As the most splendid chaotic world in China, the top strategists of the Three Kingdoms period flocked out, and Jia Xu, Guo Jia, Xun Yu, Cheng Yu, Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, Lu Su and other ingenious schemes laid the foundation for the establishment of the Three Kingdoms of Wei Shu and Wu.
Among them, Zhuge Liang is the most famous, exhaustive, is the "embodiment of wisdom", Lu Xun complained that he is "more intelligent than a demon", so that many modern novels will shape a wise man surnamed Zhuge . But this is Zhuge Liang in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, not Zhuge Liang in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms highlights the orthodox status of the Shu Han Dynasty, Liu Bei's men are naturally treated preferentially, and Zhuge Liang's wisdom is sublimated by art, so it will be "more intelligent than a demon".
In the real history, Zhuge Liang, whether he governed the country or used soldiers, or mainly based on upright strategies, although his wisdom was superior, he was not the first in the crowd, and there were some advisers who were not inferior to Zhuge Liang, such as Xun Yu, Zhou Yu, Pang Tong, Fazheng, Liu Ba and others. Among them, Liu Ba, who was full of praise from Zhuge Liang, gave Liu Bei a big gift, and quickly solved the problem in a short period of time, but in the long run, he miserably destroyed the Shu state.
Liu Ba is a Jingzhou native, the son of an official eunuch, his family's generational occupation is to be an official, but when he arrived at his generation, it coincided with the chaos in the world, the powerful and powerful were divided and dominated, Liu Ba came to the crossroads of life, because it is very crucial to choose who to be an official and who to mix with, and the choice of life is greater than the effort!
The so-called heroes see the same thing, the vision of the top talents will not be bad, Jingzhou Zhuge Liang is unwilling to serve Liu Biao, Liu Ba is the same, many times refused Liu Biao's call. The difference is that Zhuge Liang turned to Liu Bei, but Liu Ba turned to Cao Cao. Carefully tasting a product, Liu Biao Group was eventually divided, the loser of the standard, Liu Bei and Cao Cao became the second of the Three Kingdoms, the success of the standard, it can be seen that the vision of the top talents is very poisonous, will not casually turn to others.
However, liu ba did not come to cao cao, and soon after Cao Cao was defeated at the Battle of Chibi, when Liu Ba was helping Cao Cao to surrender the three counties of Changsha, Lingling, and Guiyang in southern Jingzhou, which were occupied by Liu Bei and Liu Ba was trapped in southern Jingzhou. Later, Liu Ba refused Zhuge Liang's gracious invitation, and first went to Jiaozhou, and then prepared to find a way to return to Cao Cao. When he heard that Liu Ba had gone to Jiaozhou, Liu Bei's depression could not be expressed.
Later, Liu Ba entered Yizhou from Jiaozhou, but the road from Yizhou to Cao Control District was steep and difficult, and there were other separatist forces in the middle, so he had to work under Liu Zhang. When Liu Zhang invited Liu Bei to enter the river, Liu Ba repeatedly dissuaded him twice, but there was Fazheng this inner, Liu Ba tried to put the water into the water, Liu Zhang lured the wolf into the room, step by step slid into the abyss of destruction, helpless Liu Ba had to close the door and complain. Sure enough, Liu Bei wolf ambitions captured Yizhou.
In the process of capturing Yizhou, Liu Bei issued a military order: "If anyone endangers Liu Ba, I will kill him." This reflects Liu Bei's high emotional intelligence, which not only shows the posture of loving talents, but also gives Liu Ba steps. Seeing Liu Bei's posture, Liu Ba's words of hypocrisy were estimated to be only a dead end, so Liu Ba confessed to Liu Bei's guilt, And Liu Bei did not care about his previous suspicions, and then appointed Liu Ba as the left general Xi Cao Tuan. From 208 to 214, Liu Bei chased for six years, and finally chased Liu Ba.
When Liu Bei defected to Cao Cao, Emperor Xian of Han made him a general of the left, which was second only to that of a general, and Xi Cao was an official position of leading hundreds of officials, which was equivalent to seeing Liu Bei, and he had to agree with Xi Cao, so the left general Xi Cao Tuan was a very important position, reflecting Liu Bei's emphasis on Liu Ba.
In order to stimulate the morale of the generals, after Liu Bei laid down Chengdu, he gave all the property in the treasury to his subordinates, but in this way Liu Bei became a poor egg, the military expenses were in short supply, Zhuge Liang, Fazheng and others could not solve it, but Liu Ba said that it was easy to solve, that is, minting large sums of money, leveling unified prices, and setting up an official market for fair trade.
