Part 22: Endorph's Romance of the Three Kingdoms Corner #4 - Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang

little late on history chat. i'll do a quick shu roundup.

Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei
Liu Bei was from a poor family. They liked to claim they were descended from Emperor Jing of Han, who ruled in about 150 BC. Emperor Jing had a grandson named Liu Zhen. Liu Zhen, Liu Bei. See? Liu Zhen was a rebellious imperial grandson who didn't send yearly tributes to the throne, so he was stripped of his rank and became a peasant, hence why his descendants were flat broke. Liu Bei's father had a decent job as a magistrate, but he died when Liu Bei was young - Liu Bei had to support himself and his mother by making sandals. Fortunately, he had a wealthy uncle who came to visit one day, and when he saw how hard the boy was working he arranged for him to be taught by a scholar and general named Lu Zhi.

Lu Zhi was sent to suppress a small rebellion during Liu Bei's studies with him. Liu Bei wasn't allowed to go into combat, but he was allowed to observe it with Lu Zhi, and he got a taste for the military life. Lu Zhi became swamped with work by the end of the year, and Liu Bei took this chance to take some money he'd saved up and take a few of Lu Zhi's other students to form something of a mercenary band. He recruited some troops and made a few friends, including Zhang Fei and Guan Yu. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were on the run from the law - Guan Yu feared execution for it, so most likely he'd murdered some government official or noble. Since they wanted to go places nowhere would find them, they suggested to Liu Bei that they go find work at the borders of the Chinese territory, dealing with revolts from the 'barbarian' tribes.

However, before they could do that, the Yellow Turban Rebellion happened. From there, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei's lives were basically a constant clusterfuck - they served Yuan Shu, they served Lu Bu, they made Lu Bu serve them, they served Sun Quan, they fought Sun Quan, they fought Lu Bu, they served Cao Cao, they fought Cao Cao. Those boys had about seventy different allegiances in the space of about seven years, and all of them ended in the stupidest way possible.

Finally, Liu Bei's fortunes turned. First, he hired a man named Pang Tong. He had him manage a fairly large farming village. Pang Tong was so terrible at this that everyone who lived there starved for the next thirty years. However, Zhuge Liang was like 'you do know this guy is a strategist and not a civil official right' and then Pang Tong was hired as a military strategist. Secondly, he met a man named Fa Zheng. Fa Zheng served a man named Liu Zhang (no relation to Liu Bei), and for his own personal reasons (Being a weird drama queen who nobody liked,) Fa Zheng wanted to get Liu Zhang out of power. Liu Bei's army was constantly hungry for territory, so they came up with a plan.

Liu Bei came to Liu Zhang feigning friendship and subservience, and Liu Zhang, for whatever reason, trusted the guy who'd betrayed literally everyone who'd ever trusted him. Pang Tong suggested just capturing Liu Zhang while they were wining and dining. Liu Bei hemmed and hawwed until there weren't any more parties to be had, so Pang Tong proposed Plan B: Ask for help, then murder the officers he sends to help us. Liu Bei liked that plan, so they did it, and then they invaded Liu Zhang's territory. Pang Tong died (big RIP) but they captured the territory, and then Fa Zheng executed all of his former coworkers that he didn't like, then died (big RIP).

That's how Shu came to be, and then they got their asses kicked up and down China for about sixty years.

PERSONAL CONDUCT MORAL RELATIVITY CORNER

Liu Bei: Abandoned his family multiple times while retreating from lost territory, constantly refused to follow through on deals he'd made, let people he liked do whatever they wanted (see: Fa Zheng)

Guan Yu: was such a whiny asshole that Lu Meng literally killed him by pointing out what a whiny asshole he was. Lu Meng captured a city he had control of, then was nice to the family members of Guan Yu's troops, then had those family members send Guan Yu's troops letters pointing out how much nicer Lu Meng was then Guan Yu, then all of Guan Yu's troops abandoned him and Lu Meng hunted him down and killed him.

Zhang Fei: Kidnapped a 12 year old girl and made her his wife. Mm.

Also, they never swore an oath to be brothers.

