Battle of Red Cliffs The Battle of Red Cliffs , otherwise known as the Battle of Chibi , was a decisive battle fought at the end of the Han Dynasty , about 12 years prior to the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history . It was fought in the winter of 208 / 9 AD between the allied forces of the southern warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan and the numerically superior forces of the northern warlord Cao Cao . Liu Bei and Sun Quan successfully frustrated Cao Cao ' s effort to conquer the land south of the Yangtze River and reunite the territory of the Eastern Han Dynasty . The allied victory at Red Cliffs ensured the survival of Liu Bei and Sun Quan , gave them control of the Yangtze , and provided a line of defence that was the basis for the later creation of the two southern states of Shu Han and Eastern Wu . Descriptions of the battle differ widely on details , and the location of the battle is fiercely debated . Although its precise location remains uncertain , the majority of academic conjectures place it on the south bank of the Yangtze River , southwest of present - day Wuhan and northeast of Baqiu ( present - day Yueyang , Hunan ) . The most detailed account of the battle comes from the biography of Zhou Yu in the 3rd century historical text " Records of the Three Kingdoms " by Chen Shou . An exaggerated and romanticised account is also a central event in Luo Guanzhong ' s " Romance of the Three Kingdoms " , one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature . Background . By the early 3rd century , the Han Dynasty , which had ruled China for almost four centuries ( albeit with a 16 - year interruption , dividing the dynasty into its Western and Eastern periods ) , was crumbling . Emperor Xian had been a political figurehead since 189 , with no control over the actions of the various warlords controlling their respective territories . One of the most powerful warlords in China was Cao Cao , who , by 207 , had unified northern China and retained total control of the North China Plain . He then completed a successful campaign against the Wuhuan in the winter of the same year , thus securing his northern frontier . Upon his return in 208 , he was appointed , a position that granted him absolute authority over the entire imperial government . Shortly afterwards , in the autumn of 208 , his army began a southern campaign ( ; ) . The Yangtze River in the area of Jing Province ( covering present - day Hubei and Hunan provinces ) was key to the success of this strategy . If Cao Cao was to have any hope of reuniting the sundered Han empire , he had to achieve naval control of the middle Yangtze and command the strategic naval base at Jiangling as a means of access to the southern region . Two warlords controlled the regions of the Yangtze that were key to Cao Cao ' s success : Liu Biao , the Governor of Jing Province , controlled the area west of the mouth of the Han River , roughly encompassing the area around the city of Xiakou and all territory south of that region . Sun Quan controlled the river east of the Han and the southeastern territories abutting it . A third ally , Liu Bei , was living in refuge with Liu Biao at the garrison in Fancheng ( in present - day Xiangyang ) , having fled from the northeast to Jing Province following a failed plot to assassinate Cao Cao and restore power to the imperial dynasty ( ; ) . The initial stages of the campaign were an unqualified success for Cao Cao , as the command of Jing Province had been substantially weakened and the Jing armies exhausted by conflict with Sun Quan to the south . Factions had arisen supporting either of Liu Biao ' s two sons in a struggle for succession . The younger son prevailed , and Liu Biao ' s dispossessed eldest son , Liu Qi , departed to assume a commandery in Jiangxia ( present - day Yunmeng County , Hubei ) . Liu Biao died of illness only a few weeks later , while Cao Cao was advancing from the north and , under these circumstances , Liu Biao ' s younger son and successor , Liu Cong , quickly surrendered . Cao Cao thus captured a sizeable fleet and secured the naval base at Jiangling . This provided him with a key strategic military depot and forward base to harbour his ships . When Jing Province fell , Liu Bei quickly fled south , accompanied by a refugee population of civilians and soldiers . This disorganised exodus was pursued by Cao Cao ' s elite cavalry , and was surrounded and decisively beaten at the Battle of Changban ( near present - day Dangyang , Hubei ) . Liu Bei escaped , however , and fled further east to Xiakou , where he liaised with Sun Quan ' s emissary Lu Su . At this point historical accounts are inconsistent ; Lu Su may have successfully encouraged Liu Bei to move even further east , to Fankou ( 樊口 ; around present - day Ezhou , Hubei ) . In either case , Liu Bei was later joined by Liu Qi and levies from Jiangxia . Liu Bei ' s main advisor , Zhuge Liang , was sent to Chaisang ( 柴桑 ; in present - day Jiujiang , Jiangxi ) to negotiate forming a mutual front against Cao Cao with Sun Quan . By the time Zhuge Liang arrived , Cao Cao had already sent Sun Quan a letter boasting of commanding 800 , 000 men and hinting that he wanted Sun to surrender . The faction led by Sun Quan ' s Chief Clerk , Zhang Zhao , advocated