Background
The Zhang Lu regime in the late Eastern Han was a unique phenomenon — a local government operating under the spiritual ethos of the Five-Pecks-of-Rice Way (Wudoumidao), a theocratic polity governed by a "Teacher-Lord," that had been entrenched in Hanzhong for nearly thirty years. It was neither a conventional regional administrator-strongman nor a roaming bandit occupation, but a local regime that functioned stably as a religious-economic hybrid. When Cao Cao launched his western expedition to Hanzhong in the twentieth year of Jian'an, the strategic rationale was to sever the potential northward expansion of Liu Bei, who had just consolidated Yizhou — once Zhang Lu and Liu Bei reached a tacit understanding or even joined forces, Caowei's control over Guanzhong and the Yong-Liang corridor would face a serious threat. The timing of Cao Cao's expedition was precise: Liu Bei had just settled Yizhou and had not yet consolidated his footing; Zhang Lu himself, facing Cao Cao's military pressure, was already inclined toward submission, and his subordinate Yang Song and others were persistently advocating surrender.
Principal Figures
Zhang Lu was a religious leader and secular lord combined, relatively mild in temperament and lacking any ambition to contest the realm. His younger brother Zhang Wei was the hawkish representative within the Zhang Lu regime, advocating burning the granaries and fleeing south to preserve a seed of resistance. Yang Song was a typical "pro-peace" insider who had already accepted bribes from Cao Cao's side and was cooperating with the surrender operation. Yan Pu was Zhang Lu's core adviser, notable in the official histories (beyond the romance version) for counseling against Zhang Lu proclaiming kingship and advocating "sealing the storehouses and submitting" — but in chapter 67 he appears essentially as background. Cao Cao on the attacking side was in no hurry to launch a direct assault: he understood that the theocratic structure of Zhang Lu's polity had a tendency toward self-dissolution; maintaining military pressure was sufficient, and submission would follow as a natural result.
Central Issue
The most critical political choice in this passage is embodied in Zhang Lu's decision between the two paths of "burn the granaries and flee south" and "seal the storehouses and submit." From a military standpoint, burning the granaries was the classic scorched-earth strategy — capable of delaying the enemy's subsequent advance but utterly destroying one's own political chips in any future incorporation. From a political standpoint, "sealing the storehouses and submitting" delivered all of Hanzhong's resources intact to the new master, preserving for Zhang Lu a relatively high political standing within the surrendering camp — he was not surrendering under military defeat but handing over the regime with dignity. Zhang Lu explicitly chose the latter, his reasoning being: "I had originally intended to submit to the state, but my intent had not yet been communicated; now driven out under compulsion, the granaries and treasuries belong to the state and must not be destroyed." The key in this statement lies not in sentiment but in political positioning — he frames Hanzhong as national property and his own submission as "returning governance" rather than "capitulating to an enemy." This framing enabled Cao Cao afterward to treat him with honor, appoint him General Who Stabilizes the South and Marquis of Langzhong, and allow Zhang Lu's descendants to maintain a long-term foothold in the Caowei bureaucracy.
Political Consequences
The peaceful transfer of Hanzhong yielded immense direct benefits for Caowei: intact granaries and treasuries meant Cao Cao's army could garrison Hanzhong for extended periods without long supply lines from Guanzhong, providing the material basis for subsequent attritional standoffs with Liu Bei. For Zhang Lu, adopting the "submission" posture completed the transition from theocratic regional lord to Caowei marquis; his family and the Five-Pecks-of-Rice religious community were also allowed to continue within the Caowei system — an uncommon outcome in the warlord-submission cases of the late Han. For Liu Bei, it meant that Hanzhong, this strategic buffer zone, had fallen into Cao Cao's hands; Shuhan's northern border was now directly exposed to Caowei's military edge, compelling Liu Bei to commit his full strength two years later in the Battle of Hanzhong to reclaim this buffer. From the longer-range perspective of religious history, Zhang Lu's submission transformed the Five-Pecks-of-Rice Way from the official faith of a separatist regime into a folk-religious tradition dispersed across Caowei and Shuhan territory — laying the foundation for the institutionalization of Daoism in subsequent centuries.
Counterfactual Analysis
Had Zhang Lu adopted Zhang Wei's scorched-earth-and-flee-south plan, the most likely outcome would have been a protracted campaign in Hanzhong; Cao Cao's army could eventually have taken it but with greatly diminished material gains, and whether Zhang Lu could have sustained himself in Bazhong is questionable — Bazhong was already a zone of Liu Bei's penetration, and Zhang Lu, having fled there, might not have been able to maintain an independent political identity. Had Zhang Lu refused to submit and chosen to hold out, Zhang Wei alone could not have held the Yangping line against Cao Cao's main force; the probable end would have been the city stormed and taken, Hanzhong seized by force, and the Five-Pecks-of-Rice Way suppressed. Zhang Lu's chosen path of "sealing the storehouses and submitting" was not only the best available exit at the time but also a template studied by many subsequent separatist regimes at the moment of incorporation. In cost-benefit terms, this submission may be the most information-symmetric and mutually well-matched of all the warlord incorporation cases in the Jian'an years — both sides obtained what they most wanted, and the cost of future negotiations was the lowest of any case.