In the late Spring and Autumn Period, the reason why Yue Wang Gou Jian was able to take revenge on Wu Wang Fu cha successfully, in addition to his tenacious qualities of "lying down and tasting bile" and his wisdom of knowing how to be patient, there was also a very important reason for Gou Jian to make good use of the "beauty plan". This beautiful talent is very good, in the Wu Royal Palace staged the Spring and Autumn version of the infernal path, timely for Gou Jian to obtain and pass on intelligence, so that Gou Jian quickly gathered troops to overthrow the Wu Kingdom after returning to China, this beauty is the first of the four great beauties of ancient China -
Xi Shi
。 For thousands of years, Xi Shi's spirit of sacrificing herself for the national interests has been widely praised, and her life is full of legends, but after the restoration of the country, she mysteriously disappeared, where did the beautiful woman Xi Shi finally go?
Xi Shi is not the real name of this beautiful woman who has fallen into the country, her real name is Shi Yiguang. Ancient beauties could not escape the fate of the red face disaster water, in the heart of Wu Wang Fuchai, Xi Shi led to the demise of the Wu kingdom, which was a complete red face disaster. And in the Case of the Yue King, Xi Shi was sent to the enemy country as a spy because of his beauty and intelligence, and the emperors of ancient times were jealous of the heroes of the Lord, and what awaited Xi Shi was still a tragic end. In the eyes of later scholars, Xi Shi's return is probably the following possibility.
Shen Jiang
The first is Shen Jiang, who said with a tragic ending, adding a more tragic color to the fate of ancient women. It is said that after king Gou of Yue destroyed Wu, he personally went to the palace of King Wu to welcome Xi Shi back to the Kingdom of Yue, and Lady Gou Jian was extremely jealous of this. On the ship returning to Vietnam, Lady Gou Jian took advantage of the fact that when Gou Jian came out of the cabin to accept prayers from the Vietnamese subjects on both sides of the strait, she tricked Xi Shi into the stern, and then ordered someone to tie Xi Shi to a boulder and push it into the river, and a generation of beautiful people were killed in the river.
In the book of Mozi, it is recorded:
Xi Shi Shen Qimei, Wu Qi split his affairs
Among them, "Shen" means "Shen" in ancient times, indicating that Xi Shi was sunk into the river because of its beauty and died. And in "Wu Yue Chunqiu", there are also:
Wu Died crossed the west to the river
This further confirms the tragic end of Xi Shi's death in the Shenjiang River.
The late Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin once wrote in the poem "Jingyang Well":
Outside the water of the Wu Palace, the mud was buried in Xi Shi
。 Another Tang Dynasty poet, Pi Rixiu, also wrote in the poem "Guan Wa Gong Huaigu":
I don't know where the water is buried today, and the creek and moon bend to follow suit
。 The ending of Shen Jiang was too tragic, and the more kind literati of later generations described Xi Shi as falling into the water and dying in the poem, such as the "Huan Sha" of the early Tang Dynasty poet Song Zhiqing:
Birds are amazing pine dreams, and fish are afraid of lotus flowers
He believes that Xi Shi accidentally fell into the water and died, which is the most ideal, but lacks substantial evidence.
Retreat
The second theory is the beautiful theory of retreat, which is also the most popular view of the people. When the city of Gusu was destroyed, Xi Shi's lover Fan Li secretly came to the Wu Palace and took Xi Shi through the hidden waterway into the foggy Taihu Lake, and the two were married away from the political whirlpool, and have since returned to seclusion. Later Fan Li assumed the pseudonym Tao Zhugong, and became a shang saint in later generations with his ingenuity and wisdom in business. Is this happy ending real, or is it a beautiful vision of the hereafter?
Xi Shi and Fan Li's guiyin theory first comes from the "Book of Yue Extinction" written by Yuan Kang in the Eastern Han Dynasty:
Wu Died Xi Shi Fu Fan Li Pan Five Lakes went
。 In the Ming Dynasty, Hu Yinglin quoted the "Book of Yue Jie" in the "Shaomu Shanfang Pen Cong" and Chen Yaowen in the "Zhengyang". There are also many poems describing Xi Shi and Fan Li's return to hermitage, such as Tang Libai's "Xi Shi":
Once the husband sent the country, Qianqiu did not pay it back
Du Mu "Du Niang":
Xizi under Gu Su, a ship
Bird by side
smooth
The Song Dynasty literary scholar Su Shi wrote in the poem "Water Dragon Yin":
The five lakes heard the way, and the flat boat returned, still carrying Xizi
And the newly revised edition of cihai also agrees with the statement that Xi Shi and Fan Li returned to hiding. But is the truth really that beautiful?
The story of Yue Wang Gou Jian and Fan Li in Sima Qian's "Records of History" does not appear in Xi Shi, so we have no way of knowing whether Sima Qian was reluctant to write it, or whether there was no accurate record of this at that time. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there are texts that talk about Fan Li's retreat: after the restoration of the country, Fan Li resigned from the government alone in a leaf flat boat, but there is no mention that Fan Li took Xi Shi with him. Therefore, this happy ending may be the wishful thinking of posterity for the love of Xi Shi and Fan Li.
Killed by the enemy
There is also a theory that Xi Shi was killed, that Wu Wang Fuchai killed himself after the fall of the country, that Xi Shi was wrapped in a brocade cloth by the angry Wu people and thrown into the Yangtze River, and that Xi Shi was transformed into a fish in the river that was very delicious to eat. The mystery of Xi Shi's whereabouts has been disputed for thousands of years, the "Shen Jiang Theory" has a tragic but high credibility, and the "Guiyin Theory" is beautiful but may only be a vision of posterity.
What the end of the mystery is, may be the answer in everyone's heart.