Before 208 AD, Cao Cao took yu Wei to unify the north, and pointed his sword at Jingzhou, and the military side deployed a large army to use "Wan, Ye and between the light advance" as a smoke bomb, and he personally led a long-distance attack on horseback, in order to prevent Jiangdong from interfering, he also specially sent a letter to Sun Quan:
Those who are close to him are condemned to the crime, and Liu Chun is tied to the south. Imabari's water army of 800,000 people, Fang and the general will hunt wu.
The content of the letter reflects the speed of Cao Jun, who soon occupied Jingzhou County, Zhijiangling, forcing Liu Chun to surrender, and also revealed the meaning of "Enwei and Shi". After Cao Cao "blackmed the Son of Heaven to order the princes" to send troops and solve the affairs of Jingzhou, he would soon go to the border of Jiangdong to fight with Sun Quan and contact his feelings, because Cao Cao's two families belonged to in-laws, Cao Cao's niece married Sun Quan's younger brother Sun Kuang, and Cao Cao's son Cao Zhang married Sun Quan's niece.
Cao Cao
Cao Cao wanted to eat this piece of fat meat in Jingzhou, and Sun Quan also wanted to. In fact, after Liu Biao died of gangrene on his back, Sun Quan sent Lu Su to spy on the false reality of Jingzhou in the name of condolence. However, as soon as Lu Su left on his front foot, Jiangdong received the news of Jingzhou's surrender, and Cao Cao had the potential to go down the river to the east.
Faced with such a grim situation, Jiangdong divided into two factions on the main peace and the main battle:
The main peace faction only focused on military strength, believing that Cao Cao was already powerful, and that it was really not appropriate to resist hard if he had gained the water army of Jingzhou like a tiger;
Zhou Yu, who was in a hurry to send the lord and the dispatch, believed that the 800,000 horses and horses were completely Cao Cao's "shouts", and Cao Jun was mostly northerners, not good at water warfare, not to mention, and may also weaken the combat effectiveness due to the disobedience of water and soil, and the supply of grain and grass in winter was a problem.
Sun Quan really wanted to get involved in Jingzhou, but he did not have a "good tooth mouth", Zhou Yu's analysis only made him more inclined to the main battle, but the situation in Jingzhou was unclear, and he had to be cautious and cautious, so that Zhou Yu returned to Xiakou to actively prepare for the war, and he sat in Chaisang himself, and only waited for Lu Su to return to make a decision.
As soon as Lu Su arrived at Xiakou, he learned the news of Jingzhou's surrender, and when he arrived in Nan County, he met Liu Bei, who was gray-headed and dirty-faced. It wasn't That Lu Su's legs were slow, it was Cao Cao's soldiers who were fast. Cao Cao, who had already occupied Jingzhou County, could have crossed the Yangtze River to take over the land south of the Yangtze River, and this was not a scene of Qingmei boiling wine that was still fresh in his memory, how could he allow Liu Bei to collude with Liu Qi and control the water army of Jingzhou?
Therefore, Lu Su, who had already decided to "unite Liu against Cao Cao", immediately decided to make the alliance and the matter of the alliance out, and Liu Bei, who was like a dog who had lost his family, was naturally overjoyed, and sent Zhuge Liang to Jiangdong, and finally under the singing and harmony of Lu Su and Zhuge Liang, Sun Quan strengthened his determination to resist Cao Cao.
This set the tone, the so-called Battle of Chibi is an encounter, not a big battle, but all big battles have to be prepared and brewed for a long time, and the time of the Battle of Chibi is sudden. Secondly, the place where the great battles took place is generally selected in a place of strategic value, and the place where the Battle of Chibi occurred is chosen in Chibi by accident. Why?
