During the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty, the stage of the various warlords fighting each other looked very chaotic, but in fact, there were still traces to follow. For example, from the fifth year of Jian'an to the thirteenth year of Jian'an, that is, from 200 to 208 AD, the melee of various warlords can be roughly divided into two parts: Jiangbei and Jiangnan. The Jiangdong clique concentrated all its efforts on Jingzhou, and Cao Cao dealt with Yuan.
Thirteen years after Jian'an, the situation of Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan gradually took shape, but Sun Quan still remembered Jingzhou, which was controlled by Liu Bei. Finally, in the twenty-fourth year of Jian'an, that is, in 219 AD, Sun Quan finally conquered Jiangling and occupied Jingzhou occupied by Liu Bei (hereinafter referred to as Jingzhou), realizing the strategy determined since Sun Ce's time. This time took twenty years.
The strategy of Jiangdong Group's need for Jingzhou
Jiangdong Group, as the name suggests, is of course based on the land of Jiangdong, that is, the part of Yangzhou south of the Yangtze River. When they faced Cao Cao in the north, they relied on the natural graben of the Yangtze River. However, the Yangtze River has advantages and disadvantages, the north attacks Jiangdong to cross the Yangtze River, while the attack on Yangzhou from Jingzhou occupies the convenience of the Yangtze River. Jingzhou is west of Yangzhou, China's terrain is high in the west and low in the east, and Jingzhou has the advantage of going downhill to Yangzhou. Therefore, Jingzhou must be held in the hands of Jiangdong Group.
Liu Bei's clique had "Longzhong pairs"; Yuan Shao and Frustrated Zhi had "Yizhong pairs"; Cao Cao and Mao Jiu also had the strategy of "feng tianzi to order not to be subordinate", or Bao Xin's "south of the great river"; the Jiangdong clique certainly also had a macro overall strategy. Zhang Hong, Zhou Yu, Gan Ning, Lu Su, and Lü Meng all proposed strategies, which are different from each other, and to sum up is "the plan of two points under the world."
From the time when Sun Ce had not yet crossed the river, Sun Ce visited Zhang Hong, and Zhang Hong proposed to "Jing, Yang Keyi" and "According to the Yangtze River", which was probably the first person to formulate a strategy for Sun Ce, but the Jiangdong Clique had not yet formed at that time; then Sun Ce was assassinated in the fifth year of Jian'an, and Sun Quan became the leader of the Jiangdong clique. Compared with Sun Ce, Sun Quan was even more friendly with Cao Cao, and then attacked Jingzhou with all his might. Lu Su, Gan Ning, Zhou Yu, and Lü Meng all proposed to Sun Quan a strategy to attack Jingzhou and take control of the Yangtze River defense line.
However, Lu Su later revised his strategy, supporting Liu Bei in Jingzhou to jointly resist Cao Cao, and this strategy was temporarily adopted by Sun Quan, which led to a three-legged situation. Therefore, There is still a great controversy about Lu Su as a person. In fact, he also understood the importance of Jingzhou to Yangzhou.
In general, whether it was during the period of Sun Ce or Sun Quan, the Jiangdong Group had determined the strategy of crossing the Jing and Yang. However, in the fifteen years of Jian'an to the twenty-four years of Jian'an, Jiangdong Group was more or less implementing Lu Su's strategy and once turned its back on the original strategy. In the twenty-fourth year of Jian'an, Lu Su was dead, and Sun Quan followed the advice of the hawk Lü Meng to attack Jingzhou, and finally put the overall strategy back on track.
The Jiangdong clique's efforts to attack Jingzhou
Sun Ce period
Sun Ce was the founder of the Jiangdong clique, and he led Sun Jian's old army into Jiangdong to defeat the Yangzhou assassin Liu Sui and began to establish himself in Jiangdong; later, because of Yuan Shu's arrogance, he seized the opportunity to break away from Yuan Shu and became an independent warlord. In the fourth year of Jian'an, that is, in 199 AD, Sun Ce defeated Liu Xun of Lujiang Taishou, Liu Xun sought the assistance of Jiangxia Taishou Huangzu to the west, and Sun Ce continued to defeat Huangzu to the west, although he did not control Jiangxia County, but the loss to Huangzu was relatively large (at least in Sun Ce's own table). This should be the earliest large-scale campaign of the Jiangdong Group against Jingzhou.
Sun Quan period
Sun Ce attacked Huang Zu in the fourth year of Jian'an, and was assassinated by Xu Gongmen in the fifth year of Jian'an, and the task of leading the Jiangdong clique to attack Jingzhou fell to Sun Quan. Sun Quan's strategy against Jingzhou can be roughly divided into three stages.
First of all, from the fifth year of Jian'an to the thirteenth year of Jian'an, Sun Quan carried out three large-scale attacks on Huang Zu, namely the eighth year of Jian'an, the twelfth year of Jian'an, and the thirteenth year of Jian'an. Sun Quan and Huang Zu entered a state of more stale war. Although according to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, the Jiangdong clique side won many battles and victories, but in the end it did not capture Jiangxia County.
