After Cao Pi came to power, there were three personal expeditions to attack Wu in total, 222, 224 and 225. Non-person expedition wars broke out at least twice. In Cao Pi's later years and Cao Rui's early years, in the Battle of Shiting in Wu and Wei, Wei suffered a crushing defeat, and there was no large-scale attack on Wu within 24 years. After Sun Quan , the State of Wei launched the Battle of Dongxing, and after this battle, Wei was defeated again. After the Battle of Dongxing, Wei State turned to attack Shu State, and then actually destroyed Shu in one battle.
However, when Wei always attacked Wu, Shu was determined to attack Wei. Since Zhuge Liang , Shu has been constantly expeditioning the north and launched nearly 20 wars against Wei.
Among the Three Kingdoms, Shu Kingdom has few people and the weakest strength, followed by Eastern Wu, and the strongest strength is Wei Kingdom. According to the principle of easy first and difficult, Wei should first attack Shu, and then destroy Shu, then attack the Eastern Wu, or according to the principle of attacking the provocateurs, he should also attack the provocative Shu. However, generations of Wei have attacked the Eastern Wu with one heart and adopted the strategy of Wu first and then Shu. So why didn't Wei attack Shu first?
Shu Kingdom is preparing for war crazy, just like a "copper pea". It is easy to collapse teeth when fighting Shu Kingdom
Unlike Wu and Wei, Shu Kingdom's military expansion and preparation for war have reached a madness, and almost all resources are tilting towards the army. Now we can see the truth through the population and currency of Shu Kingdom.
According to historical records, Liu Bei said that during the emperor, Shu Kingdom had 200,000 households and 900,000 households respectively. When Shu Kingdom was destroyed, there were 280,000 households, and a total of 1.082 million people, including 940,000 civilians, 102,000 soldiers, and 40,000 officials. The total military force of Shu Kingdom accounts for as high as 10%. It is estimated that except for the extremely bloody , the Warring States Period, , no era has ever had a "military and civilian ratio" that surpassed Shu Kingdom.
After conquering Chengdu, in order to raise military expenses, Liu Bei issued " straight 155zhu ", which weighed about 6.4 grams (three times that of " Shu Wuzhu coins") and a diameter of about 25 mm, but the value of the currency is 100 times that of the Wuzhu chunk, which is equivalent to thirty or forty times the profit of turning the handgun arbitrage. Later, Shu Kingdom has been issuing "Zhi Baiwuzhu" and using currency to plunder people's wealth and accumulate wealth to prepare for war.
Therefore, Shu Kingdom was preparing for war with force, making it like a "copper pea". It is better not to fight if it is tasteless and toothless if it is eaten. It is believed that Wei State would not last long if it was considered that Shu State would be playing for a long time, or it might hope that Shu State would collapse itself.
Shu Kingdom has high mountains and long waters, steep roads, and lack convenient transportation conditions
The so-called "The road to Shu is difficult, it is harder than climbing to the blue sky", hundreds of years later, Li Bai , even expressed such emotion, let alone the Three Kingdoms era.
Among the three kingdoms, Wei occupied the north, Eastern Wu occupied the south, and Shu occupied Jingshu (later lost Jingzhou ). The real easy to defend and difficult to attack was Shu. What is particularly important is that Fazheng believes that obtaining Hanzhong "can overthrow the enemy on the top, reward the royal family, eat Yong and Liang in the middle, expand the land, and stick to the key points under the bottom, for a long-lasting plan." It is recommended that Liu Bei conquer Hanzhong and give a super patch to the Shu National Defense Line. In the Battle of Hanzhong , Liu Bei captured Hanzhong and gained a certain advantage in geographical advantages.
In the direction of Hanzhong, in addition to transportation issues, Wei State also faces a problem, that is, due to the turmoil of Dong Zhuo in the late Han Dynasty, the ancient capital Chang'an was deserted, and it was difficult to support Wei State to attack Shu State with Guanzhong as a base.
In the direction of Jingzhou, before the Battle of Xiangfan, when Shu occupied part of Jingzhou, even if Wei seized Jingzhou, it would be difficult for Shu to threaten the core area of Shu.
If the eldest Wei Kingdom attacks the third Shu Kingdom and falls into a stalemate, what will happen to the second Dongwu?
