Talk:Battle of Jiangling (208)

The main article is based on a novel instead of "Records of Three Kingdoms"
There were several Sun Quan's generals who didn't get involved, they include Lu Su, Pan Zhang, Lu Xun, and Huang Gai. Their names appeared in this battle only in the novel "the Romance of the Three Kingdoms." Also, the strength was based on that novel instead of history. --Ekman230 (talk) 08:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The strength of the 2 belligerents
There is no exact record of how many soldiers each side put into this battle, but we can tell the strength of the 2 belligerents were about the same or the Cao Cao side might enjoy a numerical superiority but lower morale. First, the Battle of JiangLing was the aftermath of the Battle of the Red Cliff, which resulted for a loss of about 150,000 soldiers on Cao Cao's side, but there were roughly 90,000 survivors escaped, and the survivors got replenished right at Jiangling. Even Cao Cao decided to leave the frontline to Cao Ren and go back to XuChang himself, he should had left some soldiers to Cao Ren. Second, when Gan ling initially went for Yiling, he only accompanied himself with several hundred soldiers, which means Zhou Yu had 31,000+ army camped outside the city walls of Jiangling. However, Cao Ren did send troops to surround Gan Ling, and the army he sent was 6,000 strong cavalry with siege weapons! IF Cao Ren really had 10,000 men initially, he would have to face Zhou Yu’s 31,000 army with 4,000 men for the sake of catching a far away lower ranking Gan Ling. It is obvious he did it because he had a lot more troops on hand than the novel says. The clearest proof comes from the conversation between Lu Meng and Zhou Yu recored by Chen Shou's "Records of Three Kingdoms". When Gan Ling was overwhelmed by the cavalry Cao Ren sent, most generals of Sun Quan’s side opposed sending reinforcement because “the army was small in size, thus not able to be divided for reinforcement.”Only Lu Meng objected such view and said: “please leave Ling Tong behind to defend against the main forces of Cao Ren while our main forces went to rescue Gan Ning, I can guarantee that Ling Tong will surely hold out until our return.” By the way, I would also like to point out that the battle didn’t take a rest during the time Zhou Yu left the main camp, no one wished to play the game fairly, Cao Ren and XuHuang made use of the numerical advantage and tried numerous times to take Ling Tong down, but their efforts were of no avail just as Lu Meng predicted. --Ekman230 (talk) 10:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Mistakes in the chronological order of events, and other problems
The description of the battle, as provided in pages 290-292 of Chapter Five of Rafe de Crespigny's Generals of the South, gives the impression that the Wu attack on Jiangling (including the Battle of Yiling (208)) was separate from Liu Bei's campaign on the four commanderies (Wuling, Changsha, Guiyang, Lingling) in southern Jing Province.

There was some form of cooperation between Sun Quan and Liu Bei's forces, when Liu sent Zhang Fei to lead 1,000 men to help Zhou: [Zhou Yu's biography: 吳錄曰：備謂瑜云：「仁守江陵城，城中糧多，足為疾害. 使張益德將千人隨卿，卿分二千人追我，相為從夏水入截仁後，仁聞吾入必走. 」瑜以二千人益之. ] This is also covered in a footnote in RDC's Chapter Five. Guan Yu and Su Fei (蘇非, not this Su Fei) attacked Xiangyang, which was defended by Yue Jin, and lost and were driven back: [Yue Jin's biography 後從平荊州，留屯襄陽，擊關羽、蘇非等，皆走之， ...] Li Tong's biography confirms that Liu Bei and Sun Quan's forces did fight together at Jiangling. [Li Tong's biography: 劉備與周瑜圍曹仁於江陵，別遣關羽絕北道. 通率衆擊之，下馬拔鹿角入圍，且戰且前，以迎仁軍，勇冠諸將. ]

The engagement between Guan Yu against Wen Ping and Yue Jin at Xunkou and the subsequent raids by Wen on Guan's supplies at Han Ford and the boats at Jingcheng appear to be not part of the Jiangling campaign. They took place after Wen Ping was put in charge of Jiangxia (at the Wu border) when Cao Cao pacified Jing Province (referring to Liu Cong's surrender in 208). [Wen Ping's biography 太祖先定荊州，江夏與吳接，民心不安，乃以聘為江夏太守，使典北兵，委以邊事，賜爵關內侯. ... 與樂進討關羽於尋口，有功，進封延壽亭侯，加討逆將軍. 又攻羽輜重於漢津，燒其船於荊城. ] No specific dates or years were given so it's difficult to ascertain when the Xunkou battle and the raids occurred.

Lei Xu from Lujiang (not in Jing Province) brought thousands of men to support Liu Bei after the latter pacified the four commanderies. [Liu Bei's biography: 先主表琦為荊州刺史，又南征四郡. 武陵太守金旋、長沙太守韓玄、桂陽太守趙範、零陵太守劉度皆降. ... 廬江雷緒率部曲數萬口稽顙. ] It was not mentioned earlier in the article how many troops Liu Bei had, so how did the claim "[Lei Xu's joining of Liu Bei's forces] almost doubled Liu Bei's force instantly" come about?

LDS contact me 09:05, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Some problems with the article
There is no solid evidence that Yue Jin and Wen Ping participated in this battle. None of their biographies state a year in which they defeated Guan Yu and Su Fei near Nan Commandery. In fact, there is evidence pointing to the contrary, where Liu Bei's SGZ biography states that Guan Yu was in combat with Yue Jin around the time Liu Bei completed his conquest of Yi Province, which is around 212 CE. It is also entirely possible that the event that took place in Yue Jin and Wen Ping's biographies is different from the one in Liu Bei's biography.

The assertion that "there were hardly any troops left to defend" of southern Jing is not based on any evidence. There are no records of any numbers for either Liu Bei and the four administrators. Another assertion made is how "all [the administrators] surrendered without a fight". There is no evidence to back this claim, Liu Bei's biography only states that they surrendered, whether with or without a fight is unknown. The SGZ quotes the Sanfu Juelu Zhu, stating that Jin Xuan had died in combat against Liu Bei, showing evidence of the contrary to the statement that the administrators surrendered without a fight.

The assertion that "the biggest gain for Liu Bei, however, was that he was joined by Lei Xu (雷緒) and his troops, which almost doubled Liu Bei's force instantly" has no concrete evidence supporting it. It is not known how many troops Liu Bei fielded. It stated in the SGZ that Lei Xu brought several ten-thousands of men, but that leaves a large margin of error. And calling this the "biggest gain" is certainly subjective. It can be argued that gaining the four southern Jing commanderies was more important than gaining Lei Xu's men.

I personally find the "Southern Jing" section of the article completely out of place as the events described took place after the Battle of Jiangling. They should either go into their own page or moved to the "Aftermath" section of this page.

The line about Xiang Lang should also be moved to after the conquest of southern Jing (again, either in a new page or into the aftermath section within this page). Evidence of this can be found in Xiang Lang's SGZ biography where it states that he was assigned to the four counties after Liu Bei had pacified the land south of the Yangtze.

In the "Order of Battle" section, Yue Jin never held office as the Administrator of Xiangyang, and Niu Jin was a 部曲將, not a general. — Preceding unsigned comment added by XHolonX (talk • contribs) 05:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I've removed the whole section for being unsourced. I think I've addressed all your other concerns. Feel free to make edits directly onto the page. _dk (talk) 06:35, 2 February 2021 (UTC)