Chapter 31 Chapter 31 Liu Bei dies with hatred

An urgent envoy from the west of Bazhi arrived. "General Cheqi, the governor of the barracks, sent someone to report urgently." The general responsible for conveying the task reported so. Hearing these words, Liu Bei's face suddenly changed. "Could it be that Zhang Fei was killed?" The governor is the general's second-in-command.General Zhang Fei is a person who must do everything by himself, and it is absolutely impossible for him to report to the emperor in the name of the deputy official. Therefore, "the governor sent someone to report urgently", indicating that something happened to Zhang Fei.Liu Bei immediately speculated that Zhang Fei had encountered an accident, which was completely logical.Before Liu Bei listened to the report, he had guessed that Zhang Fei was most likely to be "killed".

A long time ago, Liu Bei often said to Zhang Fei: You have tortured too much.Also, you are whipping soldiers almost every day. You must exercise restraint in this regard, otherwise, you will cause trouble sooner or later. Zhang Fei took Liu Bei's words as a deaf ear: No way! "My guess was right..." After listening to the report, Liu Bei murmured inwardly while being dejected. He lost his sworn brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei one after another. He left - this point made him feel deeply that his old and frail self had also turned gray. Zhang Fei's death occurred in July of the first year of Shu Zhangwu (221 AD), only three months after Liu Bei ascended the throne.This year, Liu Bei ignored the opposition of his officials and was busy until the end of the year preparing to avenge Guan Yu.

Just after the new year, Liu Bei went down the Yangtze River, crossed the danger of the Three Gorges, and marched to Yiling.Yiling is today's Yichang City, Hubei Province. The frontline commander before Wu who confronted him was the rookie Lu Xun.Facing the Shu army attacking from the north and the south along the Yangtze River, he adopted a complete non-resistance operation.When the enemy attacked, he retreated. This was his way of fighting. Facing such an enemy, the more Liu Bei marched, the more chilling he felt. Attacking with the current is extremely advantageous when attacking, but once retreating, it will become disadvantageous.It is very difficult to go up the river when retreating.

Liu Bei is also a military general who has experienced hundreds of battles. He knows that fighting is not enough to advance alone. "Okay! Build the wooden fence!" Liu Bei gave this order. He built a wooden fence stretching more than 100 kilometers from Wu Gorge to Yiling, with the purpose of preventing the overextended defense line from being broken by surprise attacks. "Great! Liu Bei did something stupid!" Lu Xun cried out with joy when he saw the long wooden fence.The wooden fence is indeed beneficial to block the enemy's attack, but the attack does not necessarily require the use of soldiers!If fire attack tactics are used, what will be the result?Wouldn't the whole line be engulfed in a sea of ​​flames? ?

"Ask all the generals in the army to each carry a torch!" Lu Xun gave this order. The long wooden fence began to catch fire everywhere. In a war, even if the battle within the deployment range is unfavorable, if the friendly forces elsewhere have an advantage, they can still maintain their morale—this is the general situation in war.The current situation is that there are fires everywhere, which seems to mean that Liu Beijun has no hope. Flames were everywhere, and the Shu army was suddenly depressed and lost all fighting spirit.As a result, the Shu army was defeated.Liu Bei abandoned tens of thousands of dead in Ma'anshan, fled, and finally fled to Baidi City.

Taking advantage of the victory, the Wu army pursued and burned the Shu army's boats. Countless dead bodies were dumped in the Yangtze River, blocking the flow of water. Liu Bei launched this war of revenge for Guan Yu because of his personal emotional impulse, but it ended in a disastrous defeat.It can be seen that if you can't maintain a calm attitude in war, it is absolutely impossible to win. Among the five brothers of the Ma family in Xiangyang, Ma Liang, who was considered the most outstanding, also died a heroic death as a general of the Shu army.The Ma brothers are all excellent, and people's comments are: "Among them, white eyebrows are the most outstanding." Part of Ma Liang's eyebrows is white.The Chinese still call the best among a group of outstanding people "white eyebrows".Its allusion comes from Ma Liang.

The Yiling defeat of the Shu army was in June 222 AD.Liu Bei changed the name of Baidi City, where he was hiding, to Yong'an, and lived in this place.This move is not so much to wait for the opportunity, but rather to heal the trauma. The sad emperor Liu Bei, who took refuge in Baidi City, fell seriously ill.He was sweating profusely due to the high fever, moaning day and night. "Guan Yu... Zhang Fei..." He often kept calling his dead sworn brothers in his ravings. Liu Bei's close ministers lowered their voices and whispered to each other: "You should look for enemies even when you are doing ghosts. How can you appear in front of the emperor? Although these two people can fight, they really have no brains..."

