The Battle of Hefei (215) is a campaign of diversion, a brief seizure of a strategically useful supply point, and a sudden reversal at the Xiaoshi bridge. Xuande’s cession of part of Jingzhou is intended to draw Cao Cao away from the west by prompting Sun Quan to attack Hefei; instead, Zhang Liao’s counterstroke turns Sun Quan’s advance into a costly retreat. Sun Quan survives by leaping a destroyed bridge, and the battle ends with both sides preparing for a renewed contest at Ruxu.

Strategic Background

After Xuande receives news in Shu, he fears that Cao Cao will turn against him next. Kong Ming proposes using territory as leverage: if Xuande returns half of Jingzhou to Sun Quan, Wu may be encouraged to attack Hefei, where Cao Cao keeps troops to deter Sun Quan. The purpose is not simply to yield land, but to redirect Cao Cao’s attention and create pressure on a different front.

Sun Quan accepts the proposal despite the doubts of some advisers. Lu Su goes to take possession of the ceded territory, while Sun Quan, Ling Tong, and other commanders set out against Hefei. Their initial movements take them through the border town of Hezhou and on toward Huan, a major rice-growing area where Cao Cao’s provisions are stored. Because Cao Cao’s troops at Hefei rely on supplies from Huan, seizing it offers an immediate military advantage as well as a way to disrupt the enemy’s provisions.

Huan and the Fracture Within Wu

Sun Quan’s forces take Huan by surprise. The capture is followed by a victory banquet, but celebration exposes a conflict within the army: Ling Tong cannot bear to see Gan Ning praised, because Gan Ning killed Ling Tong’s father. Ling Tong rises, and within moments the two men face one another ready to fight. Lü Meng intervenes, and Sun Quan reprimands them before the dispute can become an armed clash.

The episode brings together two pressures on the campaign. Wu has seized a useful supply center, yet personal enmity threatens cohesion even as its forces prepare to confront Cao Cao’s garrison. Ling Tong takes Sun Quan’s reprimand badly. His unresolved grievance will become more consequential once Zhang Liao’s attack forces him to choose between his own survival and protecting his ruler.

Zhang Liao’s Counterattack

At Hefei, Cao Cao’s officers debate whether to leave the city and fight or remain behind its walls. Zhang Liao’s decision is to attack. A key part of the plan is to destroy the Xiaoshi bridge, making the crossing a danger to Sun Quan’s advancing force and shaping the retreat before the assault unfolds.

Sun Quan’s men initially succeed, but Zhang Liao then attacks. Sun Quan is caught in the counterstroke with Ling Tong beside him and only about three hundred riders available to resist. As two thousand enemy cavalry bear down on them, Ling Tong urges Sun Quan to cross the Xiaoshi bridge quickly. The bridge’s far end has already been destroyed. Sun Quan hesitates, but one of his men tells him to ride back and leap the gap. He retreats thirty paces, turns, and drives his horse forward; horse and rider clear the opening and land on the far bank.

Ling Tong loses all three hundred of his men, though he survives. The losses elsewhere on the battlefield are so severe that, according to the narrative, Zhang Liao’s name is used for years afterward to frighten children in Wu. The bridge’s destruction thus becomes more than a device in the fighting: it turns a retreat into a test of whether Sun Quan can escape at all, while leaving Ling Tong alive but bereft of his force.

Retreat and Renewed Campaign

Sun Quan and the survivors return to camp, pack up, and move toward the port at Ruxu to plan another assault by land and sea and find reinforcements. The capture of Huan has not secured Hefei, and the costly reverse forces Wu to reorganize rather than continue its immediate advance.

Zhang Liao, concerned that Sun Quan may attack again, writes to Cao Cao for help. Cao Cao weighs pressing west against Shu against going south to defend Hefei and attack Wu. His advisers favor reinforcing Zhang Liao and moving against Wu, judging western Shu too strongly defended at that point. Cao Cao accordingly summons his troops and marches toward Ruxu to confront Sun Quan. The battle therefore closes not with a lasting settlement, but with the threatened second campaign already taking shape: Sun Quan regroups by the river, and Cao Cao comes south to meet him.