Xu Huang is a character in the camp of Cao Jun, and in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, we can see that the main depiction is Liu Jun's side, after all, in the main history, Liu Bei is the winning side, and naturally this side is heavily described. Therefore, the character depictions in the Cao Jun camp are able to save provinces, and most of them are passed by. The most impressive depiction of Xu Huang is that in the Battle of Xiangfan, Guan Yu was defeated and he was defeated by Xu Chu, but in the end he was defeated at the hands of Yan Liang and Wen Ugly, and there are few descriptions of his death.
In the Battle of Hanzhong, after Xiahou Yuan was killed on the battlefield by Huang Zhong, Xu Huang was ordered to be the vanguard and kill the enemy at the forefront. In fact, Xu Huang still had some skills, at least he was one of the five sons of liang, but in terms of combat strategy, he made a mistake and led to the subsequent big defeat and rushed home. His opponents were Huang Zhong and Zhao Yun, and he intended to emulate Han Xin's previous combat strategy, the Battle of The Backwater, but he did not flexibly apply this method to this campaign, and completely complied with it, which led to later defeats. When he decided to use this method, Wang Ping also advised him, but he insisted on going his own way, and in the end, Huang Zhong and Zhao Yun jointly defeated him, thus losing many soldiers. He fled back to the barracks.
Xu Huang, who returned to the military camp, did not reflect on his own guidance mistakes, but blamed Wang Ping for standing by and watching. Wang Ping felt that if he made a move, not only would he not be able to reverse the situation, but he would even suffer meritorious deeds at the base camp, and the gains would not be worth the losses. Therefore, the two people were suspicious, Xu Huang wanted to get angrier and angrier, and later he actually wanted to kill Wang Ping, and Wang Ping also guessed a few points about Xu Huang's thoughts, plus he did not agree with Xu Huang, thinking that with such a leader, sooner or later he would be defeated. Considering this, Wang Ping burned the camp and went to the Shu army. Xu Huang saw this fire and abandoned the camp overnight and fled.
As the title of the article says, why did Xu Huang not flee when he was defeated by Zhao Yun, but after Wang Ping burned the camp, he abandoned the camp and fled without any remedial measures? In fact, before and after analyzing the whole story, we will get the answer.
First, because although he lost to Huang Zhong and Zhao Yun, he still had a camp, so he did not flee. We can imagine that if Wang Ping went to help Xu Huang at that time, it is very likely that the result was that the camp was also put in, then after Xu Huang was defeated, he could only go back to see Cao Cao. At that time, Wang Ping and the camp were still there, and he could go back to rest and make a new battle plan.
Second, after experiencing the defeat during the day, the mood of the soldiers must also be depressed, and then there was a fire at night, and it is conceivable that they must be like birds of fright, just thinking of fleeing from here quickly, who will listen to Xu Huang's orders. The normal order should have been, after the defeat during the day, to begin to take a short rest, to soothe the hearts of the soldiers, to make them twist into a rope, and to fight for the same goal. Now suddenly such a thing is simply a devastating blow, this time the Shu army is going to wake up in the middle of the night with a smile, originally thinking about continuing to fight, I didn't expect the other side to be so unable to withstand the toss.
The third is that at that time, after Xu Huang experienced the defeat during the day, his mind was scattered, and the thrilling feeling of escaping from death had not yet been eliminated, and he saw a fire in the camp again, which made him mistakenly think that it was the Shu army that sneaked in the middle of the night and set off a fire, of course, the sooner he escaped, the better. Otherwise, the process of Wang Ping setting fire at night would not have been so smooth. In fact, the fire in the middle of the night was the string that made Xu Huang's nerves tense, and he could no longer take care of anything else, and it was important to save his life.
Therefore, we can also see from these three points that Wang Ping set the fire at just the right time, and the time and place were favorable, which led to Xu Huang's abandonment of the camp and escape.