The sixtieth time is an important node in the water margin book. This time, Chao Gai was killed in battle for attacking Zengtou City, and from then on, the good han of Liangshan began to be commanded by Song Jiang. Chao Gai's death was due to his credulity in believing the words of the two monks, which caused the army to mistakenly enter the ambush circle, and he himself was shot in the cheek during the breakthrough. After returning to Liangshan, within a minute, Chao Gai died with hatred.
In fact, the fatal cause of Chao Gai's death was not because of the arrow, but because the arrow was poisonous.
When I looked at the arrow, there was a shiwen gong character on it. Lin Chong called for the golden gun medicine to be applied, but it turned out to be a medicinal arrow. Chao Gai was poisoned by an arrow and could not speak to himself.
Some readers believe that Shi Wengong is a master, and it is impossible to use poisonous arrows on the battlefield, so the murderer is likely to be Song Jiang. In fact, this view is completely subjective speculation. Because there is no necessary connection between the master and whether or not to use poison, and in ancient wars, the two sides often considered winning the battle at the lowest cost, and all kinds of conspiracies and tricks will be used, so how can they give up using poison?
In fact, from the pre-Qin to the Ming and Qing dynasties, there have always been examples of poison in ancient warfare, whether it is a frontal battlefield or a non-frontal battlefield. Next, let's talk about the use of poison in ancient Chinese warfare.
Start with "Jing Ke Thorn Qin King"
The story of Jing Ke's assassination of the King of Qin, I believe many people know. Prince Dan of the Yan Kingdom, in order to ensure that Jing Ke could successfully assassinate the King of Qin, not only asked Lady Xu to create a sharp dagger, but also quenched the poison on the dagger.
Therefore, the prince pre-demanded the dagger of the world, and obtained the dagger of Lady Xu of the Zhao people, and took a hundred gold, so that the workers could quench it with medicine.
The story of Jing Ke's assassination of the King of Qin comes from the Warring States Policy, which shows that as early as the Warring States period, people would already quench poison on weapons. Moreover, this poison is quite powerful, which shows that people at that time also had a certain degree of understanding of poison.
In fact, three thousand years ago, our ancestors already knew how to smear poison on arrows or other weapons to hunt. By the Spring and Autumn Period, the use of poison in military warfare had become the norm. In the Han Dynasty, there were already medical books dedicated to poisoning. In the Han Dynasty medical books unearthed by Mawangdui, it is recorded that there is a formula for the treatment of "poisonous black beak".
Judging from the historical data, there are two main aspects to the use of poison in war, on the one hand, poisoning in water, wine or food, and on the other hand, directly using poison in weapons.
Poisoning in water, alcohol, or food
As early as 2600 years ago, there were examples of poisoning in the water, thus killing enemy soldiers.
The Qi people were destroyed, the people were uneasy, they wanted to go, and Qi Qiangzhi was killed. So the people threw medicine into their diet and water, and killed them more. - "The Legend of the Spring and Autumn Ram"
In the Spring and Autumn Ram Biography, Sui people poisoned most of the Qi soldiers in the water, which occurred in the seventeenth year of Zhuang Gong, that is, in 677 BC, which should be the earliest successful example of the use of poison in the battlefield in China. In addition, the "Zuo Biography" also records that "the Qin people poisoned the upper class", indicating that the Qin people were also poisoned in the water, poisoning many enemy soldiers.
In addition, the Mozi, Tongdian, etc. have also recorded examples of poisoning in wells or other water sources.
In fact, the use of strong poisons has drawbacks, because the army cannot all draw water at the same time, but in batches, and once someone is poisoned and falls, the follow-up people will be on guard. So it developed later that people have considered using chronic poisons. For example, the Qing Dynasty military work "The Hundred Golden Fangs of The Hundred Golden Fangs" has such a passage.
It's better than slow poison. King Ruyi of Zhao died in fourteen days, and the people of Song Jiang died in five days, all of which were slow and poisonous. If the poison of the five or fourteen days is obtained, what enemy cannot be killed?
This shows that in the Qing Dynasty, people already knew that immediate strong poison was not the best way to kill the enemy, and only chronic poison could kill the enemy to the greatest extent.
In addition to poisoning in water, it is also possible to poison alcohol.
(Chang Gui) called on the princes to be long, and made more poisonous wine, and wanted to work first with the army, because of the attack on Shang. Still aware of his plan, that is, to divide the troops into qiongdu first, and then cover up the long guizhi. - Book of the Later Han Dynasty
Examples of poisoning the opposing generals or soldiers with poisoned wine are well documented in historical records.
In addition to the above examples, the Book of later Han also contains zhang lu's deeds of "setting up an army assembly and poisoning the enemy", thereby killing more than 800 chieftains; in the Book of Jin, there is an example of "using poisoned wine to kill cattle and gold"; in the Book of Wei, there is "Xincheng Nai is mostly poisonous wine", and after deceiving the enemy to drink poisonous wine, he killed the enemy; in the "History of Ming", it is recorded that "Wukou Jiaxing, who used poisoned wine in the constitution, died hundreds of people" and so on.
There are also examples of poisoning in food.
According to the Ming Dynasty's "Jiezi Art of War", the southeast coastal area was seriously inhabited, and they often went ashore to rob the people. Hu Zongxian once thought of a way, he had the rice soaked in poison and dried, and the Wokou snatched it and cooked it, and he would soon be poisoned and die. Later, wokou were also afraid, and after each looting of food, they let the locals try it.
