Red Cliffs Contribution Ranking — Who Moved Victory and Defeat?

From Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Chapter 42 to Chapter 50

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5th Place: Lu Su

4th Place: Pang Tong

3rd Place: Zhuge Liang

2nd Place: Huang Gai

1st Place: Zhou Yu

Extra: Guan Yu

Conclusion

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5th Place: Lu Su

In fifth place is Lu Su. He is the man who made the foundation of the alliance. Lu Su was a senior minister of Jiangdong who served Sun Quan. When Liu Biao passed away, Lu Su traveled to Liu Bei, borrowing the name of condolences. It was to join hands with Liu Bei and to probe the situation in Jing Province. There he met Zhuge Liang and invited him to Jiangdong.

If Kongming had not crossed to Jiangdong, neither the audience with Sun Quan nor the war of words would have begun. Lu Su also had an old friendship with Zhou Yu, and when Zhou Yu returned, he welcomed him first of all. He explained the circumstances in detail and urged him to meet Kongming. And each time Zhou Yu harbored the intent to kill Kongming, he remonstrated against it.

He was the man who, many times, held back from within the crisis of the alliance collapsing. He also joined Zhou Yu's staff as Army-Advising Commandant. He has no showy stratagems. But without this man's mediation, the alliance itself would never have begun.

4th Place: Pang Tong

In fourth place is Pang Tong. He is the man who linked the ships with the Chained Ships Stratagem. Pang Tong, courtesy name Shiyuan. A man of talent, called the Fledgling Phoenix. What Pang Tong proposed was a way of linking the ships. Link the ships bow to stern with iron chains, and lay planks across. If thirty or fifty ships are made into one group, there is nothing to fear from wind or waves, he said.

Cao Cao was overjoyed and accepted this plan, because the northern soldiers, unaccustomed to the water, were suffering from the ships' rocking. The anchored fleet became as stable as flat land. But at the same time, it was a shape with no escape. Cheng Yu warned that if they received a fire attack, there would be nowhere to flee.

Cao Cao laughed and dismissed it. It is now midwinter; only west and north winds blow, he said. On his way back, Pang Tong's plan was seen through by Xu Shu. But Xu Shu, out of his debt to Liu Bei, silently let it pass. Pang Tong even taught Xu Shu a way to escape the fires of war. He was the man who, with a single move, changed Cao Cao's fleet itself into a shape the fire attack could reach.

3rd Place: Zhuge Liang

In third place is Zhuge Liang. What spread his name was the wind, but his real work lies elsewhere. The core of Kongming was his audience with Sun Quan. He raised the names of those destroyed by Cao Cao, and moved Sun Quan's heart to the side of fighting. Furthermore, before Zhou Yu, he spoke the names of the Two Qiaos.

Zhou Yu's wife is Xiao Qiao. Zhou Yu grew angry, and fixed his resolve to fight Cao Cao. Moving two hearts, the alliance was established. His work after that, too, worked unshowily. Borrowing Arrows with Straw Boats, in which he received 100,000 arrows from Cao Cao with straw boats. With Zhou Yu, they wrote the character for "fire" on each other's palms, and confirmed the policy of the fire attack with each other.

And the Seven Star Altar. It was an altar at which he professed to borrow the southeast wind in the middle of winter. In the third watch of the twentieth day of the eleventh month, the southeast wind rose greatly. However, let me say this honestly here. The wind itself can also be read as a turn of the seasons. Whether the prayer on the altar had power, the Romance does not assert either.

This is the most richly colored showcase the Romance gave to Kongming. Therefore, we place his rank here, as an evaluation of the diplomacy that established the alliance.

2nd Place: Huang Gai

In second place is Huang Gai. He was the executor who underwent the Stratagem of Self-Injury and led the fire ships. Huang Gai was a veteran general who had served the Sun house for three generations. It was Huang Gai himself who proposed the fire attack plan to Zhou Yu. And to the worry that there was no one to go on the feigned surrender, he answered: I will go. The Stratagem of Self-Injury begins.

