Zhuge Liang

Zhuge Liang ( zh, t=諸葛亮 / 诸葛亮) (181 – September 234), courtesy name Kongming, was a Chinese statesman and military strategist. He was chancellor and later regent of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period. He is recognised as the most accomplished strategist of his era, and has been compared to Sun Tzu, the author of '' The Art of War''. His reputation as an intelligent and learned scholar grew even while he was living in relative seclusion, earning him the nickname "Wolong" or "Fulong", meaning "Crouching Dragon" or "Sleeping Dragon". Zhuge Liang is often depicted wearing a Taoist robe and holding a hand fan made of crane feathers.

Zhuge Liang was a Confucian-oriented "Legalist". He liked to compare himself to the sage minister Guan Zhong and Yue Yi developing Shu's agriculture and industry to become a regional power, and attached great importance to the works of Shen Buhai and Han Fei, refusing to indulge local elites and adopting strict, but fair and clear laws. In remembrance of his governance, local people maintained shrines to him for ages. His name has become synonymous with wisdom and strategy in Chinese culture. Zhuge Liang is depicted in the '' Wu Shuang Pu'' (, ''Table of Peerless Heroes'') by Jin Guliang.

Early life

Zhuge Liang was born in 181 in Yangdu County, Langya Commandery (present-day Yishui, Shandong Province). His family name, Zhuge, is a two-character Chinese compound family name. His father Zhuge Gui died when he was still young, and he was raised by Zhuge Xuan (a cousin of Zhuge Gui) in Yuzhang Commandery. When Zhuge Xuan was driven out of Yuzhang Commandery in 195, Zhuge Liang followed Zhuge Xuan to live with his friend, Liu Biao, the governor of Jing Province.

Zhuge Liang grew to be a tall man. He enjoyed reciting the ''Liangfu Yin'' (), a folk song popular in Shandong, his birthplace. He had a habit of comparing himself to the sage minister Guan Zhong and military leader Yue Yi. Although few people took him seriously, Zhuge Liang developed close friendships with influential members of the local literati such as Xu Shu, Cui Zhouping, Meng Jian and Shi Tao. Zhuge Liang also maintained close relations with other well-known intellectuals such as Sima Hui, Pang Degong and Huang Chengyan. Sima Hui once compared Zhuge Liang to a sleeping dragon.

Huang Chengyan once told Zhuge Liang, "I heard that you're seeking a spouse. I've an ugly daughter with yellow hair and dark complexion, but her talent matches yours." Zhuge Liang agreed and married Huang Chengyan's daughter.

Service under Liu Bei

When Liu Bei was residing at Xinye County and taking shelter under Jing Province's governor, Liu Biao, he visited Sima Hui, who told him, "Confucian academics and common scholars, how much do they know about current affairs? Those who analyse current affairs well are the elites. Crouching Dragon and Young Phoenix are the only ones in this region." Sima Hui was referring to Zhuge Liang, whose nickname was "Crouching Dragon"; and Pang Tong, whose nickname could be translated as "Young Phoenix" or "Fledgling Phoenix" ().

Xu Shu later recommended Zhuge Liang to Liu Bei again, and Liu wanted to ask Xu to invite Zhuge to meet him. However, Xu Shu replied, "You must visit this man in person. He cannot be invited to meet you." Liu Bei succeeded in recruiting Zhuge Liang in 207 after paying three personal visits. This is contradicted in the later ''Annotations'' by Pei Songzhi which claim Zhuge Liang visited him first. Nonetheless, "''Three visits to the cottage''" () became a very famous classical reference in China.

:Yi Zhongtian suggested that both the records in ''Sanguozhi'' and ''Weilue'' are the truth. The chronological order should be: Zhuge Liang approached Liu Bei first to demonstrate his wisdom. Liu Bei, having recognized Liang's talent, personally visited Liang three times to have further discussions.Yi Zhongtian. Analysis of the Three Kingdoms, Vol. 1, Vietnamese translation. Publisher of People's Public Security, 2010. Chapter 16: Three visits to the cottage.
:The novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms portrays Liu Bei's three visits with many fictional mystic events, and narrates that only at the third visit that Liu Bei managed to meet Zhuge Liang and listened to his Longzhong Plan. However the truth is, Liu Bei managed to meet Liang in all three visits, and there were probably more visits with further discussions of the Longzhong Plan before Zhuge Liang finally decided to officially offer his services.

Zhuge Liang presented the Longzhong Plan to Liu Bei and left his residence to follow Liu. Afterwards, Liu Bei became very close to Zhuge Liang and often had discussions with him. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were displeased with their relationship and complained about it. Liu Bei explained, "Now that I have Kongming, I am like a fish that has found water. I hope you'll stop making unpleasant remarks." Guan Yu and Zhang Fei then stopped complaining.

