Cao Cao's real aim at Red Cliffs: pursue Liu Bei, not destroy Eastern Wu
Cao Cao's letter to Sun Quan was a threat, not a surrender ultimatum. His real aim going south was to chase the fleeing Liu Bei. He stumbled into the Battle of Red Cliffs only when Sun Quan chose to fight, and the fire burned at Wulin, not Red Cliffs.
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Liu Bei was still a wandering warlord before the Battle of Red Cliffs
After his defeat at Changban, Liu Bei had reached his lowest point: homeless, with only one or two million troops from various sources, after bouncing between employers like Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, Tao Qian, and Liu Biao, each wary of him. Yet this paradoxical low point was where his life actually turned. In just a few years, he went from being entirely dependent on others to ruling both Jingzhou and Yizhou and establishing his own state.
— Tan MushengLü Su's strategic vision came before and surpassed the Longzhong Discourse
In 197 AD, Lü Su already proposed to Sun Quan the strategy of controlling the entire Yangtze from mouth to source—seven years before Zhuge Liang's Longzhong Discourse. This was why Eastern Wu fought so hard over Jingzhou. Tan argues that Lü Su is severely underestimated: in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms he appears manipulated by Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang, but his strategic vision actually surpassed Zhuge Liang's. The Longzhong Discourse had a fatal flaw: the strategy of controlling both Jingzhou and Yizhou was ultimately impossible to achieve.
— Tan MushengZhuge Liang's Longzhong Discourse advised Liu Bei to seize his allies' territory
When Zhuge Liang advised Liu Bei in the Longzhong Discourse to ‘control Jingzhou and Yizhou’, Liu Biao had not yet shown signs of imminent death, and Liu Zhang had actually hired Liu Bei as a military defender on the border. Tan directly calls this advice ‘immoral’. Liu Bei had used the same technique before in Xuzhou—not because Tao Qian entrusted him, but because local gentry proactively contacted Liu Bei to displace the outside administrators. Zhuge Liang taught Liu Bei to use this same maneuver again, and Liu Bei never asked how to rightfully obtain these territories.
— Tan MushengCao Cao came south to catch Liu Bei, not to conquer Eastern Wu
Cao Cao's real objective was not to destroy Eastern Wu but to pursue the fleeing Liu Bei to Xiakou where he had joined Liu Qi. His letter to Sun Quan was a threat: do not interfere, or I will deal with you as well. Real battle commenced when Sun Quan took the initiative to fight Cao Cao's forward units, who then withdrew 160 li to Wulin—the fires burned at Wulin, not Red Cliffs. The famed 800,000-strong army was later estimated at about 300,000; by physics, burning winter reeds spreads only 10-plus kilometers at a time, so a single fire could never burn through hundreds of li of connected encampments.
— Tan MushengThree-way rule meant three powers had to divide Jingzhou three ways
In the second struggle for Jingzhou, Sun Quan brought 30,000 troops and Liu Bei hastily mobilized 50,000 from Yizhou to oppose him. When Cao Cao moved in Hanzhong, both sides rushed to compromise at the Xiang River: west bank to Liu Bei, east bank to Sun Quan, Nanzhun remaining with Guan Yu. This bloodless resolution let all three powers see each other's actual strength for the first time—in Yangzhou it was Cao Wei against Eastern Wu, in Hanzhong-Qinling it was Cao Wei against Liu Bei, but only in Jingzhou did all three interfere. ‘Jingzhou was like the biggest chip on a gambling table when three people are playing. Nobody dared reach for it. The moment you tried to grab it, the other two would immediately gang up on you.’
— Tan MushengThree conspiracy theories competed to explain Guan Yu's death
During the Xiangfan campaign when Guan Yu flooded seven armies and terrified the empire, Cao Cao rushed thirteen relief forces. Yet Liu Feng and Meng Da, who had just conquered Shangyong, refused to send troops, claiming ‘this place isn't yet stable’—they didn't even secure Jiangling. Meanwhile in Chengdu, Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Huang Zhong, and Zhang Fei all gathered, yet none moved. This vast historical vacuum spawned three conspiracy theories: Wang Fuzhi argued Zhuge Liang held a grudge against Guan Yu for disrespecting civilians and killed him by proxy; Zhang Taiyan claimed Zhuge Liang feared Guan Yu's power growing too great; Fang Shiming suspected Liu Bei himself, with Mi Fang and Shi Ren (garrisoning Gong'an and Jiangling) staying put.
