Where was Yanzhou during the Three Kingdoms period?

The end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was divided into the Three Kingdoms. The geographical environment of the Three Kingdoms was the same as that of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the administrative units in the Eastern Han Dynasty were generally used correctly during the Three Kingdoms period.

During the Three Kingdoms period, Yanzhou, as Cao Cao’s rear area, also had many major events. It can even be said to be a small microcosm of the troubled times of the Three Kingdoms. What is the origin of Yanzhou in this microcosm with the current Yanzhou? Is there any difference? Let us take a look at the past and present life of Yanzhou.

After the Han Dynasty conquered the world, it divided the world into fourteen states and set up fourteen governors. The Yanzhou governor was one of them. The administrative office was located in Puyang. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Yanzhou controlled the state. After moving to Changyi, the area under the jurisdiction of Yanzhou changed slightly from Puyang to Changyi, from the original six counties and three kingdoms to eight counties and two kingdoms. Yanzhou during this period was roughly equivalent to today's northeastern Henan and the fringe areas of Shanxi.

In the Three Kingdoms period, the situation changed a lot. We all know that during the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao came from a famous family. After the alliance against Dong fell apart, Yuan Shao, the leader of the alliance at the time, chose to go to Hebei to seek Jizhou. Yuan Shao captured Jizhou with little effort. After that, Yuan Shao had many conflicts with Gongsun Zan of Youzhou. It is known that Youzhou is in the North China Plain, so the Jizhou where Yuan Shao is located must also be in the North China Plain. Through Yuan Shao, he later and Conflict broke out between Cao Cao and the earth-shattering Battle of Guandu. It can be seen from this that during the Three Kingdoms period, Yanzhou's territory must have been close to Jizhou, so Yanzhou should include Shanxi and Shandong areas on today's map. The specific location is probably in today's southwestern Shanxi and eastern Henan.

In addition, we can find that during the Three Kingdoms period, Yanzhou was actually a place with abundant soldiers and four wars. It was attacked from the north, south, and east by other warlords many times. Of course, the only ones that fit this impression are Today's Henan area, but it is obvious that Yanzhou is not the heart of the Central Plains, so it should only include part of Henan area.

Cao Cao quickly made a fortune in Yanzhou, and after Cao Cao unified Hebei after Guandu, Cao Cao did not forget Yanzhou, the former base camp, and merged many northern states into Yanzhou. During this period, Yanzhou's power expanded rapidly , the original eight counties and two kingdoms became eight counties and three kingdoms, with the addition of the Rencheng Kingdom. According to authoritative data, the Rencheng Kingdom is located in Jining, Shandong Province today. Therefore, it can be seen that during this period, Yanzhou's territory expanded The direction of development is Shandong. Since the direction of development is Shandong, it corresponds to the general scope of society today in the central and western parts of Shandong, including western Shanxi and Henan.

In the late Three Kingdoms period when Cao Wei replaced Han Dynasty, Yanzhou, as an old large state, was decomposed: because the newly proclaimed emperor Cao Pi urgently needed a face-saving project. Cao Pi made sure that his Wei Dynasty could not be too lower than the administrative area of ??the previous Han Dynasty. Therefore, Cao Pi divided the Wei Dynasty into twelve states, which required some space for big states like Yanzhou.

The best record about Yanzhou during this period is that its seat was moved to Linqiu, Dongjun (today's Yuncheng County). This place is undoubtedly the central area of ??Shandong. It can be seen that Yanzhou continues to move south, so what jurisdiction does Yanzhou have at this time? At this time, it had eight counties: Dongjun, Jiyin, Shanyang, Lu, Rencheng, Taishan, Dongping, and Jibei. In addition, there was a country of Chenliu. Regarding Chenliu, it is worth mentioning that in Cao Wei's Zen position, Sima Later, Sima distributed Chenliuguo to the descendants of the Cao family again. It seems that Yanzhou is really destined to the Cao family.

Taken together, the geographical scope of Yanzhou during the Three Kingdoms period was extremely broad, probably including most of today's Shandong Province and parts of Henan Province. As for Shanxi, the area became less and less. Finally, in the late Three Kingdoms period, there was almost no Shanxi. area.