Lü Meng's capture of Jingzhou is a coordinated military and political operation that exploits Guan Yu's absence at Fancheng, disables the warning system meant to protect the province, and brings its principal cities under Sun Quan's control. Its success rests not simply on surprise: Lu Xun first makes Guan Yu feel secure, Lü Meng conceals soldiers among merchant traffic, and Wu's commanders turn local grievances into defections. The result is a swift seizure of Jingzhou and a decisive shift in the struggle over the region.

Causes and Strategic Opening

When Sun Quan receives Cao Cao's proposal that Wu attack Jingzhou, Zhang Zhao warns that the offer may be a stratagem: Cao Cao's position is weakening, he argues, and the proposal could draw Wu into helping Cao Cao against Liu Bei. The doubt is overtaken by news from Lü Meng, who reports that Guan Yu is campaigning against Fancheng. With Guan Yu away, Sun Quan decides that the moment is right to take Jingzhou and authorizes Lü Meng to prepare the attack.

The apparent opportunity is complicated by Jingzhou's defenses. Back at Lukou, Lü Meng learns that Guan Yu has established beacons to warn of precisely such an incursion, and that the province is well staffed. The scale of the problem alarms him; worried that he has promised Sun Quan more than he can deliver, he takes to his bed and pretends to be ill. His feigned incapacity temporarily hides not only his anxiety but also the need for a new approach.

Lu Xun sees through the illness and understands that Lü Meng is troubled by the difficulty of the task. He reassures him that there is a way to overcome the beacons and capture Jingzhou. The answer is not to challenge Guan Yu's defenses directly, but to alter what Guan Yu believes about the threat. As Guan Yu's principal concern is Lü Meng, Wu will announce that Lü Meng has resigned because of ill health, then appoint a successor who appears deferential and sends praise and gifts. The plan aims to make Guan Yu feel safe enough to concentrate his forces on Fancheng rather than keep them ready to defend Jingzhou.

Flattery and Concealment

Sun Quan formally summons Lü Meng back to court on grounds of ill health and appoints Lu Xun to carry out the deception. From Lukou, Lu Xun sends Guan Yu a letter of lavish praise along with expensive gifts. Guan Yu appears pleased, and reports to Lu Xun confirm that the flattery has worked: Guan Yu has moved his troops to the siege of Fancheng, where he is waiting for his wound to recover before resuming the assault. Once Sun Quan learns that the key defender has been drawn away, he commissions Lü Meng to lead the invasion.

Lü Meng sets out with thirty thousand soldiers and eighty attack ships. As the fleet approaches Guan Yu's territory, some of the soldiers are disguised as merchants, while the rest are hidden in the ships' holds. The deception is designed to pass through a defended boundary as ordinary commerce, not to force a crossing under arms. Wu also sends letters to Cao Cao advising him to attack Guan Yu, and keeps Lu Xun informed as the fleet travels day and night toward the Xunyang River.

The disguise carries the force past the beginning of Guan Yu's beacon line. Guan Yu's guards stop the vessels, but accept them as merchant ships and allow them through. After nightfall, the concealed soldiers emerge and overwhelm the guards at the shore and the beacons. The men are captured; none escapes to raise an alarm, and not one beacon is lit. The system designed to transmit warning across the territory is rendered useless at the point when it matters most.

The Fall of Jiangling

With the warning line silenced, Lü Meng's force sails toward Jiangling. He persuades the captured guards to cooperate in another deception: they are to appear before the city gates as men returning from their posts and persuade the defenders to admit them. Once inside, they are to set fires as a signal for the rest of the army to attack. Late at night the group reaches the gate, is recognized, and is let in. The fires are set, and before dawn Jiangling is in Lü Meng's hands.

The conquest is followed immediately by an effort to secure the population's cooperation. Lü Meng orders that no citizen be harmed and nothing be taken from the people. When he sees one of his soldiers wearing a rain cloak and hat that have been stolen, he has the soldier executed, despite the man's explanation that he wanted to keep his armor dry in the rain. The punishment is made public to enforce discipline among the troops. Lü Meng later gives the executed soldier a proper burial and weeps, but does not undo the example he has made of him. The episode sets strict protection of civilians beside severe military enforcement: control of the city is to mean not only victory but order.

Sun Quan arrives with his army almost immediately after Jiangling falls. Wu's leaders then turn to Gong'an and Nanjun, controlled respectively by Fu Shiren and Mi Fang. Yu Fan identifies a political vulnerability: neither governor is favorably disposed toward Guan Yu after being reprimanded and punished by him. Wu's next move therefore extends the operation from covert military entry to inducing defections within the local command structure.

Defections and the Capture of Nanjun

Fu Shiren receives a proposal to surrender by an arrow shot over the city wall. Remembering his disgrace at Guan Yu's hands, he decides to change sides, opens the gates, and brings the keys of Gong'an to Sun Quan with Yu Fan. Sun Quan initially considers retaining him as governor, but advisers question whether Fu Shiren can be trusted if Guan Yu returns. Instead, Fu Shiren is sent to Nanjun to persuade Mi Fang, his old friend and fellow target of Guan Yu's anger, to surrender as well.

The two men's earlier treatment shapes the conversation. Fu Shiren says he had no choice but to submit to Wu and urges Mi Fang to do likewise, warning that Guan Yu is unlikely to forgive them if he wins. Mi Fang objects that he cannot betray the king of Hanzhong: he and his brother have served him for years, and long service still weighs against the prospect of changing allegiance. His hesitation makes clear that personal resentment does not, by itself, erase loyalty.

Then a messenger arrives from Guan Yu demanding large quantities of rice for the army. Fu Shiren kills him, to Mi Fang's horror, and claims that the demand is a plot to have them killed. The account does not establish that claim as fact, but the killing abruptly changes the situation: the men have crossed a threshold that makes their former allegiance harder to resume. News that Lü Meng is advancing on Nanjun completes the pressure. Mi Fang surrenders the city to Lü Meng, and the capture of Jingzhou is consolidated through both deception and the decisions of local commanders.

Consequences and Significance

The operation depends on several linked reversals. Guan Yu's attention is fixed on Fancheng partly because Lu Xun has persuaded him that Wu poses little immediate danger; the beacons that should expose the invasion are passed under merchant disguises and then silenced; and the fall of Jiangling is followed by pressure on Gong'an and Nanjun through governors already alienated from Guan Yu. The campaign thus makes confidence, communications, and personal relationships parts of the same battlefield.

Its treatment of loyalty is deliberately complicated. Mi Fang professes fidelity to the king of Hanzhong, but years of service cannot prevent the political crisis produced by fear, resentment, and the approaching Wu army. Fu Shiren's grievance gives Wu an opening, while Guan Yu's earlier punishments become a liability at the moment his territory most needs reliable defenders. Wu's capture of Jingzhou is therefore presented as more than an ingenious surprise attack: it is the result of a defensive network penetrated from outside and a command structure weakened from within.