Sending Shen Zhongju into the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Liu Guo)
Ten thousand deaths in the Central Plains hundred wars, the legacy of the fangs and the stink of each name.
Thinking that Chen Shou had raped, Mr. Fei managed the city.
Ma Chao was a famous general of the Shu Han Dynasty and was included in the "Five Tiger Generals" (don't care if there is a "Five Tiger Generals" in history, at least in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" five people are listed together in one biography), but Ma Chao's performance in Liu Bei's clique is actually not too good, and it is played a deterrent role as the "last straw"; in the "Battle of the Lower Discernment", he was also defeated by Cao Xiu and others. When Ma Chao was at his most brilliant, he still had to talk about the "Battle of Tongguan" between the Guanzhong Coalition Army and Cao Cao. Of course, the "Battle of Tongguan" also failed, but Ma Chao's performance was quite OK, and there was also the boast of Cao Cao, the enemy. Cao Cao even said such a sentence: "Horses do not die, and I have no burial place." Why did Cao Cao give Ma Chao such a high evaluation? Is this sentence objective? The following small editor will talk about this matter.
The background of "Horses don't die, I don't have a burial ground either"
Cao Cao lost the Battle of Chibi, and there was no way to continue expanding in the Jingzhou and Yangzhou regions in the south, so he set his sights on the west and north. Cao Cao intended to attack Zhang Lu in Hanzhong (it is also said that Cao Cao did not mean Zhang Lu, but to destroy Yu), and the army passed through the Guanzhong region and then entered Hanzhong from the Qin Mountains. At this time, Guanzhong said that it was Cao Cao's territory, because some Kansai warlords nominally obeyed Cao Cao and were willing to help with anything, but they themselves had a certain degree of independence. Cao Cao's practice of taking the road to Guanzhong forced these warlords to rebel, and a total of ten joint troops were raised, of which Han Sui and Ma Chao were the strongest and had the most drama. This is also the background of the "Battle of Tongguan".
The above is a big background, "horses do not die, I have no burial place" The background of the evaluation should be elaborated. At that time, Cao Cao used the strategy of attacking the west from the east. He pretended to attack Tongguan, so that the troops of the guanzhong warlords were deployed at Tongguan, then turned northwest to cross Pusakajin, and then crossed Weishui to the south, the main battlefield was south of Weishui and north of Qinling, so it was also called the "Battle of Weinan". When Cao Cao had already set up a bridgehead in Pusakajin and was planning to cross the Pusakajin with his whole army, Ma Chao proposed to Han Sui that he should take the initiative to cross the Weishui River to the north bank to block Cao Cao. In this way, Cao Cao could not cross the river, "But on the twentieth day, the hedong valley will be exhausted, and he will leave." However, Han Sui did not listen to Ma Chao's words, believing that Cao Cao should be allowed to cross Pu Banjin, and then attack cao Cao halfway when he crossed the Weishui River. Cao Cao entered Hexi smoothly. Afterwards, Cao Cao learned of Ma Chao's suggestion and said the words "Horses do not die, and I have no burial place". According to this historical data, it can be seen that Cao Cao agreed with Ma Chao's strategy and also had a high evaluation of Ma Chao.
Ma Chao's judgment of Cao Cao's military food was wrong
Ma Chao's strategic idea is very beautiful, and the soldiers and horses have not moved the grain and grass first. Without food, the morale of the army collapsed. Cao Cao was also able to defeat Yuan Shao because he burned Yuan Shao's military food. But Ma Chao thought that Cao Cao's grain could only be eaten for twenty days, but this idea was wrong. Because from the beginning to the end of the "Battle of Tongguan", Cao Cao did not face the crisis of food shortage. We look at Cao Cao's itinerary at that time: in March of the sixteenth year of Jian'an (that is, 211 AD), Cao Cao forced the "Ten Generals of Guanzhong" to make preparations for the war; in July of the same year, Cao Cao sent troops; in August of the same year, Cao Cao came to Tongguan to confront the "Ten Generals of Guanzhong" and sent Xu Huang to set up camp in Hexi; in August of the same year, Cao Cao's main army crossed Pusakajin; in September of the same year, Cao Cao crossed weishui and fought head-on with the "Ten Generals of Guanzhong" and won a victory.