As a diplomat

In 208, Liu Biao died and was succeeded by his younger son, Liu Cong, who surrendered Jing Province to Cao Cao. When Liu Bei heard of Liu Cong's surrender, he led his followers (both troops and civilians) on an exodus southward to Xiakou, and suffered a severe defeat by Cao Cao's forces in a brief skirmish at the Battle of Changban along the way. While in Xiakou, Liu Bei sent Zhuge Liang to follow Lu Su to Jiangdong to discuss the formation of an alliance between him and Sun Quan, and Liang managed to have a meeting with Sun Quan in Chaisang.

Zhuge Liang, being able to gauge Sun Quan's personality, decided to provoke Sun Quan by telling Sun just to surrender if he could not resist Cao Wei. Liang also explained that although Liu Bei was also weaker than Cao Cao, he would fight to the death instead of surrendering; moreover, Liu Bei and his allies still retained some significant forces despite the defeat at Changban, and Cao Cao's army was not as strong as it appeared to be. Sun Quan was pleased with Zhuge Liang's arguments, and, together with Lu Su's analysis of the political situation and Zhou Yu's analysis of the weaknesses in Cao Cao's army, agreed to ally with Liu Bei in resisting Cao Cao. Zhuge Liang returned to Liu Bei's camp with Sun Quan's envoy, Lu Su, to make preparations for the upcoming war.

As a logistics officer

In late 208, the allied armies of Liu Bei and Sun Quan scored a decisive victory over Cao Cao's forces at the Battle of Red Cliffs. Cao Cao retreated to Ye city, while Liu Bei proceeded to conquer territories in Jiangnan, covering most of southern Jing Province. Zhuge Liang was appointed Military Advisor General of the Household (). He was put in charge of governing Lingling (present day Yongzhou, Hunan), Guiyang and Changsha commanderies and collecting taxes to fund the military.

In 211, Liu Zhang, governor of Yi Province (covering present-day Sichuan and Chongqing), requested aid from Liu Bei in attacking Zhang Lu in Hanzhong Commandery. Liu Bei left Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and others in charge of Jing Province while he led an army into Yi Province. Liu Bei promptly agreed to Liu Zhang's proposal, but secretly planned to take over Liu Zhang's land. The following year, Liu Zhang discovered Liu Bei's intention, and the two turned hostile and waged war on each other. Zhuge Liang, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun led separate forces to reinforce Liu Bei in the attack on Yi Province's capital, Chengdu, while Guan Yu stayed behind to guard Jing Province. In 214, Liu Zhang surrendered and Liu Bei took control of Yi Province.

Liu Bei appointed Zhuge Liang as Military Advisor General () and let him administer affairs of his personal office (office of the General of the Left ()). Whenever Liu Bei embarked on military campaigns, Zhuge Liang remained to defend Chengdu and ensured a steady flow of supply of troops and provisions. In 221, in response to Cao Pi's usurping of Emperor Xian's throne, Liu Bei's subordinates advised him to declare himself emperor. After initially refusing, Liu Bei was eventually persuaded by Zhuge Liang to do so and became ruler of Shu Han. Liu Bei named Zhuge Liang his chancellor and put him in charge of the imperial agency where Zhuge assumed the functions of the head of the imperial secretariat. Zhuge Liang was appointed Colonel-Director of Retainers () after Zhang Fei's death.

Service under Liu Shan

In the spring of 223, Liu Bei retreated to Yong'an (present-day Fengjie County, Chongqing) after his defeat at the Battle of Xiaoting and became seriously ill. He summoned Zhuge Liang from Chengdu and said to him, "You're ten times more talented than Cao Pi, and capable of both securing the country and accomplishing our great mission. If my son can be assisted, then assist him. If he proves incompetent, then you may take over the throne." Zhuge Liang replied tearfully, "I'll do my utmost and serve with unwavering loyalty until death." Liu Bei then ordered his son, Liu Shan, to administer state affairs together with Zhuge Liang and regard Zhuge as his father.

There are controversies over the last statement of Liu Bei on Zhuge Liang's "take over the throne" (君可自取). Yi Zhongtian in his "Analysis of the Three Kingdoms" presented several interpretations of Liu Bei's message. Chen Shou commented that Liu Bei wholeheartly trusted Zhuge Liang and permitted Liang to "take over" literally. Some argued that Liu Bei said that only to test Zhuge Liang's loyalty as his brother, Zhuge Jin, was working for Eastern Wu. Other commented that the "take over the throne" part did not mean Zhuge Liang was allowed take the throne for himself, but he was permitted to, when the situation demanded, replace Liu Shan with other of Liu Bei's living sons such as Liu Yong and Liu Li.

