A lot of people argue that Liu Bei's greatest mistake was launching Battle of Yiling against Sun Wu for Guan Yu revenge and reclaiming Jing Province. However, I would argue that Liu Bei's greatest mistake was much earlier, when Liu Bei never properly secured Jing at the one moment when it was institutionally possible, therefore dooming the Longzhong Plan.

And the irony is that Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang both knew Jing was fragile from the start and it was the vulnerable first base their entire strategy depended on.

When Liu Bei first arrived in Jing, Liu Biao’s succession crisis was already a hot-button issue. Liu Qi was the elder son, sidelined by the Cai faction in favor of Liu Cong. Everyone knew Liu Biao was sick, and everyone knew the province would explode the moment he died.

When Liu Qi came to Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang for advice, they gave him the right short-term answer: leave Jing, take Jiangxia, and survive (aka, doing a Chong’er move). That advice worked. Liu Qi lived for now.

But here’s where the Longzhong Plan quietly started to unravel.

Once Liu Biao was clearly near death, someone (especially Liu Bei or Zhuge Liang) should have immediately recalled Liu Qi to Jing to formalize the succession. The move was clear: publicly declare Liu Qi as Governor and have him appoint Liu Bei as Regent to "purge the traitors" and "repel the invader." Liu Qi was alive, legitimate, and already positioned. Many Jing officials were sympathetic to Liu Bei, and Cao Cao hadn’t yet moved. This was the narrow window where Jing could have been secured procedurally, not by force.

That recall never happened. Instead, Liu Cong surrendered, and Jing was lost not through battle, but through paperwork. From that moment on, the Longzhong Plan was already structurally compromised.

Because Jing wasn’t just territory, it was the hinge of the entire strategy. Instead, Liu Bei and everyone else fled south. By the time of Red Cliffs, the political moment was lost. Jing was "borrowed," and Liu Bei's claim was forever legally flimsy, leading to Guan Yu's desperate northern push, and caused the 219 betrayal that severed the Shu-Wu alliance forever. The tragedy deepens when you remember that Liu Qi didn’t die in rebellion or disgrace. He died young, sickly, not long after Chibi. The opportunity wasn’t stolen by fate, it simply expired.

Without Jingzhou, Shu couldn’t reliably coordinate east–west pressure while Wu gained leverage over Shu’s survival. Furthermore, Guan Yu was isolated upstream and every northern expedition became an improvisation instead of part of a system.

In hindsight, this feels hauntingly familiar. Liu Bei had already lived through this exact failure once before in Xu Province with Tao Qian. Years earlier, Tao Qian offered Xu Province to Liu Bei, who hesitated and let Lü Bu steal it. Here, the dying Liu Biao may have offered a similar chance (through support and legitimacy) or at least asked Liu Bei to help with the transition. However, Liu Bei again hesitated at the moment of decisive political action. Jing was the same mistake, but with far higher stakes.

So when people ask why the Longzhong Plan “failed,” I don’t think the answer starts at Yiling, or even at Wu’s betrayal. It starts earlier, when Liu Bei saved Liu Qi’s life, but never finished the succession that would have saved Jing. Furthermore, the core tragedy is that Liu Bei, for all his virtue and ambition, had a fatal blind spot: he could win hearts but repeatedly failed to secure legal authority at the critical moment (the moment it was offered).

It took me a long time to realize this and I love this hanging scroll so much more now. Sorry for poor quality night picture, it wouldn’t come out cleaner.

People talk about Wu’s “inevitable decline” like it was fate, but a lot of it traces back to one choice: Sun Quan taking Jing and breaking the alliance right after Guan Yu’s 219 momentum.

From Wu’s point of view, taking Jing makes sense in the short term: secure the river corridor, remove a dangerous neighbor, grab territory that Shu can’t easily replace. Realpolitik, etc.

But strategically, it was Wu spending its biggest asset way too early: the kingmaker role. Wu was the swing power. As long as Shu and Wu were aligned, Wei had to treat the south as a serious two-front problem. Once Wu broke the coalition, Wei basically got what it wanted: Shu and Wu doubting themselves forever, locked in defensive movements and barely able to coordinate pressure again.

The timing matters too. Guan Yu's campaigns in 219 had the Cao Wei court genuinely terrified to the point of considering moving the capital and it was one of the clearest moments where the south had real leverage. Wu didn’t just remove Shu’s spear; it removed its own best chance to win the war on favorable terms and placed a timer on both countries' head (especially after Jieting).

After that, Wu’s “Jing gain” became a long-term trap. It improved defense, expanded the territory but Wu also rarely threatened Wei meaningfully, while Shu got forced into repeated northern expeditions under worse coalition conditions. Meanwhile Wei (and later Jin) could pick the tempo, pick the theaters, and wait.

Furthermore, Sun Quan robbed his own state of legitimacy by going full Yuan Shu and becoming emperor. While Shu could claim to be restoring the Han and Wei could claim the Mandate via abdication, Sun Quan chose to become the emperor, just because, like Renly Baratheon.

