History will look slightly and sometimes hugely different if it is written in the losers’ perspective. The bias by the writer will surely affect what the things are looked at.
By the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, almost every seigneur was building up his own strength and aimed at taking over the empire. Among them, three stood out to obtain strong enough military force to conquer a large piece of land and then found a new kingdom.
Within the three, Cao Cao’s Wei, in the north, is a way more powerful kingdom in comparison to Liu Bei’s Shu and Sun Quan’s Wu. Therefore, when Cao Cao finally decided to march south, the two southern kingdoms became allies, and hoped in hold hands they will be able to force Cao Cao to retreat. Sadly, their combined army still came short in number. However, what good news is, as a result of the geographical difference between northern and southern China, a large number of Cao Cao’s troops is troubled with seasickness. The southerners knew that people from the north are not good at battling on boat, and they also knew they have to fight smart. Hence, the officers of the southerners played a series of acts of irritating one of their lieutenants Huang Gai, so that when Huang wrote a letter to Cao Cao saying that he would like to betray his country and surrender to Wei, all these information will play a huge supporting role to make the strategy work. As expected, Cao Cao accepted Huang’s surrender. Taking advantage of the opportunity to get so close to Wei’s army, Huang burned down all the northerners’ ships and ended the war.
If the history is in the northerners’ word, it will be stuffed with abomination, and maybe criticize the tricky acts by the southerners. Meanwhile, in the southerners’ history book, there might be a whole rhapsody praising the same act as a brilliant strategy.
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