Hefei

Hefei is a strategic city in the contest between Sun Quan and Cao Cao’s forces. Its role in the narrative is defined by a failed southern attack: Zhang Liao protects the city by identifying an apparent uprising as an enemy stratagem and then turning the signal against the attackers. The defeat forces Sun Quan to retreat, while the story makes Hefei a place where misleading intelligence, defensive judgment, and the hazards of a bold advance determine the outcome.

Position in the Campaign

Hefei appears within the wider struggle among the emerging kingdoms. The book describes the Three Kingdoms as powers carved from the failing Han realm, with Sun Quan among the leaders who established his own kingdom. In this contest, the city is a northern objective for Sun Quan’s forces, but its defenders make an advance costly and uncertain.

The narrative also places Hefei within the broader military operations around the Three Rivers. As the allied officers prepare for war, Zhou Yu orders that ordinary people must not be harmed. He deploys forces for attacks on Cao Cao’s supply lines and positions, while other units are assigned to different locations. These orders establish a campaign shaped by coordinated movements across several sites, of which Hefei is one important target.

The Attack and Its Reversal

Sun Quan is besieging Hefei without success when Cheng Pu arrives to assist him. Zhang Liao responds with a formal challenge, which Sun Quan takes as a personal insult. Rather than letting Cheng Pu and the newly arrived troops support him, Sun Quan chooses to fight with his own men. Zhang Liao’s decision to meet him directly nearly succeeds: he moves toward Sun Quan, while Taishi Ci rides to protect the commander. A further attack on Sun Quan is held off by his officers, but the southern army is eventually scattered after Taishi Ci withdraws from a prolonged, ineffective struggle with Zhang Liao. Zhang Liao comes close to capturing Sun Quan; Cheng Pu’s timely intervention prevents it.

After this defense, Zhang Liao returns to Hefei, while Sun Quan withdraws and watches the remnants of his army make their way back. His officers reprimand him and secure his promise not to act so rashly again. The episode presents the city’s defense not simply as a matter of holding walls: Zhang Liao’s challenge draws Sun Quan into a dangerous choice, and the approaching relief force becomes decisive in keeping that choice from ending in capture.

The Deception at the Gate

The defeat does not end Sun Quan’s effort to take the city. Taishi Ci later brings news of a groom named Ge Ding, whose blood brother serves in Zhang Liao’s army and is willing to kill his commander after feeling unjustly punished. The proposed signal would tell Sun Quan’s troops when to rush into Hefei. Although one adviser warns that the offer may be a trap, Sun Quan accepts the plan and gives Taishi Ci five thousand men.

Zhang Liao sees through the attempted uprising. When a fire breaks out and cries of revolt are heard, some of his officers initially believe the disturbance is genuine. Zhang argues that the whole city could not suddenly have rebelled and treats it as an enemy plot. His men search the city and capture Ge Ding and his accomplice; once the scheme is exposed, the two are executed. Zhang then reverses the attackers’ signal: he orders a fire set by the main gate, the cry of revolution raised, and the gate opened.

Taishi Ci sees the fire, hears the shouting, and interprets the open gate as proof that the plot has succeeded. His troops rush into the city, where defenders attack them. Taishi Ci is seriously wounded, and half his men are lost before reinforcements from Sun Quan’s camp arrive and rescue him and the survivors. The plan meant to open Hefei from within instead gives Zhang Liao the opportunity to draw the attackers into a prepared defense.

Retreat and Significance

With the assault broken and Taishi Ci’s force badly diminished, Sun Quan has no practical choice but to abandon the attack and retreat to his own territory. Taishi Ci later dies of his wounds, and Sun Quan adopts his son, Taishi Heng. Hefei’s defense thus carries consequences beyond the immediate failure to seize the city: the failed operation costs the southern force heavily and ends in the death of one of its commanders.

The two stages of the campaign reveal contrasting approaches to risk. Sun Quan first accepts Zhang Liao’s challenge and engages without the support of the newly arrived troops; later he trusts a report of an insider’s plot despite an adviser’s warning. Zhang Liao, by contrast, reads both the military confrontation and the supposed revolt as opportunities to shape the enemy’s expectations. Hefei becomes a test of judgment under uncertainty, where the attackers’ confidence in a signal is turned into the means of their defeat.