surrender , citing Cao Cao ' s overwhelming numerical advantage . However , on separate occasions , Lu Su , Zhuge Liang , and Sun Quan ' s chief commander , Zhou Yu , all presented arguments to persuade Sun Quan to agree to the alliance against the northerners . Sun Quan finally decided upon war , chopping off a corner of his desk during an assembly and stating : " Anyone who still dares argue for surrender will be [ treated ] the same as this desk . " He then assigned Zhou Yu , Cheng Pu , and Lu Su with 30 , 000 men to aid Liu Bei against Cao Cao . Although Cao Cao had boasted command of 800 , 000 men , Zhou Yu estimated Cao Cao ' s actual troop strength to be closer to 220 , 000 . Furthermore , this total included 70 , 000 impressed troops from the armies of the recently deceased Liu Biao , so the loyalty and morale of a large number of Cao Cao ' s force was uncertain . With the 20 , 000 soldiers that Liu Bei had gathered , the alliance consisted of approximately 50 , 000 marines who were trained and prepared for battle . Battle . The Battle of Red Cliffs unfolded in three stages : an initial skirmish at Red Cliffs followed by a retreat to the Wulin ( 烏林 ) battlefields on the northwestern bank of the Yangtze , a decisive naval engagement , and Cao Cao ' s disastrous retreat along Huarong Road . The combined Sun - Liu force sailed upstream from either Xiakou or Fankou to Red Cliffs , where they encountered Cao Cao ' s vanguard force . Plagued by disease and low morale due to the series of forced marches they had undertaken on the prolonged southern campaign , Cao Cao ' s men could not gain an advantage in the small skirmish which ensued , so Cao Cao retreated to Wulin ( north of the Yangtze River ) and the allies pulled back to the south . Cao Cao had moored his ships from stem to stern , possibly aiming to reduce seasickness in his navy , which comprised mostly northerners who were not used to living on ships . Observing this , divisional commander Huang Gai sent Cao Cao a letter feigning surrender and prepared a squadron of capital ship s described as " mengchong doujian " ( 蒙衝鬥艦 ) . The ships had been converted into fire ship s by filling them with bundles of kindling , dry reeds , and fatty oil . As Huang Gai ' s " defecting " squadron approached the midpoint of the river , the sailors applied fire to the ships before taking to small boats . The unmanned fire ships , carried by the southeastern wind , sped towards Cao Cao ' s fleet and set it ablaze . Within a short time smoke and flames stretched across the sky , and a large number of men and horses either burned to death or drowned . Following the initial shock , Zhou Yu and the allies led a lightly armed force to capitalise on the assault . The northern army was thrown into confusion and was utterly defeated . Seeing the situation was hopeless , Cao Cao then issued a general order of retreat and destroyed a number of his remaining ships before withdrawing . Cao Cao ' s army attempted a retreat along Huarong Road , including a long stretch passing through marshlands north of Dongting Lake . Heavy rains had reduced the track to a thick mire , making the road so treacherous that many of the sick soldiers had to carry bundles of grass on their backs and use them to fill the road , to allow the horsemen to cross . Many of these soldiers drowned in the mud or were trampled to death in the effort . To the misery of Cao Cao ' s army , the allies , led by Zhou Yu and Liu Bei , gave chase over land and water until they reached Nan Commandery ( 南郡 ; present - day Jiangling County , Jingzhou , Hubei ) ; combined with famine and disease , this decimated Cao Cao ' s remaining forces . Cao Cao then retreated north to his home base of Ye ( in present - day Handan , Hebei ) , leaving Cao Ren and Xu Huang to guard Jiangling , Yue Jin stationed in Xiangyang , and Man Chong in Dangyang . The allied counterattack might have vanquished Cao Cao and his forces entirely . However , the crossing of the Yangtze River dissolved into chaos as the allied armies converged on the riverbank and fought over the limited number of ferries . To restore order , a detachment led by Sun Quan ' s general Gan Ning established a bridgehead in Yiling to the north , and only a staunch rearguard action by Cao Ren prevented further catastrophe ( ; ) . Analysis . A combination of Cao Cao ' s strategic errors and the effectiveness of Huang Gai ' s ruse had resulted in the allied victory at the Battle of Red Cliffs . Zhou Yu had previously observed that Cao Cao ' s generals and soldiers comprised mostly cavalry and infantry , and few had any experience in naval warfare . Cao Cao also had little support among the people of Jing Province , and thus lacked a secure forward base of operations . Despite the strategic acumen Cao Cao had displayed in earlier campaigns and battles , in this case he had simply assumed that numerical superiority would eventually defeat the Sun and Liu navy . Cao ' s first tactical mistake was converting his massive army of infantry and cavalry into a marine corps and navy : with only a few days of drills before the battle , Cao Cao ' s troops were ravaged by sea - sickness and lack of experience on water . Tropical diseases , to which the southerners had long been immune , also plagued the soldiers of the north with the