Citation Needed - Battle of Red Cliffs

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

The Battle of Red Cliffs, also known as the Battle of Chibi, was a decisive naval battle in the winter of AD 208–209 at the end of the Han dynasty, about twelve years prior to the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history.[4] The battle was fought between the allied forces of the southern warlords Sun Quan, Liu Bei, and Liu Qi against the numerically superior forces of the northern warlord Cao Cao. Liu Bei and Sun Quan frustrated Cao Cao's effort to conquer the land south of the Yangtze River and reunite the territory of the Eastern Han dynasty.

Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where you choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, a podcast where you choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts. Because this is the internet, that's how it works now. I'm Cisa and I'll be marshaling this motley crew of soldiers, so here they are, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, Heath, Eli, Noah, and Tom. I like that I'm the highest. Yeah, and I'm just glad that no one gave Noah the space force, because we would never give

him that. Patrons, you are a- Be tall that you can be. There it is. Patrons, you are a giant raft we have strapped ourselves to. That will make more sense later. Patrons, also get an opening sketch, and this week we learned yet another of Tom's alarm clocks So you should get in on that if you want to learn how to join their ranks be sure to stick around

Till the end of the show and with that away tell us Eli what person place thing concept phenomenon or event We'll be talking about today Well Cecil, we'll be talking about the battle of the Red Cliffs So Noah, why did you pick this topic? Well, to be honest, I was a little upset that Eli did a video game history episode last week, you know, with that kind of being my area of expertise. Sure. So I decided I was going to do an essay on one of his areas of expertise, but try as I might, I couldn't make taking a long shit or making pigeon noises into a full length essay.

That's fair. So I went with a disastrous military campaign instead. Yes, but like so many seeking to hurt me, Noah, your arrow strikes the heart of Cecil. So what was the Battle of Red Cliffs? It was a disastrous military campaign. Specifically, it was the defeat that kept Chinese unification from taking place in the early third century and led to the notorious

Three Kingdoms period of factional warfare. Lou Boo, motherfucker! Yes. Sorry, I've played every iteration of Died Steve Warriors in the last 25 years. It's literally the same game every time, and I do not care, I don't care. Cecil's the one. We found it.

We found the person. There are dozens of us. Dozens. All right. So we need to start with the Han Dynasty here because I feel like for most Americans it gets lost in the list of great ancient empires. But we're talking about an empire of 60 million people at its height that covered almost 9% of the world's land. That's about as many people as the Roman Empire at its height and covered almost 9% of the world's land.

That's about as many people as the Roman Empire at its height and more than twice as much land area. It lasted for over 400 years and covered pretty much all the parts of modern China that aren't barren desert. But by the early third century CE, it was starting to fall apart. You know, at first, no, I was trying to decide if this was a failure of our educational system or if it was just typical Western European centric educational racism. And then I tried to think of any other great ancient empires that weren't Rome. So then I thought, well, why not both? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It couldn't even come up with the Etruscans. Damn it. I said a great

Come up with the Etruscans. Damn it. I said a great empire. Not excellent pottery makers. Too far. Yeah. You don't have to worry about that. Right desk arrow anymore. Am I right?

No, the cause of the Han dynasty's fall is as much debated and speculated on as the fall of the Roman Empire. But one of the main causes or symptoms, depending on who you ask. Fluoride and lead in the water. Haven't heard that one yet, but I'm sure it's out there. No, I was going to say the emperor's court of eunuchs and the way they started to abuse their powers and seize ever more control of the government. Twelve of the most powerful eunuchs were known bafflingly as the ten attendants.

