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[Meng Da is a pretty familiar name to anyone who follows the Three Kingdoms. After Liu Bei took Chengdu Meng Da surrendered and joined the roster alongside capable men like Fa Zheng, Li Yan, and Deng Zhi.
Later on when Guan Yu got pinned down near the Mian River and sent urgent requests for backup Meng Da talked Liu Feng into ignoring every plea. That choice left Guan Yu with no way out. He retreated all the way to Maicheng where he and his eldest son Guan Ping were captured and executed.
Everyone knows how vital Guan Yu was to Shu Han. Terrified of facing Liu Bei's anger Meng Da fled straight to Cao Wei and took four thousand of his own troops with him.
Liu Feng refused to abandon his post. When he got back to Chengdu Liu Bei ordered his execution.]
Liu Feng?" Liu Bei blinked, completely baffled. "Why would my son stand by and watch his own uncle die without lifting a single finger to help?"
Back when Liu Bei had been little more than a guest in Jingzhou, he had no biological son, so he took Liu Feng in as his adopted heir. The boy had a fiery temper and loved martial arts. He used to talk all the time about leading troops into battle to take some of the burden off his father's shoulders.
"Is it possible that after A-Dou was born I paid less attention to Feng'er and he ended up holding a grudge?" Liu Bei guessed.
Guan Yu patted Liu Bei on the shoulder to comfort him. "Who can truly say what will happen ten years down the line? Besides, the screen specifically said Meng Da whispered poison in his ear. You really should not blame yourself too much, Big Brother."
Zhang Fei yelled out loud, "This Meng Da guy plays both sides! If you are going to disobey military orders, do not go running for cover when the punishment comes! What kind of man acts like that? Even if he runs over to Cao Cao's side, people are still going to laugh at him! And then he tries to betray Cao Cao later on? Pfft, just another slave of three-surname!"
Every head in the room turned toward him. Huang Zhong could not help covering his face to hide his secondhand embarrassment.
Technically speaking, even if he had never been highly valued, he was still a certified former subordinate of Liu Biao.
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[Meng Da got the VIP treatment the moment he defected to Cao Wei. That warm welcome was not just because he brought four thousand troops with him.
You have to look at the extremely sensitive timing of his move.
Remember that Wei Feng guy we talked about earlier? His rebellion had used the slogan of restoring the Han dynasty.
So Meng Da the man who turned his back on the Han in that exact same year made for the perfect propaganda poster boy for Cao Cao.
Cao Cao passed away in March of the following year. To win popular support and show how highly he valued talent Cao Pi made sure Meng Da lived in total comfort.
Once Cao Pi officially became Emperor Wen of Wei he granted Meng Da the title Marquis of Pingyangting.
He also merged the three commanderies of Fangling, Shangyong, and Xicheng into a brand new Xincheng commandery and placed Meng Da right in the governor's seat.]
Zhao Yun laughed out loud. "Yide it looks like your guess was completely off base this time. Way off."
Zhang Fei stood there with his jaw hanging loose struggling to wrap his head around the logic.
He just muttered under his breath, "If this Wei Feng guy wanted to take out Cao Cao and grab power for himself why yell about restoring the Han? The Han is right here with my Big Brother! Why not just come join us directly?"
Liu Bei thought back to the years he had spent staying in Jingzhou.
Guided by the powerful local clans Liu Biao had bypassed his eldest son to favor the younger one and in the end threw away everything he had worked for. Then the screen had laid out all the tangled politics behind Pang Tong's move from Zhou Yu's service to Liu Bei's side. The great scholarly families of Jingzhou had truly given Liu Bei a harsh but thorough lesson in local power games.
"Wei Feng probably did not care about the Han dynasty one bit,"
Liu Bei said slowly as he worked it through. "People from Jingzhou stick together and look out for their own. In the end they just made a huge gamble for a better future and Wei Feng pushed them into it."
Huang Zhong a Jingzhou local through and through felt personally targeted by that remark.
