The History of China - #38 - E. Han 5: The Battle Of Guandu

Episode Date: September 14, 2014

In the aftermath of the tyrant Dong Zhou's death, the two commanders of the former anti-Dong coalition vie for power and legitimacy. Cao Cao will take control of Emperor Xian, prompting his one time ally Yuan Shao to launch an all-out invasion of Cao's province. The forces will clash climactically around the fortress at Guandu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 36, The Battle of Guandu Last time, we launched into the early stages of the Three Kingdoms period, with the reigns of some of the last emperors of Han, Huan, Xiao, and Xian. We chronicled the rise of the followers of the Way of Eternal Peace and their apocalyptic religious fervor leading to the Yellow Turban Rebellion which, though ultimately doomed to destruction, would serve to further destabilize the empire, already reeling from endemic governmental corruption and nepotism.

We left off with the fall of the eunuch marquise at the hands of the fearsome general Dong Zhuo and his reign of terror from Chang'an while holding Emperor Xian captive, before finally being beheaded by his own adopted son and bodyguard, Lu Bu, in 192 CE. Today we'll be shifting focus away from Chang'an and the Emperor, at least for now, to one of the figures central to this entire period, the General Cao Cao. We mentioned him last episode, back when he had just been a colonel in the Army of the Western Garden, and eventually became a co-captain of the Imperial Guard, before being forced to abandon Luoyang with the arrival of Dong Zhuo's Liang Army. Cao Cao, along with his co-captain Yuan Shao, had amassed a sizable force to resist the tyranny of

the self-appointed imperial chancellor, Dong. But with Dong Zhuo's unexpected execution, the factions within China shattered. Dong Zhuo's cult of personality had been the only thing keeping his fractious subordinates united, and with his death, they began to vie for power amongst themselves. As for the anti-Dong coalition, well, they were almost equally disunified, and held together only by their mutual hatred of Dong Zhuo's reign of terror. And even then, only just. With their major foe suddenly out of the picture, the internal strife of the nominal rebel alliance crumbled into bitter infighting almost immediately. And it's here that we'll pick the story back up. But before we do, let me give you a quick rundown of today's cast of characters.

Given that we're back into a period of warlords, there are literally dozens of would-be contenders for power, local, regional, and national alike. But most of them end up going nowhere, and so, for the sake of clarity, here's a pared-down list of people you ought to keep in mind, because they'll be important today. First is Cao Cao. Of course. He's one of the prime movers and shakers of this era.

He controlled Shandong and eastern Henan. Second, Emperor Xian, the last emperor of Han, and a handy little pawn for the powerful. Third, Yuan Shao, Cao Cao's longtime ally, former co-captain of the Imperial Guard, neighbor, and more and more a rival to power in this now post-imperial world order. He controlled much of Hebei, Shanxi, and parts of Shandong. Fourth, Lu Bu. Dongzhou's protector turned assassin. He was subsequently evicted from Chang'an and fled northeast to take control of the Xu province, which is modern Jiangsu, after tangling with Cao Cao over the control of the latter's Yan province. Fifth, Gongsun Zhan, the warlord of the You province, which included modern Beijing,

Tianjin, and western Liaoning, which you'll remember is near the Korean peninsula. Seventh, Yuan Shu, warlord of Anhui and parts of Jiangsu. He will get the bright idea to declare himself the son of heaven, with predictable results. And a note before we move on, as I said before, there are oh so many more figures than this, but in the interest of time, limiting the number of people who enter the story just in time to get killed, and just general comprehensibility of the narrative, I'm choosing to sheer it all down to a manageable level. I hope you're with me on that. Okay, here we go. Between 192 and 195, the late Dong Zhuo's forces continued to cannibalize itself, with numerous former subordinates seeking to fill his power vacuum in Chang'an, only to be subsequently turned on and murdered by their supposed brothers-in-arms and allies in turn.