Beginning in Leap August, Cao Cao's military food was entirely dependent on Hedong County. According to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Shu, and Du Qi's biography, "when all the counties and counties under the heavens were in ruins, Hedong was the first to be determined, and less consumption was reduced", coupled with the long-term recuperation policy of Du Qi, the Taishou of Hedong, has become very rich. In September, the "Battle of Tongguan" was basically won (the main force of the "Ten Generals of Guanzhong" was defeated, and some resistance was not climatic), and There were still more than 200,000 grain and grass in Hedong County.
Some people think that 200,000 huts of grain and grass are not enough time to eat, after all, ancient men had to eat three grains a month, and they consumed more horses in war. But Cao Cao didn't just have a county in Hedong. According to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Shu, and Emperor Wu of the Three Kingdoms, from the first year of Jian'an (that is, in 196 AD), Cao Cao began to implement the policy of Tuntian and achieved certain results, and at the time of the "Battle of Tongguan", Cao Cao basically pacified the north (except for Guanzhong and Xiliang, of course), there was no large-scale war with Liu Bei and Sun Quan, and the grain and grass were very abundant. Even if there is not enough grain and grass in Hedong to eat, it can be transferred from other places. After Cao Cao crossed the Weishui River, the Guanzhong warlords fought against Cao Cao several times, but without success. It can be seen that Cao Cao's mentality at this time was very calm, and there was no crisis of food shortage.
Why did Cao Cao give Ma Chao such a high evaluation
Since Ma Chao's estimation of cao Cao's military food was wrong, why would Cao Cao say things like "horses don't die, and I don't have a burial place"? And the sentence itself is very strange, because it is a very demoralizing word. We see that under such tragic circumstances as the "Battle of Chibi", when Cao Cao took huarong Road, he did not forget to mock Liu Bei for "having to calculate less than late", and later when he wrote to Sun Quan, he was unwilling to admit defeat, saying that "the lonely ship retreated and made Zhou Yu lose this name"; in the "Battle of Tongguan", Cao Cao's attitude toward the warlords in Guanzhong was also very contemptuous and contemptuous. When Cao Cao's main force went to Pusakajin, Ma Chao led his army to pursue and kill Cao Cao, almost killing Cao Cao, and Cao Cao only said that "a few are trapped by thieves", and compared before and after, the tone of the sentence "The horse does not die, and I have no burial place" is inevitably too intense.
Judging from Ma Chao's own mistakes in judgment and this excessive tone, Cao Cao's evaluation of Ma Chao is very problematic. The first may not have had this at all. This incident is from Pei Songzhi's quoted "Records of the Duke of Shanyang", not the canonical history. There are still many errors and contradictions in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, not to mention these historical materials that have been lost and are not used by the canonical history. This is a possibility.
There is also a possibility that Cao Cao did say such a thing, but he did not say it sincerely. The "Battle of Tongguan" had a combined army of 100,000 warlords in Guanzhong, and the reason why Cao Cao was able to win easily was that on the one hand, the strategy of attacking the east and the west was excellent, and on the other hand, it used a counter-strategy against these warlords. Among the warlords in Guanzhong, Han Sui and Ma Chao were the leaders, and the direction of Cao Cao's separation was naturally these two people.
Cao Cao deliberately exaggerated Ma Chao's strategy, most likely for the purpose of divisiveness. After all, this strategy was rejected by Han Sui. One of the reasons we see xu you betraying Yuan Shao and defecting to Cao Cao in the "Battle of Guandu" is that his suggestions are always not adopted by Yuan Shao. Cao Cao exaggerated Ma Chao, on the one hand, deepening the suspicion between Ma Chao and Han Sui, on the other hand, he could also deepen Ma Chao's pride, hoping that Ma Chao and Han Sui would fight for power. If the truth is like this, compared with Zhou Yu, Ma Chao is more in line with Cao Cao's "false name".
References: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zizhi Tongjian, Historical Atlas of China, Salt and Iron Theory, Commentary on the Interpretation of Characters