For ancient wars, the most well-known and relished should be the Battle of Chibi, in the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the Battle of Chibi is described as ups and downs, set up many classic bridges, fascinating, wonderful, leaving a lot of talk for posterity, but also gave birth to a lot of idioms and afterwords, as people often say Zhou Yu hit Huang Gai---- one willing to fight a wish to be beaten. However, although the story is wonderful, Zhou Yu's bitter meat plan to beat Huang Gai is not staged. Huang Gai's fraudulent surrender was true, and burning Cao Cao's warship was also Huang Gai's strategy, and he personally implemented it, and Zhou Yu did not fight Huang Gai.
(Hubei Chibi Scenic Spot)
In the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the story of Zhou Yu beating Huang Gai is probably described like this. In the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208 AD), Cao Cao led an army to the south, and Sun Quan and Liu Bei jointly opposed Cao Cao. The northern soldiers of the Cao army were not accustomed to taking ships, so Cao Cao connected the ships end to end. Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang invariably thought of a fire attack plan, but there was a shortage of someone who could set fire to Cao Jun. Just at this time, Cai He and Cai Zhong of cao's army came to Zhou Yu's army and surrendered to Eastern Wu. Zhou Yu saw at first sight the attempt of the two to surrender, so he decided to use the two to pass on false information to Cao Cao. Zhou Yu consulted with the veteran general Huang Gai and used a bitter meat meter to let Huang Gai trick Cao Cao into surrendering, looking for an opportunity to set fire. At the military conference the next day, Huang Gai deliberately criticized, and even scolded, Zhou Yu's strategy, and encouraged everyone to surrender to Cao Cao. Zhou Yu was furious and ordered Huang Gai to be beheaded, and everyone urged him to spare Huang Gai and let him beat Huang Gai with fifty military sticks. This scene was thought to be true by all the eastern Wu courtiers, but Zhuge Liang saw through it and pretended not to know. Huang Gai was beaten to the ground and held a grudge against Eastern Wu, and asked the counselor Kan Ze to convey his intention of surrender to Cao Cao. Cao Cao listened to Kan Ze's words and received a report from Cai He and Cai Zhong, and believed that Huang Gai was sincerely surrendering. Later, Pang Tong offered a series of plans, Zhuge Liang borrowed the East Wind, and Huang Gai led more than twenty ships on the day of the decisive battle to set aside the ships of the Cao Army. Cao Cao was defeated and fled back to the north on Huarong Road.
(Poems about Chibi in Chibi Scenic Spots)
The setting of the bridge section of Zhou Yu playing Huang Gai brilliantly shows the wisdom of Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, the loyalty and courage of Huang Gai, the eloquence of Kan Ze, and the stupidity of the Cai brothers, and the personality of the characters is outstanding, which is impressive to read. However, although the story is wonderful, it is not historical and is quite different from the real history.
First, it was Huang Gai who proposed the fire attack, not Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu. The "Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Biography of Zhou Yu" records that The Yubu general Huang Gai said: "Now that the people are widowed, it is difficult and lasting." However, the guancao warships are connected end to end, and they can burn and go. Huang Gai offered a plan to Zhou Yu, and the end and end of Cao Cao's warships were connected together, and they could retreat from the enemy by burning.
(Romance of the Three Kingdoms)
Second, Huang Gai's deception is true, but there is no "bitter love drama" staged by Zhou Yu and Huang Gai. Regarding Huang Gai's fraudulent surrender of Cao Cao, the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms Zhou Yu" only explains the words "first write to Cao Gong, and deceive to surrender". Then Huang Gai wrote a letter to Cao Cao, and Cao Cao was half-convinced and even agreed to Huang Gai's surrender. Some people say that Cao Cao's old treacherous giant and scheming are old and calculating, how can he trust Huang Gai so easily?
In fact, Cao Cao also thought about the problem of fraudulent surrender, and when he received Huang Gai's surrender letter, he replied: "But I am afraid of Ru'er." If Gai is faithful, he should be knighted, and he is more than before and after. It can be seen that Cao Cao was suspicious and vigilant. So why did he win the plan?
