Zhang Fei's capture of Wakou Pass

Zhang Fei’s capture of Wakou Pass is a protracted contest in which feigned disorder becomes a weapon. When Zhang He’s defenses withstand the first ambush, Zhang Fei exploits the enemy’s assumptions about his character: his public drinking appears to confirm that he has lost discipline, but it conceals a carefully prepared trap. A later attack from a narrow path behind the pass completes the reversal, breaking Zhang He’s hold and changing the position of both armies.

Forces and the First Ambush

Zhang He brings thirty thousand men to the area and establishes three hill forts to protect his base. He then advances with fifteen thousand. Recognizing that the terrain lends itself to an ambush, Zhang Fei and General Lei Tong agree on a divided attack: Zhang Fei will charge the enemy from the front, drawing its attention, while Lei Tong quietly leads a force around to the rear. The plan succeeds, and Zhang He’s army is badly cut up; Zhang He himself retreats to one of his camps with Zhang Fei and Lei Tong in pursuit.

Zhang He fortifies his main camp and refuses to come out, despite Zhang Fei’s repeated taunts. The impasse lasts fifty days. Zhang Fei spends each day drinking and calling abuse toward the camp, turning a failed effort to provoke an engagement into an apparent portrait of carelessness. The delay matters: the enemy has survived the initial attack, but its confidence in its walls leaves it vulnerable to a different kind of pressure.

The Drinking Feint

News of Zhang Fei’s drinking troubles Xuande. Kong Ming, however, recommends sending Zhang Fei fifty barrels of Chengdu wine. Xuande questions the decision because Zhang Fei’s drinking has caused trouble before. Kong Ming explains that the display is intentional: Zhang Fei wants Zhang He to believe he has lost control.

Zhang Fei distributes the wine and drinks openly where the enemy can see him. The performance provokes the desired response. Zhang He concludes that Zhang Fei will be too drunk to resist and chooses to attack that night. As his men enter the camp, they see a figure surrounded by lamps and take it for Zhang Fei. Zhang He’s spear strikes not the real commander but a straw man made to resemble him. The decoy converts the enemy’s confidence into confusion: once Zhang He recognizes the trap and attempts to withdraw, bombardments break out around his forces, and the real Zhang Fei confronts him.

Reversals and Losses

The night attack throws Zhang He’s plans into disorder. He holds out while hoping for support from his other two camps, but flames rising from both show that they too have been captured and their troops routed. Zhang He eventually fights his way free and reaches Wakou Pass, having lost two-thirds of his men. Cao Hong reacts furiously and orders him to return to battle.

The next day Zhang He engages Lei Tong’s troops. He draws Lei Tong into pursuing what appears to be a retreat, then turns and kills him. When Zhang Fei hears what has happened, he rides to the pass and challenges Zhang He. Zhang He tries the same retreating-enemy ruse against Zhang Fei, but Zhang Fei does not fall for it. For several days their exchanges remain inconclusive, each commander attempting to outwit the other with tricks and ambushes. Zhang He remains established in the camp guarding the pass; the earlier victory has not yet secured it.

The Hidden Route and Capture

The decisive opening comes when Zhang Fei notices traders traveling along a steep hillside path. He calls them over and learns that the narrow route can take a force behind the pass. He sends Wei Yan with a hand-picked troop to occupy the rear position in silence, while Zhang Fei prepares to attack from the front.

As Zhang He arms himself to meet the frontal assault, word arrives that fires and an attack have broken out behind him. Pressed from both directions, his defense collapses. Of the men left after the battle, only ten escape with Zhang He and make their way back to Cao Hong’s camp. Although Cao Hong wants Zhang He executed, others dissuade him; he eventually provides another five thousand men, directing Zhang He toward Jiameng Pass and the defense of Hanzhong.

Tactical and Narrative Significance

The capture is built from a sequence of reversals rather than a single decisive charge. The first ambush defeats Zhang He’s advancing army but does not take his fortified position. The drinking feint then draws him out, yet Zhang He escapes that trap and inflicts a loss of his own. Only after Zhang Fei discovers the concealed route does the contest resolve, with the frontal attack serving as cover for a force already behind the pass.

Zhang Fei’s apparent drunkenness is therefore not a departure from the campaign’s strategic logic but part of it. The contrast between what the enemy sees and what Zhang Fei is doing supplies the turning point: Zhang He mistakes a staged weakness for a real one, while Zhang Fei uses the terrain and timing to conceal the actual attack. The capture secures Wakou Pass, but Zhang He’s survival and his subsequent assignment to Jiameng Pass show that the victory changes the campaign’s positions without removing him as an opponent.