With a knife in his back, Jingzhou was lost, why did Mi Fang, who was a foreign relative, betray Liu Bei?
In the twenty-fourth year of Jian'an, Guan Yu raised an army on the Northern Expedition, the flooded Seventh Army was greatly broken by the main force of the ban, and Cao Wei's southeast front was on the verge of collapse, and the situation was originally excellent. However, in just three months, Guan Yu was defeated and killed.
Lü Meng's surprise attack on Jingzhou frustrated Guan Yu's momentum, and Mi Fang's surrender directly changed the trend of the war.
Mi Fang was the Taishou of Nan Commandery at that time, and Jingzhou occupied by Guan Yu was only a part of the area, and the core was Gangneung Castle, which was also a big city belonging to Nan County.
Mi Fang was responsible for guarding the city, which was the foundation of Guan Yu.
Guan Yu stills
He took the initiative to surrender Kaicheng, so that before Guan Yu could return to the army, the rear road had been cut off, and Lü Meng and others joined forces with Cao Wei's army to encircle Guan Yu from north to south, and finally Guan Yu was defeated and killed.
In fact, when Lü Meng sneaked in, not only Mi Fang surrendered on the side of the Shu army, but Fu Shiren, who remained in the public security, also chose to surrender, but he could not compare with Mi Fang.
Mi Fang's surrender is a mystery that has been solved for thousands of years, in the rendition, he and Fu Shiren are a villainous face, but the historical Mi Fang is by no means such a simple person.
His betrayal
Not only did Guan Yu lose the base camp that had been operating for many years, but it also completely buried the possibility of Shu Han's eastern exit.
Neither within the Shu Han Dynasty nor in Eastern Wu seemed to have thought that Mi Fang would surrender, and after he surrendered, he was also despised by the People of Jiangdong, like Yu Tuan, who insulted him with this matter many times.
Mi Fang stills
Mi Fangqi people
Mi Fang is a member of the Donghai Mi family, so to speak
Liu Bei was able to start a successful family, and the addition of the Mi family played a decisive role in him.
Although the Mi family was not a first-class scholar at the end of the Han Dynasty, it had a great influence in Xuzhou and other places, and their family accumulated huge wealth by doing business.
Liu Bei became an important symbol of the princes at the end of the Han Dynasty, that is, entering Xuzhou,
He began to have a big piece of land.
The ones who promoted Liu Bei's entry into Xuzhou were the Mi Zhu Mi Fang brothers, and Liu Bei also chose to marry the Mi family in order to get the support of the Xuzhou scholars.
Mi Fang was not only an important subordinate of Liu Bei, but also became Liu Bei's brother-in-law.
Later, Liu Bei was attacked by Lü Bu, and when he was cornered, he also relied on the wealth of the Mi family to successfully tide over the difficulties.
In today's terms, Mi Fang belongs to the capital into the shares, in the process of Liu Bei's fight against the world, Wenzhi martial arts have not been revealed, but only by virtue of his own family's financial support, he has become a heavy minister under Liu Bei.
General of the Shu State
Having such a close relationship with Liu,
Although Mi Fang's ability is not particularly strong, he also has another characteristic, that is, he is absolutely loyal to Liu Bei.
People have not understood Mi Fang's surrender, and more importantly, he did not choose to surrender when Liu Bei was in the most danger. Mi Fang has always been with his brother, and with Liu Bei in exile everywhere, from Xuzhou all the way to Jingzhou and then to Xichuan, which shows this person's loyalty.
In this process, Liu Bei attached himself to many forces, but Mi Fang always followed Liu Bei.
Cao Cao tried to disintegrate Liu Bei's forces, and in order to win over Mi Fang, he directly appointed Mi Fang to serve as Peng Chengxiang.
This is a beautiful difference, Mi Fang in the face of temptation, or choose loyalty, take the initiative to resign from the official to continue to follow Liu Bei.
Therefore, the contrast between the behavior before and after Mi Fang is large,
When it was most dangerous and difficult, there was no betrayal, and when he became famous, he betrayed Liu Bei, what did he really want?
With his ability, Liu Bei could eat Laodice for a lifetime here, but when he arrived in Eastern Wu, he was ostracized everywhere.
Liu Guanzhang brothers stills
Jingzhou crisis
During Guan Yu's Northern Expedition, it was not that he did not realize that Sun Quan was a threat, and he set up many sentries along the river, but Lü Meng disguised himself to cross the river and successfully removed these eyeliners, and Sun Wu's long-term paralysis of Guan Yu played a great role. But was Jingzhou really a dead end at that time? So that Mi Fang saw that the general trend had gone and had to choose to surrender?
Obviously not like this, first of all, Cao Cao did not follow Sun Quan's instructions, has been keeping secrets, but took the initiative to leak the news, Guan Yu has learned that Sun Quan is attacking behind, he also hesitated to withdraw his troops, withdraw from Guan Yu, all the way to the fastest speed, within a few days will definitely be able to reach Jiangling City.
Guan Yu did not want to withdraw at first, because the defensive ability of Gangneung City was quite strong, and Guan Yu reinforced the defense of Gangneung City many times, and he was very satisfied with the fortifications he had arranged.
In the Zizhi Tongjian, Dong Zhao advised Cao Cao to mention:
"And Yu is a strong man, and he believes that the two cities are solid, and he will not retreat quickly."
afterwards
Zhu Ran relied on Jiangling City, and it only took a few thousand old, weak and disabled soldiers to block Cao Wei's army, which showed that Jiangling City was indeed very strong.
