"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (三国志先主傳): "In the beginning, the first lord attacked Guan Yu with Sun Quan's attack, and the Eastern Crusade, autumn and July, and the commanders of the various armies to cut down Wu. "Liu Bei's seizure of Wu can be regarded as one of the most famous public cases in the entire Three Kingdoms. For Liu Bei Group, Guan Yu's careless loss of Jingzhou was a very serious blow.
Liu Bei was able to go from a straw shoe seller, sent people to the fence for more than ten years, endured humiliation and burdens, and finally became a prince of one side, dominating Western Shu, relying on the word benevolence and righteousness. Now that Guan Yu has been killed and Jingzhou has been taken, Liu Bei, no matter what, must also make an example and show his subordinates that there is nothing wrong with following me. What's more, there was also a Zhang Fei, shouting for revenge in the back.
The importance of Jingzhou to Liu Bei is self-evident, and Liu Bei's ambition is to sweep the world and establish immortal merits like Liu Xiu, the Emperor of Han Guangwu. From Liu Bei's naming of his two sons, we can see Liu Bei's ambitions, the righteous son Liu Feng, the eldest son Liu Chan, and Feng Chan is Liu Bei's lifelong pursuit.
Moreover, the Shu state established by Liu Bei was a foreign regime. The composition of this foreign regime is quite complicated, there are guan yu, Zhang Fei, Jian Yong and other old seniority who followed the left and right in the early days, there are Zhuge Liang, Jiang Wan, Ma Liang and other Jingzhou departments, there are Fazheng, Chen Zhou and other Yizhou natives, there are Wu Yi, Xu Jing and other Dongzhou departments, and even Li Yan said that there are outsiders who are not clear whether they belong to the Jingzhou department or the Dongzhou department.
For the old seniority and Jingzhou department that he had always followed, Liu Bei had to make an account for Guan Yu's death and the loss of Jingzhou.
For Hao Qiang, a native scholar of Yizhou, Guan Yu's defeat exacerbated their distrust of the Shu Han regime.
Therefore, Liu Bei must re-establish the prestige of this nascent imperial court.
Liu Ye of Cao Wei saw this very thoroughly, and he openly stated: "Although Shu is narrow and weak, and if it is prepared to strengthen itself with might, it is bound to use the crowd to show that it is more than enough." And Guan Yu and Bei, righteousness as kings, enyou father and son; Yu death can not repay the enemy for the Xing army, yu is always insufficient. ”
Therefore, it is not wrong to say that Liu Bei cut down Wu to avenge Guan Yu. But revenge is only a means, not an end. The real purpose was to rebuild the prestige of the imperial court and consolidate the rule of the Shu Han.
In addition, it is the importance of Jingzhou to the Shu Han.
Liu Bei had Jingzhou, so he could use Jingzhou as a springboard, and with the manpower and material resources of Yizhou, he could maintain the pressure on Eastern Wu and submit to Eastern Wu at any time. Then, if we can unify the south, then concentrate the army in the south, one way from Jingzhou, the other way out of Qishan. The two major armies went north to Cao Wei and dingding the Central Plains.
In short, for the purpose of stabilizing power and taking Jingzhou, Liu Bei had to cut down Wu, and could only cut down Wu. Since the purpose of sending troops is not simple, the significance of Liu Bei's campaign is more to intimidate and deter.
The only thing Liu Bei did not expect was that Sun Quan would make an act of subservience to Cao Wei, and Cao Pi really borrowed a donkey to reconcile with Eastern Wu.
Without Cao Wei's clampdown on Eastern Wu, the situation on the battlefield in Jingzhou changed dramatically in an instant. Liu Bei was unable to ride the tiger, and he could not return to the dynasty at all, so he had to fight the war hard.
Therefore, in the second year of Zhang Wu, Liu Bei marched into Yiling.
In August, Lu Xun set fire to the camp, and Liu Bei was defeated and retreated, only to be spared.
The following year, Liu Bei died at the White Emperor's City. A generation of tyrants fell.