"Mao Sui self-recommendation" I understand, how to "Mao Sui self-sacrifice"

The image comes from the internet

As a famous idiom allusion, the story of Mao Sui's self-introduction is familiar to many people, but in recent years, some people have even fabricated the tragedy of Mao Sui's self-inflicted life by false rumors. It is necessary for us to clarify right and wrong and use the truth of history to draw correct enlightenment.

01

The crisis situation of zhao guo after "talking on paper"

The period when Mao Sui came to prominence in history was a critical moment when the fate of the motherland Zhao Guo was hanging in the balance. Around September of the fifty-fifth year of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (260 BC), due to the mistake of King Xiaocheng of Zhao, he replaced the old Lian Po with Zhao Kuo, who was old in battle, and the Zhao state was defeated in the famous Battle of Changping, and 450,000 Zhao troops were killed and seriously injured, thus turning strong into weak and no longer able to compete with the Qin state.

An even more imminent crisis was that after the Battle of Changping, in the first month of the 57th year of the reign of King Zhao of Zhou (258 BC), the State of Qin took advantage of the victory to besiege the capital of the Zhao State, Handan. Since most of the young and middle-aged men were killed in the Battle of Changping, the Zhao state was basically powerless to attack the Qin army, and could only pin its hopes on the assistance of the other five countries.

Zhao Sheng, the Prince of Zhao Guoping, shouldered the mission of going to Chu for help and decided to select 20 diners from under the door to follow him. But he chose to go, only 19 people were selected, and he could no longer find talents who met the criteria. The diner Mao Sui decided to recommend himself to Zhao Sheng.

Who is Mao Sui? Zhao Sheng thought about it for half a day, and he didn't remember what merit Mao Sui had made in peace, didn't want to take him, and didn't want to directly refuse, so he gave Mao Sui an example: Talent is mixed in this world, like an iron cone put into a pocket, if the iron cone is sharp enough, it will immediately poke the pocket out of a hole and expose the blade; if a person has real talent and practical learning, he will already appear in urgent, difficult, and dangerous tasks. Mr. Mao Sui, you have been in my house for three years, three years is enough time for you to shine, but I have never heard people around me mention it, you still stay.

After listening to Zhao Sheng's sarcasm, Mao Sui didn't think anything of it: Pingyuan Jun, your story of the iron cone and the pocket is very well told, so please put my iron cone into your pocket today; if you did this earlier, I would have been a hit, how could I eat your three years of food in vain!

Zhao Sheng saw that Mao Sui was so insistent that he had to take him with him.

02

Coercing and seducing, Mao sui asked the king of Chu to make the only correct decision

Although Zhao Sheng took Mao Sui to the Chu Kingdom, he did not let him participate in any foreign affairs activities, but went to the Chu King's Palace with 19 other people, and took turns to tell king Chu Kao Lie the great truth of the cold of lips and teeth, and asked the Chu State to resist Qin and aid Zhao. King Kekelie was afraid of Qin like a tiger and did not dare to send troops, and the negotiations reached an impasse.

After Mao Sui heard about it, he immediately rushed to the palace, tied a sword around his waist, did not give the guards of the Chu royal palace any reaction time, and rushed directly to the negotiating table of Zhao Sheng and the King of Chu. Mao Sui first loudly rebuked Zhao Sheng: An alliance against Qin can clarify the stakes in two sentences, and you talked with him all morning, why didn't you talk about any results? King Kauret was furious when he saw this: "Didn't you see that I was talking to your master, did you interject?"

Mao Sui clenched the hilt of his sword in his right hand, made a posture of drawing his sword out of its sheath and preparing to stab the king to kill him, and threatened and seduced King Kaolie: The reason why you dare to scold me is because you are a large number of people in the Chu country. Now the two of us are only ten steps away, and as soon as my long sword comes out, will your men have time to save you?