Poison is used directly on the weapon
In ancient warfare, poison was often used on arrows. For example, in the Han Dynasty, Geng Gong, who was surrounded by the Xiongnu when he was besieged by the Xiongnu when he was fighting in JinpuCheng in the Western Regions, Geng Gong "used poison Fu Ya" to tell the Xiongnu that this was the Han family's divine arrow. As a result, after the Xiongnu were hit by arrows, they "saw that the wounds were boiling", and after being shocked, they were killed by Geng Gong in the rain and retreated.
Regarding poisonous arrows, the most famous one is "Guan Yu scraping bones to cure poison".
Yu tasted the middle of the flowing arrow, through his left arm, although the wound healed, every time it rained, the bone was often painful, the doctor said: "The arrow is poisonous, poisoned into the bone, when the broken arm is wounded, scraped the bone to remove the poison, and then this disease is removed from the ear." - Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The so-called "flowing arrows" are random arrows on the battlefield and have no purpose. The flow arrows in Guan Yu's house are poisonous, which shows that the poisonous arrows have begun to be used in large quantities at the end of the Han Dynasty.
During the Tang Dynasty, Li Guangbi ordered the fierce general Hao Tingyu to lead three defeats on horseback to attack the enemy army. As a result, Hao Tingyu had to retreat because of the poisoned arrow of his horse. Then, Hao Tingyu changed horses and continued to charge, clashing four times, and finally defeated the enemy army, and captured the thief Xu Huang.
Ting Yu saw the messenger and said, "Horses are poisoned by arrows, and they are not defeated." "GuangBi ordered to return on horseback, riding the thief array, and rushing to the number four." - Old Book of Tang
It can also be seen that poisoned arrows will be used in large quantities on the battlefield.
The "History of Song" records that in the sixth year of Yuanfeng, the imperial court issued a one-time "250,000 medicinal arrows" to Lanhui Road; in the "Literature Examination", it was mentioned that "hundreds of armor and poisonous arrow medicines were used"; in the Ming Dynasty's "Armed Fire Attack", it was also said that "arrows were on the body, and they were killed within a few steps"; it was also recorded in the "Imperial Qing Founding Strategy" that "quenching arrows with python poison" and so on.
All this can show that in ancient warfare, the use of poison arrows was a very normal thing, and the number of poison arrows was also very large, which was obviously used on a large scale.
In the Song Dynasty, there was a kind of gun, and the gun head would be tied with a powder canister, called the "pear blossom gun". When used, light the powder canister, which can spew out fire to burn enemies. This kind of gunpowder is also poisonous, which can make the "enemy faint and fall to the ground with the medicine", and after the gunpowder is exhausted, the enemy is directly killed with a gun.
During the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, poison was also used in firearms.
The cigarette is a weapon used for fire attack, its interior is gunpowder, the outside is hay, and it can be ignited when used. There are different types of cigarettes, one is a "poison smoke ball", which is sulfur, grass aconitum, beans, wolf poison, asphalt, arsenic and other highly toxic substances, after ignition will release poisonous smoke, the enemy smells, can not die and can not fight.
In addition to smoke, there are also fire hammers, fire cans, etc., and sometimes poison is also placed inside, and after ignition, it can be poisoned.
Then, spray canisters, hand-thrown bombs, secondary rockets flying sand cylinders, etc., these firearms can also be placed with poison, so as to achieve the purpose of poisoning and killing the enemy.
It is precisely because it is inevitable to deal with poison on the battlefield, so the "General Outline of the Martial Arts" and other military books also remind the generals that when approaching the enemy to camp and camp, they must pay attention to whether the surrounding environment is poisonous and always prevent poison. For example, for the newly occupied places, do not drink well water; if the water source is in and out of the enemy territory, do not easily drink water; when there are poisonous insects, poisonous weeds, etc., also pay attention to anti-poison.
To sum up, from the pre-Qin dynasty, poison was used in ancient Chinese warfare, either directly on weapons or through water, wine, food or other means. And the further down the development, the greater the scope of use of poison, the more clever the method, for this reason, both sides have to be cautious about preventing poison.
Back to the Water Margin
In fact, from the Novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it can also be found that the use of poison on the battlefield, especially poisonous arrows, is a very common thing.
For example, after "Water Margin", Sun An, who had fought with Lu Junyi, his subordinates once shot Wu Li with poisoned arrows; in "Speaking of Tang", su Dingfang and Luo Yi singled out, taking advantage of their lack of preparation, to shoot Luo Yi with poisoned arrows; in "Seven Swords and Thirteen Heroes", Xu Shou layer was poisoned with arrows; in "The History of the Immortals", Tie Xuan Su knew that Zhu Di, the king of Yan, liked to sneak attack from behind the battle, and also deliberately "set up artillery poison arrows and other things in the ground" after the battle; in "Three Spring Dreams", Yang Yuming also shot Yang Feixiong with poisonous arrows.
All of the above are also examples of attacking enemy generals with poisonous arrows on the battlefield.
Therefore, shi Wengong in the Water Margin, when fighting with Liangshan, it was very normal to use poisonous arrows against Chao Gai. Just because he's a master, you can't say he doesn't use poisoned arrows. After all, the Battle of Zengtou City was not a battle fought by Shi Wengong alone, but a life-and-death contest between countless people on both sides.
References: "Water Margin", "Zuo Zhuan", "Warring States Policy", "History of Song", "History of Ming", "General Outline of Wujing", "Spring and Autumn Ram Biography", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Book of later Han", "Literature Examination", "Old Book of Tang", "Hundred Golden Fangs", etc.