Battle of Red Cliffs

The Battle of Red Cliffs, or Chibi, was fought on the Yangtze River in the winter of 208–209 CE, in the last years of the Han dynasty. An alliance of the southern warlords Sun Quan and Liu Bei defeated the much larger army of Cao Cao, the dominant warlord of northern China. The battle stopped Cao Cao from reuniting the country and set the stage for its division into the Three Kingdoms.

By the late second century CE the Han court had been weakened by power struggles between court eunuchs and officials, and by the Yellow Turban rebellion that broke out in 184. Real power passed to regional generals and governors, who fought each other for control. Cao Cao, who held the Han emperor Xian under his protection and ruled in his name, gradually defeated his northern rivals, most importantly Yuan Shao at Guandu in 200. By 208 he controlled almost all of the north China plain.

In 208 Cao Cao turned south towards Jing province, along the middle Yangtze. Its governor, Liu Biao, died just as the campaign began, and his successor surrendered without a fight, handing Cao Cao a large army and a river fleet. Liu Bei, a warlord who had been sheltering in the province, fled south and was overtaken and defeated at Changban, escaping with only part of his followers. Liu Bei then sent his adviser Zhuge Liang to Sun Quan, who ruled the lands south of the lower Yangtze, and the two agreed to resist together. Sun Quan's commander Zhou Yu argued that Cao Cao's northern troops were unused to river warfare and the southern climate.

Cao Cao claimed to command 800,000 men, which was certainly an exaggeration for effect. Zhou Yu estimated his real strength at about 220,000 to 240,000, many of them newly surrendered soldiers of doubtful loyalty. The allies are reported to have had around 50,000 men, about 30,000 of them under Zhou Yu. Cao Cao's army was also suffering from illness, probably an epidemic disease, among troops far from home.

The two sides met at the Red Cliffs on the southern bank of the Yangtze. After an initial clash, Cao Cao's fleet withdrew to the northern bank. According to the main historical accounts, one of Zhou Yu's officers, Huang Gai, sent a false message offering to defect. He then sailed towards Cao Cao's fleet with ships loaded with dry reeds and oil, which were set on fire and driven by the wind into the enemy vessels. The fire spread to the ships and to camps on the shore, and the allied forces attacked in the confusion. Cao Cao retreated overland through marshy country, losing many more men to hunger and disease. Historians reconstruct the details differently, and some sources stress disease more than the fire attack.

Cao Cao withdrew to the north, leaving garrisons behind, and never again seriously threatened the lower Yangtze. Sun Quan and Liu Bei divided Jing province, although they later fell out over it. Liu Bei went on to take the western province of Yi, in today's Sichuan. After Cao Cao's death in 220, his son Cao Pi ended the Han dynasty and founded the state of Wei; Liu Bei proclaimed himself emperor of Shu Han in 221, and Sun Quan eventually founded the state of Wu. China remained divided until the Jin dynasty reunited it in 280.

The exact site of the battle is disputed. Several places along the Yangtze in Hubei have been proposed, and in 1998 the city of Puqi was renamed Chibi to reflect its claim. The battle became one of the most famous episodes of Chinese history through the fourteenth-century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which added many fictional details, and it has inspired operas, poems, films and games.

Our 200 CE map shows the Han dynasty shortly before the battle, and the 300 CE map shows China briefly reunited under the Jin dynasty after the Three Kingdoms era.