In an unexpected move, in 195, one of the factional leaders within the capital, Liu Zhe, who had come into possession of the Emperor Xian, released the monarch to return to the old capital Luoyang. It's not particularly clear why he thought this would be a good idea, as you'll remember that he who controlled the emperor gained de facto legitimacy. What is clear is that he almost immediately regretted his decision and sought to recapture the fleeing Xian. This would prove unsuccessful, however, and Emperor Xian would manage to make it safely to the fire-gutted ruin of Luoyang, where conditions had remained so bad for the prior three years that the remaining citizens had reportedly been forced to resort to cannibalism

to stave off starvation. For the time being, Xian would find some sort of refuge in Luoyang, but his status as a free agent soon attracted the notice of the regional warlords, who themselves sought legitimacy. Yuan Shao, co-commander of the anti-Dong force along with Cao Cao, and in fact at least nominally the top leader of that rebel force, debated with his advisors whether or not to invite the emperor into his protection. On the one hand, again, holding the emperor would allow him to take control of the imperial government and claim legitimacy. But on the other, several of his

advisors cautioned him that inviting Xian to take up residence in his province would mean that Xian would be the one to take control of Yuan Shao's army, and he would be required to follow proper court protocol and defer to the youthful emperor on important decisions. Oh, decisions, decisions. Poor Yuan Shao simply could not make up his mind over whether or not to take youthful emperor on important decisions. Oh, decisions, decisions. Poor Yuan Shao simply could not make up his mind over whether or not to take the Han emperor into his custody. Meanwhile, his allied commander, Cao Cao, had no such compunctions, and took the opportunity of Yuan Shao's continued waffling

to invite the emperor into his own home territory. This was no grand march or principality, mind you. At the time, in spite of his status, Cao Cao was considered relatively minor among the emergent warlords of China, and he controlled only the province of Yan modern Shandong and eastern Henan, and in fact had only recently been able to wrest control of even that from the grasp of Lu Bu, who had subsequently fled southeast to Shu province. Even so, in 196, Cao Cao marched his army to what was left of Luoyang in the imperial court, where he was met by members of the emperor's personal guard. Cao managed to convince them

of his loyalty to Xian, and that he wasn't planning on returning the emperor to the still warring factions within Chang'an, and he was eventually allowed to meet with Xian personally. In the emperor's presence and that of his court, Cao Cao paid due respect to the imperial officials, and promised that he would listen to them, discuss with them, and share the powers and responsibilities of the imperial government with them. No one was fooled, mind you. I mean, everyone knew that this was the guy who was going to be in charge of them all. But Cao's deference to, respect for the imperial court ensured that he would face minimal opposition from it in the future.

As they say, it's easier to attract imperial officials with honey than vinegar. Or something like that. Shortly thereafter, Cao Cao would invite Emperor Xian and his court back to his own capital city and base of power, Shu. Emperor Xian must have taken a look around at the smoldering ruin of his once capital, probably eyed a peasant gnawing on a scorched leg bone of someone else and said, yeah, let's get the heck out of here. Once situated in Shu, Cao Cao played the game of imperial court politics, the game that had rendered Yuan Xiao paralyzed to indecision in fear of it, to perfection. He paid every expected lip service to the power, glory, and honor of the Han emperor, acted exactly according to the manner prescribed of court protocol, and yet managed to maintain absolute control over the affairs of state and warfare.

And very quickly, having Xian in his possession, I mean protection, proved itself very useful indeed. Cao Cao was now able to send out official imperial missives to the other regional warlords in the name of the emperor himself, demanding their submission to imperial authority. In fact, it was only when one such missive arrived on Yuan Shao's doorstep, with the return address coming from Cao Cao's house, that he realized that his indecisiveness had cost him the ability to control all of the other warlords. Whoops. Things seemed to be going well for the empowered Chancellor Cao Cao, but there were still logistical problems to his base of power. For one, Shu City, now the de facto imperial capital, was so relatively remote and underdeveloped that it lacked the necessary infrastructure

to even feed or fund itself. In an attempt to solve at least one of these issues, and given that it is hard to eat coinage, clearly the rather more important one, Cao Cao ordered the implementation of a long-disused system, the Tuantian policy. Though not quite a swords-to-plowshares initiative, it was close enough to beg the comparison. Tuantian had all of Cao Cao's soldiers double as farmers to grow sufficient crops for the burgeoning population of Yan province. The resultant harvest would be divided between the military and civilians, and it achieved impressive success.

