The Romance of the Three Kingdoms describes Battle of Red Cliffs as: Cao Cao went south with 800,000 troops to attack Liu Bei and Sun Quan.
Under the pressure of Cao Cao, Sun Liu forged an alliance, and with the help of the east wind, Huang Gai's fireboat was sent to Cao Ying, on the coast of Chibi. Finally, Cao Cao was defeated and returned to the north.
In fact, Battle of Red Cliffs in the novel is quite different from reality. Aside from Zhuge Liang borrowing the east wind and the grass boat borrowing the arrow, these mysterious bridges are not mentioned for the time being. As a matter of fact, Battle of Red Cliffs in the novel still has four inconsistencies with reality.
First, the real Battle of Red Cliffs, how many soldiers and horses does Cao Cao have?
The novel says that Cao Cao led 800,000 troops south. In fact, Cao Cao did write a threatening letter to Sun Quan, in which he wrote: Those who are close to him will resign their sins, and Liu Cong will give up on himself. Today, there are 800 water conservancy troops, and Fang and the general will hunt in Wu. But Cao Cao's threatening letters, to be honest, don't even believe him, let alone Wu Dong's.
At that time, Zhou Yu of Soochow analyzed Cao Cao's real military forces for Sun Quan. Zhou Yu said to Sun Quan, "You all see that there are 800,000 words in the book, but you are afraid of it and don't know what it is. It is meaningless for you to hold this discussion again." In Zhou Yu's view, Cao Cao has more than 200,000 at most, of which about156,000 was brought by Cao Cao from the Central Plains, and the remaining 70,000 to 80,000 were Jingzhou soldiers collected by Cao Cao from Liu Biao.
In fact, Zhou Yu's guess is still high. According to the historical data at that time, there were too many 15 troops led by Cao Cao. Let's start with Cao Cao and look at the changes in the number of soldiers at hand. Since the sixth year of Emperor Zhong Ping of the Han Dynasty, Cao Cao has been at war with Dong Zhuo, and Cao Cao has had two major surge processes.
The first surge of troops was to enlist the Qingzhou Yellow Scarf Army. In December of the third year of Chuping, Cao Cao defeated Qingzhou Yellow Scarf Army in Jibei, "captured more than 300,000 soldiers" and reorganized the elite into Qingzhou soldiers.
The 300,000 soldiers here are still worthy of scrutiny, because in the second year of Chuping, the Qingzhou Yellow Scarf Army just had a war with Gongsun Zan, and was beheaded by 30,000 people, and then "tens of thousands of people died after the big break" and was captured. "After more than seventy thousand wars, Qingzhou yellow turban insurrectionary army up to hundreds. How could it be captured by Cao Cao to 300 thousand? So this surge, Cao Cao's death increased the number of soldiers (except those who are old, weak and sick and unwilling to surrender).
The second surge was to recruit Jizhou soldiers. Ten years after Jian 'an, Cao Cao completely eliminated the remnants of Yuan Shang, pacified Jizhou, and obtained the "Jizhou soldiers", with a total of about 10,000 people. Together with the farmers' army of Montenegro, Cang Ba, Li Dian, Lv Qian and other local forces, the whole army should be around150,000.
When I arrived in Battle of Red Cliffs, Cao Cao had about150,000 troops. Of course, it is impossible to bring all the 150,000 troops to Chibi, and there must be 50,000 to 60,000 troops in Xudu, especially Ma Chao and Han Sui in Xiliang, so Cao Cao's own troops should be around 100,000 at that time.
In addition to these two surge, Battle of Red Cliffs's last surge was to absorb some Jingzhou soldiers. According to Zhou Yu's estimation, Cao Cao should have 70,000 or 80,000 Jingzhou soldiers. However, this is actually still very high. At that time, Jiangdong had only 100,000 troops. The water army is only' Wan Jingzhou', and although it is rich in the world, it is far weaker than Jiangdong. How can there be 80 thousand water army?
Even if there were 70,000 to 80,000, when Liu Biao's two sons Liu Qi and Liu Cong were killing each other, Liu arrived in Jiangxia with 20,000 water troops, and Jingzhou surrendered to Cao Cao with 50,000 water troops. Therefore, before Battle of Red Cliffs, the total number of clique troops brought by Cao Cao from the north and the attached water army surrendered by Jingzhou should be around150,000, which is nearly100,000 less than Zhou Yu's estimate of 240,000.
Look at the alliance of Sun and Liu. Sun Quan is 50,000, Liu Bei and Liu Qi are 30,000 and * * * is about 80,000. The strength of the two sides is less than one to two, which is why Sun and Liu dare to fight Cao Cao in Chibi.
Second, Chibi is just a meeting between the two sides:
Battle of Red Cliffs, as we all know, refers to the war in which Sun and Liu allied forces burned Cao Cao, but in fact, the two sides really only fought an encounter in Chibi. At that time, Cao Cao led 5000 cavalry to pursue Liu Bei. He never imagined that Sun and Liu had formed an alliance at this time, and the two sides assembled 40,000 to 50,000 military forces in Chibi.
As a result, Cao Cao's 5,000 cavalry met Sun Si Liu's 50,000 troops in Chibi, and Cao Cao was defeated in this battle, so he had to retreat to the big army in Jiangbei to make a long-term plan.
Third, the real decisive battle is in Wulin:
The place where Cao Cao returned to Jiangbei was called Wulin instead of Chibi. In Wulin, Cao Cao connected warships with iron ropes, which solved the problem of seasickness of northern soldiers, but gave Sun Liu a chance to unify the army. General Huang Gai of Wu Dong was keenly aware that Cao Cao's army, which had become a company battalion, might be burned to death by fire.
Fourth, Dongfeng is not borrowed, but the experience of Zhou Yu and others:
Of course, the best reality of fire attack is the moment when the southeast wind blows. In the novel, this east wind is borrowed from Zhuge Liang. In fact, although Jiangnan is windy in the middle of winter; However, according to the meteorological law, after the weather turns cold for a few days, the general temperature will rise slightly and the wind direction will become east-south Cao Cao is a northerner and doesn't understand the law of wind direction change.
But Zhou Yu, Huang Gai and others are out-and-out southerners. They know under what circumstances, the wind will change, so they dare to make plans for fire attack.