During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang, the chancellor of the Shu Han Dynasty, sent Guan Yu to guard Jingzhou, and just as Guan Yu sent troops to attack Cao Cao, Sun Quan of Eastern Wu took the opportunity to sneak attack Jingzhou, causing Jingzhou to fall. I have to say that this is the biggest mistake in Guan Yu's life, and it is also a fatal mistake.
It can be said that Guan Yu's carelessness not only caused the Shu Han clique to lose a treasure land that occupied the heavens and places, but also paved a path to death for the invincible General Guan...
Guan Yu carelessly lost Jingzhou, which is a topic that has been lamented for thousands of years. After all, in Guan Yu's body, there have been legendary things such as "wenjiu chopping Huaxiong", "slashing six generals through five levels" and "going to the meeting with a single knife".
So, why did Guan Yu lose so badly this time? What the hell is going on here? And what did Sun Quan and Cao Cao do behind their backs that led to Guan Yu's great defeat?
In the autumn of 219, the former general Guan Yu led an army to attack Cao Ren of Fancheng, and Cao Ren sent the left general Yu Ban and the Liyi general Pang De to garrison north of Fancheng. At that time, there were several heavy rains in succession, the Han River flooded, and the seven troops of Yu Ban and others were flooded, and in the desperate situation, Yu Ban and others surrendered to Guan Yu. However, after being captured after a bitter battle, Pound was still unwilling to surrender, so he was killed by Guan Yu.
At this time, although Guan Yu had tens of thousands of soldiers from Yu Ban and others, the food supply was not enough. Therefore, Guan Yu took away the stored grain that Sun Quan had placed in the Xiangguan granary without authorization, and Sun Quan was indignant when he heard the news, so he sent Lü Meng as commander and launched an attack on Guan Yu.
Subsequently, Sun Quan immediately sent a letter to Cao Cao, asking Cao Cao, the King of Wei, to allow him to attack Guan Yu and serve the imperial court, and asked him not to leak the matter out, so that Guan Yu would not be on guard. After Cao Cao read Sun Quan's letters, he asked for the opinions of his courtiers, and everyone said that they should keep it a secret.
However, Dong Zhao had other ideas: "Military operations have always paid attention to power change and demand that it be timely. We can ostensibly promise Sun Quan a secret for him, but secretly leak this information out, and if Guan Yu knows Sun Quan's intentions, sooner or later he will have to return to the army to protect himself. At that time, the siege of Fancheng can be quickly lifted, and we can profit..."
In Dong Zhao's view, if Guan Yu knew the contents of Sun Quan's letters, he would definitely be like two fighting horses with strangled horses, hostile to each other and unable to move, and then the Cao Wei clique could sit and wait for them to be exhausted. However, if you really keep secrets for Sun Quan, you will only follow Sun Quan's wishes, but it is not the best policy.
Moreover, the soldiers who were trapped at that time did not know that there were rescue soldiers, and they would definitely calculate whether the food in the city was enough, and it was inevitable that they would be afraid and confused the hearts of the army. Moreover, Guan Yu's combat effectiveness is strong, he is proud of the two cities of Jiangling and Gong'an, and his defense is strong, so he will not rush to retreat.
After listening to Dong Zhao's ideas, Cao Cao also agreed.
Therefore, he ordered Xu Huang to shoot Sun Quan's Shuxin arrow into the besieged city and Guan Yu's military camp. When the besieged generals saw the letter, their morale doubled, and Guan Yu, fearing that there was deception in it, hesitated and hesitated to withdraw his troops and leave.
At that time, Guan Yu had an army stationed in Weitou, and also arranged a garrison in Shizuka. Therefore, Xu Huang threatened to attack the head, but in fact sent troops to attack The Four Tombs. Guan Yu saw that the situation in The Four Tombs was critical, so he personally led more than 5,000 infantry and cavalry into battle, Xu Huang followed suit, and Guan Yu retreated.
In the process of Xu Huang's pursuit of Guan Yu, both of them entered Guan Yu's encirclement of Fan Cheng. After the encirclement was broken, Fu Fang and Hu Xiu were killed, so Guan Yu withdrew and retreated. At this time, the road to Xiangyang was still blocked.
Looking at Sun Quan's side, after Lü Meng arrived in Xunyang, he hid all his elite soldiers in ordinary boats, and ordered them to put on the clothes of merchants and be shaken by the common people, day and night. Later, Lü Meng arrested all the investigators that Guan Yu had arranged in the riverside stronghold, so Guan Yu was ignorant of Lü Meng's actions.
At this time, because Mi Fang and Fu Shiren failed to deliver the required military supplies on time, they surrendered to Lü Meng one after another for fear of being demoted by Guan Yu.
Knowing that Nan Commandery had fallen, Guan Yu had to immediately withdraw south.
Faced with Guan Yu, who was now in danger and fearful in his heart, Cao Ren could have sent troops to pursue him and capture him in one fell swoop. However, considering that if he only pursued the defeated Guan Yu and ignored Sun Quan, Sun Quan would most likely change the defense against Guan Yu to create disasters for Cao Wei. In this way, the King of Wei must be worried, but it is better to let Guan Yu continue to exist, at least to endanger Sun Quan's side.
Therefore, Cao Ren ordered that he would no longer pursue Guan Yu.
During this period, Guan Yu also sent emissaries to contact Lü Meng many times, and Lü Meng also treated these emissaries very kindly every time, not only allowing them to tour around the city, but also expressing condolences to Guan Yu's relatives and families, and even personally writing a trust for them to take away as a proof of safety.
After the emissary returned, the subordinates privately inquired about the situation in his home, and after learning that the family was safe and the appeasement was far greater than when they followed Guan Yu, the generals had no intention of fighting again, and Guan Yu, who knew that he was isolated and poor, had to retreat west to Maicheng.
In Maicheng, Sun Quan sent people to lure him to surrender, and Guan Yu surrendered in disguise, and he made the banner and stood on the city wall in the form of a human, and then fled. The soldiers under his command all ran away, and only a dozen cavalry were left with Guan Yu.
Who knows, Sun Quan had already ordered his men in advance to cut off Guan Yu's way.
In December of the same year, Sima Mazhong, under Pan Zhang, captured Guan Yu and his son Guan Ping in Zhangxiang and beheaded them. Since then, Eastern Wu Sun Quan has occupied Jingzhou.
As the focus of the struggle between various forces during the Three Kingdoms period, Liu Bei's clique lost jingzhou, which directly led to the inability to complete the strategy of Longzhong, and then forced the military master Zhuge Liang to exhaust the already weak national strength of the Shu state again and again through the rugged Shu Road in Qishan... As the first person responsible for the loss of Jingzhou, Guan Yu was really to blame.