He is the golden saying of Huaxia: "Those who violate strong men will be condemned from afar!" "; He was also the holder of the record for the ratio of losses in all battles against the Xiongnu other than Huo Qubing; He is even more for the sake of a thousand years of merit, dare to fake the divine will of the hardcore ruthless people!
He is the famous general of the Western Han Dynasty that we want to know today - Chen Tang!
Starting from the end of the micro, not falling into the clouds
Chen Tang, a native of present-day Shandong, came from a very poor family when he was young.
The "Book of Han" records that Chen Tang "has no money to borrow from the poor", which probably means that Chen Tang can only rely on begging and borrowing to live on weekdays, and there is no temperance, and he often borrows but does not repay, so the fellow villagers naturally have no good face for him.
But it is under such material conditions that Chen Tang likes to read books very much, and he has a very bright brain to write good articles. However, due to his poor reputation in his hometown, he could only go to Chang'an alone to seek development as an adult.
In Chang'an, he obtained an official position - eunuch offering food. Mainly responsible for managing the food donated in various places.
This errand is not very high, but at least it solved Chen Tang's problem of eating, and he worked here for several years until he met Zhang Bo, the Marquis of Fuping.
Chen Tang is a very good person, every time he passes by the city wall, mountains and rivers, he will climb high and look at the distance, showing a look of ambition in Qingyun and his heart on the battlefield.
And he is "calm and courageous, has great considerations, has many strategies, and enjoys miracles", and is a rare military talent. Zhang Bo admired him and recommended him as Maocai.
The Han Dynasty implemented the system of inspection, the main subject was filial piety, followed by Maocai, and when a person was recommended as Maocai, he took the first step in his career.
Chen Tang originally thought that this was the beginning of his own operation and soaring, but he did not expect that he would incur his first prison sentence for himself.
His father died, and according to the rules of Han Dynasty officialdom, after the death of his parents, he had to resign and return to his hometown to mourn, and he needed to keep it for three years.
Chen Tang kept his secret in order to be promoted, but the matter was soon revealed, and he was reported for "not following the law" (that is, having a problem with morality), which was a big deal at the time, and Chen Tang not only lost his official but also went to prison.
Fortunately, Chen Tang lacked everything in his life, but there was no shortage of nobles, and after he was released from prison, he was recommended as a lang official.
The Han Dynasty's lang officials did the job of "guarding the portal, riding out of the car", that is, a guard with a staffing and leading chauffeur, but generally after a few years of training, they could be promoted or transferred to a place, which can be said to be a stable institutional road.
However, Chen Tang's character did not allow him to waste any more time, and he took the initiative to petition for envoys to the frontier many times. Finally, he was appointed as the deputy captain of the Western Regions.
The deputy captain of the Western Regions is the deputy of the Western Regions Protector, which can be roughly understood as the second in command of the Western Regions. And in this position, Chen Tang finally stepped onto his own stage.
Hardcore and ruthless, set up a thousand years of achievements
In the middle of the Han Dynasty, the contradictions within the Xiongnu intensified due to the struggle for the throne, and they divided into five forces.
Among them, there are two forces that have gone closest to the Han Dynasty, namely Huhan Xiedan Yu and Zhizhi Dan Yu. Among them, Hu Han Xie Shan Yu was particularly close to Emperor Xuan of Han, and he personally went to Chang'an to worship Emperor Xuan of Han.
But I don't know if Hu Han Xie Shan licked too hard, and another force, Zhi Zhi Dan Yu, gradually became dissatisfied in his heart and gradually distanced himself from the Han Dynasty.
In the fourth year of the early Yuan Dynasty, Zhi Zhishan Yu found a reason and proposed to Emperor Yuan of Han to bring his son back to the Western Regions as a hostage.
Therefore, Emperor Yuan of Han ordered Wei Sima Guji to escort his son back. But the ministers of the DPRK and China disagreed on where to escort.
Some ministers suggested that he was so unsophisticated, we got the meaning, and it was enough to send it to the border area.
But Sima Guji was a more personable person, and he felt that the Han Dynasty could not see the Xiongnu in general, and he had to have the strength to send all the way to the court of the Zhizhi king. At his insistence, Emperor Yuan of Han agreed.
However, after Sima Guji and the others finally arrived at the court of the Zhizhi king, Zhizhi Shan Yu, who greeted them, suddenly tore off the mask that had been disguised for a long time, and rioted and killed Gu Ji and the others, and then he waved his hand and officially announced his break with the Han Dynasty.
In the following years, he continued to expand, constantly invading the surrounding Wusun, Dawan and other countries, and became the biggest threat to the stability of the Western Regions.
It was under this circumstance that Chen Tang came to the frontier of the Western Regions. After coming here, Chen Tang could see at a glance that this guy Zhizhi was wolf-minded.
He told his boss Gan Yanshou that Zhizhi was warlike by nature and won successive victories, and if he was not eliminated, he would inevitably become a henchman of the Han Dynasty, and this person's weakness was obvious, that is, insufficient defensive ability.
The Zhizhi garrison had neither strong walls nor powerful crossbows.
If they can mobilize all the officers and soldiers of nearby Tuntian and Wusun's troops, gather them into one force, and take advantage of their unpreparedness to go straight to their city to make a general attack, they will definitely be able to take it in one fell swoop.
