Battle of Red Cliffs 208
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 208 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Ancient (before 500) | derived from year |
| Location | China | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Three Kingdoms | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 29.8697, 113.6203 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Red Cliffs, also known as the Battle of Chibi, was a decisive naval battle in China that took place during the winter of 208–209 AD. It was fought on the Yangtze River between the forces of warlords controlling different parts of the country during the end of the Han dynasty. The allied forces of Sun Quan, Liu Bei, and Liu Qi based south of the Yangtze defeated the numerically superior forces of the northern warlord Cao Cao. By doing so, Liu Bei and Sun Quan prevented Cao Cao from conquering any lands south of the Yangtze, frustrating Cao Cao's efforts to reunify the territories formerly held by the Eastern Han dynasty.
The allied victory at Red Cliffs ensured the survival of Liu Bei and Sun Quan and left them in control of the Yangtze, establishing defensible frontiers that would later serve as the basis for the states of Shu Han and Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD). Historians have arrived at different conclusions in their attempts to reconstruct the timeline of events at Red Cliffs. The location of the battlefield itself remains a subject of debate: most scholars consider either a location southwest of present-day Wuhan, or a location northeast of Baqiu in present-day Yueyang, Hunan as plausible candidate sites for the battle.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Red Cliffs (revision 1370587339), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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