In the next 5,000 years of Chinese history, there have always been some people who prefer to bear heavy insults and footnotes of criticism from later generations, and still walk alone, not succumbing to evil forces and immoral things.
Perhaps, as Mr. Lu Xun said, these people who are immersed in hard work and hard work are the real backbone of the Chinese nation. Zhang Zhuan, a famous Tang Dynasty general, was one such person, who was criticized countless times in the more than 1,000 years after his death, and was also defended by like-minded people with him countless times.
The reason why I want to write this article is because earlier on Baidu Tieba I saw someone launch a discussion: is Zhang Tour of Zhenshou Suiyang City in the Anshi Rebellion a man-eating demon?
Under this post, many people have spoken out for Zhang Tour, a loyal general who protects the Tang Dynasty, and some people believe that Zhang Tour's behavior of using people for food does not need to be whitewashed, in short, the crowd is indignant.
Zhang Tour, a well-known courtier in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, was born in a scholarly and martial arts department, his father and brother were both in important positions in the dynasty, and before he entered the imperial court at the time of his repetition, his brother Zhang Xiao had already held the position of supervising the imperial history.
Zhang Zhu has been knowledgeable since childhood, and he has learned to be rich in five cars, and what is even more valuable is that he has a heroic style, and most of the people he has befriended are benevolent and righteous people, and this personality has not changed until he entered the DYNASTY as an official.
When he first entered his career, Zhang Tour was only a local county order, but he was praised for his honesty and honesty, and he was soon transferred to the capital.
At that time, when Yang Guifei's brother Yang Guozhong was in power, many colleagues advised Zhang Tou to defect to Yang Guozhong, but Zhang Guanyizheng verbally refused.
And said: It is precisely because of this that there is a mess above the government and the opposition, and the Beijing officials cannot be ah! The remarks quickly reached Yang Guozhong's ears, after which Zhang Was transferred to other places.
In the fourteenth year of Tang Xuanzong Tianbao, An Lushan, Shi Siming entangled the northern nomadic army to capture the eastern capital Luoyang in one fell swoop. The Anshi Rebellion broke out. After the rebels captured Luoyang, they continued to invade the south, attacking the city and plundering the pond along the way, and the momentum continued to grow.
Many of the generals and officials on the defensive side of the town fell without a fight. At this time, Zhang Tour's superior, Yang Wanshi, the Taishou of Tan Commandery, saw this situation and passed on the official position to Zhang Tour, and fled south. At this critical juncture.
Zhang Patrol calmly led the 4,000 soldiers and civilians in the city to resist the tens of thousands of enemy troops who came to attack the city. In dozens of battles, large and small, Zhang Tour was a pioneer, skillfully using his wisdom and local terrain and landforms, and actually maneuvered with the enemy army, which was dozens of times the strength of his own, for several months, and even won many key battles.
However, with The An Lu Mountain, the number of Shi Siming's rebels continued to increase, and more and more people came to besiege Zhang Patrol as enemy troops. As a last resort, Zhang Xun had no choice but to lead his army to Suiyang City and continue to act as a gateway against the rebels.
At that time, Zhang Tour and his followers could be said to be isolated and helpless. The generals of the surrounding cities and pools supported themselves and either surrendered to the Anshi rebels or watched from the sidelines. This war was a game that was doomed to failure for Zhang Tour, and Zhang Tour still insisted on playing it.
Many years later, Han Yu commented in "Zhang Zhongcheng's Later Narrative" that this battle was Zhang's feat of defending a city and defending the world. The text also comprehensively describes the difficulty and even cruelty of Zhang's defense of the city. In the case of the city's food, Zhang Tour did not hesitate to use the people as food and insisted on resisting until the city was destroyed, and only more than 400 people were left in the original city of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians.
This cruel situation also became the reason for many people in later generations to criticize Zhang Tour, believing that he should have surrendered to the enemy army with humanitarianism when he ran out of ammunition and food. However, today it should not be possible to evaluate the behavior of the parties in terms of modern values and world views.
South of Suiyang City, which Zhang Tour guarded, was the rich land of Jianghuai, and it was also the only remaining chip in the Tang Dynasty at that time that could fight the Anshi rebels to the death, and Zhang Tour protected Jiangnan from the disaster of war at the cost of the entire city, even from this point of view, Zhang Tour was still worthy of being the savior of the Tang Dynasty.