Looking at the "Xiang Yu Benji", "Gao Zu Benji", and "Chen Cheng Xiang Family" in the "Records of History", many people have come to the conclusion that Han Sanjie (Xiao He, Han Xin, Zhang Liang) added together, that is, the equivalent of Xiang Yu's sub-father Fan Zeng, and Liu Bang's military ability is far inferior to Xiang Yu, if Xiang Yu obeys Fan Zeng's words, then it is not Liu Bang, the emperor of Han Taizu Gao, who established a unified empire after Qin.
This statement seems to be reasonable: with Fan Zeng at his side, Xiang Yu maintained a record of total victory in the war against Liu Bang, even if Liu Bang had gathered Together Han Sanjie and a Chen Ping, who was not very good in character but full of poisonous schemes, the Han army still could not defeat the Chu army. Therefore, Jiang Ji, the Cao Wei grand lieutenant during the Three Kingdoms period, said: "If Xiang Yu listens to Fan Zeng's strategy, he will take the world at a flat pace." ”
Xiang Yu lost the Chu-Han War, and also lost his own life, when he killed himself in Wujiang, I don't know if he remembered his father Fan Zeng, who was taken away by him two years ago - according to sima Qian's "Records of History", Fan Zeng was killed by Xiang Yu's anger on his back, but if we look closely at other ancient books, that is, the commentaries of the "Records of History", "Collection Solution", "Index", "Justice" and "Short And Long Talk", we will find that Fan Zeng was not killed by Xiang Yu, but by spies sent by Chen Ping.
On the author's desk, there is a copy of the "Doubtful Case of History", which contains a passage that reads: "If Fan Zeng's request to Bu Shi is true, then this Bu Shi will be a spy bought by Chen Ping, using Zhuge Liang's three qi Zhou Yu's strategy, five qi Fan Zeng, and Fan Zeng is not angry, and the last thing left is assassination." The so-called "return to Pengcheng, gangrene and death" must have been caused by Chen Ping poisoning the spies. ”
Saying that Chen Ping was five qi Fan Zeng and Fan Zeng was not angry, Chen Ping had no choice but to send spies to Yin Zhao, and that Mr. Suan Gua poisoned and assassinated, based on the matter of "Fan Zeng asking Bu" in the "Short and Long Sayings".
Before talking about Fan Zengqingbu, we must first understand what kind of person Chen Ping is--some people compare Jia Xu and Chen Ping in the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty, because Jia Xu is an extremely self-interested person who cares about the world and has countless poisonous schemes, but he can mix with every warlord and prince.
Chen Ping was a shrewd politician and conspirator, but he was definitely not a good person, and even he himself admitted: "I have many conspiracies, which is forbidden by the Taoists." My world is ruined, and it is over, and it will never be able to rise again, and I will have many evils. ”
Chen Ping's prediction was very accurate, and his great-grandson, Chen He, the fourth-generation Marquis of Qu rebellion, was beheaded for robbing people's wives: "Emperor Xiaowen was twenty-three years old, He sat on his wife, abandoned the city, and the country was removed." ”
Chen Ping did not deny that he had stolen his sister-in-law to receive gold, and Zhou Bo's infant irrigation was not a false accusation, and Chen Ping himself admitted that the characteristics of the flow of talent at the time of the Chu-Han conflict were very interesting: "King Xiang (Xiang Yu) is a man, respectful and loving, and many people who are honest and courteous return to him." Now the great king (referring to Liu Bang) is slow and less courteous, and the honest and honest people do not come; but the great king can spare people as knights, and the stubborn and ruthless and shameless people of the soldiers return to The Han. The subject came naked, and was not overwhelmed by gold. ”
Chen Ping never considered himself a righteous gentleman, even if someone said that he sent spies to poison Fan Zeng, he would only smile and admit it rather than defend, and chen Ping's design to separate Xiang Yu and Fan Zeng recorded in the "History" did not seem to be very clever, and neither Xiang Yu nor Fan Zeng would take a meal seriously: "King Xiang and Fan Zeng urgently surrounded Xingyang. The King of Han was troubled, but he used Chen Pingji to ask King Xiang. The messenger of king Xiang came, and he was too imprisoned to enter it. When he saw the Messenger, he pretended to be stunned: 'I thought that the messenger of the Father was the messenger of the king of the anti-Xiang. 'Even more hold on, and eat the messenger of the king with evil food.' The messenger returned to king Xiang. King Xiang suspected that Fan Zeng had an affair with Han and seized power slightly. ”
The contradiction between Xiang Yu and Fan Zeng seems to have been accumulated for a long time, Chen Ping's divisive plan is just a fuse, if these two calm down, things will turn around, so Chen Ping does not stop doing two, and launched a hunt for Fan Zeng, who returned to his hometown, and this hunt and killing, not with a sword but with a turtle armor - when people divinated at that time, or used fire to see the cracks in the tortoise shell, or made of tortoise shell to see what kind of posture it would be to throw up and fall.
