cao Cao's defeat in this war, it was because Cao Cao was not accustomed to taking ships for the sake of beishishi, so he connected the ship head to tail, and the men and horses were on the ship as if they were on the ground, and finally they were also defeated by Sun Liu's combined forces by means of fire attack, so many people also said that the Battle of Chibi was also said to burn Chibi.
In fact, in history, the Battle of Chibi did not burn Chibi, but burned Wulin. Chibi, named after the fire that burned wulin and reflected the red chibi of the river, burned the historical materials of wulin, "Notes on the Water Classic", "Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms", and "Qiuyang Zhi" of Jiaqing in the Ming Dynasty.
In December of the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208), after Cao Cao was defeated by Zhou Yu's water army after the initial battle of the newly formed water army and the newly annexed Jingzhou water army, Cao Cao had to "lead the water army to the north of the river" to join the army, lean the warship to the side of the north shore of Wulin, train the water army, so that the Beishi soldiers were not used to taking ships, so they connected the bow and tail of the ship, and the men and horses on the ship were flat. On the chibi side of the South Bank of the Yangtze River to confront Cao Jun, Zhou Yu's subordinate Huang Gai believed that cao Cao had fraudulently surrendered, selected ten Mengchong warships, loaded them with dry di and dry firewood, poured oil on the inside, wrapped the curtain on the outside, planted a flag on the top, prepared a speedboat in advance, tied it to the stern, and set ten ships on fire at the same time when it was more than two miles away from the Cao army, and the Cao army warships were all burned because they were connected together, all of them were burned, and spread to the camps on land, because the fire was too large, and the opposite chibi was all red with fire
Cao Cao's army was burned to give Sun Liu a chance to win, and Zhou Yu and other elite warriors led by light armor followed closely behind, and Cao's army was defeated. Cao Cao led his army to retreat on foot from Huarong Road, encountering mud, impassable roads, and strong winds. Cao Cao let all the old, weak and remnant soldiers spread grass on the road, and the cavalry barely passed. The old, weak and disabled soldiers were trampled by people and horses, trapped in the mud, and died a lot.
In this battle, Cao Cao's army suffered more than half of the casualties, and after Cao Cao returned to Jiangling, fearing that Chibi's defeat would make the rear political power unstable, he immediately returned to the north, leaving Cao Ren, Xu Huang, and others to continue to stay in Nan Commandery (治所江陵), Wen Hired to guard Jiangxia, and then appointed Le Jin to guard Xiangyang, Manchu acting as the general fenwei, and Tun At Dangyang. Sun Liu's combined forces won the Battle of Chibi.