I. Should the Battle of Yiling be fought?
According to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the reason why Liu Bei had to launch the Battle of Yiling was to avenge his second brother Guan Yu. The subtext is actually that Liu Bei is too emotional and should not fight the Battle of Yiling! For a long time, this view has almost become a consensus. But it's not that simple! Let's start with the big picture.
At that time, Cao Pi usurped Han and was regarded as a "national thief" by Liu Bei's clique, and Zhao Yun used this point of view to persuade Liu Bei to give up cutting Wu and fight Cao Wei.
At the same time, because the Eastern Wu side did not talk about martial virtue and betrayed the covenant to seize Jingzhou and kill Guan Yu, the contradiction with Liu Bei's clique rose to the main contradiction. This determines that Sun Quan must persist in "not stressing martial arts" to the end. Therefore, Sun Quan has also begun to arrange for the capture of Xichuan.
In this case, Liu Bei had to react: either to cut down Wu or attack Wei, it was impossible to live a small life behind closed doors. Attacking Wei is a moral statement: The Han Dynasty is not dead, and I Liu Bei is the true Emperor of the Han Dynasty. Cutting Wu is obviously a need for survival.
Now ask: If you were Liu Bei, which one would you choose? Presumably, just like Liu Bei, they will survive first! Therefore, Liu Bei's choice to cut down Wu is correct from the overall view.
Let's talk about the small aspect. After Cao Pi ascended the throne, he consulted the wise men extensively, because everyone could see that the contradiction between Liu Bei and Sun Quan was the main contradiction. This must be praised by Cao Cao, and after Guan Yu's head was sent, he gave him a thick burial.
Among them, Liu Ye's opinion is the sharpest, he said: Liu Bei will definitely beat Sun Quan. First, there is no way to explain the feelings, Liu Bei and Guan Yu are "Enruo father and son", and Guan Yu is still the original stock of Shu Han, if Guan Yu was killed by Liu Bei but did not take any action, how to lead the team? Second, the geographical difficulties were too great, "Shu was far away and Wu was close, and when he heard that China (Cao Wei) was cutting it, he returned the army and could not stop it."
From Cao Wei's opinion, liu bei was obviously also applicable. Therefore, Liu Bei's cutting of Wu was inevitable. That is to say, the Battle of Yiling launched by Liu Bei was not a question of whether it should be fought, but that it had to be fought!
Second, Liu Bei's strategic demands
Since it is necessary to fight, Liu Bei must guarantee the following two points.
One: to gain absolute authority. That is, to unify opinions and start the war machine. Liu Bei's claim to the throne and his suppression of Zhao Yun's and other opposition to Wu played a role in this regard. Only in this way can we ensure that Shu Han plays a game of chess.
Second: strategic appeal. That is to say, what results does Liu Bei fa Wu want to get? There are no more than three. One is to destroy Wu, the second is to avenge Guan Yu, and the third is to take back Jingzhou. Only these three points of appeal.
Obviously, Liu Bei wanted to destroy Wu in a war, which was a bit unrealistic, not to mention Shu Han, even Cao Wei was impossible. Avenging Guan Yu cannot be called a strategic appeal at all, so it is excluded! Only to take back Jingzhou. Because Jingzhou was the forefront of the struggle between the Three Kingdoms of Wei shu and Wu, and even a barometer.
Since the Battle of Chibi, the three sides of Wei Shu and Wu have each held a part of Jingzhou. Whoever can fully control Jingzhou will become the ultimate winner, otherwise who will be eliminated. Therefore, the Jingzhou area is the most frequent and famous.
Guan Yu flooded the Seventh Army here, threatening Huaxia. Zhang Liao was here, and after a mighty Zhen Yaojin passed, he abused Sun Quan into "having a son like Sun Zhongmou, Hefei giving away 100,000 heads." And Cao Ren also blocked Zhou Yu here and got the title of "Cao Tianren". Lü Meng crossed the river in white here and defeated Guan Yu, the first general of the Three Kingdoms.
From the analysis of the previous Battle of Jingzhou, it is obvious that Liu Bei's movement here will only be greater. After all, he was pro-zheng, and after liu bei's strategic option of destroying Wu could not be completely ruled out, it was the most reasonable and realistic strategic demand to let the Shu Han forces return to Jingzhou and rejoin the "Three Kingdoms Hegemony Game".
And the facts have also proved this point, Liu Bei launched the Battle of Yiling, not as stated in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", as many as 700,000 troops, but only about 50,000. Moreover, zhao yun and other famous generals were also left, and all the elites of Shu Han were not brought out.
