Chapter 33 Chapter Thirty-Three Emperors of the World

In April 229 A.D., Sun Quan, who used to call himself the king of Wu, also began to proclaim himself emperor.In other words, there were three emperors in China at the same time. This aroused heated discussions in Shu.In a nutshell, this is a debate between idealists and realists. Why did Shu go to war against Wei Xing? This is because Wei tried to usurp the world of Han.Cao Pi abolished Emperor Xian of Han and became Emperor Wei.Although he called this move "abdication", in fact, Emperor Xian was forced to abdicate. In the Kingdom of Shu, people thought that Emperor Xian had been murdered by Cao Pi.They believed the false report they had received, so Liu Bei, who was related to the Han Dynasty, took the throne as his successor.Although it was later learned that Emperor Xian was still alive as Duke of Shanyang, but at this time it was impossible to abolish the emperor who had already ascended the throne.

The false positive was thus not corrected. This is exactly where Shu's foothold is troubled.Dedicating the emperor eventually became a taboo in Shu.A country with taboos will not be able to stand firm.If there is a sense of taboo, the spirit of the people will be depressed. Although the title of "Shu" or "Shu Han" is used for convenience, this regime has always regarded itself as "Han" orthodox.What they advertise is: this is not the new dynasty founded by Liu Bei, but the Han Dynasty inherited from the Han Dynasty founded by the great ancestor Liu Bang four hundred years ago.

Emperor Han, the lord of all China, should sweep up the villains who ruled all over the country and regain the world. However, in the north, Wei claimed to be the emperor and ruled the land separately.Under the concept that there are no two suns in the sky and no two emperors in the earth, Zhuge Kongming launched the Northern Expedition to attack Wei.Although things backfired and the army was defeated in Jieting, he did not give up his plan for the Northern Expedition because of this. Wei is a Han traitor, so he must be crusaded.Wei was regarded as a Han thief because he called himself the emperor.

Now, Wu is also arrogated to be the emperor, so Wu should also be regarded as a traitor of the Han Dynasty, which is a simple reason. But Shu Han has an alliance with Wu. The Han thieves must be crusaded, how can we form an alliance with them! ——Han thieves must be crusaded! This is the claim of the idealists. The realists counter this with the following arguments: ——At the same time as enemies with Wei and Wu, the Shu Han, not to mention crusade against others, even had difficulty maintaining their own country.Everyone who advocates the crusade against Wu, is the purpose of destroying my Shu Han?

Idealists say: ——Of course we don't want to see the Shu Han destroyed.What we emphasize is that it is not allowed to continue to form an alliance with Wu who pretends to be the emperor, because this is against righteousness.We must abolish alliances to show our founding principles. The realists say: ——Although Wu will not be attacked immediately, when the alliance is abolished, Wu may become angry and attack. Hearing such an analysis from the Realists, the Idealists naturally did not dare to deny the possibility of Wu attacking with a pre-emptive stance. Shu Han is going all out to fight Wei.When fighting Wu, water warfare will occupy a large proportion, so the way of preparing for battle is also very different.This is not something that can be solved by moving the combat preparations for fighting against Wei to fighting against Wu.

As Kong Ming said in "The List of Teachers", "Yizhou is weak and weak", Shu is the weakest in China among the Three Kingdoms.Fighting Wei is a desperate move. Moreover, this battle is an alliance with Wu and making it contain Wei as a prerequisite. Even if Wu did not launch an attack first, it would be a great loss to Shu to sever the alliance.Without Wu's restraint, the superpower Wei could dominate the weak Shu at will.Under such circumstances, if you stick to your ideals, won't you be suicidal? ——Flag justice, sever allies! The idealists who tend to treat Wu in this way are actually the majority.The one who strongly opposed it was the realist—Prime Minister Zhuge Kongming.

Kong Ming, who resigned from the post of prime minister because he was responsible for the defeat of Jieting, was reinstated as prime minister this year because he pacified Wudu and Yinping in Gansu and successfully won over the local brave Tibetans. Zhuge Kongming reluctantly sent envoys to express his congratulations to Sun Quan, whom the emperor himself called himself.Sun Quan said to the emissary Wei Wei Chen Zhen: "The two emperors stand side by side. After the Wei Dynasty is destroyed, our two countries will work together to carve up the territory of Wei! The four states of Henan, Qing, Xu, and You belong to Wu, the four states of Yan, Ji, Bing, and Liang belong to Shu, and Sizhou (Kinai) How about taking Hangu Pass as the boundary and dividing it between the two?"

