Battle of Guandu - The Raid On Wuchao

The Raid On Wuchao

In the tenth month, Yuan Shao's general Chunyu Qiong returned with an army of 10,000 from Hebei escorting large reserves of food supplies. Yuan Shao ordered Chunyu to escort the supplies to Wuchao (烏巢; in present-day Yanjin County, Henan), a place 40 li away from Guandu near Gushi, and placed him in charge of guarding the supplies there. Yuan Shao's advisor Ju Shou argued that Wuchao, being their important supply depot, was too lightly guarded and insisted that Yuan Shao should send the general Jiang Qi (蔣奇) to serve as a perimeter guard to Chunyu Qiong and cut off any potential raids. Yuan Shao, again, did not heed Ju Shou's advice.

Shortly after, Yuan Shao's advisor Xu You, who had harboured dissatisfaction against Yuan Shao for not using his plan and having his wife arrested by Shen Pei, defected over to Cao Cao. He understood Cao Cao's shortage of supplies and alerted Cao Cao to Yuan Shao's exploitable weakness at Wuchao. Cao Cao's generals were suspicious of this piece of intelligence, but his advisors Xun You and Jia Xu urged Cao Cao to put Xu You's plan to action. Thus at night, Cao Cao led 5,000 infantry and cavalry to attack Wuchao after leaving Cao Hong and Xun You in charge of his main camp at Guandu. Cao Cao's army disguised itself as a reinforcement unit from Yuan Shao and attacked Wuchao. Chunyu Qiong's initial defences were overrun, and he retreated to hold his forts, which Cao Cao attacked and set on fire.

When Yuan Shao's camp received the news that Wuchao was under attack, Zhang He urged Yuan Shao to send reinforcements to Wuchao to save the supplies, on which the fate of the campaign hinges. Guo Tu, however, advocated the opposite: attack Cao Cao's base at Guandu with the hope that Cao Cao will abandon the raid on Wuchao. Yuan Shao used Guo Tu's idea and sent Zhang He and Gao Lan to lead his main army to attack Cao Cao's main camp at Guandu, while only sending a small cavalry unit to reinforce Wuchao.

With incredible bravado, Cao Cao ignored pleas to split off his force to deal with the reinforcements, thus his men were prepared to fight to the death. The raid on Wuchao was a great success, with Yuan Shao's casualties over a thousand. Yuan Shao's generals Lü Weihuang, Han Juzi, Sui Yuanjin, and Zhao Rui (趙叡) were decapitated; Chunyu Qiong was captured by Yue Jin and had his nose cut off. Almost all of Yuan Shao's food supplies at Wuchao were burnt.

By dawn, Wuchao had turned into an inferno and the morale of Yuan Shao's army plummeted sharply due to the loss of food supplies. Cao Cao also cut off the noses of the dead, mixed them with noses and lips of oxen and horses, and showed them to Yuan Shao's men, as a form of intimidation.

Meanwhile at Guandu, Yuan Shao's army led by Zhang He and Gao Lan failed to break through the enemy lines. Affected by the news of the defeat in Wuchao and rumors of Guo Tu making slanderous remarks about them, Zhang He and Gao Lan surrendered to Cao Hong and destroyed their weapons. The morale of Yuan Shao's army was drastically weakened and Cao Cao's forces seized the opportunity to launch the full attack on Yuan's army. Yuan Shao's numerous armies were destroyed and much of his supplies were captured by Cao Cao. Yuan Shao himself fled north across the Yellow River with only about 800 cavalry, which was what was left of his army. Order was restored only when Yuan Shao reached the camp of his general Jiang Yiqu, from where he gathered his straggling troops.

Some of Yuan Shao's men could not cross the Yellow River in time and were captured by Cao Cao, including Ju Shou. Some of these men had feigned surrender so they could escape later, thus Cao Cao had these men buried alive. In his proclamation of victory to Emperor Xian, Cao Cao claimed to have killed 70,000 enemy troops.