Among the Three Kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu, because Shu Han controlled the smallest territory and had the smallest population, the number of its troops was also the smallest of the Three Kingdoms.
According to Pei Songzhi's account quoting Wang Yin's Shu Ji when commenting on the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Chan surrendered to Deng Ai, and the scholarly book sent by Li Hu, the shang shu lang, recorded that Shu Han had a total of "12,000 soldiers with armor".
In contrast, there were 230,000 soldiers in the late Eastern Wu Period, more than twice as many as the Shu Han. As for Cao Wei being more powerful, the Battle of Shu sent out 160,000 troops, more than the combined strength of the Shu Han dynasty. When Zhuge Was born, Sima Zhao dispatched nearly half a million troops, which shows the huge difference in strength between the two sides.
It should be noted that there was no Internet during the Three Kingdoms period, and it was difficult to count the changes in the number of troops stationed in various places in a timely manner. Therefore, the number of Shu soldiers in the shu army mentioned in the "Book of Shu" should be based on the results reported by various places in a certain period, and the results obtained by counting the total number of soldiers in the Shu army are only a registered number.
When the State of Wei launched an attack on the Shu Han, according to the communication conditions at that time, Chengdu may not be able to grasp the changes in the number of troops in various places in time, so when Liu Chan actually surrendered, after deducting the casualties in the battle, the Shu army should actually have no more than 102,000 people.
And these 12,000 Shu troops can be divided into two parts: mobile troops and local garrison troops.
The mobile units of the Shu army were directly commanded by the general Jiang Wei, who was originally stationed in Hanzhong for a long time to facilitate the Northern Expedition. However, before the Battle of Shu, the eunuch Huang Hao seized power and wanted to get rid of Jiang Wei, and instead put the right general Yan Yu, who was dependent on him, in charge of the military power. In order to avoid disaster, Jiang Wei himself led part of the Shu army to Tuntian in Puzhong, while the other troops were led by Liao Hua on the right car, Zhang Yi on the left car, and Dong Jie, the general of the auxiliary state, and others, stationed in various parts of Yizhou, preparing for the response.
After the outbreak of the Battle of Shu, after Jiang Wei fought a battle with Deng Ai in Puzhong, he led his army to retreat to the Sword Pavilion, and Liao Hua and others were also ordered to bring soldiers and horses to reinforcements. According to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms and the Biography of Zhong Hui, when Deng Ai smuggled yinping, defeated Zhuge Zhan, and Jiang Wei abandoned the sword pavilion to return to Chengdu, there were about 40,000 or 50,000 people under his command.
The main component of these 40,000 or 50,000 people should be the mobile troops commanded by Jiang Wei, Liao Hua, Zhang Yi, and Dong Jie, and there may be a small number of garrisons retreating from Hanzhong. This figure is consistent with Sima Zhao's estimation that the Shu army had about 50,000 mobile troops, and it also coincided with the Wu chancellor Zhang Yu's "Memoirs" mentioning that when Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition, the Shu army was about 50,000 or less.
Therefore, the total number of mobile units of the Shu Army is about 50,000 or so.
The garrison of the Shu Army was mainly deployed in Chengdu and the three frontier areas of Hanzhong, Yong'an, and Nanzhong, and the others were prefectures and counties in various prefectures. After the Wei army captured Hanzhong, in order to prevent the Wei army from taking the Micang Road and attacking Chengdu in a roundabout way through Brazil, a considerable number of troops were also deployed in Brazil.
Because of its proximity to the State of Wei, Hanzhong had the largest number of troops. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and other history books do not mention how many Shu troops there were in Hanzhong at the time of the Battle of Shu. However, considering that when Wang Pingzhen was guarding Hanzhong, there were a total of 30,000 troops. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms and the Biography of Zhong Hui mentions that after Zhong Hui conquered Yangping Pass and Southern Zheng, Seoul and Lecheng each had 5,000 Shu troops who refused to surrender. Yangping Pass and Nanzheng are both important places in Hanzhong, and the defenders should not be less than Seoul and Lecheng. In this way, there are at least more than 20,000 people in Hanzhong.
The shu army stationed at Yong'an was at its largest, shortly after Liu Bei's death. At that time, the relationship between Shu and Wu had just eased, and there was still a certain degree of wariness with each other, so Li Yan commanded a large army to garrison Yong'an and monitor Eastern Wu. However, as Cao Wei became more and more powerful, and the relationship between Shu and Wu became increasingly close under pressure, when Cao Zhen was cutting shu, Zhuge Liang asked Li Yan to take 20,000 people to Hanzhong to strengthen the defense, and there should not be much garrison in Yong'an after that.
In 257, when the Eastern Wu general Shi Ji was unstable due to the dictatorship of Sun Qi in The country, and fearing that Cao Wei would take advantage of the void and secretly contact shu Han, Liu Chan sent Yan Yu to lead 5,000 troops to strengthen the defense of Yong'an. After that, Yan Yu stayed in Yong'an with his troops until the battle to destroy Shu broke out, leaving Luo Xian and two thousand men and horses to stay in Yong'an, and he rushed back to the rescue with his troops.
Therefore, before the Battle of Shu, the Shu army in Yong'an was Yan Yu's five thousand people plus the original garrison, which should be less than ten thousand. When the Wei army captured Hanzhong, Yong'an had only 2,000 men.
The number of Shu troops in Chengdu and South Central and Brazil is rarely mentioned in historical records. But South Central and Brazil should have at least a few thousand people each. In this way, the 12,000 Shu army deducted 40,000 or 50,000 people from Jiang Wei, more than 20,000 people from Hanzhong, about 10,000 from Yong'an, and the defenders of Nanzhong and Brazil, then there were only 10,000 or 20,000 people left. Even if yan Yu added some of the men and horses brought back, and deducted the troops necessary to maintain law and order in various places, the strength of the Shu army left in Chengdu was at best about 20,000.
It is no wonder that after Deng Ai smuggled into Yinping with 20,000 troops, Zhuge Zhan could not defeat him, and his troops were inferior to those of the other side. In addition, Deng Ai and the Wei army had been in battle for a long time, and Zhuge Zhan and the Chengdu Shu army were on the battlefield for the first time, and he was already very talented in repelling the first attack of the Wei army.