Battle of Bowang

	Battle of Bowang
Date	208
Location	Xinye, northern Jing Province
Result	Liu Bei victorious
Forces
Liu Bei's Forces	Cao Cao's Forces
Commanders
Liu Bei	Cao Cao; Xiahou Dun

The Battle of Bowang (博望坡之戰), also known as the Battle of Bowang Slope, was a short battle between Liu Bei and Cao Cao. After the failed invasion, Cao Cao shifted his focus to Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang in the north, which gave Liu Bei a chance to recuperate.

Although this battle is often considered Zhuge Liang's first battle after joining Liu Bei, there were no records of Zhuge Liang's involvement in the battle and Zhuge Liang was mentioned in Liu Bei's biography only after the Battle of Bowang.

Background[]

This article is a stub. You can help The Three Kingdoms Wiki by expanding it.

In Romance of the Three Kingdoms[]

Liu Bei was given shelter in the Xinye Commandery by Liu Biao in AD 202, but when Liu Biao fell sick and died in AD 208, Cao Cao and over 800,000 troops set out to quell his "rebellion". Liu Bei and his generals retreated across the Bo Wan Po, pursued by a Wei army commanded by Xiahou Dun. His strategist, Zhuge Liang, recommended that he lure Cao Cao's generals over the river and into ambushes, and Liu Bei agreed to. First, Zhao Yun offered Xiahou Dun a duel. He fought him into the jungle ahead of Liu Bei's main camp, where Zhuge Liang used a fire attack against his unit, decimating it. Xiahou Dun retreated with his remnants of his division. Next, the Shu lured Han Hao into an ambush by Guan Ping in the middle of the forest, and his army was defeated. Finally, the last part of the plan involved Guan Yu lurking in the shadows until Yu Jin and his division forded the Yangtze River to attack Liu Bei, and his soldiers were slaughtered. The Shu army had completed their destruction of the Wei main force, and advanced across the river. Zhang Fei launched a raid on the enemy storehouses in Xinye Castle, and killed the enemy commander Lu Xiang. The Wei army was confused, and the Wei commander Cao Hong led a full-scale retreat from the battlefield. Even though Liu Bei had emerged victorious, he had to continue his withdrawal.