Meng Da was blindfolded with the image of a "treacherous villain" in the "Unsaved Guan Yu" incident, and then because of his rebellion against Cao, he was added the bad comment of "repeated villain", and finally Meng Da died at the hands of Sima Yi.
In this process, every decision made by Meng Da had its own reasons, and its outcome was jointly calculated by both Shu and Wei, and the soldiers were defeated and killed.
Meng Da was helpless to rebel and return to Cao
Meng Da gave many people the impression of "ordinary general", but his background was actually not ordinary, because he had defected to Liu Zhang with Fa Zheng and had a brotherly feeling of "sharing hardships" with Fa Zheng.
At the beginning of Jian'an, the world was starving, and (Fa) was entering Shu Yi Liu Zhang with Meng Daju of the same county.
Fa Zheng has always occupied an important position in Yizhou, and Meng Da has the relationship of Fa Zheng, so naturally he also follows the "eating and drinking spicy", for example, when Liu Zhang sent people to meet Liu Bei, he sent Fa Zheng and Meng Da, and after Liu Bei occupied Yizhou, Fa Zheng became Liu Bei's "mastermind", and Meng Da was also reused and was named Yidu Taishou.
Why is an Yidu taishou reused? It is really because this Yidu Taishou has a heavy responsibility, and Yidu is a military stronghold between Jingzhou and Yizhou, so the yidu Taishou post is related to the connection between Yizhou and Jingzhou, and even in certain circumstances, it is also related to the survival of the two, such as the death of Guan Yu, which is inextricably linked to the soldiers and horses under yidu's jurisdiction.
In this way, Fa Zheng was Liu Bei's mastermind, Meng Da was Liu Bei's general, and around Fa Zheng, Li Yan, and Meng Da, a side of the Shu Han faction was formed, generally known as the Dongzhou force.
At the same time, there were two other powerful forces in Liu Bei's clique, one was the Jingzhou forces led by Zhuge Liang, and the other was the Yizhou native forces headed by the imperial power.
Among these three forces of the Shu Han Dynasty, because of the existence of Fazheng, they have always been in conflict with the Jingzhou forces, and Liu Bei is naturally happy to see such a situation, after all, for the imperial art, the situation of one side being dominant is not conducive to his position.
With Zheng as the Taishou of Shu Commandery and the general of Yangwu, the outer commander of the capital and the inner master.
For a time, Dongzhou's power was extremely strong, with Fa Zheng as the mastermind, Li Yan as the general of Xingye, Meng Da as the general of The Chong, and Dong He as the general in charge of the army.
The first lord ding Shu, Zheng He was the general in charge of the army, and together with the military division general Zhuge Liang, he signed the affairs of the left general Sima Fu...
In the face of this situation, as strong as Zhuge Liang can only choose to temporarily avoid its sharp edge and wait for the opportunity, in order to win back the inferior situation in the future.
After Liu Bei occupied Hanzhong, the Longzhong Pair went one step closer, and at the same time hoped to rapidly expand the results of the battle and open up the smooth flow of Jingzhou and Yizhou with the land of the three counties to the east.
At this time, Liu Bei ordered Meng Da to attack Fangling, and Meng Da successfully completed the task and took Fangling, but the record of this matter in the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms has great significance:
"Fang Ling Tai Shou Pu Qi was killed by Da Bing"
According to the historical records, Meng Da, as a general of Liu Bei, was ordered to attack Fangling first, and successfully beheaded Fangling Taishou Puqi, so why did he use the words "killed by DaBing"?
Moreover, when Meng Da captured Fang Ling and killed Fang Ling Tai Shou Pu Qi, and was ready to continue to attack Shangyong, Meng Da, who had just established a great siege feat, was "deprived" of his military power.
Liu Bei's reason was that he was afraid that Meng Da would be "difficult to be alone" in attacking Shangyong, so he let his righteous son Liu Feng go to Meng Da's side and immediately "subordinated the Tongda soldiers".
Why was Meng Da obviously stripped of his military power? Because he forced Fang Ling to die too defensively, he made a big mistake.
This Fangling Taishou Puqi's wife is no one else, it is Zhuge Liang's sister, and this sister has a deep affection for Zhuge Liang, so Meng Da killed Fangling Taishou Puqi, in fact, killed Zhuge Liang's brother-in-law, and may even have forced Zhuge Liang's sister to die, after all, the two are husband and wife, although there is no historical record, but it is also common for husband and wife to live together.
On the whole, Meng Da's abandonment of Liu Guicao was really helpless, and he made this choice for three reasons:
First, Shangyong's soldiers did not save Guan Yu. In fact, this point can not all blame Meng Da, because at that time Liu Feng was the main general, whether to send troops or not is mainly up to him to decide, and Liu Feng has "invaded" Meng Da, Meng Da's words will certainly not listen, after all, Liu Feng belongs to the Jingzhou group, and liu Bei Yizi, he arrived at Shangyong to deal with Meng Da;
Second, offend Zhuge Liang. Meng Da killed his brother-in-law, naturally there was a gap with him, if he did not surrender to Cao Wei, I believe that his end was not much stronger than Liu Feng.
