After Cao Cao's defeat in Chibi, he reluctantly escaped from Huarong Dao, and then used Cao Ren to guard Jiangling, Lejin to guard Xiangyang, and returned to the north. And Zhou Yu and Liu Bei and others, in order to completely remove Cao Cao's threat to the south, then Yanjiang marched to Jiangling.

【Defeat and retreat Huarong Road】

After the victory of Chibi, Zhou Yu and Liu Bei joined forces to pursue Cao Cao, who reluctantly retreated from Huarong Dao.

According to the "Shanyang Gongji", when Cao Cao led the army to retreat on foot from Huarong Road, he encountered mud, the road was impassable, and the sky was blowing strong winds. Cao Cao asked all the old and weak soldiers to spread grass on the road, and the cavalry barely passed. The old and weak soldiers were trampled by the men and horses, and they were stuck in the mud, and many died. After Cao Cao's army came out, Cao Cao was very happy, and the generals didn't know why, so they asked Cao Cao why he was smiling so happily, and Cao Cao replied: "Liu Bei is indeed my opponent." But it's still a step too late! If we had set the fire earlier, none of us would have survived! Liu Bei thought about it again at this time, and it was too late to set fire.

After that, in order to stabilize his rear, Cao Cao led his army back to the north. Before leaving, Cao Cao took a defensive position in Jingzhou, stationed in Xiangyang with the general Le, Xu Huang, the general of Hengye, stationed in Fancheng, the general Wen Ping, and the Jiangxia Taishou, and Jiangling, an important town on the Yangtze River, was personally guarded by Cao Ren, a relative of the heavy general under his command.

【Battle of Gangneung】

After Cao Cao retreated, Zhou Yu and Liu Bei decided to take the opportunity to recover Jiangling and other places and completely expel Cao Cao's forces south of the Yangtze River.

Zhou Yu and Cheng Pu led tens of thousands of horses to confront Cao Ren across the Yangtze River. Before the war, Gan Ning asked to go and directly capture Yiling first. Gan Ning led his troops to go, and as soon as he arrived, he occupied Yiling, so he entered the city to defend. Later, the Yizhou general raided Su and led his army to join him, and Zhou Yu suggested that the troops of raiding Su be handed over to Lü Meng, who praised Raid Su for his courage and ability, and his ability to admire and educate people to come to attach, and morally speaking, he should increase his number of soldiers rather than seize his team. Sun Quan thought that this was very reasonable, and returned the troops to raid Su.

After the new defeat of Cao Cao's army, the morale was a little low, when Zhou Yu's army attacked, the vanguard of thousands of soldiers to the city, Cao Ren climbed the city wall to inspect it, and then organized three hundred warriors, sent the subordinate general Niu Jin, to meet the battle. There were many soldiers in Jiangdong, few soldiers in Niujin, and 300 people were surrounded by more than 1,000 people.

Changshi Chen Jiao and others were all watching the battle on the city wall, and when they saw Niu Jin outnumbered, their faces changed in fright. Cao Ren was furious, and ordered to take his mount, Chen Jiao and others came to stop him, saying: "There are many enemy soldiers, and their momentum is unstoppable!" It's better to abandon these hundreds of brothers, why do you bother to go into trouble, general? ”

Cao Ren ignored it, dressed neatly, and led dozens of strong men under his command to rush out of the city gate. There was a ditch more than 100 steps away from the thieves, Chen Jiao and others thought that Cao Ren would stop by the ditch and confront Zhou Yu's team, but Cao Ren crossed the ditch and rushed into the enemy's encirclement and rescued Niu Jin and others. There were also some soldiers trapped in the enemy formation, and Cao Ren rushed into the enemy formation again, rescued those soldiers, and eliminated several enemies, so the Jiangdong soldiers began to retreat. Chen Jiao and the others were very worried when they saw Cao Ren insisting on rushing out to rescue at first, until Cao Ren returned victoriously, they were all amazed and said, "General, you are really a god!" The three armies admired his bravery, and Cao Cao respected him even more after learning the news and named him the Marquis of Anping Pavilion.

