Shu under Liu Bei’s rule

Shu under Liu Bei’s rule took shape when Liu Bei entered Chengdu after Liu Zhang surrendered, converting a military victory into a claim to govern through order, restraint, and public security. Its consolidation joined territorial expansion to the language of Han legitimacy: supporters urged Liu Bei to accept a royal title as a descendant of the imperial house, while the administration of the newly acquired land was presented as a test of whether conquest could become stable rule.

From Surrender to Territorial Control

As Liu Bei’s combined forces approached Chengdu, Liu Zhang sealed the city and prepared for attack. Hearing Ma Chao explain his allegiance to Liu Bei, Liu Zhang recognized that resistance was nearly futile and, wishing to spare the population further suffering, ordered the gates opened. A soothsayer’s declaration that the stars foretold the appearance of a bright new ruler reinforced his decision to yield to Liu Bei. The surrender thus combined a practical judgment about the military situation with an omen that cast the transfer of power as more than a defeat.

Liu Bei entered Chengdu to public rejoicing. He prohibited reprisals against former opponents, including Huang Quan and Liu Ba, although neither had yet abandoned their opposition. His refusal to punish them helped bring both men over to his side. At first, he also wanted to keep Liu Zhang in the city out of respect. Kong Ming objected that the city could not accommodate two rulers and that Liu Zhang’s indecision had cost him his right to govern. Liu Zhang was consequently sent to Jingzhou under what amounted to comfortable house arrest, while receiving an honorific title. The arrangement removed a competing center of authority without treating the former ruler as an ordinary captive.

Liu Bei rewarded those who had joined him with government posts, titles, money, and treasure; additional treasure was sent to Guan Yu in Jingzhou. Yet distributing the land of the conquered territory among his followers met strong resistance from Zhao Zilong, who argued that the people had already endured enough hardship and that generosity toward them would secure support in the future. The episode sets the distribution of rewards to the victorious party against the preservation of the population’s means of life: taking Shu was not, in this account, permission to treat its land as spoils.

Administration and the Claim to Rule

The new government overhauled the laws, checked local governors who were corrupt or excessively harsh, and settled the land. These measures give the account’s portrayal of Liu Bei’s rule an institutional dimension: benevolent government is not only a personal refusal to retaliate, but also a reorganization of local authority and an effort to establish predictable conditions after conquest. The text does not detail the revised laws or the mechanics of settlement, but it explicitly connects those changes with the consolidation of the territory.

That consolidation had a political geography as well as an administrative one. Liu Bei’s control of Shu followed the fall of Chengdu and the submission or accommodation of former opponents; the surrounding regions of Hanzhong also came under his men as Cao Cao retreated. Some local authorities surrendered once they believed Liu Bei would protect peace and ordinary people. The spread of allegiance is therefore linked not only to battlefield pressure but to an expectation of security under the incoming government.

After these successes, Liu Bei’s commanders pressed for him to become emperor. Kong Ming argued that Cao Cao had accumulated power while the rightful ruler had been usurped, and that Liu Bei’s reputation for benevolence, his control of Shu, and the peace restored in the region made a royal title appropriate. Liu Bei resisted, fearing that accepting power would make him appear a rebel despite his descent from the House of Han. Kong Ming answered that the empire had been torn apart by men seizing what they could, and that loyal and courageous people wanted a true emperor. In this argument, hereditary connection alone was not enough: Liu Bei’s claim was joined to his conduct and to the people’s supposed desire for legitimate rule.

After refusing three times, as convention required, Liu Bei accepted the title of king in late AD 219. The coronation followed full ritual, with Liu Bei facing south on a specially made altar marked for the five directions. He named his son Liu Shan as heir, appointed Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Zilong, Ma Chao, and Huang Zhong as the Five Tiger Generals, and made Wei Yan governor of Hanzhong. The ceremony and appointments translated territorial success into a visible court and chain of command, while the choice of Liu Shan established succession within the new regime.

Hanzhong and the Contested Frontier

The advance into Hanzhong was shaped by the retreat of Cao Cao’s forces. Kong Ming anticipated the route Cao Cao would take and sent Ma Chao to make the withdrawal difficult. Ma Chao’s repeated harassment inflicted heavy losses and broke the morale of the Wei troops. Wounded and in severe pain, Cao Cao had to accelerate his retreat; his men felt safe only once they reached Chang’an. With his forces withdrawing, places around Hanzhong fell to Liu Bei’s men, while other local authorities surrendered in expectation of peace and protection for civilians. Control of the region thus expanded through a combination of pursuit, military collapse, and negotiated submission.