It's New Years again.This is the fourth year of Wei Huangchu, the third year of Shu Zhangwu, 223 AD.Liu Bei, who was ill in bed, said: "Kong Ming please come." Prime Minister Zhuge Kongming was assisting Crown Prince Liu Chan in Chengdu at this time.The emperor Liu Bei invited Kong Ming to come, he must know that his death is not far away, and he intends to ask for future affairs.The officials wiped away their tears and looked at each other quietly. Kong Ming came to Baidi City in February. Liu Bei died on April 24 of this year.Prior to this, Kong Ming stayed in Baidi City for two months. Liu Bei used this time to entrust his funeral affairs to him.

"You are ten times more talented than Cao Pi. I believe you will be able to accomplish the great cause of the revival of the Han Dynasty. If my son is worthy of assistance, I hope you can take good care of him. If you think it is not worth it, I hope that you will replace him and come to the Kingdom of Shu." Liu Bei said so. If you think that my son is not good enough, I hope you will take his place—this kind of last words can be described as unprecedented.Liu Bei's deep trust in Kong Ming can be seen from this. In this regard, Kong Ming burst into tears and said: "The only thing I can do is to do my best, to be smashed to pieces, to be loyal to the country, and to die."

Before he died, Liu Bei called his sons Liu Chan and Liu Yong to the sickbed, and said: "After the death of your father, you must treat the prime minister as your father, and you must discuss everything with the prime minister, and you can only do it after you get instructions." Liu Chan ascended the throne in May at the age of seventeen.But being young is not the problem, the problem is that the talent of this young man is really unbearable.The reason why Liu Bei said to Kong Ming, "If you think there is no such value, I hope that Qing will replace him", can be said to be because he has already seen that this son is not good enough.

