Geographical environment factors and the historical process of the Three Kingdoms in the late Han Dynasty

Ma Qiang is an associate professor in the Department of Cultural Communication, Shaanxi University of Technology

At the end of the Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms were in the transition period from the unification of the Qin and Han dynasties to the division and war of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. The Eastern Han Dynasty began to collapse in the famous Yellow Turban Peasant Uprising, and history entered the Three Kingdoms Era. Regarding the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the formation, confrontation, and end of the Three Kingdoms situation, and the political and military successes and failures of the Three Kingdoms, the academic circles have discussed and studied in depth from many aspects of politics, economy, ideology, and military for many years. However, any historical activity takes place in a specific period, a specific geographical environment and an ecological background, and the history of the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty is no exception. From the perspective of history and geography, this paper makes a new analysis of the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the military wars of the Three Kingdoms period, and the folk religion.

1. Natural disasters and the crisis of the Eastern Han Dynasty

According to the fluctuation of climate change in ancient China revealed by the famous phenologist Zhu Ke, the Three Kingdoms of the Eastern Han Dynasty are in the second period of great climate fluctuation in three generations. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the most prominent ecological abrupt change was the frequent occurrence of natural disasters; At the same time, the Eastern Han Dynasty was also a stage of frequent natural disasters in history, and the records of earthquakes, wind disasters, snow disasters, and locust plagues increased abnormally. After the Eastern Han Dynasty Heng and Ling, abnormal geographical phenomena were prominent, plagues were frequently prevalent, and natural and man-made disasters followed, which brought increasingly serious psychological panic to the Eastern Han Dynasty society, which was already prevalent in Huiwei superstition. The Yellow Turban Peasant Rebellion took advantage of natural disasters and social panic to take advantage of the opportunity; Among them, the plague epidemic was the fuse that led to the Yellow Turban civil unrest.

Although plague mainly affects the human body and is an infectious disease with strong epidemic and social harm, it is actually caused by the ecological imbalance in the relationship between man and land, and is closely related to the background of ecological variation such as climate, floods, and early disasters. At the end of the Han Dynasty, people already knew about this. Cao Zhi's "Speaking of Epidemic Qi" clearly said that the epidemic occurred because "yin and yang are out of place, and the cold and heat are wrong, and it is the epidemic that arises". Therefore, it also falls within the scope of natural disasters. In history, Emperor Shun of the Han Dynasty was built for four years, "the locust in six states, the epidemic was epidemic"; In the spring of the first year of Emperor Heng Yuanjia, "the great epidemic of the Beijing Division,...... Jiujiang and Lujiang epidemics"; During the reign of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, there were five large-scale epidemics. During the raging epidemic, families were ruined and people died, and the consequences were very tragic, such as the tragic situation depicted in Cao Zhi's "Speaking of Epidemic Qi": "Every family has the pain of a corpse, and there is a cry of mourning in the room, or the door is closed and the family is killed." The Yellow Turban secretly gathered people in Taiping Dao, that is, to cure diseases as a call. The eighth note of the "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms" quotes the "Dictionary" and says: Zhang Jiao Taiping said: "The teacher holds the nine sections of the battle as a blessing, and teaches the patient to kowtow and think. ”； And Zhang Lu's practice of implementing the Five Buckets of Rice Dao in Hanzhong is also "adding a quiet room to make the patient think about his mistakes". At the end of the Han Dynasty, there was also an outbreak of plague in the Chengdu Plain, and the Heavenly Master Dao became popular in Shu. Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin Dynasty "The Legend of the Immortals" said that Zhang Daoling created the Heavenly Master Dao in Shu, and the reason is also the so-called "first tens of thousands of devils in Shu, the city during the day, the epidemic is good at it, and the people have been urging it for a long time." After Zhang Daoling entered Shu, he practiced spells to disperse the demons, "so the netherworld is exotic, and people and ghosts have different paths." Aside from the mysterious elements of religious rendering, it also reflects the fact that the Heavenly Master Tao preached in Shu by healing diseases. It is under the background of the epidemic and the dire life of the people, Zhang Jiao and others have long used the name of curing diseases and exorcisms to form a group of people in the secret organization of the people, and finally played the banner of "the sky is dead, the yellow sky should stand, the age is in Jiazi, and the world is auspicious", in 184 AD, 36 parties, on the same day, caused the Yellow Turban Uprising, a storm of popular rebellion that swept the whole country, and thus sounded the death knell of the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

