Three kingdoms? In fact, it was the Four Kingdoms, the forgotten country, which lasted longer than the Shu Kingdom
The Eastern Han Dynasty was divided and eventually became the climate, and it was not only the Wei Shu Wu three families who called the emperor. Many people will wonder, isn't it said that the Three Kingdoms, Luo Guanzhong's book is also written like this. Yes, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was very successful, and it vividly expressed the ups and downs of the history at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. But just like the title "Yanyi", this book is not a canonical history. For example, in order to highlight Liu Bei's image, he has reservations in many plots, and zhuge Liang is described as an almost god-like person, which is actually somewhat different from history. And in order to focus on the struggle of Wei Shu wu, he erased another regime, that is, the State of Yan, the ruler Gongsun Du, so strictly speaking, the Three Kingdoms should actually be the Four Kingdoms. Let's start with this Gongsun Du. According to today's division, he is an authentic northeasterner, whose ancestors are Xiangping people, which is today's Liaoyang region. At first, he was a small warlord who was divided into Liaodong, and slowly took advantage of the chaos in the world to quickly grow his power.
Fellow villager Xu Rong was a lieutenant general under Dong Zhuo, and he recommended Gongsun Du to be the Taishou of Liaodong. However, because Gongsun Du was a minor official from Xuanjue County, the people of Liaodong County looked down on him. Prior to this, Gongsun Zhao, a vassal state of Liaodong, was the county commander of Xiangping, and he made Gongsun Kang, the son of Gongsun Du, the chief of the army. As soon as Gongsun Du took office, he arrested Gongsun Zhao and whipped him to death in Xiangping City. The powerful families of the county, such as Tian Shao, had no grudge against him, but they were all killed by him under the pretext of being killed. There were more than a hundred people who were destroyed by him, and everyone in the county was terrified. He also invaded Goguryeo in the east, Karasuma in the west, and Threatened to shock overseas.
The "founding" monarch of the Gongsun clan regime in Liaodong was Gongsun Du. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the white horse general Gongsun Zan, who claimed to be a prominent state, seems to be more famous, but in history, it is Gongsun Du and his descendants who have left a deeper imprint. Although the two Gongsun generals were both from Liaodong, they did not have a clan relationship with each other: Gongsun Zan was a native of Lingzhi County, Liaoxi County, who occupied the western part of Youzhou after breaking Liu Yu and became one of the princes of the Central Plains; while Gongsun Du was a native of Xiangping County, Liaodong County, and later established a ping prefecture in the eastern part of Youzhou, calling himself Pingzhou Mu. Youzhou was already relatively remote, and Gongsun Du's Pingzhou was located on the border of Youzhou, so although he ruled for a long time, he had not been concerned by the princes of the Central Plains.
Gongsun Du unswervingly practiced this policy and principle to the death, and strived to create a stable and harmonious social environment for Liaodong in order to achieve stable development. We have to admit that Gongsun Du's strategy is completely correct, at least in the context of that era. Of course, it was precisely because Gongsun Du did not participate in the Central Plains Scuffle and was bent on considering the development of the northeast region, so he was able to devote himself wholeheartedly to the struggle against such intrusive nationalities as Goguryeo and Karasuma.
And finally through the "east to conquer Goguryeo, west to attack Karasuma" to create a stable and harmonious social environment for Liaodong. Under the efforts of Gongsun Du, the residents of the Liaodong region at that time lived and worked in peace and contentment, and the economic situation was optimistic, so many displaced people in the Central Plains at that time regarded it as a happy land, so they were willing to take refuge here. It is precisely because of the arrival of these displaced people in the Central Plains that the Liaodong region can be advanced in the central plains with advanced production technology and culture, which has greatly promoted the development of the Eastern Liaoning region.
By the time the Central Plains had become a pot of porridge, he took advantage of the situation to establish himself as a marquis in Liaodong, followed by the Eastern Expedition to Goguryeo and the West to Wuhuan, gradually expanding his sphere of influence outward. Inside, he recruited wise men, opened schools, rescued displaced people, and gained a very high reputation. In 190 AD, he declared himself emperor and Jianyan. At that time, Cao Cao was fighting against the State of Shu, and there was no time to take care of him, so he took advantage of this gap to prevent the State of Yan from surviving. But with zhuge Liang's death, the Shu state fell, the State of Wei finally remembered that there was another Yan state in this Eastern Liao, so in 238 AD, Sima Yi suppressed the territory with a large army, and tens of thousands of cavalry of the Yan State insisted on defending the Liao Tunnel, but did not expect that Sima Yi was only pretending to attack, the real attack was their capital, tens of thousands of generals and people were besieged, and it was not long before the State of Yan surrendered.
Second, Liaodong is too weak. The reason why it is said in the front is not worse than the other three countries is mainly in the early stage. You must know that Liaodong has existed for a long time, but the Three Kingdoms only existed after a great struggle. In addition, Liaodong is remote and the terrain is complex, it is not easy for a large army to march, and it does not have much strategic significance. Although it was close to Cao Wei, it was also very knowledgeable about current affairs and did not create any major troubles. And the central plains are hot, and there is no time to care about it. But once Cao Wei got a chance to rest, Sima Yi led the army without any trouble, and he cleaned it up. It is enough to see that the gap between it and the other three countries is quite large.
In fact, according to the time calculation, Yan Liguo had 48 years, which was longer than the Shu kingdom, but it had been ignored in that period of history, and almost no later generations knew its existence. Mainly because the Gongsun family at that time did not have the intention of plotting the world, they just operated in their own Liaodong Province. Outward expansion also hardly touched the boundaries of the three central plains, so for the other three regimes, whether it existed or not had no impact on the overall situation, when the State of Wei was busy, it could let it develop, Ken Ben did not care, it can be seen that the sense of existence of the State of Yan at that time was very low. It is precisely because of this that it has been able to continue the regime for more than 40 years.