The region around Shu City was rapidly converted into high-yield farmland, and the looming food crisis was handily averted. Between 196 and 200, Cao Cao spent much of his time gathering the submission of the smaller warlords across the northern reaches of China, either through imperial decree or, failing that, military force. It was in 197 that Yuan Shu, the warlord of Anhui, declared himself the emperor and son of heaven in his capital, Shoucheng, claiming the birth of the Zhong dynasty. He was even able to attempt this because the imperial seal had been lost during Xian's forced flight and subsequent burning of Luoyang, and once again found by Yuan Shu's generals and forcibly acquired by the warlord.

Along with the powerful but enigmatic Lu Bu, Yuan Shu's so-called Zhong Dynasty formed a considerable power block, at least on paper. In reality, however, his blatant power grab had alienated several of his commanders, who considered themselves servants to the Han dynasty, and Yanshu was dealt a serious blow when his most powerful general, Sun Ce, defected along with his vast territories to the south. Several of the other warlords banded together under Cao Cao to deal with this blatant treason to the true Han government by isolating and fracturing this threat to the balance of power. After a crushing military defeat by Cao's armies and Liu Bu's subsequent betrayal

and defection, by 199 Yuan had few options left, and so turned to his half-brother and fellow warlord to the far north, Yuan Shao. Though the two siblings had not been on friendly terms since the fall of Dong Zhuo, he did attempt to assist his younger brother in his hour of need by sending a thousand horsemen to attempt to link up with Yuan Shu's battered force as it attempted to make its way north to Shao's territory. The relief force, however, would arrive too late and found Yuan Shu's army smashed by forces led by Liu Bei and their way north blocked. Yuan Shu was forced to retreat back to Shoucheng, where he died shortly thereafter due

to either disease or, more poetically, grief, taking the short-lived Zhao dynasty with him to the grave. Yuan Shao, having since realized his critical mistake in not securing the emperor for himself, attempted to persuade Cao Cao into moving his capital closer to the border between the two's territory, probably under the auspices of something like joint defense, given that the two were still ostensibly allies. But his real objective was, of course, to seize the monarch for his own purposes. Cao Cao, sensing that this request was not exactly what it seemed, declined. No, I like it just fine here in Shu City, thank you very much. Have you heard? My soldiers grow some great vegetables. Late in 198, Cao Cao had managed to capture his longtime nemesis Liu Bu, who had fled north

following his betrayal of Yuan Shu after defeating Lu's elite horsemen in the Battle of Xia Pi. Lu Bu, the flying general and executioner of Dong Zhuo, was himself executed on Cao Cao's order, rendering the Shu province at last under Cao's direct control. The following year, Yuan Shao managed to do away with his own rival, Gongsun Zhan, was defeated in battle by Yuan at Yijing. Following this defeat, rather than face the humiliation of capture, Gongsun committed suicide by dousing himself in oil and setting himself aflame. With the territories of the north under his control, Yuan Shao was at last ready to cast

off any remaining pretense of there still being an alliance with Cao Cao, who had himself consolidated much of the central regions of China under his control. It had been obvious to both for some time that confrontation was inevitable, as each former colleague now saw the other as a roadblock to their own ambition of reunifying all of China under their respective reigns. There could be only one. The two powerful warlords would face off in September of the year 200 at the Battle of Guangdu. Cao Cao fielded a force of some 40,000, but this was dwarfed by Yuan Shao's coalition of more than 110,000, including some 10,000 cavalry. The location of the battle itself was significant because Guangdu, situated as it was near the

Yan Ford of the Yellow River and on the road to Yuan's capital, Shu, made it a key staging point for both militaries to control in order to move forward. Historian Carl Levin, in fact, attributed the entire outcome of the war between these two regional powers to this single decision to base the defense of Yan at Guangdu. As early as August of 199, Cao Cao realized the critical importance of holding the fortress called Fort Dushi and stationed a garrison there to expand and improve its defenses in preparation for the inevitable conflict with Yuan Shao. He then sent detachments to begin harassing the province controlled by Yuan Shao's son, hoping to keep the forces there occupied enough that they would be unable to stage an assault on Cao Cao's eastern flank. But in the first month of 200, the unexpected occurred.

