In the face of reality, often many times people will be combined because of interests, just like there is an old saying, there is no eternal friends, only eternal interests, this sentence if used in some special periods in history, it seems particularly appropriate.
The Three Kingdoms period is a relatively chaotic but talented period, this period has happened a lot of wonderful and interesting things, of which the Battle of Chibi must be a major event of epoch-making significance, many people are more curious about the Battle of Chibi, obviously the whole war is Zhou Yu fighting, Liu Bei They are all fighting soy sauce, why did Sun Quan still have to ally with Liu Bei at that time?
The situation before the Battle of Chibi
Before the Battle of Chibi, Cao Cao had completely mastered the rule of the north after cleaning up the Yuan Shao family, and he planned to take advantage of the victory to pursue and take the south, and in the southern region at that time, there were two more powerful forces, one was the Sun Quan group, and the other was Liu Biao's Jingzhou group, after Cao Cao unified the north, the first thing he planned to clean up was the Liu Biao group, because the internal problems and contradictions of this force were more prominent, and Cao Cao was easier to break.
When Cao Cao was planning to send troops to Jingzhou, a more interesting thing happened, Jingzhou Mu Liu Biao died of illness, leaving the family business to the younger son Liu Chun to inherit, the younger son under the advice and persuasion of Cai Mao and others, taking advantage of Cao Cao's lack of troops, he took the initiative to write a letter to Cao Cao to surrender, so Cao Cao picked up a bargain and was in a happy mood.
With the surrender of Liu Qi's forces, Liu Biao's original Jingzhou clique forces were only left with the forces of his eldest son Liu Qi in the Jiangxia region and liu Bei's forces that had defected to Liu Biao, according to historical records, there were about 2,000 people and horses around Liu Bei at that time, and Liu Qi should have about 10,000 people and horses around him, although the number was small, but it also had a certain impact on Cao Cao.
Cao Cao planned to take advantage of the opportunity to clean up Liu Bei and take revenge on Liu Bei's betrayal of his hatred, so he chased after Liu Bei poorly, Liu Bei under Cao Cao's pursuit, he understood that the situation was not good, and later Zhuge Liang suggested that Liu Bei go to Jiang Xia Taishou Liu Qi, the two combined to develop together, Liu Bei accepted Zhuge Liang's suggestion, Liu Qi also had hopes for this matter (Liu Qi, as the eldest son, but he was not able to become the legitimate heir, now is the best opportunity for him to turn around).
When Liu Bei and his gang were fleeing for their lives, they met Lu Su, a key figure around Sun Quan, who saw that Liu Bei and his gang had nowhere to go, so he planned to persuade Liu Bei to turn to Sun Quan, but Liu Bei himself had great ambitions, of course, he was not willing to easily turn to Sun Quan, he planned to make an equal alliance with Sun Quan, so he sent Zhuge Liang to talk to Sun Quan, and after Sun Quan and Zhuge Liang talked freely, they did not pay attention to Liu Bei's clique, and it was not until more things happened later that Sun Quan gradually realized the seriousness of the problem.
After Zhuge Liang and Sun Quan analyzed the current situation and the advantages and disadvantages of the alliance between the two sides and the non-alliance, they returned to Liu Bei's side, Sun Quan felt that Liu Bei had too few people and horses, and did not have much benefit to himself, and besides, Cao Cao was targeting Liu Bei, not himself, so why should he go through this muddy water?
Obviously, at that time, Sun Quan still underestimated the seriousness of the situation, and when he was just planning to reject Liu Bei's alliance, Cao Cao wrote a letter to Sun Quan, telling Sun Quan that he now had an army of 800,000 people, hoping that when he cleaned up Liu Bei, Sun Quan would not be nosy.
Cao Cao's letter was very strong, Sun Quan of course understood that Cao Cao was threatening himself, so he went to those ministers of Eastern Wu to discuss countermeasures, many of the ministers of Eastern Wu were local rich and noble scholars, in the face of Cao Cao's threat, they almost one-sidedly advised Sun Quan to take the initiative to learn from Liu Quan's surrender, even Zhang Zhao, who supported Sun Quan's succession, and others unanimously believed that Sun Quan should take the initiative to defect to Cao Cao, only Zhou Yu, who was fighting far away, and Lu Su, who was fighting far away, did not express their position, and Sun Quan was almost killed alive at that time.
