The Three Kingdoms period is an era of heroes in china's ancient period, in which heroes from all over the world gathered together and divided the world. The cooperation or war between the three countries can be said to be a very chaotic era.
Among the Three Kingdoms, the most famous general was Guan Yu. However, Guan Yu did not get a good ending as he deserved, but defeated Maicheng and died at the hands of Eastern Wu. Liu Bei, as emperor of the Shu state of Han Zhaolie, and guan Yu's brother-in-law, immediately launched a large-scale war against Eastern Wu.
However, Liu Bei, who led the national army, suffered a defeat at the hands of Eastern Wu, and the defeat at the Battle of Yiling had a great impact on Shu Han, and Shu Han's national strength plummeted. When Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang were alive, Shu Han was able to win respite from the attacks of Eastern Wu and Cao Wei, but the successive deaths of Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang made it impossible for Shu Han to resist the iron horses of Eastern Wu and Cao Wei.
Ah Dou could only surrender in the face of Cao Wei's army and agreed to put Shu Han into the hands of Wei, but was it really Ah Dou's incompetence? When Deng Ai, a general of Cao Wei's army, invaded the capital of Shu Han and discovered the book of soldiers, he finally understood why Zhuge Liang failed to save Shu Han. Let's take a look at what really happened that year.
1. The Shu Han dynasty perished and Liu Chan surrendered
Sima Zhao, as a vassal of Cao Wei, had already emptied the Emperor of the State of Wei. In order to be able to lay a perfect foundation for the establishment of the Western Jin Dynasty, but also for the training of troops, he planned to take his troops out to fight. Since Eastern Wu was located in the south, the road was far away, and at the same time it was necessary to take the water route, and the soldiers were easily infected with some diseases, so it was better to directly attack the Shu Han closest to Cao Wei.
The Shu Han Dynasty experienced the Battle of Yiling with Eastern Wu, and there were few young and middle-aged soldiers left in the country. However, the situation of Shu Han was not known to others, and both Cao Wei and Eastern Wu thought that Shu Han still had strong combat effectiveness.
In the face of Sima Zhao's ideas, most of the people in the State of Wei did not believe that Sima Zhao could successfully capture Shu Han, most likely after a few days of stalemate, Banshi returned to the dynasty. However, Sima Zhao, who knew the Shu state very well, had already guessed that the current Shu state was a situation in which the outside world was a strong foreign force, and there was not much combat effectiveness anymore.
Sima Zhao decided to capture Hanzhong first, using Hanzhong as a transit and base, and gradually encroached on the land of Shu Han. Today's Shu Han only had Jiang Wei available, but Jiang Wei believed that he could hold on to Hanzhong and drain Sima Zhao's army of supplies. Unexpectedly, Sima Zhao sent Deng Ai to lead an army to raid Shu Han, and when Jiang Wei found out, Deng Ai had already captured several cities of Shu Han and came to the capital of Shu Han, and was ready to attack the capital.
After Liu Chan learned that Deng Ai was already preparing to attack the capital under the city, he ordered Zhuge Zhan to lead an army to counterattack. As a result, Zhuge Zhan had no actual combat experience, but was full of some theories on paper. Deng Ai effortlessly defeated the defenders, liu chan had no choice but to surrender, and Shu Han perished.
Second, Deng Ai entered Shu and found suspicious points
With Liu Chan's surrender, Deng Ai's army also successfully entered the capital of Shu Han. As a great general leading the army, he was also very curious about why shu Han, who was once so powerful, was now so vulnerable. Later, he found Shu Han's scholarly book in the capital city, and he instantly understood why Shu Han was so unbearable now.
In the book of scholars and people found by Deng Ai, he found that the entire population of the Shu state was only more than 900,000, plus the 100,000 troops led by Jiang Wei on the front line and the 40,000 officials of the shu state now, the population of the Shu state was now less than one-third of the Wei state. The glory of the Shu Han Dynasty has dissipated in the long river of history.
However, no matter how bad the Shu state was, it was once able to compete with the Wei state, but now it has a population of less than one million. In the face of the invasion of the State of Wei, which was more than four million people, surrender was the best choice that the State of Shu could do. Although Liu Bei handed over Shu Han to Liu Chan and asked Zhuge Liang to assist him, Shu Han, who had experienced the bitter lessons of the defeat at the Battle of Yiling, had already squeezed the productivity of the people of Shu for a long time, and the Shu state in Liu Chan's hands could not withstand the toss.
Third, Kong Ming was reborn, and it was difficult to save Shu Han
If Zhuge Liang could live a few more years, would Shu Han be able to change the situation of his demise? According to historical records, even if Zhuge Liang lived for another ten years, the Shu kingdom could not change the outcome of its destruction, but only sooner or later.
According to historical records, the population of Yizhou exceeded one million in the fifth year of Yonghe, until the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms were in chaos, and the world was in chaos, and Yizhou, as a big city, naturally became the first choice for people to avoid war. Not only that, yizhou city as Liu Yan's territory, in order to be able to dominate the world, he will naturally absorb displaced people, and the population of Yizhou city will only increase.
After Liu Bei captured Yizhou, he got a large city with a population of more than 1.3 million, but compared with the shimin book found by Deng Ai, we can know that the population of Shu Han at that time could not have been only one million, after all, the population of Yizhou alone was already more than one million. Even if the population of successive years of war has been drastically reduced, Yizhou City will have a large number of people settled.
Among the thirteen states of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Shu Han only occupied Yizhou. This directly led to the shu han population base being less than that of Cao Wei and Eastern Wu, coupled with zhuge liang and Jiang Wei's continuous northern expedition, the people's servitude and taxes increased, and they could only flee outside and become displaced people.
Secondly, the internal contradictions of the Shu Han Became more acute, and became more serious after Liu Chan took the throne. In order to divert the internal contradictions, Zhuge Liang could only continue to go north, but after Zhuge Liang's death, the internal contradictions completely broke out. In order to resist Liu Chan's rule, some clans in Yizhou evaded the point of attack by falsely reporting the population.
These people, who have no names in the books of the people, can be said to be no different from the displaced people. However, this move directly led to a sharp decrease in the combat effectiveness of the young and middle-aged people of the Shu Han army, which was one of the reasons for the demise of the Shu Han.
Even if Zhuge Liang were to come back, he would still not be able to resolve this fundamental contradiction, and could only transfer the internal contradiction through foreign wars. However, at that time, the national strength of Shu Han was already difficult to support the subsequent Northern Expedition, so Zhuge Liang was still alive and could not return to the situation of Shu Han at that time.
4. Summary
The fundamental reason for the demise of the Shu Han was not Liu Chan's cowardice and stupidity, but that the Shu Han territory was too small and the population was small, resulting in the weak combat effectiveness of the Shu Han army, and at the same time, the internal contradictions of the Shu Han were constantly intensifying. Even if Cao Wei did not send troops to attack the State of Shu, the State of Shu would soon be divided due to internal contradictions.
Secondly, the Shu state has been fighting foreign wars for many years, such as the Battle of Yiling and the Northern Expedition, and the continuous and high-intensity use of troops, and the young and middle-aged people in the country have been killed in battle, the population has grown negatively, and the productive forces have been greatly reduced. At the same time, shu han had lost the hearts of the people, coupled with the rising taxes, the economy had collapsed, and Shu Han was no longer able to compete with Cao Wei and Eastern Wu for the world, and its demise was inevitable.