Pan Zhang
Surrounded in his castle, Zhu Ran was heavily outnumbered by Cao Zhen, who encircled the fortress with several layers and deployed a variety of siege weapons. Yet Zhu Ran showed no signs of fear, and encouraged his comrades and subordinates to counter the enemy. When Cao Zhen relaxed his guard, Zhu Ran's forces were able to destroy two of the Wei encampments. Six months had passed; however, the Wei army still continued the siege, and Cao Pi had arrived at Wan city to bolster their morale. One of Zhu Ran's officers, seeing that the Wei troops were numerous and that the food supply within Jiangling was running out, planned to defect to Wei. He secretly contacted the Wei troops outside of the castle walls and promised to open the gate to permit their forces entry. When the betrayer was about to open the castle gate, he was noticed by Zhu Ran and executed. At the time, Pan Zhang had gone upstream and collected one million bundles of reeds. He fitted these to rafts and set them on fire, sending them downstream so that they would burn the pontoon bridges being used by Wei. Knowing what Pan Zhang had done, the Wei forces returned north before the retreat route could be destroyed. Because of his extraordinary performance in this battle, Zhu Ran's name became known throughout Wei as a powerful enemy general.