2. Introduction to the geographical environment and the political separation of the three countries

The role of geography in the formation of ancient China's political and military pattern has begun to attract the attention and attention of more and more scholars in the fields of history, ancient literature and economic history. The geographical environment includes two levels: the natural ecological environment and the human geographical environment. Among them, regional natural landform, topographical factors, regional social psychology and people's character have different degrees of influence on the ancient historical process led by war in different time and space backgrounds. The role of geographical environment factors in restricting the military war of the three countries and in political confrontation and balancing is very prominent. The Yellow Turban Uprising, the merger and annexation of the war, the battle of Chibi and the battle of Dingjun Mountain, the three separatist regimes of Wei, Shu and Wu soon appeared, in fact, it is the embodiment of the differentiation of the three natural geographical and cultural regions of the Central Plains, Bashu and Jingyang in the military strategic map since the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The Yellow River Basin, the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were controlled by Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan respectively, and history entered the famous Three Kingdoms era. The formation of the situation of the Three Kingdoms was not only due to the balance of political and military forces of the warlords in the late Han Dynasty, but also closely related to the geographical environment of the three regions. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the first to form a division in the country was the Bashu region. Shu is located in the southwest, the four are dangerous, there are Qinling, Bashan in the north, Wushan, Xiajiang in the east, it is far away from the national political center of Kyoto Luoyang Mountain, the Chengdu Plain is fertile for thousands of miles, the economy is rich, the supply is sufficient, once the world is ****, the central control of the local force is weakened, it is often easy to sit on the risk of separation. As early as the Han Dynasty, Gongsun Shu occupied the land of Bashu, which opened a precedent for Qin to divide Shu after unifying China. At the beginning of the great turmoil in the world at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Yan was the first to dominate Chengdu, and Zhang Lu closed Hanzhong and took the lead in announcing the split with the Eastern Han Dynasty. Later, Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang were able to compete with Cao Wei with the weakest strength of the three parties, performing six heroic dramas of Qishan and Cao Wei in the Northern Expedition, and could maintain Shu and Han politics in southwest China for more than 40 years. Just as Zhang Hua of the Western Jin Dynasty commented on the strategic geography of Shu and Han, he said: "The land of Shu Han is in the same domain as Qin, the south spans the hair, the north is obstructed, the west is limited, and the sword pavilion is separated, the poverty is extremely steep, and the country is guarded alone." Cao Cao's power originated in North China and Shandong, and most of the Kanto region was plain and flat, which was suitable for cavalry to carry out a war of annihilation and assembly of troops, and the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River Plain was the country's economic center of gravity and the largest population density area at that time, which provided a good military stage and military source conditions for Cao Cao to unify the north. Therefore, after the battle of Guandu annihilated Yuan Shao's main force, Cao Cao soon unified the north, dominated the Central Plains, and occupied the six states of Chong, Henan, Qing, Xu, Hebei, and Yong in Kyushu at that time; From the perspective of political geography, some scholars have pointed out that the reason why Cao Cao quickly unified northern China was not only due to political and economic reasons, but also because the Huanghuai and Haihe Plains were a regional whole and could not be divided. The result of the battle of the heroes can only be the victory of the strongest, and it is impossible to be divided and not unified for a long time." This is indeed quite insightful. Cao Cao's group suffered an unprecedented defeat in the Battle of Chibi, the main reason is that the war took place in the ancient Yunmengze lake and marsh area, and it is also the schistosomiasis epidemic area in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, which is a natural unfavorable geographical condition for the Cao army with the northern soldiers as the main body and fighting on the cavalry plain, as a result, at the beginning of the war, the weakness of the Cao soldiers who are not accustomed to water warfare is exposed, such as Zhou Yu said that "Cao She saddles a horse, fights a boat, wades between rivers and lakes, and is not accustomed to water and soil", it will be defeated, and it will soon be infected with the plague, and the losses will be heavy, Cao Cao had no choice but to flee back to the north in embarrassment, and the Cao chariot that unified Jiangnan was also forced to stop. After Sun Wu crossed to the south, Dingding Jiankang (now Nanjing), the military strategy was to rely on the Yangtze River natural risk, and the north was Cao Wei; Heavy troops were stationed at the east entrance of the Three Gorges to base Shu Han; Second, Sun Wu owned Jing and Yang, and almost most of Jiangnan China was a wide rear area, but the Yangtze River was still Sun Wu's most important defense line. The Battle of Chibi and the Battle of Yiling were all related to the survival of Wu, and the two major battles of Sun and Wu were both based on the southern soldiers accustomed to water warfare, and took advantage of the wide and surging Yangtze River to defeat the enemy and win, turning the danger into a disaster, and establishing the Sun Wu regime to gain a firm foothold in the south of the Yangtze River. From the perspective of social environment, in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, when the northern region was in turmoil and economic ruin, the southwest Bashu and the southeast Jiangzuo were relatively calm, and "the population and economic status have risen compared with the north in the whole country, and this situation has strengthened the power of confrontation with the north", which is also an important human geography factor that contributed to the formation of the situation of the Three Kingdoms.

