In Chinese history, there have been hundreds of emperors before and after, and there are countless kings of all kinds, but when it comes to "overlords", it seems that it refers to one person--- Xiang Yu.
Xiang Yu, the king of Western Chu, although his name seems to be only the king of a land, was included in the "Benji" by Sima Qian in the historical records, that is, the same level as the emperor.
The main reason is that in the turmoil in the world at the end of Qin, the overlord was the strongest, single-handedly destroyed the main force of the Qin state, and then divided the world to jointly destroy the Qin meritorious people, and actually exercised the power of the emperor. Liu Bang was crowned king of Han by Xiang Yu, which is also the origin of the name of the Han Dynasty.
The history of the Chu-Han rivalry is still the middle boundary on the Chinese chess board.
In fact, the time of this period of history is not long, but it is only more than four years, from Liu Bang's troops from the fiefdom of the King of Han, the ming burning of the boardwalk, the darkness of Chen Cang, and the pacification of the Three Qins, to the end of the overlord's self-destruction of the Wujiang River.
The end of the road is rushing
After more than four years of chu-Han rivalry, the overlord was finally surrounded by the Han army and other princes under the siege, and in the embattled, the overlord Bieji led eight hundred strong men to break through on horseback at night.
The Han army discovered at dawn that Xiang Yu had already broken through, so Liu Bang ordered his horse to lead five thousand cavalry to pursue xiang Yu. Before this, Liu Bang had already announced that he would kill Xiang Yu, reward him with thousands of gold, and seal ten thousand households.
Now that Xiang Yu had escaped, there were not many people left, and everyone was rubbing their fists, trying to take advantage of Xiang Yu's weakest time to win this jackpot.
Xiang Yu fled first, and it was not easy to catch up. Xiang Yu crossed the Huai River, but there were only more than a hundred people left.
When I arrived at this place in Yinling, I got lost again. When inquiring about the road, he was deceived again, almost fell into the swamp, and it was difficult to get out of the swamp, and the Han army had already caught up.
When Xiang Yu ran to the place of Dongcheng, only twenty-eight horsemen followed him, and there were still thousands of people behind the Han army.
Twenty-nine to thousands of people, Xiang Yu knew that this time could not run away, ordered twenty-eight horsemen to break through in four ways, he was still mighty, and rushed into the Han army on horseback, beheading generals, capturing flags, and killing and wounding hundreds of people. When he and his men converged again, they were actually only two horses missing, and their subordinates all bowed to the might of King Xiang.
(There was a small episode, and Yang Xi, who later snatched part of Xiang Yu's body, chased after Xiang Yu after he captured the flag, and as a result, Xiang Yu turned back and yelled, frightening Yang Xi even with his horse, turning around and running for several miles.) Such a coward did not know why he dared to catch up in the end, and actually snatched a part of Xiang Yu's body. ）
Xiang Yu came to the last place of his life, on the edge of the Wu River, where the Wu River is a tributary of the Yangtze River.
From the lower road, across the Huai River, through the Yin Ling to wujiang, the entire journey is now calculated to be about three hundred kilometers, the ancient road is not so developed, the distance should be farther, even if it is a horse, it is also necessary to rest, it is impossible to run all day, so it is estimated that the whole process should not be just a day.
The Overlord ended
Hearing the psychological shock of the embattled song, the huge loss of his men from tens of thousands of soldiers to only twenty-six people to follow, the deep exhaustion of fighting for several consecutive days, and the loneliness of the eight thousand Jiangdong disciples who followed him to raise troops, Xiang Yu suddenly lost interest in fighting for world domination after reaching the edge of the Wu River, facing the gushing river waters and the Wujiang Pavilion Chief who wanted to send him across the river with a small boat.
At that time, there was only a small boat on the riverside, and if Xiang Yu got on the boat, the Han army would never be able to catch up with him again, but just when he was able to escape from the thousands of Han troops for several days, he suddenly gave up.
Xiang Yu, who had planned to cross the river, only gave his beloved Wuqi horse to the chief of Wujiang Pavilion, and he and the rest of his men all dismounted to face the surging Han cavalry.
Han Xin fought a battle with tens of thousands of soldiers and horses under his command, which was to stimulate the potential of the soldiers and soldiers, and put them to death and be reborn.
Behind Xiang Yu was Wujiang, but there were only twenty-six people around him, not even war horses, and thousands of cavalry were coming in front of him, completely giving up the hope of life.
Xiang Yu single-handedly held a short soldier, killed hundreds of Han troops, and was wounded more than ten times on his body, and his life was really coming to an end.
Xiang Yu saw an original acquaintance at the last moment--- Lü Matong, how they met the history is not recorded, but to record Xiang Yu's last words, to give his own worth of thousands of gold, can be sealed thousands of households of the good head to this acquaintance, it is considered to leave some benefits for the acquaintance.
After saying that, he killed himself, and no one could kill him except the overlord himself. When the Western Chu Overlord died at the age of thirty-one, Xiang Yu was only defeated in his life, and this defeat buried his life.
Five people split the body
The Overlord is dead and an era is over, but that's just the beginning of the next story. Because of Liu Bang's high reward, in the face of the overlord who had no breath and no longer posed a threat, the fierce corpse-snatching battle within the Han army began.
Wang Feng first decapitated Xiang Yu's head, and the others woke up and stepped forward one after another, and as a result, dozens of people died in the scramble, which was also considered to be a funeral for the overlord.
In the end, Langzhong rode Yang Xi, sima Lü Matong, Langzhong Lü Sheng, Yang Wu, and the four lucky ones each grabbed a part of Xiang Yu's body.
