During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang repeatedly raised troops in the Northern Expedition and attacked Cao Wei, which was a major event in the history of the Three Kingdoms. From the sixth year of Jianxing in the Shu Han Dynasty (228) to the twelfth year of Jianxing (234), in just seven years, Zhuge Liang took the initiative to lead the Northern Expedition five times and attacked Cao Wei, and during this period he also defended against Wei's attack.
It should be known that among the Three Kingdoms, the Shu state is the weakest, and Cao Wei is the strongest, in history, the weak have repeatedly attacked the strong, and the frequency and scale of wars launched are as rare as Zhuge Liang. All along, people often focus on the events of Zhuge Liang's several Northern Expeditions, but the understanding of the motives of His Northern Expedition is too little or not comprehensive, and clarifying the motives of Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition is conducive to deepening the understanding of the history of the Three Kingdoms.
Above_Map of the Three Kingdoms
First of all, Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition had a long-term consideration of taking attack as defense and trying to survive
In ancient times, the strength or weakness of a regime depended on the number of households actually controlled by the regime, that is, the so-called "households and the people". At the end of the Han Dynasty, the world was in chaos, and the population of the whole country suffered heavy losses. The Tongdian records that at the time of the death of Shu, "(Wei) received 280,000 households, 940,000 mouths, and 12,000 jiashi." According to the Book of Jin, the state of Wu was "523,000 households, 230,000 soldiers, and 2.3 million men and women." Cao Wei, on the other hand, had 660,000 households and 4.4 million mouths.
It should be noted that adding up the number of household registrations in the three countries does not mean that China had only such a large population at that time. This is because although the population was greatly reduced due to the chaos at the end of the Han Dynasty, a considerable part of the household registration was not controlled by the government, and most of them were the private belongings of powerful landlords and family families, so the actual households were higher than the sum of the household registrations of the three kingdoms. But the manpower and material resources that a regime can mobilize are determined not by the entire population of the country, but by the households under the real and effective control of its regime.
Above_Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition Route Map
As mentioned earlier, although people know that among the Three Kingdoms, Shu Han is the weakest and Cao Wei is the strongest. But for how weak the former is and how strong the latter is, the understanding is very vague. Through the above data, it can be seen that the gap between the national strength of the Shu state and Cao Wei is quite large, Kong Ming's first Northern Expedition was retired due to the loss of the street pavilion, but when he retired, he still did not forget to move the local residents into the Shu territory, that is, "more than a thousand families in Baxi County, still in Hanzhong", on the one hand, it can be seen that the Shu state attaches great importance to the population, on the other hand, it also reflects the weakness of the national strength of the Shu state.
If Zhuge Liang did not take the initiative in the Northern Expedition and the two countries lived in peace, then with the passage of time, the gap between the two countries would become larger and larger. Zhuge Liang also emphasized this point in the "Table of Later Masters", that is, "with the wisdom of the former emperor, the talent of the subjects, and the solid knowledge of the subjects to cut down thieves, only the weak enemy is strong." However, if the thief is not cut, the king will also die. But sit and wait for death, and cut it down? ”
Zhuge Liang (181-234), character Kong Ming
Secondly, the topography of Yizhou determined that only the Northern Expedition could have the hope of restoring the Han family
"Longzhong Pair" can be said to be widely circulated in later generations. Kong Mingxian analyzed the general situation of the world for Liu Bei, and he said to Liu Bei, "Now that there are millions of people, and the heavenly son has been blackmailed and the princes have been ordered, this sincerity cannot be fought with." Sun Quan owned Jiangdong, has been in the past three generations, the country is dangerous and the people are attached, and the meritocracy can be used for it, which can be used for help and cannot be tried. "And if Liu Bei wants to become a hegemon and a prosperous Han Dynasty, he must first occupy Jingzhou and Yizhou, become a three-way trend of dividing the world, and finally choose the opportunity to attack two ways and advance into the Central Plains." Later, Liu Bei's series of military and political activities were indeed carried out in accordance with this plan.
However, Guan Yu lost Jingzhou and Liu Bei's army defeated Yiling, making the strategic plan of occupying Jingyi and attacking in two ways bankrupt. The territory of the Shu state at this time was actually only Yizhou, and Zhuge Liang said to Liu Bei in the "Longzhong Pair" that "Yizhou is dangerous", because Yizhou is surrounded by mountains and is relatively closed. This kind of terrain in Yizhou is a drawback in terms of transportation, which is reflected in the famous phrase "the difficulty of shu road is difficult than that of qingtian"; in terms of military affairs, it is an excellent terrain that is easy to defend and difficult to attack.
