Author: Hanging Bi (public name of the same name), authorized to read the history of the release. Click here to view the previous article
Deng Ai is a Three Kingdoms character I love very much, and his tragic ending is breathtaking. Today we will make an in-depth analysis of his tragic fate.
According to the traditional view, Deng Ai's arrogance caused the suspicion of Sima Zhao, the ruler, and zhong hui, who had a bad relationship with him, interfered with it and eventually died.
But in fact, Deng Ai's ending was caused by a variety of reasons, and his series of acts of pride after the destruction of Shu were only a direct inducement, giving Zhong Hui a reason to lay a black hand, but the root cause was deeper.
The Battle of Shu was not a simple military operation, but a struggle for power lurking behind it, which stemmed from Zhong Hui's ambitions, which was not a secret at the time, because more than one person had warned Sima Zhao, but Sima Zhao had ignored it.
I think either he trusts Zhong Hui too much, or he wants to put the next big banner and kill the three soldiers.
When Deng Ai made the Shu Tou Gong, he and Zhong Hui had already completely broken up.
However, this does not mean that Deng Ai is going to be unlucky, because if there is no order from Sima Zhao, Deng Ai has soldiers and generals in his hands, and Zhong Hui really may not be able to move him.
At that time, after Sima Zhao made up his mind to take Deng Ai, because he was worried that Deng Ai would disobey, he wrote a handwritten edict asking Zhong Hui to take it to Chengdu, so as to break the military morale of Deng Ai's subordinates and make him submit.
That is to say, if it were not for Sima Zhao's nod, Zhong would want to get rid of Deng Ai, and he would only be able to meet with him.
After Deng Ai made a great achievement, if he immediately retreated in a rapid stream, then he was basically safe, after all, Zhong Would like him to hurry up, but unfortunately Deng Ai was too inflated.
First of all, Deng Ai made himself the general of Liu Chan, and then he wantonly canonized his subordinates Shi Ji, Qian Hong, and others, and the name was based on the story of "Deng Yu".
However, it is not that they are all from Nanyang, and they are all surnamed Deng, so they can learn Deng Yu (there is no conclusive evidence for the claim that Deng Ai is a descendant of Deng Yu).
At first, in order to quickly pacify the Chimei army in Guanzhong, Deng Yu co-opted Kui Huan who occupied Longyou, and appointed him as the general of Xizhou without asking for instructions. Later, Kui Huan really became a big help in Pingding Pass.
At that time, Liu Xiu had not yet pacified the Central Plains, so although Deng Yu privately rewarded Kui Huan, after all, the situation was urgent, and the practice of not accepting the orders of foreign kings did have excellent results, so it did not arouse Liu Xiu's suspicions.
But the situation deng Ai faced was obviously different from That of Deng Yu, and now that Shu Han had perished, Yizhou's wealth and army had been pocketed, and Liu Chan and others had little value in wooing except as mascots.
Also, what is the relationship between Deng Yu and Liu Xiu, do you deng Abby get it? In doing so, he did not regard himself as an outsider, and in Sima Zhao's view, there was only one explanation--that is, to buy people's hearts and minds and plot against him.
Therefore, from this moment on, Sima Zhao should have some disgust with Deng Ai—obviously, pardoning Liu Chan and rewarding soldiers to buy people's hearts and minds should be done by him.
Later, Deng Ai proposed to Sima Zhao a plan to destroy Wu. To be fair, what Deng Ai said about building ships in Yizhou, hoarding salt and iron for military supplies, and so on are all very correct strategies, but the problem is that it is still not his turn.
Sima Zhao's launching of the war to destroy Shu was not a desire for the unity of the world, but to use this merit to usurp the throne for himself, and now that the purpose has been achieved, why bother with other things?
Moreover, you Deng Ai are only the commander-in-chief of a front, so what qualifications do you have to dictate the major affairs of the military state?
However, Deng Ai did not realize this, and then he suggested that Liu Chan should be treated kindly and made king, so that Eastern Wu would probably fall in the wind.
From this, it can be seen that Deng Ai is a military giant and a political dwarf. First of all, his proposal was not very good, because it was too underestimating the level of eastern Wu decision-makers.
Liu Chan was treated well because after the fall of the Shu state, only the State of Wu was left, and they needed to set an example. Then, if Eastern Wu also surrendered, they, as the last force to perish, could not have the same significance as Liu Chan as an example, so the logic that treating Liu Chan kindly could attract Eastern Wu to surrender is not valid.