The governor of Shu province to Cao Cao's south, Liu Bei, rebelled against the warlord. As Cao Cao arrayed his armies to deal with his betrayal, he left the northern border of Yan exposed, an opportunity Yuan Shao could not pass up, controlling, as he did, the northernmost reaches of the fractured empire. Yuan felt that he could easily sweep in and seize control of Cao Cao's base of power, and mobilized, but was heroically thwarted by the tenacious defenders at Yan Ford, who prevented Yuan Shao's every attempt to cross the Yellow River. Cao Cao easily defeated Liu Bei's meager forces and retook Shu province, forcing Liu to flee into Yuan Shao's protection.

He then returned to Yan just in time to take on Yuan Shao's second wave of attack. Though thwarted at Yan Ford, Yuan was eager to continue his assault of Yan province, in spite of repeated warnings from his aide-de-camp that such a follow-up attack was inadvisable. After all, their hope of victory had hinged on surprise and on Cao Cao being unavailable to personally command his forces. But now they had neither element. Yuan not only dismissed his advisors' warnings, but also had him imprisoned for demoralizing the army.

Shortly thereafter, Yuan had his secretary, Chen Lin, draft a formal condemnation of Cao Cao's conduct, essentially a formal declaration of war, and mobilized his entire army toward his forward base situated at Li'iang, just north of the Yellow River. Yuan's forces proceeded to cross the river and laid siege to Cao Cao's Fort Bo Ma. Rather than directly aiding the besieged fort, however, Cao Cao led his armies in a feint toward Yan Ford, fooling Yuan Shao into believing his intent was to cross the river and attack his main camp. To defend against this, Yuan was forced to break off the troops that were on their way to support the siege of Buoma to instead counter Cao Cao's supposed river crossing, leaving the besiegers unsupported.

Cao Cao then double-backed east to strike at the enemy forces outside of Bo Ma Fort and lift the siege. In spite of killing the siege commander and routing the enemy forces, Cao Cao decided that Bo Ma was indefensible against the massive force arrayed against him. It was only a matter of time before it was taken. So he ordered the fort abandoned by its defenders and for them to collectively move south, deeper into Yan territory, to array the full might of their defense at the prepared Guandu Fort. Yuan Shao attempted to take advantage of Cao Cao's withdrawal by sending a force of 6,000 light cavalry to pursue the retreating army.

Once again however, Cao Cao proved one step ahead of Yuan, and ordered his soldiers to discard their horses, weapons, and valuables as they retreated. Yuan Shao's cavalry could scarcely pass up such a tempting offer, and broke ranks to divvy up the abandoned booty. As you no doubt suspected by now, though, it was indeed a trap. Cao Cao, seeming to have taken the lessons of Chinese history to heart, counted on the soldiers' greed to be their undoing. As the cavalrymen sorted through the goods, they were set upon by 600 of Cao Cao's own elite cavalry, which had been lying in ambush.

In the chaos, Yuan Shao's elite cavalry commander Wen was killed, and the rest of his men, including Liu Bei, routed. Taken on their own, both the failure of the siege of Bo Ma and the rout of the cavalry expedition into Yan were relatively minor defeats for Yuan Shao. After all, he still had almost three times the soldiers that Cao Cao could hope to bring to bear. But General Cao knew the value of morale. Such minor victories had bolstered that of his own forces, while simultaneously delivering a one-two punch to Yuan Shao's armies, which had just seen two of its best strategists not only out-thought and out-fought, but outright killed in action.

