Xiapi

Xiapi is the refuge Lü Bu turns to after losing Xuzhou and Xiaopei, but it proves no sanctuary: Cao Cao’s siege isolates him, a flood weakens the city, and his own men ultimately take him prisoner and open its gates. The city’s fall marks the end of Lü Bu’s resistance and brings his former ally Chen Gong into Cao Cao’s hands as well.

A refuge after betrayal

Chen Deng, while appearing to advise Lü Bu, has already decided that his cause is doomed and secretly passes information about his plans to Cao Cao. Acting on Chen Deng’s recommendation, Lü Bu sends his reserves and family to Xiapi as a safe haven in case Xuzhou falls. The recommendation offers apparent security, but Chen Deng’s intelligence allows Cao Cao’s forces to thwart Lü Bu’s efforts to gain the advantage.

Chen Deng’s betrayal helps bring about Xiaopei’s capture. He persuades most of Lü Bu’s commanders that urgent messages require them to ride to their lord’s aid; when they leave, he opens the gates to Cao Ren. After Cao Cao defeats him, Lü Bu retreats toward what he believes is the safety of Xiaopei, only to find it in enemy hands. With Zhang Fei closing in and nowhere else to go, he escapes to Xiapi, the fallback city he had prepared.

The besieged city

At Xiapi, Lü Bu wants to attack the besieging forces, but the fearful pleas of his wife and concubine persuade him not to leave them. Distraught and depressed, he turns to drink. When he later chooses an auspicious date for a nighttime breakout, his young daughter is protected with cotton beneath a suit of armor and rides behind him on Red Hare. They slip through a small gate, but their flight is discovered near Xuande’s camp. The three brothers-in-arms attack Lü Bu’s escort. Lü Bu retreats into Xiapi rather than risk his daughter’s life, and the failed escape deepens his despair.

The siege has stalled when Cao Cao’s advisers Xun You and Guo Jia propose diverting the Rivers Yi and Si to flood Xiapi. Inside the city, discontent with Lü Bu is also growing. He has shifted from drunkenness to abstinence and forbidden alcohol; when one of his leading generals breaks the ban to celebrate a small victory, Lü Bu orders him executed, then reduces the punishment to fifty lashes only after persuasion. The incident alarms the other generals and helps plots against their commander take shape. In one such betrayal, Red Hare is stolen and delivered to Cao Cao.

Capture and narrative significance

During a major assault the next day, an exhausted Lü Bu falls asleep in a tower. Song Xian takes the opportunity to seize Lü Bu’s halberd, and he and Wei Xu bind their commander. When Lü Bu wakes, he is a prisoner of his own men. Wei Xu announces the capture to Cao Cao and opens the gates; Cao Cao’s forces swiftly take Xiapi. Chen Gong, once Cao Cao’s ally, is captured there too.

After order is restored, Cao Cao and Xuande sit in judgment over the prisoners. Chen Gong tells Cao Cao bitterly that he left him because he was deceitful; Cao Cao answers by asking whether that is why Chen Gong chose to serve Lü Bu instead. Xiapi’s fall thus resolves more than a siege: it turns Lü Bu’s supposed stronghold into the scene of his betrayal and capture, while bringing the fractured loyalties around him into view.