Incident at Guangling

The Incident at Guangling was a military confrontation that took place in late 224-early 225 between the states of Eastern Wu and Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. Although the conflict was considered a naval battle, no fighting officially occurred.^[2]

Background

Following the sour results of demanding the Wu lord Sun Quan's son, Sun Deng as a hostage, Cao Pi attacked Sun Quan. Though, after many battles before, each strike Cao Pi initiated ended in failure. Cao Pi himself was shocked with the Wu resistance. One last movement he would make during his reign of Wei was to move a navy of over 100,000 onto Guangling in preparation for total invasion onto Wu.^[3]

The advance

Cao Pi knew that he would continue to fail by launching attacks into Wu upstream of the Yangtze, where the river was narrow. However, he knew that Guangling was much wider and would be pressure onto Sun Quan's forces. Though, in 224, Wu general Xu Sheng built a whole stash of dummy defence walls and turrets along the southern bank of the Yangtze from Jianye downstream to Jiangcheng, in aware preparation of a naval attack.^[4]

In response, in early 225 (still in winter), Cao Pi had arranged the destruction of the blockading walls, so he took his 100,000 strong fleet and sailed onto the river again. Sun Quan also reacted to this advance, and moved a naval fleet to blockade the impending invasion force led by Wei. However, despite the size of the Wu fleet, Cao Pi's true worries were set on the weather. It was a harsh winter, so the navy would be face to face with a difficult advance.^[5] Seeing the Wu defense and his own conditions, Cao Pi sighed "Alas. It is truly the will of Heaven which divides the south from the north." He then gave the orders to retreat from the position at Guangling.^[6] When Wu officer Sun Shao magistrate of Guangling learned Cao Pi's withdrawal, he sent his general Gao Shou (高寿) to lead 500 warriors to raid Cao, which led to the latter's surprise. Gao Shou got Cao Pi's bonnet and returned.

Aftermath

After the retreat, Cao Pi died in 226. His successor Cao Rui sent Cao Xiu to launch the last invasion of Wu during this campaign at Shiting. Though, Zhou Fang of Wu defeated Cao Xiu after falsely defecting; thus the Wei forces failed once again. In fact, the Wei forces did not ultimately invade Wu again until 24 years later in 252, when they invaded Dongxing. Wei also lost that battle, making the idea of Wei capturing territory below the Yangtze River nonexistent, as after the last Wei emperor Cao Huan abdicated to Sima Yan, who established the Jin Dynasty to replace Wei, only then did territory of Wu below the Yangtze become captured by another enemy force, ultimately unifying the Three Kingdoms under the Jin Dynasty.

In fiction

The incident is included in the eighth instalment of the Dynasty Warriors franchise. However, the incident is foretold as a battle, which defies the fact no violence occurred during the historical incident.

References