As Cao Cao made final preparations to the Duxue Fort at Guangdu, Yuan Shao's own massive army had crossed the Yan Ford and taken up positions just north of Guangdu, where they had begun to construct their own earthen fortifications. Yuan Shao's attendant officer tried to counsel his lord that it was unwise to move the entirety of his army to the front line, and he should at the very least leave a garrison at Yan Ford to ensure a safe route of retreat should the upcoming battle fare poorly. As with the concerns of his aide-de-camp, though, Yuan Shao dismissed such concerns out of hand and stripped the officer of his command. Because constructive criticism be damned. What Yuan Shao did do was send a detachment under the command of Liu Bei, who had at this point been crushingly defeated twice by Cao Cao, but hey,

who's counting, right? To the town of Yinjiang, just 20 li, or about 10 kilometers, south of Cao Cao's capital city. And wouldn't you know it, Liu Bei managed to screw this up too. He was once again routed, this time by Cao Ren, the commander sent by Cao Cao to quell the rebellion, and in spite of his surname seeming sent by Cao Cao to quell the rebellion, and in spite of his surname seeming to have no close family connection to the warlord. For all of this, the situation still didn't look that great for Cao Cao's army. For one, in spite of the Tuntian policy that had thus far staved off starvation, Yan was rapidly running low on grain. Worse, Yuan Shao's advisors apparently knew about this logistical problem and had made plans to capitalize on it.

I mean, all we've got to do is sit here and starve them out. How easy is that? And so, you can imagine their collective surprise and disappointment but really, was it that surprising at this point when Yuan Shao once more disregarded all of that nonsense because he was going to capture the emperor with a direct advance don't bother me with this logistical nonsense and so, perfectly reasonable plans to simply encircle Cao Cao's forces and wait them out gone right out the window

Yuan Shao's armies began to slowly advance on Shu City in the 8th month of 200, engaging in trench warfare with the defending forces of Cao Cao. To counter the earthen fortifications, Yuan's armies erected massive siege platforms and placed archers on them to fire down into the trenches. Cao Cao's forces responded by carrying their shields above their heads and fielding traction trebuchets, precursors to the medieval counterweight trebuchets, which were like nothing so much as enormous slings, where one or a few people would hold down the long arm of the fulcrum,

the side where the shot was loaded, and a great number of people would winch ropes connected to the short arm of the fulcrum. Thus, when released, the ammunition would be launched with great force, though far less than the eventual successor, the counterweight trebuchet, but it could also fire more frequently. With the siege weapons, Yuan's arrow platforms were swiftly brought down by the flying shards of earth and stone. Yuan Shao then tried the opposite tactic. If going above the battlefield wouldn't net him victory, then perhaps tunneling under it could. But again, Cao Cao was prepared for such sappers' efforts, and had ordered a deep, wide trench dug around the Duxia Fort to trap and expose any would-be tunnelers. As Cao Cao managed to counter Yuan Shao's every move, the Battle of Guandu devolved into stalemate.

Stalemate, however, was not in Cao Cao's interests. Remember, he had a food problem. He was faced with the difficult choice of either staying put at Fort Duxi or once more retreating inward to lure Yuan Shao yet further into his territory, thereby increasing the pressure on Yuan Shao's supply lines while simultaneously decreasing the pressure on his own supplies. As he mulled this decision over, he received a letter from Xun Yu, the appointed defender of Shu City, dissuading him from retreat and citing the Chu-Han contention of three centuries prior. In his letter, Xun wrote, quote, your military supplies are low, but they are not as bad as the situation of Chu and Han In his letter, Xun wrote, So how's that for some advice?

No matter how bad your situation might be, never let the enemy see that you're at the end of your rope, because who knows how close he might be to his. Markedly unlike Yuan, Cao Cao would heed his commander's advice and stand his ground at Guandu, in spite of the growing grain crisis threatening to starve his men. The following month, his forces became aware that Yuan Shao had been stockpiling his own army's grain at the nearby village of Gu Shi, some 20 kilometers from the Guandu battle site. Though it was under heavy guard, it was an opportunity Cao Cao could not afford to pass up. He dispatched small cavalry units to surround and attack the grain depot,

but not to seize it. Rather, the mounted forces were charged with burning the enemy supplies to take the hurt to Yuan Shao's attacking armies. The raid was a success, and Yuan Shao's general Chun Yuqiong arrived with a host of 10,000 soldiers and a payload of food supplies for his warlord. The grain was once again deposited at Wuqiao, another village near Gushi, and placed under guard, though apparently a rather lighter guard than the one that had failed to protect the first grain depot. Noting the meager nature of the defense, Yuan's advisors tried to warn him that he

