Li Yan was a chancellor of the Shu Han Dynasty during the Three Kingdoms period, he was both literate and martial, participated in the formulation of the Shu Ke, and repeatedly countered the rebellion, which was valued by Liu Bei and became a minister of entrustment with Zhuge Liang. However, after working with Zhuge Liang for eight years, he was deposed as a Shuren due to poor grain transportation and lying about military information. The general context of this matter is very clear, but there are some details worth exploring, and this article will tell a key person in this matter.
Li Yan
Before Li Yan was deposed, his reputation was quite bad, with the name of "Li Lingjia", and he had clashed with many colleagues and subordinates, including Fu Kuang, Yang Hong, Wang Chong, and the township Chen Zhen also told Zhuge Liang that Li Yan had a bad reputation among the township party. After the start of the Northern Expedition, Zhuge Liang repeatedly hoped that Li Yan would come to Hanzhong to help him, but Li Yan refused, and at the same time built a large city, wanted to set aside five counties to establish Bazhou, and hoped to learn from Sima Yi and others to open a government. Zhuge Liang, under the threat of Li Yan, made his son Li Feng the governor of Jiangzhou, gave Li Yan the title of general of the Hun Horse, and even gave Li Yan the power to administer the Xiang Prefecture during the Northern Expedition, and Li Yan agreed to come to Hanzhong to help.
However, during Zhuge Liang's Fourth Northern Expedition, due to heavy rainfall, Li Yan's grain and grass supervision was not effective. Li Yan was afraid of being blamed, so he sent the army of Hu Zhong and the overseer Cheng Fan to convey a message to Zhuge Liang and ask Zhuge Liang to retire. When the news of Zhuge Liang's retreat came, he pretended not to know before passing on the people, saying that the grain and grass were still sufficient, and on the other hand, he gave Liu Chan a favor, saying that Zhuge Liang was pretending to withdraw his troops to lure the enemy to attack. As a result, in the end, Zhuge Liang showed Li Yan a document that was inconsistent in words and deeds, leaving Li Yan dumbfounded, and he had to bow down and confess his guilt.
Zhuge Liang
Regarding Li Yan's successive performances, historian Tian Yuqing once commented that it was too perverse and out of common sense, and did not look like what the shrewd and capable Li Yan would do. This conclusion will be drawn because the history books record that Zhuge Liang obtained the documents before and after Li Yan, causing Li Yan to do things that seem to be full of errors and omissions, but in fact, Li Yan's calculations may have been very refined, and he originally did not intend to leave the documents.
The order of retreat sent by Li Yan to Zhuge Liang was Yu Zhi, and the so-called Yu Zhi was a verbal order. Li Yanchuan's order was definitely not his own, he did not have the authority to let Zhuge Liang retreat, it must have been an order issued in the name of Liu Chan. At that time, if Zhuge Liang retreated from the army and claimed that it was Liu Chan's order, Liu Chan would say that he did not give such an order at all, but because it was a verbal order, Zhuge Liang could not come up with relevant documents, and he could not prove himself. With Zhuge Liang's cleverness, he could naturally know that Li Yan was obstructing him, but if Li Yan pretended to be confused, Zhuge Liang couldn't do anything with him.
In this way, Li Yan could be exonerated of his charge of failing to transport grain, Zhuge Liang retired from the army for no reason and dumped Liu Chan, and his prestige was also hit, and at the same time, the relationship between Zhuge Liang and Liu Chan would also have a rift, which was simply three eagles for Li Yan. Zhuge Liang commented on Li Yan afterwards: I thought that the scaled armor was not the ear of the offender, and I did not want to repeat the things of Su and Zhang out of the blue. It meant that he originally thought that Li Yan's heart was not right, so he didn't want to offend him, but he didn't expect that he would actually do such an unexpected thing as Su Qin and Zhang Yi. Su Qin and Zhang Yi were Zongheng family members during the Warring States period, and the matter of Su and Zhang that Zhuge Liang refers to should refer to Li Yan's two sides and three swords, provoking the relationship between the monarch and the subject.
