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An Analysis of the Decline and Fall of the Shu-Han Kingdom During the Three Kingdoms era (220-280 AD)
Alex K Chen
Hstas 452
The Three Kingdoms period was a historical period in China that followed the collapse
and general chaos of the Han Dynasty. It was marked by the survival of three independent
kingdoms – founded by Liu Bei (161-223) of the Shu kingdom, who had control of the Sichaun
Plains of Southwest China proper, Sun Quan (182-252) of the Wu Kingdom, who controlled
southeast China south of the Yangtze River, and Cao Cao (165-220) of the Wei kingdom, who
managed to control North China through defeating or absorbing many other warlords of the
region (The Wei Kingdom would later become the Jin Kingdom after the Sima family usurped
the throne from Cao Huan). Numerically speaking, Wei had the advantage over both kingdoms,
as it had a much larger population and better-developed infrastructure. However, this did not
make its conquest of the other two kingdoms inevitable, as the Wei Kingdom had launched
numerous failed invasions of both kingdoms. Nonetheless, the Shu Kingdom was the first
kingdom to fall. In this essay, I will argue that the Shu Kingdom was in a good position to
indefinitely defend itself against the Wei Kingdom, but that several factors, combined with each
other, were jointly sufficient to cause the kingdom’s downfall, even though none of them were
sufficient by themselves. The first factor was the incompetence of the Shu-Han administration
during the last 10 years of the regime (after 253 AD), which had happened after the emperor
ignored the advice of others and put his court under the control of a corrupt eunuch named
Huang Hao. The second factor consisted of the unsuccessful numerous northern expeditions (248
AD – 263 AD) that its Jiang Wei had launched against the Wei Kingdom. These northern
expeditions, in turn, caused the Wei Kingdom to attack Shu first, even though it was previously
focused on subjugating the Wu Kingdom first. And the third factor was that the Shu Kingdom
failed to utilize its native talent, but rather, that it continued to rely on migrants for high office,
even decades after its establishment.
Background of the Shu-Han Kingdom
The Shu-Han kingdom primarily consisted of the rich and fertile basin known as the
Sichuan Basin, which was located in ancient Yizhou Province (now Sichuan). It also held the
territory immediately to the north of Sichuan – territory known as the Hanzhong valley, the
source of the Han River and a region vital to the defense of Yizhou province, along with the
western commanderies of Wudu and Yinping, which it captured in 229. It also nominally held
some territory in the deep Southwest of China (territory that came from pacifying the local
Nanman tribes). The Qinling Mountains effectively walled Shu off from the Wei kingdom to the
north, providing easily defendable terrain for Shu (Jupp 2006). Finally, there was another
mountain range that shielded Wu from Shu, effectively sealing off Shu from enemies in all
directions (see Figure 1). Shu also had the advantage of being upstream of the other kingdoms,
providing Shu with an additional defensive advantage (Sun 2009).
The kingdom effectively began when Liu Bei, an itinerant warlord with many loyal
followers, managed to wrest control of Yizhou Province from its then-protector Liu Zhang(?-
219) in 214 AD. Liu Bei effectively absorbed most of Liu Zhang’s followers. After Cao Pi (187-
226) usurped the Han Dynasty in 220 AD, Liu Bei proclaimed himself as the next emperor of the
Han Dynasty, supposedly to maintain the continuity of the dynasty. But Liu Bei died soon
afterwards, leaving control of the kingdom to his son Liu Shan, (207-274) who would later turn
out to be the last emperor of the kingdom. During the first 11 years of Liu Shan’s regime, Zhuge
Liang presided over both the internal and external affairs of the kingdom. He launched five
offensive expeditions against the Wei Kingdom, and while he did inflict numerous casualties on
the Wei forces, he ultimately failed to reach his goal of capturing Chang’An. After Zhuge
Liang’s death, Shu’s armies retreated, and Shu would not launch another expedition for 14 years.
