At the end of the Three Kingdoms period, the Shu Kingdom had the problem of the shortage of talents, a large number of military generals, civilian subjects, the old and the dead, and the new generation of talents were almost none. This also led to the embarrassing situation of "no general in Shu, Liao Hua as a pioneer" in the late Shu Dynasty. However, this embarrassing situation did not form overnight, and it had a great relationship with Zhuge Liang.
As the first powerful minister of the Shu kingdom, Zhuge Liang's power was comparable to that of Liu Chan, and the affairs of the Shu kingdom were all written by Zhuge Liang, including the appointment of talents. At this time, the State of Shu had to say that there were still many talents, such as Liu Feng, Wei Yan, and Ma Mo, but unfortunately, Zhuge Liang eventually killed them.
So why did Zhuge Liang kill these three people? If they can be left behind, what will be the fate of the late Shu Han Dynasty?
Heroic and handsome - Liu Feng
There was a young and promising handsome man in the Shu kingdom, that is, Liu Feng, Liu Bei's righteous son. Liu Feng is a man with very few records in history, and his figure is rarely seen in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. However, in history, Liu Feng's evaluation is still very high, and once people thought that Liu Feng was the main marshal of the new generation of the Shu Kingdom.
Liu Feng's life is unknown, but he appeared in everyone's field of vision as Liu Bei's righteous son after the Battle of Chibi. This man was heroic and martial, and his strength value was very high, and since the Battle of Chibi, he had been following Liu Bei's footsteps, attacking Sichuan, taking Hanzhong, and then stationing hanzhong with Meng Da. It can be said that Liu Feng made great contributions to the Shu army, and his prestige was very high.
Coupled with the fact that Liu Feng was Liu Bei's righteous son, with a family relationship, Liu Feng could have shined in the Shu Kingdom, but unfortunately, Zhuge Liang pushed him to the ghost gate. During the Battle of Jingzhou, Guan Yu lost Jingzhou due to his arrogance, and at this time Guan Yu had only one way to return to Shudi.
But unfortunately, Guan Yu's arrogant personality not only annoyed his opponents, but also his own people could not get used to his personality. At that time, the closest reinforcements to Guan Yu were Liu Feng and Meng Da. Guan Yu asked for help like Liu Feng, and thought that reinforcements would come, but Liu Feng mistakenly believed Meng Da's rumors and resolutely refused to rescue Guan Yu, which eventually led to Guan Yu's defeat and maicheng soldiers being defeated and killed.
Liu Bei was furious when he learned of this, and wanted to transfer liu feng and Meng Da. Meng Da knew that he had created a catastrophe and chose to betray Liu Bei and surrender to Cao Cao. Liu Feng, because he was Liu Bei's righteous son, and although this matter was at fault, it was not his own doing, and he chose to return to Shudi and plead guilty like Liu Bei.
Liu Bei was even more angry after learning of the causes and consequences, and scolded Liu Feng for inaction, believing that he was just a piece of wood and had no thoughts. Although Liu Bei was overly scolded, Liu Feng was indeed loyal to Shu Han, and he originally wanted to scold. However, Zhuge Liang said to Liu Bei: "Lord, Feng Gangmeng, after Yi Shi, I am afraid it will be difficult to control the emperor!" This sentence can be regarded as a complete push on the ghost door for Liu Feng.
After Liu Bei heard Zhuge Liang's words, he immediately felt that he had indeed scolded too much, even if there would be a gap between father and son, not to mention that Liu Feng was a righteous son. Coupled with the fact that Liu Feng was also responsible for this military defeat, and his body was not very good, whether Liu Chan could suppress Liu Feng in the future was unknown.
Therefore, Liu Bei simply went down the slope of the donkey and gave Liu Feng a bottle of poison without stopping. Liu Feng regretted getting the poison and shouted that if he knew that this was the end, he should obey Meng Da's words and surrender to Cao Wei. Subsequently, Liu Feng drank the poison and died violently.
Although Liu Feng's death had a lot to do with himself, from the perspective of the future of the Shu Kingdom, there were almost no talents among the younger generation of generals who could compete with Liu Feng. If Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang guided and used Liu Feng after Guan Yu's incident, Liu Feng was definitely the sharpest fast knife in the Shu Kingdom. However, Liu Bei eventually chose to believe Zhuge Liang, which eventually caused Liu Feng's death.
On paper - Horse rumors
If Liu Feng's death is the epitome of Zhuge Liang's failure to train talents, then Ma Chen's death is Zhuge Liang's biggest failure. Although Liu Bei repeatedly said like Zhuge Liang that Ma Mo was difficult to use as a person, in fact Ma Mo was still a very talented person. Otherwise, when meng was captured, Ma Mo would not have advised Zhuge Liang to attack the heart first, and eventually let Meng Yu completely submit to the Shu state.
In addition, Ma Mo can be regarded as the first generation of Zhuge Liang's disciples, and Zhuge Liang's expectations for Ma Mo are very high. Therefore, Zhuge Liang often asked Ma Mo to discuss the administrative and military affairs of the Shu state and improve Ma Mo's insight. But no matter how much knowledge he accumulated, Ma Mo's actual combat experience was very poor, which was the most important reason for his death.
The most crucial battle of Ma Mo was the Battle of Jieting, which was a life-and-death battle for Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition. Originally, Ma Mo should not have participated in the Battle of the Street Pavilion in the form of a master general. After Zhuge Liang received Ma Mo's request, although he was also worried that Ma Mo would be embarrassed and useful, he sent Wang Ping as Ma Mo's deputy general. However, Zhuge Liang's use of ma Mo was still too hasty, ignoring the problem of his lack of actual combat experience.