Since Li Yan did not intend to leave evidence, how did Zhuge Liang obtain Li Yan's inconsistent documents? First of all, the documents presented by Zhuge Liang must be true, otherwise Li Yan could not have been dumb and speechless, and secondly, in the process of identification, Zhuge Liang probably used human witnesses, making Li Yan irrefutable. Li Yan's shangshu written to Liu Chan was handed over to Shang Shutai and Liu Chan's attendants to handle the discussion, these people were all recommended by Zhuge Liang to Liu Chan, Zhuge Liang wanted to master these documents easily, Li Yan must have wanted to get them, so the key problem was Yu Zhi, the key figures were Li Yan sent to Zhuge Liang to pass on the orders of Hu Zhong and Cheng Fan.
Coincidentally, when Zhuge Liang deposed Li Yan in Shangshang, he just wrote the following sentence: Self-treacherous dew, suspicion of the heart, the arrival of the army, the Xixiang complaint is still depressed, Zhang, the army is depressed, the return to Jiangyang, and the ping joins the army fox loyalty and diligence is stopped. When criticizing Li Yan's behavior, he also praised Hu Zhong for stopping Li Yan's meritorious service, so Hu Zhong must have played a key role in deposing Li Yan and helped Zhuge Liang a lot.
Hu Zhong's name sounds very unfamiliar to everyone, but his other name is very familiar to everyone - Ma Zhong. During the Three Kingdoms period, there were two Ma Zhong, one was Pan Zhang's subordinate Ma Zhong, which was a small person who was recorded only once when Guan Yu was captured, and the other was Ma Zhong of the Shu Kingdom, who was much more powerful and was an important figure in the Shu Kingdom. Ma Zhong's original name was Fox Du, because he was raised by his mother's family, he took his mother's surname fox, and later changed back to his father's surname Ma, changed his name to Zhong, and became Ma Zhong.
Ma Zhong
Ma Zhongchuan records that he was appointed as a minister to join the army before Zhuge Liang's Fourth Northern Expedition, assisting Jiang Huan in staying in Hanzhong, and going to the front line to participate in the war during the Fourth Northern Expedition, which corresponded to Li Yanchuan's official position and deeds. However, Ma Zhong was deeply trusted by Zhuge Liang, and Chen Shou commented that he was "disturbed and able to be resolute", disturbing the meaning of taming, and referring to Ma Zhong as very obedient. So who did he listen to? Naturally, it could not be Li Yan's.
Therefore, the situation in this matter is likely to be that Ma Zhong found out that Li Yan's behavior was wrong based on clues, and then used some methods in advance to secretly collect or force Li Yan to leave relevant documents, and when passing the order, Zhuge Liang grasped Li Yan's movements in advance, and finally personally served as a witness, so that Li Yan had nothing to say under the iron evidence.
After Li Yan was deposed, Ma Zhong was also reused by Zhuge Liang. Two years later, a rebellion broke out under Zhang Yi, the governor of Nanzhong, and when Zhang Yi was about to end the rebellion, Zhuge Liang sent Ma Zhong to succeed Zhang Yi as the governor of Yu, and successfully quelled the rebellion with the foundation laid by Zhang Yi. After the war, Ma Zhong was awarded the title of General of Fenwei of the Supervision Army for his merits, and was made the Marquis of Boyangting. This incident was enough to show that Zhuge Liang intended to cultivate Ma Zhong.
After Zhuge Liang's death, his successors Jiang Huan and Fei Yi still attached great importance to Ma Zhong, who in his later years was promoted to the general of Zhennan and The Prince of Pingshang. PingShang Shushi has the right to participate in the administrative decision-making of Shang Shutai, which is a proof of entering the core center of the imperial court. The Shu Han court participated in Shang Shutai's decision-making with other official positions before and after, namely Zhuge Liang, Jiang Wan, Fei Yi, Ma Zhong, Jiang Wei, Zhuge Zhan, and Dong Jie, and Ma Zhong was the only Yizhou native who obtained this status.
In the end, Ma Zhong did not live up to Zhuge Liang's expectations and made great contributions to Shu Han.