Soon after Liu Bang claimed to be the empress, he once walked on the palace road, and when he saw the generals gathering in groups of three or five on the sand to chat, he asked Zhang Liang what these people were doing. Zhang Liang replied that these people were discussing rebellion. Liu Bang was taken aback and did not believe that this was true. Zhang Liang explained that the emperor has won the world, and the rewards are all people who are close to you in life, and the punishments are all people who are resentful in life, and now these people are worried about not having a reward and are afraid of being punished, so they must create your rebellion. Liu Bang suddenly realized and asked Zhang Liang what to do. Zhang Liang came up with an idea to let Liu Bang first reward the person he hated the most in his life, so Liu Bang threw a banquet and sealed a person named Yongya as Hou on the spot.
Why did Liu Bang hate Yongya so much?
Originally, at the beginning of Liu Bang's rebellion against Qin, Feng County and Pei County were his two major base areas. Liu Bang attacked the city strategically and sent his fellow townsmen Yongya to defend Feng County, but Yongya raised the city and surrendered to others, which dealt a considerable blow to Liu Bang. In the last year of his life, he once went to Pei County to feast on his father and fellow villagers, and also exempted the Pei County people from lifelong taxes, but when someone asked for equal treatment for the people of Feng County, Liu Bang also indignantly mentioned the betrayal of the people of Feng County. It can be inferred from this that as the initiator of this betrayal, Yongya really offended Liu Bang miserably. However, Yongya soon submitted to Liu Bang and made great contributions, so Liu Bang did not have the embarrassment to him.
At present, Liu Bang has sealed Yongya as Hou, and the other generals have put their hearts into their stomachs, and everyone has commented: "Even Yongya has been sealed as Hou, what else are we worried about?" ”
A major crisis concerning the fate of the new dynasty was thus resolved into invisibility.
After another two hundred years, Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty to stand on its own, and then the world was in chaos, and Liu Xiu took advantage of the situation to establish the Eastern Han Dynasty. In the process of unifying the world, Liu Xiu once led an army to attack Luoyang. Luoyang's walls were thick and the soldiers were well fed, and Liu Xiu besieged them for several months, and in desperation, he decided to surrender. But why didn't you surrender at the beginning, and only after half the fight did you surrender? It turned out that Luoyang Shou would be a man named Zhu Kun, who was Liu Xiu's brother-killer.
Liu Xiu's brother Liu Yan was not an ordinary person, and in his early years, he took advantage of the collapse of Wang Mang's new dynasty to lead the Liu clan of Nanyang to rise up, and Liu Xiu first followed him to fight the world. After bloody sacrifices, this rebel army absorbed many armed groups of displaced people, including the Green Forest Army, and its power continued to grow, and Liu Yan also achieved the position of leader of the rebel army. However, with the collapse of Wang Mang's regime, infighting broke out within the rebel army. Zhu Kun was an important leader of the Green Forest Army at that time, and he was jealous of Liu Yan's military achievements and status, played a conspiracy and trickery to kill Liu Yan, and supported the puppet Liu Xuan as the first emperor.
At that time, Liu Xiu was on the battlefield, and had just completed the miracle of the Kunyang Victory, defeating Wang Mang's hundreds of thousands of troops with thousands of cavalry, and his reputation was like the sun in the sky. However, Liu Yan was dead, Liu Xuan's title as emperor had been determined, and Zhu Kun held the real power of the first dynasty. Liu Xiu weighed it up again and again, and could only go back to compromise with Zhu Kun, and did not hesitate to suffer the misunderstanding of the Liu clan, and hastily buried Liu Yan to show that he and his brother were separated.
Liu Xiu's father died early, and the eldest brother Liu Yan cared for him very much, and the brothers had deep feelings. Thanks to Zhu Tuna, Liu Xiu's spiritual torture can be imagined. At night, he began to miss his brother who died tragically, and the tears often wet the pillow, and he did not dare to let others know. Even though Liu Xiu was so condescending and seeking perfection, he was often suspected by Zhu Tuan in the first dynasty, and his life was in danger several times, but he finally seized the opportunity to escape, gradually occupied most of the world, and finally led a large army to attack Luoyang, where Zhu Tuna was entrenched.
Of course, Zhu Kun knew that Liu Xiu hated him to the bone, and once the city was destroyed, he would undoubtedly die, so he desperately defended the city, and the soldiers on both sides suffered heavy casualties.
At this time, Liu Xiu faced two choices, one was to continue to attack strongly, and the other was to surrender Zhu Tuna.
Luoyang was already an isolated city at that time, no matter how strong the city was, no matter how sufficient the grain was, there was also a day to break through, but the casualties would be very large. If the zhu tuna is surrendered, casualties can be avoided to the greatest extent.
In fact, in the second choice, two options can also be derived: one is the real move, and the other is the fake move. It is not necessary to say that the real surrender is self-explanatory, and the meaning of the false surrender is to first use false words to get Luoyang in hand, and then to refuse to admit the account. At that time, the crested tuna had become a turtle in an urn, and it could be "repaired" as much as it wanted. Historically, there have been countless such things. Moreover, Zhu Kun framed Liu Yan and Liu Xiu's brothers with such despicable means, and even if Liu Xiu returned his respects once, what would happen? The so-called soldiers are not tired of deception, the so-called kings and defeats, the so-called autumn reckoning, who dares to say that Liu Xiu did not do anything wrong?
How did Liu Xiu do it? He did summon Zhu Tuna, and it was a real surrender. After Zhu Kunju surrendered, he was made a marquis. This title was not only retained by Zhu Kun for life, but also passed on to his descendants after his death. Liu Xiu's kindness to Zhu Kun also made his former opponents let go of their doubts, and the Eastern Han regime quickly stabilized.
Does Liu Bang hate Yongya? Hate of course. Does Liu Xiu hate Zhu Tuna? Of course I hate it. However, for the sake of the overall situation of the world, they all put aside their personal grievances. For the emperor who has the power to kill and kill, how generous and stoic is it necessary to forgive the person he hates the most? It is no accident that such a person has done an earth-shattering cause!
(Author: Le Yangzi)
(Lin Dongdong excerpted from "The Second Classroom")