Third, the Eastern States were defeated. The time point of Meng Da's rebellion against Shu and Cao is very special, and the death of Fa Zheng is in the same year, the Dongzhou clique has always been headed by Fa Zheng, once Fa Zheng dies, the balance between the Dongzhou forces and the Jingzhou forces is immediately lost, the Dongzhou forces are suppressed, and Meng Da loses his patron.
From these three points, Meng Da's surrender to Cao Cao was actually a helpless move, and if he wanted to live, he could only defect to Cao Cao, because the Shu Han at this time was no longer the Shu Han when he led the army to welcome Liu Bei.
The end of Munda
Meng Da's end was to be killed by Sima Yi and ended up like this, in fact, Meng Da was very pitiful, because a few years after he defected to Cao Wei, he ended up in a situation similar to before, only this time, he was cornered.
After Meng Da surrendered to Cao Wei, his initial fate was not bad, because Meng Da's arrival, which was valued and trusted by Cao Pi, still ordered him to serve as the Taishou of the three counties of Fangling, Shangyong, and Xicheng, known as Xincheng Taishou.
Meng Da defected to Cao Wei, in fact, it was already the second time to change hands, such a thing was very taboo in ancient times, that is, the so-called "loyal subjects do not do two masters", but Cao Pi still uses it, and can also see Cao Pi's male lord nature.
At the same time, Meng Da was in charge of the three counties, and at the same time befriended Huan Jie and Xiahou Shang, and his life in Cao Wei was quite good, after all, in the early days of Cao Wei, Meng Da had the trust of cao Pi, the lord of Cao Wei, and the support of Huan Jie and Xiahou Shang, which made him feel full of inner security, much more at ease than in The Shu Han Dynasty.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, Cao Pi, Huan Jie and Xiahou Shang died one after another in just a few years, and Meng Da once again became an "isolated and helpless" Cao Wei general, because the people who supported him were already dead, and he once again became a "victim" in Cao Wei, and was regarded as a "repeated villain" by Cao Wei generals.
When Meng Da's situation in Cao Wei was very similar to that of his previous situation in Shu Han, he aroused Meng Da's thoughts about the past, and during his time in Cao Wei, he always had correspondence with Li Yan and Zhuge Liang, but Meng Da did not care too much about the content of their letters.
But at this moment, Meng Da was touched by the content in the hearts of the two, which made him ignite a glimmer of hope of "going back to the past".
In his letter to Meng Da, Li Yan expressed his idea of "thinking of a good companion", because at that time Zhuge Liang was in power alone, and Li Yan, who had unlimited scenery, was also difficult to support at this time, and naturally hoped that Meng Da could return to Shu Han and revitalize the power of Dongzhou with him.
In his letters with Meng Da, Zhuge Liang also expressed the hope that Meng Da would return to Shu Han, and he also expressed his feelings for Meng Da to "look east by", hoping that Meng Da could take the land of the three counties and return to Shu Han.
However, Zhuge Liang did not really invite his brother-in-law enemy and a fierce enemy of the Dongzhou forces, and when Meng Da expressed a positive reply to Zhuge Liang's expectations, Zhuge Liang staged a good play.
Under the difficult situation, Meng Da was thrilled after receiving Zhuge Liang's "warm" invitation, expressing his desire to return to Shu Han, but Meng Da was grateful for Cao Wei's importance to him, and his heart was extremely entangled.
Just when Meng Da was entangled, both Shu Han and Cao Wei had already placed him in the center of the storm, but he himself was unaware.
When Zhuge Liang received Meng Da's positive attitude towards the return to Shu, he did not further arrange the details of the surrender to obtain the land of the three counties, but instead sent Guo Mo to Cao Wei to surrender, deliberately leaking out Meng Da's idea of rebelling against Cao Wei.
After Cao Wei learned the news that Meng Da wanted to rebel, Sima Yi decided to personally intervene, while stabilizing Meng Da with letters, making Meng Da more grateful to Cao Wei, and did not know how to be good for a while, and when he was struggling for morality, Sima Yi did not stop marching with his troops, crossing the distance of 1200 miles in 8 days, and successfully surrounded Meng Da.
The hesitant Meng Da was so confused that he was besieged by Sima Yi and fell into a desperate situation, on the other hand, Zhuge Liang, after contacting Meng Da to return to Shu, seemed to be like no one, and there was no action again, let alone send a soldier to rescue Meng Da, and finally Meng Da's city was destroyed and beheaded.
Meng Da was lucky, because he met Fa Zheng during the most difficult period, and since then he has followed Fa Zheng out of a bright future;
Meng Da was aggrieved, because of Fazheng's death, after losing his patron, he could no longer be loyal to his Shu Han, and in desperation, he left and became a "betrayer";
Meng Da was sad, because between Shu Han's abduction and Cao Wei's trust, he had been deeply tormented in his heart, and he was unwilling to easily turn his back on either side, but he did not know that both sides were secretly calculating him, and finally ended his life.