In 199 AD, the white horse general Gongsun Zhan, who had repeatedly broken through the Hu Yu and was outside the Wei Zhen Plug, set himself on fire when the enemy soldiers approached the city, and a generation of tyrants ended in dismal light. It is said that Gongsun Zhan once became the most powerful warlord in the north at the end of the Han Dynasty by virtue of his own strength, why did he not continue to go on, but ended up like this? Four words sum up that is - blame yourself!
Gongsun Zhan had always been a very powerful force in the north in the early days, defeating the northern nomads many times, and was very famous, and his strength was much stronger than that of Yuan Shao at that time. It was precisely because of his stronger strength that his first big war with Yuan Shao was launched by him first, with the purpose of snatching Jizhou. At the beginning, Gongsun Zhan fought very smoothly, after all, the strength was strong, the combat effectiveness of the army was very high, and there was a unit called Baima Yicong, and the counties and counties of Jizhou were looking forward to surrendering. Yuan Shao originally wanted to seek peace, watching Gongsun Zhan not give a chance, can only fight hard, the two sides met at the boundary bridge, known in history as the boundary bridge battle.
During the battle, Yuan Shao ordered Qi Yi to lead 800 elite soldiers as the vanguard, and Gongsun Zhan swelled up because of the victory in the battle and the fact that there were fewer bullying of the Yi soldiers. He ordered Bai Ma Yicong to charge directly, but as a result, he was fired by a thousand strong crossbows behind the prepared Yi army, and Bai Ma Yi Cong suffered heavy losses. Bai Ma Yi Cong was defeated, Gongsun Zhan's army panicked, and the whole army was in chaos, Yuan Shaojun took the opportunity to cover up the killing, and Gongsun Zhan was defeated. Originally, Gongsun Zhan was able to defeat Yuan Shao and completely take Jizhou, after all, Yuan Shao was almost embattled before that. Unfortunately, due to arrogance and contempt for the enemy, the opportunity was wasted, and he was also injured.
However, even if Gongsun Zhan was defeated, his strength was still not below Yuan Shao's, but it was a pity that Gongsun Zhan killed Liu Yu again. Liu Yu was a relative of the Han Dynasty at that time, Youzhou Mu, who loved the people like a son, loyal to the Han Room, very famous, and was also the superior of Gongsun Zhan. Gongsun Zhan's lack of sympathy for the people and the poor redemption of arms made Liu Yu very dissatisfied, so he sent troops to attack Gongsun Zhan, hoping to restrain Gongsun Zhan and stop his evil deeds. However, due to his excessive benevolence, he was not allowed to hurt the people in battle, and was defeated by Gongsun Zhan who seized the opportunity. Gongsun Zhan took advantage of the situation to take Youzhou and killed Liu Yu's entire family. However, although he took Youzhou, he offended the whole world by killing the extremely prestigious Liu Yu. He was surrounded and suppressed by Liu Yu's son, Liu Yu's old general, Yuan Shao and other forces, and he was beaten without the strength to fight back, and fled to Yijing to hold out.
In fact, as long as he insists until they are gone, he still has a chance to make a comeback. Unfortunately, he was arrogant, alienated from others, only cared about entertaining himself with his wives and concubines, and even the generals were trapped and did not go to the rescue, resulting in no cronies around him, and the generals left him. By the end, there was almost no one around him.
Because of his arrogance, Gongsun Zhan missed the best opportunity to defeat Yuan Shao and take Jizhou; because he mistakenly killed Liu Yu, he became the target of everyone's attention, and his soldiers were defeated; and finally because of his alienation from the military generals, there was no one around him, and finally he set himself on fire in despair. Gongsun Zhan actually had a lot of opportunities, but unfortunately he went wrong step by step, which eventually led to the demise of his power, and he blamed himself for not being able to develop.