Zhuge Liang who was practically half Jingzhou by marriage and long residence also felt a little called out.
But reading on about Cao Cao's death and the way Cao Pi had redrawn the defensive map to merge old cities into the new Xincheng commandery a vague uneasy theory began to take shape in Zhuge Liang's mind.
No wonder people in later years sighed that Shu Han never got another real chance after Guan Yu's defeat at Maicheng.
What if it was because right before that terrible loss they had actually been incredibly close to total victory?
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[During his time with Cao Wei, Meng Da teamed up with Xiahou Shang to attack Liu Feng. The two became fast friends. Later, he also grew close to Huan Jie, effectively stamping himself as a favored member of the Qiao-Pei faction, Cao Wei's core military clique.
Then in 226 AD, Cao Pi passed away in Luoyang. Xiahou Shang died around the same time, and Huan Jie had already passed as well. Meng Da suddenly lost his biggest patrons. With the Qiao-Pei faction weakened beyond repair, Meng Da knew he stood on very thin ice.
After weighing his options carefully, he reached a bold decision. Why not defect back to the Han!]
"He betrayed us to join them and now he wants to flip again after barely six years. Does he change bosses way too fast?" Liu Bei shook his head in genuine disbelief.
Meng Da got the royal treatment and still jumped ship the moment things got tough. 'Was Cao Wei's grand gesture of valuing talent really that cheap? Or was the internal fighting inside their court just that brutal?'
"Ha! Just another slave of three-surname!" Zhang Fei scoffed with pure disdain.
Huang Zhong was the one who pointed out the truly shocking part. "Cao Pi ruled for only six years before dying? That is incredibly early."
That sad fact brought back painful memories of his own only son who had passed away young.
Six short years?
Zhuge Liang carried the basic timelines of all the major factions in his head with perfect precision. He did some quick mental math.
"Cao Pi died at forty?"
Dying at forty was not exactly a rare tragedy in the chaotic late Han and Three Kingdoms era. But sitting on the dragon throne for a mere six years, barely enough time to warm the seat, definitely counted as a very short reign.
Zhang Fei started pointing at everyone in the room.
"Big Brother got so angry at Lu Xun's fire attack that he passed away at sixty-three. If that had never happened, he probably would have lived way longer."
"Second Brother had terrible luck. Figuring the years, he was around sixty when he died. He could have easily lived longer too."
"Kongming, you left us at fifty-four. You did not even make it to sixty. You really need to take much better care of your health!"
"Hey, I am seventeen years older than Kongming..." Zhang Fei paused to count on his fingers. "That means I lived to be at least seventy, just like old General Huang!"
Why on earth are you suddenly competing over who lived longer!
Zhuge Liang looked at Zhang Fei with fond exasperation.
'Off the battlefield Yide had a heart of pure gold, which was the polite way to say he was completely out of his mind sometimes. And whenever he got like this...'
Right on cue!
Liu Bei did not even have the energy to rub his temples anymore. He just pursed his lips.
Guan Yu stood up without a word, grabbed Zhang Fei by the scruff of his neck, and started dragging him toward the door.
"Yide, the kitchen has not brought out the wine and food yet, but you should probably go check on them."
"I do not want to drink, second brother!"
"No, you really do want to drink. You also want to go practice your spear moves in the yard after a few cups. Be a good brother now. I will come give you a proper thrashing once we are done listening to the screen."
Laughter and easy banter filled the hall.
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[The wild part is that Meng Da's little crisis was orchestrated by the Prime Minister's masterful hand. Maybe the Shu Han intelligence network was just that good, or maybe the Prime Minister simply had an uncanny gift for reading people like an open book. Either way, he spotted Meng Da's awkward position and decided to give him a gentle nudge. He exchanged letters and gifts to build trust. Then he immediately sent a man named Guo Mo to fake a defection. The mission was simple: leak Meng Da's plan to rebel against Wei and return to Shu straight to Shen Yi.
