Liu Bei of the Three Kingdoms Period
3 min readLiu Bei
Liu Bei is commonly called Liu Xuande .He claimed himself to be a descendant of Prince Zhongshanjing ，a very snobbish doing.Liu Bei was born in Zhuozhou，Hebei Province.Started his life as a straw shoemaker and a weaver of mats，he made his name against the Yellow Turban Uprising and fought in wars all around China，finally becoming the first emperor of the Shu Kindom.
Liu Bei was noted for his loyalty to friends and his respect to the talents.He met Guan Yu and Zhang Fei and they became sworn brothers at the Peach Garden and vowed to combine their strengths and efforts to restore peace and order to the country.
Another much-told story said that he paid three visits to the home of Zhuge Liang，one of the most resourceful men in history.In the end，with sincerity and persuasion from Liu Bei，Zhuge Liang gave up his seclusion and spent the rest of his life assisting him in the cause to build the Shu Kingdom and his son to govern the Kingdom.
In 208 AD，Liu Bei adopted the suggestion of Zhuge Liang and carried out a joint military action with the Wu Kingdom against the attacks of the powerful Wei Kingdom.
The alliance had the final victory.And further on，Liu Bei occupied the vast land in present Sichuan and Shanxi Provinces and thus reinforced the regime of Shu.
In 221 AD，Liu Bei crowned himself the King of Shu in present Chengdu City.The next year，he broke the alliance treaty and commanded the army down the Yangtze River to attack the Wu Kingdom，because Jingzhou had been seized and Guan Yu，his sworn-brother was killed by Sun Quan.
However，the Shu army lost the battle.On the way of their retreat，Liu Bei died at Baidi city，near present Chongqing City.
Like his ancestor，Liu Bang，the founder of Han，Liu Bei didn’t read much，nor was he good at the martial art.His advantage was also recognizing and making use of other people.He followed traditional Chinese virtues and believed that he was an ideal emperor of the Chinese people.So many capable people came to him.
When in an inferior position，like his remote grandfather，he showed modesty and even humbleness to conceal his ambition.
In order to show that he was a man who had no ambition whatsoever，Liu Bei cultivated a piece of land and began to grow vegetables.Yet，Cao Cao still wanted to find out what sort of man Liu really was.He invited Liu to drink together in his garden and made a conversation with him.He asked Liu”Do you know who are the heroes today？””I don’t know.”
Liu answered.“Have you heard of their names？”Cao continued.Liu named some but Cao shook his head and said:“The real heroes today are you and me.”Liu got a terrible shock and dropped his chopsticks onto the ground.Just then，a thunder grumbled and it was going to rain.So Liu Bei explained his act for being shocked by the sound thunder.Cao Cao believed that Liu Bei was a coward so he paid little attention to him.Later on，he permitted Liu Bei to carry out a mission so that Liu got the chance to escape.It was another case of releasing the tiger into the mountains.”
