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It is said that the Three Kingdoms belong to an extraordinary war and chaos era in our country, and it is precisely because of this chaotic world that the situation has made countless heroes and left countless legendary stories for future generations, but among these stories, many of them were compiled by later generations, and only a very small number of them belong to historical facts.
Coupled with the fact that the Three Kingdoms have been too long ago for more than 1800 years, people can only rely on some historical clues to deduce the historical truth of that year, so it is inevitable that there will be various deviations.
Mention the Three Kingdoms, many people will think of Liu Guanzhang for the first time, let's talk about Zhang Fei, the image of Zhang Fei in the novel has more drama, but in the main history, there are not so many, in the main history Zhang Fei only has two highlight moments, one for Changsakapo, the other for the mouth.
For Nagasaka Slope, I believe that many friends are not strangers, in the novel Zhang Fei in the Dangyang Bridge a loud roar, scared off 100,000 Cao soldiers, but this is not recorded in the history, is undoubtedly the exaggeration and fabrication of posterity.
If there is such a thing in history, it will not be described as in the novel, because in ancient times, even if you are strong, you cannot single-handedly sweep through a thousand armies, because the individual strength of the real ancient battlefield is not important in the overall war, otherwise it will really become "incomparable in the Three Kingdoms".
Therefore, when analyzing history, we must analyze the historical truth in detail, and do not believe only in the fabrication of stories. Just like the topic we are going to discuss today: Zhang Fei and Ma Chao, does force belong to a hierarchy? To be fair, the evaluation of Zhang Fei by later generations is completely superior to That of Ma Chao, both in terms of personal image and combat.
The reason for this situation is because the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is too deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, a novel let everyone understand the character of Zhang Fei, which in turn led to our rising evaluation of Zhang Fei, but before the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" came into being, Zhang Fei and Ma Chao's status in history was completely reversed.
In the "Three Kingdoms Dictionary" of the Zheng calendar, Ma Chao is described as follows: "Ma Mengqi, Xiliang Haojie, after his father drowned, led more than 100,000 people of the Western Liang army, called himself the general of Tianwei, and entered the guanguan in the east to fight with Cao Cao. This sentence accurately describes Ma Chao's high social status.
Although Ma Chao is not described too much in Chen Shou's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Ma Chao is also described by the honorific title of "Marquis of Duting", which can be said to be the orthodox official position of the Han Dynasty, and there is no difference between Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, Dong Zhuo and other princes who dominate one side.
In other words, for Ma Chao's identity, he is a prince recognized by the imperial court, which is enough to prove ma Chao's high status. And look at another angle, when Ma Chao was crowned a prince by the imperial court, it was still during the early Eastern Han Dynasty, when Liu Bei was only a mat weaver and a shoe seller, and he did not even have the qualifications to give Ma Chao shoes, even if Ma Chao defeated Cao Cao later, this was only caused by the defeat of the soldiers.
Just as we can't say that Lü Bu is only a military general, but to say that he is a prince of one side, the struggle between Ma Chao and Cao Cao is more inclined to the struggle between the princes and the princes, rather than the duel between the military generals and the military generals, so Zhang Fei and the princes Ma Chao from the butcher family do not belong to the same grade at all.
Compared with Ma Chao's title, even if Zhang Fei was made a five-tiger general by Liu Bei in the late Shu Han Dynasty, it was only a military general under Liu Bei, nor did he belong to a commander in the true sense.
Zhang Fei's role is often highlighted when the Shu army needs to have a harsh campaign to attack the stronghold, he will only lead the troops, but for Ma Chao, he only needs to send his soldiers to the battle to wake up, so this also undoubtedly verifies the fundamental difference between Zhang Fei and Ma Chao.
Later, after Ma Chao surrendered to Liu Bei, Liu Bei also gave Ma Chao a heavy responsibility, and honored him as a general of the Five Tigers, and also granted him the official position of Liangzhou Mu. Zhang Fei was named a military general, which belonged to the more care of personal relations, while Ma Chao belonged to the latecomers to join, so relatively speaking, it also verified that Ma Chao's status was indeed superior to Zhang Fei.
In Luo Guanzhong's pen, we still can't compare Zhang Fei and Ma Chao's weapons and martial arts, who is strong and who is weak, and how specific the ability to fight soldiers is, but in terms of identity and status alone, Ma Chao's status, whether he is born or status, is much higher than Zhang Fei, and even, Ma Chao's status exceeds that of many famous generals of the Three Kingdoms in our impression.
Because, for most of us, most of our understanding of the Three Kingdoms period comes from Luo Guanzhong's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which allows us to form a relatively special "Three Kingdoms View", which in turn affects our understanding of the right history.
Finally, Xiaobian hopes that when you read the historical truth, you will learn to avoid some artistic interference between interpretation and novels, and really contact some books that record history. Take the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" as an example, in which the author usually focuses on describing the martial arts that are powerful when the warrior is singled out, while in the real history, it is necessary to consider the identity and status of this character and the impact of his personal achievements on society.
Especially in wartime, the personal strength of military generals does not represent everything in the army, and in history, real famous generals must not only have good martial arts, but also need to consider various factors, and the gap between Zhang Fei and Ma Chao is exactly like this, which is what our descendants must pay attention to when studying real history!
References for this article: "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Shushu, Zhang Feichuan, Ma Chao", "Three Kingdoms", "Baidu Encyclopedia Related Terms - Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhang Fei, Ma Chao, etc."