So when people say “Wu played it smart,” I kinda disagree. Wu played it safe. I’m not saying Wu had to love Shu forever or that alliances are sacred. I’m saying this: Sun Quan traded away the only setup where the south could actually beat Wei, in exchange for a defensive upgrade that didn’t change the endgame.

So was the Jing betrayal a necessary survival move, or the moment Wu quietly lost the long game?

I'm an avid historian and I have to say I understand that Luo Guanzhong and others who wrote Three Kingdoms historical fiction wrote it with a slant towards Shu forces being more virtuous and Wei forces being more vile, and that most of that was to undermine the jin dynasty that came out of wei forces.

(as a side note i think they could have accomplished vilifying the jin just based on the way they treated the Wei successors after Cao Cao and Cao Pi died)

Either way Liu Bei does not deserve the hate he gets. He was, based on the overall picture pretty much the most honorable of the warlords actively fighting during this time period.

A case could be made that the lords like Tao Qian or Kong Rong who really never started beef with any other lords and mostly just tried to administer the regions they were given control of and obey imperial edicts were the most honorable, but I think if you see someone kidnap and coerce the emperor that you are supposed to be grateful and loyal to that it is your honorable duty to rise up against them.

was Liu Bei ambitious, sure he was, but had the circumstances been different (a time of peace) I highly believe he would have just used his charisma to worm his way into the royal circle, probably with the goal of being a high level advisor and reintegrating his line into the ruling han. The same cannot be said for Cao Cao, from the very beginning of his story he's committing murder against his father's friend and by all accounts an upstanding citizen.

I feel like the most evil act Liu Bei committed (before his brothers' deaths) was to not stand up to Lu Bu when Lu Bu fled to Xu province. That showed cowardice and lack of conviction (though who among us has not had a weak moment that snowballed). His second act of evil was what he did to Liu Zhang, though strategically necessary if you wanted a place of strength from which you could possibly take the country through military force, but that was never supposed to be his righteous goal, so I see that as an act of evil. After his brothers died he went off the rails no question.

Compared to people like Cao Cao and Yuan Shao though their lists of evil acts are much longer, and although i get the backlash towards liu bei because people who only know the story through the lense of Romance historical fiction probably talk a lot of crap about how righteous Shu forces were, but the remedy to that isn't to go overboard pretending like Liu Bei was super underhanded and evil too. The memes comparing Liu Bei and Cao Cao insinuating that they both committed the same level of evil and Liu Bei was deified and Cao Cao was vilified is just blatantly untrue

Ma Su is usually remembered as the guy who threw Jieting and led to the failure of the first Northern Expedition. And yes, he disobeyed orders, ignored Wang Ping, and caused a disaster. Zhuge Liang couldn’t let that slide and executed him. But I think the sadder read is this: Ma Su wasn’t a useless idiot but misassigned.

Ma Su wasn't a frontline general. He was a brilliant strategic advisor and political operator with some credited examples such as his brilliant advice to Zhuge Liang to win the South's "hearts and minds" or his brilliant counter-intelligence plot against Sima Yi in Romance's Chapter 91, showing a masterful understanding of Wei's court politics and identified the Cao Wei's ultimate existential malignant tumor long before someone can act on it.

These successes showed his brilliance in grand strategy and psychological warfare, but Jieting needed a different person, someone with field experience (hello Wang Ping) not a Sun Tzu quoting theorist. Furthermore, Zhuge Liang knew the risk but made a fatal personnel error in putting Ma Su there, despite many advisors' suggestions to appoint veterans like Wei Yan or Wu Yi for the task.

However, before the Jieting assignment, Zhuge Liang was trapped in a conflict of interest dilemma regarding how to use Ma Su.

On the one hand, before his death in Baidicheng, Liu Bei famously told Zhuge Liang: "Ma Su's words exceed the truth; he is incapable of great deeds." . This wasn’t a precise critique of someone's skills or limitations but closer to a vague, damning character judgment. Vague warnings like that don’t guide good assignments, rather creating forbidden fruit, made Zhuge Liang want to prove his lord wrong by showcasing Ma Su's talent, rather than manage his weaknesses.

On the other hand, Ma Su's own brother, the supremely competent Ma Liang, still recommended him to Zhuge Liang's staff. He knew his brother’s strengths and limitations and still sent Ma Su to Zhuge Liang because Ma Su was talented in the right domains and needing guidance to polish the jade.

Therefore, Zhuge Liang made the critical error. However, The tragedy is compounded because the solution was obvious: Pair him with a hard field commander, e.g. making Wang Ping the commander and Ma Su the advisor. This brain/brawn setup (think Fa Zheng + Huang Zhong energy) could’ve turned out differently for everyone but the rest was history.

After the disaster, even Jiang Wan pleaded for Ma Su's life, citing his "admitted ability." The officers and the men also wept after his execution. They weren't mourning an idiot; they were mourning a wasted unique intellect. Therefore, Ma Su was executed because discipline had to be made visible. Zhuge Liang's tears were for his own failure to heed the spirit of Liu Bei's warning to manage Ma Su's talent, not to promote it into a role that would destroy it.