Holding power as a regent

After Liu Bei's death, Liu Shan ascended to the throne of Shu Han. He granted Zhuge Liang the title "Marquis of Wu District" () and created an office for him as a Chancellor. Not long later, Zhuge Liang was appointed Governor of Yi Province – the region which included most of Shu Han's territory.

Being both the Chancellor (directly managing the bureaucrat officers) and provincial governor (directly managing the common people) meant that both the magistrates and common people, i.e. all of the state affairs, were in the hand of Zhuge Liang. Having an independent Chancellery Office (with attached independent subordinates) meant that Zhuge Liang's authority was relatively independent of the emperor's authority. In other words, just like in Sanguozhi said, all of Shu Han's affairs, trivial or vital, were directly handled by Zhuge Liang, and the emperor Liu Shan was just a nominal leader. Moreover, the emperor himself was strictly educated and supervised by Zhuge Liang. This situation was maintained until Liang's death.

There are many attempts who tried to explain why Zhuge Liang refused to return the authority to Liu Shan. Yi Zhongtian proposed three reasons:
# Zhuge Liang supported the model of the emperor only indirectly lead the country and have a Chancellor to handle the affairs in his name, similar to the situation at the early period of Western Han. On Liang's opinion, if the emperor directly handled the affairs, then there is no one to be blamed if problems occurred, but if a representative Chancellor handled things then the emperor could have an interpellation against the Chancellor in the case of failure.
# Zhuge Liang stubbornly thought that Liu Shan was not experienced enough to directly handle the state affairs, hence Liang decided to do things himself to make sure no mistakes happened.
# The situation of Shu Han was indeed very complicated at that time which required extremely well-planned solutions. An inexperienced Liu Shan could not handle such challenging problems, but Zhuge Liang could.

Economic reforms

Yi Province's wealthy families, uncurbed by the previous governors, freely exploited the common people and had an extravagant life. As a result, poverty was widespread, and economical-political reform was the most important concern for Zhuge Liang. A robust economic foundation was also necessary to enhance the people's loyalty to Shu Han regime and properly support the future's expeditions against Cao Wei. Therefore, Zhuge Liang made it clear that the core value of his policy was to stabilize and improve the life of the people.Chen Wende. Great story of Kongming Zhuge Liang. Vietnamese translation: Nguyễn Quốc Thái. Labor Publisher. 2018. Chapter 27: Agriculture and Legalism.

Zhuge Liang's new policies was enacted right from the time of Liu Bei and continued in the time of Liu Shan. He purged the corrupted officials, relieved taxes, and restricted the nobilities's abuse of power against the common people. Forced labours and military mobilization were also reduced and rescheduled to avoid the disruption of agriculture activities, and Cao Cao's tuntian system was implemented extensively to increase food production output. Agriculture dykes were significantly rebuilt and repaired, including the famous Zhuge dyke northern of Chengdu. Thanks to the reform, Shu Han agriculture production grew significantly and was able to sustain her military activities.

Salt manufacture, silk production, and steelmaking – three notable economic activities of Shu region – also attracted Zhuge Liang's attention. Liu Bei, following the proposal of Zhuge Liang, created specialized bureaus for salt and steelmaking management, first directed by Wang Lian and Zhang Yi, respectively. A specialized silk management bureau was also established, hence Chengdu was named as "the city of Silk". ''Sanguozhi'' reported that salt production in Shu Han was highly prosperous and generated significant income to the government. Fu Yuan, a well-known local metalsmith, was entrusted by Zhuge Liang in metallurgy research and managed to improve the techniques in crafting steel weapons for Shu Han army. Silk production also had significant growth, at the end of Shu Han regime it managed to accumulated 200,000 pieces of silk in the national treasure. Zhuge Liang's family plantation also had 800 mulberry plants for silkworm feeding.

Due to political turmoil, monetary systems at the end of the Han dynasty were in severe turbulence. When establishing themselves in the Yi Province, Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, following the advice of Liu Ba, enacted successful monetary reforms. The new Shu Han currency was not only smoothly circulated within its borders, but also popular in the neighboring Jing province. Meanwhile, similar policies of Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Cao Rui and Sun Quan were marred by difficulties and produced limited results.

Legal and moral reforms

Zhuge Liang strongly supported the rule of law in Shu Han. Yi Zhongtian commented that "Rule of Laws" together with "Nominal rule of the Monarch and direct rule of the Chancellor" are two important legacy of Zhuge Liang which were pitifully forgotten by many people.

After Liu Bei entered Yi province, Zhuge Liang, together with Fa Zheng, Liu Ba, Li Yan and Yi Ji, wrote the legal codes for Shu Han.

