Zhang Gao appeared in the Battle of Guandu in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and he was very active, participating in many battles and dealing with many famous generals. Like the five tiger generals of the Shu Han clique, at least Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Zhang Fei, and Huang Zhong had singled out him.
Of course, Zhang Gao's martial arts were still slightly inferior to those of the top masters, so the fight with Zhao Yun basically ended in failure. However, Zhang Gao can also fight dozens of rounds when fighting with Zhao Yun and others, and finally he can successfully escape, it should be said that this performance is also very good.
However, some people think that Zhang Gao has a big gap in the performance of Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, and Zhang Fei:
The Battle of Huangshan, Zhang Gao, against Zhao Yun, was defeated after more than thirty rounds of fighting, and this was because Zhao Yun had just fought with Xu Chu, Yu Ban, and Li Dian, and the physical loss was not small. Under normal circumstances, Zhao Yun should be faster in defeating Zhang Gao.
The Battle of Tongguan met Ma Chao, and After twenty rounds of fighting, Zhang Gao was defeated and left.
However, in the Battle of Tangqu, When Zhang Hao robbed the camp, Zhang Fei's plan was blocked in the village, and after the two of them fought for thirty or fifty rounds (based on the Currently Passed Mao version), Zhang Hao struggled to kill a road to escape because he could not save the soldiers.
On the surface, it seems that Zhang Fei did take longer to defeat Zhang Gao than zhao yun and Ma Chao. Therefore, some people have also put forward various hypotheses, thinking that it may be that Zhang Fei is older and his martial arts have declined, or that Zhang Gao has improved his martial arts after so many years of experience. In short, many people think that Zhang Gao's martial arts at this time are not much worse than Zhang Fei's.
However, in fact, Zhang Gao's performance against Zhang Fei is not better than that of Zhao Yun and Ma Chao.
First of all, let's take a look at it, the original text of the speech is to say that Zhang Gao and Zhang Feidou had thirty or fifty combinations. It means between thirty and fifty, this is a rough number, not that Zhang Gao can play fifty rounds with Zhang Fei, and it does not seem that the gap is so big.
Secondly, and more importantly, the original text of the speech did not say that after thirty or fifty rounds of fighting, the two were still tied, and Zhang Hao was likely to be struggling to support at this time. In the rendition, if a martial artist is desperate, it is likely to last longer than the original.
For example, when Ma Chao chased Cao Cao in the Battle of Tongguan, Cao Hong, who was similar to Zhang Gao's martial arts, struggled to kill Ma Chao in order to save Cao Cao, and he insisted on forty or fifty rounds. Of course, later Cao Hong was already weak, the sword technique was already a little scattered, the situation could be said to be very dangerous, but after all, he persevered.
When Zhang Guo fought against Zhao Yun in the Battle of Yongshan, he was blocked on the way out of Liu Bei's escape. At this time, it didn't matter if he couldn't defeat Zhao Yun, as long as he led the army to hold the pass and didn't let Liu Bei escape, so there was no need for a death battle. Tongguan timed out on the horse, and even more in front of the two armies, Zhang Gao at this time did not need to fight hard, and naturally there were others who went up to the war horse chao.
However, in the Battle of Gongqu, Zhang Gao was caught in Zhang Fei's plan and was blocked in Zhang Fei's camp and could not easily escape. In addition, Zhang Gao had previously advocated the attack on Brazil, and for this reason, he also made a military order in front of Cao Hong. As a result, the first battle was unfavorable, and he was killed by Zhang Fei in Langzhong and returned, which would make him dare not easily fail again.
Therefore, Zhang Gao would fight hard and support himself bitterly, waiting for reinforcements to come and turn over. Later, it was found that Wei Yan and Lei Tong had killed his reinforcements, and also took advantage of the situation to attack the two villages of Mengtou and Dangshi. Zhang Hao saw that the rescue soldiers were hopeless and had no faith in support, and he was immediately defeated.
Moreover, when Zhang Fei and Zhang Gao fought again at Wakou Pass, Zhang Gao insisted on not coming out of the pass, and Zhang Fei heard about a small road and personally took five hundred light horses from the trail to enter the pass. Although zhang gao still had about 10,000 men and horses at this time, the number of troops was far more than Zhang Fei.1 However, after the two met, Zhang Gao did not dare to fight with Zhang Fei at all, and only cared about fleeing for his life, and even did not hesitate to abandon the horse mountain, and only fled with a dozen retinues.
Obviously, the gap between Zhang Gao's martial arts and Zhang Fei's was still very large. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been so panicked at this point that he wouldn't have dared to fight at all.
So on the whole, the battle of Tangqu Zhang Guoneng and Zhang Feidou for thirty or fifty rounds is not how much progress his martial arts have made, nor is it that Zhang Fei's martial arts have declined when he is older, the two are still a level apart. Under normal circumstances, Zhang Gao can only hold out twenty or thirty rounds at most.