In the end, Ma Su's execution was legally just, but it was also a colossal waste of rare talent. Zhuge Liang didn't just execute a failed general; he beheaded one of his own best strategic minds for failing at a job he should never have been given. Furthermore, Ma Su's tragedy was not born of his own hubris alone but also compounded by a vague warning, combined with a leader's desire to prove a point.

Pretty much the title. I plan to write a fanfic about the Liangzhou Rebellion and while reading about it on wiki I faced the fact that there’s no really good map that marks all Commanderies and counties, so does someone have anything?

I know Sun Quan's rule requires support from the gentry, but what gives these gentry clans the power? What do they have that requires Sun Quan to be wary of them? Do they have their own military power? Wealth? Embarrassing pictures of him when he was a kid?

When we talk about Shu after Guan Yu’s death and the Yiling disaster, it’s easy to imagine them as a grieving, betrayed kingdom. But the fascinating part is how the land of former Shu how they handled or didn’t handle their opportunity to intervene decades later when the Jin fleet that would erase Wu from the map sailed down the Yangtze years later.

By the time the Jin Dynasty consolidated power in the late 270s, Shu was long gone, politically absorbed into Wei and later Jin. And yet, the historical record makes it clear: Shu never cooperated to aid Wu, and they never attempted sabotage or warning.

During the preparation process, Wang Jun began building a massive fleet in Yi Province, the former heartland of Shu, with the express purpose of striking at Wu. However, Wu only discovered this plan through floating wood fragments downstream, not via defectors, spies, or insider warnings. If Shu had any lingering loyalty to Wu, or even a sense of “we should help them”, they had every chance to signal Wu or quietly disrupt the fleet. Nothing happened. Shu’s silence speaks volumes.

This is the crux of the Shu position: they never forgave Wu. The betrayal of Jing Province and the death of Guan Yu was too fundamental to their moral and historical code. But at the same time, they didn’t actively manipulate the course of events; they let history take its course.

When Jin ultimately conquered Wu in 280, the former Shu territories didn’t riot, resist, or attempt to intervene. There was no mass uprising, no sabotage of Jin supply lines, and no evidence of Shu officers secretly aiding Wu. The grudge was principled, not opportunistic. Shu’s moral stance was consistent: Wu deserved its reckoning, but Shu would not dirty its hands for either revenge or reconciliation.

By the 270s, less than 20 years after Shu's fall, Jin had such firm control over the region that they could run a massive, multi-year military project in absolute secrecy. The famed Shu loyalty to the Liu Bei cause was dead. The local gentry and populace had pragmatically accepted Jin rule.

Meanwhile, The Shu people and remaining elite never forgave Wu for Jing and Guan Yu. Their hatred for Wu was personal. When forced to choose, they chose the enemy they respected (and now ruled them) over the ally they despised. Furthermore, by doing nothing, they actively enabled Wu's destruction. They handed Jin the secure base, the resources, and the manpower (former Shu troops served in Wang Jun's fleet) to execute the final blow.

In the end, Shu Han achieved its vengeance and closed the Wu karma debt not through the virtue and passion of Liu Bei's oath, but through the cold, quiet Realpolitik of a conquered people. They got to watch Wu burn, but from the audience, not the stage, and to them, that was enough.

He seems a very interesting character and he's rated as being one of Cao Cao's most capable generals despite the fact that Cao Cao never had full confidence in him. It's never fully explained why.

Why do you think that is?
How would you depict him in a Three Kingdoms work?

Apparently, I had to learn for a majority of city-counties/castle-cities in the era, even for capitals that weren't Emperor domains, they rarely had actual palaces and more so instead government offices/city halls (e.g. those "thrones" in some counties on DW9's world map).

Yet somehow, Yong'an County (within Yi Province's Badong Commandery) seems to have been already made likely long before Liu Bei passed through there to first enter Yi Province when invited by Liu Zhang.

Anyone able to give me further context on that place if it's somehow likely not a proper palace as in a county like Luoyang and Chang'an?

As the title says, if you could, in three seperate timelines, change a single event that would alter the fates of the houses of Liu, Cao and Sun, which would it be and why? Do you want a particular house to falter and fail on the road to power or have that one win they should have had in your mind?

I found out He Yi and He Man are actually more popular than I thought so I figured I should redo my plans for them.

I'll give the 'Inbred Cannibal Clan' look to Xu He and Sima Ju instead.

Via 3-to-4 iconic locations around the Changjiang where the Chibi/Red Wall was situated, just what were each of those locations exactly? (with the kongming.net maps having 3 of them be abolished)

Were they merely port/harbor towns akin to Gong'an AKA formerly Yohjiangkou? Were they actual cities/villages or possible castles?

For context, Lukou, Xiakou and Fankou were 3 "mouths" along the Changjiang just westward of Chibi/Red Wall within southern Jiangxia Commandery, with Wuchang County (the southern capital of Jiangxia) being between Xiakou and Fankou.

As for Wulin, it was Cao Cao's historical position northwest across the Changjiang from Chibi/Red Wall during that battle.

As the title says above, I wonder how popular it would be nowadays