Among the Three Kingdoms of Wei Shu and Wu, the Shu State was the smallest and weakest, but it became the protagonist in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". The reason is that Liu Bei of the Shu kingdom occupies orthodox righteousness, and Cao Cao and Sun Quan are chaotic courtiers and thieves, and everyone is condemned, so the entire "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" revolves around the Shu kingdom, focusing on liu bei, a descendant of the Han Dynasty, and Zhuge Liang, who is "the embodiment of loyalty and wisdom".
In order to highlight Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, then all those who opposed them were more or less smeared by Luo Guanzhong, so Zhou Yu, Zhang Gao, Wei Yan, Meng Da and others all had a disdainful side. Among them, why does Wei Yan feel the most wronged?
Because the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" upholds the orthodoxy of the Shu Han Dynasty, the country that the reader thinks most deserves the world, Zhou Yu, Zhang Gao, etc. are all chaotic courtiers and thieves, naturally the sins are deep, and death is not regrettable, and Wei Yan is a general of the Shu Han Dynasty, the first person in the military circles of the Shu State after Zhuge Liang's death, or a person who can change the plight of the Shu State, but the traitor Yang Yi stomped on his head and said viciously, "Yong slave!" Can you do evil again? "Therefore, his unjust death is extremely regrettable."
However, contrary to Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang's will to restore the Han Dynasty, Zhou Zhou, who persuaded Liu Chan to surrender, did not have this treatment, and was scolded for more than a thousand years, and the Ming Dynasty Wang Fuzhi commented that "the sin of Zhou Zhou can reach heaven!" "Tan Zhou was nailed to the column of shame of history. However, looking back at the history of the Shu Kingdom, it is not difficult to see that Tan Zhou was the one who was more wronged than Wei Yan. So, why?
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Tan Zhou appeared as an astrologer and a surrenderer, and spent his whole life using astrology as a weapon and preparing for surrender, first persuading Liu Zhang to surrender to Liu Bei, then constantly persuading Liu Chan to stop the Northern Expedition, and then persuading Liu Chan to surrender to Sima Yi, so that life was naturally disgraceful. In fact, when Liu Bei attacked Liu Zhang, Yu Zhou was only 13 years old, and he did not have the energy to influence Liu Zhang, and it was true that liu Chan was persuaded to stop the Northern Expedition and surrender, but there was little known truth.
Among the three kingdoms of Wei shu and Wu, the Shu state was the weakest, with a registered population of about one million, but the number of soldiers and officials was as high as 150,000, so how to maintain a huge army and bureaucratic system, as well as the wars launched by Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, and Jiang Wei? The history books tell us that Zhuge Liang was good at financial management, mass-produced Shu Jin with higher added value, and exchanged grain and other materials with Eastern Wu through international trade. But what the history books do not say is that there is also an extremely dark scene in the Shu Kingdom, which runs counter to Benevolence and Righteousness.
At the beginning of Liu Bei's capture of Chengdu, in order to make up for the lack of military expenditure, he adopted Liu Ba's proposal of "minting large coins" and issued "straight hundred and five baht", that is, on a copper coin weighing five baht, "straight (value) hundred" was engraved, so it became a copper coin worth 100 five baht coins. In this way, Liu Bei's wealth immediately increased by a hundredfold, and the government treasury was "enriched" in the remaining months. After tasting the sweetness, Liu Bei also issued "Taiping Hundred Dollars", "Dingping One Hundred", etc., all of which were "one hundred", and in the middle and late shu kingdom, he also issued more exaggerated "straight five hundred baht".
Obviously, this is a naked crazy currency plunder, and the victims are first the local Hao clan in Yizhou, and then the ordinary people. Long-term plunder, long-term war, in fact, has hollowed out the local heroes and people of Yizhou, and the history books say that "the people had dishes" at that time, which may be far from reflecting the real misery.
In contrast, Wei Wu, the currency of the State of Wei has always been normal, and the issuance of large money by Eastern Wu was terminated ten years later, but the State of Shu has been issuing large money. The benevolent Uncle Liu Huang, the orthodox Shu Han, was so brutal.
In 257, during Jiang Wei's tenth Northern Expedition, Tan Zhou saw that "the number of military brigades is counted, and the people are carved", and wrote a "Theory of National Hatred", which was the first time he openly opposed the use of troops and advocated recuperation. Successive generations of Great Confucians have strongly criticized the "Theory of National Hatred", believing that this is to open the way for capitulationism, lose national integrity, and be a scum among the literati.
However, from the occupation of Chengdu in 214 to 257, Liu Bei launched the Battle of Hanzhong and the Battle of Yiling, guan Yu launched the Battle of Xiangfan, Zhuge Liang launched the Battle of Nanzhong (the Seven Captures of Meng yu took place in this battle), five Northern Expeditions, and Jiang Wei launched ten Northern Expeditions. In just over 40 years, the Shu state waged about 20 wars, half of which were large-scale wars. With the national strength of the Shu state, it simply could not withstand such a poor army, and the life of the people of Shu and the attitude towards the official government of the Shu state could be imagined. Therefore, Tan Zhou's "Theory of The Enemy of the Country" is not capitulationism, but reflects the tragic situation of the people of the Shu state at that time, and the correct opinion of stopping the Northern Expedition and recuperating is correct.