I'm really pretending to expertise in here. I don't understand so much of this story. They were notoriously corrupt though. And then they were blamed when a series of natural disasters and poor harvests stacked up. And that led to a peasant uprising called either the yellow turban rebellion or the yellow scarves rebellion. Just a swath of earthquake wreckage and I did that Joe Biden sticker on it

Are the two names because of a mistranslation or because of an outfit malfunction cuz I'm picturing a retreating army Repainting their sign, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, the whole thing came as a shock to everyone because no one thought those guys would have the balls to cause any trouble Now ultimately the Yellow Turbid Rebellion was put down, but it took 20 years. And to do it, the emperor had to turn a lot of power over to regional warlords. So by the end of the rebellion, he was emperor in name only. And the various regional warlords were the ones really running the show. And it was also during that rebellion that the two main combatants of the Battle of the Red Cliffs would come to prominence. One was a

general named Chow Chow, you'll occasionally hear it pronounced cow cow or sow sow. But I'm going to call it Chow Chow because that's the cutest of the translations that I've found. And another named Liu Bei, both of whom would go on to be among those regional warlords. Okay, if Leo Bay doesn't end up having a real life sky scorcher, I object to this entire essay. Thank you. See, Heath gets it. I do, Cecil.

I do. Cheers. Cheers, Heath. Cheers. Now, so this is reality. So there aren't good guys and bad guys. Or I'm sorry, there aren't good guys anyway. But the way this battle is pretty much always presented is that Liu Bei is the good guy and Cao Cao is the bad guy. And part of that, no doubt, is because Liu Bei won, but Cao Cao was

also the aggressor and he came from a very privileged background while Liu Bei came from, like, you know, kind of brought himself up from nothing. So Liu Bei is just the easier guy to root for as well. Oh yeah, yeah. Easier guy to root for. When trying to understand the ethical positions behind the players and complicated geopolitical events, we do have to ask ourselves, which side is most like the plot of Cool Runnings? Cool Runnings. Thank you.

Thank you, Shorthand. Exactly. Thank you, Tom, dozens of us. So at first there are eight of these regional warlords, but as soon as the peasants rebellion is put down and in some instances before it was all the way put down, the warlords turn on each other because they're warlords. It's right there in the fucking job description and nobody is warlording quite as warlordly as chow chow. in the fucking job description and nobody is warlording quite as warlordly as chow chow. Okay you think warlords call themselves warlords? Do they know? Probably

not. It feels like for people that's not very self-aware but I'd like to think they get there once in a while you know they're doing it and just like guys time I'm out. I'm out. Are we fucking warlords right now? That's bad, right? Now, like I said, this dude is generally portrayed as the bad guy in the conflict, and that's because he's a really bad guy. But he also had a sensitive side. He was, for example, a very influential poet. He was also really into falconry. He liked long walks on the beach. He was also a brilliant administrator and a gifted military tactician most of the time. There's one notable example and it's the one this essay is about, but mostly he was an encyclopedia of military tactics.

I fucking actually wrote an encyclopedia of military tactics. He also wrote one of the first known commentaries on Sun Tzu's art of war He was also and far be it for me to make fun of another language But he was also for at least part of his career the administrator of the dong Commendary, okay. I know this isn't what I should be joking about right now But I feel like falconry is your Falcons hobby not yours, right? It's not his hobby. Why the fuck does he keep coming back? Well, it feels like a king, right?

Like on both sides of that relationship. Okay. Yeah. That fucking glove. I gotta touch the glove. Put the mask on me. Put the mask on me. Exactly. Thank you. Right? Very sexual. And then we're just gonna let Don Commandery dangle there, huh?

Yeah, sorry. Apparently, yes. I got caught up on the Falcon thing. No one jumped on it. No one jumped on the Dong Commandery. I got caught up on the Falcon thing. No one said Dong and we just let that go for a second. That was crazy.

Yeah. It was fucking nuts. Insane. All right. So speaking of the Dong Commandery, we should probably acknowledge that Chao Chao was also a notorious cad. A well-known story has him infiltrating a wedding, molesting the bride, and then avoiding getting in trouble for it by blaming

it on a friend of his. By the end of his life, he would father no fewer than 32 legitimate children. And the fact that every source qualifies children with legitimate makes it clear that's a low ball numb, right? Now, of course, if you ask Cao Cao, he would tell you he wasn't a warlord. He would tell you, like all the other warlords were, that he was actually a loyal subject of the emperor that was just trying to bend all these other rogue warlords to the emperor's will. And he actually had more legitimacy when it came to that claim than many of his rivals, because he was one of the warlords who hadn't literally kidnapped the emperor. What? Yeah, at least two of the other warlords did exactly that at various points in this period. Okay.