Counting the head that was first cut off by Wang Feng, the overlord seemed to be divided by five horses.
After returning to the camp, the five people took out the parts of the remains they had grabbed and put them together into a complete Xiang Yu, proving that what several people had grabbed was really a part of Xiang Yu's body.
Xiang Yu's remains continued to contribute to the unification of the Han Dynasty. Xiang Yu was a Chu person, and when he learned the news that Xiang Yu was dead, the people of Chu Had no fighting spirit to resist and most of them surrendered to Han.
Only the people of "Lu" were still rebelling, because this was the fiefdom of Xiang Yu who was first crowned by King Huai of Chu as the Duke of Lu.
The locals, in order to be killed by Xiang Yu, wanted to resist the Han army and keep the festival to the death. Later, the Han army held Xiang Yu's head to show the locals, and the locals surrendered. In the end, Liu Bang buried Xiang Yu with the ceremony of Lu Gong and personally went to the weeping sacrifice.
Jointly enfeoffed
Shortly after Xiang Yu's death, the world was determined, and when he was dividing up the meritorious men, Liu Bang fulfilled his promise, and did not give a reward because Xiang Yu was not killed by these five people, nor did he give the reward only to those who got Xiang Yu's head, but instead all five people gave the reward, all of them were given the title of marquis, and they were marquises with field food.
At the beginning, it was agreed to seal ten thousand households, and because it was the credit of five people, it was divided into five parts.
Feng Yangxi was made the Marquis of Chiquan, with 1900 households;
Feng WangFeng was made the Marquis of Duyan, with 1,700 households;
Fenglu Ma Tong was the Marquis of Zhongshui, with 1500 households;
Feng Yangwu was made the Marquis of Wufang, with 700 households;
Feng Lüsheng was made the Marquis of Nieyang, with 1500 households.
The reward given to these people is actually a respect for the overlord, these people are not so much to kill Xiang Yu, but to snatch the body of the overlord back, and finally fight together to bury in the overlord's hometown.
To honor the reward is to announce to the world, first, Liu Bang's words count, and second, even the overlord who has been divided into corpses has this value. For such a respectable opponent, Liu Bang showed enough heart and mind.
These five people, in fact, are not recorded much in the history books, and the positions in the Han army at that time were either LangZhong Riding, or Langzhong Sima and other official positions, in fact, they were only minor officers in the cavalry, leading them to hunt down and kill Xiang Yu's infants, which was the real character worth writing in the history books.
If it were not for fate, they were not killed in the process of pursuing and killing Xiang Yu, but fortunately survived, and they also snatched some of Xiang Yu's remains, and they would not have been rewarded by the marquis, let alone left their names in the history books.
These five people also have a common feature, they are all original Qin people, basically in the early stage of the Chu-Han war, the Han army only joined the Han army when the Three Qins were leveled, that is, the actual time to join Liu Bang's camp was relatively late.
These few people immediately entered the cavalry after joining, from this point of view, it may be that they were originally people with a certain status, so they were good at riding horses, and it is likely that they were all soldiers of the original old Qin, and it is also proof that they were granted certain official positions immediately after joining.
The five little people joined the Han army for only a few years, and they were lucky enough to get the title of marquis, and they were really enveloped by the aura of luck.
Not only that, in the context of Liu Bang's great killing of heroes in the early Han Dynasty, it is precisely because they are not important that they have escaped the fate of being killed, and they are all considered to be a good death.
Moreover, the five of them have a "Zhuang" character in their posthumous titles, and in the ancient fa, "repeated conquest and killing of Yuezhuang" indicates that they have experienced hundreds of battles, and it is also an affirmation of their contributions to the battlefield in the process of establishing the Han Dynasty.
Except for Wang Fei, who died six years after Gao, that is, when Lü Hou was in power, the other four all lived to the time of Emperor Wen of Han, and should all be at least sixty or seventy years old, which was considered to be an advanced age in that era.
After the death of the five people, Fuze also benefited his descendants, except for Lü Sheng, the Marquis of Neyang, who had no biological sons, and no one inherited them after his death, and the other sons all inherited their titles.
Moreover, the Marquis of Duyan, Lü Matong, the Marquis of Zhongshui, and Yang Xi, the Marquis of Chiquan, all lasted for at least four generations, which was relatively rare in the historical environment of the early Han Dynasty when they could be stripped of their titles for inconspicuous reasons.
Here we should also emphasize the Marquis of Chiquan Yang Xi, that is, Yang Xi, who was frightened by Xiang Yu's voice and ran for several miles, and his name was joyful.
Although timid, but born at the right time, not only among the five people who have been sealed the most, reaching 1900 households, this is a real seal, five people per household, this is nearly 10,000 people, for the children and grandchildren to earn the promise of the big business.
His descendants were even more contentious, Yang Xi's descendants spread their branches and leaves, and Yang Chang, the great-grandson of a branch, was not only Sima Qian's son-in-law, but also achieved the high position of chancellor, and together with Huo Guang, he did the abolition of the establishment, which affected the fate of the royal family, and was the ancestor of the famous Hongnong Yang clan in history. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Hongnong Yang clan had four consecutive generations of officials and lieutenants.
The other is even more legendary, because this branch of them stretched to the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and produced the Sui Wen Emperor Yang Jian, the founder of the Sui Dynasty, who once again unified China and became the emperor directly. This expenditure cost four emperors, and the Yang family can be said to be blessed for a long time.
The death of the overlord, the body of the king not only made the final contribution to the unification of the Han Dynasty, but also benefited all the five people who snatched the body, and their respective lives were complete, and it was a blessing to the descendants, I don't know if it was the overlord who blessed the spirit of the king in heaven.