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During the Three-Kingdom Period(222-280), a battle broke out in a place named Chibi, which established the foundation for the tripod situation of the three kingdoms.
At that time, a warlord named Cao Cao claimed to have an army consisting of 1 million soldiers. He seized most of the land in North China and coveted the area south of the Yangtze River, which was owned by Sun Quan. Sun Quan knew that his power could not stand against Cao Cao, so he united with another warlord named Liu Bei to fight against Cao Cao. Zhou Yu, the general commander leading Sun Quan’s army, and Zhuge Liang, a strategist serving Liu Bei, worked on the method of defeating Cao Cao. They decided to capitalize on Cao Cao’s arrogance and underestimation of his enemy.
Zhou Yu first used his wisdom to trick Cao Cao into killing Cai Mao and Zhang Yun, his only two generals knowing the tactics of battle on the river. Then, a famous strategist named Pang Tong, upon Zhou Yu’s entrustment, persuaded Cao Cao to chain all his boats together. Later, Zhou Yu pretended to be angry with his general Huang Gai and beat him, asking Huang Gai to make a false surrender to Cao Cao. Actually, Huang Gai filled the boats with inflammable things and planned to use these boats to set fire on Cao Cao’s warships.
When everything was ready, Zhou Yu found that the wind blew from east to west, much to his dismay. This might cause the fire to spread to his campus instead of devouring Cao Cao’s army. Zhou Yu was so worried that he fell ill. Even the best doctor of Sun Quan’s army could not find what caused Zhou Yu’s illness. However, Zhuge Liang knew about Zhou Yu’s concern and when they were alone, he wrote his prescription on his palm, which read that “you want to use fire against Cao Cao and everything is ready except for the east wind”. Zhou Yu was surprised that Zhuge Liang knew what he was thinking and asked him for cure. Zhuge Liang reassured Zhou Yu by saying that he could borrow east wind from the heaven.
On the day when the attack started, the east wind came on due. With that wind, Zhou Yu’s deployment achieved great success and won the Battle of Chibi, establishing the foundation for the situation of Three-Kingdom trepidation.