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'''Zhou Yu''' the Chinese general and statesman of the late Eastern Han and early Three Kingdoms period (175-210) who commanded the allied fleet that destroyed Cao Cao at the battle of Red Cliffs. A celebrated warrior and musician of the state of Wu, he is remembered as one of the most brilliant commanders of the age of the Three Kingdoms.

== Early Life and Service to Sun Ce ==
Zhou Yu was born in 175 in Lujiang commandery, in the region of the lower Yangtze, into a distinguished family of officials. He received a classical education and was noted from youth for his striking appearance, his intelligence and his wide range of talents. He is said to have been devoted to music and to have been able to detect the slightest error in a performance even when deep in drink, a trait that later became a favourite theme of Chinese poetry.

He formed an early and lifelong friendship with Sun Ce, the young warlord who was building a state in the southeast. When Sun Ce began his campaigns to unite the region, Zhou Yu joined him with troops and provisions, and the two men fought side by side through a series of rapid conquests. Their bond, described in the histories as that of brothers, made Zhou Yu one of the founding pillars of the house of Wu.

After Sun Ce was assassinated in 200, Zhou Yu gave his loyalty to his younger brother Sun Quan, who succeeded him as ruler of the southeast. He served as a senior commander and adviser, helping to secure the new regime, to suppress local resistance and to defend the frontier against the warlords of the north. In these years he became the foremost military figure of the Wu state.

== The Battle of Red Cliffs ==
The decisive moment of Zhou Yu's career came in 208, when the northern warlord Cao Cao marched south with a vast army to unify China. Cao Cao's forces, having overwhelmed the northern plains, threatened to extinguish both the Wu state and the refugee regime of Liu Bei. Most of Sun Quan's advisers counselled submission, but Zhou Yu argued forcefully for resistance and urged an alliance with Liu Bei.

Zhou Yu took command of the allied fleet and met Cao Cao's forces on the Yangtze near the Red Cliffs. Knowing that the northern troops were unused to river warfare and weakened by disease, he devised a plan to exploit the wind. He sent fire ships into the enemy fleet, whose boats were chained together, and in the resulting inferno Cao Cao's navy was destroyed and his army compelled to retreat.

The victory at Red Cliffs in 208 is one of the most famous battles in Chinese history, for it ended Cao Cao's attempt to reunify the empire and made possible the division of China into three states. It secured the independence of Wu and gave Liu Bei the base from which he would later take the west. Zhou Yu emerged from the campaign as the foremost soldier of the age.

== Campaigns and Death ==
After Red Cliffs Zhou Yu pressed the advantage against Cao Cao's forces in the region of Nan commandery. He besieged and captured the city of Jiangling after a hard campaign, though he was wounded by an arrow during the fighting. These operations extended the territory of Wu westward and confirmed Zhou Yu's reputation for bold and energetic command.

He then proposed a far-reaching plan for the expansion of Wu. He urged Sun Quan to take the western province of Yi, to absorb the forces of the warlord Liu Zhang and to dominate the upper Yangtze, thereby encircling Cao Cao from two directions. This ambitious strategy, if realised, might have altered the balance of the Three Kingdoms.

Zhou Yu set out on the western expedition but fell ill and died in 210 at the age of thirty-five, near the region of Baqiu. His death removed Wu's most gifted strategist and left the alliance with Liu Bei without its strongest advocate. He was buried with honour, and Sun Quan mourned him as the man without whom the state might not have survived.

== Character and Reputation ==
The histories portray Zhou Yu as a man of exceptional personal qualities. He was handsome and commanding, a skilled horseman and a patron of the arts, and he was admired for his generosity, his loyalty and his good judgement of men. He recommended able officials to Sun Quan and worked to reconcile the rival factions of the court.

His gift for music became proverbial. It was said that even when he had been drinking he could tell when a note was played falsely, and that musicians took care in his presence. The phrase about Zhou Yu and the false note entered the language as an image of refined sensibility joined to great authority, and poets returned to it for centuries.

In the later novelistic tradition his character was recast in a less flattering light, as a jealous and impulsive man consumed by rivalry with Zhuge Liang. Historians distinguish this colourful portrait from the record of the histories, which show a generous and far-sighted commander. The romantic image and the historical figure together made him one of the most vivid personalities of the Three Kingdoms.

== Influence and Legacy ==
Zhou Yu's victory at Red Cliffs shaped the political geography of China for decades. By preventing the unification of the empire under Cao Cao, he made possible the tripartite division that gave the period its name and that produced the states of Wei, Shu and Wu. Without his advocacy of resistance, the history of the southeast would have been very different.

He is remembered as the ideal of the young commander, brilliant in strategy and honoured in culture. Later writers, painters and playwrights made him a central figure of the stories of the Three Kingdoms, and his friendship with Sun Ce and his rivalry with Zhuge Liang became themes of popular literature. His tomb and his memory were preserved in later ages.

Historians rank him among the greatest military leaders of the period, and Chinese tradition holds him up as a model of loyalty, courage and cultivated talent. The image of the general who could hear a false note in the music and win a war with fire on the river remains one of the enduring pictures of the age of the Three Kingdoms.

== See also ==
* Battle of Red Cliffs
* Sun Quan
* Three Kingdoms
* Zhuge Liang

== References ==

<ref name="r1">Rafe de Crespigny, Generals of the South: The Foundation and Early History of the Three Kingdoms State of Wu, Australian National University, 1990.</ref>
<ref name="r2">Chen Shou, Records of the Three Kingdoms, Zhonghua Book Company, 1959.</ref>
<ref name="r3">Rafe de Crespigny, A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms, Brill, 2007.</ref>
<ref name="r4">Sima Guang, Zizhi Tongjian, Zhonghua Book Company, 1956.</ref>

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[[Category:History]]
[[Category:Military]]
[[Category:Three Kingdoms]]

Zhou Yu - Revision history

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