Battle of Fancheng
| Battle of Fancheng | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the wars at the end of the Han dynasty | |||||||
 A scene from the Battle of Fancheng, 17th century woodblock print |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Cao Cao | Liu Bei | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Cao Ren Yu Jin  Pang De  Xu Huang |
Guan Yu | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| ≈100,000 men | 70,000+ men (30,000 from surrendered troops + several thousand rebels) | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 40,000+ men | 40,000+ | ||||||
| Battle of Fancheng | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 樊城之戰 | ||||||
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| Simplified Chinese | 樊城之战 | ||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Fánchéng Zhī Zhàn |
The Battle of Fancheng was fought between the warlords Liu Bei and Cao Cao in 219 in the late Eastern Han dynasty. It was named after Fancheng (樊城; also known as Fan Castle or Fan City), an ancient fortress situated in present-day Fancheng District, Xiangyang, Hubei.
In October 218, Cao Cao's general Hou Yin (侯音) and his deputy Wei Kai (衛開) of Wan (宛; present-day Nanyang, Henan) rose in rebellion with several thousand troops, and they requested help from Guan Yu. It would take four months for Cao Ren to finally crush the rebellion by killing both Hou Yin and Wei Kai, but Guan Yu did not respond to the rebels throughout the duration. After taking Hanzhong by defeating Cao Cao in May 219, Liu Bei further expanded his gains in June 219 by sending Meng Da and Liu Feng to take Fangling (房陵; present-day Fang County, Hubei) and Shangyong (上庸; north of present-day Zhushan County, Hubei). Cao Cao was temporarily forced to be on the defensive after these continuous setbacks and Sun Quan of Jiangdong decided to take the opportunity to attack Cao Cao while his newly defeated men were regrouping and resting.
Realizing the imminent attacks of Liu Bei and Sun Quan, Cao Cao planned to launch a preemptive strike on Jing Province (荊州; covering present-day Hubei and Hunan), the eastern part of Liu Bei's territory defended by Guan Yu. The plan reasoned that Liu Bei could not continue his offensive in the north due to the need to consolidate his new gains, and so an attack into Jing Province would not be hindered by Liu's invasion elsewhere. However, the plan was called off because Cao Cao's troops still needed time to recover, regroup and re-supply from the campaign to suppress the rebellion of Hou Yin and Wei Kai, as well as from earlier setbacks in the struggles for Hanzhong. The worn-out troops were not ready for another campaign.
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