The so-called minting of large coins, the history books called "straight one hundred and five baht", of which "five baht" is a unit of weight. In short, the original five-baht coin, now the official inscription of the Shu Han Dynasty is "straight hundred and five baht", and then the "straight hundred and five baht" is worth 100 five baht coins, so Liu Bei's copper coin wealth has increased by a hundredfold in an instant. On the other hand, the currency depreciates instantaneously, and it is reasonable to say that assets should appreciate.
Unify prices, forcibly order price stability, and avoid soaring prices after the emergence of "straight hundred and five baht"; set up an official market, forcibly order everyone to trade in the official market, and avoid the "straight hundred and five baht" from being spent. These two are supporting measures to ensure that "straight hundred and five baht" can buy moderately priced materials, so Liu Ba's strategy was indeed very clever at that time.
The history books record: "Prepare for obedience, and within a few months, the treasury of the government will be enriched." ”
The plan was a strange plan with remarkable results, helping Liu Bei survive the most difficult stage of financial crisis. However, the actual value of "straight hundred and five baht" is only 1% of the value of the currency, and the use of this currency to buy things is actually a crazy plunder of the people's wealth, and eventually the people are getting poorer and poorer. In order to raise military funds to tide over the difficulties, not to mention long-term use, that is, short-term use is a huge harm, drinking and quenching thirst! Therefore, Liu Ba's strategy was extremely harmful to the Shu state.
However, Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, and later successors all tasted the sweetness, and later Liu Bei also issued "Taiping Hundred Dollars" and "Dingping One Hundred", which were basically "one hundred", and the middle and late Shu Kingdom also issued more exaggerated "straight five hundred plants". Moreover, the weight of money is getting lighter and lighter, and some are even less than a baht.
Looking back at the history of the Shu State, the Shu State had the smallest population, with a registered population of less than one million, but there were 100,000 soldiers and 30,000 officials, from Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang to Jiang Wei, the Shu State launched wars almost year after year. In such a small country, where does the military expenditure come from? The mystery lies in the "straight hundred and five baht", Liu Bei and others through the currency, crazy plunder of materials, so as to support one war after another.
After the Shu state issued the "straight hundred and five baht", the history books did not record the folk reaction, but Eastern Wu also did this kind of immorality, and the people's opposition was very loud. Sun Quan issued the "Oizumi 500", weighing only 12 baht, and later successively cast "Oizumi Dangqian", "Oizumi 2000" and "Oizumi 5000". The people have a lot of money in their hands, and they can't find any change. Ten years later, the people and businessmen stopped doing it, and they boycotted the "big spring" issued by the state, and forced by external pressure, Sun Quan had to suspend the issuance of large sums of money and recycle it proportionally to ease the contradictions between the government and the people.
It can be seen that the shu state issued "straight 105 baht", which must have aroused strong opposition from the people, but it was eventually suppressed, so later even issued a more exaggerated "straight 500 baht". However, it is conceivable that the internal contradictions between the officials and the people in the Shu state should be very serious, which lays a hidden danger for the demise of the Shu state.
In the past, when I read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I hated the local surrender faction led by Yu Zhou, which led to the sudden demise of the Shu state, but looking at the "straight one hundred and five baht" used by the Shu state for a long time, I understood the choice of the Shu zhou. The plundering of "straight hundred and five baht" made the local rich and common people in Yizhou lose the most, and the Wei state used currency normally, compared with the two, the demise of the Shu state was in accordance with the will of Heaven, and the surrender of Zhou Zhou was also in line with the will of the people.
Of course, although Liu Ba's strange strategy seriously infringed on the interests of the people and laid hidden dangers for the first demise of the Shu state, it did make Liu Bei "enrich the treasury in a few months", and also laid the financial foundation for Zhuge Liang and Jiang Wei's Northern Expedition. Without Liu Ba's plot, Liu Bei might not have been able to launch the Battle of Hanzhong and the Battle of Yiling, and Zhuge Liang would not have had the wonderful "Six Out of Qishan".
After Fazheng's death, Liu Bei appointed Liu Ba as Shang Shu Ling, equivalent to serving as Liu Bei's personal butler, the largest official in the inner dynasty, often accompanying Liu Bei, and the biggest official in the outer dynasty was Xiang Xiang, but liu Ba died young in two years, which made Liu Bei sad. If Liu Ba had not died young, he would most likely have become one of the ministers of the Orphans, and the Shu Kingdom would have gone down another path, better and worse, but it was difficult to predict!
References: "Biography of the Lingling Sages", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", etc