he didnt really do anything bad until huang hao came around and technically it was huang hao who ruined the kingdom.

Thats correct he didn't do anything bad but he also didn't do anything which makes him bad.

Liu Shan is the ruler of a kingdom. He allowed Huang Hao to gain power, revelled in pleasure, neglected court duties, made loyal officials disillusioned, ignored loyal advice, demoted those who spoke up, promoted the sycophants, let Jiang Wei do his crap....

Under-rated?

There are evil ppl everywhere, a leader needs to know who to use and discipline himself.

If Liu Shan met Liu Bei in the underworld and all those who died for the cause of Shu i don't think that excuse would really cut it.

I agree though Shu had been greatly weakened from Kongming's Northern Campaigns Liu Shan still could have done more. Of course there was no way he could have beaten Wei he still could have put up more of a resistance. You know go out fighting for the cause of Shu. I hope Xuande's still slapping him around at the Nine Springs.

liu chan is a very nice person, with people like zhugeliang (loyal), the country should be good

are you all talking about the novel or real history?

In general, sichuanese doesn't over complain Liu Shan for his surrender saved a lot of lives, and take the truth that Liu's Han had come to its end after the numerous tragical expedition. It does not contradict to the custom admiring ZhuGe Wuhou.

There is a very unique phenomenon in history,Shu people fought both extremely tough and weak. It depend on what the situation was.

●To be unified, each time the Shu just took a symbolistic fight.

Song : as a famous poetry decribed "Ten hundred thousand armymen took off their armor and surrender at the same time, none of them should be regard as "male" "十万大军齐卸甲，竟无一人是男儿“
Ming, PLA's marching were best examples.


●To resist non-han and alien's invasion, Shu people fought to the the last drop blood with extremely passion.
Mongol's: Diaoyu City(钓鱼城)
Manchu's: over 95% Sichuanese died in the successive wars（湖广填四川）
WWII: ....


I've focused on something no relevancy too much but which lead to my conclusion that Liu Shan was a wise king who often appears somekind idiot.(大智若愚）He knows the trend and always been a merciful ruler reduce exhaust of people brought by wars.He allowed the Jiang Wei's expedition, but restrict the army's size each time. Most of all, he shaped one of the aspects of the regional culture in Sichuan IMO.
Well, my concret evidence is still weak here,but there are many in records. Check out his policies. I think Liu shan is underrated by history but not by people.

You are right Liu Chan is a little underrated!

I would like to invite views from other CHF members on this character.

It was through reading comic version of 《三国志》 (SānGuóZhì - Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms) that I first read that Líu Shàn (刘禅), the successor of Líu Bèi (刘备) as ruler of the Shŭ-Hàn kingdom (蜀汉) from AD 223 until its demise in AD 263, that I encountered an interpretation of the character as someone who was intelligent.

In the comics, it showed Líu Shàn growing up well as a teenager, developing his skills on horseback archery etc. However, he soon encountered a delimna about his future role - and sank into depression. Zhūgé Liàng (诸葛亮) had to console Líu Bèi that it was a sign of early maturity and if the boy could breakthrough his delimna, he would soar to great heights.

Unfortunately, in the comics, Líu Shàn was unable to breakthrough and became a passive ruler, and coupled with a pacifist nature, was of no help to the kingdom in terms of reviving the Han Empire.

Two wikipedia's article on the character described him as a shrewd person.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Shan
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%98%E7%A6%85

Unlike the portrayal in Romance of the Three Kingdom 《三国演义》 who showed him as mentally inept and weak-willed, Líu Shàn was supposed to be able to keep the Court on an even keel, balancing the expansionist efforts against overburdening the people.

His infamous “此间乐，不思蜀” was supposed to be feigned to make Sīmă Zhāo (司马昭) consider him as posing no threat.

While Zhūgé Liàng was alive, he was unable to veto the military campaigns against Wèi (魏), the articles went on to say that Líu Shàn lacked the confidence after Zhūgé Liàng's passing to halt the expeditions.

One view was that Líu Shàn could have established a more long-lasting Shŭ-Hàn kingdom if the state had not exhausted itself on earlier campaigns.

Another view was that it was small but fatal error in military strategy that enabled the Wèi to conquer the Shŭ-Hàn : otherwise, the tripartite balance might have continued for generations.

However, there was also no denying that he was only able to keep a lid rather than resolve the divisions in his Court, thus limiting the effectiveness of the government.

His trusting the eunuch Huáng Hào (黄皓) was also blamed for the weakness of the government, though others interpreted it as merely a power struggle against Jiāng Wéi (姜维). But power struggles had fatally weakened a state before, so it was no excuse.

We all know what happens to emperors who give eunuchs that much power.... Or what kind of people they are.

Your description would better suit 李後主 rather than 劉後主.

what I heard long ago, seemingly from my father, was that Líu Shàn (well, first time I heard that it was "Líu Chán", seemingly wrong) was rather "stupid" and could not do anything without Zhuge Liang
(perhaps the "stupid" here just meant "very passive")
EDIT: also from English Wikipedia: "Liu Shan was commonly perceived as an incapable, even retarded ruler."

