Province of Jingzhou（Introduction to Three Kingdoms Geographical Names 9）

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Imagine what would have happened if the Battle of Red Cliff (208AD) had ended with Cao Cao winning.

1. There would be no more Three Kingdoms period(220-208AD), Liu Bei would be reduced to a passer-by with a few words in the history books, Sun Quan would be a rash man who didn't listen to his ministers' advice and struck the stone with an egg, and Zhou Yu, Zhuge Liang, and many other civil servants and military generals of Wu(229-180AD) and Shu(221-263AD) would probably not even appear in the history books.

2. The history of the late Han period will turn out to be the process of Cao Cao's defeat of all the other warriors and his gradual unification of the empire. As his strongest rivals, Yuan Shao and Lu Bu will probably be further upgraded in history.

The history of China will enter a new unification dynasty earlier, and everything will be different.

And all this was changed from the Great War between the Three Forces that took place in Jingzhou.

At the late Eastern Han period,the province of Jingzhou had a very large jurisdiction, including most of present-day Hubei and Hu’nan, and some parts of He’nan, Guizhou, Guangdong, and Guangxi provinces.

At the late Han period, there were seven Commandries in Jingzhou, namely Nanyang南阳, Nanjun南郡, Jiangxia江夏, Wuling武陵, Changsha长沙, Guiyang桂阳 and Lingling零陵.

At the late Han, the seat of Jingzhou was changed repeatedly, and during the Eastern Han Dynasty, the seat of Jingzhou was located in Hanshou汉寿 of Wuling Commandery for a long time. At the late reign of Emperor Ling of the Han , Wang Rui王睿, the then provincial governor of Jingzhou, moved his seat to Jiangling in Nanjun commandery because of his disagreement with the governor of Wuling Commandery. After Wang Rui was killed by Sun Jian, who was the governor of Changsha at that time, the court appointed a trusted governor of Jingzhou, Liu Biao, who quickly moved the seat of Jingzhou to Xiangyang襄阳, which was already quite prosperous at that time.

After Liu Biao came to Jingzhou, the whole Empire was already in chaos, and all the lords had cut off their territories. Liu Biao also joined hands with several local big families, and firmly controlled almost the whole Jingzhou, which was relatively far away from the war in the chaotic period of the late Han , and became a piece of paradise, where a lot of famous scholars came to settle down.

In 195 AD, Zhang Ji张济, a former general of Dong Zhuo, tried to attack Liu Biao to seize provisions due to a lack of food, but was defeated and killed. Zhang Ji's nephew, Zhang Xiu张绣, chose to lead the remnants of Zhang Ji's troops to join Liu Biao, and thus stationed them in the area of Wan County in the northern part of Jingzhou's Nanyang Commandery, where they formed a hand of each other and successfully resisted Cao Cao's attacks on a number of occasions. It was not until 199 AD, before the Battle of Guandu官渡（200AD）, that Zhang Xiu surrendered to Cao Cao on the advice of his strategist Jia Xu贾诩, so that northern part of Nanyang Commandery belonged to Cao Cao by this time.

By 208 AD, Cao Cao, who had unified northern China, was on a southward expedition, and Liu Biao's second son, Liu Cong刘琮, surrendered his province, leaving Cao Cao to occupy almost all of Jingzhou. Liu Bei fled to Xiakou夏口 in Jiangxia Commandery, where Liu Biao's eldest son - Liu Qi刘琦 - was stationed, and the southeastern part of Jiangxia Commandery had long been occupied by Sun Quan.

After the Battle of Red Cliff, Cao Cao suffered a great defeat, leaving Cao Ren曹仁, who was guarding the city of Jiangling江陵, to be defeated by Zhou Yu and Liu Bei after more than a year of resistance. Cao Wei's forces have since withdrawn from the southern part of JingZhou, and JingZhou has begun to enter the era of the three-partition between Cao, Sun and Liu. After a series of operations such as Liu Bei's borrowing of Nanjun Commandery, Liu Bei occupied most of Jingzhou, including the southern part of Nanjun, as well as Wuling, Changsha, Guiyang, and Lingling in the southern Jingzhou, while Cao Cao occupied Nanyang Commandery in the northern part of Jingzhou, the northern part of Nanjun Commandery, including Xiangyang, as well as the northern part of Jiangxia Commandery, and Sun Quan only had the southern part of Jiangxia Commandery and the northern part of Changsha Commandery at that time.

