Guan Yu was killed by the General of the State of Wu on the way to the defeat and escape, Liu Bei ignored the advice of Zhuge Liang and other ministers, and insisted on sending troops to Eastern Wu to avenge Guan Yu, whether Liu Bei was out of public conscience or private righteousness, the strategy of joining forces with Wu and resisting Cao that had been implemented by the State of Shu had been destroyed, and the result of Liu Bei's invasion of Eastern Wu was that the elite of the State of Shu suffered heavy losses and he himself could not afford to fall ill.
Liu Bei had to pave the way for his young son Liu Chan to ascend to the throne before his death, and although Liu Bei showed great trust in Zhuge Liang and was even willing to let him replace his son, Liu Bei eventually left a backhand, which was Li Yan. However, although Zhuge Liang and Li Yan were both ministers selected by Liu Bei for liu Chan, the successor lord, when the two broke up, Li Yan could not fight Zhuge Liang at all.
Li Yan's ability and loyalty
Li Yan was born in Nanyang and had a friendship with Zhuge Liang, but Li Yan changed his court many times, initially serving Liu Biao in Jingzhou, and later after Cao Cao took Jingzhou, he was appointed as the Commander of Zigui County, but Li Yan could not look down on this small county order, so he turned to Liu Zhang of Yizhou and was reused.
After Liu Bei led his army into Sichuan, Liu Zhang sent Li Yan to Mianzhu to block Liu Bei, but Li Yan directly led his soldiers and horses to surrender to Liu Bei, Liu Bei was very happy when he heard the news, and appointed Li Yan as a general, and later appointed him as a Qian as Taishou.
After Li Yan became a member of Liu Bei's group, he made achievements in both culture and martial arts. Together with the Shu state's important ministers Fazheng and Zhuge Liang, he revised the laws of the Shu Han Dynasty, and during his tenure as Taishou, he also exerted great efforts to quell the rebellion, excavate the Tianshe Mountain, renovate the Dujiangyan, Liushuimen and other large-scale water conservancy projects, and gained a lot of attention among the local people.
As a subordinate, Li Yan would not be used by Liu Bei if he only showed his ability, so Li Yan showed his loyalty at the right time and did his best to raise the banner for Liu Bei's claim to be emperor.
Therefore, before Liu Bei ascended the throne, Li Yan personally created the "Huanglong see Wuyang" incident, signed a letter to persuade officials of the Shu state to advance, and then planned to create a momentum for Liu Bei to claim the title of emperor. Liu Bei may have taken a fancy to Li Yan's "loyalty" that allowed him to rise to the core level of the Shu state and become his confidant.
Liu Bei's way of checks and balances
In the second year of Zhang Wu, Liu Bei was unsuccessful in Wu, defeated and retired to Yong'an, and was bedridden due to illness, and Liu Bei, who knew that time was short, began to arrange for the aftermath. At this time, Liu Bei's greatest concern was probably the position of Liu Chan, the young lord after his death, so Liu Bei began to adjust the personnel of the upper echelons of the Shu state, of which the largest transfer was to appoint Li Yan as Shang Shu Ling and put him in charge of the affairs of his side.
During the Qin and Han dynasties, Shang Shuling, who held the official position of the Gongzhang instrument, was directly responsible to the monarch, and his status was comparable to that of the Chancellor for a long time, or even surpassed the Chancellor. Liu Bei did not establish the post of Shang Shu Ling at the beginning of his reign as emperor, and when he was critically ill, he suddenly appointed Li Yan as Shang Shu Ling and left him to handle affairs, which obviously had a deep meaning, not only to support Li Yan and the Forces of the Yizhou clique behind him, to compete with Zhuge Liang's separation of power, and even to let Li Yan replace Zhuge Liang and avoid Zhuge Liang's excessive power from affecting Liu Chan's position.
