The Battle of Ruxu (217) pits Cao Cao’s advancing forces against Sun Quan’s troops at Ruxu, where the contest turns from a dispute over who should strike first into a crisis that leaves Sun Quan exposed in battle. Gan Ning’s hundred-horsemen raid supplies the campaign’s boldest surprise, but Zhou Tai’s repeated return to the fighting to bring Sun Quan and Xu Sheng to safety gives the episode its central measure of loyalty. Lu Xun’s arrival with a large force reverses the danger for Wu; neither side secures a decisive victory, and a month-long impasse ends in a truce.

Causes and Preparations

News reaches Sun Quan that Cao Cao has shifted his main forces from Hanzhong to Hefei. Sun Quan is gathering troops at Ruxu, and he has fifty warships prepared under Dong Xi and Xu Sheng, while Chen Wu patrols the riverbanks. The preparations establish the river and the approaches to Ruxu as the setting for a campaign shaped by movement, vigilance, and the question of when to engage.

Zhang Zhao argues that Cao Cao’s soldiers will be weary after travelling a great distance, making their arrival the best moment for an attack. Ling Tong offers to lead an opening strike with three thousand men. Gan Ning, his bitter rival, counters that he needs only a hundred horsemen. Sun Quan stops the quarrel that follows and sends Ling Tong with his three thousand to scout for Cao Cao’s advance party and engage it if found. The rivalry initially drives the argument over numbers and initiative, but it does not alter Sun Quan’s decision to send Ling Tong first.

The Hundred-Horsemen Raid

At the barrier at Ruxu, Cao Cao’s army is spotted, and Ling Tong rides out against it. He challenges Zhang Liao, and the two fight for many rounds without a victor. Sun Quan orders Ling Tong to return, leaving him dissatisfied with the result. Gan Ning then asks permission to make good on his claim. He promises that losing even one of his men will count as failure.

Gan Ning and his hundred set out in the middle of the night wearing white goose feathers in their helmets, a way to identify one another. They storm the enemy camp’s barricades, creating such confusion that Cao Cao’s men believe a much larger force is attacking. The raiders pass through the camp and leave by the south gate, returning to their own side without losing a man or horse. Sun Quan praises Gan Ning for the feat. The raid does not end the campaign, but it turns Gan Ning’s boast into an accomplished exploit—and intensifies the contrast between his success and Ling Tong’s earlier, inconclusive encounter.

Rivalry Turns to Rescue

The following day, Zhang Liao challenges Wu again. Ling Tong, spurred by Gan Ning’s success, fights Zhang Liao’s companion Yue Jin. After fifty bouts, neither has gained the advantage. Cao Cao secretly orders Cao Xiu to shoot at Ling Tong; the arrow brings down Ling Tong’s horse, and Yue Jin moves to attack him. An arrow from the Wu side strikes Yue Jin, bringing the confrontation to an end as soldiers from both sides rush forward to recover their own men.

Ling Tong later apologizes to Sun Quan for his failure. Sun Quan tells him that his life was saved by the arrow and reveals that Gan Ning fired it. The disclosure changes the relationship between the rivals: the old feud is put aside, and they become close companions. The episode makes Gan Ning’s contribution more than a successful raid. After competing with Ling Tong for the chance to attack, he protects the man whose failure he had welcomed.

Sun Quan’s Rescue and the Campaign’s Outcome

The fighting then widens dramatically. Cao Cao launches five forces against Ruxu. Wu troops sack one Wei camp, but a storm sinks a Wu ship with a senior commander and its crew aboard. Pang De confronts Chen Wu in the fighting near the Ruxu wall. Sun Quan rides out with Zhou Tai to assist Chen Wu, but the two become caught between Wei forces. Cao Cao recognizes the danger to Sun Quan and orders Xu Chu to attack; the assault divides Wu’s troops and leaves Sun Quan exposed.

Zhou Tai reaches the riverbank, realizes Sun Quan is not with him, and turns back into the fighting. He finds Sun Quan among the enemy and guides him toward safety, but at the shore discovers that they have been separated again. Zhou Tai returns once more, reaches Sun Quan, and urges him to go first while he covers the retreat. Sun Quan reaches a rescue boat as Zhou Tai protects him. Sun Quan later tells his men that without Zhou Tai returning three times, he would not have survived.

Sun Quan then asks where Xu Sheng is. Zhou Tai goes back again, finds Xu Sheng surrounded, and brings him out. Zhou Tai and Xu Sheng are both badly wounded, but they reach the rescue boat. The sequence extends Zhou Tai’s rescue beyond his lord: having brought Sun Quan to safety, he turns back to save another commander as well.

Just as Cao Cao’s men seem likely to overwhelm Wu, Lu Xun arrives with one hundred thousand men and drives them back. Wei suffers heavy losses, and Wu captures thousands of horses. The victory does not erase the loss of Chen Wu, whose body is found on the battlefield and whose death brings sorrow to Sun Quan. After a month without a decisive resolution, a truce is declared. Cao Cao withdraws to the capital, and Sun Quan returns to his base at Moling. The campaign ends through a negotiated pause rather than the destruction of either force.

Narrative Significance

The account builds the battle from sharply contrasting turns: Ling Tong’s inconclusive challenge, Gan Ning’s successful raid, their unexpected reconciliation, the sudden danger to Sun Quan, and the arrival of Lu Xun’s reinforcements. These reversals give the campaign its shape without reducing it to a single contest of strength. The hundred-horsemen raid makes initiative and surprise visible; the repeated rescue of Sun Quan makes personal loyalty decisive at the point when the larger forces have broken apart.

The episode also keeps victory and loss together. Wu drives Cao Cao’s men back and takes thousands of horses, yet Chen Wu is dead, and neither side wins a final decision. The truce and withdrawal close the battle without settling the larger rivalry between Cao Cao and Sun Quan. In the novel’s broader account of a fractured Han world, Ruxu is thus a local outcome with limits: the immediate threat recedes, but the contest between rising powers continues.