To Huang Gai, who had advocated surrender, Zhou Yu pronounced that he would be cut down. By the pleas of those present, the punishment was reduced to the cane on the back. Huang Gai received a caning that split his skin. Those wounds themselves were the gift to Cao Cao. Cao Cao, seeing the cane wounds, half believed the surrender. On the night of the decisive battle.

Huang Gai stood at the head of twenty fire ships. The ships were loaded with dry brushwood and things like oil and gunpowder. Two li remained to Cao Cao's camp. The fire ships set their fires all at once. The fire ships, riding the wind, plunged like arrows into Cao Cao's fleet. Huang Gai took an arrow in the shoulder and fell into the water.

But Huang Gai, who was well versed in swimming, was pulled up by his allies and kept his life. With a blueprint alone, the fire does not reach. Only because there was an executor who made his own body the material of trust did it reach at last.

1st Place: Zhou Yu

In first place is Zhou Yu. He is the supreme commander of Red Cliffs. Zhou Yu was recalled from where he had been training the navy at Poyang Lake. In Jiangdong, the debate was split over whether to surrender or to fight. Zhou Yu read out the inside circumstances of Cao Cao's army, one by one. The million in the letter is a paper number, he said.

The main force is 150,000 to 160,000, and the surrendered soldiers have not yet submitted in their hearts either. The northern soldiers do not know naval warfare. In the bitter winter cold, the horses' fodder will also run out. Many of the soldiers who have come from far away fall ill, not acclimating to the water and soil. With 50,000 soldiers, they can be broken. So Zhou Yu declared. Sun Quan cut off the corner of his desk with his sword and declared the decisive battle.

From there on, the design of the battle all proceeded by Zhou Yu's hands. He sealed Jiang Gan's mouth, and by a forged letter had the two commanders of the navy disposed of by Cao Cao himself. He deliberately welcomed feigned defectors and used them as conduits through which information flowed. On the night of the decisive battle, he sent six units far ahead first, and lined up the battle ships behind the fire ships.

Han Dang and Huang Gai, Jiang Qin and Zhou Tai. At the head of the four units, he placed the fire ships. The decisions of tactics, the placement of men, and the reading of the enemy's moves were all contained within a single person. A poem composed after Red Cliffs remains this way: Zhou Lang, here, broke Lord Cao. His caliber as a general drew a line apart from the other four.

Extra: Guan Yu

An extra. Guan Yu. In a sense, he is the greatest contributor — to Cao Cao's side. The one entrusted with the ambush on the Huarong Road, along which Cao Cao was retreating, was Guan Yu. Kongming hesitated, because he read that Guan Yu would surely let him go. Guan Yu set up a written pledge that he would follow the army's rules, and went out.

The exhausted Cao Cao appeared, and brought up the favor of old. Guan Yu was a man who had already repaid the favor by cutting down Yan Liang and Wen Chou. Even so, by the weight of righteousness, his heart was moved. Guan Yu turned his horse around and let Cao's army pass. Kongming, observing the turning of the stars, saw that Cao Cao was not yet fated to die.

That Guan Yu would be made to show mercy was also within his reading. Even though the direction of the contribution is reversed, this man's single move saved Cao Cao's life.

Conclusion

Let us line up the five. Lu Su opened the door of the alliance. Pang Tong changed the enemy's fleet into a shape the fire could reach. Zhuge Liang moved two hearts and established the alliance. Huang Gai staked his body and delivered the fire into the enemy's breast. Zhou Yu bound all of it together and designed the whole of the battle.

By the night the fire rose, the shape of victory and defeat was already decided. Red Cliffs was a battle whose shape of contest was decided before the fighting. The measure of this ranking, incidentally, is the size of the influence on victory and defeat. It is not measured by strength in arms. Please write your own ranking in the comments as well.