The strength of both sides is almost the same How many troops did Battle of Red Cliffs and Cao Cao have? Cao Cao himself said 800 thousand, which is an imaginary number. No historian, ancient or modern, agrees with this figure.
When Cao Cao marched south to Jingzhou, he transferred 80,000 infantry and more than 10,000 cavalry from 150,000 to 60,000 northern soldiers, but not all the troops mobilized to March south took part in the war. Land transportation restricted the troops from participating in the war. A line can only have 50 thousand to 60 thousand troops at most. Beyond this figure, not only the roads are congested, but also the logistics cannot be guaranteed.
As for Jingzhou soldiers, the total number may reach 70,000 to 80,000, but four southern counties, such as Changsha, Guiyang, Lingling and Wuling, have only been decided, and Cao Jun has never been there. What he can use is more than 20 thousand people gathered in Xiangyang and other places.
Later, Cao Cao asked Huang Xu to be stationed in Fancheng and Coss to guard Jiangling. In this way, Cao Jun's total troops eastward to Chibi are about 70,000.
As for Sun Quan, it is basically consistent with the fact that Sun Quan gave Zhou Yu 30,000 troops to participate in the war, as for Liu Bei, it is mostly based on Zhuge Liang's own statement. Liu Bei's 10,000 plus Liu Qi's 10,000 make a total of 20,000. It is generally believed that Sun Liu took 50,000 men to join the army.
There are 50,000 people versus 70,000 people. It is generally believed that Battle of Red Cliffs is better with fewer people, but the contrast between the two sides is not very wide.
"Grass boat borrows arrows" is a borrowed story.
Zhuge Liang never "borrowed an arrow from a straw boat". But "the grass boat borrows the arrow" is not groundless.
According to the relevant records in Pei Songzhi's Biography of the Three Kingdoms, in the eighteenth year of Jian 'an, that is, five years after Battle of Red Cliffs, Cao Cao led an army south to attack Sun Wu.
One day, Sun Quan took a boat from ruxu in a foggy river to observe the deployment.
Cao Cao was suspicious by nature. When he saw the fog on the river, Sun Jun punished him. Afraid of cheating, he didn't dare to go to war, so he ordered someone to put the crossbow away and shoot an arrow at the Wu ship.
Sun Quan's ship was soon full of arrows, and the ship gradually tilted and was about to sink.
Sun Quan ordered the boat to turn around and let the other side get an arrow. After the ship stabilized, Sun Quan commanded the warships to slowly leave, and Cao Cao realized that he had been cheated.
This is just a story that happened to Sun Quan, and it is just an act of quick wits. He didn't intend to "borrow an arrow", and the history books didn't say it was a straw boat.
"Zhou Yu hits Huang Gai" is nothing.
In the history of the Three Kingdoms, Huang Gai didn't have to take risks, but it did happen. In order to ensure that the unarmed fireboat was not intercepted and could approach the water town of Cao Jun smoothly, Huang Gai sent a book to Cao Cao, asking him to surrender falsely.
Cao Cao easily believed Huang Gai's surrender, because Cao Cao thought that Huang Gai had worked as a subordinate of Sun Jian, and his seniority was older than Zhou Yu's, and he was relegated to Zhou Yu's position, which was probably unwilling.
In addition, Jiang Gan, the county magistrate of Zhou Yu's hometown, was sent by Cao Cao to persuade Zhou Yu. It did happen, but it was not in Battle of Red Cliffs.
After Pei Songzhi recorded Battle of Red Cliffs's reflection, only Jiang Gan surrendered, without Zhou Yu's double spy. Cai Mao and Zhang Yun didn't participate. They weren't even the commanders of Cao Cao's water army.