The Xiahou family had already followed Cao Cao from the time when Cao Cao began to recruit troops and buy horses, and had made great achievements under Cao Cao, of which Xiahou Huan and Xiahou Yuan had always been the mainstay of Cao Cao's army, and were very representative among the generals of Cao Cao's army. Today, it is said that Xiahou Yuan's son Xiahou Ba, who was middle-aged and unmotivated, why did he abandon the State of Wei and join the State of Shu at the age of 60?
1. Son of Xiahou Yuan
And there is an old saying in China called tiger father no dog, the protagonist we want to talk about today is Xiahou Yuan's son Xiahou Ba, Xiahou Yuan as a general under Cao Cao has courage and strategy, but his son Xiahou Ba is a bit mediocre, there is no eye-catching performance in the imperial court, so he has always been a small general, until the age of forty, he was rewarded as a marquis because he was Xiahou Yuan's son.
Xiahou Ba, as a military general, went to the battlefield for the first time at the age of forty and faced the Shu army. When the State of Wei sent troops to conquer the State of Shu, Xiahou Ba was named a forward, which finally gave Xiahou Ba a chance to show his fists, but when Xiahou Ba led his troops to the antlers, the Shu army heard that Xiahou Ba was not famous, and immediately sent an army to fight, and Xiahou Ba was forced to defend the city and wait for reinforcements.
Therefore, we can see that Xiahou Ba's military strength is not strong, even very mediocre, Xiahou Ba did not seize the opportunity, and was idle for many years. Until Cao Rui's death, Cao Shuang had great power as a chancellor, he reformed the policies of the imperial court, and promoted a number of upstarts, including the Xiahou family, so Xiahou Ba also shone brightly.
As a fifty-year-old veteran general, Xiahou Ba was promoted to the rank of general of the Shu Dynasty, guarding the frontier, and Xiahou Ba also seized this opportunity to show his skills in the frontier, clean up some ethnic minorities very obediently, and also govern the frontier very well, so he was deeply loved by the imperial court, and his position was thriving, and he soon achieved the position of great general.
2. Rebel against Wei and surrender to Shu
However, the weather was unpredictable, and the ethnic minorities managed by Xiahou Ba rebelled against the State of Wei and wanted to defect to the State of Shu, so Xiahou Ba led troops to surround them, but this battle was still ordinary, and the final result was that Jiang Wei led the army to include a large number of ethnic minority troops in the State of Shu.
The good reputation that had been hard to accumulate was gone, the middle-aged people were not ambitious, and Cao Shuang, who had originally promoted him, was also pulled down by Sima Yi, and the people who Cao Shuang promoted would definitely suffer hardships. Xiahou Ba's superior was replaced by Guo Huai, who had a great contradiction with him, and Xiahou Ba, fearing that Guo Huai would harm him, forgot about his family and country enemies, and rushed to the Shu kingdom to join them.
Xiahou Ba rode his horse for a long time without finding the city, and finally he was so hungry that he killed and ate the horse, and when he walked to his feet, he met a passerby, and the Shu court knew about this matter, so he took Xiahou Ba over.
It can be seen that the reason why Xiahou Ba defected to the State of Shu was that he was always unsuccessful in the State of Wei, and the age of his defection to the State of Shu at that time was already 60 years old, and a superior and hostile court with him was enough to put a person in prison, rather than spending the rest of his life in fear, it was better to go to the safe State of Shu, so that the chance of survival was greater.