This period has a very famous period in ancient history - the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was divided into three countries. After the struggle for hegemony among the princes, Sun Quan, Liu Bei, and Cao Cao formed a situation in which the three kingdoms of Wu, Shu, and Wei coexisted. Many famous historical stories appear in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, including the story of the loss of Jingzhou by Wusheng Guan Yu. Because Guan Yu and Jingzhou were missing, they also triggered changes in the Three Kingdoms era. Guan Yu launched the Battle of Xiangfan, but was killed by the defeat. In the eyes of posterity, Guan Yu's defeat in the Battle of Xiangfan was still attributed to excessive pride. He clearly knew his strength, but he still had to catch up and eventually lose the whole of Jingzhou. However, there is another theory that Liu Bei wanted to get rid of Guan Yu, borrowed a knife to kill people, and deliberately let Guan Yu lose and be killed.
Why is there such a conclusion? Careful analysis makes sense. It should be known that Guan Yu launched the Xiangfan Campaign without passing through Liu Bei. Both he and Liu Bei were heads of state of Shu, and Liu Bei did not raise objections. From the overall situation, it will be found that in the Battle of Xiangfan, only Jingzhou was fighting alone, Yizhou did not provide grain and grass, and no other military generals were sent to support Guan Yu in the future.
On the battlefield, this situation is clearly wrong. Liu Bei, who had fought for most of his life, was unlikely to make such a basic mistake. Because Guan Yu only had 30,000 soldiers and horses in his hands at that time, it was already difficult to attack Cao Ren alone. How can we resist Cao Cao's reinforcements and Sun Quan's sneak attacks? At this critical juncture, Liu Bei's failure to give Guan Yu reinforcements was tantamount to killing people with a knife.
But this statement is not necessarily correct, because Liu Bei had just ended the Battle of Hanzhong at that time. Although he won the battle, he also consumed a lot of armed forces. At that time, Cao Cao had already transferred the Hanzhong people, and Hanzhong was not an economic zone. All the materials also needed to be given by Yizhou, so Liu Bei could not support Jingzhou. The first time Liu Bei heard about the Battle of Xiangfan, Guan Yu was good news, so Liu Bei believed that Guan Yu should win the battle, so there was no need to send reinforcements.
Therefore, in the Battle of Xiangfan, Liu Bei did disappoint many people, but he was also helpless. Who made Guan Yu so blind and arrogant, and went to war without authorization. Liu Bei was also sad because he was also severely injured at that time, but the wording that he used a knife to kill people by later generations needs to be examined.