Afterwards, Cao, Sun and Liu attacked each other in Jingzhou, bringing the drama of the Three Kingdoms era to its peak. In the end, the Shu-Han regime withdrew from Jingzhou after Guan Yu, who had almost captured the entire Nanjun, was killed in a sneak attack by Lu Meng吕蒙, and Liu Bei was defeated by Lu Xun陆逊 in the Battle of Yiling（222AD）. Since then, Wei（220-265AD） and Wu have been fighting over the vast area between the Han River汉水 and the Yangtze River长江, but the two important military cities of Xiangyang and Jiangling have always been firmly in their respective hands. It was not until 280 A.D. that the Western Jin（265-317AD） destroyed Wu and returned the entire Jingzhou to the central government.

Nanyang Commandery, the hometown of Liu Xiu刘秀, the Emperor Guangwu（reigned 25-57AD）, the founding emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty（25-220AD）, was also the largest Commandery in China at that time, with a population of 2.4 million. Along with the huge population base, Nanyang in the late Han and Three Kingdoms also produced numerous talents, such as Wei Yan魏延, Huang Zhong黄忠, Li Yan李严, Deng Zhi邓芝 in Shu Han, and Wen Ping文聘 and Deng Ai邓艾 in Cao Wei.

The territory of Nanyang Commandery included not only the city of Nanyang in present-day Henan Province, but also the northern part of the city of Suizhou and XiangFan in Hubei Province. The core area of Nanyang Commandery was the Nanyang Basin, surrounded by mountains and a vast plain in the centre of the basin, which was a necessary route for travelling south and north in central China.

The most core part of Nanyang is its seat - the Wan宛 County, or Wancheng宛城, which was a bustling metropolis during the Eastern Han Dynasty. In 184 A.D., the Yellow Turbans and the Eastern Han army fought here in the tragic Battle of Wancheng, in which the Han army eventually won, but it dealt a further blow to the national strength of the Eastern Han Empire and caused serious damage to the prosperous metropolis of Nanyang-Wancheng.

The most famous battle of Wancheng during the Three Kingdoms period was that between Cao Cao and Zhang Xiu, and if you search the Chinese Internet for ‘Wancheng宛城,’ most of the information you find will be about Cao Cao's “romantic story”.

In 218 AD, the people and officials of the Nanyang region, unable to cope with the heavy labour imposed by Cao Wei's regime, rebelled under the leadership of Hou Yin, and responded to Guan Yu in the south. However, Hou Yin was soon defeated by Cao Ren, who was defending Fancheng, and slaughtered the city of Wancheng to deter the rebellion.

During the Western Han Dynasty（202BC-8AD）, Emperor Wu of Han（141-87BC） named Huo QuBing霍去病 as the ‘Marquis of Champion’冠军侯 for his outstanding achievements, which surpassed all others. Emperor Wu specially set aside a piece of land in Nanyang as Huo's fief, and this piece of land became Champion/GuanJun冠军 County, the name of which was used until the Tang Dynasty（618-907AD）.

In 201 AD, Liu Bei was defeated by Cao Cao and came to join Liu Biao, who settled Liu Bei in Xinye新野 County of Nanyang, guarding the front line of defence against Cao Cao. Liu Bei stayed in Xinye for seven years. He once led his army north in 202 AD, and fought all the way to Ye叶 County in the northeastern part of Nanyang , just a step away from Xuchang许昌, and defeated Xiahou Dun and Yu jin who came to fight in Bowang博望 County, but finally had to retreat because he had too few soldiers. During his time in Xinye, although Liu Bei did not have much of a chance to go north against Cao Cao, he did recruit a lot of talent, the most important of which was in Longzhong隆中 of Nanyang , where Liu Bei gained Zhuge Liang, who changed his life and was the one who deserves to be entrusted with Liu Bei’s family business.

In 208 AD, after Cao Cao occupied Jingzhou, he carved out a portion of land from the western part of Nanyang Commandery and created a new Commandery : Nangxiang南乡 Commandery.

Jingzhou is a topic we can't get around when we are talking about the Three Kingdoms, which is mentioned in more than 70 of the 120 chapters of the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The most central and storytelling area of the three countries' competition in Jingzhou is Nanjun.

All 3 of the most important cities in Jingzhou are actually in Nanjun.

The first was Xiangyang, the seat of Jingzhou, where Liu Biao's residenceand the families of most of Jingzhou's civil and military officials were basically located. Next is Fancheng樊城, which is across the Han River from Xiangyang. Xiangyang and Fancheng held the throat of the northern cavalry going south to the hinterland of Jingzhou.The two cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng were strongly fortified, easy to defend and difficult to conquer, and have always been a place of great military importance. It has been, and will continue to be, an irreplaceable fortress before and for thousands of years to come.

