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The Battle of Red Cliffs is part of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is a historical novel written by Luo Guanzhong (Luo, Roberts and Luo). The stories tell of the years at the end of the reign of the Han Dynasty and the period of the Three Kingdoms starting in 169-280 (Gutenberg). The story is one that contains elements of history, mythology and legend. Even though there are hundreds of characters in the story, the story primarily focuses on Cao Wei, Shu Han and Eastern Wu and the struggles of these states to gain dominance (Luo, Roberts and Luo). These stories existed in the oral tradition before being written down by Luo Guanzhong.
Guanzhong who lived between1315-1400 was a playwright (Luo, Roberts and Luo). He compiled a number of historical plays during the Yuan period. Some scholar’s suspect that Guanzhong was actively against the Mongols (Luo, Roberts and Luo). This is because he does not seem to have much sympathy for the peasant rebels who are at court (Luo, Roberts and Luo). There are also some scholars who believe that Guanzhong was not responsible for the stories and that they were written in the 15th century (Gutenberg).. Whoever was responsible spoke of many historical events and historical records such as the Records of the Three Kingdoms which was written by Chen Shou and covered the time period between 184-280 (Gutenberg). The story I will be looking at is the Battle of Red Cliffs.
In the Battle of Red Cliffs, Cao Cao has been appointed chancellor. He had united central and northern China and is leading his army of 800,000 soldiers south to attack Liu Bei ("The Battle of Red Cliffs"). His intent is to remove his rivals and to unite all of China. Liu Bei defeats him twice before ultimately losing the county. Liu Bei than takes the members of his cause and journeys farther south arriving at Jianxia (Luo, Roberts and Luo). Liu Bei then proceeds to send Zhuge Liang to meet Sun Quan to discuss joining forces in order to defeat Cao Cao. Sun Quan agrees to this and makes Zhou Yu the commander of his army (Luo, Roberts and Luo). Zhuge Liang stays in Wu in order to assist Zhou Yu. Zhou Yu who feels that Zhuge Liang is destined to become a threat to Wu in the future tries to kill him numerous times, but each attempt fails. The forces of Sun-Liu defeat Cao Cao at the Battle of the Red Cliffs (Luo, Roberts and Luo).
The battle at Red Cliff takes place in 208 ("The Battle of Red Cliffs"). The battle is between the unified kingdoms of Shu under the leadership of Liu Bei and the Kingdom of Wu under the leadership of Sun Quan. The have united to battle the northern kingdom of Wei, which is led by Cao Cao. When they finally meet up with Cao Cao. Both the Wu and the Shu kingdoms have ascertained that despite the size of Cao Cao’s army, he has an unstable rear. They used this knowledge in defeating his army. This was necessary as they only had a combined total of 50, 000 soldiers ("The Battle of Red Cliffs"). This is obviously an underdog scenario, reminiscent of the Battle of Thermopylae. Stories such as these are important for strengthening national pride and also for rallying one’s country in time of battle. They are also just good stories of the virtuous hero defeating the evil villain, despite the adversity that they faced. The Battle of Red Cliff is the latter.
The 50,000 man army led by the Wu and Shu leaders are able to defeat Cao Cao’s army because many of his men are suffering from seasickness ("The Battle of Red Cliffs"). They also have no experience fighting on the water. Cao Cao would have his men chain themselves together ("The Battle of Red Cliffs"). Zhou Yu pretended to surrender to Cao Cao and once he was able to get close enough to Cao Cao’s ships, he proceeded to attack him with cannons ("The Battle of Red Cliffs"). This essentially destroyed all of Cao Cao’s ships as they all burned in the ocean. Zhou Yu took the opportunity that was given to him and chased the Cao army defeating them ("The Battle of Red Cliffs"). This resulted in Cao Cao and the remaining members of his army being forced to flee.
This was a strong literary example of not only the underdog scenario, which was explained above. It is also an example of “breaking the haughty” Cao Cao seems destined to win the battle as he has over ten times the amount of men as Sun Quan and Liu Bei. This certainty is what will cause him to lose because he does not see it useful to fight a battle with wits. Instead he believes that the sheer size of his troops will be enough to win, but he does not take into consideration the elements or illness. Due to this he loses not only the battle, but also he seems to take a serious blow to his ego when he is left running away with the remnants of his troops.
After Cao Cao’s defeat Liu Bei and Sun Quan begin fighting over control of the Jing Province. Liu Bei ultimately wins. Sun Quan who is unhappy with his defeat sends a messenger asking Liu Bei to return the Jing Province to him. Liu Bei continually dismissed sun Quan’s messengers with various excuses. Sun Quan who is determined to regain the province allies with Zhou Yu. They plan on tricking Liu Bei into marrying Zhou Yu’s sister Lady Shun. After which they plan to hold Liu Bei hostage until he agrees to give them the Jing Province. They plan fails and the couple returns to the Jing Province without much of an issue. Cao Cao died in 220 and his son Pi Cao took over. In 316 invaders conquered North China and the southern Chinese reacted by setting up a dynasty. In 589 one of the military leaders from the southern dynasty united both the Northern and Southern Dynasties under the name of Sui.
Some of the literary devices used in the Battle of Red Cliffs are the staged dialogue. The Author also used metaphors in order to draw the attention of the reader. One example of this is "Screens, decorated with feathers,/Divide the space inside/Bamboo fences and fragrant flowers/Define the space outside (Gutenberg).
Other aspects of the story are the quintessential hero/ villain literary device. This sets in motion the rise and later fall of the hero Liu Bei which leads him to find the hero minister Zhuge Liang. The villain Cao Cao who represents the injustices of the government of the time. The use of Buddhist principles and teaching are seen pretty strongly throughout the book. In the beginning of the story Luo Guanzhong states "It is a general truism of this world that anything long divided will surely unite, and anything long united will surely divide" (Gutenberg). This not only shows Buddhist influences on the book, but it also tells the reader what the end game was for Guanzhong. He seems to want the feuding regions of China to unite under one government.
The book also uses the journey motif in that Liu Bei travels south in order to get help in defeating Cao Cao. According to Critical Essays on Chinese Fiction “the journey is never merely a passage through space, but rather an expression of the urgent desire for discovery and change that underlies the actual movement and experience of traveling” (Yang and Adkins). This is something that the reader can see throughout the book. Liu Bei is not just acting against Cao Cao because he wants to gain power. He desires change from the villainous rule of Cao Cao.
The Battle of Red Cliffs also seems to use Yuefu, this was a popular way for officials to determine the will and temperament of the people. Telling this story could have allowed rulers to get a sense of both the common people’s desires as well as allowing them to see the reactions of their compatriots. There is also the possibility that the Battle of Red Cliffs did not use Yuefu, but Shi. Shi is a companion to Yuefu, but it is a poem that is done in first person. The both touch on certain aspects such as separation/ longing, illusion, and impermanence. Cao Cao wrote one such poems before going to fight at Red Cliff, it was named “The Bitter Cold”
Works Cited
Gutenberg, Project. "Romance Of The Three Kingdoms | Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing - Ebooks | Read Ebooks Online". Gutenberg.us. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
Luo, Guanzhong, Moss Roberts, and Guanzhong Luo. San Guo Yan Yi. Print.
"The Battle Of Red Cliffs". Cultural-china.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
Yang, Winston L. Y, and Curtis P Adkins. Critical Essays On Chinese Fiction. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1980. Print.