Sounds like they didn't do it very well. Like they didn't really understand kidnapping. And now they're minor characters on Citation Needed, which is not going to work out. Yeah, you never want to be that. Well, so now they kidnapped him well, but other people would like kidnap him from his kidnappers. And speaking of which, the extent to which Chow Chow didn't kidnap the emperor is actually quite debatable because once Chow Chow

freed him from the warlord that had most recently kidnapped him, the emperor more or less just stayed with Chow Chow forever and always decreed whatever the fuck Cho Chao told him to decree. So his enemies would probably tell you the emperor had been kidnapped by Chao Chao. And the emperor would probably just tell you he picked the best guy to be kidnapped by and stuck with that. With his probably dubious claim to imperial legitimacy, Chao Chao set about consolidating as much power as he could, or as he would tell you, reunifying China for the emperor.

He first made an alliance with a rival named Yuan Shao. Then he took out a few smaller warlords with him and then turned against Yuan Shao once there was nobody left for him to ally. Just using Sun Tzu buzzwords the whole time. Offering everyone to Bitcoin. All right. Yeah, exactly. So the decisive victory against Yuan Shao came in 200 CE in Guangzhou.

And after that, Chao Chao had control over the entirety of northern China. Now at that point, he recommended to the emperor that he be made chancellor, which would effectively give him control of the entire imperial government. And the emperor told him whatever the fuck he wanted to be told, which in this case was yes. Hey, man, we can see the emperor didn't actually say anything and you just made your voice a little higher when you answered for him. Okay?

No, I didn't. I mean, no, I didn't. I did not do that. What? Fuck, that didn't make any sense. Now, of course, the rest of China isn't standing still while all of this is going on. Down south, the various states had coalesced into two main regions under the control of the aforementioned Liu Bei and a guy named Sun Quan.

Now at one point, Liu Bei had actually infiltrated the north on a mission to take out Cao Cao and return the emperor to his throne slash kidnap him differently. But that was unsuccessful and if anything, it just solidified Cao Cao's resolve to head south and take over the rest of China. Comes in the morning finds that someone ate all the corner pieces of the emperor. Oh, come on. So to take southern China, Chow Chow knew he was going to have to take the Yangtze River. This is the second of the two great rivers that run through China.

The other is the Yellow River. That one he already controls. That's in the north. But if you want to control southern China, you need to control commerce and you need to be able to communicate over this vast area. And if you want to do that, you have to control the Yangtze. And conveniently for Chao Chao, at around the same time that he's consolidating power in the North, the warlord that controls the key ocean ports of the Yangtze dies and leaves a power vacuum for him to expand into. Now, at the same time, Liu Bei,

who controls the land south of this power vacuum, he obviously also would like to move in and take over. And I've said a lot about Chow Chow, so I guess I should probably introduce this dude as well. Liu Bei was tall. Yeah. Yeah. But he probably had other qualities

that I'm sure he'd have preferred I'd led with, but mostly he's remembered for being tall I'm also I love this so much also for having ears so big that he could purportedly see them out of the corners of his Everyone listening to this is trying to see their ears out of the corner of their eyes right? right nine car accidents with Everyone yeah, we all did it. We all read that I tried just now turning my head real quick We all did it the first time we read that sentence and a bunch of people drive all this thing to this Now okay, so Sun Quan the the warlord who controls the Western Yang see he would also like the eastern half

