A very important role of reading history is that we can glimpse a broader picture of society and the fate choices that are placed in various complex environments, so that we can have a more three-dimensional understanding of human nature.
The historical figure we are going to see today, his fate in life, and his choice of love and hate are extremely complex and worthy of understanding and judgment from different angles. Good and evil, or a thousand people can have a thousand statements.
This person was Xiahou Ba, a famous general during the Three Kingdoms period
He did something in his life that was extremely shocking or should be spurned by all the worlds,
Betray your own country, turn to the enemy country that killed your own father, and help the enemy country to attack your own country.
What kind of person can ignore the revenge of killing the father and the shame of treason? Is this man a mercenary, shameless, ruthless and cold-blooded person? Why do the history books describe this person without praise or criticism, and let future generations comment? And how should future generations comment?
The surname Xiahou can be called a famous name in the Three Kingdoms period, and this clan is very close to the Cao clan, and the sister of Cao Cao's wife Ding is Xiahou Ba's biological mother, and his biological father is Xiahou Yuan, the most important general of the Cao clan.
Xiahou Yuan fought countless battles for Cao's Jiangshan in his lifetime, and his military achievements were outstanding, but it was expected that in 219 AD,
Killed by Huang Zhong, a veteran general of the Shu state, in the famous Battle of Dingjun Mountain. At that time, the Xiahou family was in a state of grief, and Xiahou Ba even vowed to personally behead Huang Zhong of the Shu state to avenge his father's killing.
But he did not wait for this opportunity, and Huang Zhong died of illness the following year.
At that time, Xiahou Ba was about thirty years old, had never fought against the Shu army on the battlefield, and after his father's death, he was given the title of Guannei Hou, until 230 AD, when Cao Wei rebelled against the Shu state, he was able to formally fight against the enemy army as a vanguard commander. In the following 19 years, he gradually became one of the core generals of the Cao Wei military clique, and there were countless wars with the Shu state.
At this time, Huang Zhong, the enemy who killed his father, had already died for nearly thirty years, and he had also changed from a young man in his thirties to an old man with children and grandchildren, and there were countless soldiers in the Shu State who had been hand-bladed in his lifetime. By the time Xiahou Ba, who was in his sixties, had the revenge of killing his father long since faded into an old mark with thousands of hand-bladed enemies?
The turning point of fate came at this very moment.
In 239, when Emperor Wei was dying, he entrusted his son and Jiangshan to Cao Shuang and Sima Yi, and from then on, the two forces began a 10-year-long open and secret struggle.
The Xiahou clan has been a loyal vassal of the Cao clan since his ancestors, and Xiahou Ba is deeply promoted by Cao Shuang and is his confidant general.
When the battle between The Cao clan and the Sima clan reached its climax, Sima Yi ordered the killer, killed Cao Shuang, and ordered his confidant Guo Huai to succeed Xiahou Xuan as the general of Zhenxi. In this way, Guo Huai became Xiahou Ba's direct superior, and the two people looked at each other and had a deep grudge. Xiahou Ba seemed to smell the breath of death.
According to the ideas of those of us who are spectators, his most reasonable way is to defect to Eastern Wu. However, the old general made a shocking choice, and he defected to the Shu Han who killed his father.
Fleeing for their lives in a hurry, the army marched to Yinping, ran out of food, and saw that they were going to die.
The Shu lord Liu Chan sent a large army to meet him. This year was 249 AD, until the death of Xiahou Ba between about 256-259, when he firmly rooted in the Shu state, and during the later Northern Expedition, he led an attack on the homeland, made great military achievements, and became an important general of the Shu Han Dynasty.
So here's the key question.
Why would Xiahou Ba prefer to defect to the Shu kingdom, which had a blood feud with the Xiahou family, rather than the state of Wu?
There's a character here to appear.
It was Xiahou Ba's cousin
。 This woman met Zhang Fei when she was a teenager collecting firewood, and later became Lady Zhang, and her daughter was the empress of Liu Chan, the lord of Shu.
Therefore, once people's love and hatred are placed in a complex social picture, it becomes difficult to speculate.
From the perspective of saving his life, the State of Shu will undoubtedly be able to give more reliable protection than the State of Wu, which cannot be beaten by eight rods, and an old man who is more than sixty years old, even his wife and children at home have been left behind in the State of Wei this time, and the State of Wu, who is alone and uncertain, and the State of Shu, which has relatives such as Lady Zhang Fei and Empress Liu Chan, is more reassuring.
What about the revenge of killing the father? The man who killed his father was Huang Zhong, who had been dead for almost thirty years. Moreover, the two countries exchanged troops, and the casualties of soldiers on the battlefield were really normal. For many years, the number of Shu soldiers who died at the hands of Xiahou Ba was innumerable.
When I first arrived in the Shu Kingdom,
Liu Chan made it clear that Xiahou Yuan was killed in battle, and it was not his ancestors who deliberately plotted to kill him, but also let his children recognize Xiahou Ba, the uncle, and this kinship relationship was real.
So, what are those long-standing grudges? It was only Xiahou Ba who escaped alone, but his wife and children, old and young, all remained in the State of Wei, and when he defected, he probably had the worst idea. Sima Yi's party did not do anything, but only sent his son to North Korea.
However, it is reasonable to say that the practice of treasonously surrendering to the enemy like Xiahou Ba, and throwing away the revenge of killing his father in exchange for his own life, is extremely shameful in feudal society.
It is very interesting that the history books do not praise and disparage this person, but only objectively narrate his life experience. I am afraid that this is due to the idea of always taking Shu Han as authentic and Cao shi as a usurper, and in such a framework of thinking, Xiahou Ba's behavior is probably tacitly abandoned as a secret and cast light.
However, the revenge of killing the father is somewhat embarrassing after all, so this statement is not easy to say, so not to praise or disparage is probably the most appropriate attitude.