Battle of Tong Pass

Battle of Tong Pass
Part of the wars of the Three Kingdoms
Date March – September 211 CE Location Tongguan County, Shaanxi, China Result Decisive Cao Cao victory
Belligerents
Cao Cao	Coalition of Guanxi forces
Commanders and leaders
Cao Cao Cao Hong Xu Huang	Ma Chao Han Sui Hou Xuan Cheng Yin Yang Qiu Li Kan † Zhang Heng Liang Xing Cheng Yi † Ma Wan
Strength
	100,000

Battle of Tong Pass
Traditional Chinese	潼關之戰
Simplified Chinese	潼关之战
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Tóngguān Zhī Zhàn

The Battle of Tong Pass was fought between the warlord Cao Cao and a coalition of forces from Guanxi (west of Hangu Pass) from March to September 211 during the prelude to the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. The battle was initiated by Cao Cao's western expansion, which triggered uprisings in Guanxi. Cao Cao scored a decisive victory over the Guanxi coalition and established a hold of the Guanzhong region.

Background

Before the end of the Han Dynasty, the warlord Ma Teng commanded a sizable army in the northwestern frontiers of China that threatened the North China Plain controlled by Cao Cao. When Cao Cao finished his unification of northern China in 207, he wished to turn south to attack Liu Bei and Sun Quan; so to avoid being attacked from behind, Cao Cao appointed Ma Teng as an official and summoned him to Ye City. Ma Teng and some of his family members were effectively held hostage to prevent Ma Teng's son, Ma Chao, from invading Cao Cao's territory.

Cao Cao's southern expedition did not go well; however, as he was defeated by the combined forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei at the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208. He soon turned his attention west instead, with the intention to invade Guanzhong. In March 211, Cao Cao sent Zhong Yao to attack Hanzhong (Han'ning), which was controlled by Zhang Lu, while sending Xiahou Yuan to rendezvous with Zhong's forces. Gao Rou cautioned Cao Cao against such a move, saying that sending massive armies west could draw suspicion from the forces of Guanxi and cause them to revolt. However, Cao Cao paid no heed to his advice.

As predicted, the forces of Guanxi began suspecting an assault from Cao Cao, and soon Ma Chao, Han Sui, Hou Xuan, Cheng Yin, Yang Qiu, Li Kan, Zhang Heng, Liang Xing, Cheng Yi, and Ma Wan (馬玩) rallied their armies and marched on Tong Pass (in present-day Tongguan County, Shaanxi). The coalition comprised a mixture of Han Chinese, Qiang, and Hu soldiers. Many counties of the area joined the uprising, and the civilians had to escape into Hanzhong via Ziwu Valley (子午谷).

In response, Cao Cao ordered Cao Ren to defend against the invading forces and issued orders that they must refrain from engaging the enemy.

The battle

In July, Cao Cao left the capital to lead his troops against Ma Chao, while leaving his son Cao Pi to defend his headquarters in Ye City. In August, his troops arrived at Tong Pass where the standoff between his forces and the Guanxi forces was taking place. As the standoff dragged on, more and more Guanxi reinforcements came to Tong Pass, but Cao Cao seemed gleeful at every instance of enemy reinforcements. When asked by his officers why he was so happy when the enemy was gaining numbers, he replied "The road to Guanzhong is long, and if the barbarians defended themselves along the treacherous terrain, we cannot conquer them in one or two years. But now that they all assembled here in this uneasy alliance, it will be much easier to eliminate them. That is why I am happy."