So he's also pushing it to take control of the area, as is Liu Bei. But Cao Cao gets there firstest with the mostest and he sends both of his rivals into a hasty retreat, none hastier than Liu Bei, who's hauling ass southward, surrounded by refugees and being pursued by Cao Cao's elite cavalry. Eventually, his forces are surrounded and defeated at the Battle of Changben, but he escapes to the south with nothing but his life and a thirst for vengeance. Okay, so we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to see if Liu Bei actually does have a very particular set of skills, skills he acquired over a very

long career, skills that make him a nightmare for people like Sousou. Now I must warn you Lord Chow Chow, Liu Bei is known for his mastery of the art of war. I'm well aware of the danger my opponent poses. Do not worry. I shall not let him inside my mind. Excellent, my lord. Lord Liu Bei. Lord Chao Chao.

May I introduce my minister? A pleasure. This is my minister. Greetings. Now listen, my army outnumbers yours ten to one. If you... What are you doing? What?

I wasn't doing anything. Yes you were. You were going, meh meh meh meh meh. Well I was talking. What? No I wasn't. Yes you were! Lord Cao Cao, I am a general of his emperor's army, here to save China.

I do not have time for your childish game. No, you were the one doing childish game! Look, you're doing it right now! What are you talking about? You know what? Never mind. Get on all the horses. We're just going to run down here and kill this guy.

But, but my lord, the river! No, he did the meh meh meh thing while I was talking. Let's go Man you do that like every time it always works. Yep. It always works every time I can't believe you guys are celebrating my birthday this early. Very excited. Yeah, we want, we wanted to get it out of the way. I mean, I mean, we love you, man. Go on, get opening the stuff.

All right, cool. This one's from Eli. Thank you. Yeah. In advance. It's, uh, it's socks In advance. It's socks. Yeah. Yeah. Socks.

I hope you like them. Yeah. Sure. What is like socks? All right. Next up, we got one from Tom. Let's check this one out. Okay.

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first monthly shipment box of awesome.com code citation. All right. Well, I guess we'll try box of awesome next time. Why did you get me socks too? No, it's just a few years ago you were saying how much you wish more people could see your dad's art. So I called a bunch of museums near you and talked to your mom and they're going to do a mini exhibition about your dad this year. Oh, Ox of Awesome is like $35. Got it. Hey podcast listener, now that we're being sponsored by the folks over at Factor, we

thought we'd put our very own Chef de Cuisine's Cecil Something Italian up against their food to say who can make it better. That's right Noah. So what do you have planned for us Cecil? Well I'm going to make a sauteed turkey breast with a white wine and shallot reduction with palm puree. And can you do that in two minutes? Wait what? That's right. Every fresh never frozen meal from factor is chef crafted, dietitian approved and ready to eat in just two minutes. Okay well I'm going to need more than two minutes.

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I was actually a Factor customer even before they became a sponsor. I love that I can stop and start deliveries on my schedule and even send meals ahead when I'm on vacation. That's why I, Keith Henright, personally endorse Factor. I mean, it does sound good. It is good. Add to factormeals.com slash citation 50 and use the code citation 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next box. That's code citation 50 at factor meals dot

com slash citation 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next box while subscription is active. Alright well guess you win factor. So much for my turkey. Did someone say turkey eh? You have to stop man. You have to stop. You have to stop. We left off three different factions of insurrectionists were about to go head to head.

Can you tell us how they were all actually Antifa, Noah? All right. So Liu Bei is, he's defeated, he's demoralized, he's lost his army, and guess he can re-raise troops but he can't re-raise veterans. And even before the route, he couldn't put as many men in the field as Chao Chao could. So in addition to more troops, Liu Bei also needs an ally. And given Chao Chao's ruthless consolidation of the North,

that leaves him with really only one option, Sun Quan. So he sends his best emissary, Zhuge Liang, to Sun Quan in hopes of striking up an alliance. Hey, Sun Quan, you ever see Thelma and Louise? Such a great ending, am I right? Oh. Of course, Chow Chow predicts Liu Bei's move here and he sends his own emissary.