Isn't it too wishful thinking to say that the superpower Wei, which owns more than half of the world, wants to carve up its territory? Wu changed his name to Huanglong.This Yuan name is used to commemorate the auspicious omens witnessed by Huanglong in Xiakou and Wuchang.The state of Wu used Jianye—today's Nanjing—as its capital. The situation of China's division continued for a long time, and most of the dynasties based in the south used Jianye as their capital.Wu was followed by six dynasties including Eastern Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen.The period of more than 350 years until Chen was destroyed by the Sui Dynasty and the world was unified, as far as the south is concerned, it was the so-called "Six Dynasties Era".

This year, Zhao Yun, the veteran of Shu, passed away. In the second year after Sun Quan proclaimed himself emperor, Shu Han was busy preparing for the war against Wei all year long.As mentioned earlier, before this, Shu had sent troops across Hanzhong to Wudu and Yinping, but this year it was completely in a state of truce.On the other hand, Wei took Cao Zhen as his general and marched into Hanzhong. Shu was protected by the Lord of Heaven. In the autumn of this year, due to continuous rain and flooding of the river, Wei ordered Cao Zhen to retreat. In the following year AD 231, Zhuge Kongming attacked Qishan.

Wei's coach, Sima Zhongda, had Zhang He, Guo Huai and others under him. Sima Zhongda took a cautious attitude.What kind of combat method Zhuge Kongming will adopt, he can't guess at all, so it is absolutely not appropriate to act rashly.Kong Ming ordered to cut off all the wheat in Shangbang.This place belongs to Wei's territory, so this move is like robbing the enemy's food. "Get angry!" Kong Ming's move was to annoy the other party.But Sima Zhongda, who knew Kong Ming's intentions, stood still.This aroused the dissatisfaction of the general Zhang Yun.

