Battle of Red Cliffs, it is not difficult for Cao Cao to win. He just needs to adjust his strategy and tactics. He has the military strength to wipe out Sun Liu's allied forces and attack the Yangtze River in one fell swoop, but his strategy and tactics are problematic.
A, China and Battle of Red Cliffs forces contrast.
In 208 AD, after Cao Cao eliminated Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Liu Biao and other separatist forces, the Central Plains and the Jianghuai region were completely captured by him. The ambitious Cao Cao immediately took aim at Liu Bei and Sun Quan. Sun and Liu joined forces to resist Cao Jun on the Yangtze River defense line in the face of an imminent major crisis.
How many troops did Cao Cao deploy in Battle of Red Cliffs? The Biography of Master Wu quotes Biography of Jiangbiao, and records that Cao Cao left Sun Quan's book: "Liu Cong will give up if he is close to the crime. Today, there are 800 water conservancy troops, and Fang and the generals will hunt in Wu. " Cao Cao wrote to Sun Quan that he had brought 800,000 people. However, in the early days of the Three Kingdoms, there were years of wars, and the total population base was low. At that time, the extremely backward transportation system could not guarantee the logistics supply of such a large-scale army. It can be concluded that Cao Cao is threatening Sun Quan.
According to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Zhou Yu once made a detailed analysis of Cao Cao's strength: "Today, based on practical learning, he took only 156,000 people from China", and "the income was extremely high, with 70,000 to 80,000 ears", and he thought that Cao Cao Can only had 234,000. Zhou Yu's analysis should be closer to reality.
How many people did Sun Liu's allied forces dispatch? According to the biography of Jiang Biao, Sun Quan once said to Zhou Yu, "Fifty thousand soldiers are hard to meet, and thirty thousand people have been selected, and all the ships, food and weapons are available." Zhuge Liang once said to Sun Quan, "Today, Guan Yu's water army has 10,000 soldiers, and Liu Qi has no fewer than 10,000 soldiers." . Therefore, the combined forces of Sun and Liu have a total strength of about 50,000 people.
Second, the armament ratio between Battle of Red Cliffs and China.
According to relevant historical records, Sun Quan's 30,000 troops are almost all navy divisions, Liu Bei also has 10,000 navy divisions, and Sun Liu's joint army navy divisions total 40,000. Although the main force of Cao Cao's side was mostly the northern infantry, due to the surrender of Liu Cong, the powerful naval forces in Jingzhou were all owned by Cao Cao.
Jingzhou navy has a strong fighting capacity. In the previous Liu Biao era, Jingzhou Navy and Sun Wu Navy were old rivals for many years. They have been fighting with each other for many years, and they have won and lost. Sun Jian was shot and killed by the men of Jingzhou military commander Huang Zu. According to Zhou Yu, the total number of Jingzhou Army is around 80,000, and the navy, as the main force of Jingzhou Army, will not be less than 40,000 at least. From this point of view, the number of troops on Cao Cao's side has the upper hand completely, and the naval forces are equal to Sun Liu's joint forces in the proportion of arms, occupying an overwhelming advantage as a whole.
3. What strategy and tactics will Cao Cao adopt to win?
Cao Cao made a big mistake in this campaign, that is, when he fought against Sun Liu's allied forces in Chibi, he joined forces in one place despite his absolute superiority, resulting in his military superiority not being brought into play at all. If Cao Cao wants to win this battle, he must give up the wrong practice of concentrating his forces to attack a little, and should adopt the strategy of "attacking more" Divide more than 200 thousand troops into four or five roads, and the strength of each road is still not weaker than that of Sun Liu Lianjun, so there is no need to worry about being easily eaten by opponents.
Then each army crossed the river separately, selected several breakthrough points, and launched the battle of crossing the river at the same time. After all, Sun and Liu's allied forces are few in number and weak in strength. In the face of many breakthroughs by Cao Cao's army, they can only take two countermeasures: First, divide their troops to deal with them, making their troops even weaker, with only about 10,000 people on each road. It is difficult to resist Cao Jun's frontal attack on various roads, and Cao Jun will definitely break through the Yangtze River defense line.
Second, we still concentrate our forces, but we can only repel Cao Jun one or two at most, and it is difficult to take care of both. Cao Jun can always successfully break through the natural barrier of the Yangtze River, and the defense of Sun Liu's allied troops on the Yangtze River will completely collapse.
In the future, this is the strategy and tactics adopted by the western Jin Dynasty to destroy Wu. The soldiers are divided into multiple ways, and they are divided into two ways. Wu neglected one thing and lost everything, so he died. Unfortunately, Cao Cao can't figure this out. If such a strategy and tactics are adopted, the whole country will be unified ahead of schedule, and there will be no chance for the three countries to form a tripartite confrontation.