After all, Liu Bei is the stronger of the two opponents, so the divide and conquer strategy that won him so much in the North demands that he offer an alliance with the weaker of his two enemies. And Chow Chow has the luxury of not being in full military retreat at the time that he's enacting his plans so his guy gets to Sun Quan first. Dude you gotta stop saying synergy is winnergy you're the fucking worm.

Okay well forgive me for wanting to optimize our focal strategy to leverage key performance indicators across our brand. With an attitude like this, you're never going to be ready for the Warlord IPO meeting. Never. All right. So moving your cheese right now. All right. So, so Chow Chow's emissary presents his offer. Don't ally with Liu Bei, send a token force of troops along with me and I'll leave you alone afterwards. Super best friend, promise. And apparently they know that Liu Bei has an emissary on his way at this point. I don't know how maybe his emissary has like his own smaller faster emissary I don't know.

Anyway what follows is this legendary council where Sun Quan asks all his advisors what he should do and to a man they all say oh yeah no you should totally ally with with Chow Chow and do what he says. But then Sun Quan goes to take a shit and one of the guys follows him. Which is creepy, but you know, it's just the design of the story goes. The fact that this is written down somewhere is creepy. So once it was, he gets him away from the rest of the advisors. He says, look, all those guys are telling you what's best for them. If Chow Chow comes in here and deposes you, they still get to be assistant to the regional manager of whatever the fuck they are.

Now, you on the other hand, will be dead as all fuck. Yeah. And here's a bit more toilet paper. You missed a spot. Also eye contact or no eye contact. I'm an icon. So I'm going to start with that as a default. Are we not?

I'll see your eye contact and raise you holding hands Okay, let's do this then I want It's like you're on a roller coaster together amazing All right. So so based on that advice Sun Quan decides to at least wait around and hear Liang out So he gets there a couple days later and he's like, hey you guys should join us and then we can push this Northern invader out of our lands. And Sun Quan's like, well, right, but he's got the bigger army. And Liang is like, well, but we could put our armies together. And Quan's like, he would still have a bigger army. And Liang's like, right, but Liu Bei is such a better military commander than you, that he would get so much more out of

your army than you get, which surprisingly doesn't go over super well with Sun Quan. Yeah, it's like a more polite version of when people have tried to start an atheist podcast network. I get it. I get it. All right. If we take a bunch of smaller shows with niche overlapping audiences, we can combine them into one big space with the same niche overlapping audience.

Yeah. It can't not fail. Right? Don't say synergy. Winnergy. God, that rhymed. So sensing that maybe you should shift lanes, Liang explains that they can prevail and he explains why. And it comes down to logistics and experience.

Right? So keep in mind the area we're talking about here, basically it's the size of the U.S. Imagine you're an invading general, it's 208 BC. Your base of power is in Chicago and you're trying to do military operations in New Orleans. Okay, that's a hell of a supply line. As Liang is supposed to have famously equipped, even the most powerful arrow shot

from the most powerful bow by the most powerful archer can't pierce a single layer of silk at the end of its flight. Okay, Zhuge Liang its flight. Okay, here's the thing, man. All arrows that do damage do that at the end of their flight. They don't run out of energy and bob harmlessly through the air. Don't ally with the guy who used that metaphor. It's what I'm saying. Okay. Do you ever play frisbee golf? No? Okay. Do you ever do pocket sand? No, no, no. Yeah, very obscure fun fact here, but arrows have, and I'll give you all a minute to get a pen and paper, sharp tips. Right, but they're not moving at the end of the play. It's still a confusing med, then it's just on the ground. Noah's trying to defend this guy.

