Battle of Red Cliff

I can tell you that according to the latest analysis by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Battle of Chibi is a big lie. Everyone reads Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the like, which are all novels and do not count. In fact, there were 150,000 Cao Jun soldiers and 50,000 Sun Liu soldiers.

According to the biography of Zhou Yu, when the ship reaches the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, "the boat flies like flying". Today, in the middle section of the Yangtze River, from the lower reaches to the upper reaches, even if the wind is favorable, at least it can only be done by motorboat. The wind power of the Yangtze River is not as strong as the water power. According to historical records, decades after the Battle of Chibi, the Wei State attacked the Wu State and sailed down the Yangtze River. In order to block the Wei State warships, the Wu State people pulled up iron ropes on the Yangtze River, and the Wei State people set fire to the Wu State ships with wooden rafts. Back then, the iron smelting technology at that time was incomparable with today. After a collision, the iron rope broke. In fact, this is the pressure brought by water. It can be seen that the water power in the Yangtze River is far greater than the wind power. Therefore, no matter how fast the Battle of Soochow in Chibi was, Cao Cao could find something wrong in an instant and react, trying to find a way to escape.

Some people say that what to do if extremely strong winds are stronger than water power, even if the ship can be blown away, it will fly. In fact, tornadoes are useless. There is a very critical issue that no one has paid attention to. During the Three Kingdoms period, China did not have sailing ships at all. Borrowing the wind to sail or something like that just doesn't work. Real sailing ships only appeared after the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

The Battle of Chibi was actually fabricated by the Wu people for political purposes. First, in order to strive for merit, Soochow seems to have contributed people and efforts, and Zhou Yu is the representative. The biography of Cao Cao records that "When the Duke arrived at Chibi, he was not prepared for war, so he led the army back." In fact, he fought with Liu Bei. The song compiled by Cao Jun also sang about "the thief is preparing to occupy Fancheng" instead of the thief Sun Quan. The Biography of Liu Bei also says, "We fought with Duke Cao at Chibi and defeated him, and Duke Cao led him back." This makes it clear that Cao Liu fought this battle, and Sun Quan had nothing to do with it. Sun Quan actually took the first step to seize Jingzhou, concocting a chain plan and a fire attack.

After that, Liu Bei borrowed Jingzhou. In fact, it is also false. Everyone said that Liu Bei borrowed Sun Quan's territory and refused to return it. In the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, this is only recorded in the Book of Wu, but not in the Book of Shu or Wei. However, Huang Gai's false surrender and Zhou Yu's fire attack did not appear in Soochow's military song. It's because I didn't do enough homework and made a joke. Sun Quan wanted Jingzhou but had no good excuse, so he made up a lie about Liu Bei borrowing Jingzhou. So, it was justifiable armed robbery.

Back to the topic, in fact, the Fire Attack on Chibi did happen, but it was not during the Three Kingdoms period, but during the peasant uprising in the late Yuan Dynasty. The protagonist is not Zhou Yu but Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youliang fought at Poyang Lake. This was the real legendary "Battle of Red Cliff". If you don’t believe it, you can check the historical facts. Lock the ship and attack with fire. This is the characteristic of the Battle of Poyang Lake. Exactly the same as Chibi. Luo Guanzhong wrote the Battle of Chibi based on the Battle of Poyang Lake. Luo Guanzhong was not only a writer in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties, he also had the identity of a counselor. It can be regarded as Zhuge Liang at that time. Luo Guanzhong first served under Zhang Shicheng, and then switched to Zhu Yuanzhang (the transfer to Zhu Yuanzhang is speculation, and there is no historical record). According to current records, Luo Guanzhong is likely to have participated in the Battle of Poyang Lake.

The Battle of Chibi has some truths and some falsehoods, it has historical prototypes, and it contains some truth. The Battle of Chibi was actually a series of political wars, with eight links in total. The first link was when Zhuge Liang deliberately used Xiao Qiao to anger Zhou Yu. The second link was when Jiang Qian stole the book, and Zhou Yu planned to eliminate Cai Hao and Zhang Yun. Later, Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang both thought of the fire attack. This was the third link in the chain plan and the planned fire attack. Cai Zhong and Cai He pretended to surrender to Zhou Yu, but Zhou Yu understood it but did not point it out. This was the fourth link, and they followed the plan. Then, Zhou Yu hit Huang Gai and pretended to surrender to Cao Cao. This was the fifth plan, the bitter meat plan. Pang Tong came to Cao Cao's army to offer sacrifices to Cao Cao and locked the ship with iron ropes. This was the sixth plan. Zhuge Liang's seventh strategy was to pretend to be a ghost and take advantage of the east wind. In the end, in order to avoid pursuit, Zhou Yu asked Zhao Yun to help him. This was his last resort. This is a serial information war. This is the truth contained in it. It is worth learning from now.

I recommend you to read a column, Legendary Classics. There is a story about the Battle of Red Cliff. Hope to adopt.