3. The influence of geographical environment on the history of the Three Kingdoms

Influence of geomorphological and topographic factors. The constraints of the geographical environment on military warfare are obvious, and military strategists of all generations have attached great importance to the understanding of the terrain, and in the "Art of War", there is a "Topography Chapter" dedicated to the importance of terrain in the battle, and how the soldiers can fully study and master the terrain before the war to formulate strategies. During the Three Kingdoms period, topographical factors constrained the war, and the most typical one was the Qinling Mountains, which confronted Wei and Shu. The Qinling Mountains are tall and steep, spanning between the Guanzhong Plain and the Hanzhong Basin, and it is called "the great obstacle of the world" as early as in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas". The confrontation between Qin and Shu, Ba, Yong, and Chu during the Warring States Period, and the offensive and defensive advances and retreats of Liu Bang and Xiang Yu during the Chu and Han dynasties, all took advantage of the natural dangers of the Qinling Mountains. During the Three Kingdoms period, the Qinling Mountains and the difficult transportation conditions between the Qinling Mountains played a particularly obvious role in the military geography of the Wei and Shu Wars of the Three Kingdoms. On the one hand, it had an important restraining and delaying effect on Cao Cao's unification strategy, on the other hand, Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Jiang Wei, etc. made full use of the Qinling Mountains as a natural barrier, not only successfully blocked and defended Cao Wei from entering Shu, but also took Hanzhong as the base, used the Qinling Mountains to attack the east and the west, and continued to march north with the troops of weak countries for many years, with the move of "six out of Qishan" and "nine expeditions to the Central Plains". In the twentieth and twenty-fourth years of Jian'an, Cao Cao twice led his troops west to conquer Hanzhong, an important town in the north of Shudi, one was to conquer and surrender Zhang Lu, and the other was to solve the defeat and death of Xiahou Yuan in the Battle of Dingjun Mountain. According to the forces that the Cao clan had at that time, it was very likely that the Liu Bei group would be strangled in the first place. It is true that when Cao Cao first marched westward, incorporated Zhang Lu and occupied Hanzhong, "Shuzhong counted several police officers a day", causing great panic. However, Cao Cao finally left only a small number of troops to defend Hanzhong, and withdrew north to Guanzhong; The second time he conquered Hanzhong through the Bao Slope Road, he seemed to have less confidence in attacking Shu Han, and finally left a sigh of "chicken ribs" and retreated, and finally gave up Hanzhong. Carefully studying the reasons for Cao Cao's two expeditions to the west, it is not difficult to find that this general, who had fought in the Central Plains and was repeatedly defeated, was not suitable for mountain warfare, so he was often at a loss in Hanzhong. The first time to fight Zhang Lu, Cao Cao took the Chencang Road, the result from Sanguan to Yangping (now Wuhou Town, Mian County), all the way to the difficult and slow march, and constantly encountered the Qiang, the indigenous armed resistance, after the soldiers to the western edge of the Hanzhong Basin, the soldiers were tired and tired, and they wanted to withdraw their troops, but only because of accidental events to take advantage of the chaos to capture Yangping, enter Nanzheng, and surrender Zhang Lu. The second westward march, in Hanzhong and Liu Bei confronted for several months, the bitter undefeated Liu Jice, actually lamented that Nanzheng retreated north for the "heavenly prison", the reason is still extremely unsuitable for the terrain of the Qinba Mountains. Many scholars believe that Cao Cao's abandonment of Hanzhong is tantamount to giving up a great opportunity to seize Shuzhong, so it is difficult to realize the great cause of unifying the southwest. Among them, the reason is mostly attributed to the eagerness to return to Xuchang to force the emperor to usurp power on behalf of the Han Dynasty, and he has no intention of fighting in Hanzhong. In fact, if we analyze the specific physical geography and traffic conditions of the Qinling Mountains, we will find that this insight does not grasp the crux of the problem. It can be said that the neglect of understanding the geographical characteristics of the Qinling Mountains and the clumsiness of mountain warfare were the main reasons for the failure of Cao Cao's two western expeditions. On the other hand, if Cao Cao occupied Hanzhong and gathered heavy troops to capture the Chengdu Plain in Shuzhong in one fell swoop, it is obvious that the history of the Three Kingdoms will be rewritten. Historically, since Guanzhong attacked Shu is very

