So, Liu Bei summoned the two ministers, Zhuge Liang and Li Yan, to his side and completed Baidi City, entrusting the orphan . According to Liu Bei's death arrangement, Zhuge Liang, as the prime minister, assisted Liu Chan and his court affairs, while Li Yan was in charge of the troops in Yong'an and other places as Shangshu Ling and Zhongdu Guardian. So, the question is, why did Liu Bei entrust his orphan Zhuge Liang to entrust his orphan Li Yan to entrust his orphan? Is it because of distrust?
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First of all, in my opinion, Liu Bei entrusted Li Yan and Zhuge Liang at the same time, not distrust the latter. Based on the following two reasons, Liu Bei finally made this arrangement. On the one hand, this is to balance the factional power within Yizhou. Within Shu Han, there were mainly three forces, namely the Yizhou faction, the Dongzhou faction and the Jingzhou faction. Of course, Liu Bei originally had a direct force, but because Guan Yu and Zhang Fei and were killed one after another, the influence of this faction became smaller and smaller.
Among these three forces, although Zhuge Liang came from Langya County, Xuzhou, he lived in Jingzhou for a long time and had close contacts with many people in Jingzhou, which prompted him to become a representative figure of the Jingzhou faction. Correspondingly, after Fazheng died of illness, Mengda surrendered to Cao Wei , Li Yan became a representative figure of the Dongzhou School. As early as when Liu Yan entered Yizhou, the people who flowed into Nanyang and Sanfu areas were formed into Dongzhou soldiers, thus forming this force of the Dongzhou faction. Li Yan came from Nanyang County and came to Yizhou in 208 AD. He was appointed by Liu Zhang . Therefore, Li Yan can not only represent the Dongzhou faction, but also have deep intersections with the Yizhou local faction.
On this basis, Liu Bei entrusted the crown prince Liu Chan to Li Yan and Zhuge Liang, so that he could gain support from the Dongzhou faction and Jingzhou faction at the same time, thereby consolidating Liu Chan's position. On the contrary, just entrusting the orphan to Zhuge Liang would be detrimental to unite most of the power of Shu Han, and it would be difficult to firmly sit on the throne of the emperor.
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Of course, when it comes to this, someone may ask why there was no representative of the Yizhou School when Liu Bei entrusts his orphan. In this regard, in my opinion, this should be because the local gentry in Yizhou was not very trusted by Liu Bei, and the Yizhou faction was biased towards separatist, which was also inconsistent with Liu Bei's goal of supporting the Han Dynasty and expeditioning the Central Plains. In 263 AD, when the army of Deng Ai came to Chengdu, Liu Chan was forced to open the city to surrender because of the pressure from local Yizhou such as Qiaozhou and other Yizhou.
On the other hand, Liu Bei entrusts the orphan to Li Yan and lets him take charge of certain troops, in order to make good use of others. In 213 AD (the 18th year of Jian'an), Liu Zhang, the governor of Yizhou, appointed Li Yan as the guardian and resisted Liu Bei in the Mianzhu area. Li Yan led his subordinates to surrender to Liu Bei, who appointed him as a deputy general. After pacifying Chengdu, Li Yan was appointed as the prefect of Jianwei and the general of Xingye. That is, Li Yan's initial positioning was biased towards a military general.
Wait until 218 AD, when Liu Bei fought with Hanzhong and Cao Cao , a rebellion broke out in Yizhou. In response, Li Yan easily quelled the rebellion with just five thousand temporary convenings. Because of his military achievements, Li Yan was appointed as the general of the auxiliary Han Dynasty by Liu Bei and guarded Badong County. When Baidi City was entrusted with the orphan, because the threat from the Eastern Wu had not been lifted, it was not ruled out that the possibility of Sun Quan attacking Yizhou was not ruled out, so Liu Bei needed to leave a minister to guard Yong'an. In order to facilitate Li Yan to mobilize troops in an emergency, it is also a reasonable arrangement to give him the identity of a minister who was entrusted with the orphan.
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Finally, Li Yan's subsequent ambitions were naturally not the result that Liu Bei could have expected. In 226 AD (the fourth year of Jianxing), Zhuge Liang was in Hanzhong and was preparing to send troops to attack Wei, so he wanted to transfer Li Yan to lead his army to guard Hanzhong. However, Li Yan tried his best to refuse, but asked to divide five counties as Bazhou and let him serve as the governor of Bazhou. Zhuge Liang did not agree. If Zhuge Liang really agreed to Li Yan's request, he would almost divide Yizhou into two, and Li Yan would have the strength to control the country.
In 230 AD (the eighth year of Jianxing), in order to allow Li Yan to lead his army to defend Hanzhong, Zhuge Liang had no choice but to make concessions, and submitted a letter to Liu Chan and enthroned Li Yan as General of the Cavalry. However, Li Yan was not satisfied. In 231 AD, in order to shirk his responsibility for not transporting food and grass in time, Li Yan falsely accused Zhuge Liang of deliberately withdrawing his troops. Li Yan's move is also to suppress Zhuge Liang's opponent.
As a result, when the truth was revealed, Li Yan's behavior aroused the anger of Liu Chan and all officials, so he was removed from his official position and exiled to Zitong County . In 234 AD, after learning about Zhuge Liang's death, Li Yan also died of illness. During his lifetime, Li Yan still hoped that Zhuge Liang would use him again, and considered that other ministers except Zhuge Liang could not use him again, so he became angry and became ill.
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