The Idiom story of the Three Kingdoms that we are going to talk about today comes from the 115th time of the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which occurs during the period of Sima Zhaofa Shu. The characters involved were Deng Dun, Zhong Hui and Sima Zhao, and the original translation is as follows: Sima Zhao asked Zhong Hui to be the general of Zhenxi, using the etiquette of a monarch to lead guanzhong men and horses, and dispatch people and horses from Yangzhou, Jingzhou, Yuzhou, Yanzhou, Xuzhou, and Qingzhou.
On the one hand, he had the order given to Deng Ai and made him the general of Zhenxi to conquer the Shu state during the agreed period, and the next day Sima Zhao planned this matter in the middle of the dynasty. Former General Deng Dun said that Jiang Wei has repeatedly invaded the Central Plains, our army has suffered too many damages, and now it should be defended, and it may not be able to defend it, so why should we go deep into the dangerous places of the mountains and rivers to cause trouble for ourselves? Sima Zhao said that I wanted to rejuvenate the teacher of benevolence and righteousness and to fight against the monarch who had no way, and you dared to disobey my will. So he directly called the samurai to push Dun Dun out and kill him. After a while, the samurai took Dun Dun's head and placed it under the ranks, and all the generals were shocked.
Sima Zhao said that we had been resting for six years since we conquered the east, during which time we had perfected our armor and armor, and we had wanted to fight against the kingdoms of Wu and Shu for a long time. Now first pacify the Western Shu, then ride the tide of the river, land and water, and then annex Eastern Wu. I expected that there were about 80,000 or 90,000 Soldiers in Chengdu in Western Shu, but only 40,000 or 50,000 on the border.
And the army in Jiang Wei's hands is sixty or seventy thousand. Now I asked Deng Ai to lead more than 100,000 troops from Guanwai Longyou to tie up Jiang Wei, so that he could not take care of the east. Then send Zhong Hui to lead 200,000 or 300,000 elite soldiers from Guanzhong directly to Luogu, attack Hanzhong together in three ways, the master of the Shu kingdom Liu Chan fainted, and after the border city was broken, they would first be unable to stand it internally, and Western Shu would surely perish. All the generals obeyed.
And the idiom we are going to talk about today is the teacher of benevolence and righteousness that Sima Zhao said, that is to say, to fight against the evil army in order to uphold benevolence and justice, which is nothing more than Sima Zhao putting gold on his face, and this idiom is also an idiom created by Luo Guanzhong himself. When Sima Zhao decided to cut down Shu, he was opposed by many of Cao Wei's courtiers, and this is indeed recorded in history, and Deng Dun was indeed one of them, and Deng Ai, in addition to Deng Dun, was also one of the opponents. Deng Ai not only felt that cutting Shu was ineffective, but also wrote to express his position many times.
This made Sima Zhao very dissatisfied with Deng Ai, and Deng Ai was very opposed to Sima Zhao's decision, but Zhong Hui was very supportive of his decision, and the two were both Sima Zhao's love generals, and the results caused by different attitudes were also different. Sima Zhao had Zhong Hui serve as a Zhenxi Sect Army to attack the Shu state, but Deng Ai, who had previously held a higher position than Zhong Hui, became his deputy. However, at the end of the story, whether it is Zhong Hui or Deng Ai, the result of the two is the same, they both died in the Shu Han Empire. One was plotting against each other and harboring a ghost fetus, and the other was good at making claims and getting carried away, and Sima Zhao was jealous of both of them, so both of them had to die in the Shu kingdom.