Battle of Yiling
Battle of Xiaoting |
Part of the wars of the Three Kingdoms period |
Date |
221–222 CE |
Location |
Yiling and Xiaoting (the juncture between the west of Yidu County and east of Changyang County in Yichang, Hubei);
Ma'an Hills (east of Changyang County) |
Result |
Decisive Wu victory |
|
Belligerents |
Wu |
Shu Han;
tribal forces from Wuling |
Commanders and leaders |
Lu Xun |
Liu Bei, Shamoke †
|
Strength |
≈50,000 |
over 40,000(excluding tribal forces from Wuling)
|
Casualties and losses |
|
over 80,000 |
The Battle of Xiaoting, also known as the Battle of Yiling and the Battle of Yiling and Xiaoting, was fought between the state of Shu Han and the vassal kingdom of Wu in 222 CE in the early Three Kingdoms period of China. The battle is significant because Wu was able to turn the situation from a series of initial losses into a defensive stalemate, before proceeding to win a decisive victory over Shu. The Wu victory halted the Shu invasion and preceded the death of Liu Bei, Shu's founding emperor.
In late 219, Lü Meng, one of Sun Quan's generals, led an army to invade Liu Bei's territory in Jing Province (covering parts of present-day Hubei and Hunan). Guan Yu, the general appointed by Liu Bei to guard Jing Province, was away at the Battle of Fancheng and did not know about the invasion until after he returned from the battle. He was surrounded by Sun Quan's forces in Maicheng (麥城; present-day Maicheng Village, Lianghe Town, Dangyang, Hubei) and captured in an ambush while trying to break out of the siege. Sun Quan had him executed in Linju (臨沮; in present-day Nanzhang County, Xiangyang, Hubei).
In the tenth lunar month of 220, Cao Pi forced Emperor Xian to abdicate in his favour and effectively ended the Eastern Han dynasty. He established the state of Wei and became its first emperor. In the fourth month of 221, Liu Bei declared himself Emperor at the south of Wudan (武擔; in present-day Chengdu, Sichuan) and established a new state, historically known as Shu Han, to contest Cao Pi's claim to the Han throne. Around the same time, Sun Quan shifted the capital of his territories from Gong'an (公安; present-day Gong'an County, Jingzhou, Hubei) to E (鄂; present-day Ezhou, Hubei), which he renamed "Wuchang" (武昌). In the eighth month of 221, Sun Quan pledged allegiance to Cao Pi and became a vassal under the Wei regime, after which Cao conferred the title "King of Wu" (吳王) on him.
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