Cao Cao gave the Guanxi forces an impression that a frontal assault was imminent, but on the other hand, he sent Xu Huang and Zhu Ling to travel north and cross the Yellow River via Puban Ford (浦阪津) to the west with 4,000 men and pitch camp there, so as to circumvent Tong Pass. A month later, Cao Cao's main force followed, while Cao Cao and Xu Chu guarded the rear. When Ma Chao got word of Cao Cao's maneuver, he led roughly 10,000 men to give chase. Arrows poured down on the rearguard, but Cao Cao was in no hurry. Seeing that the situation became dire, Xu Chu helped Cao Cao onto a boat, but the ferryman was shot dead. Xu Chu then used a saddle to shield arrows with his left hand, and paddled the boat with his right. Ma Chao's men kept on firing arrows on Cao Cao's boat even though it had sailed for miles. It was then Ding Fei (丁斐), a general under Cao Cao, gave the command to release the livestock. Seeing this, the pursuing army, being mostly herders, gave up on the chase and went for the horses and oxen instead. It was through these efforts that Cao Cao safely crossed the river.

Cao Cao's force then regrouped with Xu Huang's, and marched south along the river. The Guanxi armies then accordingly positioned themselves against attack from the north. Cao Cao prepared decoy troops to distract the defenses while setting up a pontoon bridge crossing the Wei River that would allow his forces to complete the circumvention of Tong Pass. At night, a portion of Cao Cao's forces crossed the river and tried to set camp there; however, the soil was too sandy to be used for building defense, and Ma Chao's cavalry soon chased away the builders. Eventually, on the advice of Lou Gui, Cao Cao had his men pour water on piled-up sand. The mixture froze in the cold night and became solid, and thus a bridgehead fortification was established south of the Wei River. It was shortly attacked by Ma Chao, but he was repelled by Cao Cao's ambushes.

As the battle dragged on, Ma Chao attempted a ceasefire where he requested the lands west of the Wei River, but Cao Cao rejected. Ma Chao would try to engage Cao Cao's men at his newly established camp, but Cao Cao defended well and would not bite the bait. In an attempt to negotiate, Cao Cao, Han Sui, and Ma Chao came together bringing no one but their close guards. Ma Chao had hoped that, with his strength, he could capture Cao Cao and force him to agree to their terms, but he had heard of the prowess of Cao Cao's bodyguard, so he asked, "Is the Tiger Marquis with you today?" Cao Cao pointed at Xu Chu, who glared at Ma Chao, and Ma dared not make a move.

To avoid attrition, the generals of the Guanxi armies agreed to cede territories and send their sons to Cao Cao as hostages in exchange for peace. Cao Cao's strategist Jia Xu suggested that he could pretend to accept the terms, and then turn the allied forces against each other. Cao Cao agreed, and arranged for an armistice. Han Sui was sent by the Guanxi armies as the representative. He was once a friend of Cao Cao, and when they met, they did not talk about military affairs but instead recollected their youths in the capital, occasionally clapping their hands and laughing amiably. When the meeting was over, Ma Chao demanded to know what Cao Cao said, but Han Sui responded that it was nothing much. Ma Chao became suspicious of Han Sui from there on. A few days later, Cao Cao sent Han Sui a letter with certain words smudged out as if Han did it himself. Ma Chao saw this letter and thought Han Sui was collaborating with Cao Cao, and did not trust Han any more.

To capitalize on this suspicion, Cao Cao set the time for a final clash between the two forces. First, he challenged the allied forces with lightly armoured soldiers, then surrounding the allied forces with heavy cavalry in both flanks. The allies were routed and several commanders including Cheng Yi and Li Kan were killed in battle. Han Sui and Ma Chao fled to Liang Province and Yang Qiu to Anding (present-day Anding District, Gansu). Cao Cao emerged victorious.

Aftermath

Further information: Siege of Jicheng and Battle of Lucheng

The forces of Guanxi were unable to regroup again in a coalition and their strengths were greatly weakened after this battle. Of the remnants of the coalition, Yang Qiu soon surrendered, Han Sui was defeated by Xu Huang and Zhang He, and only Ma Chao was actively causing trouble for Cao Cao.

