What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
In 200 BC, the Han Emperor Liu Bang, along with his army, was besieged by the Xiongnu Shan Yu Mao Dun at Baideng Mountain. It was the middle of winter, and the situation of the Han army was critical and life and death were unpredictable.
One night, a secret envoy sneaked into the Xiongnu's tent with Lady Muton (阏氏). Fu Shi was shocked at first, but the envoy was very humble, fell down to worship, and told him that his identity was a special envoy sent by the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, and the purpose of coming this time was to inform Fu Shi of something important.
In addition to offering gold, silver, pearls and jade, the envoy also displayed a scroll painted with a beautiful woman in front of the Fu clan, and Bi Gongbi said: "The Emperor of the Great Han Dynasty was besieged by Shan Yu, and intended to reconcile with Shan Yu' truce, in order to express his sincerity, His Majesty is willing to pay tribute to the most beautiful woman in the country." ”
What wife can tolerate having other women in her husband's heart? In order to prevent the Han Dynasty from sending beautiful women to his husband, Fu Shi deliberately went to see Mo Dun and said to him: "We Xiongnu are accustomed to the life of the steppe, even if we conquer the Han Land, I am afraid it is not suitable for us to live." Recently I heard that the emperor of the Han Dynasty had the assistance of the gods, and if we insisted on being enemies of the Han, offending the gods would probably be detrimental to the whole clan, and I hoped that we would only consider the matter of fighting the Han army and not ignore the fundamental interests of the Xiongnu because of small profits. ”
Listening to his wife's opinion, He took the risk of weighing the pros and cons, and finally decided to let Liu Bang go on a horse and withdraw from Baishan Mountain, and Liu Bang escaped a disaster. And this method of taking advantage of Fu's jealousy and drawing salaries from the bottom of the cauldron was exactly the clever plan of chen ping.
The Siege of Baideng opened a war between Han and Hungary that lasted for three hundred years. Although Liu Bang retreated from BaiShan Mountain, he was psychologically inferior, and when the Han army faced the Xiongnu army, it also had a fearful mentality.
Since then, the Xiongnu under the command of Mao Dun have become more and more arrogant, and constantly provoked wars against the Han Dynasty, which not only made the borders of the Han Dynasty unrestful, but also made Liu Bang upset, and finally had to adopt a strategy of peace with the Xiongnu under the advice of Lou Jing and other ministers, which temporarily eased the border conflict between Han and Hungary.
Liu Bang spent half his life on horseback, commanding the heroes of the world, and even Xiang Yu, the invincible overlord of that year, was finally beaten by him, and Wujiang killed himself, but in the face of the Xiongnu invasion, he had to use the low-voiced way of Han women and relatives to resolve the dispute, which was really humiliating. But for Liu Bang, the king of a country, such a choice is indeed a helpless move.
First, the rise of strong enemies
Liu Bang had naively believed that after the death of the overlord Xiang Yu, there would be no opponent under the whole world to match him; however, the facts soon hurt the face of the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty, because in the north, a strong enemy had risen and began to infiltrate his own power into the Central Plains.
This man was the Hun Khan Mao Dun, who was also a legendary hero of the Huns. Originally, in the northern steppe, it was a situation where the Xiongnu, Donghu and Yue clans were strong, but after Mao Dun's father seized power, he was ambitious and intended to become the sole master of the northern grassland.
The king of Donghu, boasting of his great strength, launched a provocation against the Xiongnu, arrogantly demanded good horses and beautiful women from Mo Dun, who made a plan, ostensibly agreed to submit, secretly gathered men who could fight in the whole country, and took advantage of the moment when the king of Dong Hu was triumphant and paralyzed, and destroyed Dong Hu's fierce enemies in a battle with a moment of lightning and invisibility.
Subsequently, Mao Dun took advantage of the courage of the strong soldiers to attack the Yue clan, and the soldiers pointed out that they were invincible, and almost overnight, the northern grasslands changed from three-legged to the Xiongnu family. At this time, Mao Dun can be described as the real king of the steppe, and the territory controlled by the Xiongnu is almost the same as that of the Han Empire.
The rapid rise of Mo Dun became a strong enemy of the Han Dynasty. And Mao Dun's ambition was not satisfied with becoming the king of the steppe, and he began to covet the Central Plains unscrupulously.
Second, the misjudgment of the situation led to the siege of Bai Deng
In 201 BC, the Xiongnu iron horse brazenly invaded the border of the Han Dynasty, the Han king believed in the enemy, the northern gate of the Han Empire was opened, and Mao Dun drove straight into Jinyang. Liu Bang saw that the situation was critical, and immediately marched on the throne, and the two strong brigades launched a deadly battle.
At the beginning of the war, the Han army made relatively smooth progress, pursuing and fighting the Xiongnu troops all the way, and the momentum was strong. However, just when victory was in sight, cold winter fell, and the severe cold weather caused 30% of the Han army to lose its combat effectiveness due to frostbite, which greatly reduced the combat effectiveness of the Han army. Do you continue to march to pursue the Xiongnu, or do you wait for the spring to fight again? Liu Bang couldn't make up his mind for a moment.
