Capture of Nanjun and Jingzhou

The capture of Nanjun and Jingzhou is a contest over more than a single city: by exploiting Cao Ren’s defensive maneuvers and Zhou Yu’s fixation on taking Nanjun, Kong Ming secures a chain of strategic positions for Xuande. Zhou Yu’s army wins hard-fought engagements but arrives too late to claim the prize; Zhao Zilong announces that Nanjun has already been taken, while Zhang Fei and Guan Yu seize Jingzhou and Xiangyang through diversions. The episode turns battlefield effort into a struggle over timing, information, and control of the routes and cities that sustain an army.

The contest for Nanjun

Zhou Yu’s advance begins amid overlapping campaigns. His forward party is defeated by Cao Ren’s troops, and the fighting soon shows that Yiling is crucial to Nanjun’s defense. Cao Ren sends men to hold it. When Gan Ning advances, the defenders come out to attack but are driven back; Gan Ning enters the town, only to find himself besieged by the northern forces. Zhou Yu marches to relieve him. Zhou Yu’s main army and Gan Ning’s troops defeat the besiegers, but the contest does not end there: as Zhou Yu turns back toward Nanjun, he meets another force sent by Cao Ren to assist at Yiling. Their engagement has no decisive result, and both commanders withdraw, exhausted.

Losing Yiling leaves Cao Ren in a precarious position. He opens a secret letter from Cao Cao and orders his men to prepare to abandon Nanjun at dawn, while leaving banners on the walls to create the appearance that the city remains fully defended. The false display is designed to shape what the opposing army believes before it reaches the gates. When the armies meet the next morning, Zhou Yu divides his forces and leads one part toward the city, while Cao Ren attacks from the north. The southern army presses the northern troops from two flanks; Cao Ren then retreats in apparent disorder instead of seeking refuge inside Nanjun. Zhou Yu follows him through the outer gate, committing himself to a route that seems to promise entry into the city.

The ambush and Zhou Yu’s retreat

Cao Ren’s retreat is a trap, not a collapse. Hidden above Nanjun’s inner gate, Chen Jiao waits until Zhou Yu’s troops have entered. At his command, the massed archers fire arrows and crossbow bolts into the advancing force. Zhou Yu is struck as he tries to escape. Xu Sheng and Ding Feng protect him from capture, while Ling Tong checks the northern troops’ attack on the fleeing soldiers with a courageous charge. The intervention prevents the retreat from becoming a complete rout. Cao Ren regains Nanjun, and Zhou Yu’s wounded and exhausted army returns to camp.

Zhou Yu is left seriously ill and in pain, so Cheng Pu counsels the troops to rest and avoid responding to provocation. One of Cao Ren’s commanders nevertheless rides out repeatedly to taunt them. Zhou Yu asks why his men have done nothing, and they initially try to conceal the challenge by claiming their own troops are training. His insistence on learning what is happening draws Cheng Pu to him, exposing how the army’s caution has been shaped by its commander’s condition. Meanwhile, Cao Ren interprets reports that Zhou Yu has died as an opportunity. When supposed deserters claim they have lost confidence in Cheng Pu, Cao Ren prepares a night raid, intending to take Zhou Yu’s body and strike at the enemy camp.

The night raid and the loss of the city

Cao Ren leaves Chen Jiao with only a few men to guard Nanjun and moves out under cover of darkness. At Zhou Yu’s camp, the open gate and apparently deserted grounds make his force hesitate. Their suspicion comes too late: an attack begins with bombardment and then closes in from multiple directions. Cao Ren’s force is destroyed. Cao Ren and Cao Hong escape with their guards, but Ling Tong attacks them as they flee, and Gan Ning’s men destroy most of the remaining troops. Cao Ren reaches Xiangyang, but his raid has failed and his army has suffered another severe defeat.

Zhou Yu and Cheng Pu then gather their troops and march on Nanjun, expecting the city to be within reach. Instead they see banners flying from its towers and hear Zhao Zilong announce that, on orders from above, he has already taken it. The announcement reverses the apparent outcome of the campaign: while Zhou Yu has fought to relieve Yiling, entered Cao Ren’s trap, and then survived a raid on his camp, Xuande’s forces have occupied the city he intended to capture. Zhou Yu responds with an immediate attack, but arrows drive his men back from the walls.

The wider capture of Jingzhou

Unable to take Nanjun directly, Zhou Yu consults his commanders. They propose sending troops to seize Gong’an and Xiangyang, cutting Zhao Zilong’s supplies before preparing a larger assault. But this plan rests on the assumption that those cities remain available to be taken. Kong Ming has already used a further diversion: the soldiers at Jingzhou were persuaded that they were needed elsewhere and left the city, allowing Zhang Fei to seize it. The same stratagem drew the defenders from Xiangyang, which Guan Yu has now captured. Nanjun, Jingzhou, and Xiangyang have therefore fallen through coordinated action rather than through Zhou Yu’s intended sequence of attacks.

The news that his plan has been outmaneuvered brings Zhou Yu to a crisis. On hearing that Zhang Fei and Guan Yu have taken the other cities, he cries out, and his wound opens again. The contest between Sun Quan and Xuande has taken a dramatic turn: Zhou Yu’s army has fought Cao Ren for Nanjun, but Xuande’s side has acquired the city and its neighboring strongholds by reading and redirecting the movements of both opponents. The capture establishes Kong Ming’s capacity to turn military pressure into territorial advantage, while leaving Zhou Yu with the cost of battle and the loss of the prize he sought.