Meanwhile, the Wei Kingdom started to focus more on internal affairs and on subjugating local
rebellions. In 248, however, Jiang Wei managed to convince the court that more northern
expeditions were needed to finally crush the kingdom of Wei. Jiang Wei managed to launch 11
northern expeditions, and while he had achieved several successes, he was never able to
capitalize on these successes because his armies always had to eventually retreat due to issues
with his supply lines. Jiang Wei’s expeditions also resulted in several costly defeats, and they
ultimately achieved little (while making the population tire of warfare). Most importantly, Jiang
Wei’s northern expeditions had so exasperated Wei that it decided to eliminate Shu first. In 263,
it sent out three armies to subdue Shu – armies under Deng Ai (197-265), Zhuge Xu, and Zhong
Hui (207-264). While Jiang Wei managed to eliminate Zhuge Xu’s army through deception, and
to also block Zhong Hui’s army at Saber Pass (to the point that Zhong Hui’s army came close to
running out of supplies), Deng Ai decided to take an unexpected backterritory route through the
mountains so that he could shock Shu-Han into surrendering. Just as Deng Ai was about to run
out of supplies, he defeated the last army standing between him and the capital, and Liu Shan
soon surrendered to him. Though Zhong Hui would soon rebel against Wei with Jiang Wei, his
rebellion was crushed. This effectively ended the Shu-Han kingdom (Sima 1965).
Military Geography of Shu
Historically, due to these terrain advantages and the rich fertility and mild climate of the
Sichuan basin, Southwest China has always been a uniquely natural and self-sustaining defensive
fortress, without the natural disasters that the other kingdoms faced (Lewis 2009). In fact, this
was the region of China where both the founders of the Qin and Han dynasties started out, while
all the other warlords were fighting each other. This was also the region where Gongsun Shu was
able to maintain a sustained rebellion against the Later Han Dynasty (de Crespigny 2008). The
Shu Kingdom had advantages that Qin Kingdom did not have in some ways, as the Sichuan
basin of the Three Kingdoms period was much more developed than it was in the Qin Dynasty
(who had to claim it by displacing the aboriginal Shu population).
Since the Shu army had controlled the Hanzhong region for several decades, their officers
had superior local knowledge of the terrain. This local knowledge was especially useful for the
mountainous terrain of Shu-Han, which is significantly more detailed than flat terrain, and where
there are numerous natural places to set up ambushes along the narrow trails. These ambushes
even managed to take down experienced generals like Zhang He (?-231), who was one of Cao
Cao’s “Five Great Generals”, and who had 40 years of prior military experience.
There are three passages from Guanzhong (a term used to describe the west-central plains
of China proper, including Chang’An) to Hanzhong - all of them valleys through the Qinling
Mountains. These mountain passes, often known as the “Plank Roads of Shu”, were often so
narrow that people could only move single-file through them (Jupp 2006). They were often
adjacent to cliffs where soldiers could fall to their deaths, and were constructed of planks that
could easily be burned (see Figures 3,4). The easternmost (and longest) passage was called the
Ziwu valley, where the local rugged terrain had numerous spots that were perfect for ambushes.
The westernmost passage had the Baoxie trail. Since the road condition was better on the Shu
side than on the Wei side, the Shu Han kindgom could easily deploy their defensive forces and
stop the attack before the Wei forces could get out of the valley. The central passage was named
the Tangluo Trail, and it while it was the shortest passage among the three, it also had the poorest
road conditions. Furthermore, it had the largest number of sections that did not have water
supplies, which could cause a disaster if supply lines were blocked. These passages can be
visualized in Figure 2.
The pathway from Hanzhong to Chengdu was also mountainous and non-smooth. Even
after the Wei Kingdom managed to capture Hanzhong after Jiang Shu’s defection, it still
struggled to get to Chengdu. In the end, it could not capture Shu-Han through the traditional
passages, but rather, through an extremely risky backdoor passage.
When Cao Shuang used a force of 100,000 soldiers to invade Shu through the Tangluo
Trail in 244, the Shu general Wang Ping managed to check his advance with only 30,000
soldiers. While Cao Shuang was waiting, so many of his horses died of thirst that he had to
mobilize thousands of coolies to carry supplies for him – many who met the same fate as the
horses. Once Cao Shuang was preparing to retreat, the Shu forces had already gathered
reinforcements from the capital, who blocked the Wei retreat, causing over 100,000 of the Wei
soldiers to die from thirst, hunger, and illness. Because Wei adopted the Tuntian system, where
only soldiers would harvest crops for military purposes, the Wei Kingdom also had to withdraw
100,000 additional troops from its army to become farmers. This effectively dropped the Wei
army size from 800,000 to 600,000, making it impossible for the Wei Kingdom to plan
offensives against either Wu or Shu for at least 10 years (Sima 1965).
When the Wei forces invaded, they had to deal with ever-increasing supply lines. And
these supply lines were often dangerous because they came through the narrow Plank Roads.