After threatening the safety of King Kaolie's life, Mao Sui used profits to lure him: when Shang Tang replaced the Xia Dynasty with seventy miles of territory, King Wen of Zhou used the strength of a hundred miles to destroy the Shang Dynasty because they could judge the hour and size up the situation and seize the opportunity to be small and broad. Today, your Chu kingdom has a territory of five thousand miles, with a million armored soldiers, but you were beaten three times by Qin Baiqi with tens of thousands of people, directly attacking the capital of the country and burning the spirit card of the first king. Such a great shame and humiliation, even our Zhao Kingdom as your ally is uneven, and the Great King, can you endure until now, is it still the king of a country!

Frightened by Mao Sui's momentum and threatened with his life, King Kao Lie immediately made the only correct decision: Everything is up to Mr. Mao Sui, And Chu Zhao has formed an alliance against Qin! Mao Sui, fearing that King Kaolie would repent afterwards, signed the covenant on the spot in the form of an alliance of blood.

Blood is to smear blood on the lips, indicating that the blood is drunk into the stomach, and the gods learn together and never regret it. At the blood-killing ceremony, Mao Sui deliberately spent some careful thought. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the blood used by different levels of people to form blood alliances was different. Monarchs use cow or horse blood, nobles use dog or pig blood, and ordinary officials use chicken blood. Mao Sui asked the King of Chu's men to mix one copy of horse blood, dog blood, and chicken blood for use as blood to show his merits in promoting the alliance between Zhao and Chu, indicating that the alliance was not only a matter for the Zhao and Chu families, but also a part of his Mao Sui.

After the conclusion of the covenant, King Kaolie sent Chunshen Jun Huang Xie to lead a large army north to aid Zhao, and with the arrival of 80,000 elite troops led by Wei Guoxin Lingjun Wujie, the three armies should join forces inside and outside to attack the Qin army, causing nearly 300,000 casualties in the Qin army. This was the first heavy blow suffered by the Qin state in the 90 years since the Shang martingale transformation law, which greatly delayed the pace of the Qin state's annexation of the Six Kingdoms. The State of Zhao eventually won the victory in the defense of Handan, and Zhao Sheng "took Mao Sui as a guest".

03

Flawed "Self-Destruction"

In the use of Mao Sui, Zhao Sheng, the Prince of Pingyuan, made the mistake of not knowing people at the beginning, and failed to discover Mao Sui's special talents in his daily work in time. Fortunately, it was not too late to make up for the dead sheep, and Zhao Sheng finally created an opportunity for Mao Sui to stand out, which led to mao Sui's self-recommendation.

However, PingYuanjun did not make the mistake of improper employment on the issue of Mao Sui no matter what. In recent years, some articles have fabricated out of thin air the story of "Mao Sui's self-destruction", saying that in the second year of Mao Sui's self-recommendation, that is, in 257 BC, Pingyuan Jun drove the ducks to the shelves, used Mao Sui, who only had diplomatic ability but no military ability, as a front-line general, and led the army to resist the invasion of the Yan general Li Belly, resulting in Mao Sui's defeat and suicide, and thus came to the "historical enlightenment" that mao Sui should use his strengths and avoid his shortcomings.

It is correct to use people's strengths and abandon their shortcomings, but the historical facts that have reached this conclusion do not exist. All the articles I have seen about "self-destruction" do not give a specific historical source, but only an ominous phrase "according to historical records", and the historical materials I have seen do not have this relevant record.

More importantly, the Yan state sent the general Li Belly to invade the Zhao state in the eighth year of Mao Sui's self-recommendation, that is, the year of Pingyuan Jun's death, that is, 251 BC, not 257 BC. In this battle, Zhao Guo sent the veteran general Lian Po to meet the enemy, rather than Mao Sui as the commander. And Lian Po not only beat the chestnut belly and held his head, but also went deep into the Yan kingdom to chase the north for five hundred miles, besieged its capital Jicheng, and even forced the Yan state to sign an alliance under the city, which was Zhao Shengyan's defeat, not Yan's defeat. So why bother!

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