After Cao Cao's main army retreated due to an uprising back home, Ma Chao attacked the commanderies in Longxi with the forces of the western tribes and the commanderies took their lead from him, except for the city of Jicheng (冀城). When he conquered Jicheng, Ma Chao killed the Inspector of Liang Province, Wei Kang (韋康), occupied the city and controlled Wei's forces. He called himself the General Who Conquers the West and took over the governance of Bing Province and the military matters of Liang Province. The deputies who served under Wei Kang, Yang Fu, Jiang Xu (姜叙), Liang Kuan (梁寬), Zhao Qu (趙衢) and others plotted against Ma Chao. Yang Fu and Jiang Xu revolted in Lucheng and Ma Chao left Jicheng to quell the uprising, but he was not successful. Meanwhile, Liang Kuan and Zhao Qu closed the gates to Jicheng and Ma Chao could not return to the city. He had little choice but to seek refuge with Zhang Lu in Hanzhong.

Later, Cao Cao had Ma Teng's household executed for Ma Chao's uprising. Only Ma Chao and his cousin Ma Dai remained in his once great family.

In fiction

The battle was mentioned in chapters 58 and 59 of Luo Guanzhong's historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Cao Cao lured Ma Teng into the capital and had him killed because Ma had plotted to assassinate him. To avenge his father, Ma Chao led a coalition of dissidents against Cao Cao. Together with Han Sui, Ma Chao set off for Chang'an and conquered it easily. Having conquered Chang'an they advanced towards Tong Pass. Cao Cao then immediately dispatched Cao Hong and Xu Huang with 10,000 troops to Tong Pass to defend the pass with specific orders not to engage the enemy for ten days.

On the ninth day Cao Hong could no longer put up with the insults and taunts shouted by Ma Chao and his army and therefore led a contingent of troops out of the pass to fight Ma Chao's forces without permission. Xu Huang came out to help Cao Hong but the two of them were no match for Ma Chao who successfully took the pass. Cao Cao led troops personally to recapture Tong Pass but failed when Ma Chao defeated many of Cao Cao's top generals such as Yu Jin and Zhang He. Ma Chao then directly attacked Cao Cao. Cao Cao, in a bid to escape, cut off his beard and threw away his robe to avoid being identified by Ma Chao's troops before being rescued by Cao Hong and Xiahou Yuan.

In order to cut off Ma Chao's supply lines, Cao Cao led troops to cross the river but Ma Chao was prepared and ambushed him instead. Xu Chu, Cao Cao's bodyguard, protected Cao, who would have otherwise perished there. Later Ma Chao was challenged to a duel by Xu Chu. The duel was a draw but the subsequent battle forced Cao Cao to retreat. In the days ahead, Ma Chao harassed Cao Cao's troops and gave them no chance of setting up camps. Cao Cao established a camp anyway, in a short amount of time, using the cold weather and the river water to construct an ice fortress. Knowing that it would be very difficult to defeat a valiant general like Ma Chao, Cao Cao accepted his adviser Jia Xu's proposal to pretend to make peace with Ma Chao and at the same time attempt to turn Ma Chao and Han Sui against each other. Slowly the two men were driven apart. Ma Chao thought that Han Sui had collaborated with Cao Cao against him and tried to kill Han Sui, but only managed to chop off Han's hand. In the ensuing confusion, Cao Cao launched an attack on his confused enemies and overcame them.

Modern references

The Battle of Tong Pass is one of the playable stages in Koei's video game series Dynasty Warriors for the PS2. If the player is on Cao Cao's side and follows the order of events in both history and the novel by making Han Sui defect, it is an easy victory. In the original releases of Dynasty Warriors 6 for the PS3 and the Xbox 360 the stage was removed, but the stage was brought back, along with the Battle of Ruxukou and the Battle of Jieting, in the later release for the PS2.

References

• Chen Shou. Records of Three Kingdoms.
• Sima Guang. Zizhi Tongjian.
• Luo Guanzhong. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Chapters 58, 59.