Mr. Zhou Baiquan is a descendant of the famous general Zhou Yu at the end of the Han Dynasty, and he has always devoted himself to studying the genealogy handed down from his ancestors, and wants to prove that the Zhou clan in Nanjing, where he is located, is a direct descendant of Zhou Yu in the Three Kingdoms.
Recently, Mr. Zhou found a copy of the "Genealogy of the Zhou Clan of Luyi Wudong" in the Jiangxi region, and according to the origin of this family tree, Mr. Zhou has confirmed that the Zhou clan in Nanjing is indeed a descendant of Zhou Yu. What makes him even happier is that in this family tree, there are also some unknown secrets: the reason why Zhou Yu has a bad image in the novel is entirely because Luo Guanzhong intends to retaliate.
The two were not born in the same era, and they had never even met each other, so why take revenge?
Today, let's take a look at Mr. Zhou's statement.
According to the records in the "Genealogy of the Zhou Clan of Xishan" treasured by Mr. Zhou, the historical Zhou Yu is the same as the records in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and is an immortal wizard who also has the martial strategy of Wen Tao. In terms of age, Kong Ming is six years younger than Zhou Yu. On the Chibi battlefield, all the strategies were proposed by Zhou Yu, including the fire attack plan and the straw boat borrowing arrow that we are familiar with, all of which were the credit of the governor, and did not involve Zhuge Liang.
According to historical records, Zhou Yu was indeed a general with great instruments, and his temperament was enough to make him the first of the "Four Beautiful Men of the Three Kingdoms". Su Shi's "Nian Nu Jiao" shows us Zhou Yu's majestic style: "When I thought of Gongjin, Xiao Qiao was first married, with majestic hair, lupine scarves, and between the conversations and laughter, the trees flew away and disappeared..."
However, there is no "burning Chibi" in the main history, strictly speaking, "burning Wulin", and it is very likely that the Cao army retreated due to the self-destruction of warships due to the plague. Moreover, the bridge section of "grass boat borrowing arrows" may not have happened, which is most likely the author's artistic play. Therefore, Mr. Zhou's claim that Zhou Yu formulated a series of Chibi plans is the author's reservations, at least we cannot prove this until more archaeological evidence is unearthed. But from the perspective of a novel alone, it is indeed difficult to guess Mr. Luo Guanzhong's intentions.
Zhou Yuming is a general with both ability and demeanor, why should he be portrayed in the novel as a little person who is jealous of Xianxian's ability, and even angry or even violent because of some of Kong Ming's small routines?
According to Mr. Zhou, in fact, this is completely a "strange injustice through the ages", just like Mr. Shi Nai'an slandered Wu Zhi, and the case must be overturned. The discrepancies in the main history are enough to show that Mr. Luo Guanzhong's description of Zhou Yu is untrue. According to the information recorded in the genealogy of the Zhou clan in Wudong, Zhou Yu's death stemmed from a decisive battle between Cao Ren, which took place in Nan County, which is now Hefei, Anhui Province.
During the war, Zhou Yu was unfortunately poisoned by an arrow. However, Zhou Yu did not die immediately, but died a year after returning to China, and the long-incurable arrow wound eventually caused complications and caused Zhou Yu to die. Obviously, there is a big difference between this and the statement in the novel. According to the novel, Zhou Yu fell into a series of "routines" under Zhuge Liang's cloth, and finally vomited blood and died in the sigh of "both Shengyu and He Shengliang".
Thinking about it carefully, the death of Zhou Yu in the novel is groundless, because Zhou Yu was at the peak of his life at that time, and it was impossible for him to sink in these blows with his temperament.
According to the Wudong family tree, we found evidence that Luo Guanzhong had defamed Zhou Yu.
It turned out that Zhou Yu and his wife had two sons, and the eldest son, Zhou Xun, had the style of a father, but he was jealous of the talent Zhou Xun and died early. The second son, Zhou Yin, continued his allegiance to Eastern Wu after his father's death, but unfortunately the Zhou clan at that time had fallen due to Zhou Yu's death. During a small talk, Zhou Yin offended Sun Quan because of his inappropriate words, and was exiled to Luling County, stripped of his official position and title.
Zhou Yin, who had lost everything, was poor and destitute, but fortunately, a local old man surnamed Luo appreciated his talent, so he summoned him to be his son-in-law. After the Zhou and Luo families married, they married from generation to generation, and the in-law relationship between the two families lasted until the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, and was passed on to the generation of Zhou Xu and Luo Guanzhong. In that era, both of them took the title of meritorious deeds and held examinations for many years.
However, Luo Guanzhong's luck was not good, and he did not make the list for several years in a row, but Zhou Xu was titled on the gold list and successfully entered the career. Luo Guanzhong, who had no chance of a career, did business with his father in the Taiyuan area, often listening to the stories of the Three Kingdoms in the tavern tea house. At that time, people habitually revered Shu Han as orthodox, so the history of Shu Han was whitewashed by people at the time and had become unrecognizable.
Luo Guanzhong liked to listen to opera and felt that the Three Kingdoms was a good novel subject, so he adapted the opera he listened to into a book and wrote the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" that we are familiar with. Because he could not get the title of the gold list, but Zhou Shu got what he wanted, out of jealousy, Luo Guanzhong simply denigrated Zhou Yu, the ancestor of the Zhou clan, in the book. The truth came out, and it turned out that Zhou Yu of the Three Kingdoms had been slandered and retaliated against by Luo Guanzhong, which was really surprising.
However, the study of history cannot be heard from only one family, but we should regard it as a possibility to investigate it when more evidence is available in the future.
Resources:
【Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Genealogy of the Zhou Clan of Xishan"】