These narrow passes made it easy for the Shu-Han forces to block enemy forces, and in fact,
even during the final assault on Shu, Jiang Wei had managed to use his smaller army to
indefinitely block Zhong Hui’s army. While Sun Tzu said that desperate troops, blocked from a
path of retreat, can fight especially hard (Sun 2009), this observation does not apply as much
when they are in a narrow passageway, in which case not all of the troops can be fighting at the
same time. In fact, since most troops of the time were not professionally trained, most great
campaigns of the time were only stalemated and were not decided by simple combat. Rather,
victories were usually decided by issues of strategy, supply and morale. Most victories of the
time came when the commander maintained his own force while the enemy’s force disintegrated
(de Crespigny 1990, Ch. 8, pg 13). Since most victories of the era were not decided by simple
combat, the numerical disproportionality between two kingdoms does not matter as much as it
does for other wars.
Analysis of Shu
Despite several decades of warfare, Shu’s registered population had actually increased
from 900,000 (as measured in the 221 census) to 1,082,000 by its demise in 263 (Chen 1959).
This is a remarkable result, considering the extensive warfare that it had conducted against the
Wei Kingdom. The Wu population was at 2,535,000 by the time of its demise, and the Wei
population was at 4,432,881 at the time of its demise. While there were certainly stray
populations that went uncounted in the census due to all the warfare, we can probably say that
the uncounted portions of the population would probably not contribute to the military (or
successes) of any one kingdom over another. The Wei population only had one million more
people than the combined forces of Shu and Wu. Furthermore, the Wei population was much
further spread out than the Shu population, so its population had to guard correspondingly more
territory, especially against the dangerous tribes of the north. Finally, the Wei areas were also in
a more disaster-prone region (speculation – cite this if possible) than the Shu areas, as the Wei
areas were closer to the sea and Shu’s surrounding mountain ranges helped block out many of
the storms that could otherwise have reached the area. If the Wei kingdom had to invade Shu, it
could only do so by significantly outnumbering the Shu forces (or by waiting things out and
waiting for a weak spot that the Shu could have provided).
The Military of Shu-Han Under Jiang Wei
Zhuge Liang had substantially fortified the passes to guard Hanzhong against Wei
attacks. As a result, the region in 248 was technically more difficult to invade than the region in
214. However, in order to assume a more defensive posture, Jiang Wei dismantled the defensive
corridors around these passes [Farmer 2007]. Previously, Liu Bei and Wang Ping adopted
defensive strategies for each strategic position, where sufficient troops were deployed at each
position to block enemies. This strategy was primarily responsible for the victory at the Battle of
Xingshi (244), and was often sufficient to block enemies since only a small number of troops
were required to hold each pass. However, Jiang Wei dismantled this system, and changed the
system to one where the troops at each position would retreat to Hancheng and Yuecheng to
prepare for a counteroffensive (Chen 1959). However, this strategy was fundamentally flawed.
By the 263 campaign, the Wei armies still managed to take over the passes, by taking advantage
of a dispute that arose between the two individuals responsible for guarding one of the passes -
Fu Qian and Jiang Shu. Due to this dispute, Jiang Shu defected to Wei and opened up the gates,
allowing the Wei forces to take the pass. Once they took the pass, they were now in a naturally
defensible position, and it would be difficult for the Shu Kingdom to take it back (Sima 1965).
Jiang Wei was impatient to restore the Han, and often refused to listen to the advice of his
generals who opposed his numerous expeditions. Shu-Han was simply not in a position to
conduct extended military expeditions, and even when Jiang Wei had won victories, like his
victory at the Battle of Didao (255), he could never follow them up due to problems with his
supply lines. In fact, it has been argued (Farmer 2007) that he wanted to conduct his campaigns
for the sake of personal glory, since he perceived that a victory over Wei could increase his
prestige over that of Zhuge Liang. And during the last 10 years, Huang Hao did not oppose Jiang
Wei’s campaigns, since these campaigns had effectively allowed him to dominate the Chengdu
court. His numerous failures decreased the morale of the army, and the people of Shu-Han grew
tired of war. Now that any stable Han administration had been gone for over half a century, few
people had the nostalgia to return to a stable Han Dynasty.
Jiang Wei’s expeditions only provided perfect timing for the Wei Kingdom to finally
decide to eliminate Shu first. While an expedition against Shu would have been considerably
more difficult 10 years before its collapse, the corruption only exacerbated the communication
and logistical problems of the Shu Kingdom.