In the thirteenth year of Jian'an, Gan Ning defected to Sun Quan from Huang Zu, and he proposed his own "plan of two points under the heavens" and persuaded Sun Quan to attack Huang Zu. Sun Quan obeyed Gan Ning's troops, and indeed defeated and killed Huang Zu in one fell swoop. But in fact, Sun Quan still did not take advantage of the situation to take Jiangxia County. The specific reason is not very clear, perhaps his own losses were also very serious when attacking Huang Zu, or perhaps it was contained by the turmoil in the internal mountains.
The second is from Jian'an thirteen years to Jian'an twenty years
The thirteenth year of Jian'an to the twentieth year of Jian'an, 208 to 215 AD, was a period of relative harmony between Liu Bei and Sun Quan. In the thirteenth year of Jian'an, Sun Quan and Liu Bei jointly defeated Cao Cao who went south to be eligible to share the cake; in the fourteenth year of Jian'an, in 209 AD, the two sides jointly won the "Battle of Nan County" and obtained Jiangling, which was of high strategic value. At that time, Sun Quan was stronger than Liu Bei, and his strength in fighting Cao Cao was also greater than Liu Bei, of course, the fat meat of Jiangling belonged to Sun Quan, and Liu Bei took part of the "Four Counties of Jingnan", that is, Changsha, Guiyang, Lingling, and Wuling.
In the fifteenth year of Jian'an, Zhou Yu died in 210 AD, and the plan to attack Yizhou from Jiangling failed, and Sun Quan took the advice of Lu Su and lent Jiangling to Liu Bei. Since then, Liu Bei has been a blockbuster. From the sixteenth year of Jian'an to the nineteenth year of Jian'an, that is, from 211 to 214 AD, Liu Bei spent three years entering Yizhou to eliminate Liu Zhang, and finally completed the conditions of "Longzhong Pair" to a certain extent.
Sun Quan was quite hot to Yizhou, and Jiangling was lent to Liu Bei by himself, and he was very dissatisfied with this in his heart. Sun Quan demanded from Liu Bei the three counties of Changsha, Lingling, and Guiyang as compensation, but Liu Bei refused. Sun Quan was furious and ordered Lü Meng to lead an army to capture the three counties of Jingnan, and he and Lu Su led an army to contain Guan Yu's forces. Liu Bei intended to lead an army to retake the three counties of Jingnan, but in the face of Cao Cao's military pressure, Liu Bei and Sun Quan finally reconciled and demarcated the border with Xiangshui, with Xiangshui county southwest, Wuling County, and Lingling County under Liu Bei; Changsha County, Guiyang County, and Jiangxia County east of Xiangshui were returned to Sun Quan.
Finally, the fatal blow of Jian'an for twenty-four years
After the "Xiangshui Alliance" of Jian'an for twenty years, Liu Bei and Sun Quan were temporarily in a state of peace, but there was still a huge crisis lurking in this state. Sun Quan was located downstream of Jingzhou, and his Northern Expedition was not smooth, and he could not open up the situation from Jiangbei. In this case, Sun Quan's desire for Jingzhou was simply inevitable. However, Guan Yu of Zhenshu Jingzhou did not clearly realize this, or did have some defense against Sun Quan, but did not fully attach importance to it.
In the twenty-fourth year of Jian'an, Liu Bei finally won the protracted "Battle of Hanzhong" and won the land of Hanzhong, and in the same year Guan Yu also led an army to northern Xiangyang and Fancheng. Guan Yu's military actions put great pressure on Cao Cao, and Yu Ban, Xu Huang, and Zhang Liao were all transferred to the Xiangfan front to support Cao Ren. At this time, Sun Quan had two choices, the first was to take the opportunity to attack Huainan with all his might (Xuzhou was forgotten), and go hand in hand with Liu Bei's clique to compress Cao Cao into the Hebei region; the second was to take advantage of Jingzhou's empty backstabbing allies to complete the long-established "dichotomy of the world" and completely break with Liu Bei. Since then, Sun Quan has finally obtained Jingzhou and established a complete Yangtze River defense line.
brief summary
From The attack on Huangzu by Sun Ce in the fourth year of Jian'an to the "Battle of Jingzhou" in the twenty-fourth year of Jian'an, the "Jiangdong Group" took twenty years to finally complete the goal of crossing Jingzhou and Yangzhou. After that, Eastern Wu and Shu Han allied again, with Shu Han attacking Cao Wei's Longyou and Guanzhong regions, while Eastern Wu engaged Cao Wei on the long Yangtze River defense line, and Jianghan and Huainan's Jiangling, Xiangyang, Shiyang, Hefei, Wusu, and Shouchun were all long-term battlefields between the two sides. The territory of Jingzhou, Yangzhou, and the southernmost Jiaozhou also lasted until the fourth year of the Eastern Wu Tianji and the sixth year of Xianning in the Western Jin Dynasty, that is, in 280 AD, when the Western Jin Dynasty unified the world.
All in all, after Sun Quan obtained Jingzhou, he not only obtained a large amount of land and population resources, but more importantly, completely defused the threat of Shu Han to Yangzhou in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and after this condition was achieved, the two sides had a basis for joint resistance against Cao. Eastern Wu's control of Jingzhou also lasted until the last year. Many people think that Sun Quan's sneak attack on Jingzhou is very disgraceful and strategically short-sighted. Moral aspects aside, just from the standpoint of the Jiangdong Clique, the results achieved by the sneak attack on Jingzhou should be very important and generous for the Jiangdong Clique.
Reference: "Three Kingdoms"