Liu Zhang's Yizhou regime

Liu Zhang's Yizhou regime is a regional power whose invitation for military aid becomes the opening for Xuande to take control of its territory. Its story turns on a contradiction: Yizhou’s natural defenses and resources make it valuable, but Liu Zhang’s indecision and the regime’s divisions weaken its ability to resist. The conquest ultimately enlarges Xuande’s power and helps him present himself as a restorer of the Han, even as the struggle exposes the tension between benevolent rule and the seizure of a kinsman’s domain.

Regional Power and Vulnerability

Liu Zhang governs Yizhou, a western territory that becomes increasingly important as the Han order fractures and rival leaders seek secure bases. The regime is already threatened by Zhang Lu, whose power in Hanzhong and designs on the western Riverlands make him a persistent danger. Liu Zhang has garrisoned Baxi against that threat, but his vulnerability is personal as well as strategic: Zhang Lu is his long-standing enemy, and Liu Zhang has executed Zhang Lu’s mother and brother. When an uprising against Liu Zhang is reported, he is frightened and summons advisers rather than responding from a position of confidence.

Yizhou’s weakness is not simply a lack of resources. Zhang Lu’s adviser Yan Pu describes a region of more than one hundred thousand households, with substantial wealth and grain, protected by natural barriers on all four sides. Refugees have also poured in after Ma Chao’s defeat. Yan Pu argues that Liu Zhang is weak enough for Zhang Lu to seize the forty-one western departments and declare independence. These assessments present Yizhou as both a prize and a vulnerable political structure: its resources and geography can sustain power, but its ruler’s perceived incapacity invites rivals to act.

The Invitation That Opens the Way

As Cao Cao’s influence grows, Zhang Song urges Liu Zhang to seek help from Xuande against both Cao Cao and Zhang Lu. He presents Xuande as a virtuous kinsman whose reputation could deter enemies. Some advisers warn that inviting him risks surrendering the whole country, but Liu Zhang accepts the proposal and sends Fa Zheng as his envoy. The regime’s attempt to obtain protection therefore creates a route for an outside force to enter Yizhou with the ruler’s formal consent.

Xuande hesitates because Liu Zhang belongs to the same imperial family. He worries that attacking his kinsman would undo the moral distinction he claims over Cao Cao, whose methods he regards as aggressive and ruthless. Pang Tong counters that extraordinary circumstances offer no uncomplicated path: if Xuande does not take the territory, another rival will. He argues that power can be seized while its subsequent rule is conducted with integrity. Xuande agrees to go, but his reservations make the campaign a test of his political ideals as well as a territorial opportunity.

Xuande leaves Kong Ming in Jingzhou with Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Zilong, while taking Pang Tong, Huang Zhong, and Wei Yan west with a force of fifty thousand. He informs Liu Zhang of his arrival. Liu Zhang proceeds to meet him at Fucheng despite attempts by advisers to stop him. Huang Quan tries to restrain him by gripping his clothing, and Wang Lei protests by suspending himself above the city gate with a letter and a sword, threatening to die if Liu turns toward the meeting. Liu Zhang nevertheless continues, convinced that he is going to welcome a benevolent and just man; Wang Lei then falls to his death. The episode makes visible the regime’s divided judgment: its ruler trusts Xuande’s virtue, while advisers foresee the danger of admitting his army.

A Regime Under Pressure

The campaign steadily brings Liu Zhang’s government closer to collapse. After Xuande’s forces reach Luocheng, the city opens its gate and Xuande enters, while Liu Zhang’s son Liu Xun escapes through the opposite gate to Chengdu. A letter from Fa Zheng proposes persuading Liu Zhang to submit, but Liu Zhang reacts angrily, tears it up, and plans a counterattack. In desperation, he even seeks help from Zhang Lu, the rival whose threat had helped prompt the original appeal to Xuande. The move shows how the regime’s predicament has narrowed its choices: resistance and submission both carry serious costs, and an appeal to one enemy offers no secure way out.

Meanwhile, Ma Chao’s troubles alter the balance of the regional struggle. After his forces are defeated and his family is killed, he is trapped between Cao Cao, Liu Zhang, and Zhang Lu. Kong Ming sends Li Hui to offer him a way to join Xuande, and Ma Chao accepts. When reports of this change reach Chengdu, Liu Zhang seals the city and prepares for attack. Ma Chao and his brother Ma Dai call for Liu Zhang to speak with them from the wall. Hearing Ma Chao’s own account, Liu Zhang recognizes that continued resistance is futile. His stated desire to spare the people further suffering contributes to his decision to open the gates; a soothsayer’s announcement that the stars indicate the arrival of a bright new ruler reinforces it.

Fall, Settlement, and Political Meaning

Xuande enters Chengdu to public rejoicing and forbids retaliation against former opponents, including Huang Quan and Liu Ba. Their eventual submission is presented as a consequence of his restraint. Xuande initially wishes to let Liu Zhang remain in the city, but Kong Ming argues that two rulers cannot occupy the same political space and that Liu Zhang’s indecision has cost him his right to govern. Liu Zhang is sent to Jingzhou, where he lives under a form of comfortable house arrest and receives an honorific title. The regime ends not in an account of its institutions being preserved under its former ruler, but in the transfer of territory and authority to Xuande.

The treatment of Yizhou’s land after the conquest also frames the new ruler’s claim to legitimacy. Xuande’s followers are rewarded with offices, titles, money, and treasure, and further treasure is sent to Guan Yu in Jingzhou. But when Xuande considers redistributing land among his supporters, Zhao Zilong objects that the people have suffered enough and that generosity will secure future support. The land remains under Xuande’s control, while the argument contrasts the rewards owed to his adherents with the public welfare on which his rule is supposed to rest.

Yizhou’s capture strengthens Xuande’s position in the broader contest over the Han’s future. After victories in the west and the establishment of his control over Shu, Kong Ming urges Xuande to become emperor, presenting his benevolence and restored peace as grounds for rule. Xuande resists the idea as potentially rebellious, but Kong Ming argues that Cao Pi has usurped the Han and that Xuande, as a descendant of the Liu house, has a duty to continue its line. When the Wei dynasty is established, the news and rumors distress Xuande; Kong Ming proposes his accession as a means of maintaining the Han succession. Thus the fall of Liu Zhang’s regime is more than a change of provincial government: it gives Xuande the territorial base from which he can advance a competing claim to imperial authority, even while that claim rests on the same difficult political question raised by his entry into Yizhou—whether a ruler may seize power in the name of preserving legitimate rule.