Zhuge Liang

Zhuge Liang was an incredibly talented civil official and a terrible military commander. He won exactly one battle - most of Shu's most major victories were devised by Pang Tong or Fa Zheng, or were joint efforts with Wu. The Battle of Chibi, which Zhuge Liang is often given at least equal credit to Zhou Yu for, had almost nothing to do with him. Zhou Yu specifically didn't invite him to strategy meetings. There were no Shu representatives in the strategy meetings. Huang Gai's famous fire boat attack was an entirely Wu invention - Huang Gai was a Wu officer, came up with the plan himself, and asked Zhou Yu for approval, which was given. Shu was only there to bolster Wu's manpower, and while they deserve some credit for being there, they weren't exactly the masterminds of the operation.

Regardless, I'm not one of those raggle fraggle Zhuge Liang people. For a large portion of his life, he was in charge of maintaining civil affairs and making sure the Shu army was well supplied, which he excelled at.

However, when Liu Bei died, he basically made Zhuge Liang the ruler of Shu. He sent a letter to his heir, Liu Shan, telling him to do whatever Zhuge Liang said. Then Zhuge Liang dealt with the nanman rebels, in a campaign that wasn't nearly as exciting as the weird elephant hodown stuff most adaptations go with. Zhuge Liang led an army out there, a bunch of rebel leaders surrendered to him and offered him the heads of rebel leaders who wouldn't surrender to him, then he basically just went home and went 'problem solved.' The region would have unrest for the next thirty years, so, uh, not really.

Then he invaded the same mountain pass about seven times and got owned by Wei each time, and then he died mid-invasion. His final actions on this mortal plane were calling Sima Yi gay. Literally. He sent Sima Yi a dress and everything. So I guess he really was the finest mind of his generation.

So why is Zhuge Liang the greatest strategist ever in Romance of the Three Kingdoms?

You know that saying 'history is written by the victors?' That's bullshit because Shu got its ass kicked up and down China for the most part and, well, here we are. Wu and Wei were the ones having epic back and forth clashes and then Shu would throw itself uselessly against one of them and everyone'd laugh until the next time Zhang Liao decided to kill 5000 people by himself or whatever.

The way it happened is pretty simple:

Step 1: Shu's history department was Zhuge Liang. I don't mean he leaned his muscle on them or was the head of it, I mean it literally was just him. He never set up a formal history department, he just wrote whatever and put it away as Ancient Learned Knowledge. Most of what we know about Shu's history comes from what is almost literally Zhuge Liang's diary. Shu's history consists of Zhuge Liang's thoughts on strategy, Zhuge Liang's thoughts on agriculture, Zhuge Liang's thoughts on his coworkers, and Zhuge Liang's transcripts of his correspondences with diplomats from Wei and Wu, his letters to Liu Bei, and his occasional letters to minor warlords. We know a lot about Jiang Wei because he was Zhuge Liang's protege. We know jackshit about Wei Yan because Zhuge Liang hated him. Jiang Wei gets an epic backstory praising his humble origins, Wei Yan is first mentioned as a random general and then his various campaigns suppressing rebels and repelling invaders are 'Wei Yan won a battle. Wei Yan won a battle.' So, the historical records of Shu are obviously biased towards Zhuge Liang and the people he likes.

Step 2: To make a very, very long story short, Jin (a successor state of Wei formed by Sima Yi) went to shit not too long after they conquered Shu. Maybe a couple of generations. The War of Eight Princes is a gigantic clustefuck, even moreso than the Three Kingdoms, and one of the Princes, Sima Rui, thought he was pretty similar to Liu Bei. He was descended from the legitimate emperor, but insurgents had taken over the government and he'd been forced to take over a small territory just to have any land to rule. Chinese historians love having precedents, so to justify themselves and their ruler's reign, Sima Rui's historians got to work making Shu seem badass. And since Sima Rui's main rivals were basically the same as Wei, using a captured emperor as a puppet for their own reign, Wei got turned into cartoon villains.

Step 3: During the mongol invasions, the central government of China was driven into Shu's former territory in the southwest. They heavily promoted both the histories written during Sima Rui's era and Zhuge Liang's version of events, in order to drum up sympathies for their own situation. The Romance was written during this era, with those as the backbone.

Some of this is generalized/very heavily edited down/exaggerated but hey, this train is now like the romance of the three kingdoms.