When it comes to a military disaster, almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong for Cao Cao, the Chinese warlord who came so close to conquering all of China. The only significant resistance that emerged was an army of fifty thousand men commanded by Liu Bei, another fam

The Battle of Chibi (208 AD)

Speaking of a military disaster, almost everything that could go wrong went wrong for Cao Cao , the Chinese warlord who came so close to conquering all of China. He outnumbered his enemies 6 to 1 and was utterly annihilated.

He was a talented military strategist who controlled North China with an army of between 300,000 and 800,000. Cao Cao seemed to be letting everything take its course. So he decided to march into South China. Not a good idea in retrospect.

Cao Cao led hundreds of thousands of troops southward. The only significant resistance that emerged was an army of fifty thousand men commanded by Liu Bei, another famous military general. Cao Cao first defeated Liu Bei and forced Liu Bei to cross the river and retreat. Cao Cao then deployed his troops on a barge to transport them across the river. Unfortunately for him, his troops became incredibly seasick and his ranks were riddled with disease. Faced with such an annoying situation, Cao Cao decided to tie his entire fleet together to reduce the rocking of the ships. This helped with seasickness, but left his fleet completely immobilized.

Liu Bei thought this was a good time to take action. He drove several fire ships directly towards Cao Cao's fleet. Since the fleet was locked together and unable to avoid the fireships, they ran into them head on. The first row of ships caught fire, and strong winds spread the fire to the rest of the fleet. Cao Cao watched helplessly as his fleet was burned and tens of thousands of soldiers swam ashore to find Liu Bei's army counterattacking along the coastline.

Caught between the burning fleet and the enemy forces, Cao Cao's army was routed. The casualties of this battle are unknown, but it is very one-sided. Most of Cao Cao's troops drowned in the river or were burned along with the fleet. The survivors must deal with Liu Bei's counterattack. Overall though Cao Cao lost most of his army and never had an army large enough to attempt to conquer southern China.

idea. Losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers to an inferior enemy. This was very unpleasant, and what was even worse for Cao Cao was that his troops hardly caused many casualties to the enemy. Such one-sided battles are rare in history, so this battle certainly qualifies as one of the worst defeats in history.

If you get over the poor audio quality, the video below does a good job of showing the battle in action. It also provides some interesting visuals to put the geography of the battle into perspective.