During the Three Kingdoms period, the leaders of the Three Kingdoms of Wei, Shu, and Wu all had their own groups of counselors. Among them, the State of Wei was headed by Xun Yu, Guo Jia, and Cheng Yu, the State of Wu was headed by Zhou Yu, Lu Su, and Zhang Zhao, and the Shu Han dynasty was the first to promote Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong.
However, there was such a person, who did not play much historical drama, but helped Liu Bei to capture Xichuan and Hanzhong and realize Longzhong's strategic grand plan, this person was Fazheng.
So where is the Fa Zheng? How important is he to Liu Bei? Why did he quickly become the backbone of the Shu Han clique from a surrender, even on a par with Zhuge Liang? What's the reason behind this?
First, the times create heroes, and the wizards of the warrior clan come out
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, during the reign of the Second Emperor Huanling, the Han family world had reached the brink of collapse, and Fazheng was born in the period before the collapse of this mountain and river. Compared with most of the poor people, Fazheng's family conditions were very superior, his grandfather was the grandson of the famous scholar Fa Zhen at the end of the Han Dynasty, and his father Fa Yan was an official in the dynasty. Relying on the protection of his grandfather and father, the turmoil at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty did not affect Fazheng's study and growth in the slightest.
As he grew older, Fa Zheng began to have a clear understanding of the current situation.
When he was 16 years old, he saw with his own eyes that Dong Zhuo had taken Emperor Xian of Han hostage and moved west to Chang'an after chaos in Beijing. At this time, the Han Xiandi in the eyes of Fa Zheng had long since lost his "royal prestige". He had become a plaything in Dong Zhuo's hands, and at this time, the knowledge accumulated by Fa Zheng's years of hard reading told him that the Eastern Han Dynasty was about to collapse and the world was about to be in chaos.
Just as the so-called situation creates heroes, at this time Fa Zheng and his fellow friend Meng Da also want to be heroes, because the Central Plains are in a scuffle at this time, the two had to go south into Shu land to surrender to Liu Zhang. It's just a pity that Liu Zhang is a person without foresight, and there is also a big gap between him and Cao Cao Liu Bei in terms of employing people. The Fa is under his hands so that he can never perform it. Although the official resides as a lieutenant in the military council, he can participate in military politics. However, because he was not a talent in Shuzhong, he was always ostracized by the locals. And this also made Fa Zheng, who came from the family lineage, very dissatisfied and depressed.
Second, when Liu Bei had to show his talent and learning opportunities, Shan Qi plotted to suppress Cao Cao's two great strategists
The encounter between Liu Bei and Fazheng was an accident and an inevitability. In Zhuge Lianglong's strategy, Xichuan is the foundation of Liu Bei's entrepreneurship and the strategic base for trying to win the world. And Fa Zheng happened to be in Nishikawa, also waiting for a lord who could appreciate himself, the two of them were like dry firewood, once they met, it was bound to be the fire of the plains.
I have to say that among all the Nishikawa strategists who admired Liu Bei, Fa Xiaozhi had the best luck. He was sent by Liu Zhang to meet Liu Bei, and directly beat the dog with meat buns and never returned. On the first day of the change of course, Fa Zheng could not wait to act as Liu Beima's pawn and turned the muzzle of the gun to beat his former master Liu Zhang.
Under Liu Zhang's account, fazheng who only promised to make promises, but under Liu Bei's account, he struck hard! Not only did he carefully plan the campaign to capture Chengdu, but he also gave advice to Emperor Liu after liu bei entered Xichuan to appease people's hearts. Unlike Zhuge Liang, who is good at planning strategies and discusses the general trend of the world, the fa is much more pragmatic, and he understands that if any strategy is to be realized, it is not feasible to rely solely on lip service, and it is necessary to fight one battle after another.
If you want to win every battle, you need someone to plan for it. It is a pity that Zhuge Liang in history does not have the unpredictable ability of gods and ghosts, nor will he sit in the city tower and play the guzheng to scare off Sima Yi's hundreds of thousands of troops. Most of the time, Kong Ming was in charge of logistics in Chengdu, and Fa Zheng was the core strategist who was at Liu Bei's side to help Emperor Shu attack the city. To some extent, Fa Zheng is the Wen wing of the wen and martial wings in Mr. Shui Jing's mouth. Zhuge Liang was the opposite.
For example, in Liu Bei's campaign to capture Hanzhong, Fazheng was Liu Bei's most reliant strategist.
