Liu Fu

Historical Record

Concerning Liu Fu, the surviving historical materials—the official sources such as the Records of the Three Kingdoms and its commentaries—contain no clear record. His life, offices, deeds, and even whether he truly existed cannot be verified from the sources. From the standpoint of history, therefore, Liu Fu is a figure unattested in the records, and his image is presented chiefly through literary works.

In the Novel

In Luo Guanzhong's narrative in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Fu appears in Chapter 106 as the Imperial Censor (yushi dafu) of Gongsun Yuan^[1]. At that time Gongsun Yuan was besieged by Sima Yi's great army within the city of Xiangping; his grain and fodder were exhausted and his soldiers' hearts had turned away. Everyone in the city was resentful, and some even harbored the intent to behead Gongsun Yuan and offer the city in surrender. In extreme anxiety and panic, Gongsun Yuan dispatched the Chancellor Wang Jian and the Imperial Censor Liu Fu to go to the Wei camp and request surrender from Sima Yi^[1].

Liu Fu and Wang Jian were lowered by rope from the city wall and came before Sima Yi, putting forward the condition that Sima Yi withdraw his troops twenty li, whereupon Gongsun Yuan and his ministers would come of their own accord to surrender. But Sima Yi scoffed at this surrender request, holding that Gongsun Yuan's failing to come in person to ask for surrender was sheer effrontery. Sima Yi flew into a rage and at once ordered his warriors to drag Liu Fu and Wang Jian out and behead them, handing their heads to attendants to be carried back^[1]. In the novel's depiction, Liu Fu's appearance symbolizes Gongsun Yuan's desperate plight and his attempt to eke out survival, while his end highlights Sima Yi's iron hand and resolve in the Liaodong campaign.

Key Relationships

* Gongsun Yuan (dies_in): In the novel, Liu Fu is Gongsun Yuan's Imperial Censor, the surrender envoy sent in his hour of crisis^[1]. His fate is closely bound to Gongsun Yuan's downfall, a sacrifice on the eve of the collapse of Gongsun Yuan's regime (novel only).
* Sima Yi: As Gongsun Yuan's envoy, Liu Fu faced Sima Yi directly. Sima Yi's flat rejection of the surrender condition and his ensuing order to behead them directly determined Liu Fu's end^[1] (novel only).

Signature Scene

* Beheaded after seeking surrender below the walls of Xiangping: This is Liu Fu's sole and most signature scene in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In the desperate straits of Gongsun Yuan's siege, with grain exhausted and the army's morale crumbling, Liu Fu and the Chancellor Wang Jian were ordered out of the city to seek surrender from Sima Yi. Their proposed condition of "withdrawing twenty li" was regarded by Sima Yi as effrontery, and in the end the two were beheaded by Sima Yi's order, their heads sent back into the city—further crushing Gongsun Yuan's morale and presaging the final fall of Xiangping^[1] (novel only). This scene displays Liu Fu's efforts, as a minister loyal to Gongsun Yuan, to retrieve a lost cause in desperate straits, and also vividly portrays Sima Yi's coldness and strategic firmness, becoming a dramatic turning point in the Liaodong campaign.