Han Sui

Han Sui is a military leader in the coalition opposing Cao Cao in the northwest. His relationship with Ma Chao becomes the focus of Cao Cao’s strategy: by turning suspicion into distrust, Cao Cao breaks the alliance from within and draws Han Sui into his service. Han Sui’s change of allegiance is not presented as a settled triumph; it leaves him exposed to Ma Chao’s anger and contributes to the disorder that allows Cao Cao’s forces to press their advantage.

Position in the Campaign

Cao Cao’s struggle with Ma Chao unfolds amid a series of direct assaults, defensive preparations, and shifting plans. After escaping danger on the river, Cao Cao orders pits dug and concealed with branches along the northern shore, hoping to disrupt a cavalry attack. Ma Chao responds by sending Pang De and Han Sui forward with fifty thousand men. The concealed pits catch Pang De’s cavalry, but Pang De manages to get out and bring Han Sui to safety. Ma Chao then rescues his army before it is overwhelmed.

The encounter establishes the military pressure surrounding Han Sui before Cao Cao turns to political deception. Ma Chao’s camp is strong enough to renew its attacks, and Cao Cao’s position remains contested. After a duel between Ma Chao and Xu Chu ends without a victor and their forces join battle, Cao Cao is driven back to his fortified camp. Later, Cao Cao establishes a camp on the west bank, placing Ma Chao under pressure from two directions. Han Sui is among the officers who advise Ma Chao to seek a truce for the winter. Their appeal for a pause gives Cao Cao an opening to target the alliance’s internal trust.

Cao Cao’s Attempt to Divide the Alliance

Cao Cao accepts the proposed truce, while his adviser Jia Xu recommends using the interval to set Ma Chao and Han Sui against each other. Cao Cao approaches Han Sui directly, meeting him without attendants and talking for hours about earlier times, their families, and growing old. The conversation is described as harmless, but Cao Cao repeatedly laughs, making the meeting conspicuous. Ma Chao hears about it and asks Han Sui what happened. Han Sui explains that they spoke about the past, but Ma Chao remains suspicious.

Cao Cao and Jia Xu then exploit that suspicion with a letter deliberately altered by crossings-out, scratched passages, and rewritten words. The apparent damage gives Ma Chao reason to imagine that Han Sui has changed the message to conceal its meaning. When Ma Chao demands to inspect the letter, he accuses Han Sui of plotting to betray him. Han Sui denies the charge and proposes a way to prove his loyalty: he will meet Cao Cao, while Ma Chao waits to attack at a signal. The plan appears to place Han Sui in danger on Ma Chao’s behalf, but the distrust has already made his assurances difficult to credit.

Rupture and Defection

The next day, Han Sui asks Cao Cao to meet again. Before Cao Cao arrives, Cao Hong rides up and loudly tells Han Sui that the prime minister wants to reassure him after what he said the previous night. The remark is staged for Ma Chao to overhear. Ma Chao reacts furiously and rides at Han Sui with his lance lowered; others intervene, and Han Sui again insists that he is innocent. Ma Chao rides away determined on revenge.

With Ma Chao no longer willing to trust him, Han Sui accepts the course urged by his friends: he secretly enters Cao Cao’s service while continuing to live in Ma Chao’s camp. Five other officers join him, and they agree to attack Ma Chao on a signal. The arrangement is therefore both a defection and a covert plot within the opposing camp. It does not remain secret. Ma Chao learns of the agreement and confronts Han Sui and the other conspirators in Han Sui’s tent. Ma Chao’s attack on the group is interrupted when attendants get Han Sui away to safety; Cao Cao’s troops then join the fighting, while distrust and discord spread through Ma Chao’s forces.

Outcome and Narrative Role

The immediate outcome is Ma Chao’s retreat under pressure. He takes a defensive position by the Wei bridge with a small body of loyal men, but Cao Cao’s larger force drives him back. Pang De and Ma Dai rescue him, and he escapes with only a handful of followers. Cao Cao rewards Han Sui and the surviving conspirators, then returns with his army to Chang’an. There, Yang Fu urges him to deal with Ma Chao before turning to other matters; Cao Cao assigns Yang Fu to pursue the campaign.

Han Sui’s role is consequential but tightly bounded by the account: he begins as an officer advising a winter truce, becomes the object of a deliberate effort to provoke Ma Chao’s suspicion, and ends as a secret adherent of Cao Cao. The shift does not resolve the military contest by itself. Instead, it helps turn an alliance already under pressure into open internal conflict, giving Cao Cao an opportunity to reward defectors and withdraw with the initiative. The episode presents deception not as a single trick but as a sequence: a conspicuous private meeting, a corrupted letter, and a calculated remark overheard at the crucial moment. Each step makes Han Sui’s position harder to defend, until his former ally treats suspicion as proof.