Main points I could raise have already been touched on but just my two cents. In general first...
LiuBeiWasGreat wrote:I certainly understand Liu Bei's reluctance to trust his people with such important battles but sometimes that is what a great leader does. Liu Bei may be my favorite person from this time period but I understand that was was quite flawed. He achieved many great things, and made many mistakes. I believe that if he changed a few decisions, maybe worked a bit harder to make the alliance with Sun Quan work (may have been impossible as Sun Quan looked for every opportunity to screw over all his neighbors. Brilliantly done) I think Liu Bei could have achieved much more, and it is fun to speculate.
Agreed it is fun to speculate.
But it seems unfair to say the man was
flawed because he led the campaigns, given his circumstances. There are plenty of criticisms to level at him, but I don't think this is one.
Hanzhong - He absolutely needed a decisive win against Wei here, it was vital that he take the stronghold, and take it with authority. You don't just toss that at someone unproven. It's too important.
Jing - You could say in a way that Guan Yu's epic failure with Jing may have soured Liu Bei on entrusting that level of control to someone else again so soon.
There's a lot more subtext to it than Liu Bei just being some massive control freak.
On to specifics...
LiuBeiwasGreat wrote:As for why I picked Ma Chao and Fa Zheng? Despite Ma Chao's multiple military defeats he still managed to win some victories during his first attack on Tong Pass almost killing Cao Cao. I believe in most head on fights his forces defeated Cao Cao's army which is why Jia Xu and Cao Cao went with the plan to drive a wedge between Ma Chao and Han Sui. I disagree that Ma Chao was a bad general, he was mainly facing the juggernaut and didn't have the talent or powerbase to handle it. Lu Xun failed in every offensive campaign he did yet we still consider him a good general. (I consider the capture of Jing to be Lu Meng's campaign) Plus Ma Chao was his most experienced general when it came to leading large armies as he was the only one who ever did....he failed but he had experience.
How does that make Ma Chao
more appropriate than Liu Bei for the task? They both had a mediocre track record. This wasn't the sort of campaign where Liu Bei had the luxury of going with the 220 AD equivalent of "lol my knight needs a bit more XP to level up and unlock that super sweet Commander skill, let me grind him up in Hanzhong for a year".
I'm also interested in why you glossed over Fa Zheng, as he was both in the position to receive such an appointment from Liu Bei, and possibly talented enough to achieve success.
If you are referring to the ones I picked for the Jing campaign?
Well Li Yan at Liu Bei's death equalled Zhuge Liang's rank when it came to military matters. So it isn't odd to send one of the top ranked Generals to lead a campaign. Sadly the only battle that I personaly know that he was in was the capture of Shang Yong alongside of Liu Feng and Meng Da though that was less of a battle and more of them surrendering right away.
Comparing his rank to Zhuge Liang doesn't really do him any favors in the "getting things done" department. You might as well toss Zhuge Liang in the suggestion box while you're at it.
Wu Yi, was considered to be a great general that Chen Shou believed to have been unfairly suppressed by Zhuge Liang. After Zhuge Liang's death he was promoted very highly and was considered a great leader.
Could show just how much political maneuvering came into play with such matters. Liu Bei could protect someone he was fond of from politics, like Fa Zheng, but if he's more "meh" about someone (marrying his sister doesn't necessarily make them besties), then not much can be done at that point.
Huang Quan was highly regarded by Sima Yi and Cao Pi for his talent. Liu Bei also thought very highly of him. The fact that Liu Bei trusted him to defend against Wei interference during Yi Ling shows trust.
It shows trust and respect, but not necessarily ability to command a large army. A question mark, I suppose.
Wei Yan was an excellent general who won many battles over his career, the fact that Liu Bei trusted him to defend Han Zhong over Zhang Fei shows his trust and faith in his abilities.
I'm pretty sympathetic toward Wei Yan generally. I'd say he's a bit of a question mark. But if you look at the sorts of offensive campaigns that Liu Bei waged, they were quite conservative and few risks were taken. Wei Yan was of course more unorthodox, which has its advantages, but it may have been a matter of their views not lining up. Perhaps Liu Bei saw talent in him when he was reined in and kept on the defensive, but found him a liability in offensive maneuvers.
Rest wasn't directed at me but I'll comment briefly.
I don't see why Zhang Fei couldn't be trusted with an army. The year before the Han Zhong campaign he defeated Zhang He, and during the invasion of Yi he captured multiple locations and captured Yan Yan (though considering that Liu Zhang's officer's bios tend to start with the Yi campaign we don't know how impressive that is)
I think that Zhang Fei would have made a fine leader in that campaign.
Dong Zhou nailed it, he was a fine vanguard/general at this point but didn't have the best track record when given leadership roles.
I put above that I do believe that Ma Chao gets more crap then he deserves overall. I don't think he is as good as the novel suggests as he has a lot more losses then victories. However I believe context is important, many consider Sun Ce to be a brilliant general, however the vast majority of the opponents he defeated were people whose only fame was being defeated by Sun Ce. Then to be defeated by Chen Deng whose main fame consisted of secretly betraying Lu Bu, and defeating Sun Ce.
Ma Chao fought against some of the greatest talents in the land and almost killed the greatest of them all. Yes he lost but most anyone in his situation probably would have lost as well. Does that make him great? Nope, does that make him terrible? In my opinion nope. He was taken seriously by Cao Cao, to me that says something.
Seems like you're trying to bring Sun Ce down rather than elevate Ma Chao with this line of reasoning. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but it shifts the debate to Sun Ce's ability rather than whether Ma Chao was equipped to oversee Hanzhong, which doesn't really lend credence to your point. To put it another way, if you put Sun Ce in charge of Hanzhong, I imagine most people feel he would see success, Ma Chao, much cloudier future. Sun Ce having "nobody" opponents and apparently losing to Chen Deng doesn't change this.
Edit - Also, is there anyone that Cao Cao defeated who he didn't (eventually) take seriously? I feel like he learned his lesson after all of his own campaign failures from not taking someone seriously.
tl;dr - Like you said, it's fun to speculate. But even speculating about your suggestions, I don't necessarily see too many of these guys seeing that much success. Both campaigns were bold statements by Liu Bei, so to me, him leading them makes sense.