At this time, Liu Bang received information that the Xiongnu army had already garrisoned The Valley, if it could raid, it could annihilate the main xiongnu force in one fell swoop, and perhaps it could also capture Mao Dun and solve the northern border problem once and for all.
At first, Liu Bang was also suspicious of this news, and sent more than a dozen military probes to reconnoiter in a row, and the feedback received was that the Daigu garrison was lax and could raid. Liu Bang was still not very reassured, and once again sent Lou Jing, a senior military detective with outstanding professional ability, to reconnoiter.
Lou Jing was indeed meticulous in his work, and this time he found that the garrison deployed by the Xiongnu was very strange, and the people stationed in the Daigu Valley were all old, weak, and disabled, obviously not the main force, and Lou Jing immediately concluded that this was a trick to lure the enemy deeper.
After Lou Jing came to this conclusion, he did not dare to delay and immediately returned to the Han camp to prepare to stop Liu Bang's plan to attack Daigu. However, before he reached the Han camp's garrison, he found that the Han army had already poured out of the nest (I don't know which nerve Liu Bang was on the wrong side, so why didn't he wait for Lou Jing's feedback).
Lou Jing was horrified and urgently asked to see Liu Bang, explaining to him that Chen Bing Daigu was deliberately showing weakness and intending to seduce the enemy's judgment, and risked his life to ask Liu Bang to order the stop of the march, but Liu Bang could not listen, but instead thought that Lou Jing's behavior was suspected of confusing the public and distracting the army, and not only did not withdraw his troops, but instead ordered Lou Jing to be thrown into prison.
However, Liu Bang soon tasted the bitter fruit of self-righteousness. As Lou Jing said, Mao Dun had already laid an ambush and only waited for Liu Bang to throw himself into the net. When Liu Bang chen bing was on Mount Baishan, the xiongnu's 400,000 main army came like a tide, encircling Mount Baishan.
Liu Bang was trapped for seven days and seven nights, and the two sides could not stand each other, but the Han army was besieged, the supply of grain and grass was difficult, and the weather was cold, and the non-combat attrition of the soldiers was very serious, and if they did not break through, they were afraid that there would be a danger of chaos without a war and the whole army being destroyed.
So Chen Ping offered his plan, and the scene at the beginning of the article appeared. In the Battle of Baideng Mountain, although Liu Bang escaped, for the Han army and the Xiongnu army, which were not much different in strength, it was a contest of morale and national strength, and in this game, Liu Bang lost. Since then, the Han army has developed an indescribable fear of the Xiongnu's military strength.
Third, according to the national strength at that time, the measures that had to be taken
Liu Bang has a well-known virtue, that is, he can change mistakes when he knows mistakes. After the Battle of Baideng, Liu Bang realized his mistake, so he released Lou Jing from prison, sincerely apologized, and also made Lou Jing the "Marquis of Jianxin" and reused it.
Soon after the siege of Bai Deng, Mao Dun launched another provocation against the Han Dynasty, and Liu Bang was very depressed about this, so he asked the ministers for a solution to the border troubles. This time, Lou Jing threw out the proposal of peace with the Xiongnu and analyzed for Liu Bang why peace should be carried out:
1. The Han Dynasty itself was an empire at the beginning, full of wastes to be rebuilt, and experienced a great war with the Xiongnu, and the national strength was seriously consumed. At this time, what is needed is to recuperate, accumulate strength, and avoid further wars, with the national strength of the Great Han at that time, if it is dragged into war for a long time, I am afraid that it will be difficult for the country to have a strong day.
2. The Xiongnu are nomadic peoples, and there is no traditional etiquette concept of the Chinese people, so it is unreasonable to deal with them. Since it is impossible to be reasonable and cannot be submitted to it by force, it is better to become relatives and use kinship as a bond to balance and achieve the purpose of maintaining friendly relations.
After all, with the national strength and military strength of the Han Dynasty at that time, if it fought against the Xiongnu for a long time, it would be a huge consumption of the national economy and the lives of the people, and instead of being poor and weak for a long time, it was better to taoguang and cultivate obscurity, practice internal skills, and wait for the opportunity.
Liu Bang felt that Lou Jing's suggestion was very realistic, although it was inevitable for the Han to be close to him, but as far as the situation at that time was concerned, if he did not tolerate it, he would be chaotic, and I am afraid that this was also the most comprehensive and overall situation plan.
After the implementation of the policy of peace and affinity, the relationship between han and the Xiongnu has indeed improved, but the border conflicts are still continuous, and for a long time afterwards, the Xiongnu are only on the top, threatening the four sides, and at every turn they meet with the Han Dynasty, like a posture of a northern hegemon, which makes the rulers of the Han Dynasty still feel uneasy in their hearts. However, due to the situation, it is necessary to continue the pro-peace policy.
However, history is developing, and the strong and the weak can also be transformed into each other. Perhaps it was precisely because Liu Bang judged the hour and sized up the situation and endured humiliation and burden to implement the policy of peace and affinity that the generations of the Han Dynasty won time to recuperate and enhance their national strength, and created the necessary and necessary conditions and material foundation for the rise of Emperor Wu of Han later.