Then look at the process of burning the warship at that time. "Romance of the Three Kingdoms • Zhou Yu Chuan Chuan Jiang Biao Biography": On the day of the war, Gai first took the ten ships of the light and sharp ships, loaded them with dry and dry firewood, poured fish paste, covered them with red mantles, and built the flag dragon flag on the ship. When the southeast wind was rapid, because the ten ships were at the forefront, Zhongjiang raised the sails and raised the fire and white schools, causing all the soldiers to shout in unison: "Descend!" "The soldiers are all out of the camp to stand on the view. Go to the northern army for more than two miles, at the same time, fire, fierce wind, to the ship like an arrow, flying to the end, burning the north ship, extending to the shore camp firewood. Yu and others led the light and sharp to follow, thunder drums advanced, the Northern Army was bad, and Cao Gong retreated.
(Three Kingdoms game burning Cao Jun screen)
Cao Jun's chain ships formed a defensive line at the entrance of the harbor, effectively separating their own water villages from Sun Liu's combined forces, and if they attacked, they could only burn to the outermost column. Even if a few ships are on fire, there is still time to put out them. Although the wooden boat was afraid of fire, after all, there was no gunpowder and gasoline at that time, so it would not be on the spot, and only with grass and anointing oil could not quickly form a skyrocketing fire.
Huang Gai also knew that the fire attack was not so easy to succeed. The purpose of his deception was to allow the fire ship to break through the first layer of defense and take the Cao army camp directly, so as long as Cao Cao had a little trust, it was enough.
In order to keep it secret, Huang Gai's fraudulent surrender did not explain to the generals in advance, the two armies were about to engage, and the forward Huang Gai suddenly announced his surrender with great fanfare, which was bound to cause panic among the soldiers and was very likely to fall into chaos.
Cao Cao went out of the camp to watch the battle, and he concluded: even if Huang Gai surrendered, Zhou Yu's fleet would definitely be chaotic, and he would not be able to recover for a while and a half, and at this time, as long as he was fast enough, he could first untie the chain of iron rings, put the yellow cover through the defense line, and then quickly seal it, forming a trend of catching turtles in the urn, closing the door and beating the dog. In this way, the fraudulent surrender can be forced into a real surrender, not only to gain a major general, but also to hit the morale of Sun Liu's coalition army.
(Stills of Cao Cao in the TV series "New Three Kingdoms")
However, Cao Cao underestimated Zhou Yu's military prowess and Huang Gai's bravery, and his risky move made Eastern Wu's fire attack a success and he suffered great losses.
Huang Gai was about to surrender, and the Jiangdong army was indeed a little panicked, but Zhou Yu ruled the army well and quickly stopped the spread of panic. At the critical moment when Zhou Yu reorganized his formation, the veteran general Huang Gai took the lead and charged hard, rushing through the line of defenses of the chain ships as quickly as possible, and directly taking Cao Cao's water army.
After the fraudulent surrender fleet entered the final sprint stage, Huang Gai ignited, but he did not quickly withdraw through the small boat towed behind the ship, because at this time the fleet was still about a kilometer away from Cao Jun's water village, and if Cao Jun reacted quickly, it was too late to extinguish the fire ship or drag it away from the water village. Huang Gaishe forgot about death and fought to the death, he continued to stay on the ship, controlled the course, and rowed hard, approaching the range of cao jun's bow and arrow, until he was about to make contact before abandoning the ship and escaping. Huang Gai was able to cross the chain of boats and burst into the river bay and set fire to the inside of the bay.
Due to Huang Gai's decisive impact, the fire attack was extremely successful, so that the Cao army was caught off guard and lost its organization, many ships did not wait for the order to pull out the ingots and fled, the whole army fell into chaos, Cao Cao could only watch the chain ships being besieged by Zhou Yu's main force. When Zhou Yu defeated the Cao army's iron ring chain front and successfully entered the port of Wulin, the morale of the Cao army was greatly demoralized, and the overall situation of the Battle of Chibi was decided. In this battle, Huang Gai won the first merit, which is really the true color of the hero.
