After Guan Yu carelessly lost Jingzhou, he was defeated and killed, causing heavy losses to the Shu Han clique. However, in fact, Guan Yu's death is not inevitable. Because although Mi Fang surrendered to Sun Quan, when he defeated Maicheng, Guan Yu had already sent Liao Hua to ask for help from Shang Yong. At that time, Shangyong was already firmly in the hands of the Shu Han clique, and if he sent troops to rescue Guan Yu, it was entirely possible to succeed. However, after the Shangyong defender Meng Da heard that Guan Yu was trapped in Maicheng, he actually instigated the lord general Liu Feng to refuse Guan Yu's call for help. This matter has so far puzzled people, why did Meng Da do this?
Some people talk about loyalty, thinking that Meng Da is not loyal enough to Liu Bei from his bones, so he wants to kill Guan Yu. The main basis for this view is that Meng Da did eventually surrender to the State of Wei and became an enemy of the Shu Han. But the problem is that Mengda's surrender was forced. If he hadn't taken this path, he would have been killed by Shu Han like Liu Feng. What's more, Meng Da finally decided to return to the arms of Shu Han during Zhuge Liang's first Northern Expedition, which further shows that Meng Da's loyalty is no problem.
However, Meng Da had a grudge in his heart. When Liu Bei entered Yizhou that year, Fa Zheng was of great help as an internal ying, and Liu Bei was very serious about fa zheng. But at that time, Meng Da was also very active with Liu Bei, and he and Fa Zheng came to Jingzhou with thousands of soldiers to meet Liu Bei. However, I don't know why, Liu Bei did not like Meng Da, and the position finally assigned to Meng Da was only Yidu Taishou. To put it bluntly, it is to guard the border.
It should be said that Meng Da was very unhappy about this. Although there are not many records of Meng Da in the history books, it is conceivable that Meng Da was an aspiring person by looking at his and Fazheng's operation of betraying Liu Zhang. Moreover, he was very talented, otherwise Cao Pi would not have liked Meng Da so much. However, seeing that Fa Zheng followed Liu Bei all the way to capture Yizhou and then conquered Hanzhong, he made a great contribution. What needs to be explained here is that when Fa Zheng was alive, he was trusted by Liu Bei more than Zhuge Liang, and his official position ranked first. Therefore, in addition to the acid in Meng Da's heart, there is infinite grievance.
But as it turned out, this was just the beginning. Later, Liu Bei promoted Liu Feng to the rank of deputy general and handed over the three counties of Shangyong, Xicheng, and Xincheng to Liu Feng's jurisdiction, and Meng Da was even more aggrieved. Because Liu Feng had not made any military achievements, the Eastern Three Counties used to be headed by Meng Da, but now Liu Bei parachuted in a dry son, Liu Fenglai, and shouted five or six at Meng Da, which further aggravated Meng Da's inner dissatisfaction. Liu Feng also did not argue and did not know how to buy people's hearts. Within a few days of his arrival in Dongsan County, he handed over Meng Da's Yidu Taishou to a man named Fan You. What's more, Liu Feng actually robbed Meng Da's military band, which made Meng Da, who was indispensable in the past, lose face.
So, Meng Da was completely desperate. In his cognition, Liu Bei Group is all white-eyed wolves, crossing the river and demolishing bridges to play talents as monkeys. Now that I saw Guan Yu's distress letter, if I sent troops to save it, then Guan Yu would have to blame him for why it came so slowly? Besides, even if the rescue is successful, the credit has become Liu Feng's, and what does it have to do with himself? As a result, Meng Da began to gamble, so he instigated Liu Feng to refuse Guan Yu's request for help.