In the Battle of Jieting, Ma Mo's entire army went up the mountain, leaving only Wang Ping's squad stationed at the bottom of the mountain. From the perspective of geographical advantages, Ma Mo's going up the mountain was not ineffective, but it was precisely because of the lack of actual combat experience that Ma Mo did not consider how the tens of thousands of troops on the mountain should survive once the Wei army cut off the water source and food aid.
After all, Zhang Hao was not a generalist, and when Jie Ting saw that Ma Mo was so deployed, he quickly seized the fighter and launched a siege without fighting against the Ma Mo Corps, cutting off the water source and food aid on the mountain. Ma Mo became a lone army, and if it were not for Wang Ping's squad at the bottom of the mountain desperately trying to rescue him, Ma Mo would have been trapped alive by Zhang Hao on the mountain.
After the Battle of Jieting, Zhuge Liang was cut off by Zhang Gao, and hundreds of thousands of troops were forced to retreat without grain and grass supplies on the front line. Zhuge Liang's first Northern Expedition failed in this way, which also made Zhuge Liang miss the best opportunity to attack the State of Wei. Zhuge Liang then tearfully beheaded Ma Chen, and also killed an important talent in the Shu state.
Of course, Zhuge Liang's original intention of killing Ma Mo was correct, after all, Ma Mo had made such a big mistake in military decision-making, and there was no problem in killing him at all. However, Ma Mo's death can also be regarded as caused by Zhuge Liang, and it should be known that Ma Mo had no actual combat experience, which Zhuge Liang was very clear.
Zhang Guo, the opponent of Ma Mo in the Battle of Jieting, is a fierce general who has experienced hundreds of battles and is very good at calculation. Zhuge Liang agreed that Ma Mo was a bit too hasty to guard the street pavilion, and if Zhuge Liang kept Ma Mo by his side and became a staff officer, Ma Mo could gain actual combat experience around Zhuge Liang, and he would definitely be a very strong staff officer candidate in the Shu Kingdom in the future.
Zhuge Liang did not give Ma Mo this opportunity to grow, and the street pavilion cut off Ma Mo, so that the Shu state missed a good staff officer.
Suspect shu general - Wei Yan
The third person Zhuge Liang should not have killed was Wei Yan. Wei Yan's life was also very tortuous, he and Huang Zhong were both surrendered generals in the Battle of Changsha, the only difference was that Huang Zhongning did not surrender, and finally chose to surrender after being impressed by Emperor Liu's sincerity. Wei Yan was completely different, Wei Yan killed Taishou and surrendered voluntarily, which made Liu Bei very jealous of him and thought that he had a backbone.
However, suspicion is jealousy, Wei Yan is indeed capable, plus Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei can suppress him, so they did not choose to kill him. However, after Zhuge Liang died again, he was very worried that no one in the Shu state could suppress Wei Yan, so he told Ma Dai that if Wei Yan had any objections, he would kill him.
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Yan was indeed reversed, and then beheaded by Ma Dai, but in fact Wei Yan did not oppose. The main reason was that Wei Yan had no reason to oppose at that time, after Zhuge Liang's death, he was no longer suppressed by Zhuge Liang, and the Shu Kingdom had almost no fierce generals who were more powerful than him, and his future must have been heavily used by Liu Chan.
Therefore, there was no need for him to rebel, but Wei Yan, in order to vent his anger, cut off the path and killed Yang Yi during the retreat of the Shu state. But in fact, if Liu Chan really thought about it carefully, he could understand that Wei Yan was not trying to oppose it. But unfortunately, Liu Chan did not think carefully and directly let Ma Dai behead Wei Yan. Later, Liu Chan not only failed to realize his mistake, but also killed the three tribes of Wei Yan.
Wei Yan's death was partly because Wei Yan did indeed do something against the Lord during the Battle of Changsha. This matter has always been a knot in Zhuge Liang's heart. After the Battle of Changsha, Zhuge Liang had frightened Wei Yan, claiming that if he had any objections, he would be killed immediately. Wei Yan also had lingering feelings about Zhuge Liang's words, and Wei Yan had always been conscientious in supporting the world of the Great Khan. In the six Northern Expeditions, Wei Yan's battle record was also eye-catching, coupled with the lack of generals in the Shu state, Wei Yan could not choose rebellion from any point of view.
However, in Zhuge Liang's heart, the anti-lord thing was only once and countless times, and since Wei Yan had done it, he would definitely do it in the future. Therefore, Zhuge Liang was still suspicious of Wei Yan before he died, and he especially explained Wei Yan's problems in the matter after his death. This was really unfair to Wei Yan.
However, no matter how unfair it was, Wei Yan's death had become a foregone conclusion, and the deaths of Wei Yan, Liu Feng, and Ma Mo had basically no outstanding talents among the military generals at the end of the Shu State. Then Jiang Wei commanded the Northern Expedition, and no one who was comfortable could use it, if one of these three people could survive, Jiang Wei would not be so weak at the end of the Shu Kingdom.
Not to mention that the Wei State War against shu could solve the Shu state so easily. Jiang Wei would not shout loudly before he died: "I can't succeed in my plan, but the destiny of heaven", which makes people sigh.
epilogue
Zhuge Liang calculated everything in his life, but there were great problems in the use of talents, which led to the end of the Shu Kingdom without talents that were difficult to use, and eventually the Shu Kingdom collapsed. If Zhuge Liang could spare one of these three, perhaps although the Shu kingdom would not unify the world, the road to the unification of the Wei state would inevitably suffer setbacks and continue to continue the state of dividing the world into three parts.
It's just a pity that Jin has no feet, no one is perfect, Zhuge Liang's life is brilliant, but at the end of the Shu Kingdom, he still failed to live his mentality of seeking stability too much, and killed three people who should not have been killed.