However, in the eyes of Jiang Wei and others, the great righteousness of reviving the Han Dynasty was obviously more important than the life and death of the people, so in the year before the fall of the Shu Kingdom, another Northern Expedition was launched, so that the veteran general Liao Hua could not help but criticize him for saying that "if the soldiers do not fight, they will set themselves on fire", that is, if the use of soldiers is not enough, they will inevitably suffer the evil consequences, and then the consequences will not be true.
In 263, when Deng Aiqi attacked the city, there were still some soldiers and horses in Chengdu, and the walls of Chengdu were high and deep, and it was not impossible to fight, but Liu Chan persuaded Liu Chan to surrender, and then Liu Chan surrendered to Deng Ai.
For a long time, almost all of the GDP was used for war, and before the fall of the Shu State, it was actually facing collapse, and the internal anti-war voices were high, especially the Yizhou local faction represented by Tan Zhou, whose interests were the most damaged and the anti-war voices were the highest. Therefore, behind Yu Zhou's proposal to surrender should be the common choice of the local faction in Yizhou. More importantly, the Qunchen asked Tan Zhou back: "Now ai is not far away, I am afraid that I will not be surrendered, so why?" "What if Deng Ai does not accept surrender?" In the final analysis, the group of courtiers did not discuss whether to surrender or not, but in what way and in what posture.
In fact, at that time, Tan Zhou was 62 years old, his official position was Guanglu Doctor, and he did not participate in the government normally, and could not decide the decisions of the Shu state. Therefore, the surrender of the Shu state was a common choice of Liu Chan and most of his courtiers, behind which the Shu state could not hold on any longer, and Yu Zhou was the most famous official in the surrender faction. So, as a representative of the surrender faction, how did Sima Shi reward Yu Zhou?
Logically, the reason why Tan Zhou initiated surrender should be for the sake of the high-ranking official Houlu and the interests of the family. However, in fact, Tan Zhou did not fight for any practical interests for himself and his family, and was recruited by Sima Yan to luoyang to become an official, but he "did not make any contribution to Chen Chen" and "asked for the return of the lord's land", and always wanted to return to Sichuan.
The Tan clan was a Confucian family, and few descendants were officials. There is no record of the three sons serving the Sima clan, and the youngest son, Tan Tong, was conscripted to wash horses in the Eastern Palace. Tan Zhou's grandson, Tan Xiu, was a famous hermit gaoshi at that time. Among the three generations of Zhou Zhou's descendants, only his grandson Tan Deng was an official, because the rebel Li Xiong's men killed his father, and then in order to avenge Li Xiong, he was made an official after making military achievements.
In fact, if Yu Zhou advocated surrender, even after the Wei state destroyed Shu, with his local prestige in Yizhou, Sima Shi would still pay attention to him. However, Tan Zhou took the initiative to advocate surrender, and did not fight for the interests of the family and descendants. Therefore, the motivation of Tan Zhou's advocacy of surrender is obvious.
In the situation of the Shu state at that time, the demise was sooner or later, and how to save Liu Chan, the Qunchen, and the people was the most important. At the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when Gongsun Shu divided Sichuan and Shu, Liu Xiu sent Wu Han to attack Gongsun Shu, and after conquering Chengdu, Wu Han slaughtered Shu. Gongsun Shu divided Sichuan and Shu for many years, but Sichuan Shu was slaughtered by Wu Han; Shu Han was founded for half a century, so how did the State of Wei treat Sichuan shu? In order to avoid the recurrence of the slaughter of the city, plus the Shu kingdom is already hopeless, what is the purpose of not surrendering?
Objectively speaking, Yu Zhou won a good ending for the major families of shu han, the shu state was smoothly destroyed, there was no violent massacre in the middle, and Liu Chan was able to enjoy his old age in peace. In the history of China, it can be said that it is very rare for a group of subjects, people, and lords like the Shu kingdom to have received a better ending. Therefore, his student Chen Shou, in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Biography of Tan Zhou", used twelve words to evaluate: "Liu Shi is not worried, a state is menglai, and the plot of Zhou (谯周) is also." ”
It can be said that Tan Zhou's advocacy of surrender was a helpless move and a win-win result, but he still had deep feelings for the Shu kingdom in his heart, so his last words said: "If the kingdom gives those who wear clothes, do not add to the body." When the old tomb is returned, the road is dangerous and difficult, and the coffin is light. The funeral is over, and the gift is returned. ”
Whether Zhou Zhou is loyal or adulterous, perhaps only Liu Chan, who laughed and said, "Happy here, not thinking about Shu", can understand it more clearly!
How to evaluate The Week, the key depends on what position you stand on. Morally speaking, "the monarch dies and the qing doctor dies", and it is extremely shameless to persuade the son of heaven to surrender. However, from the actual situation of the Shu state, the destruction is inevitable sooner or later, surrender is the best outcome, and the surrender is only the Wei state, which is also a Huaxia ethnic group, not a foreign nationality, a foreign nationality, and a surrender within the Chinese nation.
The feudal dynasty paid attention to orthodoxy and righteousness, ignoring the suffering of the people, so including the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it has always condemned Tan Zhou and regarded him as a sinner for eternity, and even his student Chen Shou could not change. However, from today's point of view, under the banner of "reviving the Han Dynasty," the Shu state has waged wars for many years and frantically exploited the people, far exceeding Wei Wu, so why should we regret the demise of such an "orthodox" and why should we condemn and persuade such an "orthodox" to surrender!
References: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, etc