Records of the Three Kingdoms
Gan Ning, courtesy name Xingba, was from Linjiang in Ba commandery. As a young man he led a band on the river and was called the brocade-sail raider. He joined Liu Biao, was given little to do, and moved to Huang Zu, governor of Jiangxia, who also treated him poorly. Through Su Fei and others he went over to Sun Quan, who received him as he did the older officers.
In 208 he joined the defeat of Huang Zu. He later fought at Wan, Hefei, and Ruxu. At Ruxu he picked about a hundred men, pulled up the abatis by night, broke into Cao Cao’s camp, took several dozen heads, and withdrew. Sun Quan said that Mengde had Zhang Liao and he had Xingba, and that was enough to match him. Gan Ning was quick to kill. Sun Quan excused him more than once. The biography says he later died of illness and does not give the year. None is supplied here.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The novel keeps the brocade-sail past and has him, while still with Huang Zu, shoot Ling Cao at a hundred paces. After he joins Wu, his feud with Ling Tong becomes a series of near-fights, with Lü Meng stepping between them.
The hundred-rider raid is louder in the book: Gan Ning drinks, takes the order, and goes into Cao’s camp and back in a night. At Hefei he covers Sun Quan’s retreat. Those chapters make him one of Jiangdong’s famous fighters. The novel also gives his illness a firmer place in the timeline than the histories do, before Yiling.
Reference: Wikipedia · Gan Ning