Prime Minister Zhuge Kongming left Zhongdu to protect Li Yanyu and renamed Baidi City in Yong'an, while he returned to Chengdu in Shu with Liu Bei's coffin.The yuan name was changed to Jianxing. After returning to Chengdu, Kong Ming's first task was to restore friendship with Wu.After the Chibi War, although there were some disputes, Shu and Wu finally maintained an alliance.This relationship broke down later, and both parties had their own reasons for this, but it was mainly because of Guan Yu's stubborn character.Later, Liu Bei launched a brave and foolish battle to avenge Guan Yu, which worsened the relationship between the two sides. Such a big gap must be filled. After Liu Bei's death, Shu's diplomatic policy suddenly changed to "pro-Wu, anti-Wei".In fact, it is equivalent to returning to the origin. However, the two had fought each other to the point of killing each other, so it was not easy to restore friendly relations.At this point, it is natural that Shu, which destroys friendly relations first, needs to make greater efforts. Zhuge Kongming appointed a man named Deng Zhi to be in charge of diplomatic issues with Wu.After going back and forth between the two countries many times, Deng Zhi finally succeeded in persuading Wu Zhisun Quan. Since there is such a superpower as Wei in the north, it is rather a natural trend for Shu and Wu to form an alliance in order to be able to compete with it.But now it took a lot of effort to do this. Shu sent Deng Zhi to visit Wu, and Wu sent Zhang Wen to Shu. When confronting the northern giant Wei, Shu and Wu have the same interests, but when it comes to southern issues, the two have very different views.Once the south of Shu is stabilized, Wu's dominance over Jiaozhou (Guangdong, Guangxi, and northern Vietnam), which was not very stable before, may be shaken. Wu Sui shook hands with Shu with one hand, and with the other hand, he incited the southern minorities of Shu to rebel and make trouble. In the southern part of Shu—today’s Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi—there are many non-Han ethnic minorities, mainly Miao, Yi, Zhuang, Buyi, Yao, etc. Each tribe has its own leader, especially Yong Kai, Meng Huo, Zhu Bao, Gao Dingyuan and others are the most tenacious. Wu instigated Yong Kai to kill Zheng Ang, the local prefect, and also captured Zhang Yi, who was also the prefect, and sent him to Wu.It is a matter of course that Wu, the ally of Shu, is manipulating behind this. Shu naturally understood this too.However, Prime Minister Zhuge Kongming was unwilling to go to war when Emperor Liu Beifu died, and also realized the importance of maintaining contact with Wu, so he gritted his teeth and did not send troops to attack.Yiling has not yet fully healed from the serious wounds he suffered, and now we must do everything possible to strengthen our internal affairs.Kong Ming only locked Yunguan, but did not take any further steps. The ethnic minorities in southern Shu were called "Southwestern Yi" at that time.As mentioned earlier, it was Wu who instigated the Southwestern Yi, but they did not intervene directly.It is impossible for Wu, who is based on the Yangtze River, to extend its tentacles to the far south of Shu. In fact, these disturbances were all carried out through Shi Xie, the leader of Jiaozhou.During the time of Wang Mang, the scholar family moved to Guangdong to escape the disaster of war. It has been a powerful family for more than two hundred years.However, according to the practice of troubled times, any force has to belong to something, so on the surface, it is subject to Wu, but in essence it maintains a semi-independent state. Among the leaders of the Southwest Yi, there are also some people with extremely good minds.There is a man who is famous for his valor, and this man is actually the king of resourcefulness. ——How can Shi Xie's generation jump on the beam! After carefully analyzing the status of various countries, this person has this feeling. His name is Meng Huo. The Jiaozhou scholar family is just a small force, and Wu is the one who really dominates, and Shu and Wu are equal big forces. If Shu intends to go to war, the Jiaozhou scholar family will be vulnerable.What's more, the area inhabited by the Southwestern Yi is relatively close to the base of Shu. Sooner or later, Shu will reorganize its armaments and open the Yunguan Pass to the south.At that time, will Jiaozhou really send reinforcements? --impossible! It is absolutely impossible for a semi-independent Shijia to send reinforcements and leave its base in a vacuum.If so, Wu, whom they regard as their master, is likely to send a large army to occupy Jiaozhou.What Wu wants is the territory directly under him, not the vassal of a semi-independent force. Neither Jiaozhou nor Wu behind it can be relied upon. Under such circumstances, what should we do? The answer to this question is very simple.That is: once again subject to Shu. However, the disturbance work in Jiaozhou has been quite deep, and the Southwestern Yi people who were instigated by scholars have a very high sense of hostility towards the Shu Han.Therefore, persuading the tribes to surrender to the Shu Han will be the hardest part. "It's better to go there in person and talk face to face!" With such determination, Meng Huo went quietly and asked to meet with Prime Minister Zhuge Kongming. "I intend to surrender, but the current situation is impossible. All the tribes who have been instigated by the scholars all underestimate the military power of Shu. At this time, if you speak honestly and want to surrender to Shu, you will be ridiculed and cowardly by everyone. "Meng Huo said. "Then what should we do?" Kong Ming asked. "The Shu army should win an overwhelming victory. Shu must demonstrate its strength with actual actions, so as to convince those diehards. For this, I hope that Shu can show more than its strength once." "Really?" Zhuge Kongming nodded and said, "Then how about we discuss combat methods together?" In fact, Kong Ming knew very well the purpose of Meng Huo's secret visit—Meng Huo was here to suggest a pre-planned war.Sooner or later, Shu will launch the Southern Expedition. At that time, unless Shu completely defeats the Southwestern Yi army, the heads of various tribes will never submit to Shu willingly.Therefore, the details of the battle were determined first, and the two sides fought according to the details, deliberately allowing Shu to win an overwhelming victory.Anyway, if you really fight a war, you will be defeated, and this method can reduce your losses more. "Please teach me more." Meng Huo took out the map from his pocket. "Brother Meng—" Kong Ming stared at the opponent's face, and said after a while, "I always thought you were just a brave warrior, but I didn't expect you to be a very good smart general!" "I don't dare to do it." Meng Huo humbly resigned. Two years after Liu Bei's death—in March of the third year of Jianxing (AD 225), Zhuge Kongming personally led the Southern Expeditionary Army to attack the Southwestern Yi.In May, cross Lushui. At this time, disputes broke out among the Southwestern Yi, and the commander-in-chief Yong Kai was killed and replaced by Meng Huo. The battle finally begins.The Southwestern Yi were defeated in their first confrontation, and Meng Huo became a prisoner.Kong Ming took Meng Huo to see how he was setting up the formation, and then released him. "I have seen their formation, and this confrontation will never lose!" Meng Huo challenged again, but was defeated again and became a prisoner again.Kong Ming released him again. In the end, in this war, when Meng Huo was "captured seven times and seven times", the Southwestern Yi completely surrendered. "You are a person with Tianwei, we dare not rebel again." Meng Huo finally made such an oath to Kong Ming.None of the chiefs of the tribes who had experienced this battle dared to raise any objections to the surrender to Shu.