The Battle of Xiaxia and the Battle of Guandu are both famous battles in China's history, and the result of the battle is that Xiang Yu and Yuan Shao both became losers, Xiang Yu killed himself in Wujiang, and Yuan Shao died of anger and fire. The same loser, but the evaluation of the two in later generations is diametrically opposite, Xiang Yu is known as a tragic hero, and the Song Dynasty poet Li Qingzhao also wrote the famous "Summer Sentence": Born as a master, dead as a ghost. Still thinking about Xiang Yu, he refused to cross Jiangdong. That's a pretty high rating.
But Yuan Shao was not so lucky, many people saw his failure as a sign of incompetence, and some people also called him the first straw bag of the Three Kingdoms. So the question is, they are all losers, why do people have such different evaluations of Yuan Shao and Xiang Yu? Before answering this question, let's briefly review the background and history of the Battle of Guandu and the Battle of Xiaxia. At the time of the Battle of Guandu, Yuan Shao was already the largest warlord force in the north, occupying 4 states, and the number of troops that could be used reached 100,000, and there was no worries.
Let's look at Cao Cao again, at that time, although Cao Cao had already blackmailed Tianzi to order the princes and often conquered the four sides in the name of Tianzi, his strength was still incomparable with Yuan Shao, and the military strength that could be used was only 20,000 or 30,000. Moreover, his rear was still unstable, Western Liang Ma Teng was looking at the tiger, and Jiangdong Sun Ce also wanted to sneak attack Xu Du, so no matter from any point of view, Cao Cao was a weak side. Although Guo Jia gave the famous theory of ten wins and ten defeats before the war, he was more of a spiritual encouragement and could not solve many practical problems.
Because the strength was inferior to the other side, after the Battle of Guandu began, many of Cao Cao's men secretly wrote letters to Yuan Shao, preparing to leave a way back for themselves. Cao Cao himself retreated several times and planned to return to Xuchang. Fortunately, thanks to Xun Yu's strong persuasion, Cao Cao did not retreat. At the time of the stalemate between the two sides, Yuan Shao's adviser Xu You defected to Cao Cao and suggested that Cao Cao send someone to burn Yuan Shao's grain and grass base, Wuchao. After the grain and grass were destroyed, Yuan Shaojun was distraught, and was eventually defeated by Cao Cao, and he himself died of grief.
The defeat at the Battle of Guandu was certainly related to Yuan Shao's self-pity and non-listening to Tian Feng's words, but one of the most important reasons was that Xu You's rebellion caused yuan's army to burn grain and grass. If it were not for this reason, the final victory or defeat of the two sides would probably still be unknown. From this point of view, calling Yuan Shao a straw bale is probably a bit too much, when Yuan Shao was initially forced by Dong Zhuo to leave the capital, he did not even have a foothold, after his own efforts, he defeated many warlords and had 4 states, such an achievement is a straw bale can do?
Let's look at Xiang Yu again, before the Battle of Xiaxia, he had an absolute advantage over Liu Bang, both in terms of strength and territory, liu Bang could not be compared, and Liu Bang, who had fought several times, lost his armor and was embarrassed. In order to escape, Liu Bang even pushed his children out of the car, and it was Xiahou Baby who rescued them one by one. Despite occupying such a great advantage, Xiang Yu was defeated in the next battle, and finally killed himself in Wujiang. After Xiang Yu's death, people's evaluation of him was diametrically opposite to Yuan Shao's, no one said that he was a straw bag, and many people still thought he was a hero. The reason for this evaluation, in addition to Xiang Yu's bravery and martial prowess, is that he once beat his opponent Liu Bang to a terrible end. Yuan Shao, on the other hand, did not have such a performance in the battle against Cao Cao. But in any case, I think Yuan Shao was also a hero during the Three Kingdoms period, but unfortunately his opponent was Cao Cao.