Third, overestimating Cao Pi
From the analysis of Liu Bei's strategic demands and related preparation arrangements, he obviously had high hopes for Cao Wei, and Liu Bei had already made relevant preparations.
For example, when Cao Cao died, Liu Bei ordered someone to go to mourn on his behalf, as if to give back, Cao Cao buried Guan Yu. But in fact, he wanted to take this opportunity, one was to touch Cao Wei's bottom, and the other was to reach some reconciliation with Cao Wei, but Cao Pi refused.
This actually had some impact on Liu Bei. After all, in the game of the Three Kingdoms, if two parties fight, then the third party is often the key to determining victory or defeat. So what hope did Liu Bei have for Cao Pi? It is hoped that Cao Pi will join the Battle of Wu. Because this was determined by Cao Wei's strategic arrangement.
In the case of the Shu Han Dynasty, Cao Pi only placed Cao Zhen in the Yongliang region.
Cao Xiu, Cao Ren, Xiahou Shang, etc., almost all arranged around the Eastern Wu side - everything else can deceive people, but the arrangement of the generals represents the strategic focus of Cao Wei. Therefore, the reason why Liu Bei dared to attack Wu was to place hopes on Cao Pi and wanted to tacitly attack Cao Pi in a two-way attack.
At the same time, Liu Ye also saw this strategic situation very clearly, and when he advised Cao Pi to cut down Wu, he said: "Now that I am angry, I will attack Wu, I will hear that I am cutting down Wu, I know that Wu will die, I will march forward with joy to fight with me to cut off Wu land, and I will not change my plans to suppress my anger and save Wu, and it is inevitable that the situation will also be inevitable." ”
That is to say, if we take the opportunity to beat up Sun Quan, which is something that Liu Bei can't ask for, he will happily give us profits!
From the analysis of Cao Wei's strategic layout, if Cao Cao lived, he would be happy to jump three feet high and take the opportunity to join the battle of Wu. After all, if he wanted to mobilize troops on a large scale to cut down Shu, he was subject to the "Shu yuan and Wu near", and Before Cao Wei had finished mobilizing troops here, Liu Bei could rush back to Xichuan (after hearing that China had cut it, he returned the army and could not stop it).
However, in such an obvious situation that was favorable to Cao Wei, Cao Pi unexpectedly had an IQ that was not online, and played "sitting on the mountain and watching the tiger fight", completely staying out of the matter. So now it can only be said that Cao Pi is not Cao Cao! Obviously, Liu Bei overestimated Cao Pi, which changed the situation that was supposed to be victorious.
Fourth, he vetoed the brilliant plan of his subordinate generals
Even if Cao Pi's IQ is not online, Liu Bei still has the possibility of victory.
As Liu Bei's opponent, Lu Xun had the most say in the Battle of Yiling, and in his letter to Sun Quan, he once said: "When the subjects were initially suspicious, the land and water were advancing, and now they are giving up their ships, camping everywhere, and observing their arrangements, there will be no change... When the attack was at the beginning, it was now ordered to enter five or six hundred miles, and it was held for seven or eight months, and all its key points were firmly defended. ”
That is, the biggest mistake of Liu Beibing's defeat of Yiling was to give up, and Lu Xun's greatest fear of "advancing on land and water" only wanted to crush Eastern Wu in the land battle.
However, for this crucial point, not only Lu Xun saw it, but also Liu Bei's general Huang Quan, who once gave Liu Bei a brilliant plan: The Wu people fought fiercely, and the water army went down the river, and it was easy to retreat, and the subjects asked them to be the pioneers to taste the Kou, and His Majesty should be the back town.
Obviously, Huang Quan not only saw Lu Xun's weakness, "the Wu people fought fiercely, and the water army went down the river, and it was easy to advance and retreat", but also gave a brilliant plan to break the enemy: I Huang Quan was the vanguard, and I stuck to their weakness of "easy to advance and easy to retreat". You Liu Bei should then unite the army according to the situation of the battle, or attack or rescue or retreat, etc.
However, Liu Bei vetoed it, but instead ordered Huang Quan to "be the general of Zhenbei and supervise the Northern Jiang army to defend against the Wei division." As a result, after The defeat of Liu Bei's army, Huang Quan's return to Shu was cut off by Eastern Wu, forcing Huang Quan to finally surrender to Cao Pi.
Therefore, Liu Bei's launch of the Battle of Yiling was not wrong, and the reason for the failure was the defeat in the following two points, one was external factors, overestimating Cao Pi, and the other was internal factors, which rejected Huang Quan's brilliant plan.