It's also when you try to throw a playing card and it starts fluttering all of a sudden. I feel like it's not like that though. We are all being purposefully obtuse for this too. I disagree. I think he's being obtuse with his metaphor. I bet someone did a single layer of silk if you're a liar. Stopped my heart. Airplane that can't run the air of silk. After it stopped. It's like, well, that's not about its potential. If you put a pole with a magnet, it would drag it. Now you're moving it a second

time. They just get somebody with one. Um, all right. So, but supply. So, set. Well, we'll set this one aside. We'll move on to the ad. So, there are two other crucial. This is the Mandela effect all over again. So, there are two other crucial advantages on Leo Bay's side. The first is that like New Orleans, the area they're trying to fight in is marshy as all hell.

And it's not a terrain that Chow Chow's men would be used to fighting on. What's more, Chow Chow has no real experience in river warfare. Now, he does have a navy and a damn good one at that. It's the one that he seized when he took over the dead warlords area around the Eastern Yangtze, but he didn't really know how to use it yet. And all of those advantages combined with the fact that Sun Quan had seen what Chow Chow did to his allies after he was done with them. That was enough to sway Sun Quan into joining Liu Bei. And apparently he took it out on the fucking furniture. There's a famous story about this where it was advisors

kept pushing them to surrender to Chow Chow. So he chopped the corner off of his desk and he yelled, anyone who dares argue for surrender will be the same as this desk. Right. And his employees were like, sorry boss I don't understand like you obviously mean violence but humans don't have corners so... I think he means dicks maybe? Yeah do you mean you're gonna cut off our dicks? Okay you know what let's do a timeout on metaphors just talk normal. What are you talking about? The sword's not moving now. What are you chopping? Am I supposed to be not afraid anymore?

What's the... If you cut off my dick, can I be one of your 10 advisors? So, all right, so... The thing with the arrows was crazy earlier. That didn't make any sense either. One of your 12 advisors. Just say what you mean. Now, estimates of Chao Chao's forces at this point vary wildly.

According to the emissary he sent to secure Sun Quan's surrender, he was marching at the head of 800,000 men. That's not correct. A more realistic number posted around 250,000. And that number actually may include non-combatants like Cooks and shit. It might not. Regardless, even the combined forces of Liu Bei

and Sun Quan were wildly outnumbered. At most- He's like Donald Trump trying to get bail. Wow. Yes. So at most Liu Bei had 50,000 men at his disposal, but crucially all the men he had were trained and experienced Marines. The only Marines that Chow Chow had were the ones he recently inherited and couldn't trust

their loyalty. Yeah. We have the same problem with US Marines on Discord these days. Yeah, really. Poof. So, okay. So once Liu Bei has his makeshift army, he has to supply them. And there's this one story that is definitely apocryphal. It doesn't even show up in the histories until like 200 years after this happens.

But it's one of my favorite stories in all of ancient history, so I have to include it. So the legend is, is that the army doesn't have enough arrows. So Xu Guiliang says, give me 20 ships and 500 bales of hay and I will return in three days time with a hundred thousand arrows. And Liu Bei is like, sure you don't need money or fucking feathers or anything? And he's like, nope, just boats and straw. Liu Bei is like, he's totally going to bail. He's going punch him in the face.

He comes back with 30 janky ass arrows just full of duct tape. Like all of me and Cecil's toys when we were kids. No good. He's just like, ah, no, no, no, I'm just fucking with you. I got a plan. I got a plan. Don't worry about it.

Noah's gonna explain my plan in a second. Just a whole forest full of newly naked porcupines. Just like, fuck you guys. We didn't even have a side in this. Yes. So, okay, so they set off down the river towards where Chow Chow's men are camped and they wait for it to get foggy. And then Zhugei takes his 20 boats out near the encampment and he has all these guys start beating war drums.

Now Chow Chow knows better than to pursue this mysterious forest into foggy waters and enemy territory. So instead of sending out his ships, he turns the archers loose at him, fires a hundred thousand arrows directly into the hay bales. The Juge is scattered all over the decks of the ship. So good synergy. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. So they go back and forth a few times. They yell out, thanks for the arrows. Possibly synergy is winner. I don't know. I didn't make it into the historical record. And then they head back to camp. Look out in the crow's nest.