The place where Fan Zeng fell is recorded in the "Records of History" and the "Short and Long Sayings" are different, the "Records of History" says that Fan Zeng "did not go to Pengcheng, and died of gangrene on his back", while the "Short and Long Sayings" records that Fan Zeng returned to Pengcheng only depressed and did not have a disease: "Ya Father thanked king Xiang xiang and returned to Pengcheng, Yi Yi was lakable, his lips were dry and kissed, he was burned in the mansion, the meat was fresh, and he drank a number of pulp spoons." Sit up in the middle of the night, wandering and staggering. ”
Fan Zeng, who returned to Pengcheng, was so worried about the war on the front line that he summoned a master, that is, a professional fortune teller, to come to divination.
Fan Zeng solemnly took out the turtle shell and after a series of water washing and burning, he expressed his concern about Xiang Yu: "Although Zeng is old and dares to forget his home country, he dares to ask for it, then chu bu, saying: 'When will this battle end and what will be the result)?' ’”
Gua Xiang seemed to be very unlucky, so Fan Zeng asked Bu Shi to explain in detail, and the Bu Shi did not interpret the Gua Xiang, but instead began the "Five Qi Fan Zeng", that is, issued five sentences of cursed questions (in order to facilitate the reader's reading, the author converted to modern Chinese).
Master Bu first asked, "When you first followed Wuxin Junxiang liang, did you want to establish who would be the co-lord of the world?" Xiang Liang was defeated by the Yong King Zhang Handan (then a Qin general, later created the Yong King by Xiang Yu), why didn't you warn him earlier? ”
Fan Zeng was not angry: "What we were thinking about was li chu huai wang, as for the defeat of Xiang Liang, it was because he was self-conscious and did not listen to advice, I reminded him several times, but did not listen." Besides, Xiang Liang was defeated by Zhang Handan in Dingtao, and I was in Xiangcheng at the time, and it was impossible to make suggestions on the spot. ”
Master Bu asked second, "Xiang Yu murdered Qingzi champion Song Yi at that time, why didn't you stop it?" ”
Fan Zeng was still not angry: "Song Yi should have been killed, at the beginning he was hesitant to move forward with a ghost fetus to make the veterans of the division tired, and the Qin army had just defeated the Morale of the Zhao army, Qin Ke zhao was strong, I smelled Ke and Sui, if I let Song Yi command, there would be no doubt of defeat." At that time, the survival of the Chu army was only between breaths, if it were not for King Xiang's decision to kill Song Yi at the moment, who else would have the ability to turn the tide? ”
When Master Bu asked two questions in vain, he issued a third question: "Xiang Yu killed 200,000 surrendered Qin soldiers in Xin'an Pit, why didn't you stop him?" ”
Fan Zeng's answer was straight-forward: "I have blocked it, but I also understand King Xiang's feelings." The first is that the descendants are not honest (Qin pawns are resentful and conspiratorial), and they may make trouble at any time. In addition, the military and civilians of the six kingdoms have been bullied by the Qin people for ten lifetimes (stop the neck to the abdomen, severed limbs and slaughter the stomach in the hands of the Qin people), and now finally have the opportunity to take revenge on the snow and hatred, who will give up? As soon as king Xiang's golden mouth was opened, the generals were eager for revenge, and no one could stop it--it was impossible to kill Qin with 200,000 princes, and qin to kill princes 100, and a hundred times more, I did not dare to believe it! ”
Master Bu's "double standard" was refuted by Fan Zeng, and he issued a fourth question: "Xiang Yu killed the infants who had already surrendered, and then burned the Qin Palace, why didn't you stop it?" ”
Fan Zeng was even less angry: "I will not stop it at all, the two generations of our ancestor kings of the Chu state (Xiong Huai and Negative Blade) are all folded in the hands of the Qin state, and King Xiang's grandfather Xiang Yan and uncle Xiang Liang all died under the Qin people's sword, avenging the ancestors, ancestors, and fathers and killing children and babies to directly repay the grievances, what is wrong?" As for the palace annex of the Qin Kingdom, it is all a symbol of the shame of the Six Kingdoms, why not burn it or leave it? ”
