Chen Shi

Chen Shi
Traditional Chinese	陳式
Simplified Chinese	陈式
Transcriptions

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Chen.

Chen Shi was a military general serving under the warlord Liu Bei during the late Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history.

Biography

Not much was known about Chen, but he indeed participated in the two most important campaigns of Liu Bei: the Hanzhong Campaign, and the Battle of Xiaoting. Despite being treated as one of the small potatoes by most modern researchers, Chen was highly valued by Liu as evidenced by his role in the wars he took part in.

Service under Liu Bei

During the Hanzhong Campaign against Cao Cao, Chen was given command of ten camps, and was tasked to cut the connection between Nanzheng (where Cao Cao's generals, Xiahou Yuan and Zhang He stationed their troops) and Chang'an (which served as a grain depot). However, Xiahou had placed Xu Huang in Mamengge to keep check on his supply line; when Chen was leading his troops through a mountainous terrain, he encountered Xu, and was dealt a major defeat wherein many Shu soldiers fell from the cliff and died. Although being badly defeated, Chen continued to support Liu in the campaign, and assisted him to reach ultimate military objective in conquering Hanzhong region.

After Guan Yu lost Jing Province to the southern warlord, Sun Quan, Liu Bei was furious and launched an all-out assault on Sun. Chen was assigned as the Naval Commander (or Deputy Naval Commander) along Wu Ban to lead the navy downstream the Yangtze River to attack Yiling. Chen and Wu achieved initial success on their mission as the Sun forces under Lu Xun's command performed a strategic retreat. Liu controlled the high rounds along the way and set up numerous camps with wooden barricades protecting each; Chen guarded the water passages and Huang Quan stationed on the northern bank to prevent any interruption from the state of Cao Wei. By the time, the Shu Han forces thought they would score a complete victory, and challenged the Sun forces several times, but Lu Xun did not make any move. However, Lu was actually waiting the Shu emperor to relocate his best troops into the forests when summer came, because Lu had noticed a fatal mistake committed by Liu: Liu distributed his troops in over 50 camps along the 350 km line from Wuxia to Yiling on the banks of Yangtze River, and had his camps linked with mainly wooden fortifications. When autumn arrived, the grandiose display of Liu's camps was destroyed by Lu's fire attack. Meantime, Chen lost the control of upstream Yangtze to Sun’s generals, Song Qian and Zhu Ran, and went into Ma'an Hills to rendezvous with the remnants of Liu. They were caught up and besieged on the top of a mountain, but was able to sneak out under the cover of night, and successfully fled to Baidicheng to recuperate.

Service under Zhuge Liang

When the regent of Shu, Zhuge Liang, launched his first Northern Expedition, an unusual scenario befell Chen Shi^[1], as he was placed under the inexperienced Ma Su as a subordinate general to guard the strategic Jieting, where Ma's force was annihilated by the enemy. Even being the most favored assistant of Zhuge, Ma was blamed as the cause of the failure of the entire campaign; thus, he was executed by Zhuge in tears, and four subordinate generals including Chen, whom Ma commanded during the siege of Jieting, were also held responsible and were punished severely. Chen’s penalty could be said to be comparably light to his executed comrades as he only got all his hairs shaved.

Being a man without hairs looked funny and was shameful in the world Chen lived,^[2] yet, he was able to overcome this inglorious page of his life, and actively joined Zhuge's 2nd invasion in 229. Upon the painful lesson from Jieting, Zhuge finally used Chen, who was valued by Liu Bei, to be the vanguard. Chen led his troops into Wudu and Yinping commanderies, while Zhuge led the main force to Jianwei County. Cao Rui's general, Guo Huai, planned to attack Chen, but aborted the operation when he received intelligence that Zhuge had led a sizable army to the northwest of Chen's position. Thus, Chen conquered the two commanderies without much resistance.

Death, and relationship with Chen Shou

Historically, besides a trusted general of Liu Bei, Chen Shi was also one of the few Shu generals who achieved some merits during Zhuge's ill-fated northern expeditions. However, the fact that he was not given a separate biography by Chen Shou in his Records of Three Kingdoms, makes people suspect they were somehow related. As recorded, Chen Shou's father was punished by Zhuge Liang, so researchers in later dynasties deduced Chen Shi was the father of the Jin Dynasty historian, Chen Shou; however, such claim is lack of precise historical support.

In fiction

In Luo Guanzhong's historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Chen was captured at the Battle of Mount Dingjun by Xiahou Yuan's forces, but was released in exchange for Xiahou Shang, who was captured by Liu Bei's forces. In the same novel, during the third Northern Campaign of Zhuge Liang, he tried to lay his failure to Wei Yan however Zhuge already knew the truth that Chen Shi tried to blame Yan, he was executed by Zhuge.

See also

• List of people of the Three Kingdoms

Notes

1. ^ Liu Bei specifically told Zhuge Liang not to delegate much authority to Ma Su, who Zhuge publicly favored.
2. ^ The dominant philosophy of China at the time, Confucianism believed that the body, as well as the hairs and skin, were present from one's parents; thus, they should not be harmed, or abandoned lightly.

References

• Chen Shou. Records of Three Kingdoms.

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Name	Chen, Shi
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Date of birth	181
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