According to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The Biography of Le Jin records that after Cao Cao captured Jingzhou, he sent Le to garrison Xiangyang. When Le Jin was in xiangyang, he first defeated Guan Yu, Su Fei and others, and surrendered the barbarian tribes in the mountains of Nan County, and then attacked Dupu, the governor of Linfeng appointed by Liu Bei, and The changliang of Jingyang, which was also a great victory.
After (Lejin) from Pingjing Prefecture, Liutun Xiangyang, Guan Yu, Sufi, etc., all left, and the barbarians of the valleys of the Nan County entered and descended. He also asked Liu Bei to be depressed about Dupu and Jingyang Changliang, all of which were greatly broken.
Guan Yu was the first general under Liu Bei, and Le Jin was also one of the foreign generals under Cao Cao, so it can be said that the commanders of this battle were not generalists. However, if you carefully analyze the historical data, you will find that this battle is actually not large.
Since the course of this battle is not described in detail in the Biography of Lejin, and the battle is not mentioned elsewhere in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it is difficult to determine when exactly this battle took place.
However, considering that at the latest in the twentieth year of Jian'an (215 AD), Le Jin had already been transferred to Hefei to fight with Zhang Liao against the Wu army. So
This battle
It should have occurred in the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208 AD), after Cao Cao captured Jingzhou, between the twenty years of Jian'an.
During this period, Guan Yu was most likely to engage Lejin, and had two chances, namely the Battle of Absolute North Province and the Battle of Qingni:
Battle of the North Road
After Zhou Yu burned Chibi, Cao Cao was left with Cao Ren and Xu Huang to garrison Nan Commandery,Le Jin to guard Xiangyang, Wen Ping to guard Jiangxia, and Manchu to garrison Dangyang, while he withdrew to the north of the Yangtze River with his main force.
Zhou Yu naturally would not let go of such a good fighter, and led Sun Liu's combined forces to launch an attack on Cao Ren. However, Jiangling was the second largest city in Jingzhou, only slightly inferior to Xiangyang, the city walls were thick, the grain and grass and military supplies were well stocked, and Cao Ren was also excellent, so after the outbreak of the Battle of Nan County, the two sides temporarily fought a stalemate, and it was difficult to distinguish between victory and defeat.
Liu Bei saw that Jiangling was difficult to conquer, so he proposed to leave Zhang Fei to assist Zhou Yu in continuing to attack the city, and divided his troops to attack Cao Ren's rear road and force Cao Ren to withdraw. Zhou Yu adopted this suggestion, and divided the army of 2,000 under the command of Guan Yu to cut off Cao Ren's back road.
Liu Bei and Zhou Yu besieged Cao Ren at Jiangling and sent Guan Yu to the North Province.
Liu Bei's hand was very poisonous, making Cao Ren very big, in order to open up the back road, Xu Huang, Man Yu and others had led troops to fight Guan Yu, but it was always difficult to completely defeat Guan Yu, and Cao Ren's support was not sustained, and it was gradually difficult to support. In the end, it was Only when Ru'nan Taishou Li Tong led reinforcements that Guan Yu was finally repelled and Cao Ren, who was already unable to hold out, retreated north.
In the Battle of Absolute Northern Province, even Li Tong, who was stationed in Runan, rushed to meet him, so it is very likely that Lejin in Xiangyang had led troops to engage Guan Yu. The aforementioned Victory of Lejin over Guan Yu may have occurred during this period.
Battle of Green Clay
In the sixteenth year of Jian'an (211 AD), Liu Bei, at the invitation of Liu Zhang, the mu of Yizhou, led an army into Sichuan to assist him in jointly dealing with Zhang Lu. Of course, Liu Bei also attached great importance to the base area of Jingzhou, leaving Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun and others to take care of the family.
In the seventeenth year of Jian'an (212 AD), Cao Cao marched on Fusukou and attacked Jiangdong, and Sun Quan asked Liu Bei for help. Liu Bei wrote a letter to Liu Zhang, in which he mentioned that Cao Cao attacked Sun Quan, Jiangdong was in danger, and at the same time Lejin confronted Guan Yu in Qingni, Jingzhou was also in danger, and he wanted to bring troops back to rescue, hoping that Liu Zhang would allocate 10,000 horses and military supplies. Liu Zhang did not agree, and only gave Liu Bei four thousand men and horses, which also became a reason for Liu Bei and Liu Zhang to turn their faces, and the Battle of Yizhou broke out.
Cao Gong marched on Wu, and Wu was worried. Sun Shi and Gu Ben are teeth, and LeJin and Guan Yu reject in Qingni
Although this letter was an excuse for Liu Bei to turn his face with Liu Zhang, under the circumstance that Cao Cao was cutting down Wu and Sun Quan was in a hurry, Guan Yu sent troops to Qingni to restrain Cao Jun.
Therefore, the battle between Guan Yu and LeJin may also occur at this time.
However, whether it was the Battle of Absolute North Province or the Battle of Qingni, Lejin could not achieve too much success.
As mentioned earlier, during the Battle of Zhibei Province, Guan Yu had fought with the generals of the Cao Army many times, and although many of the generals of the Cao Army claimed victory in these battles, in the end it was Li Tong who came to really open up Cao Ren's back road.
Guan Yu's men were only two thousand men, and if Xu Huang and Le Jin really defeated Guan Yu and achieved substantial results, then there was no need to transfer Li Tong from Runan to reinforce. What's more, Li Tong fought very hard in this battle, and he may also be seriously injured and die soon after. Obviously, Guan Yu had hardly lost much troops in the previous battles, and Lejin's record was extremely watery.
When the Battle of Qingni occurred, Liu Bei was already planning to turn his face with Liu Zhang. Unlike after Pang Tong's death in the rendition, Liu Beicai transferred Zhuge Liang and others from Jingzhou into Sichuan, and at the same time that Liu Bei and Liu Zhang turned their faces in history, Zhuge Liang, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun led a large army from Jingzhou. Therefore, at this time, the Jingzhou Army should have already begun to prepare for entering the river.
Although Liu Zhang was cowardly, and the combat effectiveness of the Yizhou Army was not too strong, the Yizhou Army was still quite numerous in terms of numbers. In order to defeat Liu Zhang and control Yizhou as soon as possible, Liu Bei did his best to transfer the Jingzhou army into Sichuan this time, and most of the military generals of Wenchen also entered Sichuan together. In this case, Guan Yu obviously did not have enough strength to go north in a big way, at most it was a pretense, mainly to give Sun Quan an explanation.
In this case, Guan Yu would not be in a tough confrontation with Cao Jun, and Lejin would not be able to achieve too much results. This can also be proved by the fact that the "Biography of Le Jin" writes that "all go away" and repel Guan Yu, rather than "the Great Break".
Therefore, on the whole, the battle described in "The Legend of Lejin" is only a conflict of limited scale, and the results of Lejin are very limited.