Shu Kingdom has a small land and few people, and its national strength is too far away from Wei Kingdom. For the huge Wei Kingdom, Shu Kingdom is not a problem. At the same time, after Jingzhou was taken away by the Eastern Wu, only Yizhou was left. If you want to attack the Central Plains in the north, you can almost only leave Hanzhong. The fastest is to attack Chang'an, Guanzhong, and it is difficult to threaten the core area of Wei in a short period of time. In other words, Shu has little potential and does not have a substantial threat to Wei.
Therefore, given that Shu is powerful and possesses a defensive position, Wei can slow down the Shu country and do not belong to the priority level.
However, the Eastern Wu territory is vast and has a large population, and the war potential is huge, so the threat to Wei State is naturally greater. At the same time, in terms of geographical environment, the territory of the Eastern Wu is closer to the core area of the Wei State. Therefore, the Wei State could not relax its suppression of the Eastern Wu in any case, nor could it fall into the battle with the Shu State, but let the Eastern Wu sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight and get the opportunity to recuperate.
In short, once Wei State defeats Shu State first, even if it can destroy Shu State, it will probably suffer a lot. In this way, the strength of Wei and Wu may approach or reverse, which is undoubtedly not worth the gain for Wei State. Therefore, Wei could only defend Shu's attack and actively suppress or attack Dongwu.
The reason why Wei State has been attacking Wu State may be related to the Battle of Red Cliff
In the Battle of Red Cliff, Cao Cao suffered an unprecedented defeat, and his reputation was lost in one lifetime, so Cao Cao inevitably had the consideration of regaining his face.
According to Three Kingdoms records, a large-scale plague occurred in Cao Cao's army at that time, causing many soldiers to die. As a result, people were panic, and the army was disintegrated and there was no combat effectiveness. At this time, Sun Quan burned the ships and food, and reached the point where "soldiers were hungry and most of the dead were dead." Therefore, Cao Cao was very dissatisfied with the defeat in the Battle of Red Cliff, and perhaps this led to the subsequent two conquests of Wu.
After Cao Pi ascended the throne, there were many reasons for his three personal expeditions to the Eastern Wu. For example, Sun Quan suddenly established himself as emperor (who had once surrendered to Wei before), and strategically needed to suppress Eastern Wu. In addition, it was related to "complete the unfinished cause of the previous emperor". If Cao Pi achieved victory over Eastern Wu and even destroyed Eastern Wu, then his status would undoubtedly be more stable.
As for the Battle of Shiting and the Battle of Dongxing, objectively speaking, the speculative nature is relatively strong, and it is not a battle to attack Wu that was prepared in advance. The cause of the Battle of Shiting was that the prefect of Poyang of Eastern Wu, Zhou Feng, and Wei defrauded Cao Xiu, so Cao Xiu led an army of 100,000 to support Zhou Feng, which triggered a large-scale war. The cause of the Battle of Dongxing was that Sun Quan died and the 10-year-old Sun Liang had just succeeded to the throne. Wei thought there was an opportunity.
Therefore, the strategically prepared war against Wu in Wei was related to the Battle of Red Cliff, and there was some purpose of washing away the shame of Cao Cao in the Battle of Red Cliff.
For half a century, the Wei State defeated again and again when attacking the Eastern Wu. Therefore, he realized that it was very difficult to attack Wu, so he turned to the already exhausted Shu Kingdom.
Since Liu Bei, Shu has been in a state of war. Jiang Wei 11 Northern Expedition has already overdrawn its national strength. In 262, Liao Hua said, "If you do not restrain your troops, you will definitely suffer the consequences. What you are talking about is Boyue (Jiang Wei's character). Wisdom does not exceed the enemy, and its strength is weaker than the enemy, but the use of troops is not satisfied. How can you survive in this way?" The problem that Liao Hua can see is the insidious and cunning Sima Zhao and other ministers of Wei State cannot see it. As expected, the Wei State destroyed Shu State in the second year.
After the demise of Shu, the Eastern Wu was unable to support it, but due to the failure to attack Wu for half a century, the ministers of the Wei and Jin Dynasties became more cautious, and finally destroyed the Wu Kingdom in one fell swoop after preparations were made.
References: "Three Kingdoms" and other
