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Zhang Liao

Courtesy nameWenyuan

The Wei General Who Awed Jiangdong at Hefei

Best of the Rank and File · Fierce Generals & Fine Strategists

Holding the CityAwe-Inspiring FameHefei

Who they are

Once an officer of Lü Bu, who submitted to Cao Cao after Lü Bu’s fall and became first of Wei’s "Five Elite Generals." In 215, with seven thousand defenders, he held Hefei against Sun Quan’s hundred thousand, surprising them by night and cutting straight to Sun Quan’s command tent, sending Sun Quan fleeing for his life; after that battle "Zhang Liao stops the crying" — Jiangdong folk used his name to hush wailing children — spread far and wide, making him one of the most fearsomely famous generals of the age.

Primary sourcesChen Shou, Records of the Three Kingdoms, Book of Wei, Biography of Zhang Liao

Key stories

Eight Hundred Breaking a Hundred Thousand at Hefei

In 215 Sun Quan led a hundred thousand troops against Hefei, and the defending general Zhang Liao, with only seven thousand, took the offensive: overnight he picked eight hundred death-defying men and struck the Wu camp before dawn, cutting all the way to Sun Quan’s commander’s standard, so that Sun Quan fled up a mound and guarded himself with a long halberd to escape. After that Zhang Liao fought his way back to hold the city, and Sun Quan, after a siege of over ten days, withdrew with nothing to show — a victory of the few over the many so lopsided it chilled the morale of Jiangdong.

Relationships

Serves

🦅Cao Cao　Submitted after Lü Bu’s fall

Nemesis

🌊Sun Quan　The Battle of Hefei, eight hundred breaking a hundred thousand

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

"Zhang Liao stops the crying"It is said that after the Battle of Hefei, Jiangdong folk used his name to hush wailing children — a folk-legend saying, but a measure of the battle’s awe.

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