In July 219, Guan Yu launched the Battle of Xiangfan, and the initial progress was smooth, first besieging Cao Ren, the commander of Cao Wei's southern front, Zhengnan general Cao Ren, at Fancheng, and then flooding to rescue Cao Ren's 30,000 soldiers and horses of the Seventh Army of Yu Ban, and Cao Cao's highest-ranking left general Yu Ban (at that time Xiahou Huan was still a fubo general and was not awarded the title of former general) and the deputy general Pang De surrendered, and Guan Yu was shocked by Huaxia for a while.
However, after Sun Quan secretly declared himself a vassal to Cao Cao and sent troops to secretly attack Jingzhou, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, and Guan Yu hurriedly withdrew his army from the Xiangfan front to aid Jingzhou, and finally defeated Maicheng and forcibly broke through, first captured and then killed, and Jingzhou also fell into the hands of Sun Quan.
There are many reasons for Guan Yubing's defeat in Jingzhou, in fact, if you analyze it carefully, you will find that in the end there are still too few people available, why do you say so? Let's analyze them one by one.
In 215, after Sun Liu and Liu divided Jingzhou equally, Liu Bei had the four counties of Nan County, Wuling, Lingling and Yidu, on the one hand, Liu Bei's center of gravity moved east after entering Yizhou, and the capture of Hanzhong became the top priority, so the troops and talent allocation were tilted towards Yizhou, and there were not many talents and generals left for Guan Yu, that is, Guan Ping, Liao Hua, Ma Liang, Wang Fu, Zhao Lei, Mi Fang, Fu Shiren, Pan Jun, Liao Li and others, such a lineup had no problem defending Jingzhou, but Guan Yu took the initiative to attack Xiangfan. In the case of leaving some people to defend Jingzhou, it is too much to stretch, and we will look at it from several aspects.
First, the core of the four counties of Jingzhou is Nan County, and Nan County has two important cities, one is Jiangling, and the other is The Public Security, of which the Public Security is the forefront of the defense of Eastern Wu, so it is reasonable to arrange a capable general to guard this place, so why is the Shou general Fu Shiren? On the one hand, Fu Shiren was Liu Bei's hometown, and from the beginning he followed Liu Bei, and his seniority was comparable to that of Guan Yu and Zhang Fei (Fu Shiren was a native of Guangyang County, Youzhou, and Liu Bei was a native of Zhuo County, Youzhou, and the two counties were next to each other).
On the other hand, it was not that Liu Bei had no one to use, so he handed over the public security to Fu Shiren, a confidant he thought he could trust.
The importance of Jiangling is still above the public security, Nanjun Taishou Mi Fang is Liu Bei's brother-in-law, but also the second person under Guan Yu in Jingzhou, originally Nanjun Taishou should have a more suitable candidate, but unfortunately, like Fu Shiren, Liu Bei on the one hand lacked talent accumulation, on the other hand, nepotism, it was Fu Shiren and Mi Fang's unbeaten surrender that caused Jingzhou to quickly fall and directly cut off Guan Yu's back road.
Second, Guan Yu lacked a full-fledged and independent courtier, and the only one with good ability, Ma Liang, although he initially stayed with Guan Yu to assist, was later transferred to Yizhou as the left general.
If Xu Shu was still there and Pang Tong was not killed in battle, Zhuge Liang, Xu Shu, and Pang Tong would definitely have one of them who would stay in Jingzhou, Guan Yu would raise troops to go north to Xiangfan, and one of them would stay in Jingzhou to take charge of the overall situation, even if Fu Shiren surrendered, Mi Fang might not surrender, and perhaps until the day guan Yu's main force returned to the division, Jingzhou would not fall into Sun Quan's hands.
Third, during Guan Yu's march north to Xiangfan, he asked Liu Feng of the Eastern Three Counties to send troops to assist him in the battle, but Liu Feng and Meng Da refused.
The strategic position of the Eastern Three Counties was extremely important, and in June 219, Meng Da and Liu Fengbing took the Eastern Three Counties in two ways, just imagine if Liu Bei had other powerful generals in his hands, or if any of them could be exchanged for Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Wei Yan, or Huang Zhongzhi out of the Eastern Three Counties, when Guan Yu sought support, they would most likely choose to send troops, so that even if Jingzhou was not protected, Guan Yu should not have much problem retreating to the Eastern Three Counties.
In a word, Liu Bei's center of gravity is not in Jingzhou, the lack of talent to Guan Yu's lineup is only suitable for defense, not suitable for two-sided combat, which is an important reason why Guan Yu was killed from Wei Zhen Huaxia to defeat, why he lost so quickly, many people think that it would be better to change a person such as Zhao Yun or Wei Yan to defend Jingzhou, in fact, it is the same for whoever comes, with such a lineup, it is impossible to face Sun Quan and Cao Cao at the same time, and the final outcome can only be the same as Guan Yu.