The region had previously been governed by Zhang Lu, whose authority was rooted in a distinctive religious and local order. His tradition organized leadership through libationers rather than ordinary officials and was described as centered on sincerity and communal discipline. It provided free rice, meat, and cooking facilities for the poor, while forbidding people to take more than their honest needs; illness was addressed through confession and prayer, and the community had governed Hanzhong for thirty years, sufficiently remote from the imperial court to avoid close intervention. After Cao Cao’s victories in the west, Zhang Lu considered declaring himself prince of Hanning and leading resistance. His adviser Yan Pu instead recommended seizing the forty-one administrative divisions of the Western Riverlands, citing their population, wealth, grain, and natural defenses. This background places Liu Bei’s later control of Hanzhong within a contested landscape of local institutions and rival political projects, rather than an empty territory awaiting incorporation.

The account also locates the new regime within a wider struggle over imperial legitimacy. When Cao Pi later received an abdication announcement in the name of the Han emperor, the document declared that the era of the Han fire had ended and that fortune had passed to the Cao family, invoking the example of Yao’s abdication. News of Wei’s emergence reached Chengdu amid rumors, including the claim that the former emperor had been killed. Liu Bei became so unwell that he handed day-to-day management to Kong Ming. Kong Ming then proposed that Liu Bei be crowned emperor as a continuation of the Han line, arguing that Cao Pi had usurped the throne and that Liu Bei, as a descendant of the House of Liu, had a duty to reclaim authority. The contrast is central to the state’s political self-understanding: Cao Pi’s accession was presented as transfer by abdication, while Liu Bei’s supporters grounded their rival claim in the survival of the Han lineage.

Southern Campaigns and the Limits of Consolidation

Liu Bei’s rule also faced resistance beyond the central territory. After the revolt of the governors was put down, Meng Huo summoned the chiefs of three valleys and urged them to unite against the Shu invasion. Each brought about fifty thousand men: Jinhuansanjie held the center, Dongtuna the left, and Ahuinan the right. Kong Ming managed the loyalties of his veteran commanders Zhao Zilong and Wei Yan by speaking as though they were too old and unfamiliar with the region, and assigning the main force to younger commanders Wang Ping and Ma Zhong. The two veterans, disgruntled, instead gathered intelligence from captured local people and devised their own attacks. With five thousand picked fighters, they surprised Jinhuansanjie’s camp at night; Zhao Zilong killed the chief, and the Man forces scattered as the victors divided to attack the other camps.

Later fighting drove Meng Huo, Meng You, and King Duosi back toward the Silver Pit hills and Sanjiang, where three rivers met and stood the principal ancestral temple of the Man rulers. The narrative describes a society with its own ritual and customary practices, including animal and human sacrifice, shamans who treated illness, immediate execution for crimes, barter markets, and marriage customs that did not require family approval. Meng Huo gathered roughly a thousand surviving men and swore revenge; he sought support from King Mulu of the Bana valley, reputed to command wild animals, while King Duosi fortified Sanjiang. These details show the frontier as a region with its own communities and forms of authority, although the account presents them through the perspective of the invading Shu army.

Kong Ming’s campaign ultimately turned military subjection into a settlement with Meng Huo. After Meng Huo acknowledged that he submitted, Kong Ming celebrated with him late into the night and appointed him ruler over all the lands conquered by the Shu kingdom. The Man people rejoiced, leaping and dancing. The appointment gave a local leader authority under Shu’s expanding reach, rather than describing the conquered lands as administered directly by Liu Bei’s officers. In this episode, consolidation means both the capacity to defeat resistance and the ability to secure an expressed submission through a continuing local ruler.

Across these episodes, Shu under Liu Bei’s rule is defined by the conjunction—and tension—of conquest, accommodation, and legitimacy. Its army took Chengdu and extended control around Hanzhong; its leaders rewarded allies but resisted appropriating land from a population already strained by war; it reformed local government and incorporated some former opponents; and in the south it combined campaigns with the appointment of a submitted ruler. The account’s ideal of benevolent authority is therefore made concrete through choices about punishment, land, offices, and local autonomy, even as that ideal accompanies the expansion of a new power across disputed territory.