really needed to assign a stiffer defense to this, the last of their food supplies. And once again, everyone together now, Yuan Chao totally ignored the advice. Shortly thereafter, in a state of absolute frustration, one of Yuan's chief advisors, Xu You, defected to Cao Cao, and knowing well of Cao Cao's critical food shortage, informed him that there was a massive store of it at Wu Chao, and it was totally underguarded. Understandably, Cao Cao was a little bit suspicious of this seemingly easy target, so conveniently brought to his attention by Yuan Shao's own quote-unquote defected advisor, but the situation was such that Cao Cao's army could not afford to not try

to recover or destroy the grain. Thus, in spite of trepidation, he ordered a nighttime raid of 5,000 infantry and cavalry to investigate and either seize or destroy the cache. The force disguised itself as a relief unit dispatched by Yuan Shao to reinforce the grain store and were able to fool and overrun the defenders in short order. By dawn, the village of Wuchao was an inferno. More than a thousand of Yuan Shao's soldiers dead, four of his generals executed, and the commander captured and punished by having his nose cut off. The foodstuffs that had only just been brought up to supply Yuan Shao's attack burned to ashes. In an interesting response, Yuan Shao had received word that his foodstores at Wuchao were under attack, but instead of saving his, you know, food, he sent only a small detachment to reinforce the garrison, as it were, on fire,

while committing the bulk of his forces to assault Guangdu itself. You know, that major stronghold of the region still personally defended by Cao Cao. As before, that assault would break against Cao Cao's defensive lines with little effect. The following day brought further embarrassment and even lower morale to Yuan Shao's troops. With his victory at Wuchao, Cao Cao had ordered his men to cut the noses and lips off of their slain enemies and mix them together with those of pigs and cows. The resultant gruesome mixture was then delivered to the outskirts of Yuan Shao's camps to be found.

Further, in despair, two more of Yuan Shao's commanders defected and surrendered to Cao Cao's field commanders, greatly disheartening the remainder of the attacking host. This provided the ever-conscious of morale Cao Cao the opportunity he had been looking for, and he launched a surprise attack against Yan's army, utterly decimating the far larger force. Yan Zhao's armies and supplies were virtually all captured by Cao Cao, and the northern warlord was himself only barely able to slip away with some 800 cavalry, all that was left of his formerly 110,000 strong expeditionary force. That is not to say that all 110 had been killed outright,

though in his proclamation of victory to Emperor Xian, Cao Cao did claim the deaths of 70,000 enemy soldiers. That said, some did escape, and others surrendered. Of which quite a few were merely pretending to surrender so that they might escape at a later date. But Cao Cao, possibly seeing through such deception or maybe just figuring he could not afford to pay for and feed all of these prisoners, decided to have most of them buried alive. Yuan Shao escaped his crushing defeat at Guandu and would ultimately be able to stabilize his realm and restore more or less the status quo antebellum. But he would die less than two years later from an unrecorded condition

that he nevertheless seemed to have known about well in advance. He had three sons, but in spite of his own looming mortality, in one final display of his infamous inability to quite commit to a decision, he'd never get around to exactly spelling out his succession policy. He had clearly favored his youngest son, Yuan Shang, and so it was assumed that he was to inherit the top job. Nevertheless, that enraged his eldest son, Yuan Tan, and soon enough Yuan Xiao's territories had to be split between the two rival brothers. The intrafamilial acrimony grew so intense that, ironically, Yuan Tan would enter into an alliance with Cao Cao against his younger brother.

Though Tan seemed to have intended to use the enemy-of-my-enemy alliance to strengthen his own position, Cao Cao wrung the two brothers dry by turning one against the other, thereby defeating Yuan Shang and forcing him to flight, and then cold-bloodedly turning on his supposed ally Yuan Tan and destroying him in 205. The climactic Battle of Guandu virtually assured that Cao Cao would reunify the north of China under his, I mean Emperor Xian's of course, rule. It would be the catalyst through which his power block would consolidate into the Kingdom of Cao Wei, one of the, yes, titular three kingdoms of the period. As such a climactic moment not only for the period, but for Chinese history as a whole, it has long been analyzed by both historians and later leaders hoping to imitate Cao Cao's success. In the 20th century, for instance, both the Kuomintang forces,