It's just a human pin cushion. Really? Someone had told me a plan. No, it's cool. You nailed it, buddy. You nailed it. So many arrows. So, okay.

So Liu Bei has his army. He has his Navy. He has his arrows. and what does Chao Chao and his forces have? Fucking disease, because they're the ones in unfamiliar territory and unfamiliar mercy territory, which is replete with its own set of malarial infections, he said with a sore throat from the midst of America's largest black water swamp. And also- Where most people took hydroxychloroquine.

And also compounding this problem, none of the men he trusts are really all that comfortable on boats. They aren't really adept at rowing, which is, you know, something of a team sport. Also they get seasick if they have to spend significant time on the water. Okay, wait, wait. One of his generals, Z how done had an eye patch. Are you sure these weren't oath keepers? Was it self inflicted?

It'd be awesome if you carved his own eye with a scimitar. That's fucking amazing. Shoot himself in the face with an arrow. So yeah, it was an arrow though. Should have put one layer of silk over your eyeball. All right. So in hopes of combating the seasickness problem, Chow Chow hit on the brilliant idea of lashing all those boats together and then lashing that whole mass to the shore.

What? I have no idea why that would improve seasickness, but apparently it did. It did help, but it made the ships pretty much impossible to maneuver, which should be laughing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're a peer. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Defeats the purpose of having ships at all. It also meant that if one of the ships was to catch fire,

the whole fucking fleet would catch fire. But don't worry, because we'll put this long line of gunpowder along the whole boat to the exit so nobody gets lost So, okay So Liu Bei orders one of his divisional commanders to feign surrender and take a squadron of ships to the line Under the guise of switching allegiance now the right thing to do at this point According to the encyclopedia of military tactics that chow chow himself had written Would be to agree to meet this divisional commander at a neutral location where he could

surrender his ships in case, you know, this was all a ruse and they were actually filled stem to stern with Tinder. But for some fucking reason, Chow Chow was like, yeah, man, go ahead and join my side. Why don't you start by sailing your ships directly at mine at full speed? No, cool. Yeah, we got we're going to come in all like fast and then drift in. It looks super cool. Well, so, okay. So as the actual move would be to do the opposite of the thing that you wrote in your book because

that would trick them. That's what he did. So how'd that go? Yeah, not great. It went citation neededly. Got it. So, all right. So as these ships approached, Chow Chow did realize his mistake and possibly even before they set those boats on fire. But his ships were all lashed together. So

what the fuck was he going to do about it? The fire ship crashes into his Navy and pretty soon the whole damn thing is a place. Now he he still got an army, right? A huge army. It's on land. It's fine. And even with the near total loss of his Navy, he could probably still beat his enemy in a ground engagement if his army wasn't diseased and demoralized from marching all the fucking way from Chicago to New Orleans on foot. I'm sorry, but I feel like I missed something. Was the fire invisible? How did they not notice that from at least a pretty good distance away? Like did they think the fire might also surrender to join their side or? Could be. Yeah.

It's very confused. When we drift in, we're going to do a fire thing. Don't worry about it. It's just part, it's part of the whole. It's already be playing a guitar sitting there standing up front. It'll be really awesome. It's like how he explained to his soldiers when a fire is out, it has not the energy to burn even a single wick of a candle. We put one layer of silk over it. That's fine. Can't see it.

So with the boats burning in the background, Chow Chow's army scatters. And again, they're in a marshy area, so you generally can't scatter very quickly. No, Chao Chao did manage to scrape together enough of the people to cover his retreat, but he suffered heavy losses on the ground and even heavier losses on the river. In one of history's most lopsided victories, Liu Bei turned back Chao Chao's forces and ended his ambition of reunifying China altogether. He would never come south again. In fact,

in a PR movement to retain what cloudy could in the north, he started circulating an official story where he decided his men were too sick to fight. So he set fire to his own Navy and he just left in an organized retreat. Yeah. This is, this is known in military circles as the fine. I wanted to go to my room anyway. Please tell me there's a bunch of Chinese hicks with chow chow flags on their trucks talking about their heritage these days. Yeah, Eli, they're led by the daughters of Luberti. Nice. All right. So in reality, the retreat was anything but organized.

