Deciphering the Three Kingdoms: Judgment campaign and mysteries

A battle to win a strong victory always draws attention and countless questions: What has the weak side used to win? How did the strong side lose its advantage? However, from the historical and mysterious prerequisites to answer when talking about the Quan campaign, must it be "Vien Thieu is ten times stronger than Cao Cao"?

How much is the army?

In Tam Quoc Dien Nghia (TQDN), La Quan Trung said that the numbers of Vien-Cao are 70 thousand and 7 ten thousand respectively. A big difference: 10 times more, or in other words more than 630 thousand troops! This difference was enough to create a thought: "Vien Thieu did not need any intrigue, just push up his army, use the sea tactic, take 5 people in exchange for a network of Cao Cao's soldiers, as well. enough win ". But both in the TQDN and in fact, it did not happen, even the Army lost. Of course, Vien Thieu made some mistakes. But how big is the mistake to be enough to destroy such a terrible advantage? After all, what's wrong?

What is not true is the number of soldiers on both sides. The figure of 7 ten thousand - 70 ten thousand is completely fictional. Tran Tho and Bui Tung Chi, in the history of Tam Quoc Chi (TQC), in turn answered the actual number of issues of Cao Cao's two members. But the final answer is not simple.

Talk about Vien Thieu's troop first. Tran Tho in TQC - Vien Thieu tale wrote that Thieu's group had tens of thousands, then "fussy about taking tens of thousands of elite troops, ten thousand cavalrymen, preparing to hit Hua district". For this ten thousand figure, Bui Tung Chi, when he commented on TQC, quoted many other authors to compare and prove. Bui gave a book on the world language: "The army of the ten thousand Thieu, the thousands of thousands of thousands of soldiers" [1] . However, the number of fifty thousand infantry - eight thousand cavalry was suspected by another author, Ton Thinh. They reverted to TQC - Cui Diem story, that when Cao Cao finished Vien Thieu, when considering the civil status of Ky Chau, he told Thoi Diem that "there can be as many as thirty thousand people" [2]. Therefore, Ton Thinh said that, "Ky Chau's army was like that" (perhaps Ton Thinh took the ratio 1:10, and in thirty thousand people would recruit 30,000), including U Chau and Tinh Chau and Thanh Chau as well, Vien's soldiers were "right up to ten thousand troops".

This "ten thousand" number is also confirmed by a very reliable character - another Vien family member. It is Vien Thuat . TQC - Truong Pham's story told that Vien Thuat once told Truong Pham: "Now Cao Cong uses several thousand miserable soldiers against ten thousand soldiers, which can be said not to know the strength." [3]. Although he was far away from the battlefield, but was Vien Gia's number two character, Vien Thuot was sure to know Vien Thieu's force. Is it just that Vien Thuat knows Cao Cao's army?

Vien Thieu's force in Quan Quan campaign was only ten thousand, not 70,000 as in the novel.

More troops or more?

Yu-jing called Cao's army "a few thousands of miserable soldiers" , of course without hiding hatred and aversion (he and Cao Cao didn't like each other). So this few thousand numbers cannot be taken as a proper basis. But Tran Tho was somewhat sympathetic to Vien Cong Lo. In TQC - Vu De Ky, Tran wrote that Cao troops "were less than ten thousand", and still "wounded up to two-tenths" . If it was like the words of the warlord Vien and the historian of Tran, then the correlation Vien - Cao was not once again a 1 compared to 10? The data is clear, but there is a bad place.

Fortunately, we also have a historian of Bui. Bui Tung Chi rebutted the number "under ten thousand Cao Cao" through key points:

• Cao Cao, Cao Cao used to destroy the Yellow Scarf enemy in Thanh Chau, "collected more than thirty ten thousand troops" [4], in addition, the village counted a lot of land (Tu Chau, Nam Duong .). So even if the number of troops was lost in the process of war as well as having to divide and hold the places, it could not be down to four thousand, even less than less than ten thousand.
• Two , Vien Thieu had ten thousand troops , "stationed tens of miles long" [1], but Cao Cao could not only divide the enemy barracks, but also have enough troops to supply Xu Dong with a salvo. Army officer. If the number of troops is less than one thousand, it is certainly impossible to do these things, it is likely that the army of Cao troops must be approximately half of Vien soldiers.
• Three , the books all say that Cao Cao buried eighty thousand pieces of troops (some say seven thousand). Seven-eighty-five people standing in front of death, even without weapons, are just running away, it is not something that a few thousand troops can easily control, let alone seven-eighty-five people shouting loudly. against. So the army is certainly not less than four thousand.

Fifty thousand is a reasonable number of Cao troops.

Support for the viewpoint Bui Tung Chi also has two people in Cao's business.

The first one is Process . When Cao Cao lost Lu Bo in Bu Duong, Trinh Trong Duc encouraged Cao Cao C: "Nay Yan Chau is still crippled, there are only three cities, but soldiers can fight, not less than ten thousand people" [ 5]. Even when the most recent failure, only 3 cities left, the army would not be less than ten thousand. So when I regained the area of ​​Duc Chau and defeated Truong Tu, Lu Bo and Luu Be, I again expanded the geographical area. Many times (including Nam Duong, Tu Chau and Du Chau), Cao troops participated in fighting against Vien Thieu, which must be much more, maybe four or five times.

The second is Tuan Australia . When persuading Cao Cao to ignore Chau to go to Puyang to beat Lu Dad, Tuan Van Nhoc analyzed: "The shogun did not beat him, he could not rob anything, no more than ten days, then tens of thousands of troops had not fought yet. you bastard " [6]. Although this number of ten thousand may be exaggerated in order to persuade, Tuan Australia certainly could not exaggerate in front of Cao Cao - who knew the situation of the Army, who would not have a word from a thousand words. up to ten thousand.

Combining the analysis, it is possible to see five thousand as a reasonable number of troops.

The number of soldiers participating in Vien - Cao battle is actually 10 thousand battles of 50,000.

Thus, the mystery of numerical difference is clear.The Crusaders campaign is actually a confrontation between two forces that are not too isolated: ten thousand battles of ten thousand years . If taking into account the quality of the army - reflected in the quality, combat experience, discipline of the soldiers, the number of competent generals . which is what the army overpowered the army, the way This difference is even shorter.

With a force not too inferior, Cao Cao had a chance to defend himself, deploying tactical intentions to defeat Vien Thieu. What did he do?