The reason why Liu Bei chose Li Yan as the minister of entrustment has another layer of deep meaning. After all, the Shu Han established by Liu Bei belonged to outsiders and could not but pay attention to the ideas of local officials, so Liu Bei married the sister of Wu Yi shortly after obtaining Yizhou, and Wu Yi was an important figure in the Yizhou faction. Liu Bei did not deny Zhuge Liang's loyalty to himself, but he was not sure that he would also be loyal to Liu Chan, so Liu Bei had to support a force to balance Zhuge Liang and the Jingzhou faction behind him, on the other hand, Liu Bei had to appease the local Yizhou faction, so it was necessary to choose a Yizhou faction, and Li Yan just met these conditions.
The struggle between Li Yan and Zhuge Liang
Liu Bei appointed Li Yan as Shang Shu Ling during his serious illness, and his attempt to create a balance of power between Li Yan and Zhuge Liang laid hidden dangers for the power struggle between the two men, and the final results showed that Li Yan could not fight Zhuge Liang at all, and the two were not at all an order of magnitude. From the time Li Yan became a chancellor to be relegated to the rank of Shuren and later "died in anger", everything he did could not be said to have contributed nothing to Shu Han, but the troubles and problems he caused were obviously greater than his contributions.
In the fourth year of Jianyuan, Zhuge Liang decided to raise an army to attack Wei, he himself naturally wanted to go with the army, then the rear must be empty, so he decided to transfer Li Yan to Hanzhong to stabilize the rear, but he did not expect that this move was rejected by Li Yan. Li Yan believed that Hanzhong was Zhuge Liang's territory, and if he went to Hanzhong like a sheep into the mouth of a tiger, he could only succumb to Zhuge Liang, he was also a minister appointed by the former emperor, why should he obey Zhuge Liang's orders, so Li Yan found various reasons to shirk it, and even asked to divide the five counties into Bazhou and let him serve as an assassin.
The Northern Expedition was a unanimous decision made by the Shu Han dynasty, and Li Yan's practice of falling into the well was really infuriating, and this act of putting personal fame and fortune above the overall interests of the Shu Han not only angered Zhuge Liang, but also the Shu Han court was full of disdain and contempt for Li Yan. Later, Li Yan persuaded Zhuge Liang to claim the title of king, and Zhuge Liang naturally saw Li Yan's strategy of killing and directly reprimanded Li Yan, and the contradiction between the two became more and more serious, but Zhuge Liang did not act against Li Yan for the sake of court stability.
In the ninth year of Jianyuan, Zhuge Liang once again sent troops to the Northern Expedition, this time Li Yan was responsible for transporting grain and grass, due to several days of continuous heavy rain, the roads were muddy, Li Yan saw that the grain and grass could not be sent to the front line in time, so he asked Zhuge Liang to retire on the grounds that the supply of grain and grass was insufficient. As a result, after Zhuge Liang withdrew from the army, Li Yan told the rear lord Liu Chan that the supply of grain and grass was sufficient, and Zhuge Liang tried to retreat and missed the fighter, and this time Zhuge Liang finally couldn't bear it anymore and directly handed over the letters that Li Yan had passed before and after to Liu Chan to see, and Li Yan saw that he knew that he was in a wrong, and could only bow down and confess his guilt.
Zhuge Liang was determined not to let Li Yan continue to stay in the court this time, so he repeated Li Yan's crimes and exiled him. Three years later, Zhuge Liang died of illness, and Li Yan, who heard the news, not only did not cheer, but was worried and indignant, because Li Yan knew that after Zhuge Liang's death, no one in the Manchu Dynasty would speak for him, that is to say, Li Yan would probably not be able to appear in the Shu Han Dynasty hall again in this life, which caused a huge blow to Li Yan, who was extremely utilitarian, and soon died of anger and illness.
epilogue
Liu Bei appointed Li Yan to cooperate with Zhuge Liang in handling the affairs of Shu Han, on the one hand, he wanted Li Yan to balance Zhuge Liang and make the Shu Han regime more stable, and on the other hand, he also hoped that Li Yan and Zhuge Liang could work together to assist Liu Chan. Liu Bei may not have thought that Li Yan's desire for power was so strong, he had given Li Yan enough power, but Li Yan was still not satisfied, abandoned the interests of the state, and left a life infamy.
Reference: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Book of Shu, Biography of the Ancestors
(Some of the pictures come from the Internet, invaded and deleted)