They had to retreat through marshland and they were plagued by heavy rains for the first couple of days. In one particularly chilling detail, they had a bunch of the sick soldiers, they gave them the job of carrying big bundles of grass to fill in the marshy spot so that the horses could walk over them and not get stuck like that fucking the horse in Never Ending Story. So hundreds of those guys. Our tax? Yeah, right. Really?

You're gonna bring up our tax right now? But like people got our tax here. Like hundreds of those guys drowned in the mud and or were trampled to death in this effort. In fact, Liu Bei's forces might've eliminated Chao Chao's army altogether, except his guys in Sun Quan started fighting over the limited number of fairies across the river. so they couldn't muster a large enough force in

time. Dude, share the control you're ruining this speed run right now. Oh man we can't go any faster until we figure out which one goes first the chick and the fox or the grain what? So okay so the battle so much as that it can even be called a battle was named for the most prominent geographical feature in the area where Chow Chow's Navy burned, the Red Cliffs that he was encamped under. And apparently today there's actually quite a bit of debate as to precisely where those titular cliffs are. And at least two of the claimants had painted real big, the Battle of the Red Cliffs definitely happened here. Signs up at their locations as though that's going to tip the balance

amongst historians. Just a plaque and one of Eli's shitty friends selling magic. They're made locally. I guess. Jesus Christ. This would go down as one of the most important battles in Chinese history. It would usher in what's known as the Three Kingdoms era and the lines of those kingdoms were essentially drawn that day with Cao Cao, Sun Quan, and Liu Bei's regions defining those borders that would persist for nearly a century. The battle would be immortalized in the 14th century novel

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is considered one of the greatest works in the history of Chinese literature. It would also be immortalized in a really expensive four-hour long John Woo movie with a decidedly less impressive artistic reputation. All right, if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be? Some Chinese generals should really stick to fried chicken dishes. You ready for the quiz? What John Woo movie is that? I don't know.

Is that real? Face-off are you ready for the quiz I am ready all right Noah what was the theme song for the Southern Generals Army Loubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaoubaouba That's it. That's all I got. No, that's all. There's more to that. There's more to that lyric for sure. You gotta keep. Louie Luat? That's a Louie Luay joke. We all. I did it.

Yup, I got it. You did. You're done with that part of your work for this week. All right. Well, what was the theme song for the Northern General's Army, Noah? Was it A, Yanksy Doodle Dan? Well, what was the theme song for the northern? generals army Noah was it a Yanksy doodle Danny

It's a Pretty fucking good, but it was good though Place an arrow into your pillow and the potential energy. Writing only one answer is my thing. It's my thing. It's whoever does it first. One person a week gets to be lazy. Sinner's case winner.

All right, fine. Well, what was the theme song for Sun Quan's army? A. God damn it. Why did he get stuck writing a pun with sun Quan is the answer. Let's try B. Carry on wayward sun Quan. Very good. Very good. That's a solid song. Like that one.

Fortunate sun Quan. Sun Quan of a preacher. E. Son of a preacher He son of a bitch There's definitely a son of a bitch Close it was god damn it. Why'd I get stuck writing a book? Yeah, Tom wins All right Cecil you should write. All right. Sounds good. All right. Well for Tom Eli Heathen Noah I'm Cecil thanking you for hanging out with us today We'll be back next week and by, I'm Cecil. Thanking you for hanging out with us today.

We'll be back next week. And by then, I will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, play Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires. It's really great. Great game. It is a great game. Eli has no idea he plays Depression Quest. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at Patreon.com

Live Depression Quest. Citation pod or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. If you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com. And then General, their archers said stop copying me. We were completely outfoxed.

There, there, man. There's nothing you could have done. Because they copied us first. I know soldier, I know.