Moreover, at that time, Sima Zhao was only the Duke of Jin, but Liu Chan was the King of Fufeng, so why was Sima Zhao's feelings so bad?
Sima Zhao was already very dissatisfied at this time, so he ordered Wei Wan to reply to Deng Ai and said: This matter must be reported to the imperial court, and it is not possible to act hastily.
In fact, Sima Zhao was the imperial court, and he said that he was refusing, which was also the last chance he gave Deng Ai.
However, Deng Ai still did not wake up and continued to go back on the road to death, finally making Sima Zhao lose patience with him.
Zhong Hui seized this opportunity and used his talent for imitating the handwriting of others to revise Deng Ai's letter and change his words to be quite arrogant and rude, which completely angered Sima Zhao, and Deng Ai's fate was doomed.
Did Sima Zhao know about Deng Ai's grievances?
Of course he knew. After Deng Ai was killed, Du Pre publicly accused Wei Ou of violating his demeanor. So it can be seen that this is not a secret at all.
In addition, after Deng Ai's death, Sima Zhao, fearing that the news of Deng Ai's death would change Long You's life, immediately sent Tang Bin to investigate.
If Deng Ai really deserved it, and the court had a reason to kill him, why worry?
What Sima Zhao was really worried about was Deng Ai's prestige in the Longyou region.
In the beginning, Deng Aizhi's curse, Emperor Wen took Ai Jiu in Longyou, sued the heart of the soldier, once destroyed, fear of the border emotions, so that Bin Michazhi. (Biography of Tang Bin of Jin Shu)
In addition to Deng Ai's own series of irrational behaviors, he himself and the top brass of the Sima Zhao Group are also incompatible, if he is careful in his words and deeds, of course, no one will move him, once he makes a mistake, it will inevitably lead to disaster.
The Sima family gradually gained power after the Gaopingling Rebellion, and in Sima Zhao's generation, in order to usurp the rebellion, they began to co-opt the high-ranking figures of the Wei state, and gradually formed a common interest group.
At that time, most of the high-ranking figures of the Cao Wei generation had passed away, and most of the sons of these heroes and heroes that Sima Zhao had drawn together were some second and third generations, and these disciples of the scholar clan were different from the early period of Cao Wei, and they gradually stepped on the opposite side with the cold gates in the middle of the dynasty, that is to say, at that time, Sima Zhao's group was in a state of separation.
During this period, the sons of the nobles of the scholar clan were generally clean and luxurious, and the best of this class of figures would be widely respected.
Zhong Hui, as a member of the celebrity community, said to Jiang Wei, who surrendered, with your style, Zhuge Shi and Xiahou Xuan are not as good as you.
He will sit with Wei Chu and sit at the same table, saying that the long Stud predicted: "The famous people of Middle-earth who are in the middle of the world will not be able to win the public recess and the beginning." (Three Kingdoms Zhishu Shu Shu Jiang Wei Shu Shu Jiang Wei Chuan 14)
It should be known that Zhuge Shi and Xiahou Xuan were both rebels who had been characterized, but Zhong Hui was not afraid of it at all, and publicly expressed his approval of these two.
And Jiang Wei was a supporter of Zheng Xue, and the scholars at that time were all going to practice Confucian classics, so it can be considered that Jiang Wei was a kind of person with the same temperament as Zhong Hui, so he would be introduced as a confidant.
Deng Ai is very different, he comes from a humble background, and is a practical faction, coupled with the fact that he is not good at stuttering and words, he has a straight personality, and is easy to offend people, so he is incompatible with the celebrity group, and naturally will not be accepted by that circle.
On the other hand, Deng Ai was promoted in the Sima Yi era, and Sima Zhao, in order to build his own team, must reuse the people he promoted, and the use of the elders of the Sima Yi era will be cautious.
Therefore, although Sima Zhao relied on Deng Ai as a military pillar, it was impossible for him to enter the inner circle.
In 265, the imperial edict still called Deng Ai guilty, but he did not resist and fell to the law, so he was stronger than those die-hards.