Corruption of the Court
Meanwhile, after Fei Yi’s assassination in 253 AD, the court became increasingly
dominated by the eunuch Huang Hao, who both Fei Yi and Dong Yun hated. Since Liu Shan
seemed to care more about his harem than about external affairs, and also appeared to be fairly
stupid (de Crespigny 2008), he easily believed the words of whoever he happened to trust the
most, and Huang Hao happened to be that person after Fei Yi’s death. Huang Hao convinced Liu
Shan to give out high positions to figures like Chen Zhi and Yan Yu, who achieved their
positions not by basis of merit, but rather, by fawning on Huang Hao. Huang Hao also slandered
other officials to keep them out of office. Meanwhile, potentially competent officials like Luo
Xian and Liu Yong were dissuaded from entering court, and consequently did not participate in
political or military activity. Huang Hao was a believer in witchcraft, and often found non-
substantial explanations for his predictions – explanations that Liu Shan would nonetheless
believe. For example, just as Wei was about to invade Shu in 263, he predicted that Wei would
never invade Shu, a prediction that Liu Shan believed. Consequently, Liu Shan never sent the
reinforcements that Jiang Wei had demanded until it was too late.
Xue Xu was a Wu envoy who observed Shu-Han’s decay from without. After he returned
from his mission in 260, he noted that "All affairs of state are in the hands of a certain eunuch
named Huang Hao, and all the courtiers look up to him as to a father. At court plain truth is
never heard, and the country people look sallow and starved. The whole country appears on the
verge of destruction. The birds on the roof do not know that the building is about to be burned."
(Sima 1965)
Inability to Utilize Native Talent
Even though Yizhou was already the second-most populated province in China proper by
the end of the Han Dynasty, the Shu Kingdom did not attract much native talent into its upper
ranks. The upper ranks were rather dominated by transplants and their sons. When Liu Bei
captured Yizhou from Liu Zhang, he rewarded many of Liu Zhang’s followers with high
positions. However, many of Liu Zhang’s followers were originally transplants to begin with, as
Liu Zhang and his father were also transplants to the region.
Of the leading officials in the Shu-Han court, almost all of them were transplants. This
trend had even continued all the way to the kingdom’s downfall. Zhuge Liang and Jiang Wan
had both came with Liu Bei from Jingzhou, and their successors Dong Yun and Fei Yi were both
relatives of Liu Zhang’s transplant officials (many who had fled to Yizhou during the civil war in
the north). Deng Zhi, Li Yan, Wu Yi, and Wu Ban were transplants who had joined Liu Zhang.
Among military officials, Jiang Wei, Wang Ping, and Xiahou Ba were all defectors from the Wei
Kingdom. Zhang Yi, Zong Yu, Xiang Lang, and Liao Hua were already with Liu Bei during his
conquest of Yizhou, as were the fathers of Huo Yi, Zhuge Zhan, and Jiang Bin. (all from de
Crespigny, 2008). While transplant officials could be talented, there was certainly going to be no
such influx of them when most of the fighting happened between Wei and Shu, and so they could
not be relied upon. The lack of native officials in the Shu-Han court certainly contributed to the
widespread perception (possibly true) that the Shu-Han court had run out of talented officers. In
fact, by the regime’s close, there were so few military officials in the upper ranks that almost all
of the highest ranking military officers (Zong Yu, Liao Hua, Dong Jue, and Zhang Yi) were
already sexagenarian or septuagenarian veterans of Zhuge Liang’s campaigns 30 years earlier (or
even Liu Bei’s campaigns 50 years earlier!).
While Chen Shou’s San Guo Zhi included the biographies of 10 native scholars from the
region, only one of them, Qiao Zhou, had managed to attain a significant position in the Shu-Han
court (Farmer 2007). Most of the other officials had either held only minor positions, or had
refused to enter the court. While Huang Hao’s court had obviously blocked the entrance of
capable officials, the previous courts were also unable to recruit significant numbers of native
officials.
In fact, Shu-Han was unique in its inability to take full advantage of its resources. While
Wu quickly reconciled itself with the local gentry (the four major families of the region), Shu
made no such attempts at reconciliation. Shu’s objectives, after all, were to destroy the Wei
Kingdom first and foremost, which effectively suppressed the potential of developing its own
unique regional identity (this is remarkably similar to the role of the Kuomintang in Taiwan).