aka the Nationalists of Republican China, under Chiang Kai-shek, or as it's pronounced in Mandarin, Jiang Jie-she, and the communists of Mao Zedong looked at the Battle of Guandu as a pivotal and informative historical precedent for their own contemporary conflict. The nationalists tended to interpret the battle in terms of traditional Chinese histories that judged the outcome based more on the personalities of the commanders rather than of tactics or strategic situations. Mao's communists, on the other hand, took to heart the concept of strategic retreat displayed at Guangdu and elsewhere, with Mao himself writing,

The contestants were unequal in strength, and the weaker one, yielding a step at first, pinned down the stronger one through delayed action and defeated him. The Maoist interpretation of the Battle of Guangdu, at first, pinned down the stronger one through delayed action, and defeated him. End quote. The Maoist interpretation of the Battle of Guangdu, while acknowledging that Yuan Shao did make serious errors, instead focuses on the supposed inevitability of such errors to the numerically stronger army, and that the smaller force need only await the chance to exploit such unavoidable mistakes. Under this line of highly politicized thought, both commanders are interpreted, to the surprise of no one, through the highly

ahistorical lens of Marxist class conflict. Yuan Shao as the great official landlord class, and Cao Cao as the smaller landowner class. This, you know, in spite of the fact that both were regional warlords who held absolute autonomy over their territories and the peoples within it. Thus, according to Maoism, the battle was one of class conflict, not of one feudal lord triumphing over another, and in which Yuan Xiao's downfall was inevitable. Somewhat less ideologically, as mentioned before, according to historian Carl Levin, the Battle of Guandu turned essentially on logistics. Cao Cao had a superior understanding of and respect for the logistics and topography of

the battlefield, and he had the benefit of choosing that battlefield. He chose to abandon the indefensible forts along the Yellow River, and by luring his enemy deeper into his own territory, extended Yuan Shao's supply lines to unsustainable lengths. As such, in spite of his own supply shortages, he was able to capitalize on his opponent's overextension. In contrast to the traditional view of Cao Cao's genius and Yuan Shao's incomprehensible foolishness, sinologist Raph de Crespigny has argued that Yuan may have been slow to capitalize on Cao Cao's temporary weakness not because he didn't see the opportunity, but because his forces were

otherwise engaged with other warlords in drawn-out campaigns of attrition, and he simply didn't have the resources to properly spare to the offensive. As such, de Crespigny asserts, Yuan's only shot at overcoming Cao Cao's defensive was to hope a full frontal assault would be enough to crack Cao Cao's spine and overwhelm him. Though he was ultimately still wrong, under such an interpretation, his decisions are at the very least much less ridiculous and more born out of necessity rather than an unwillingness to listen to sound advice. And thus, here we stand. The year is 202, and Cao Cao remains in possession of Emperor Xian.

With the defeat of Yuan Shao's offensive and the destruction of his sons, Cao is poised to consolidate the entire north under his rule, and he will proceed to do so with very little delay into what will become the kingdom of Cao Wei. Next time, we'll follow on the heels of the thrice-failed commander Liu Bei, as he flees in disgrace from the north to the southwestern province of Jing, modern Sichuan, where he'll begin cobbling together a power block of his own, one to rival that of Cao Cao's, called Xu Han. And to the southeast, the rogue commander Sun Si, who you'll remember defected from Yuan Shi after he had ill-advisedly proclaimed himself emperor,

will begin consolidating the southern coastal provinces into the third of the three warring kingdoms, Sun Wu. Thank you for listening. pay for our server space and better recording equipment. To those of you who've already given, my gratitude is boundless and please feel free to ignore this message. If you are perchance still on the fence about the whole idea of donating, consider all we ask is a dollar per show. A cup of regular black coffee often costs more. I promise you'll never miss it, but it helps us out more than you realize.

And we've tried to make the donation process as painless as possible, with our two options, both available through thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com. First is a lump sum donation via PayPal. The other is by pledging to donate per episode through our Patreon link. Either way works, and either is appreciated ever so much. Please and thank you.