Liu Zhang

Liu Zhang; named in passing as Imperial Protector of Yi Province.

Liu Zhang; named in passing in the regional roll.

Liu Zhang; named in passing in the regional roll.

Named as the price of Jingzhou: 'Liu Zhang in Yizhou is ignorant and weak, and my master will attack him' - when the west falls, the IOU matures.

The unattackable pretext: 'Liu Zhang of Yizhou is my lord's younger brother' - the blood tie Zhuge Liang wields against rendition, and the fiction the borrowed-road army pretends to march for.

The letter's verdict on the western war: 'Imperial Protector Liu Zhang may be weak within, but he is strong enough to defend himself' - the argument that breaks Zhou Yu's last hope.

Liu Zhang; Yi Province lord; warned by his officers about the Cao Cao threat now closing on his northern border. Sets up his appeal to Zhang Lu / Liu Bei.

Swallows Zhang Song's plan whole: rejects Huang Quan, Wang Lei, and Li Hui in turn ('any other who shall oppose me shall suffer death'), rides out with thirty thousand troops to welcome the man who will dispossess him, and sends Zhang Song a green silk robe and five hundred ounces of gold for arranging it.

Saved at his own banquet by Zhang Ren's counter-dance ('why wear swords at all at a meeting of two brothers?'), he disarms his officers and clings to the brotherhood — then begs Liu Bei to defend Jiameng Pass against Zhang Lu, lets his generals talk him into garrisoning River Fu Pass with Yang Huai and Gao Pei, and goes home to Chengdu.

Talked out of the troop grant by Liu Ba and Huang Quan, he sends Liu Bei four thousand worn-out soldiers and a paltry ration — the insult that ends the brotherhood. After Zhang Su exposes Zhang Song, he beheads the whole Zhang household, orders every pass sealed against Jingzhou, and sends Liu Gui and Zhang Ren, then his son Liu Xun with Wu Yi, to hold Luocheng.

Off-stage — recalled only as the Imperial Protector who shaved Peng Yang's head and fettered him into a monastery for blunt speech; his generals fight the chapter for him.

Rejects Zheng Du's scorched-earth plan ('I have never heard of disturbing the people in order to oppose an enemy'), tears up Fa Zheng's surrender letter, sends his brother-in-law Fei Guan with Li Yan and thirty thousand to Mianzhu — and, at Dong He's urging, swallows his feud and begs help from Zhang Lu.

Swoons at the sight of Ma Chao under his wall, and surrenders against Dong He's counsel with the line that redeems him: 'we have fought for three years — the grass has been stained with the blood of my people; the fault is mine.' Hands over seal and archives, and is sent honorably to Gongan with the title General Who Spreads Prestige.

Liu Zhang; long-deposed; named in passing.

Named in the chapter's closing couplet, as the exact precedent for what is about to happen at Chengdu: 'The closing days of the Latter Ruler were / As had been those of Liu Zhang.' The man Liu Bei took the River Lands from in ch65, invoked as the pattern for losing them.

Named in the closing elegy - the lord of the River Lands whose inheritance Liu Bei took and whose fate the ch117 couplet said the Latter Ruler would share.