The Battle of Xiangfan I personally took Guan Yu's flooding of the Seventh Army and Lü Meng's attack on Nanjun as the dividing point, and divided this large-scale battle into three stages.

【Early Stage】

The early stage of the Battle of Xiangfan was mainly the confrontation between Guan Yu, Cao Ren and Yu Ban, and the time was from Guan Yu's crusade against Cao Ren to the outbreak of the Han River, and Guan Yu flooded the Seventh Army.

Earlier, Cao Cao ordered Cao Ren to lead his troops south to attack Guan Yu in Jingzhou at the same time as the Battle of Hanzhong, on the one hand, to share the pressure on Cao's army in Hanzhong, and on the other hand, to try to seize Nanjun and other places.

But when Cao Ren was making preparations for going south, Wancheng in the rear rebelled because of the increased burden of conscription, and Cao Ren failed to go south in time to crusade against Guan Yu because of the quelling of the rebellion, but gave Guan Yu a lot of time to prepare, but was defeated by Guan Yu, and Cao Cao learned that Guan Yu sent troops to support Cao Ren in time.

Because Guan Yu had fewer troops and crossed Xiangyang to attack directly, Cao Ren only left a small number of troops to garrison Fancheng, and let Pang De and other generals garrison outside the city with a large army.

It is estimated that Guan Yu's total strength at that time should be about 30,000, but there are quite a number of naval troops among them, and Cao Ren's total strength in Xiangyang and Fancheng is more than 60,000, and his strength is obviously stronger than Guan Yu, so Guan Yu suffered a lot of losses from Pang De in the early battle.

However, after the Han River swelled, Guan Yu may have sent people to break the embankment and cause flooding, and the city defenses of Fancheng and Xiangyang suffered great losses, and Yu Ban and Pang De's large troops outside the city were directly annihilated, while Guan Yu relied on the advantage of the water army to lose nothing, and captured at least 30,000 prisoners. In this battle, Guan Yu's reputation was greatly enhanced, and all parts of the south of Xuchang revolted to echo Guan Yu.

However, Cao Ren, Man Chong and others firmly defended Fancheng, and Guan Yu himself did not have a lot of troops, so he failed to take Xiangyang and Fancheng at the first time.

[Medium-term]

The middle of the Battle of Xiangfan was mainly a confrontation between Guan Yu and Xu Huang and Cao Ren, from the time when the Forbidden Seventh Army was flooded until Lü Meng captured the southern county behind Guan Yu, Guan Yu was forced to retreat.

After Cao Cao learned of the fiasco on the front line, although he immediately asked Xu Huang to rescue Cao Ren, the initial results were not obvious, because the elite troops in the Xiangfan area had been concentrated by Cao Ren in the Fancheng area earlier and were ready to go south to attack Guan Yu, even if there were those left behind, they were taken away by Yu Ban to support Cao Ren, at this time, there were basically only some second-line troops or simply recruits near Xiangfan, and the number was not strong. Gather strength first.

Guan Yu was eager to break through Fancheng because of the deception of Lu Meng, Lu Xun and others, and could not get the support of Shangyong Liu Feng and others, so he transferred the troops that were originally stationed in Jingzhou to guard against Sun Quan, and may have expanded his troops after seizing Sun Quan's military rations, and added some new recruits or surrendered troops.

In this way, the strength of Xu Huang and Guan Yu is actually increasing, and in the later stage, the strength in Guan Yu's hands should have reached more than 50,000 in addition to the loss, and the total strength of Xu Huang and Cao Ren is almost this number, not counting Zhang Liao and other generals who have not yet arrived.

In the later period, because of the continuous support of the Cao army, Guan Yu was finally unable to surround Fancheng, and the encirclement was broken by Xu Huang, but Guan Yu still used the advantage of the navy to block the road to Xiangyang of the Cao army. In the end, Guan Yu learned that his lair had fallen and had to retreat. Xiangfan then completely broke the siege, and Cao Ren and others hoped that Guan Yu and Sun Quan would fight among themselves, so they did not pursue Guan Yu, so Guan Yu's strength was still very strong when he retreated.

[Late]

In the later stage of the Battle of Xiangfan, it was mainly the confrontation between Guan Yu and Sun Quan, Lü Meng and others, from Guan Yu's return to Nanjun until Guan Yu's defeat and killing.

Sun Quan, Lü Meng and others made a lot of plans to defeat Guan Yu and seize Jingzhou, Lü Meng first returned to Jiangdong with a fake illness to reduce Guan Yu's defense of Jiangdong, and Lu Xun temporarily took the throne to leave Guan Yu with a weak and bullying impression, which made Guan Yu's wariness of Jiangdong to the minimum, Guan Yu dared to transfer the troops originally stationed in Jingzhou and was unwilling to believe that Sun Quan's troops were directly related to this.

Sun Quan and others can be said to have made complete preparations in order to capture Jingzhou, they first pretended to be traders to destroy Guan Yu's outpost, and then took advantage of the emptiness of Nanjun to persuade Mi Fang, Dr. Ren and other generals who were already contradictory to Guan Yu, easily occupied Guan Yu's lair, and took the attack as the first priority, easily destroyed Guan Yu's army, and finally captured it.

Although Lü Meng and others fought very smoothly in this battle, it does not mean that the army they used will be less, because Lü Meng, Lu Xun and others must have considered the worst situation before crusading against Guan Yu, that is, Jiangdong failed to defeat Jiangling and public security in time, Guan Yu has returned to Nanjun, and the troops in Guan Yu's hands in the late stage of the Battle of Xiangfan are still quite strong, and the troops mobilized by Lü Meng and others should be more than 50,000, otherwise they will go deep into Guan Yu's own formation, once Guan Yu returns in time, the risk will be too high.

【Scale and significance】

In history, the Battle of Xiangfan was quite large because the three major forces at that time, Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan were involved. The total number of troops invested in the Cao Wei group is more than 100,000, and if you count Zhang Liao and others who have not yet arrived, there is a small probability that they may be close to 200,000. Among them, the important generals who directly participated included Cao Ren, Yu Ban, Pang De, Xu Huang, Man Chong, Zhao Yan and other six generals, and the indirect participants also included Cao Cao, Sima Yi, Zhang Liao, etc., which can be said to bring together the elite of Cao Wei.

After Sun Quan dispatched, the troops sent to capture Jingzhou were almost more than 50,000, among which the combination of Lü Meng and Lu Xun could also be said to be the strongest combination of generals in Jiangdong at that time, and Lü Meng had a Yu Fu by his side, and other generals such as Jiang Qin and Sun Jiao.

Guan Yu also had 50,000 troops when he was the strongest on the Xiangfan front, but it was much shabby in other aspects, Liu Bei only left Guan Yu as a general in Jingzhou, and the others except Mi Fang basically did not record in the previous historical materials, such as Dr. Ren, Zhao Lei, etc., if it were not for this war, no one would know their names, and they did not give Guan Yu enough help and support in history.

Adding up, the total number of troops invested by the three parties in the Battle of Xiangfan was 200,000, and the famous generals and commanders also reached double digits, and their scale was almost the same as the Battle of Guandu and the Battle of Chibi.

At the same time, the Battle of Xiangfan also has an important historical significance, as it marked the official rupture of the Sun-Liu Alliance, which changed the territory between Liu Bei and Sun Quan, and had a profound impact on later generations.