This episode recounts Zhou Yu devising a plan to defeat Cao Cao. He ordered General Huang Gai to feign surrender using the Painful Flesh Strategy. When the southeast wind arose, Huang Gai led small boats laden with flammable materials into Cao Cao's naval encampment. Riding the wind, they set fire to Cao's fleet, burning all his ships to ashes. Cao Cao abandoned his army and retreated, only to be ambushed along the way by the combined forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei. Of his original 830,000 troops, barely a few hundred managed to escape back to Nan Commandery. In this battle, Cao Cao, commanding a vast army and brimming with arrogance, believed he could crush Eastern Wu in one decisive blow. Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang seized this opportunity to employ clever stratagems, using their numerically inferior forces to defeat the superior Cao army, achieving an unprecedented great victory.
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