After Chibi, the Three Kingdoms stood tall
After Cao Cao's defeat in the Battle of Chibi, it marked Cao Cao's inability to eliminate Sun Quan in a short period of time, and liu Bei's unification of the southern region.
After the defeat of Chibi, Cao Cao also retreated to the north to cultivate elites, and took the opportunity to take Liangzhou and Hanzhong. Liu Bei also seized the opportunity to take Liu Zhang's Yizhou, and Sun Quan took the opportunity to begin to expand the circle of power to the south, and finally formed a situation of confrontation between the three forces in the Chinese region, which was historically known as the Three Kingdoms Era.
From the Three Kingdoms period onwards, Liu Bei of the Shu Han Dynasty belonged to the weakest side. In contrast, Cao Wei, established by Cao Cao, was the most powerful. Both the territory and the population are incomparable to the other two countries.
During the Three Kingdoms period, how big was the land area of each country?
Although history calls it the Three Kingdoms Era, according to the standard, it should be the Four Kingdoms Era, in addition to wei shu wu three stronger hegemony, there is also a Gongsun family divided in the northeast region.
However, due to the relatively weak power of the Gongsun family in the northeast region, and only intersecting with the State of Wei, after Cao Pi became emperor, he also directly chose to submit to the subordinate, so we temporarily divided the pattern of the world at that time into three kingdoms.
According to the historical records of the Three Kingdoms. At the time of the stability of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Wei's territory had an area of 87 counties and 12 prefectures, a population of about 5 million, and a nominal control area of 2.91 million square kilometers. Because some of them belonged to the warlord division, they only temporarily belonged to the name of the State of Wei.
The state of Wu ranked second in terms of strength, with 32 military counties and 3 states, a population of about 2.5 million, and a territory of 1.45 million square kilometers.
The Shu state has 22 counties and a state, with a population of about 1.1 million and a territory of 1.06 million square kilometers.
However, these are the nominal ruling military regions of the three countries, but the actual effective ruling areas are not easy to calculate. For example, the State of Shu also nominally ruled Yunnan and parts of Burma and Vietnam at that time, but this area only belonged to the name of the State of Shu, but in fact it was governed by local warlords.
The area of the territory controlled by the Shu state should be divided into three eras.
The first era
That is when Liu Bei began to take shape and prosper. After Cao Cao's defeat at Chibi, Liu Bei occupied parts of Jingzhou.
Due to the relative weakness of the territory and the gap in absolute strength with Cao Cao, Liu Bei marched west to Bashu to capture Yizhou under the advice of Pang Tong and others.
Liu Bei, with the help of Zhuge Liang and others, quickly stabilized Yizhou and let Guan Yu guard Jingzhou, just as Cao Cao had just occupied the land of Hanzhong.
Therefore, Liu Bei sent troops north to retake Hanzhong, drove Cao Cao away, and took the opportunity to proclaim himself king of Hanzhong. At that time, the Shu Han Dynasty can be said to have reached its peak, when the total control area reached 1.2 million square kilometers, which was 219 AD.
The second era
After Liu Bei had just taken Hanzhong, Guan Yu, in order to cooperate with Liu Bei's army, sent troops north from Jingzhou to try to take Xiangfan, but unexpectedly Xiangfan Ercheng did not capture The second city of Xiangfan but lost Jingzhou, and later Guan Yu was also killed by Sun Quan.
Two years after Preparing for Chengdu, Liu Bei marched east to try to retake Jingzhou and avenge Guan Yu, but was defeated and died of a serious illness shortly thereafter.
After Liu Bei's death, rebellions began in various parts of the south, wanting to support the army and stand on their own. At this time, the Shu Han also entered the most weakened period, when the area ruled was less than 700,000 hectares.
The third era
Later, after Zhuge Liang came to power, he pacified the south, and through the seven captures and seven releases of Meng, many warlords were convinced, and such a state continued until the fall of the Shu state.
The Shu Han Dynasty took a total of 43 years since Liu Bei ascended the throne and became emperor, and later went to extinction. Strictly speaking, the real effective rule area of the Shu state may be 700,000 square kilometers.
Because although the southern region is said to have completed its nominal rule, after all, the land here is poor and the population is sparse, and it is difficult to contribute to the major events with the Shu state.