Sun Quan certainly did not want to surrender in his heart, after all, for the rest of the ministers, Cao Cao might also reuse them after surrendering, but for Sun Quan himself, once he surrendered, it meant losing everything.
Lu Su saw Sun Quan's concerns, and analyzed the situation with Sun Quan, just in the middle of Sun Quan's heart, Sun Quan planned to resolutely not surrender, to appoint Zhou Yu and Lu Su and others to fight with Cao Cao, at the critical moment, Sun Quan thought of Liu Bei's injured people, plus at this time Liu Bei and Liu Qi united together, the power increased significantly, the alliance between the two sides, for the overall situation, is nothing more than favorable, if Sun Quan is not willing to ally with Liu Bei, Liu Bei occupies the favorable position of Jiangxia, in case he takes advantage of the fire to rob himself, The loss of Eastern Wu will be even more serious.
After these considerations, Sun Quan finally agreed to an alliance with Liu Bei, but Liu Bei in this period, the real people and horses of his own, in fact, about two thousand, when the Battle of Chibi broke out, the scene that people often saw was that Liu Bei only arranged 2,000 people and horses for Zhang Fei and Guan Yu to lead and participate, it seems that the entire Battle of Chibi is fighting in Eastern Wu, but people do not know, in fact, this is Liu Bei's entire wealth at that time, maybe all this is for Sun Quan, It will not have much effect, but without Liu Bei's support, the disadvantages will be great.
Why did Sun Quan ally with Liu Bei?
Combined with the above analysis of the entire situation before the Battle of Chibi, in fact, it is not difficult for us to understand that although the entire Battle of Chibi seems to be fought by Eastern Wu, Sun Quan has at least three reasons for him to have to ally with Liu Bei.
The first reason is that Sun Quan was threatened by Cao Cao and no one inside was willing to support him against Cao Cao, such a situation was very unfavorable to Sun Quan and even Eastern Wu, if Sun Quan chose to follow the advice of his ministers and turn to Cao Cao, the efforts of his father and brothers were buried in his own hands, if he did not compromise, how to deal with cao Cao and these people who did not support himself within Eastern Wu was another difficult problem.
At this critical moment of dilemma, Sun Quan fell into confusion, anyway, he wanted to fight, rather than fighting alone, it was better to ally with Liu Bei against Cao Cao, one more friend is better than one more enemy.
The second reason is that Lu Su already had the intention of trying to persuade Liu Bei Group to turn to Sun Quan, although this exhortation did not get its wish, but for the alliance between the two sides, it may also be a key step, what if after this alliance, Liu Bei Group saw the strength of Sun Quan Group and consciously turned to Sun Quan?
The third reason was that Liu Bei had already merged with Liu Qi of Jiangxia at that time, and although it was difficult for people to figure out whether Liu Bei had the final say or Liu Qi had the final say in Jiangxia at that time, as long as someone could come forward and support Jiangxia's more than 10,000 troops, it would be very useful to fight against Cao Cao.
Besides, Jiangxia's geographical location is very important, once Jiangxia becomes Cao Cao's territory, it is simply a bad news for Sun Quan, Sun Quan of course does not want to see such an ending, rather than let Jiangxia become Cao Cao's territory, forming a threat to Eastern Wu, it is better to take advantage of the good opportunity of alliance with Liu Bei to make Jiangxia his own territory, so at least to ensure that he is not threatened in this key place of Jiangxia, and the probability of victory in battle will increase a little.
epilogue
There is no doubt that before the Battle of Chibi or in the Battle of Chibi, the power of Liu Bei's clique could not be compared with sun quan's clique, Liu Bei was chased and killed by Cao Cao at that time, and there was not even a foothold, but Sun Quan relied on the management of his father and brother for two generations and had a solid career foundation. At first, Sun Quan obviously did not look down on Liu Bei's people, but later, with Cao Cao's threat and the compulsion of the situation, Sun Quan had no choice but to ally with Liu Bei, after all, only in this way would the hope of victory increase a little!
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