Battle of Jiangling (208)

Thus Guan Yu was sent to intercept enemy reinforcements in the north, setting up blockades along the main passages, cutting off all northern routes leading to Jiangling.

[8] Guan Yu, along with Su Fei (苏非), led a special force composed of navy and elite infantry, sailed up the Han River, infiltrating Cao Ren's territory.

A few months earlier, Cao Ren's elite cavalry suffered over 3,000 casualties in a single day in an attempt to retake Yiling; besides, Cao Ren and his aide, Xu Huang, were unable to suppress Ling Tong, who were defending Zhou Yu's main camp on his own.

Hence, the soldiers inside Jiangling had low morale, and Cao Ren knew he needed to do something to change the tide of war.

His Chief Clerk Chen Jiao advised against it, arguing that "the enemy's morale is too high, and losing several hundred men is not a big deal to us.

As Zhou Yu could not command the troops, the battles were left to Ling Tong, Lü Meng and others, who were forced to expediently alter their temporary objective into inflicting damage to the enemy units.

[18] Therefore, Sun Quan's forces finally succeeded in their objective of capturing Nan Commandery, which holds the upper stream of the Yangtze River, a strategic stronghold that would never be reclaimed by the state of Cao Wei.

More importantly, Liu Bei's conquest of these commanderies was an integral portion of the Red Cliffs campaign as part of the goal of the allies.

Liu Bei finally had a base of his own and he named Zhuge Liang as Military Adviser General of the Household (軍師中郎將) to oversee the administrative affairs of Changsha, Guiyang, and Lingling.

Meantime, Liu Bei placed Xiang Lang in charge of Zigui (秭歸), Yidao (夷道), Wushan (巫山), and Yiling (夷陵) counties,[21] all of them vital to invade Yi Province (covering present-day Sichuan and Chongqing).

Traditionally, the Battle of Jiangling is regarded as the end of the Red Cliffs campaign because as the confrontations ended and the battle turned into a siege, Cao Cao returned to his forward base in Qiao County in the north in March, 209, and Sun Quan also gave up his attack on Hefei in the east, and the remainder of the siege of Jiangling was no longer considered as part of the campaign by most historians.