After Zhou Yu sent Gan Ning to occupy Yiling, Cao Ren also sent part of his army to attack Gan Ning, and Gan Ning was besieged and the situation was critical, so he sent people to ask for help. All the generals thought that the troops were insufficient and could not be divided, but Lu Meng said to Zhou Yu and Cheng Pu: "Leave Ling Gongji, I will work with you to relieve the siege, according to the situation, it will not take too much time, I guarantee that Ling Gongji can hold on for ten days." ”

He also suggested that Zhou Yu send 300 men to block the dangerous intersection with firewood, so that the enemy could get their horses when they fled. Zhou Yu listened to his plan. The troops rushed to Yiling and engaged Cao's army on the same day, killing and wounding more than half of the enemy. The enemy fled overnight, and when they reached the wood-blocked mountain road, the cavalry abandoned their horses and fled on foot. The Wu army hurriedly pursued and chased after him, captured 300 war horses, and carried them back to Eastern Wu with a combined boat.

As a result, the morale of the whole army doubled, and Zhou Yu crossed the Yangtze River, garrisoned the north bank, and held Cao Ren. The two sides agreed on a date for the start of the war. Zhou Yu personally straddled the horse and swept the formation, was shot in the right chest by a random arrow, and was seriously injured, so he had to retreat. Later, Cao Ren heard that Zhou Yu was bedridden and did not get up, so he led his troops into battle. Zhou Yu then forcibly got up by himself, patrolled the barracks with his wounds, and encouraged the courage of the soldiers.

Zhou Yu led his army to besiege Cao Ren for a period of time, killing and wounding many Cao Ren's troops, and Cao Ren finally abandoned the city and withdrew.

In this battle, the Jiangdong Army led by Zhou Yu and the Cao Ren Army in Jiangling City both played well, but on the whole, it was undoubtedly Zhou Yu and others who performed better, so they won.

First of all, Gan Ning invited himself to attack Yiling, Yiling is on the west side of Jiangling, and the west is the territory of Liu Zhang of Yizhou, and there are some ethnic minorities, in general, Yiling can be said to be the west gate of Jiangling, and Gan Ning may have seized this place out of the need to block Cao Ren. Later, Cao Ren would send troops to capture Yiling, probably because he wanted to interrupt the subordinates of the Jiangdong army, and now some people believe that it was because Guan Yu and others blocked Jiangling's northern support, and Cao Ren wanted to open the passage to the west so as to obtain supplies. But at that time, the battle of Gangneung had just begun, and Cao Ren's supply problem should not be big.

However, Cao Ren's military operation was used by Zhou Yu, who adopted Lü Meng's proposal, divided his troops to rescue Gan Ning, and also sent troops as an ambush, while Cao Ren's army was attacked from both sides, defeated, and after the spoils were pulled back, Zhou Yu's army was able to boost morale, and also further killed the spirit of Cao Ren's army.

Of course, Cao Ren is not a small role as Cao Cao's favorite general, he is not a small role in the face of the strength of Zhou Yu's army, and he does not fall behind at all, and Cao Ren is also decisive for his subordinates to be surrounded by most of the enemy's forces, until he saves his subordinates, which is also very exciting.

In the confrontation with Zhou Yu, Cao Renjun also shot and wounded Zhou Yu at one time, forcing the enemy to retreat, and after learning the news, Cao Ren took advantage of the situation to fight, which could have become a key point to turn the tide of the war, but Zhou Yu is also the commander and understands it very well, so he ignored his own injuries, forcibly inspected the barracks, and finally stabilized the morale of the army, did not give Cao Ren a chance, and won the battle. After the capture of Jiangling, the Cao Cao group lost control of southern Jingzhou and was isolated north of the Yangtze River by the Sun-Liu alliance.