Liu Feng

Liu Feng, Xuande’s adopted son, is caught between the obligations of kinship and the military risks of acting on them. When Guan Yu is trapped at Maicheng and urgently needs relief, Liu Feng agrees with Meng Da not to send troops; later, when Meng Da defects to Wei, Liu Feng rejects an invitation to follow him. He reaches Chengdu after losing his position and forces, but Xuande orders him executed for failing to rescue Guan Yu. Liu Feng’s fate exposes the harsh consequences of a duty deferred and a loyalty recognized too late.

Identity and Family Position

Liu Feng is Xuande’s adopted son. That relationship shapes the judgments made about his choices: he calls Guan Yu his uncle, and later invokes the bond between uncle and nephew, as well as that between father and son, when rejecting Meng Da’s attempt to recruit him to Wei. His story therefore turns not simply on a commander’s decision about troop movements, but on intersecting family obligations and political allegiance.

Those bonds have already been given weight by the Peach Orchard vow. Xuande, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei swear to support one another, defend the people, and seek to die together. When Guan Yu is in danger, Liu Feng’s relationship to him becomes part of the crisis: he acknowledges that Guan Yu is his uncle, while Meng Da’s argument focuses on the force imbalance and the danger to their own small army. The decision is tested against a larger story in which sworn and familial ties carry concrete demands.

The Appeal from Maicheng

When Liao Hua arrives to report that Guan Yu is trapped at Maicheng and that relief is urgently needed, Liu Feng asks Meng Da what they should do. Meng Da points to the peril surrounding them: the forces of Wu have taken Jingzhou and left Guan Yu with only Maicheng, while Cao Cao is advancing with an army of four to five hundred thousand. Their own force, he argues, is too small to risk between two powerful enemies. Liu Feng recognizes the personal obligation—Guan Yu is his uncle—but is persuaded by Meng Da’s caution.

The pair then decide on a pretext for refusing the appeal. They will say that, having only just secured the town, they cannot leave before winning the local people’s confidence. The next day they tell Liao Hua that they will send no troops because their position is precarious. Liu Feng hears Liao Hua plead, but the decision stands; the refusal is not an accidental delay but a deliberate choice backed by Meng Da’s reasoning. Liao Hua leaves for Chengdu after failing to persuade them.

The scene frames Liu Feng’s decision as a conflict between immediate military calculation and an acknowledged family duty. Meng Da describes the risk of intervention and Liu Feng agrees, yet the rationale does not erase the relationship he has named. When the decision is later judged, his own acknowledgment that Guan Yu was his uncle makes the failure to act especially consequential.

Meng Da’s Defection and Liu Feng’s Refusal

After Cao Pi takes power in Wei, Xuande’s officers consider how to punish those who failed to rescue Guan Yu and his son. They plan to separate Liu Feng and Meng Da by sending Liu Feng to govern Mianzhu, preventing the two from consulting and leaving them vulnerable to being dealt with individually. The order alerts Meng Da that a move against him is under way. He leaves that night with fifty riders and defects to Wei, sending Xuande a carefully phrased letter that presents his departure as an act of loyalty.

Meng Da meets Liu Feng at Xiangyang and writes to persuade him to defect as well. Liu Feng refuses, objecting that Meng Da is trying to undermine the filial bond between uncle and nephew and between father and son. He tears up the letter. This rejection makes his allegiance clear even after his earlier failure to aid Guan Yu: Liu Feng will not join Meng Da in serving Cao Pi, and he remains committed to the family ties Meng Da’s invitation would violate.

The refusal does not restore Liu Feng’s standing. In the ensuing fighting, he pursues Meng Da into an ambush, escapes, and flees toward Shangyong, only to find that the city has fallen to Wei after its governor surrendered. Fangling, his next refuge, has also fallen. With barely a hundred men left, Liu Feng makes his way back to Chengdu. The retreat strips away his command and position before he can seek Xuande’s judgment in person.

Execution and Narrative Significance

Liu Feng falls before Xuande and begs forgiveness. Xuande is furious over his failure to come to Guan Yu’s aid and orders his adopted son executed, despite Liu Feng’s attempts to explain. Only afterward does Xuande hear that Liu Feng had refused to betray his father by defecting to Wei. That fact complicates the judgment: Liu Feng maintained political and filial allegiance, but too late to undo the earlier refusal that Xuande regards as decisive.

The consequences extend beyond Liu Feng’s death. Xuande is already mourning Guan Yu; learning of Liu Feng’s refusal after ordering the execution deepens his grief and is followed by sickness and depression. Liu Feng’s arc thus turns on a severe asymmetry between what he did and what was later discovered: he withheld help when Guan Yu was in danger, then resisted defection at personal cost, but the second choice came after the first had determined how Xuande saw him.

His story brings the novel’s language of loyalty and kinship into collision with military prudence and political survival. Liu Feng does not simply abandon one allegiance for another: he accepts Meng Da’s argument against risking their forces, later rejects Meng Da’s offer to join Wei, and finally returns to Xuande to ask forgiveness. The sequence gives his fate its tragic force without making the choices interchangeable. Loyalty to family is affirmed in his refusal to defect, while the earlier failure to act for Guan Yu remains the breach for which Xuande punishes him.