At that time, in Jiangling City, Guan Yu's side was also popular, Mi Fang just surrendered, Yu Tuan advised Lü Meng not to easily enter the city, and sure enough, many people in the city who did not want to surrender secretly set up an ambush, and Lü Meng later spent a long time to gradually subdue the hearts of jiangling.
Map of the Three Kingdoms
Lü Meng was crossing the river in disguise, he did not necessarily bring many siege equipment under his command, Sun Wu's army has always been unable to fight tough battles, but Lü Meng is able to meet people who surrender all the way this time, and almost no offensive battles have been fought.
So to speak
The difficulties faced by Mi Fang's surrender were far greater than the difficulties he faced in defending the city.
Mi Fang only needed to hold out for a few days and wait for Guan Yu to return, Cao Cao was very shrewd, did not continue to press south, he wanted to let Guan Yu and Sun Wu fight, weakening the strength of both sides.
Unfortunately, Mi Fang did not even do such a simple thing, and directly chose to surrender, Jiangling City was lost so easily, so Guan Yu really did not expect that once it was lost here, Guan Yu's troops would basically disintegrate.
Will be handsome discordant
At present, the most typical view about Mi Fang's surrender is the discord between the two people, which is indeed a factor, and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms records:
In Gangneung, the general (傅) ShiRentun (安) was a public security officer, and he was suspicious of Yu (self) and despised himself.
That is to say, Guan Yu and the guards of his two important strongholds are not in harmony at the same time, guan Yu's personality does have great problems, and it is normal to have conflicts with the people below.
There was another thing that further led to a break between the two sides, that is, during Guan Yu's Northern Expedition, there was a shortage of supplies, and these things were the responsibility of Mi Fang and Fu Shiren.
Guan Yu lacked grain and grass, and even had to seize sun quan's grain at Chengguan, and he was also very angry, saying that he would collect Mi Fang and Fu Shiren when he returned.
Mi Fang rebelled, he must not have a good relationship with Guan Yu, but as the Taishou of Nan County, he was trusted by Liu Bei, and his brother's family basically enjoyed the high-ranking official Houlu in Shu, which was nothing at all.
After Mi Fang's betrayal, Liu Bei's handling is even more worthy of scrutiny, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms":
The face of the lord asked for sin, and the lord comforted the brothers in the sin of the brothers, and treated them as before. Zhu Was sick and died at an old age.
Liu Bei did not deal with the Mi family, and even treated Mi Zhu as he did at the beginning, but mi fang's affair made their family members unable to lift their heads, but it can also be seen how much Liu Bei attaches great importance to the Mi family.
Then, if Mi Fang could defend the city, if he surrendered just because he was at odds with Guan Yu and was afraid of being handled by Guan Yu, it would really be impossible to say.
Some people believe that Mi Fang secretly sold military food, after all, he was from a commercial family, resulting in insufficient supplies on Guan Yu's front line.
However, as the Taishou of Nan County, mi fang could not do this without leaking information, and if he had traded with Sun Quan and others, then Sun Quan and others could directly use this matter to blackmail him. Someone as shrewd as Guan Yu will also find out some problems, and this statement is not very reasonable.
Stills from Lumont
Panic and choose a path
I think that perhaps Mi Fang's surrender itself was not so complicated, he spent the first half of his life with Liu Bei, and now he is a big member of the Jingzhou area, enjoying glory and wealth.
But Mi Fang's ability as a person is not very strong, as mentioned earlier, in the process of Liu Bei's entrepreneurship, he did not make any military achievements or the like.
It was only by relying on family relations that they could successfully obtain their later positions.
Mi Fang's ability is what it is,
Let him be the South County Taishou belongs to the unworthy position,
Then, when he was defending Nan County, he first made a mistake in delivering supplies to Guan Yu's front, and then suddenly faced Sun Wu's army, and Fu Shiren had already surrendered in front of him, and he did not know how to deal with such a situation for a while.
I think
With Mi Fang's ability, he couldn't estimate when Guan Yu would be able to return, and he didn't have confidence in his ability to defend the city.
Therefore, Mi Fang chose to surrender, and he dared to do so, which is also related to the special historical environment of the Three Kingdoms period, the regime of the Three Kingdoms is based on the Shi clan as the core, and any ruler who wants to gain power must obtain the support of the Shi clan.
Zhuge Liang stills
However, the warlords of the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty changed too quickly, almost today it is possible to go up and come down tomorrow, many warriors have no loyalty at all, and the wall grass is very common.
There are also some warriors who choose to put their eggs in multiple baskets.
For example, the famous Zhuge family, in the three regimes have important members of the family, have also won high positions,
The advantage of this is to avoid the demise of one regime and the burial of one family with that regime.
Mi Fang has always insisted on following Liu Bei in the early stage, mainly because their family has put all their resources on Liu Bei, and it is not so easy to get out, liu bei fails, and their family may perish.
Now that the Mi family has developed, if he surrenders, he can continue to extend the family's power on Sun Wu's side.
It is not so much that Mi Fang is loyal to Liu Bei, but rather that he is loyal to the family.
There were too many egoists like them during the Three Kingdoms period.
summary:
Mi Fang was put in that key position in a specific historical period,
His ability is not worthy of the power and position he has acquired, so he is prone to make wrong choices.
But he may not be able to realize the seriousness of the problem.
On the issue of Mi Fang, Liu Bei was extremely responsible, and Guan Yu and Mi Fang could not get along. This is not the most important thing, the real important thing is that Guan Yu has almost no available people under him, and can only let guys like Mi Fang and Fu Shiren be responsible for important city defenses.
Even if Guan Yu couldn't look up to these people, he had to use them, which was the key factor in jingzhou's loss.
References: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zizhi Tongjian