Xiangyang is located in the southernmost part of the Nanyang Basin, and is surrounded by vast mountains to the east and west, making it virtually the only gateway to Central China in ancient China. Xiangyang was situated along the Han River, along which one could go all the way southeast to the Yangtze River or northwest to Hanzhong汉中, so that by holding Xiangyang, one could also control all the ships travelling south and north in Central China.

Xiangyang was actually a young city during the Three Kingdoms period, when China's first major confrontation between the North and South began, pushing Xiangyang, the waistline of the whole of China, to the forefront of the times. Since then, the confrontation between the northern and southern regimes over the past 2,000 years has not been able to get around the fight for Xiangyang. Especially when the northern regimes went south, as long as they captured Xiangyang, they could reach the Yangtze River through the Han River and then go down the Yangtze River, or go south to Jiangling, controlling the vast Jianghan Plain, and the trend of unification would be unstoppable.

Jiangling, the transport hub of Jingzhou, which is the present day Jingzhou City of HuBei,is also the seat of Nanjun. If Xiangyang and Fancheng are the throat of Jingzhou, then Jiangling is the heart of Jingzhou. The main reason why it is said that Jingzhou is well connected by water and land transport is because of Jiangling. After occupying Jiangling, we can enter Yizhou to the west or go east to Yangzhou all along the Yangtze River, and there is no longer any obstacle for us to pass through the four commanderies of southern Jingzhou in the south.

Later on, whether Liu Bei borrowed Jingzhou as written in novels or borrowed Nanjun in history, in fact, the main thing was to borrow Jiangling. Without Jiangling, it would have been a nightmare for Liu Bei to cross the mountains from southern Jingzhou into Yizhou. It can even be said that if you get Jiangling, you get the Nanjun, and if you get the Nanjun, you get most half of Jingzhou.

Across the Yangtze River from Jiangling is Gongan公安, where Liu Bei cantoned his troops after he became provincial governor of Jingzhou and made it the seat of Jingzhou.

As Liu Bei, the No.1 Charmer of the Three Kingdoms, was active in the area from Nanyang to Nanjun for a long time, countless talents of the later Shu Han regime were explored here. Pang Tong庞统, Liao Hua廖化, Yang Yi杨仪, Ma Liang马良, Huo Jun霍畯, together with ZhuGe Liang, Wei Yan, Deng Zhi and others who joined Liu Bei from Nanyang, they formed the core of the Shu Han regime - the Jingzhou Faction.

Jiangxia Commandery may not be as important and prosperous as Nanyang and Nanxian, but it was the Red Cliff War that took place in Jiangxia Commandery that changed the course of history, and the Three Kingdoms were born!

And the place where this battle took place may have been predetermined by fate 16 years ago.

In 192 AD, Yuan Shu袁术 sent his fierce general Sun Jian孙坚 to attack Liu Biao. Sun Jian fought with Huang Zu黄祖, a general of Liu Biao, at Fancheng, and was unfortunately killed by arrows. Thereafter, Huang Zu became the governor of Jiangxia and was stationed at Xiakou夏口, the confluence of the Yangtze River and the Han River.

After Sun Jian's son Sun Ce孙策 broke away from Yuan Shu and occupied YangZhou扬州, he and Sun Quan, two brothers, attacked Jiangxia three times in order to avenge their father's death, finally defeating and killing Huang Zu and occupying most of Jiangxia Commandery, including Xiakou, in 208 AD.

Since Xiakou was on the northern bank of the Yangtze River, while all of Eastern Wu’s territories were to the south of Yangtze River， it was difficult for them to control it. So Sun Quan moved most of the population of Xiakou and abandoned the city, occupying only the territory on the southern bank of the Yangtze River in Jiangxia Commandery.

At this time, Liu Biao was seriously ill, and his eldest son Liu Qi刘琦, who was not favoured by him, came to Xiakou to avoid trouble, under the advice of Zhuge Liang, a new strategist recruited by Liu Bei.

It was this arrangement that gave Liu Bei, who suffered a disastrous defeat later, his last foothold. Next, Cao Cao marched along the Yangtze River from Jiangling, and the allied forces of Sun and Liu from Xiakou broke out the Great War at Red Cliff on the Yangtze River, which laid the groundwork for the three-part division of the country.