"It's so useless to be so afraid of the Shu army! We will be ridiculed by the world like this!" Zhang He strongly advocated attacking.The rest of the generals also supported this proposition. "Since everyone advocates this, then go and annihilate the Shu army!" Sima Zhongda then agreed to attack. Kong Ming ordered Wei Yan, Gao Xiang, Wu Ban and other generals to fight.As a result, the Wei army was defeated.The Wei army couldn't bear their temper and attacked them frizzy - this is Kong Ming's battle plan. "Zhong Da is a very thoughtful person, will he be provoked to attack as we expected?" The aides were initially dubious.To this, Kong Ming replied: "Zhongda knows that we have ambushes and is going to wipe out the attacking Wei army." "Now that he knows, he won't attack!" "No, the Wei army will attack." "why?" "Zhang He and the rest of Zhongda's subordinates may become competitors threatening Zhongda's status in the future. Therefore, Zhongda hopes that they will be defeated." Kong Ming smiled. "How is that possible?... Zhongda has to take responsibility when he loses a battle!" "This is exactly why Zhongda is Zhongda's brilliance." Kong Ming said, "In order to avoid responsibility, he will of course make proper arrangements; according to my guess, he will completely oppose the attack, and then show that he has to I agree with the attitude of the generals who are the ones who advocate the war.... In this way, the responsibility for the defeat should be borne by the generals who advocated the attack? Zhong Da, who is firmly opposed to the attack, can stay out of the matter?" "I see." Although the staff nodded, they also showed a dubious expression. As a result, things went exactly as Kong Ming expected. In this confrontation, the Shu Han won the first three thousand battles. Jiashou refers to the head of a warrior wearing armor, excluding the head of a servant.That is, these are pure combat casualties. In June, the Shu army decided to retreat because their food was exhausted.Another reason to retreat: The rainy season is about to begin. "The Shu army is retreating, this is the best time to attack!" Zhong Da ordered Zhang Yun. When the army retreats, an ambush is generally preset to cover the smooth retreat of the main force.Therefore, the Art of War prohibits the pursuit of such an army. However, Zhang Xi had to obey this order.Not long ago, he was beaten badly by the enemy because he insisted on attacking, so this time he didn't dare to disobey Zhongda's will again. Zhang Yun, a famous general of the Wei State, was ambushed during the pursuit battle, and his right knee was injured by a stray arrow, so he died. Sima Zhongda's strong contender in Wei State disappeared like this. Obtaining three thousand armors——Although the Shu army achieved this great victory, they had to retreat. The biggest reason for this was the lack of supplies of military rations. Why is the supply not continuing? The first reason is man-made disasters. Li Yan, who was in charge of the supply task in Hanzhong, slowed down his work, which had a great impact.At this time, Li Yan, who had changed his name to Li Ping, was always proud of being entrusted by the late emperor with Zhuge Kongming in Baidi City.However, compared with Kong Ming who was the prime minister and was in the center of power, he had the high position of Hussar General, but was forced to stay away from the center; he was moved to Jiangzhou (Chongqing), Hanzhong and other places, but he still failed to fulfill his wish to become an official in the Chengdu court.He was deeply dissatisfied with such an unfair situation. "I'm working hard here to take on the supply mission, but Zhuge Kongming's battle achievements are all attributed to Zhuge Kongming. Am I not a winner?" Li Ping, who held this idea, deliberately neglected the supply business. Kong Ming even punished Ma Su, who was regarded as his own, for violating military discipline. How could he let Li Ping go?He then found concrete evidence of Li Ping's sabotage and severely impeached him.As a result, Li Ping's official position was cut and he was exiled to a place called Zitong. Kong Ming took great care of the beheaded Ma Su's beheaded family. Similarly, he also gave Li Feng, the son of Li Ping who was exiled, an important position, so that he had the opportunity to restore his father's reputation. It seems to be a traditional phenomenon of the Shu Han that political dignitaries are at odds with each other.Recent examples include: when Guan Yu attacked Fancheng, Mi Fang of Jiangling and others deliberately neglected the supply issue, while Meng Da of Shangyong did not send reinforcements at all. This point is probably related to the complexity of the Shu Han Liu Bei camp, right?In addition to Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and other immediate personnel in Liu Bei's camp, there are also Tao Qian, Lu Bu, Liu Biao, Liu Zhang, and the Kansai Army, who sent lords from all over the country to join in. First-class talent is not an easy thing to do. After the failure of the Northern Expedition, the feud between Wei Yan and Liu Yan, Yang Yi and others became superficial.Kong Ming had no choice but to send Liu Yan, the chariot general, back to Chengdu.This is true in the "autumn of life and death" when the need is urgent, and the seriousness of the man-made disaster problem is self-evident. The second is poor supply technology.Specifically, the transportation methods and tools are very outdated, and it is difficult to achieve the purpose of large-scale replenishment. In addition, although the alliance with Wu Zhi still exists, the connection work between the two is completely out of touch.While Shu was struggling and desperately needed allies to contain Wei, Wu was not willing to take action.In fact, both have the mentality of exploiting each other, so it is only natural that such an alliance is in name only.Neither side formed an alliance because of righteousness. Under such circumstances, who is willing to sacrifice themselves? "Let's spend two years preparing slowly!" Kong Ming said to the dignitaries of Shu. To overthrow the superpower Wei, it is not enough to dig a well when you are thirsty. Fortunately, Shu has a natural fortress.In view of the fact that Cao Cao once suffered a loss, Wei hesitated to attack the area from Shu to the south of Hanzhong.Being in a difficult place to attack, Shu could spend a lot of time on preparations. Kong Ming locked himself in the prime minister's mansion every day, sitting in front of the case and meditating.Occasionally, when I think of something, I pick up a pen and scribble on the paper on the table.However, what he graffiti is not words, but some straight lines or arcs. "The means of transportation ... victory or defeat depends entirely on it." Kong Ming said to himself. In wars so far, the tools used to transport food or military supplies have been carts pulled by several cows or horses-with a wheel on each side of the car body. "This has been used since the Spring and Autumn and Warring States..." In case of walking on a very steep slope or mountain road, this type of car is easy to overturn, and a lot of materials are lost.If such a two-wheeled vehicle can be made more stable, it is unknown how much such losses can be reduced. Moreover, once the car body is stable, the load capacity will increase a lot.Kong Ming is designing larger vehicles that can carry more cargo and are easier to load and unload. After the design was completed, Kong Ming asked someone to manufacture a prototype and test it on the mountain road.As a result of the test run, if there is any unsatisfactory place, it will be corrected immediately. The cart invented by Kong Ming is commonly called a wooden ox or a flowing horse. What the actual appearance of the wooden ox or the flowing horse is, now it is impossible to verify.But judging from the name, this thing seems to be related to the shape of a cow or a horse. In addition to being a first-class politician and military strategist, Zhuge Kongming is also an inventor with a scientific mind!