Liu Shan was a capable ruler, who simply trusted the wrong man. He felt that since Zhuge couldn't break Wei, that Jiang Wei would have even less luck, but his allowance of Wei's campaigns clearly show that he was not passive.
The fact that he did not surrender until the last minitue shows that he was willing to try to keep the tripod going, but when he realized that his stubborness would result in the death of innocent people with no hope of winning, he surrendered.
Wikipedia is not a source to be trusted in any way. I could go in right now and write in "Liu Shan was a taco". ANyone can write anything, as long as they are a member, without any strikes on their record.

Which comic series is this? Not the one by Li Zhiqing, which is the only one I know.

The problem with interpreting Liu Shan's personality is that Sanguo Zhi paints a colourless picture of him as being influenced by whoever is closest to him at that point in time. It doesn't consider that he could have a mind of his own.

It was simply titled 《三国志》. It was quite different from other comics, but the interpretation by the artist is so bleak I returned it to the library within 2 days. Will see if I can find it again and note down the ISBN.

Okay, I found the info - it was actually from Manga Sangokushi by Hiroshi Moriya, published by CASA SHOBO.

The Chinese translated copy in the National Library was published in Taiwan by 大步文化.

《三国志》 (上中下三冊)
守屋洋 - 主编
富新藏 - 繪图

I got 2 ISBN series, one found inside, the other on the backcover.
957-480-191-8/192-6/193-4
962-314-235-8/237-4/...

Liu Chan is under-rated a little bit, but still I would be a better empire than him.

What makes you think that? Liu Shan didn't do to bad a job of it so just wondering what you have done in his place?

He do surrender to Deng Ai without much resistence. I think Cheng Du is still capable of defending itself from Deng Ai small army. Therefore, Shu-Han would not had end so easily since jiang wei almost succesfully block Wei invasion.

but then what? Even if Cheng Du could hold out, do you really think Shu could retake all of the land that was taken? and with that much less at their disposal, do you really think they could beat Wei? The situation was pointless at that time, regardless of weither or not Chan surrendered.

Shu-Han dream of unify China died with the capture of Jingzhou by Wu kingdom. It is not just about the unification but also the survival of Shu-Han. If the unification is not possible, does it mean that Shu-Han should be ceases to exists and Liu Chan should surrender ? Furthermore, Wu would not had fall so easily to Jin kingdom if there were Shu-Han.

Shu had lost Han Zhong in that invasion, they had failed to make gains before with Jiang Wei in commander. Now Shu might be able to take back Han Zhong, though I doubt it. There was always hope before then that a chance would open up but now Wei/Jin was clearly stronger and had got all the way up to the capital Cheng Du.

Liu Shan could have held Cheng Du short time but sent his people to more years of civil war that he couldn't win. I doubt Shu-Han being alive would have prevented the mess that ensured Wu's fall, just maybe a few less Jin armies to attack it.

i find it funny how everyone blames Shu's failure on the lose of jing, yet they lost it basically before SHu-Han even formed... funny how that one act caused them half a century later to fall.

There is this saying "A Dou can't be supported" which is actually saying that when Zhuge Liang was dieing, he realised that Liu Shan(A Dou) cannot be supported and than he has wasted his time and effort trying to support him.

Where did this saying come from? from the San Guo Yan Yi? Is the real Liu Shan in life really as lousy as the Liu Shan that is protrayed in Sanguo Yanyi?

扶不起的阿斗 ("A-Dou who can't be made to stand up on his own") is an element of popular slang that does not appear in the novel. Instead, it originated later on as a result of the image of Liu Shan ("A-Dou") that the novel created, and was applied to anyone or anything that was simply a lost cause from the start.

In fact, I don't even know where the idea that Liu Shan had the nickname A-Dou came from. The nickname is not in the Sanguo Zhi. Did it first appear in the novel?

I guess that may be a twist on what Liu Bei said to Zhuge Liang about taking over if Shan proves incapable, though whether Liu Bei meant that anything more then a sign of trust is debatable. It certainly doesn't come from the SGYY, at Wuzhang Liang gives his final will with who replaces him as Prime Minister so I think some people have twisted the Liu Bei thing, trying to give Zhuge Liang far seeing wisdom and further tarnishing Shan.

The historical Liu Shan was a lover of woman and sightseeing, he allowed corruption to flourish for the last ten years, he was very lazy. None the less he was both kinder then the novel shows and less of an idiot, he doesn't recall his commanders, he didn't have a large army with him when he surrendered. As the ruler, he has to take blame for Shu's decline but he didn't singlehandedly prevent inevitable victory in the way the novel guy does.

if jiang wei could beat zhong hui decisively and quickly, and using all the force he has than sandwiching deng ai with cheng du army.....
then wei will lost most of its power (and its last brilliant generals) so shu would be able to take all teritory isn it ?
of course there is a big IF jiang wei able to do it since he more often lost to deng ai before...

still sad to know how all those 3 great general ends, and mainly about what happened to Jiang Wei

Zhuge Xu performed competently that camapign as a general, there was Ma Long, Jia Chong, Yang Hu, Du Yu and several other skilled Wei/Jin generals not involved that Wei can send with another army to keep Hanzhong safe. Once Hanzhong's defences are breached, Shu is dead, their army was in tatters, Jiang Wei was unbelievably hated, the administration had completely broken down, without Hanzhong Shu could not hope to survive, it would merely be a matter of when Wei/Jin would win.