Guan Er Ye walks a thousand miles to ride alone, and after five levels and six generals is a wonderful story known to the population, women and children, but the author wants to pour some cool water here - a thousand miles to walk a single ride may be true, and it will be absolutely false to cut six through five levels.
"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" uses a whole page to write the legendary story of Guan Yu's thousand miles of single riding and passing five levels and slashing six generals. Along the way, although Guan Yu was intercepted several times and experienced ups and downs, he also walked out of the divine courage and out of the mighty wind, and successively beheaded six subordinate generals of Cao Cao, including Kong Xiu, the General of Luoyang Taishou Han Fu, the General of Tooth, the General of Meng Tan, the General of Fenshui Pass, Bian Xi, the Taishou of Xingyang, Wang Zhi, the Defender of the Yellow River Crossing, and Qin Qi, the general of the Yellow River Crossing.
These six generals have no record in history, they should all be fictional, and it is interesting that Liu Yan, the Taishou of Dong Commandery, who did not intercept and murder Guan Yu, was a real figure in history.
Not only did these six generals have doubts about their authenticity, but even the route Guan Yu chose when riding alone was obviously problematic. Just imagine, from Xuchang in central Henan (Guan Yu began to walk thousands of miles before riding alone in Xudu, that is, now Xuchang) north to Hebei, just go straight north, but Guan Yu first had to travel northeast, pass through Luoyang and then turn along the Yellow River to the east, and then cross the river from Huazhou (there was no such place name in the Three Kingdoms period, the name of Huazhou originated in the Northern Song Dynasty), from the map to see that it is taking a detour, and a big detour.
Why is there such a geo-error? First, because there were very few maps at that time, and Luo Guanzhong's geographical knowledge was not rich enough; second, because before the birth of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in the folk romance of the Three Kingdoms, the place where Cao Cao "held the Son of Heaven to order the princes" was not Xu Du, but Chang'an, which is now Xi'an, and the five passes that Guan Yu passed through were lined up from west to east on the route from Chang'an to Hebei.
By the way, it is precisely because the storyteller let Cao Cao "blackmail the Son of Heaven to order the princes" in Chang'an, which has the classic plot of Guan Yu in the opera "Baqiao Picks the Robe" in which Guan Yu uses a knife to worry about the golden robe given by Cao Cao.
Historically, when Guan Yu left Cao Cao, Liu Bei may no longer be in Hebei, and yuan shao sent him to fight a guerrilla attack near Runan, so Guan Yu probably did not go to the Yellow River at all when looking for Liu Bei, but directly ran to Runan.
If Guan Yu went to Hebei when he was looking for his brother, in terms of distance, "a thousand miles to walk a single ride" is barely established, if it is Runan, it should be changed to "a hundred miles to walk a single ride", because Xuchang and Runan are only more than two hundred miles away.
Moreover, whether Guan Yu was from Xuchang to Hebei or south to Runan, the place he passed through was the Great Plain of North China, which was a horse and a flat river, and there was no pass at all, in this case, after five passes and six generals, it would become a wood without a root and a source of water.
When Guan Yu did not resign and parted, some of Cao Cao's subordinates wanted to send troops to chase after him, and Cao Cao replied: "Each is its own master, there is no need to chase it," thus leaving behind a historical story of "heroes love heroes and cherish them."
Although Cao Cao issued the order "no need to chase", this does not seem to be a very formal military order, and the defenders along the way who have not received the news are likely to intercept Guan Yu on their own, but the five levels described in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms are absolutely none, because the "five passes" are not on the road that Guan Yu was traveling through when he was looking for his brother, and the "six generals" have not left any clues in history.