(Stills of Huang Gai from the TV series "New Three Kingdoms")
In the Battle of Chibi, Cao Cao claimed that his army was 800,000, and people believed it for thousands of years. However, according to historians, the Cao army that entered Chibi at that time had a maximum of 70,000 troops. The Sun-Liu coalition army has about 50,000 people, and the strength of the two sides is not very different. Therefore, it is inaccurate to say that the Battle of Chibi was a battle in which less was won more.
In the Battle of Chibi, in the real history, there is no Pang Tong's serial plan, no Zhou Yu's bitter meat plan to fight Huang Gai, no appearance of the Cai brothers, no Zhuge Liang's borrowing of the East Wind and the grass boat to borrow arrows.
At the Battle of Chibi, Cao Cao's defeat was a fact, but there were many factors that led to the defeat. The plague was also an important factor that led to Cao Cao's defeat in the Battle of Chibi, when the plague was prevalent in Cao's army, most of the soldiers were killed and wounded due to the disease, the military losses were heavy, the generals had no intention of fighting, and morale was difficult to boost. Moreover, the newly formed water army and the newly annexed Jingzhou water army were difficult to run into for a while, etc., which were not good for Cao Cao.
(Chibi Ancient Battlefield)
In the Battle of Chibi, Sun Liu's coalition army burned Cao Cao's warships, and did not let Cao Cao's army all go to ruin as people imagined, leaving Cao Cao devastated, in fact, in the Battle of Chibi, although Cao Cao was defeated, he did not hurt his vitality. Cao Cao's water army was not completely destroyed, and the main force of the army did not suffer serious losses, mainly because the casualties of Jingzhou's troops were scattered, and the death toll of the headquarters was as high as 10,000. However, he found that Ulin was no longer defended, so he decided to break his wrist, burned the remaining ships himself, so as not to fall into the hands of the enemy, and then led his army to retreat along the Huarong Road path to Gangneung. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms and the Biography of Lord Wu records that "the Cao Gong army was destroyed, and the rest of the ships were burned and retreated." ”
Although the Battle of Chibi did not seriously hurt Cao Cao, Cao Cao lost the strategic initiative in the Jingzhou region, and the situation of the Three Kingdoms was initially formed. But even so, Cao Cao still had the overall strategic advantage, still controlling the richest Xiangyang region and part of Jiangxia.
In real history, the Battle of Chibi does not have some of the plots added to the romance of the Three Kingdoms, but sometimes, reality is more dramatic than fiction, and it is more ridiculous than fiction. In the commentary next to Huang Gai's biography, Pei Songzhi quotes a passage from the Book of Wu: Jian'an Zhong, with Zhou Yu's refusal of Cao Gong to Chibi, Jian Ce Fire Attack, The Battle of Chibi, Gai was in the middle of the stream, Shi Han fell into the water, for wu soldiers to get, did not know its cover, placed in the toilet bed. Gai Ziqiang called out to Han Dang with a loud voice, and when he heard it, he said, "This public overshadowing sound is also." "Weep at him, untie his clothes, and live."
It is said that after the Chibi War Huang Gai set fire, he was shot by Cao Jun's arrows and fell into the water. At that time, the battlefield was chaotic, Huang Gai was captured by Wu Jun, the soldiers did not recognize it as Huang Gai, took Huang Gai as a prisoner, and pulled him back and locked him in the toilet. Huang Gai, who had forgotten his life and death, was actually locked in the toilet by his own people, and it was estimated that he could not cry and laugh, so he had to shout Han Dang's name loudly. Fortunately, not long after, Han Dang passed by this toilet, heard someone shouting his name, recognized it as Huang Gai's voice, and hurriedly asked someone to release him. After Huang Gai came out, the tears came down, and Han Dang hurriedly ordered someone to change him into new clothes, so that Huang Gai could survive. The biggest hero of the Chibi War almost died unjustly in Maokeng, which is really difficult to say.