— Tan MushengLiu Bei spent a hundred thousand soldiers' lives on self-therapy at Yiling
Before the Yiling campaign, ministers opposed it, Zhao Yun plainly said they should attack the usurper Cao Pi, not Sun Quan. Zhang Fei died before the army even departed, and Sun Quan proactively offered peace. By any rational measure, this was a war that could and should have been avoided. Tan judges that Liu Bei in his late years could no longer reason clearly: after a lifetime of warfare seeing Cao Cao and Sun Quan as peers and juniors, he could not accept that his dream of ruling Jingzhou and Yizhou would die with the loss of Jingzhou, and he could not swallow defeat by Lu Xun, a ‘child’. Thus this war became ‘Liu Bei giving himself psychological therapy with hundreds of thousands of lives. He needed a therapist. Those hundreds of thousands of lives were his therapist. And the medical bill was indeed steep.’
— Tan MushengJingzhou remained the north-south gateway for four hundred years after
In the four centuries of North-South division following the Three Kingdoms, Jingzhou was always the geopolitical lifepoint: to hold the Yangtze one must hold the Han, and southern regimes had to hold Xiangyang and Fancheng to block invasion from the north—once Xiangyang fell, southern dynasties typically collapsed soon after (the thirty-year Xiangyang siege in the Yuan-Mongol conquest traces back to this geography). Yet Jingzhou was a double-edged sword for southern regimes: it had to be strong enough to defend against the north, yet once strong enough, the commander there could move downriver and threaten the capital at Jiankang. Supplies sent upstream cost three times more than supplies sent downstream, so downstream forces could never credibly threaten upstream—the downstream court could never control its own frontier.
— Tan MushengIn their own words · checked verbatim
I think, frankly, Zhuge Liang's advice was immoral.
我觉得今天啊 这个抛开来说都不太好意思 诸葛亮的建议 我觉得是不道德的
Tan Musheng26:24
The Battle of Red Cliffs is actually a perfect example of Rashomon—you see people taking different stances, everyone telling their own story.
这个赤壁之战 其实是一个完美的 罗生门的一个一个样本 就是你可以看到 各执一词 各说各话
Tan Musheng35:24
Liu Bei said he needed to secure Liang first, then return it to you—but any fool knows you'll never get that territory back.
刘备说 这个须得良州 我要得了良州才还你 那这个傻子也知道 那你这个就没了没了了
Tan Musheng41:33
Jingzhou was like the biggest chip on a gambling table when three people are playing. Nobody dared reach for it. The moment you tried to grab it, the other two would immediately gang up on you.
荆州他就像 我们这个三个人在一起赌博 桌子上最大的那个 谁也不许伸手去抓这个筹码 你一旦要抓这个筹码 另外两家立刻起来干你
Tan Musheng44:34
This war was literally Liu Bei using hundreds of thousands of lives as his own psychological therapy. He needed a therapist, right? Those hundreds of thousands of lives were his therapist. And the medical bill was indeed steep.
这场战争 完全是用十数万人的生命 来去给他做一场心理治疗 对吧 他需要心理医生 这十数万人的生命 就是他的一个心理医生 那这场医疗费 的确是有点贵
Tan Musheng1:04:54
When history presents a logically seamless, smooth, beautiful narrative, it's quite possibly fiction—history that has been falsified by someone.
当历史展现出一个逻辑自洽 圆滑的 优美的叙事的时候 很有可能这就是故事 这个历史就已经是被人伪造了的
Tan Musheng1:05:54
Figures
| From year 1 of Jian'an to the Yiling campaign | approximately 22 years | 16:09 |
| Western Jin unification to Yongjia chaos | 37 years (including 8 years of War of Eight Princes) | 13:05 |
| Distance from Nanyang to Xuchang | approximately 200 kilometers | 18:13 |
| Cao Cao's forces at Battle of Red Cliffs (later estimates) | approximately 300,000 | 32:26 |
| Second struggle for Jingzhou troop strengths | Sun Quan 30,000 / Liu Bei 50,000 | 42:33 |
| Liu Shan's reign | 41 years | 11:05 |
| Yiling campaign Shu army encampments | 42 (spanning approximately two hundred li) | 34:28 |
How to listen
Readers familiar with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms who want to see a historian use geography and game theory to deconstruct the real battle for Jingzhou.
If you only want the conclusion, you can skip the segment starting at 1:09:20 about Jingzhou's geopolitical implications over the next four hundred years.