In the Battle of Dingjun Mountain, Fa Zheng and the veteran general Huang Zhong worked closely together. Fa Xiaozhi took advantage of xiahou Yuan's trapped horses and horses to wave a red flag at the top of the mountain to command Huang Zhong's men and horses to sneak attack. Although some of the victories were not effective, the effect was remarkable, killing the Cao Wei general Xiahou Yuan. It not only shook the hearts of Cao Wei's troops, but also achieved the purpose of provoking Cao Cao, forcing him to personally lead a large army to expedition to Hanzhong.
After Cao Cao's army entered Hanzhong, it was Fa Zheng who advised Liu Bei to hold the pass and not fight Cao Cao. Eventually, Cao Cao ran out of food and had to retreat from Hanzhong, which eventually came under Liu Bei's ownership.
After occupying Hanzhong, Liu Bei had become the second Liu Bang, with the ability to take Chang'an directly from a commanding height, and all this success was inseparable from Fazheng's plan. At that time and in later generations, historians agreed that Fazheng's level of strategy was equivalent to Guo Jiajia Chengyu. The last two were all core strategists of Cao Wei, and being able to compete with them showed the high level of Fa Zheng's strategy.
Third, if the son of the first filial piety dies directly, it will be difficult for the Han room to rise
Twenty-five years after Jian'an, the second year of Liu Bei's self-establishment as King of Hanzhong, Shang Shuling's bench was not yet hot, and Fa Zheng died suddenly. At this time, just 45 years after his birth, this news for Liu Bei was tantamount to a thunderbolt on a sunny day. Since then, Liu Bei has lost his chief battlefield adviser, and it is difficult to win a battle of equal strength based on his own wisdom alone.
At the same time as Fa Zheng's death, many people were already convinced that Liu Bei's great cause of reviving the Great Han had died.
Since then, the fate of the Shu Han regime as a partial security regime has been predestined. It was almost impossible to make a difference, and as the master of Fazheng, Liu Bei was also very sad about Fazheng's death, and while suffering, he did not forget to pursue him as the Marquis of Yi. A wing character fully illustrates the position of the Fa in Liu Bei's heart, and Uncle Liu Huang, who has no wings, has completely changed from a flying dragon to a coiled dragon.
So why did Fa Zheng die, and the Shu Han clique never had a chance to dominate the world? In fact, this has a lot to do with the situation at that time and the mode of war in the era of cold weapons.
First of all, the situation at that time was that the Shu Han occupied Jingzhou and Hanzhong, and it was possible to launch a pincer offensive against the Central Plains. There was Sun Quan in the east of Jingzhou, and at this time it should be mainly defensive. From Hanzhong to the high commanding direct attack on Chang'an is the best choice, Fa Zheng, as a strategist with the army, may have begun to formulate a strategy for attacking Chang'an at this time, but regardless of whether this plan is perfect or not, whether it has begun to be implemented. With the death of Fa Zheng, it is bound to fall into stranding.
In order to continue to implement the Fazheng strategy, Liu Bei had to transfer other strategists from Xichuan to the front. This person can only be Zhuge Liang, but unfortunately, as we have already said above, Kong Ming in history is a figure like Xun Yu. Managing logistics can be very general in terms of battlefield advice. If Liu Bei, whose military strength is weak, will certainly not be able to conquer Chang'an in the short term. In the long run, wait for Cao Wei to ease up and stick to the passes everywhere. Shu Han had no chance to advance into the Central Plains.
In addition, in the era of cold weapons, wars are due to the low combat efficiency of weapons and the weakness of logistical support capabilities. Human conspiracy has been elevated to an unprecedented height. A highly creative scheme can often yield miraculous results and even determine the course of a war. And Fa Zheng is a very creative strategist.
The loss of Fazheng meant that the Shu Han clique lost its creativity on the battlefield, stretched the war that could have ended quickly indefinitely, and finally was consumed by Cao Wei in the long war attrition.
If the formation of the Three Kingdoms and the demise of the Shu Han Dynasty are compared to a hurricane, then Fazheng's death is undoubtedly that of the butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest. They have long been closely linked by fate.
Text/Slash Youth
Resources:
1. "The Choice of Localists and Outsiders Zhang Song and Fazheng: The Leader of Entering Shu", Guo Yemin
2. "A Brief Discussion on the Battle of Liu Cao Hanzhong and the Founding Strategy of the Shu Han Clique", Sun Haishi