In order to curb the corruption and associated decadences of the local Yi nobility, Zhuge Liang enacted a Legalist policy with strict but fair and transparent laws, and restricted the power of wealthy families. Zhuge Liang was willing to punish high-ranked magistrates such as Li Yan, Liang's close associates such as Ma Su, and even willing to demote himself to keep the legal orders. However Liang also refrained from abusing punishment and required extreme caution in law enforcement. Xi Zuochi praised Liang's policy of legal rule, that "''since the era of Qin and Han there had been no one as equal."'' Even punished magistrates like Li Yan and Liao Li put Zhuge Liang in high regards and strongly believed that Liang would re-employ them after the punishment was enough.

Zhuge Liang also promoted moral conduct and himself had a strict and stoic life as a model. He did not own excessive assets, refrained from luxurious spending, relied mainly on government salary. Shu Han's magistrates, like Deng Zhi, Fei Yi, Jiang Wei, Zhang Yi also followed suit, strictly abided by the law and the moral codes, enabled the Shu government to maintain a high level of transparency and integrity. Yi Zhongtian praised Shu Han as the best model of "rational rule" amongst the Three Kingdoms, and it is the incorruptibility and transparency of Zhuge Liang and his associates that kept Shu Han from collapsing in disregard of the heavy expenditure burden.

Not everybody was happy with such Legalist policy. Guo Chong's comment on Liang's policy was that it was "cruel" and "exploitative", that "everybody from the noble to the commoner" was upset. Pei Songzhi disagreed with such comments because Zhuge Liang's law enforcement was appropriate and could never be "exploitative". That also contradicted Chen Shou's comment that "''nobody was upset despite the strict laws''". Yi Zhongtian commented that both contradicted assessments are correct, as Shu people were happy about Liang's fairness and transparency, but some of them were also upset about Liang's overstrictness. Moreover, Zhuge Liang's fairness and legal rule inevitably suppressed the local nobility, prevented them from abusing their power and manipulate politics and public opinion. That is the reason why many of the local Shu intellegistia tacitly endorsed the invasion of Wei against Shu, although they also respected Zhuge Liang. This is supported by contemporary sources, including Zhang Wen and Sun Quan. Yuan Zhun of the Jin dynasty also highly appraised Zhuge Liang's administration skills and popularity, where people would still sing praises to Zhuge Liang decades after his death.

Education and talents enrollment policy

Zhuge Liang highly appreciated talents, hence he paid strong attention to education in order to cultivate and recruit more talented magistrates for Shu Han government. Liang established a position of Aide of Learning Encouragement (勸斈從事), held by many prominent local intelligentsia such as Qiao Zhou. Qiao Zhou held this post for a very long time and was very influential; one of his students, Chen Shou, was the author of ''Sanguozhi''. Later Zhuge Liang established a Great Education Residence (太斈府), a training facility using Confucian literature works as textbooks. Liang also created many "reading book residences" both in Chengdu and in the frontline during the northern expeditions; such facilities functioned as places for discussions of various topics, and via such discussions talented people could be discovered and recruited. Yao Tian, Shu Han's governor of Guanghan district, managed to recommend many talents to the government, hence he received lavish praise from Zhuge Liang.Chen Wende. Great story of Kongming Zhuge Liang. Vietnamese translation: Nguyễn Quốc Thái. Labor Publisher. 2018. Chapter 28: Talents promotion.

Zhuge Liang also established "Discussion Bureau" mechanism to gather all the discussions of a certain policy, and encourage the magistrate to accept the criticisms of their subordinates to make a good decisions, and also to utilize all the talents of employees. Zhuge Liang carried out a meritocracy policy, promoted and assessed people based on what they did and could do rather than their fame or background.

Diplomatic missions in Eastern Wu

At the same time, the commanderies in Nanzhong rebelled against Shu, but Zhuge Liang did not send troops to suppress the revolt as Liu Bei's death was still recent. Liu Bei had been persuaded after his defeat by Lu Xun that an alliance with Wu was necessary. Zhuge sent Deng Zhi and Chen Zhen to make peace with Eastern Wu and reentered an alliance with Wu. Zhuge Liang would consistently send envoys to Wu to improve diplomatic relations between the two states.

In 229, Sun Quan proclaimed himself as emperor. This act angered many of the Shu Han court officials who considered the rulers of Shu Han, direct descendants of former Han dynasty, were the only ones could have legitimate claim of the imperial throne. Some of Shu Han's officials even suggested severing the ties between Shu and Wu. However Zhuge Liang commented that Shu-Wu alliance was still necessary, hence Sun Quan's "treachery" could be temporarily left aside. A Shu Han emissary was sent to congratulate Sun Quan and strengthen the relationship between two allies.

Southern Campaign

During his reign as regent, Zhuge Liang set Shu's objective as the restoration of the Han dynasty, which, from Shu's point of view, had been usurped by the state of Cao Wei