There are few successful ones, because the northerners, who are long in fighting in the plains, find it difficult to adapt to the special terrain of the Qinling Mountains, and they often fall into a dilemma here. The facts of the battle between Wei and Shu in the Three Kingdoms show that the military geography of the Qinba Mountains has different difficulties and effects on strategic offensives in the north and south directions. From south to north, the Qinling Mountains are effective natural shelters; From north to south, the Qinling Mountains are often a natural obstacle that is difficult to overcome.

Of course, the constraints of the geographical environment on the war are also dialectical, on the one hand, the Qinling Mountains successfully shielded the safety of the Hanzhong Basin and the Shuzhong Plain, but at the same time, it also created fatal difficulties for the transportation of grain and grass for Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition. According to the "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, Shu Shu, Zhuge Liang Biography", four of the six Qishan battles were forced to retreat because of the difficult transportation of the Qinling Plank Road and the difficulty of grain and grass. Even if Zhuge Liang invented the wooden ox and flowing horse, it was difficult to work in the actual Northern Expedition. Some scholars believe that the reason for the repeated failures of Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition was that he was too cautious in using his troops, making a detour to Qishan to march and vetoing Wei Yan's military strategy of leaving the Meridian Valley. In fact, it is a comment made by not being familiar with the actual situation of the geographical and transportation routes of the plank roads in the Qinling Mountains, not to mention that there is no horizontal branch line between Baogu and Meridian Road, the north entrance of Meridian Road has approached the suburbs of Chang'an, and Cao Wei has always had a heavy defense, even if he dares to send troops to fight the Meridian Road, it is difficult to defeat the enemy with the tired division of Shu Han under the defense of the Wei army. And take the first line of Qishan, the terrain is relatively flat, Tianshui County in Longxi is a famous wheat-producing area since the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the local mixed clan, Qiang and Cao Wei have always been at odds, can be used, so Zhuge Liang chose to send troops to Qishan, from the upper reaches of Weishui to the east, into the pass, in order to slow down the progress of victory, it is a feasible strategy. Of course, in this way, the progress of the war is relatively slow, and it is difficult to achieve results in the short term. For Zhuge Liang, it is really a dilemma. But in any case, the Qinling Mountains played a great role in the forty-year-long confrontation between Shu and Wei. In fact, it has always "had a direct and powerful demarcation effect", and thus it has become a natural military demarcation line between the two countries.

Climatic factors. Historical geographers have found that the wars in Chinese history have a certain functional correspondence with the fluctuation of cold and hot climate, that is, the cold period in history is prone to ethnic wars, epidemics and social unrest. The occurrence and success of military wars undoubtedly have a great relationship with climatic factors, which have been repeatedly confirmed in historical examples such as Chen Sheng at the end of the Qin Dynasty, the peasant rebellion in Wuguang, the peasant uprising of Li Zicheng in northern Shaanxi at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the Waterloo War of Napoleon in France. The climate of the Three Kingdoms period was in the cold period of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties in the history of Chinese climatology, and severe cold weather often occurred in the Jiangnan region, which has always been warmer. In October of the sixth year of the Huang Dynasty (225), Emperor Wen of Wei Cao Pi went south to Guangling (Yangzhou) to inspect the naval exercises, but returned due to the freezing of the Huai River. "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Zhi" Volume 2 "Emperor Wen" cloud: "In winter and October, Xingxing Guangling Ancient City, Linjiang watched the soldiers, more than 100,000 soldiers, and hundreds of clan flags. It's a big cold, the waterway is icy, and the boat can't be flooded, but it is returned." This is the first time in the history of the Huai River that it has been frozen. Volume 2 of "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms: Wu Zhi": In the first month of spring in the fourth year of Sun Quan Chiwu (241), in the Jiangnan area, "the snow flat is three feet deep, and most of the birds and beasts died"; In February of the second year of Sun Wu Taiping (257), there was also snowfall in the Jiankang area, which caused Sun Liang to issue an edict of "amnesty" ("Three Kingdoms: Wu Zhi", vol. 3). Even in the third year of Sun Quan Jiahe (234), there was a strange cold and low temperature of "September Shuo, frost kills the valley". This is true in the south, and the cold in the north goes without saying. However, the climatic characteristics of the Three Kingdoms period were not completely dry and cold, but appeared in an alternating state of cold and wet. In southwest China, rainfall does not decrease during the cold season, but tends to increase. The cold and rainy climate of the Three Kingdoms period also had a typical impact on the success or failure of the wars between Wei, Shu and Wu. For example, after Cao Cao's death, Cao Wei continued to launch an attack on Shu Han, and in the eighth year of Jianxing (230), "Sima Yi from Xicheng, Zhang He from Ziwu, and Cao Zhen from Xiegu, wanting to attack Hanzhong" Under the strict battle of Prime Minister Liang in Chenggu Chihan, coupled with "heavy rain", the result was "all the truth" ("Three Kingdoms, Shu Zhi", vol. 3, "Hou Zhu"), and the national crisis of Shu Han was temporarily resolved. Many years later, Cao Wei still mentioned the failure of this military operation caused by the rain: "In the battle of the Meridian in the past, the soldiers traveled hundreds of miles and it rained, the bridge pavilion was destroyed, the grain was corrupted, and the former military county (hanging) was lacking", so he was forced to retreat. In addition, in the Battle of Chibi and the Battle of Zhongting, the defeats of Cao Cao and Liu Bei were related to the unsuitable climate.

