東漢獻帝建安十三年所發生的「赤壁之戰」，不僅決定了日後三強鼎峙的歷史格局，也是日後流傳的三國故事中，最令人津津樂道的重要橋段。不過自三國時代起對此役的論述即陷入互為對立的解釋權爭奪戰：當三國爭霸之際，各國史官實採取專美本國的敘事立場，即使至三分歸晉之後，各國士人也各自形成對其家邦故土的描述，更藉以確保其對三國歷史之解釋正統性。 然隨著時間軸線的擴大，三國時代劍拔弩張的緊張氣氛逐漸消解，也使得「赤壁之戰」的論述產生新的向度，如北宋司馬光《資治通鑑》將其由「國事」的激情逐漸沉澱為「史事」探究的冷靜；蘇軾於謫黃時期藉詠赤壁來抒懷不遇之「心事」， 以建立對三國歷史的全新解讀視角；至清初毛宗崗批本《三國志演義》採用明代楊慎〈臨江仙‧滾滾長江東逝水〉作為開卷之詞，不僅將故事的脈絡重新導回歷史之軌轍，也使「赤壁之戰」在「故事性」的渲染聲中與歷史巧妙疊影。是故本文將利用「國事」、「史事」、「心事」、「故事」的步驟，層層追述「赤壁意象」的流變軌跡，以撥顯其在中國文學史上的演變，並試圖描繪後世對「赤壁之戰」的接受與傳播的軌跡。

The Battle of Red Cliffs fought in the 13 year of Xian Emperor regime of East-Han not only determined the historical scheme of the Three Kingdoms, but also became the most relished episode of the Three Kingdom stories. However, narratives of this battle became a battle filed of contested discourses ever since the time of the Three Kingdoms. Historians from each Kingdom took the stance of preferring one’s own Kingdom over the others. Even after the Jin Dynasty unified the country, people of each Kingdom still described their once existed Kingdom in their own way, so as to ensure their descriptions of history remain canonical. However, over the years, the tension during the Three Kingdom period gradually dissolved, opening up new dimensions for the discourses of the Battle of Red Cliffs. For instance, in Sima Guang’s Zizhi Tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government), the Battle as a feverous ‘national matter’ was transformed into a more profound ‘historical matter’; Su Shi, while being demoted, interpreted the history of the Three Kingdoms in a brand new way by writing poetries about the Battle of Red Cliffs to express his worries about not being able to be properly appreciated. In the early Qing Dynasty, the opening phrase of Mao Zong-Gang’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms was quoted from Yang Shen’s Lin Jiang Xian in Ming Dynasty, ‘The water of Yangtze River rolls like thunder.’, which not only guided the context back to history, but also overlapped the narrative aspect of the Battle of Red Cliffs with historical ones. As a result, I would like to trace the transformation of the images of Red Cliffs through the layers of national, historical, mental and narrative matters, so as to exemplify its transformation in Chinese Literary History, and how the Battle of Red Cliffs is interpreted and transmitted by the later generations.