Above_Nanzhong region during the Three Kingdoms period (southern Yizhou)
Although the terrain of Shudi has advantages and disadvantages, as far as Chinese history is concerned, the terrain of Shudi can be attacked and defended during the period of great chaos in the world, division and hegemony, and there is capital to compete for deer in the Central Plains. However, if the areas outside the Shu land are gradually unified and stable, then the terrain of the Shu land will be like a cage, trapping the separatist regime in the land to the death, so that the Shu land regime will be consumed in the war with the external unified regime. A typical example is Hou Shu, one of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, which divided one side during the great chaos in the world, but when the Northern Song Dynasty began to gradually unify, it quickly perished. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Yuzhen Bactrian regime, which had divided Sichuan, was also quickly destroyed by the Ming army after Zhu Yuanzhang basically completed unification.
Therefore, in the case of the loss of Jingzhou, the gradual consolidation of Cao Wei's rule, and the prosperity of the country, if Shu Han did not want to sit still and complete the unification, the only thing in front of Zhuge Liang was the road of "leading the people of Yizhou out of Qin Chuan".
Above_Map of the Thirteen States of the Eastern Han Dynasty
Finally, the Northern Expedition took the revival of the Han Dynasty as a political call, which was conducive to uniting internal and absorbing external talents
In the sixteenth year of Jian'an (211), at the invitation of Liu Zhang, the pastor of Yizhou, Liu Bei led an army into Shu. In the nineteenth year of Jian'an (214), Liu Bei's army captured Chengdu and occupied Yizhou. However, as early as when Liu Yan and Liu Zhang's father and son were in charge of Yizhou, there was a confrontation between the powerful forces of local bureaucrats and foreign forces within Yizhou. Liu Beijinchuan relied on the Jingchu clique with the Jingchu people as the main body, which further intensified the already existing contradictions between the old and the new and the guests. Faced with this situation, Liu Bei also took some measures to ease contradictions and unite internally. For example, he opened up the political power to the local forces in Yizhou, and shared part of the political power with the local forces through the establishment of officials and posts, so that the two sides could get what they wanted and be at peace with each other. It should be noted that the Jingchu clique was still in a political leadership position during this period.
However, as mentioned above, due to Guan Yu's loss of Jingzhou and Liu Beibing's defeat of Yiling, the Jingchu Group, a foreign group, lost its base camp and had no soil to take root, and at the same time suffered heavy losses within the group, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Lu Zhu and others all died, and it was difficult for the Jingchu Group to replenish fresh blood in the case of losing Jingzhou. Therefore, the seemingly powerful Jingchu clique faced the danger of being trapped in Yizhou, with no successor, and being replaced by local forces in Yizhou.
Liu Bei (161-223)
The legitimacy of the establishment of Liu Bei's regime lies in his political program of "reviving the Han Dynasty and returning to the old capital". Under the circumstance that there is a contradiction between the Jingchu clique and the local forces in Yizhou, and the Jingchu clique is at risk of being replaced, only through this political program and the continuous launching of the Northern Expedition can the two major groups achieve temporary unity and give the Jingchu clique a chance to breathe, and only by relying on the Northern Expedition, attacking Yizhou, and occupying more land can this problem be fundamentally solved. Compared with Wei Wu, Shu Han's advantage was the political appeal it possessed to revive the Han Dynasty, and if the Northern Expedition was not launched, once the Jingchu clique was suppressed by the local forces in Yizhou, it would cause "Wang Ye to be partial to a corner", which would conflict with Liu Bei's political call that "Han and thieves are not opposed, and Wang Ye is not biased", and Shu Han would also lose its advantage in political appeal.
Moreover, in addition to the huge gap in national strength, the lack of talents between Shu Han and Wei Wu, who were trapped in Yizhou, was also a major shortcoming, and only through the Northern Expedition could Shu Han possibly absorb more outstanding talents from the outside, such as Jiang Wei, who later inherited Kong Ming's cause, which was zhuge Liang's income in the process of the First Northern Expedition.
Jiang Wei (202–264)
From a comprehensive point of view, the motivation that prompted Zhuge Liang to carry out the five Northern Expeditions and attack the strong with the weak was manifold. Only by continuously carrying out the Northern Expedition could the Shu Han Dynasty take the offensive as a defense, delay the process of Cao Wei's economic recovery, and avoid further widening the gap in national strength between the two countries as much as possible.
At the same time, only by taking the initiative to attack can we make good use of the political call advantages of the Xingfu Han Room, jump out of the shackles of the Yizhou terrain, ease internal contradictions, and absorb external talents, so that we can seek development and make the Xingfu Han Room have hope.
Text: Li Guangcai
References: "General Classics", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Former Master Table", "Later Master Table"
The text was created by the History University Hall team, and the picture originated from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author