History does not record much about Shen Yi. He and his brother Shen Dan were both made commandery governors by Cao Cao. When Liu Feng and Meng Da took control of Shangyong, Shen Yi surrendered and served under Liu Feng. Later when Xiahou Shang and Meng Da attacked Liu Feng, Shen Yi folded instantly and became Meng Da's colleague.
After his most recent surrender, Shen Yi was appointed governor of Weixing. It was a peaceful sort of place. So whenever Shen Yi had free time, he devoted himself entirely to his favorite hobby: snitching on Meng Da at every chance.
The Prime Minister's move here was not just clever. It was so obvious it might as well have been broadcast to everyone involved.]
"Shen Yi and Shen Dan."
Zhuge Liang searched his memory, digging the names out from a dusty corner of his mind. "I recall seeing references to those two brothers in official reports dating back to the first year of Chuping. They must be local strongmen who have always kept cozy with Zhang Lu. Later Cao Cao appointed Shen Dan as governor of Shangyong."
"First build trust, then send a fake defector, then leak the secret to a rival who already holds a grudge..."
Liu Bei's sharp political instincts clicked into place instantly.
"Borrowing a knife to kill a man?"
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Fun Fact: "Borrowing a Knife to Kill" Was Basically Ancient China's Favorite Indirect Kill Move
Alright, this is a perfect setup for one of the most famous—and honestly most savage—strategies in Chinese political culture:
If you think Meng Da's situation feels like he walked straight into a perfectly arranged disaster, that is because he did. What you are seeing here is a classic application of a strategy later summarized as "borrowing a knife to kill." It sounds poetic, but in practice, it is dangerously simple:
Why dirty your own hands when someone else is already holding a knife?
In everyday terms, this was not just a battlefield trick. It was a way of thinking. If there was a rival you wanted gone, the smartest move was often not to attack them directly, but to find someone who already had a reason to hate them, then quietly… encourage that situation.
Think of it as ancient political outsourcing.
In Meng Da's case, the setup is almost comedic in how clean it is.
He is already in a fragile position. His patron is dead, his faction is weakening, and he is thinking about switching sides again, which, let's be honest, is not a great look on a résumé even in the Three Kingdoms era. Now enter the perfect ingredient: Shen Yi, a man whose favorite pastime, apparently, is reporting Meng Da.
At this point, you do not need to scheme too hard. You just need to connect the dots.
So instead of launching a direct attack, Zhuge Liang does something far more elegant. He sends signals to Meng Da, builds trust, then arranges for information about Meng Da's intentions to "accidentally" reach exactly the person most likely to react badly.
No threats. No armies. No dramatic confrontation.
Just a well-placed nudge.
The beauty of this strategy lies in its deniability. If things go wrong, you can shrug and say, "I did nothing." If things go right, your enemy is gone, and someone else takes the blame, the risk, and the consequences.
From a cost-efficiency perspective, it is honestly brilliant. Zero troops lost, zero direct involvement, maximum outcome.
This method was so common that it eventually became one of the famous Thirty-Six Stratagems, a collection of military and political tricks that reads less like a rulebook and more like a guide to winning arguments you never openly participated in.
And here is the part that makes it even more interesting: it was not limited to warfare.
At court, officials used it to eliminate rivals without open conflict
Among factions, it was used to trigger internal purges
Even in local politics, it could mean turning neighbors or colleagues against each other
Basically, if someone suddenly fell from power "on their own," there was always a chance someone else had quietly handed out the knife.
What makes this strategy especially fitting for the Three Kingdoms era is the environment itself. Trust was limited, alliances were fragile, and everyone had at least one enemy. You did not need to create conflict, you just needed to guide it.
And if you look back at the chapter with this in mind, the whole thing becomes a lot funnier in a dark way.
Meng Da is sitting there, thinking he is making a careful, calculated move to switch sides again.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, someone is essentially saying:
"Don't worry, no one is going to kill you."
"…but I do know a guy who absolutely will."