Now how truthful was the account in SGYY?
The brief description (from SGZ) of the saga of how Liu Bei taken over XuZhou after Tao Qian die as followed:
Cao Cao attacked XuZhou, Tao Qian request help from Gongsun Zan. Gongsun Zan dispatch Tian Kai and Liu Bei, Liu Bei arrived at XuZhou with about 1000+ troops. Liu Bei left Gongsun Zan to join Tao Qian after he was given a higher rank. Tao Qian petitioned for Liu Bei to be Administrator of YuZhou and station at XiaoPei. After Tao Qian die, and Liu Bei was made Administrator of XuZhou on the advice of Mi Zhu and Chen Deng.
From the SGZ account above, there four players in this scenario, they were Liu Bei, Mi Zhu, Chen Deng and Tao Qian.
Firstly lets examined Liu Bei bio. In SGZ-Liu Bei, it said that before Tao Qian die he told Mi Zhu that “Without Liu Bei, no peace would come to this province”, and Mi Zhu and the people of XuZhou welcomed Liu Bei. So anyone of Liu Bei’s fan could say whatever they like, but even in Liu Bei’s bio Tao Qian never said that he could take over XuZhou.
However also from Liu Bei’s bio in SGZ, it said that Chen Deng asks Liu Bei to take over Xu Zhou, but initially Liu Bei refuse. However, when Chen Deng told Liu Bei that Xu Zhou had about 1 million in population and over 100,000 in troops and Kong Rong defaming Yuan Shu that Liu Bei decided to take over Xu Zhou.
So in Liu Bei’s bio, it was never mention that Tao Qian’s will is for Liu Bei to take over XuZhou.
What does Mi Zhu’s bio said?
In Mi Zhu’s bio, all it said was that “Tao Qian die, Zhu (Mi Zhu) listened to Qian (Tao Qian) will, greet Liu Bei in Xiao Pei”. This passage also said nothing regarding Tao Qian giving Liu Bei XuZhou.
What about Tao Qian’s bio? If you wanted to learn more about Lu Bu, then read Tao Qian’s bio. In fact, unless my poor old mind failed me, I could hardly remember any mention of Liu Bei in Tao Qian’s bio.
What about Chen Deng’s bio? My suggestion is that if you are a fan of Sun Ce then don’t read Chen Deng’s bio. Unfortunately, Chen Deng’s bio also does not have anything on Liu Bei.
Also from Liu Bei’s bio, it did mentions that Mi Zhu and the people of XuZhou welcome Liu Bei in. According to Chen Deng, XuZhou had about 1 million population, now even if this is true, it does not mean that the city of Xuzhou itself had 1 million in population. A rough estimate would be somewhere around 150,000 to 250,000. Mi Zhu was mentioned to be a very wealthy person with over 10,000 servants. If 10,000 of Mi Zhu’s servant would come out of the city and welcome Liu Bei, then what do you think the other people in the city would do? Some probably wouldn’t even care lest, however most probably join the crowd to see what all the fusses is about. From that, could anyone say that the people of XuZhou actually loved Liu Bei?
So one question come to mind, did Tao Qian actually gives Liu Bei XuZhou or Liu Bei actually steal XuZhou by using Mi Zhu's trickery?