Moreover, it is also a little strange that this edict puts Deng Ai and Wang Ling together, Wang Ling and Deng Ai are completely different in nature, and Wang Ling's conspiracy to establish a new monarch is not white. However, because Emperor Cao Fang, whom Wang Ling wanted to oppose, was later deposed by Sima Shi, the yin and yang mistakes became the right behavior.
But using such a far-fetched reason to whitewash Wang Ling is not convincing.
Wang Ling's determined rebellion can find a way to wash white, which clearly shows that the Sima clique wants to win over the Taiyuan Wang clan.
However, deng Ai's false accusations cannot be rehabilitated, which shows that there is no benefit in rehabilitating him, so the ruling clique is unwilling to do it.
Two years later, in 267, the Jinwu Emperor Sima Yan had successfully replaced Wei for two years, and Duan Zhuo proposed that Deng Ai be rehabilitated. He clearly stated that Deng Ai was not tolerated by the mainstream because of his personality, and was not really a rebel, and he had no motive for rebellion at all.
However, it was still ignored by the imperial court.
Ai is rigid, petty offenders, and cannot cooperate with friends, so Mo ken is reasonable. Seventy husbands, what do you want! (Three Kingdoms Chronicles of the Wei Shu King Yiqiu Zhuge Deng Zhong Biography 20)
In fact, there is a saying that there will be no rebellion when it is almost seventy, and this reason really does not make sense, after all, Wang Ling was almost eighty years old when he rebelled.
After another six years to 273, Fan Jian once again proposed to rehabilitate Deng Ai. This time it was finally recognized by Sima Yan, the Emperor of Jinwu.
The imperial court pardoned the Deng clan and appointed Deng Ai's grandson Deng Lang as Langzhong.
But unfortunately, the edict still considered Deng Ai guilty, and he was never completely rehabilitated.
It is worth noting that among the two people who proposed to rehabilitate Deng Ai, Duan Zhuo was Deng Ai's subordinate, and Fan Jian was a subordinate of Shu Han, which also showed that the real interest class in the DPRK at that time was completely uninterested in this matter, for the simple reason that they had no reason to do such a laborious and unflattering thing and would punch themselves in the face.
In short, Deng Ai's death was caused by a variety of reasons. His act of pride in his achievements after the Battle of Shu was the direct cause of his injustice, and after the sin of zhonghui and his lack of defense against it accelerated the process, and the fundamental reason was that his origin and words and deeds were incompatible with the mainstream warriors, coupled with factors such as character defects, and finally became a thorn in the eyes of everyone, and they wanted to get rid of it quickly.
In fact, long before Deng Ai went out on the expedition, ominous omens had already appeared. He had a dream that he was sitting on a mountain with running water next to him. So he asked Shao Shao to interpret his dreams for himself.
According to the I Ching, Confucius analyzed the water on the mountain, which confucius analyzed in his work on the I Ching:
The southwest is also meritorious; unfavorable to the northeast, its road is also poor. The State of Shu was in the southwest, and it was bound to make a contribution, but the State of Wei was in the northeast. According to Confucius's analysis, I am afraid that I will not be able to come back.
After Deng Ai listened, he was disappointed and sullen.
This account does not appear in Deng Ai's biography according to the timeline, but is placed after Deng Ai's death as a supplement.
Then, why did Chen Shou add this record of Xuanzhi and Xuan?
In fact, Confucius's analysis of the trampling is preceded by a sentence: "It is difficult to stomp on, and the danger is also in front." See the danger and can stop, know it.
It's just that these words shao didn't say.
The saint is a great wisdom, risk always coexists with opportunity, only see the opportunity but do not see the risk, or can not see the hidden behind the risk, this is irrational.
Confucius said to stop when encountering danger, not to retreat when you see difficulties, but to weigh up and avoid that great risk.
Yao Shao had already pointed out the risks, but Deng Ai did not pay attention to them, and finally disappeared.
I think that Chen Shou joined the description of this dream interpretation because he expressed regret for Deng Ai's encounter, so as to show that Deng Ai actually had a chance to get a good death, and if he could weigh more and seek advantages and avoid harms, the result would not be the same.
But then again, without the feat of smuggling Yin Ping, his status in ancient military history could not have been so high.
Deng Ai was first-class in governing the army, but unfortunately there was a big deficiency in political power, and if he could retire in time, I don't think Sima Zhao would have had to harm him. In this regard, Wang Mao, who destroyed Wu's first skill, was much wiser than he was.