Fan Zeng's words are really quite reasonable: to pay back the teeth with eyes for eyes, to pay for blood debts, to be kind to the enemy is to be cruel to oneself, and why the palace of the Qin State is the shame of the Six Kingdoms, readers all know that that is to bring the princes of the Six Kingdoms to a big move, in addition to the buildings and personnel - "Concubines and concubines, princes and grandchildren, resigned to the lower temple, came to Qin, sang the night strings, and were Qin Palace people." ”
Killing children and babies is to avenge the family country, burning the Qin Palace is to shame the Six Kingdoms, Fan Zeng does not think that Xiang Yu is wrong to do this, so he is still not angry.
Bu Shi sent four questions in a row, all of which were rejected by Fan Zeng, so he had to sacrifice the killer skill, and this fifth question was really difficult to answer: "When it was said that Wang Zhi, who entered Xianyang first, Liu Bang entered Xianyang first, why did Xiang Yu not make him the King of Qin but the King of Han?" Xiang Yu reneged on his promise, why didn't you stop it? ”
Fan Zeng still had a good word: "King Xiang did not break the contract, but on the merits and rewards, at that time everyone knew that 'it is difficult to save Hebei and enter The Pass is easy, and the strength of qin is difficult to take advantage of the gap between Qin', the princes' armies have been defeated repeatedly, it is King Xiang who annihilated the main force of the Qin army, Liu Bang just took advantage of the void to enter and pick peaches - the merit of destroying Qin does not belong to Liu but to Xiang, who do you say should be the lord of Guanzhong? What's more, Liu Bang first closed off to resist Chu (urgently sent soldiers to guard Hangu Pass, did not accept the princes' army, slightly recruited Guanzhong soldiers to benefit themselves, distance from it), to say that the breach of contract, but also Liu Bang defaulted first! ”
The Bu Shi recorded in the "Short and Long Talk" actually asked Fan Zeng seven questions, but since some people believe that it is "Chen Ping Wuqi Fan Zeng", the remaining two questions, in the "Xiang Wang's Discussion of the Han King's Text", Xiang Yu has already explained clearly, a few days ago, the author in "By Xiang Yu Qiwen denounced as a ghost stingray: Liu Bang's two adulterous servants, one of which is Chen Ping", here will no longer draw snakes to add enough.
Of course, the readers are wise people, of course, they can see that this master is shouldering a mission, and his position is extremely clear, that is, he is very strong and degrading, but his five qi obviously did not achieve the expected goal, and of course it is impossible for Fan Zeng to die, but what happened next became very strange: "Xi, gangrene on the back, seven days and the father pawn." ”
If that bushi had not been a spy sent by Chen Ping, he would not have aggressively questioned Fan Zeng, and the situation at that time was very clear to everyone: Xiang Yu was really inseparable from Fan Zeng, and after he was frustrated on the battlefield, he would definitely bear the guilt of Jing, and Fan Zeng would also release his former suspicions and re-emerge from the mountain, which was absolutely difficult for Liu Bang to accept bad news.
In order to prevent Fan Zeng and Xiang Yu from reconciling, the best way is to poison Fan Zeng, and the only person who can come up with this idea is Chen Ping, the poisoner of the early Han Dynasty--Xiao He is more generous, Zhang Liang is from an aristocratic background, and only Chen Ping can do whatever it takes to achieve his goals.
In fact, whether Fan Zeng was poisoned by Chen Ping's spies was not important, what the readers needed to think about was that Bu Shi stood on Liu Bang's position and asked Fan Zeng's five questions, as well as Fan Zeng's five answers, who said more reasonable?