The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms and the Biography of Fa zheng records: "In the second year of Zhang Wu, the army was defeated, and the White Emperor was still living. Liang sighed: "If the Filial Piety is there, it will be able to control the master and make it not go east; if you go east, you will not fall into danger." That is to say, in 222 AD, after Liu Bei launched the Battle of Yiling and was defeated, Zhuge Liang once lamented that if Fa Zheng did not die early, he would certainly be able to prevent Liu Bei from launching this battle; the algorithm could not stop Liu Bei, and with his military ability, he would certainly be able to ensure that Liu Bei would not be defeated so badly. From this, it is not difficult for us to see Zhuge Liang's admiration for Fa-rectification. However, speaking of this, we can't help but have such a question, that is, why did Zhuge Liang not dissuade Liu Bei from the Eastern Expedition?
According to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms and the Notes on the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, when Liu Bei decided to launch the Battle of Yiling, Zhao Yun dissuaded Liu Bei to first get rid of the state thief Cao Cao in order to achieve great causes, and then settle accounts with Eastern Wu; the general Huang Quan advised Liu Bei to stay in the rear and go out on his own behalf. But Zhuge Liang chose silence. According to the foregoing, it is not difficult for us to see that Zhuge Liang probably did not approve of Liu Bei's Eastern Expedition, but why did he not come forward to dissuade him? For this problem, Xiaobian has the following speculations.
First, Mingzhe protects himself
If we are familiar with the history of the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty, we will find that although Zhuge Liang in the rendition had a very great influence on the process of hegemony in Liu Bei's camp, in real history, he never made any achievements in military affairs before Liu Bei's death. For liu bei, in addition to proposing the strategic plan of the Longzhong Pair, and before the Battle of Changshanpo, he proposed Liu Beihuo and Liu Chun, and rarely intervened. It can be seen from this that Zhuge Liang probably recognized that Liu Bei's positioning of himself never rebelled against Liu Bei and was only satisfied with his own duties. This is a kind of self-preservation attitude of Mingzhe, and it is also more likely to be trusted and recognized by Liu Bei.
Second, Zhuge Liang was unaware of the dangers of the Crusade
In addition to Mingzhe's self-preservation, there is also a possibility, that is, Zhuge Liang did not realize how many terrible consequences Liu Bei's launch of the Battle of Yiling might have, and did not think that this should be stopped. It is even quite possible that he was part of the instigation of Liu Bei's conquest of Wu. After all, "Longzhong Pair" is equivalent to his "creative investment" in Liu Bei's camp, and the prerequisite for the realization of this idea is that Jingzhou and Yizhou must be in Liu Bei's hands. At that time, Jingzhou had already fallen, and the Longzhong pair had long since vanished. In order to make longzhong's pair possible, Liu Bei could only conquer Wu in the east and retake Jingzhou. Therefore, Zhuge Liang may be more active in this matter than Liu Bei. Under such circumstances, how could he dissuade Liu Bei?
As for his lament that "if the law is filial piety, it will be able to control the lord and not go east", it is likely that it is an afterthought. That is to say, he did not think that only Fa Zheng had the possibility of dissuading Liu Bei, and he could not do it at all, but he believed that if Fa Zheng was still there, he would certainly be able to see through the feasibility of Liu Bei's personal crusade, so as to dissuade Liu Bei and prevent Liu Bei from taking risks, thus avoiding the losses after Shu Han.
After the analysis throughout, it is not difficult for us to know that when Liu Bei insisted on the imperial conquest and conquest of Eastern Wu, Zhuge Liang did not come forward to dissuade him, one possibility is that Zhuge Liang planned to protect himself, knowing that he did not have the ability to dissuade Liu Bei, so he chose to remain silent; the other possibility is that Zhuge Liang did not see the drawbacks of the Eastern Expedition against Wu, thought that there was no need to dissuade, and even contributed to this matter. Which of these two possibilities do you agree with? Other than that, what other guess do you have? Let's discuss it.
All the information in this article comes from books such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Notes on the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms", and the editor guarantees the authenticity of the content, without any innuendo or politics.