The healing and effects of the Three Kingdoms period. The Three Kingdoms period was the peak period of frequent natural disasters in China's history, with cold climates and frequent wars, which often led to plague epidemics. The plague, in turn, had varying degrees of impact on the religious, military, economic, and even social mentality of the Three Kingdoms period. The terms "plague" and "disease" recorded in ancient documents often refer to epidemic infectious diseases, and their pathogenic mechanisms and types of diseases have not yet been fully verified, but there is no doubt that they have existed for a long time as a natural disaster that is extremely harmful to human beings. According to the statistics of relevant literature, the number of epidemics in the entire Three Kingdoms period was as many as 22, which had a great relationship with the military victory or defeat of the Three Kingdoms and the reduction of population, so it also relatively slowed down the process of war. In the famous Battle of Chibi, Cao's army, which had an absolute advantage in troops, was defeated in the end, in addition to the soldiers who were not accustomed to water warfare, the outbreak of plague in the army was a major reason. "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, Shu Zhi, and the Biography of the First Lord" contains: Liu Bei and Cao Cao "fought in Chibi, broke it, and burned their boats." The first lord and the Wu army marched together by land and water, and chased to Nanjun. When there was another epidemic, the northern army died, and Cao Gong returned". In his later years, Sun Quan was reckless in his military and wanted to attack Zhuya (present-day Hainan Island) and Yizhou (present-day Taiwan). The famous minister Quan Cong advised, "The right does not listen, the military marches through the years, and the soldiers die of the epidemic, nine times out of ten, the right deeply regrets it." As a result, the two places were not captured, but the Wu army lost its troops and returned defeated; The most typical is that in the second year of Sun Wu Jianxing (253), Zhuge Ke led 200,000 troops to besiege Cao Wei Hefei New Town, which lasted for months, when it was the height of summer, and the plague broke out in the army. The protracted wars of the Three Kingdoms period and the fact that both sides were often difficult to win were not unrelated to the frequent outbreaks of epidemics.

The plague also contributed to the prevalence of religion in the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty, Taoism with sorcerers and monks as the main body was very popular. If we examine the environmental factors at that time, we will find that this phenomenon is based on the social background of the plague epidemic that caused a large number of deaths. As mentioned earlier, the Three Kingdoms period was a period of high incidence of natural disasters since the Qin and Han dynasties, and the number of plagues recorded in literature was as high as 22. The death of the population due to the plague was no less than the decrease in population in the war. In the 22nd year of Jian'an, there was a great plague in the Central Plains, and four people died of the famous "Seven Sons of Jian'an". Later, Emperor Cao of Wei Wen recalled this incident and said sadly: "In the past, the epidemic caused many disasters in the past. Xu, Chen, Ying, and Liu all passed away, and the pain is evil!" The epidemic that occurred in the Luoyang area at the end of the Three Kingdoms took the lives of almost half of the people in the area. "Jin Shu Wudi Ji" contains, in December of the first year of Xianning (275), "it is a monthly epidemic, and most of the dead in Luoyang." Cao Zhi said in "Speaking of the Epidemic": "In the twenty-second year of Jian'an, there was an epidemic of disease, and every family had the pain of zombies, and the room had the sorrow of crying, or the door was closed, or the family was mourned". These social disasters caused by natural disasters will inevitably bring profound changes to people's beliefs and social psychology.

