Hello everyone, today we are going to talk about the story between Chen Gong and Lü Bu.
Chen Gong was originally a strategist who defected to Cao Cao, and was valued and valued by Cao Cao, and Cao Cao even entrusted the most important Eastern County to Chen Gong to manage. The reason explained in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is that Chen Gong caught Cao Cao at the beginning, but when he heard that Cao Cao was a hero in the crusade against Dong Zhuo, he especially appreciated it and let him go. This is the source of Cao's capture and release in Peking Opera, mainly influenced by the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. But later Cao Cao killed the famous soldier Bian Rang of Gunzhou, and killed Lü Bohao's family, and also slaughtered three cities in Xuzhou under the pretext of avenging his father. Chen Gong felt that Cao Cao was very cruel and very disappointed, so he turned against Cao Cao and persuaded Zhang Mi and others to welcome back Lü Bu. In the end, Cao Cao took Liu Bei to fight Lü Bu, eliminated Lü Bu, and killed Lü Bu, Gao Shun, and Chen Gong on the White Gate Tower.
However, many places in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms are fictional, and it needs to be explained here. The person who caught Cao Cao in Zheng Shi was only a Gong Cao, who did not reveal his name, and it was unlikely to be Chen Gong. Killing Lu Bohao's family, this is also doubtful. What really made Chen Gong betray Cao Cao was because of the Cao Cao clan's extermination of the border concession and the slaughter of the city, which is the focus.
However, at that time, the separatist forces in the Central Plains were not only Lü Bu, other warlords were large yuan shao and Yuan Shu, and the small ones were Zhang Yang, Zhang Mi, and Liu Bei, and the others were more or less much better than Lü Bu, the puppeteer, so why did Chen Gong choose Lü Bu?
The apparent reason why Chen Gong chose Lü Bu
According to popular saying, Chen Gong chose Lü Bu mainly for the following reasons:
First, Lü Bu was considered a hero at the time. Lü Bu was not only strong in martial arts and good at cavalry, but also killed Dong Zhuo, which was a very sensational thing at that time. Although he had also killed his own chieftain Ding Yuan, the world did not seem to mind, and their eyes were focused on the fact that he had killed Dong Zhuo, a traitorous minister. Lü Bu's prestige was far higher than that of the small warlords Zhang Yang, Zhang Mi, and Liu Bei.
Second, Lü Bu was the closest to Dong County, and also to Zhang Mi in Chen Liu. This is also an important reason, after all, it is too far away and it is inconvenient to come over. After all, Cao Cao was not a weak chicken, at that time he was the most skilled soldier in the country, time was very precious, and there was very little room for Chen Gong and others to choose.
Third, distrust and disillusionment with other warlords. Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu were both warlords without the virtue of obedience, and Chen Gong could see it. The former is keen on friction with allies, expanding the territory, and killing Dong allies, which has already hurt the hearts of the world's corporals; the latter is a repetitive villain, and he loves to trip with Yuan Shao, which is naturally not climate-dependent.
Fourth, Lü Bu's character is determined. Lü Bu was a puppeteer, brave and resourceful, and it was easier to control Chen Gong and others, which was more beneficial to himself. Moreover, Lü Bu's attitude towards counselors and literati was also better, and Chen Gong was also more at ease. In addition, although Lü Bu killed the chief and killed his righteous father, he was still polite to his friends, so Chen Gong was also at ease with him.
However, on the basis of these four reasons, I would like to put forward a new point of view of my own, that is, the influence of the door valve family.
The situation under the prevalence of the door valve family led to a helpless choice
I don't know if you remember that in the "White Gate Tower Incident", Cao Cao once threatened Chen Gong with Chen Gong's family. Here is a detail, if Chen Gong died, it would be difficult for his family to live. What does this mean? This shows that Chen Gong does not have any family background. In other words, Chen Gong did not come from the Door Valve family.
For Chen Gong, who was not from a family of door valves, the road to officialdom was difficult. It had been unpopular before, and the official position was very small. It was not until he was appreciated by Cao Cao that he achieved the position of Taishou of Dong Commandery. Therefore, Chen Gong left Cao Cao, and if he reached the camp of warlords who reused the Door Valve family, such as Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, they would definitely not be reused, and there would be no future.
Lü Bu was a person from The State of Mergers, mainly because of his military merits, he was not from the Door Valve family, so this point was similar to the identity of Chen Gong, and the two were relatively easy to integrate.
In fact, in the era at that time, it was more difficult for talents who were not from the door valve family to get ahead, and here are a few examples.
The capricious Meng Da was initially a subordinate of Liu Zhang, mainly a military hero. However, Liu Zhangwen was weak and did not listen much to the opinions of his advisers and generals. Therefore, Meng Da later surrendered to Liu Bei, and although he helped Liu Bei make a lot of military achievements, he could not squeeze into Liu Bei's core team and was also excluded. After Cao Cao came, he surrendered to Cao Cao, was treated by Cao Cao, and reused. Cao Cao was a lord who did not look at talents, so Meng Da mixed well under Cao Cao's account. When Cao Pi succeeded to the throne, Meng Da was not bad. But when it comes to Sima Yi, it can't work, you carefully observe, Sima Yi's people are actually mostly door valve families, and they will naturally exclude Meng Da. In the end, Meng Da was persuaded by Zhuge Liang and Li Yan to surrender to Shu Han. Unfortunately, however, the conspiracy against Cao Guihan was exposed prematurely, and Meng Da was eventually destroyed by Sima Yi early.
Frustrated, he was the strongest strategist under Yuan Shao's account, he proposed to Yuan Shao to welcome Emperor Xian of Han, opposed Yuan Shao's separation of sons, suggested that Yuan Shao act when Cao Cao was still weak, and proposed the famous slow-forward tactics at the Battle of Guandu, etc., none of which were very far-sighted, and very insightful, and clever opinions and plans. But Yuan Shao did not listen to all, although part of the reason was Yuan Shao's personality problems, but one of the important factors was the origin of Frustrated Zhi, such as the huge family of Yongcai such as Judge, Guo Tu, and Feng Ji, and Yuan Shao loved to listen to their bad ideas.
Then you are carefully studying the important generals and courtiers of the various forces in the Three Kingdoms era, in fact, most of them are from the door valve family, except for Cao Cao, most of the forces are like this. The Sun family of Eastern Wu, except for some generals in the early days of entrepreneurship, are not famous, but the talents who stabilize internal affairs are all from the door valve family. Liu Bei's Shu Han was similar, and Zhuge Liang, Li Yan, and others were almost all in a similar situation.
Chen Gong was actually not only Lü Bu's adviser, but also in charge of Lü Bu's army, and it can be said that he was one of Lü Bu's generals. The description in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is actually a little different from the Chen Palace of zhengshi. Chen Gong was a capable courtier and general, but for him, except for Cao Cao, others let him choose, and he couldn't choose a famous person, so he could only choose Lü Bu, a hero who did not see his origin.