Friends who are familiar with the history of the Three Kingdoms must know that after experiencing the peak of the Battle of Hanzhong, the Shu Kingdom encountered Guan Yu's careless loss of Jingzhou and Lu Xun's burning of the three-hundred-mile camp two major defeats. Liu Bei led a large army to personally conquer Eastern Wu, and according to historical records, a total of 40,000 elite headquarters and 10,000 barbarian soldiers assisted. In the case of the total annihilation of the army at most, the Shu state also "only" lost 50,000 soldiers and horses, why did Liu Bei get angry with the White Emperor after the defeat, making it difficult for Zhuge Liang to be a clever woman?
First of all, we must correct the concept that the major battles that you have seen in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" are hundreds of thousands of troops thrown in at every turn, and after a battle, more than a million people are chasing after me in a place, which is unrealistic. Just like many TV drama directors now pursue big scenes, the author Luo Guanzhong also needs to create one grand battle after another, reflecting the cruelty of the three kingdoms war through artistic processing.
You know, the registered population of the entire Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty was only 7-8 million. At this time, some students will ask questions, I see the historical data show that in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were no people who surrendered to the Qiang, Xiongnu and so on, and there were 65 million people at the peak? Why are you so many people here?
Here we first look at the social phenomenon before the founding of the Three Kingdoms: from the time when Emperor Huan of Han and Emperor Ling were in power, the phenomenon of bureaucratic corruption was very serious, coupled with the backward agricultural productivity suffered from drought for many years, which made a people not happy, and the people even had to change their children. Therefore, the Yellow Turban Rebellion that broke out at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was precisely because the peasants did not have enough to eat and wear, and they had no choice but to join the so-called Yellow Turban Army to eat mixed food. Of course, he was venting his dissatisfaction with the imperial court.
In order to quell the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the imperial court had to restore the state pastoral system, allowing officials from all over the country to establish armies and lead their own troops to fight. With the barrel of a gun, it is natural to breed warlord separatist forces. Moreover, under the premise that all the goals were to eliminate the Yellow Turban Army, the officials of the state capitals could even send the army to the field, expand their territory in disguise, force the officials of other state capitals to be loyal to themselves, and establish one military group after another that was enough to oppose the central government.
Divide the crowds
Therefore, after the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the situation of the division of the masses has become unchangeable, and wars like those in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period have been frequently launched, causing countless military and civilian casualties. Even like Cao Cao, in order to completely destroy the will of the enemy, after conquering one city after another, he would start a massacre and exterminate all those who did not support him.
Therefore, by 265 AD, when Sima Yan established the Jin Dynasty, the population of the three kingdoms of Wei Shu and Wu totaled only 7.67 million. Now that we look back at the Battle of Yiling, the scale of troop investment on both sides of the war will be "tight" a bit. Liu Bei did not have more than 700,000 troops as stated in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and Lu Xun also had 50,000 troops equivalent to the Shu army, which was enough to rely on the Yangtze River waterline to complete the defense. The two sides entered the summer after a protracted war, and Liu Bei was forced to transfer his army into the forest to escape the heat, which gave Lu Xun the opportunity to kill with one blow.
After the Battle of Yiling, liu bei led 50,000 elites burned to the ground, which was the capital that took him most of his life to save. In addition, the 30,000 Jingzhou army led by Guan Yu was also destroyed by Sun Quan and Cao Cao, and Liu Bei lost confidence in the future of the Shu state and died depressed. It was only when he was half-cut into the ground that he had two pieces of land of his own, commanding a large army that could fight against Cao Cao's Sun Quan. Now that he has lost all his army, will he have to wait another few decades to start over? Under the ashes of all thoughts, he pinned his last hope on Zhuge Liang, which was just a beautiful fantasy.
After Liu Bei's death, the Shu state took advantage of the situation and produced many rebellions. For example, Meng Yu of the Southern Barbarians and Meng Da of Shangyong, who took out the tiger and prepared to take the opportunity to eliminate Cao Pi and Sun Quan of the Shu state. Fortunately, Zhuge Liang handled it properly, spent 5 years to completely quell the civil unrest, and re-pulled up a team of the Northern Expedition. Because of this, Zhuge Liang was cautious in every Northern Expedition and would never agree to any risky offensive plan.