When we describe a person with excellent medical skills, we often use the idiom "Hua Tuo is alive", which shows that the image of Hua Tuo's generation of divine doctors has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people for more than a thousand years. However, Hua Tuo, a revered healer who saved countless people, was innocently killed by Cao Cao in his later years, and the cause of his death is still a mystery. Today, we will jointly break through the fog of history and explore the real reason for Hua Tuo's death.
In the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao seeks medical treatment from Hua Tuo for a head wind disease. Hua Tuo proposed to Cao Cao that he use an axe to split his head and take out the wind saliva so that the disease could be completely eradicated. The suspicious Cao Cao believed that Hua Tuo wanted to kill him, so he ordered him to be killed. Of course, the death of the novel Zhonghua Tuo is only invented by the author Luo Guanzhong in order to highlight Cao Cao's suspicious character, and is not a historical fact. So, for what reason was the historical Hua Tuo killed by Cao Cao?
When Hua Tuo was a teenager, he traveled abroad to study, traveled all over the world, and studied a lot of medical skills. By the time Hua Tuo was 25 years old, his medical skills were already in full swing, especially good at surgery, and many difficult diseases were difficult for him. As a result, Hua Tuo's reputation gradually flourished, and patients from all over the world came to seek medical treatment. At that time, cao cao was suffering from head wind disease, and after he heard about Hua Tuo's superb medical skills, he immediately sent someone to pick hua Tuo up and ask him to treat himself.
Hua Tuo made an extraordinary move, and only half a month made Cao Cao's condition improve significantly. Two months later, Cao Cao's head wind disease was completely eradicated. Cao Cao admired Hua Tuo's medical skills and wanted to hire him as his dedicated physician and pay him a fairly generous salary. But Hua Tuo was an idle cloud wild crane, did not like to be bound, and did not want to stay with such a traitorous male as Cao Cao, so in the face of Cao Cao's several solicitations, he always used excuses to resign. Cao Cao was very angry after several unsuccessful conscriptions, so he threw Hua Tuo into prison. A year later, the divine doctor Hua Tuo died innocently in prison.
How could Cao Cao, as a generation of tyrants, have such a narrow mind? At the beginning, Chen Lin, a scribe under Yuan Shao's account, wrote a crusade against Cao Cao and scolded Cao Cao's ancestors for three generations. Cao Cao not only did not blame him, but gave him generous gifts, which shows that Cao Cao is not a narrow-minded person. And Hua Tuo, first, had never offended Cao Cao, and second, he was cao Cao's savior, how could he be innocently killed because he did not accept Cao Cao's solicitation? There are, of course, deeper reasons for this.
First, Cao Cao did not want to be threatened by Hua Tuo. In fact, the status of ancient healers was very low, not much different from alchemists. The "Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Fang Ji Biography" says that Hua Tuo "was a scholar in his own life, saw his profession as a doctor, and often regretted himself", which means that Hua Tuo, as a reader, regretted that he had engaged in the profession of doctor, and even deeply ashamed. The reason why Hua Tuo became a doctor was to contact some powerful people, so that he could get the appreciation of these powerful people and change his fate. After Cao Cao saw Hua Tuo's medical skills, he wanted him to follow him and become his own full-time doctor. Hua Tuo wanted to achieve his goal of seeking a career, so he deliberately resigned From Cao Cao's conscription many times in order to reach an agreement with Cao Cao. Cao Cao was a male lord of a generation, how could he be easily coerced? Therefore, there is a saying that "the villain raises my illness and wants to be self-respecting", which means that Hua Tuo treated Cao Cao's illness in order to improve his own status. It can be seen that Hua Tuo did have the idea of reaching an agreement with Cao Cao.
Second, Cao Cao killed Hua Tuo in order to kill a hundred people and establish his prestige. From the Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the door valve system was particularly common in society. Cao Cao himself was not from a door valve background, and although he had great merit in pacifying the north, he was still ostracized by some clans. In this regard, Cao Cao not only needed to educate the people, but also took necessary measures to deter these door valve clans. Hua Tuo has always regarded himself as a soldier, with an arrogant temperament, and his temper is not very good, plus he is a person with no door valve background, even if he is killed, there will be no soldiers who will come out to make trouble. In this way, Cao Cao confidently and boldly killed Hua Tuo, thus achieving the goal of killing one hundred people.
Third, in order to prevent Hua Tuo from revealing his illness, Cao Cao also had to kill Hua Tuo. Cao Cao's head wind disease has been suffering for many years, and everyone in the DPRK and the central government knows it, even the people have heard about it. However, few people know about the specific condition, only Hua Tuo knows best. Cao Cao's position is high and powerful, and every move is eye-catching, and if the condition is leaked out, it is bound to cause unnecessary turmoil. At that time, Cao Cao was nearly fifty years old and had already begun to consider the issue of heirs, which made it even more impossible for others to know his illness, so as not to cause a fight between heirs. With this in mind, Cao Cao decisively killed Hua Tuo.
In short, Hua Tuo's death was caused by many reasons, and the most important reason, I am afraid, is the third point, that is, Cao Cao had to kill Hua Tuo in order to prevent his illness from being exposed, which is also in line with the style of a generation of adulterous male Cao Cao. After Hua Tuo's death, the "Qingnan Book" that he had exhausted all his life's energy to write was also lost, which was a huge loss to China's medical cause.