Jingzhou was bordered by Sun Quan to the east and Cao Cao to the north, which determined Liu Biao's troop deployment, deploying the army in the Xinye area to deal with Cao Cao, and the water army in the Xiakou area to deal with Sun Quan. Therefore, after Zhou Yu expressed his determination to Sun Quan, he returned to Xiakou, that is, Jiangdong judged that Xiakou would be the first battlefield against Cao Cao, and after Sun Liu formed an alliance, the water army in Jiangdong went up against the river to join Liu Bei, and encountered Cao Cao at Chibi.
Moreover, judging from the scale of the troops on both sides, it is not a major battle. After Sun Liu's alliance dropped its hammer, Sun Quan said apologetically to Zhou Yu:
50,000 soldiers were hard to join, and 30,000 men were selected, and ships, grain, and war equipment were all in place. Qing, Zi jing, and Cheng Gong were in the front, and when they were alone, they continued to send people, carrying more food and grain to support Qing.
It is said that it is difficult to assemble an army of 50,000 people in a hurry, and 30,000 people is no problem, ensuring that the follow-up soldiers can keep up and eat enough. With the area of Jiangdong, as long as there is enough time, it is not a problem to form a force of 50,000 or more, but the situation is urgent, plus Liu Bei Liu Qi's 20,000 people, Sun Liu's coalition army is about 50,000 people.
And Cao Ying, the large army marching along the Wan and Ye Avenues is a disguise, really straight into Jingzhou, occupying Jingzhou Qian grain ordnance reserve base Jiangling is Cao Cao led by "three hundred miles a day and one night" 5,000 elite cavalry, even Liu Bei in Jingzhou did not expect, can only flee south in a hurry, so Cao Cao left his weight to pursue Liu Bei, where did the large army go.
Wouldn't Cao Cao let the surrendered Jingzhou army enter the war? The above-mentioned deployment of Liu Biao belonged to the external strong middle cadres, focusing on the area of Xinye and Xiakou, located in Jiangling in the hinterland of Jingzhou, and it was naturally impossible to deploy a large number of troops. Besides, the Jingzhou army had just surrendered, and had not yet been brainwashed and reorganized, so that such a unit could easily cause a mutiny, and the wise Ah Qi would definitely not.
In such a hasty background, the two sides encountered at Chibi, and Cao Cao, who was in a weak position, was defeated and retreated to Wulin, intending to wait for the follow-up large troops, but the Sun Liu coalition army, which had gained a partial advantage, could not let Ah Qi slow down. Taking advantage of Cao's weakness in not being good at water warfare and tying warships together, Huang Gaixian defeated Cao Cao with a fire attack.
In addition, from some details, it can also be reflected that the Battle of Chibi was not a big battle:
1. After the war, the main general Zhou Yu was not promoted, and Huang Gai, who had sacrificed to burn Chibi, was only promoted to zhonglang general (middle and lower-ranking officer), and the other main general Cheng Pu was promoted to Lingling Taishou after several meritorious service, knowing that Sun Quan was not Xiang Yu; moreover, if he really wanted to defeat Cao Jun and hurt Cao Cao's "Yuan Qi", why didn't Sun Liu's coalition army strike iron while it was hot, march into Xiangyang, and then counterattack Xuchang and restore the Han Dynasty?
2. Cao Cao's men can be described as fierce generals like clouds, and the ministers are like rain, and they have also experienced the test of the guandu large-scale battle, how can the ministers suddenly "die"? There are also no figures of Xu Chu, Zhang Liao, Zhang Gao and others;
3. Some people regard the Battle of Chibi as a watershed in the Three Kingdoms era, laying the political pattern of the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu. Liu Zhang of Yizhou, Zhang Lu of Hanzhong, Ma Chao of Xiliang, and Han Sui expressed their dissatisfaction, in fact, Wei, Shu, and Wu formed the pattern of the Three Kingdoms before and after the Battle of Yiling.
To sum up, the Battle of Chibi occurred suddenly, both Cao Cao's side and Sun Liu's alliance, without adequate preparation, rushed into battle, and staged a small-scale encounter in Chibi that no one expected, and the result of the war was that Sun Quan expanded his territory, And Liu Had a place to support himself, which frustrated Cao Cao's vigor.