When it comes to the last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the situation of the Three Kingdoms is probably not unfamiliar, to say that the most important thing in the Three Kingdoms period is probably the famous general, Xiahou Huan, as the first general of the Three Kingdoms Cao Wei, did not have several outstanding victories to render his merits, but was defeated.
So why did Xiahou Huan become the head of Cao Wei's subjects? What is so great about him?
According to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Xiahou Huan did lose five battles.
The first defeat was a crusade against Dong Zhuo, when Dong Zhuo led the Western Liang army, it was not easy to win this battle, but Xiahou Huan was not afraid of the strength of the enemy army, and volunteered to fight the position of the vanguard, but unfortunately he returned from the defeat; the second defeat was when Cao Cao personally went out to conquer Xuzhou, leaving Xiahou Huan to hold on to Puyang, unexpectedly, he was attacked by Lü Bu, and it was not a big deal to come here, Xiahou Huan led his troops to the rescue at the first time after receiving the news, did not succeed in rescuing, but was taken prisoner. Tangtang a general of Cao Wei was captured on the spot, which is really not very good to say, and just when lü jun thought that if xiahou huan was captured, he could take Cao jun at will, and before Lü jun could make further plans, Xiahou Huan's general Han Hao made his position clear, saying that he did not accept Lü Jun's threat of Xiahou Huan, not only that, Cao Jun also pretended to attack and prepared to launch a strong attack, this battle made the captured Lü army frightened on the spot, and even released Xiahou Huan, and Han Hao killed the abducted Lü army in one fell swoop. After Cao Cao heard about this, he also praised Han Hao's good practices, and regarded disregarding the safety of the hostages as a decree, and had to say that once the decree was promulgated, the abduction incident never happened again.
Xiahou Huan's third defeat was cao Cao's withdrawal from Xuzhou, after quelling Lü Bu's sneak attack, Xiahou Huan led his troops to pursue Lü Bu without any plan, Lü Bu could sneak attack successfully in front of Xiahou Huan, then naturally he could also detect the pursuit of Xiahou Huan and others, so in order to shake off Xiahou Huan, Lü Bu deliberately set a trap to wait for Xiahou Huan to jump in, and Xiahou Huan, who was bent on pursuing the enemy, did not realize that his actions had been exposed and fell into the ambush without accident. After that, one of Xiahou Huan's eyes was directly blinded; the fourth defeat was when Lü Bu and Liu Bei fell out, Xiahou Huan received orders to go to rescue Liu Bei, but unfortunately was defeated by Gao Shun, and finally failed to reinforce, which directly led to Liu Bei's escape was discovered by Lü Bu, Lü Bu not only fiercely "warned" Liu Bei, but also captured his wife, but Liu Bei had already made up his mind and fled from Lü Bu's hands alone.
Xiahou Huan's fifth defeat was also closely related to Liu Bei, after Liu Bei successfully fled, he was ready to defect to Liu Biao in Jingzhou, at the same time, Xiahou Huan received orders to attack, did not expect that after the defeat of Bowangpo, Xiahou Huan suffered a defeat and not to mention, he was also taught a lesson by Liu Bei, which was a great shame for the generals, Xiahou Huan's five defeats affected his position in Cao Wei to varying degrees.
No general could accept the taunts from the enemy army three times and twice, so why was Xiahou Huan still at the top of Cao Wei's subjects?
It can be seen from Xiahou Huan's defeat that Xiahou Huan is not unable to fight, but lacks the ability to lead the troops, and it is not enough to lead the troops to fight by relying solely on a lonely courage, but also to be able to strategize, Xiahou Huan can be understood when he loses to the Western Liang Army, this Western Liang Army is already brave and good at fighting, and it is normal to be invincible, and later when he loses to Lü Bu and Liu Bei, these veteran generals, Xiahou Huan's shortcomings are exposed, he fights wars all by one word "fight", he only cares about who he fights, completely disregards how to fight, then how can he win on the battlefield? Cao Cao was also aware of Xiahou Huan's shortcomings and later transferred him out of the front line, so he
Xiahou Huan became Cao Cao's only loyalist who did not fight on the front lines.
But Xiahou Huan is not suitable for leading the army alone to fight, does not mean that he is useless, Xiahou Huan also has his own area of expertise, he himself pays attention to diligence and thrift, so he shows his ability to deal with internal affairs beyond ordinary people, he will even distribute his money to his subordinates, never chase for fame and fortune, this is also one of the reasons why Cao Cao admires Xiahou Huan very much, but this is not enough for Cao Cao to reuse him, Xiahou Huan is really valued by Cao Cao because of his relationship with Cao Cao, and seniority, Xiahou Huan as early as cao Cao's crusade against Dong Zhuo, So he followed Cao Cao all the way to fight in the country,
For Cao Cao, Xiahou Huan was not only Cao Cao's subordinate, but also a brother who had lived and died for so many years.
Not to mention Xiahou Huan's seniority, he was a senior figure under Cao Cao, not to mention how many defeats Xiahou Huan had experienced, but the battles of all sizes, Xiahou Huan, had never fallen. And Cao Cao set up three forward bases in the later period, Xiahou Huan was in charge of one of them - Huainan, Hanzhong and Xiangyang were controlled by Xiahou Yuan and Cao Ren respectively, it is worth mentioning that Xiahou Huan was the only one of the three who only needed to oversee the army and did not need to rush to the front line to kill the enemy, which was enough to see Cao Cao's trust in Xiahou Huan.
Cao Cao was crowned queen, and Xiahou Huan was the only one who could freely enter and leave Cao Cao's room without passing on the word.
Even Cao Cao's sons did not enjoy such treatment; even later some people advised Cao Cao to be called emperor, but Xiahou Huan thought that he should unify Shu and Wu, and then follow the Zen concession system to change the dynasty, Cao Cao listened to Xiahou Huan's advice, but later Cao Cao still failed to see the day of the unification of the world and died of illness, Xiahou Huan felt very regretful about this, and then Xiahou Huan also went west after Cao Cao's death for only half a year, it is said that after Xiahou Huan's death, Cao Pi cried for this uncle. Cao Pi's temperament must not be needed to say more, he was sad about Xiahou Huan's death, which could only show that Cao Pi still loved Xiahou Pi very much.
Although Xiahou Huan was not good at leading soldiers to fight, it was extremely suitable to be a courtier, Cao Cao's suspicions were unmatched, and Cao Cao's trust in Xiahou Huan was 100%, which was enough to prove that Xiahou Huan's position in Cao Cao's mind was irreplaceable.