Battle of Mai Castle

The Battle of Mai Castle was a battle between Wu and Shu. This was the battle in which Guan Yu and his son Guan Ping were killed in.

Dynasty Warriors
In Dynasty Warriors 4, this is a Wu Tales stage. After the Battle of Yi Ling, Guan Yu escaped the fighting and holed himself up in Mai Castle. He tries to send out Liao Hua to ask for reinforcements, but he can be defeated. After he finds out that he cannot beat the Wu with such a small force, he roars and attempts to escape. After the Wu have sealed his escape routes, the Wu launch an attack in the castle and eventually defeat Guan Yu once and for all.

Historical Information
In 219, Guan attacked the nearby enemy city of Fancheng (present day Xiangfan, Hubei), which was guarded by Cao Ren, and besieged it. In autumn, heavy showers in the region caused the Han River next to the city to overflow. The flood destroyed reinforcements troops from Cao Cao led by Yu Jin and Pang De. Both Yu and Pang were captured by Guan in battle. However, reinforcements led by Xu Huang managed to force Guan's troops to retreat.

At that time, Guan realised that Wu had secretly formed an alliance with Wei and attacked Jing Province while he was attacking Fancheng. Mi Fang and Fu Shi Ren, whom he left in charge of Jing Province, had surrendered to Eastern Wu. When Guan's troops received news that their families in Jing Province had fallen into the control of Eastern Wu, some of them started deserting and returning to Jing Province to reunite with their families.

Guan's army was severely depleted due to the desertions so he attempted to retreat to Yi Province in the west but was surrounded and besieged by Eastern Wu forces at Maicheng (southeast of present day Dangyang, Hubei). Guan attempted to break out of the encirclement with his son Guan Ping and subordinate Zhao Lei but failed. They were captured in Zhang Town (east of modern day Yuan'an County, Hubei) and executed by Eastern Wu forces after refusing to surrender. Sun Quan sent Guan's severed head to Cao Cao, who performed the proper funeral rites and buried Guan's head with full honours. Guan was granted the posthumous title of "Marquis Zhuangmou" (壯繆侯), which states that he does not live up to his name in terms of his ability.