As a generation of martial saints, Guan Yu's fame has now reached the point of household name, whether in orthodox literature, or opera lyrics, or folk religion, there is no lack of Guan Erye's figure, coupled with his faith in thin clouds, it has been enshrined in both black and white, accounting for a large proportion of folk beliefs. But
In the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" written by Chen Shou, Guan Yu was very objectively evaluated, in his opinion, although Zhang Fei and Guan Yu both had the ability of "ten thousand enemies", their personalities were slightly high and arrogant.
After that, the allusion to Guan Yu's defeat of Maicheng also seems to confirm Chen Shou's evaluation, after all, as long as guan Yu's major strategic mistakes in his life are mentioned, most people will think of the saying "Guan Yu carelessly lost Jingzhou" at the first time. However, guan Yu's loss of Jingzhou is indeed an indisputable fact, but is it really just because of "carelessness", as described in the novel? This is not the case if the analysis is made from an objective point of view.
You know,
Although Guan Yu was high and arrogant, he was still a general, and from the incident of flooding the Seventh Army, it was not difficult to see Guan Yu's own wisdom and strategy, not to mention that Jingzhou had been a place of contention for soldiers since ancient times, did Guan Yu not know this?
Therefore, the beginning and end of Guan Yu's loss of Jingzhou is complicated, but it is by no means a "careless" that can be "said in a word".
First of all, as mentioned above, since the division of Jingzhou, its strategic position has been at the forefront of the country since ancient times, and the so-called "Nine Counties of Jingxiang, Impenetrable" is not an exaggeration. But as the saying goes, Jingzhou was mainly divided into nine important counties during the Three Kingdoms period, namely Jiangxia County, Nan County, Lingling County, Guiyang County, Wuling County, Changsha County, Nanxiang County, Xiangyang County, and Nanyang County. Before the formation of the three kingdoms, Jingzhou, as a major strategic place, had been occupied by Liu Biao, until Liu Biao's new funeral, after Lady Cai and her son dedicated Jingzhou to Cao Cao, Jingzhou was actually occupied by Cao Cao's army.
However, after a karmic fire in Chibi, the Cao army was ultimately unable to defend the entire territory of Jingzhou, and could only lead the army to retreat to the north, but still controlled the three counties of Nanxiang, Nanyang and Xiangyang. However, from the perspective of geographical location and battle achievements, Jingzhou should have belonged to Eastern Wu, but because the Chibi War had just fallen at that time, the four-way war had not yet subsided, and under the political competition, the remaining six counties of Jingzhou were occupied by Sun Quan and Liu Bei respectively.
So
From this point of view alone, Guan Yu's Jingzhou, which guan Yu was guarding at that time, was not the entire territory of Jingzhou, and its power was only within the scope of the three counties
。 So, even if you know this, what does it have to do with excuse Guan Yu from the word "careless"? The answer is that the relationship is extremely close!
The premise of Guan Yu's loss of Jingzhou was the Battle of Fancheng between Cao Ren, and the premise of the Battle of Fancheng was a tug-of-war between the Cao and Liu families in the Hanzhong region
。 Guan Yu, who was sitting in Jingzhou City, saw that Cao Cao had placed most of his troops in Hanzhong, so he wanted to take the opportunity to sneak attack Fancheng, which was guarded by Cao Ren, so as to use Fancheng as a breakthrough point to directly threaten Cao Cao's rear, thus forming a two-sided attack situation. After all, after Cao Cao learned of the danger of Fancheng, he even had the idea of moving the capital for a while, which shows how important Fancheng's status is.
therefore
It was only after careful planning and planning that Guan Yu decided to raise troops to capture Fancheng
。 But on the other hand, although Guan Yu led the army to go out, Jingzhou City was not an empty city, although there is no accurate documentary record, but according to the records of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Wushu Lü Meng Biography", we can infer that Guan Yu's troops remaining in Jingzhou City at that time were at least not less than 30,000 soldiers and horses. At that time, 30,000 soldiers and horses were not a small number, and in the Battle of Guandu that year, Cao Cao defeated the invincible Yuan Shao army with an army of more than 30,000 people. Therefore, Guan Yu left 30,000 soldiers and horses to defend the city, which is definitely more than enough, why bother?
Moreover, the reason why Guan Yu chose to sneak attack Fancheng was because Cao Cao had no time to take care of two places, and the second was because Cao Jun's new defeat in Chibi, the military heart had not yet been well condensed, so at this time to attack Fancheng, if there was no backhand from Eastern Wu, I am afraid that Guan Yu would eventually be able to become famous in one battle.
again
Guan Yu's enemy was not lü Meng at that time, and after the siege of Fancheng, although Cao Cao had successively damaged two generals, Yu Ban and Pound De, but in order to relieve his worries, he sent capable generals such as Man Yu and Xu Huang to meet Guan Yu. At the same time, the Eastern Wu side waited for an opportunity, led by Lu Xun and Lü Meng, all of whom were famous generals in Qingshi.
Geographically, as mentioned earlier,
Guan Yu's territory was actually only one-third in Jingzhou, and Sun Quan and Cao Cao were jointly sending troops to conquer Guan Yu, which caused Guan Yu to actually be attacked on his stomach and back, unable to advance, unable to retreat, and in the end, in addition to surrendering, there was only room for death.
And the situation was like this, how could the reason for the loss of Jingzhou be blamed on Guan Yu alone?
Third,
Mi Fang and Dr. Ren's imminent surrender to the enemy also cast the final fiasco of Guan Yu.
According to the records of the literature, among the three counties occupied by Guan Yu, only Nan County's strategic materials were the most abundant, which can be called Guan Yu's logistical support. whereas
The rebellion of Mi Fang and Doctor Ren was based on the sacrifice of Nan County, so that Nan County and Wuling County fell into the hands of Eastern Wu successively, so that even if Guan Yu wanted to turn the army and fight again, there was no strategic place to defend, nor a strategic material supplement, even if he wanted to keep Jingzhou City, it was also a lack of skill, so it was not caused by carelessness.
At last
Although Lü Meng's move to cross the river in white clothes was clever, his policy of appeasing the people after occupying Jingzhou also made Guan Yu's military heart gradually disintegrate to a certain extent, and Jingzhou City was already occupied, and the families of the soldiers in the conquest were controlled by Eastern Wu, so even if Guan Yu had the intention to capture Jingzhou City again, his subordinates might not be able to go all out.
So
Guan Yu's loss of Jingzhou was not due to carelessness, but more to the fleeting change of the strategic situation
Of course, if there was no Eastern Wu behind the scenes, or if there was no Cao army pressing forward step by step, clamping down on most of Guan Yu's troops, I am afraid that Jingzhou City might not have fallen into the hands of Lü Meng. Therefore, the reason why Guan Yu's "carelessness" of losing Jingzhou can exist in the drama text is because artistic creation often does not stand on the perspective of completely objective historical materials, but leaving aside the opera words, Guan Erye is still very wronged.