In 731, in order to honor and sacrifice the famous generals who have appeared since ancient times, Tang Xuanzong set up a special temple, with Jiang Ziya of western Zhou as the main sacrifice, Zhang Liang of the Western Han Dynasty as the match, and the ten famous people will be placed together, which is the initial Taigong Temple, thirty years later, Tang Suzong posthumously crowned Jiang Ziya as the King of Wucheng, so the Taigong Temple became the Wucheng King Temple we know, also referred to as the Wu temple.
In the tang dynasty, Yan Zhenqing proposed to add sixty-four generals in the Wucheng Wang Temple, and thus the Wucheng Wang Temple began to take shape, among which the portraits of Sun Zhen, Lian Po, Bai Qi, Wu Qi, Zhou Yafu, Wei Qing, Huo Zhiyi, Zhang Fei, Guan Yu, and Guo Ziyi that we are familiar with are all in the Wucheng Wang Temple.
After that, although the famous generals in the temple of King Wucheng increased or decreased, they were only individual increases and decreases, in general, the changes were still relatively small, but in the Song Dynasty, the portraits of famous generals in the temple of King Wucheng came to a large range of increases and decreases, and it was Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, who did this.
In 963, Zhao Kuangyin was fortunate to be the king of Wucheng Temple, looking through the ancient famous generals painted in the two corridors, when he saw the famous warring states general Bai Qi impressively listed, he was furious, pointed to the portrait of Bai Qi with his cane, and said: "The killing has fallen, even more, what is the enjoyment of this?" Then he ordered the portrait of Bai Qi to be removed from the Temple of King Wucheng.
And this was only the beginning, and then, Zuo Shi zhi zhi zhi Gao Xi shangshu said that the Famous Southern Dynasty Liang general Wang Shengwei was not worthy to stay in the temple of King Wucheng. Zhao Kuang thought about it for a moment, and then issued an order for Zhang Zhao, Dou Yi, and Gao Xi to re-rule the list of martial generals in the Wucheng King Temple, based on the fact that the portrait of "the person whose merit is always flawless" can enter the Wucheng King Temple, and the rest are not worthy.
After the efforts of these three people, and Zhao Kuangyin nodded, the portraits of 23 famous generals were removed from the Wucheng Wang Temple, among which in addition to Bai Qi, there were also Wu Qi, Sun Zhen, Lian Po, Han Xin, Zhou Yafu, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, He Ruobi, Li Guangbi, etc., as we know, and the newly added 23 famous generals, including the well-known Dou Bao, Ban Chao, Duan Shao, Qin Shubao, Zhang Gongjin, etc.
This basically belongs to the great change of blood, Zhao Kuangyin's practice is actually not wise, many people have opinions on this, but not many dare to say it, Liang Zhouhan said his own views, he believes:
"All the famous generals are all male, and they want to point out flaws, and who should be tired!" Once the divine throne is removed, it seems that it is not permissible to nitpick for the wrongs of other generations and to cast a grudge against the evils of the ancients. The subject was confused. ”
However, Zhao Kuangyin completely rejected it, and still re-portraited the martial generals in the temple of King Wucheng according to the list ruled by Gao Xi and others, so why did Zhao Kuangyin have to do so? If we don't say anything else, let's just say that he least approves of the whiteness. Zhao Kuangyin believed that Bai Qi killed and surrendered, which was not martial, so Bai Qi was not worthy to stay in the temple of King Wucheng.
In fact, Zhao Kuangyin's statement is untenable, it is true that Bai Qi's reputation is indeed not very good, known as killing gods, the number of deaths he caused during the Warring States period was millions, this data is quite shocking, of which in the Battle of Changping, Bai Qi even ordered the pit to kill 400,000 Zhao Guo troops, which shocked the six eastern countries.
It cannot be said that this practice is correct, but it cannot simply be attributed to his approach. Bai Qi has always been good at annihilation warfare, with the goal of destroying the other party's living forces. This can damage the combat effectiveness of the other side to the greatest extent, for the six eastern countries, Bai Qi is a terrible existence, and for the Qin state, he is an invincible general.
Many people may say, why kill the fall? They've all descended, so why not keep them? How did four hundred thousand people stay? How to settle? This is a big question, even if these people are all soldiers, willing to submit to the Qin State and become soldiers of the Qin State, then can they be used by the Qin State, and will they be loyal to the Qin State? Hardly.
At the beginning of the Battle of Makino, most of the soldiers captured by Di Xin turned against him and became an important force in defeating Di Xin.
Therefore, Bai Qi was unwilling to leave these four hundred thousand people behind, and he could not send them back to the Zhao Kingdom, so getting rid of them was the best choice. All along, people have been shocked by the data of 400,000, but it is difficult to really think that Bai Qi's approach is absolutely wrong, at least his approach is very beneficial to the Qin State.
Ordinary people can think of this, Zhao Kuangyin is also a military general, will not know that there is nothing wrong with killing and descending in white? So, what is the real purpose of Zhao Kuangyin's doing this? In fact, it was another action of Bai Qi, we know that after the Battle of Changping, Bai Qi originally wanted to take advantage of the victory to surround Handan, but under the persuasion of Fan Ju and others, King Zhaoxiang of Qin decided to rest for a while, and he missed the best time to send troops.
When King Zhaoxiang of Qin prepared to attack Handan again, Bai Qi was reluctant to go, and he analyzed the stakes, but King Zhaoxiang of Qin did not listen, so Bai Qi refused to fight because of illness, and watched the Qin state suffer defeat, and the angry King Of Qin Zhaoxiang killed Bai Qi to Duyou.
A very important reason why Bai Qi was given death was not to obey the king's orders, which was the reason why Zhao Kuangyin was unwilling to let Bai Qi stay in the Temple of King Wucheng. How did Zhao Kuangyin establish the Northern Song Dynasty? He took the Jiangshan of his old leader, and the Tang Dynasty has had the phenomenon of feudal towns and self-respect since the Anshi Rebellion, which has lasted for nearly two hundred years.
Zhao Kuangyin knew the energy of the military generals too well, and after he established the Song Dynasty, he was eager to suppress the military generals, so he had a cup of wine to release the military, what he wanted was a loyal and obedient military general, the so-called can not be flawed, that is, can not be disloyal to him, can not be too powerful.
And bai qi such a martial general can not listen to the king's orders at a critical moment, this is a big taboo, absolutely zhao Kuangyin can not tolerate, so after Bai Qi died more than 1,200 years later, Zhao Kuangyin still did not like him.
This is also the reason why Lian Po was removed from the temple of King Wucheng, Lian Po was a famous general of the Zhao State, he could not stand out in the Battle of Changping, King Zhao Xiaocheng urged Lian Po to go to war several times and was rejected, King Zhao Xiaocheng chose to replace Zhao Kuo who was willing to fight, and the change of battle would be a blow, but King Zhao Xiaocheng could not take care of it, which also directly led to the death of 450,000 people in the Battle of Changping.
Later, after King Xiang of Zhao relieved Lian Po of his post, Lian Po directly attacked Le Cheng, who had taken his place, and then defected to the State of Wei, although he always wanted to return to the State of Zhao, but he failed to do so until his death.
We see that these few operations of Lian Po are enough to make an emperor dislike, and Zhao Kuangyin naturally does not like such a disobedient military general.