Xiakou City, located at the confluence of the Yangtze River and the Han River, was originally on the northern bank of the Yangtze River. In 223 AD, Sun Quan founded the new Xiakou City on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, and built the Yellow Crane Tower on a high hill within the city, which is now a landmark in Wuhan City of Hubei Province. Sun Quan also moved his political and military centre to Shaxian沙羡 County in Jiangxia Commandery and renamed it Wuchang武昌 (in present-day Ezhou鄂州 City, Hubei Province). After Sun Quan was crowned emperor in 229 AD, the capital was initially located in Wuchang, but in the same year it was moved to Jianye, today's Nanjing.

During the Three Kingdoms period of Jiangxia , Wu, Wei and the two kingdoms basically ruled by the south and north sides of the Yangtze River respectively, and both sides attacked each other in Jiangxia for a long time, with their respective territories gained and lost, but this situation was also based on the maintenance of the Eastern Wu was destroyed by the Western Jin Dynasty in 280 AD.

At the late Han period, Liu Yan刘焉 and Liu Zhang刘璋, the father and son who occupied Yizhou for a long time, were from Jiangxia , and Fei Yi费祎, a famous minister of Shu Han, was also from Jiangxia.

Changsha, Wuling, Lingling, and Guiyang, together known as the four Commanderies of Southern Jingzhou. These four Commanderies together can be roughly considered as the present-day Hunan Province. If we look at the four Commanderies of southern Jingzhou together as one, it was like a big pocket, with the Jianghan Plain wide opened to the north, Yangzhou to the east, Yizhou to the west, and Jiaozhou to the south. Although southern Jingzhou was adjacent to these three provinces, it was surrounded by mountains and lacked rivers that could be used to transport armies and provisions on a large scale via ships, making it extremely difficult to march on a large scale from these three directions. Except for the wide plains around Dongting洞庭Lake and Changsha in the centre of the four Commanderies in southern Jingzhou, the rest of the area was mostly mountainous. With the inconvenient transport plus the small cultivable area, the population here was also not large. Whether it is from the perspective of strategy or economic development, the value of these four Commanderies combined is not as high as that of a single Nanjun.

Changsha Commandery was established during the Qin Dynasty（221-207BC）, and the name Changsha has been used to this day as the capital of present-day Hunan Province. However, the area of Changsha Commandery during the Three Kingdoms period extended far beyond the present-day city of Changsha, and included most of the cities in the east-central part of present-day Hunan Province. During the Western Han Dynasty, most of Changsha Commandery existed as a fiefdom for princes, hence the name Changsha State. Emperor Guangwu, the founding emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and all the Eastern Han emperors, were descendants of Liu Fa刘发, Prince Ding of Changsha长沙定王.

After the Battle of Red Cliff, Liu Bei occupied the four counties of Changsha, Wuling, Guiyang, and Lingling, and Sun Quan actually occupied a portion of the counties of Changsha. In 210 AD, Zhou Yu, who had just become famous after the Battle of Red Cliff and the capture of Jiangling, died of illness at the age of 36 in Baqiu巴丘 of Changsha on his way to Jiangling. In the same year, Sun Quan divided the northern part of Changsha Commandery and established a Hanchang汉昌 Commandery, where Lu Su鲁肃 and Lu Meng吕蒙 served as the governor of Hanchang successively.

In 215 AD, a conflict broke out between the Sun-Liu alliance. Sun Quan sent Lu Meng to raid Changsha, Guiyang and Lingling Commanderies, and thus Changsha became the territory of Eastern Wu.

Wuling Commandery was in the western part southern Jingzhou, and the seat of Jingzhou during the Eastern Han Dynasty was first located in Hanshou County of Wuling Commandery, which was situated in the plains in the eastern part of Wuling Commandery, and is the city of Changde in present-day Hunan Province. The rest of the territory of Wuling Commandery was mostly mountainous, with numerous barbarian tribes living there. During the Battle of Yiling, Liu Bei sent Ma Liang to Wuling Commandery to recruit the local ethnic minority armies to assist in the battle. Today, the famous tourist attractions in Hunan Province, such as Zhangjiajie张家界 and Phoenix Ancient City, are all within the boundaries of Wuling Commandery.

Lingling Commandery was located in the southern part of Jingzhou, and its jurisdiction included parts of present-day southern Hunan Province and northeastern Guangxi Province. And Guiyang Commandery was roughly in present-day Chenzhou City, Hunan Province.

To be continued