The Tao of Heavenly Masters, which was popular in the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty, was called to preach immortality and to gather people to cure diseases and diseases, which was very attractive to the common people who were in the midst of war and plague at that time. "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Shu, Zhang Lu Biography" contains: "Zhang Lu divided the five buckets of rice in Hanzhong," taught the people with ghosts, and called himself Shijun. Those who came to learn the Tao, all of them were famous ghosts at the beginning, and they received the Tao, and they had signaled the sacrificial wine, and the leaders and subordinates, most of them were the head of the big sacrificial wine, and they were all taught to be honest and not to cheat. Surrender yourself when you are sick. Most of them are similar to yellow scarves. All the sacrificial wine is a righteous house, and now the pavilion is passed on. And put the righteous rice and meat hanging in the righteous house, the traveler measures the abdomen and takes enough, if there is too much, the ghost road will be sick. Those who break the law will then be executed. Regardless of the chiefs, they all take sacrificial wine as the rule, and the people will be happy, and they will be based on Ba and Han for 30 years." "Zhang Lu Biography" Pei Note quoted the "Dictionary" also said: "In the early Xi Pingzhong, the demon thief rose up, Zhang Xiu in the Han Dynasty was the Taiping Dao, Zhang Jiao was the five buckets of rice Dao, and the Taiping Taoist Master held the nine-section scepter as the Fu Zhu, and taught the patient to kowtow and think about it, because he drank it with Fu water." Those who are sick or self-healing will be believed. If it does not heal, then the cloud does not believe." The first section of this article quotes Ge Hong's "Legend of the Immortals", which has also pointed out that Zhang Daoling's creation of the Heavenly Master Dao in Heming Mountain, Dayi, Shuzhong, mainly took advantage of the epidemic in Shu to attract the people with the call to dispel demons and diseases. In the classic "Taiping Sutra" of "Heavenly Master Dao", many places emphasize the principles and methods of life and health, qi cultivation and longevity, and prevention and control of epidemic qi, which is obviously deliberately aimed at the Du Hui psychology of the people at that time who were afraid of diseases and avoided disasters. This is also the prevalence of the early spread of Heavenly Masters

important reasons. After the Three Kingdoms, a branch of the Heavenly Master Dao spread to Jingxiang and Jiangnan along the Han River, and was widely spread in Jiangnan through the transformation of Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin Dynasty; One spread from Hanzhong to Guan and Long, and the power of the Wuhu and Sixteen Kingdoms was very hot. It was not until the Northern Wei Dynasty Kou Qianzhi's "purge of Taoism" that it was abolished in the north.

To sum up, the impact of the geographical environment of the Three Kingdoms period on the political, military, and economic aspects of the Three Kingdoms is obvious. It has deeply marked the historical process of the Three Kingdoms with the imprint of the times, and natural factors have obvious restraining forces on the success or failure of regional social, political, military, and religious growth. However, we should not overstate the influence of geography, let alone the decisive role. For example, in the same geographical environment, why did the Hanzhong defense line, which was personally deployed by Zhuge Liang and held by the Shu Han army and people for nearly half a century, quickly collapse under the attack of Zhong Hui at the end of the Shu Han Dynasty, so that the Wei army drove straight into the destruction of the Shu Han regime? In the same waterway of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, why did Liu Bei's Eastern Expedition defeat Yiling, while Wang Jun at the end of the Three Kingdoms went down the river from Chengdu, but he was able to break out of the Three Gorges and quickly destroy Dongwu? This fully shows that the geographical environment does not play a decisive role in the political and military success or failure of an era. The decisive factor in the course of history is still the subjective initiative of people in politics and military affairs. But at the same time, as Braudel said, the geographical environment factor is not only a static stage background for historical activities, but also an important participating force in the historical process, and the subjective initiative of human beings in history has its energy limit, and sometimes it often cannot exceed the constraints of the natural environment. This is perhaps the greatest revelation from the study of the historical process of the Three Kingdoms from the perspective of geographical environment.

Ma Qiang is an associate professor in the Department of Cultural Communication, Shaanxi University of Technology