Rhetoric had helped to reinforce these objectives, and while many officials would later place
reality over rhetoric, the rhetoric would still have its effect on the official objectives. These
objectives may have prevented the Shu kingdom from trying to further develop the region
(especially the southern regions of Yunnan), and Shu for most of its history became nothing
more than a warlord state that did not encourage the development of its regional identity. In fact,
Shu’s wars would have made it completely bankrupt, if it were not for the silk trade. Meanwhile,
the Wu Kingdom did not see the annihilation of Wei as its primary objective, and so it was
completely consistent for Wu to colonize the lands that it took, which would also help it establish
a regional identity. And it was remarkably successful in doing that, which helped pave the way
for the Southeast to become one of the future population centers of China. (de Crespigny, 2003)
Discussion/Conclusion
There, of course, are still many unexplored variables. We simply know very little about
this time period because there are so few primary sources available. Furthermore, we have not
gone in a discussion about the relative technologies, industries, and outputs that the kingdoms
each had. In mountain regions, numerical and technological superiority often does not matter as
much as local knowledge of the terrain, and victory is often achieved through the panicked rout
of one side, rather than the outcome of extended combat. Nonetheless, these factors still matter,
and it is still easier to subjugate a population of your own ethnicity than it is to subjugate a
population who is not of your own ethnicity (Sage 1992).
The Wei conquest of Shu was by no means inevitable. It came from the accumulation of
avoidable errors on the part of the Shu kingdom, most notably, the northern expeditions of Jiang
Wei that many officials (Zhang Yi, Fei Yi, and others) had warned against. It also came as the
result of chance events, such as Guo Yi’s assassination of the Fei Yi, who was Shu’s last capable
minister. Since the conquest of Shu was not inevitable, we must also not forget that the conquest
of Shu was also a remarkable achievement by the Wei officers who were involved, given all the
possibilities of failure that could happen. In fact, Deng Ai, who had defended Wei during Jiang
Wei’s northern expeditions, had actually advised Sima Zhao against the Shu-Han campaign. It
was no unremarkable achievement for Wei to conquer Shu despite the factors against them –
their lack of supply lines, the rivalry between Deng Ai and Zhong Hui, and Zhong Hui’s later
rebellion against the Wei Kingdom. And despite all his mistakes, it was equally remarkable for
Jiang Wei to have held out for so long.
In the long run (though probably not in the lifetimes of anyone involved), the goal of
conquering the Wei/Jin was not as far-fetched as it may have seemed to be. Sima Yan died in
290 – less than 10 years after the Jin Conquest of Wu. His death led to a power struggle and a
civil war known as the “War of the Eight Princes”. The Xiong-Nu first rebelled against the Jin in
294, and they would eventually launch a full scale invasion and topple the Jin Dynasty in 315.
Ironically, the Xiong-Nu ruler happened to be an imperial descendant of the Han Dynasty, and
had even proclaimed himself as King of the Han. If Shu had managed to avert its own early
collapse, then it would have been in an excellent position to outlive the Jin.
References
Note: Chen Shou’s book and Sima Guang’s book could be considered primary sources for this class, even though they were not technically primary sources
Chen Shou (c. 280). Records of Three Kingdoms. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959.Crespigny, Rafe De. "The Three Kingdoms and Western Jin, Rafe De Crespigny Publications, Faculty of Asian Studies, ANU." Home - ANU - ANU. November 2003. Accessed March 03, 2011. http://www.anu.edu.au/asianstudies/decrespigny/3KWJin.html.De Crespigny,Rafe. A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD). Leiden: Brill, 2007.De Crespigny,Rafe. Generals of the South: the Foundation and Early History of the Three Kingdoms State of Wu. Cambera: Australian National University, Faculty of Asian Studies, 1990.De Crespigny Rafe. Imperial Warlord: a Biography of Cao Cao 155-220 AD. Leiden: Brill, 2010.Farmer, Michael J. The Talent of Shu: Qiao Zhou and the Intellectual World of Early Medieval Sichuan. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 2007.
Jupp, David L B. "The Qinling Plank Roads to Shu" Project. 2006. Accessed March 01, 2011. http://www.ciolek.com/SPEC/qinling-plank-roads-project.html.Lewis, Mark Edward. China between Empires: the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.Sage, Steven F. Ancient Sichuan and the Unification of China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.Sima Guang, C. Fang, A. Fang, and B.S. Solomon. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms (220-265): Chapters 69-78 from the Tzǔ Chih Túng Chien. Harvard-Yenching Institute Studies. Harvard University Press, 1965.Sun, Tzu. Sun Tzu: the Art of War. [S.l.]: Pax Librorum Publishing H, 2009.
Figure 1: See the mountain ranges that surround the Chengdu and Hanzhong valleys
Figure 2: The three major pathways from Hanzhong to Chang’An (Jupp 2006)
Figure 3: An example showing the narrowness of the Shu Roads (Jupp 2006)
Figure 4: Another illustration of the narrowness of the Shu roads