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