debilitating effects of sickness rampant in Cao Cao ' s camps . Although numerous , Cao Cao ' s men were already exhausted by the unfamiliar environment and the extended southern campaign , as Zhuge Liang observed : " Even a powerful arrow at the end of its flight cannot penetrate a silk cloth " ( Military Documents 1979 : 193 ) . The uncharacteristically poor preparation and miscalculations displayed by Cao Cao during this campaign may have been partly due to the recent death of his strategist and advisor Guo Jia . Cao Cao himself had commented : " Had Guo Jia been with us , I would never have got into such trouble " . Another key advisor , Jia Xu , had recommended after the surrender of Liu Cong that the overtaxed armies be given time to rest and replenish before engaging the armies of Sun Quan and Liu Bei , but Cao Cao disregarded the advice . Cao Cao ' s own thoughts regarding his failure at Red Cliffs suggest that he held his own actions and misfortunes responsible for the defeat , rather than the strategies utilised by his enemy during the battle : " . . . it was only because of the sickness that I burnt my ships and retreated . It is out of all reason for Zhou Yu to take the credit for himself . " . Aftermath . By the end of 209 , the post Cao Cao had established at Jiangling fell to Zhou Yu . The borders of the land under Cao Cao ' s control contracted about , to the area around Xiangyang . Liu Bei , on the other hand , had gained territory by taking over the four commanderies ( Wuling , Changsha , Lingling and Guiyang ) south of the Yangtze River . Sun Quan ' s troops had suffered far greater casualties than Liu Bei ' s in the extended conflict against Cao Ren following the Battle of Red Cliffs , and the death of Zhou Yu in 210 resulted in a drastic weakening of Sun Quan ' s strength in Jing Province . Liu Bei also occupied Jing Province that Cao Cao had recently lost — a strategic and naturally fortified area on the Yangtze River that Sun Quan claimed for himself . The control of Jing Province provided Liu Bei with virtually unlimited access to the passage into Yi Province ( covering present - day Sichuan and Chongqing ) and important waterways into Wu ( southeastern China ) , as well as dominion of the southern Yangtze River . Never again would Cao Cao command so large a fleet as he had at Jiangling , nor would a similar opportunity to destroy his southern rivals present itself again . The Battle of Red Cliffs and the capture of Jing Province by Liu Bei confirmed the separation of southern China from the northern heartland of the Yellow River valley , and also foreshadowed a north - south axis of hostility which would resonate for centuries . Location . The precise location of the Red Cliffs battlefield has long been the subject of both popular and academic debates , but has never been conclusively established . Scholarly debates have continued for at least 1 , 350 years , and a number of arguments in favour of alternative sites have been put forward . There are clear grounds for rejecting at least some of these proposals , but four alternative locations are still advocated . According to , many of the current debates stem from the fact that the course and length of the Yangtze River between Wuli and Wuhan has changed since the Sui and Tang dynasties . The modern - day debate is also complicated by the fact that the names of some of the key locations have changed over the following centuries . For example , although modern Huarong city is located in Hunan , south of the Yangtze , in the 3rd century the city of that name was due east of Jiangling , considerably north of the Yangtze ( ; ) . Moreover , one candidate site , Puqi ( 蒲圻 ) , was renamed " Chibi City " ( 赤壁市 ) in 1998 in a direct attempt to tie this location to the historical battlefield . Historical records state that Cao Cao ' s forces retreated north across the Yangtze after the initial engagement at Red Cliffs , unequivocally placing the battle site on the south bank of the Yangtze . For this reason , a number of sites on the north bank have been discounted by historians and geographers . Historical accounts also establish east and west boundaries for a stretch of the Yangtze which encompasses all possible sites for the battlefield . The allied forces travelled upstream from either Fankou or Xiakou . Since the Yangtze flows roughly eastward towards the ocean ( with northeast and southeast meander s ) , Red Cliffs must at least be west of Fankou , which is farther downstream . The westernmost boundary is also clear , since Cao Cao ' s eastern advance from Jiangling included passing Baqiu ( present - day Yueyang , Hunan ) on the shore of Dongting Lake . The battle must also have been downstream ( northeast ) of that location ( ; ) . One popular candidate for the battle site is Chibi Hill in Huangzhou , sometimes referred to as " Su Dongpo ' s Red Cliffs " or the " Literary Red Cliffs " ( 文赤壁 ) . Support for this conjecture arises largely due to the famous 11th - century poem " First Rhapsody on the Red Cliffs " , which equates the Huangzhou Hill with the battlefield location . Excluding tone marks , the pinyin romanization of this cliff ' s name is " Chibi " , the same as the pinyin for Red Cliffs . However , the Chinese characters are completely different ( 赤鼻 ) as is their meaning ( " Red Nose Hill " ) . This site is also on the north bank of the Yangtze , and is directly across from Fankou rather than upstream from it . Moreover , if the allied Sun - Liu forces left from Xiakou rather than Fankou , as the oldest historical sources suggest , then the hill in Huangzhou would have been " downstream " from the point of departure , a possibility which cannot be reconciled with historical sources . Puqi , now named Chibi City , is perhaps the most widely accepted candidate . To differentiate from Su Dongpo ' s Red Cliffs , the site is also referred to as the " Military Red Cliffs " ( 武赤壁 ) . It is directly across the Yangtze from Wulin . This argument was first proposed in the early Tang Dynasty . There are also characters engraved in the cliffs ( see image at the top of this page ) suggesting that this is the site of the battle . The origin of the engraving can be dated to between the Tang and Song dynasties , making it at least 1 , 000 years old . Some sources mention the south banks of the Yangtze in Jiayu County ( 嘉鱼县 ) in the prefecture - level city of Xianning in Hubei province as a possible location . This would place the battlefield downstream from Puqi ( Chibi City ) , a view that is supported by scholars of Chinese history such as Rafe de Crespigny , Wang Li and Zhu Dongrun , following the Qing Dynasty historical document " Shui Jing Zhu " . Another candidate is Wuhan , which straddles the Yangtze at the confluence of the Yangtze and Han rivers . It is east of both Wulin ( and Chibi City across the river ) and Jiayu . This metropolis was incorporated by joining three cities . There is a local belief in Wuhan that the battle was fought at the junction of the rivers , southwest of the former Wuchang city , which is now part of Wuhan . asserts that the Chibi battlefield was one of a set of hills in Wuchang that were levelled in the 1930s so that their stone could be used as raw material . Citing several historical - geographical studies , shows that earlier accounts place the battlefield in Wuchang . Sheng Honzhi ' s 5th - century " Jingzhou ji " in particular places the Chibi battlefield a distance of 160 li ( approximately ) downstream from Wulin , but since the Paizhou and Luxikou meanders increased the length of the Yangtze River between Wuli and Wuchang by 100 li ( approximately ; " see map " ) some time in the Sui and Tang dynasties , later works do not regard Wuchang as a possible site . Fictionalised account . The romantic tradition that originated with Luo Guanzhong ' s historical novel " Romance of the Three Kingdoms " differs from historical accounts in many details . For example , Cao Cao ' s army strength was exaggerated to over 800 , 000 men . This may be attributed to the ethos of later times , particularly of the Southern Song Dynasty . The state of Shu Han , in particular , was viewed by later literati as the " legitimate " successor to the Han Dynasty , so fictionalised accounts assign greater prominence than the historical records warrant to the roles of Liu Bei , Zhuge Liang and other heroes from Shu . This is generally accomplished by minimising the importance of Eastern Wu commanders and advisors such as Zhou Yu and Lu Su . While historical accounts describe Lu Su as a sensible advisor and Zhou Yu as an eminent military leader and " generous , sensible and courageous " man , " Romance of the Three Kingdoms " depicts Lu Su as unremarkable and Zhou Yu as cruel and cynical . Both are depicted as being inferior to Zhuge Liang in every respect . The romances added wholly fictional and fantastical elements to the historical accounts and these were repeated in popular plays and operas . Examples from the " Romance of the Three Kingdoms " include Zhuge Liang pretending to use magic to call forth favourable winds ( that he had in fact predicted by astronomical observation ) for the fire ship attack , his strategy of " using straw boats to borrow arrows " , and Guan Yu capturing and releasing Cao Cao at Huarong Trail . The fictionalised accounts also name Zhuge Liang as a military commander in the combined forces , which is historically inaccurate . Cultural impact . Present - day Chibi City in Hubei province was formerly named Puqi . In 1998 , the Chinese State Council approved the renaming of the city in celebration of the battle at Red Cliffs . Cultural festivals held by the city have dramatically increased tourism . ( Xinhua 1997 ) . In 1983 , a statue of prominent Song Dynasty poet , Su Shi , was erected at the Huangzhou site of ' Su Dongpo ' s Red Cliffs ' in tribute to his writings regarding Red Cliff ( Xinhua 1983 ) . Video games based on the Three Kingdoms era ( such as Koei ' s " Dynasty Warriors " series , " Sangokushi Koumeiden " , " Destiny of an Emperor " and " Kessen II " ) have scenarios that include the battle . Other games utilise the Battle of Red Cliffs as their central focus . These include titles popular in Asia , such as the original Japanese version of " Warriors of Fate " and " " . A 2008 film titled " Red Cliff " , directed by John Woo , showcased the Red Cliff legacy and was a massive box - office success in China . " Battle at the Red Cliffs " is one of the 10 volumes in an illustrated rendition of " Romance of the Three Kingdoms " by a Singapore publishing company , Asiapac Books , in English .