Gan Yanshou also approved of Chen Tang's plan, but he had a more stable personality, thought that the matter was serious, and prepared to report it to the imperial court first.
Chen Tang himself is a civil servant, and he knows the deliberative style of the group of public secretaries, and the possibility of such a bold plan being passed is very low.
Moreover, the fighters were fleeting, and Zhizhi was now carried away by successive victories, and once he sank his heart into building walls and accumulating strength, the future attacks would only be more difficult.
But Gan Yanshou insisted on reporting, and just when Chen Tang was in a hurry, his opportunity came.
Gan Yanshou suddenly fell ill, and he entrusted all the work to Chen Tang. So Chen Tang made a quick decision, forged a letter of imperial court order without Gan Yanshou, mobilized the armies of nearby countries, and gathered all the officials of Tuntian.
When Gan Yanshou learned of this, he was so frightened that he quickly got up from the hospital bed, but Chen Tang pulled out his sword in front of him and shouted:
"The army has been assembled, I'll see who dares to shake the heart of the army!"
Gan Yanshou had no choice but to let go of power and let him send troops. Chen Tang divided the assembled 40,000 horse soldiers into six parts, and from two directions, they went straight to the Kangju border where Zhizhi was located.
It was a daring military adventure, but Chen Tang's analysis proved correct, Zhi Zhi Shan Yu was not good at defense, and after several vicious battles, Chen Tang's army finally captured Tucheng, where Zhi Zhi was hiding, captured more than a thousand people and beheaded more than 1,500 people.
In the war report submitted to the imperial court, Chen Tang said the famous saying that has been passed down through the ages.
"Those who violate the strong man will be condemned from afar!"
The reputation is mixed, and it is not the first to go
After Zhizhi's death, Hu Han Xiedan reunited the Xiongnu with the help of the Han Dynasty and pledged eternal allegiance to the Han Dynasty.
Emperor Yuan of Han married Wang Zhaojun to Huhan Xie Shan Yu, thus officially declaring the end of the Han-Hungarian War, which lasted for more than 100 years. As the beginning of all this, the price spent by Chen Tang in this battle can be said to be extremely low.
He did not use the strength of the whole country like Wei Qinghuo to go to the disease, but only used the authority to act as the protector of the Western Regions to gather and coordinate the armies of the Western Regions countries, and effectively dispatched them, which is not too much to say that it is a "thousand years of miracles".
However, Chen Tang, who had made such a miraculous achievement, did not gain the position of a first-class general in the hearts of future generations like Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, and even people who did not know the history of the Western Han Dynasty may not know this person at all.
It turned out that although Chen Tang had made great achievements in battle, his pretentious behavior was a taboo. At that time, the prime minister, Zhongshuling, Yushi and other important ministers all believed that Chen Tang could not be rewarded.
They thought that Chen Tang was so bold that he dared to falsely preach the divine decree, and it was already a special grace not to grant him the death penalty, if he was given an official and a knight, if the Western Regions in the future were to learn from it, wouldn't it be difficult for the country?
But fortunately, there are also people in the DPRK who speak for Chen Tang. Yuan Zongzheng Liu Shangshu felt that Chen Tang fought this battle in the Western Regions extremely beautifully, and he almost completely annihilated the enemy without using the army of the Han Dynasty, nor consuming his own food and grass, such a great achievement, if there was no reward, wouldn't it make the generals of the world chill?
Emperor Yuan of Han eventually accepted the advice of Liu Xiang and others, and he made Chen Tang Gan Yanshou the two marquises, giving 300 households of food and 100 jin of gold. He also made sacrifices to the ancestors at the temple sacrifice, and granted amnesty to the world, which can be said to be extremely beautiful.
Chen Tang ended badly in the end, and the reason was still because of himself.
Perhaps it was the poor life when he was young that brought too deep a psychological shadow to Chen Tang, and as soon as he arrived in the battlefield of the Western Regions, he showed an extremely greedy side for money.
When Chen Tang conquered Zhizhi, the army captured a lot of property, and according to the rules, these were to be handed over.
However, Chen Tang did not want to hand it over, but took it all for himself. He even took a bite back and slandered the captain who came to supervise his division as "collaborating with the enemy."
In this way, Chen Tang completely ruined his reputation, but fortunately, Emperor Han Yuan remembered that he had meritorious service and did not punish him. However, after Emperor Chengdi of Han ascended the throne, Prime Minister Cheng and others mentioned the matter again, and he was still removed from his official position.
A few years later, the great general Wang Feng reactivated him, hoping that he could make a comeback through the fame he had saved in the Western Regions, but Chen Tang, who had some power in his hands, immediately returned to his old ways, and some people reported that he often received money to play the chapter.
At this time, no one could protect him, and he was finally sent to Dunhuang.
But who would have thought that the officials in Dunhuang wrote that he was too loud in the Western domain, which was a dangerous danger. As a result, Chen Tang, who was in his twilight years, moved to stability several times.
A few years later, Emperor Nian of Han returned to Chang'an after working hard in Chen Tang. But not long after, he died in Chang'an City in a loneliness.
Throughout Chen Tang's life, it can be said that there have been ups and downs.
Born at the end of his life, he made immortal achievements for the Han Dynasty. And this general star, which should have been extremely shining, did not escape the drive of human nature in the end, he could only go down, constantly down, and finally fell into a lonely snowflake on the wall of Chang'an City.