In modern society, for some people who have good innate conditions but still achieve nothing, many people are accustomed to using "unsupportable Adou" to describe it. It can be seen from this that the image of Liu Chan, the lord of the Shu Han Dynasty, in the hearts of future generations is how faint and confused. It is true that as the king of the subjugated country, Liu Chan's wind evaluation will naturally not be much better. However, if you really want to calculate, Liu Chan is not an incompetent person who only knows pleasure.
Stills of Liu Chan, the lord of the Shu Han Dynasty
Of the eleven emperors of the Three Kingdoms (excluding the posthumous Weiwu emperor Cao Cao), Liu Chan reigned the longest, lasting 41 years. Not only that, Liu Chan followed Liu Bei on his crusade to the west since he was a child, and suffered a lot of hardships, so he was well aware of the sufferings of the people, and during his reign, he paid great attention to the people's livelihood issues, so Shu Han remained relatively calm, and there was no major turmoil. Judging from the situation at that time, the geographical limitations of the Shu Han Dynasty made it inevitable to perish, but it was only a matter of time. Taking a step back, in the late Three Kingdoms period, the national strength of the Shu Han Dynasty was already very weak due to successive years of conquest, but when Jiang Wei went out to fight, the supply of grain and grass was still smooth and sufficient, what does this mean? At least it proves that Liu Chan still has two brushes.
Shu Han general Wei Yan stills
Of course, it is unrealistic to say that Liu Chan did not make a single mistake as emperor. The biggest mistake Liu Chan made was that in terms of employing people, he killed a person who should be released, but released a person who should be killed. The former refers to Wei Yan, whose death caused the Shu state to lose another pillar of state. Influenced by the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", many readers feel that Wei Yan is to blame himself, in fact, Wei Yan really died at the hands of villains. Wei Yan was born in the army, with the directness and rudeness of a soldier, Yang Yi, as a civilian official, did not belong to the same faction as Wei Yan, and naturally looked down on Wei Yan's good and great achievements. Over the years, the contradiction between the two became deeper and deeper, "Yan was both good at raising soldiers, brave and fierce, and high-minded, and avoided them at that time." Only Yang Yi did not pretend to extend, and extended to think that it was like water and fire. ”
Stills of Zhuge Liang and Yang Yi
After Zhuge Liang's death, Wei Yan and Yang Yi finally broke out into a fight for military power. The two wrote to Liu Chan one after another, accusing each other of their mistakes. At this time, Liu Chan's attitude decided who could win in the end. According to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms and the Biography of Wei Yan, "The Later Lord asked Dong Yun, the governor of the Liu Prefecture, Shi Jiang Huan, and Yun Xian baoyi to doubt Yan. You must know that Dong Yun, Jiang Wan, and Yang Yi all belonged to the Jingzhou Sect, and the three of them would naturally support each other, so Wei Yan completely lost Liu Chan's trust. Soon after, Wei Yan's struggle for power failed and he was beheaded by Ma Dai. This infighting caused Wei Yan to die unjustly, directly weakening the national strength of the Shu Han Dynasty. If Wei Yan had not died early, how could Jiang Wei's Northern Expedition have no general available in the later period?
Stills of Liu Chan and Huang Hao
As for the "person who should be killed" that Liu Chan let go, it was the eunuch Huang Hao. After Zhuge Liang's death, his military and political power was divided into two, and the political aspect was inherited by Jiang Huan, Fei Yi and others, and the military side was taken over by Jiang Wei. Because Jiang Wei was born as a general, there was a great suspicion in Fei Yi's death. In this way, it was difficult for Liu Chan to really trust Jiang Wei, so he favored the eunuch Huang Hao, in fact, he also had the meaning of using the latter's hand to restrain Jiang Wei. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms quotes the Huayang Guozhi as saying: "Wei Evil Huang Hao is unscrupulous, and the Lord wants to kill him." Later, the Lord said: "Hao tends to take away the ears of the little minister, and cuts his teeth to Dong Yun, I often hate it, and Jun He zu minds!" Seeing that the branches were attached to the leaves, he was afraid of losing his words, and he spoke out. Later Lord Hao Yi Wei Chen Xie. Wei said that Hao asked for wheat to avoid internal pressure. ”
Jiang Wei stills
From this record, it is not difficult to see that Jiang Wei saw that Liu Chan was so fond of Huang Hao that he was afraid of provoking the disaster of killing himself, so he took the initiative to request to go to Puzhong. After Jiang Wei left the court, Huang Hao completely gained power, and no one held him hostage anymore, and Liu Chan listened to Huang Hao's rumors, resulting in the instability of the court in the late Shu Han Dynasty, and many officials were alienated. To be fair, Liu Chan's indulgence of Huang Hao in this way did indeed lay a huge hidden danger for the later demise of the Shu Han regime.
bibliography:
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Volume 33, Shu Shu III, Later Biography