In the history of the mainland, there has always been a saying that "the killing and surrender are unknown".
Wu Anjun rose from the white, killed 400,000 Zhao soldiers, and was finally given a sword by King Qin Zhao to commit suicide.
Xiang Yu, the overlord of Chu, killed 200,000 surrendered Qin troops, and was finally defeated by Liu Bang, who was weaker than him, and killed himself in Wujiang with hatred.
飞将军李广,杀八百降羌,其部属士卒先后封侯,李广却始终难封,最终也自刎而死。
King Kaiping often met spring, and regarded the slaughter of the city as a daily routine, and died of a violent illness at the age of forty.
Throughout Chinese history, most of the people who killed and surrendered did not end well, but there was one person who broke this fate.
He is Xue Rengui!
Xue Rengui not only lived safely to the age of 70, but most of his children and grandchildren were nobles of the Tang Dynasty and had an excellent reputation, so how did he do it?
Today, let's walk into Xue Rengui's life and take a look!
Hikiko:
Legend has it that during the Zhenguan period, Tang Taizong Li Shimin had a strange dream, dreaming that he was hunting, and suddenly met a blue-faced and red-haired man to stab him, Li Shimin was invincible, turned around and fled, when passing through a river, the horse's hooves fell into the mud, Li Shimin was difficult to get out for a while, and he was so anxious that he was sweating profusely, at this moment, a member of the general shouted, killed from the side, rescued Li Shimin, and then jumped into the water and disappeared.
Li Shimin looked at the ripples on the river, loudly asked the name of the general, but only got four lines of poetry, and then Li Shimin woke up, the next day, he told the ministers about this dream, everyone you say a word, together to solve the riddle of this poem, it turned out that the general's name is Xue Rengui.
Of course, this story is just one of the folk legends about Xue Rengui, similar legends can be told by storytellers for half a month, and film and television dramas have performed countless wonderful contents, which makes us addicted, so, what is the real Xue Rengui in history?
Xue Rengui's name is Xue Li, is a famous general in the early Tang Dynasty, Rengui is his word, his ancestor Shanghedong Xue, is a minority who moved from Shu to Hedong during the Three Kingdoms period, and became one of the six surnames in Guanxi: Wei, Pei, Xue, Yang, Liu, Du, a proper famous family.
The Xue family has been a military general in the court for generations, and in Xue Rengui's generation, due to the untimely death of his father Xue Rail, the family unfortunately fell into the middle of the road, and Xue Rengui had to work as a hired laborer in the landlord's house and make a living from farming.
Although life was very difficult, because Xue Rengui's mother was born in a big clan and was a very knowledgeable woman, Xue Rengui received a good education since he was a child.
Under the teaching of Xue's mother, Xue Rengui became a young man with all-round talents in civil and military affairs, and at the age of 15, he went to work in the Liu family, another big clan in Hedong.
By chance, Xue Rengui met the eldest lady of the Liu family, and the two fell in love at first sight, but how could the Liu family marry their daughter to a poor boy?
So Miss Liu had to take advantage of the darkness to elope with Xue Rengui secretly, and the two of them made a lifelong decision in private and became a couple.
After getting married, the life of the young couple still did not improve, but the Liu family never disliked Xue Rengui, but encouraged him to continue to practice literature and martial arts, and he will definitely have the opportunity to stand out in the future.
Time flies, in a flash, Xue Rengui is 30 years old, and the opportunity has finally come.
One day, Xue Rengui came back from work and saw a group of people talking about an imperial list, he was very curious, so he stood tall and stood on tiptoe behind the crowd to watch.
The content of the list immediately attracted Xue Rengui, it turned out that Li Shimin was going to conquer Liaodong in person, and he was recruiting warriors everywhere!
Xue Rengui was very excited, wasn't this the day he was waiting for? So, he immediately rushed home and told his wife Liu about it.
Liu was also very happy to hear this, and supported Xue Rengui to join the army, with the support of his wife, Xue Rengui was full of energy, and he resolutely came to Zhang Shigui's account and became an ordinary soldier.
Soon after, the army began to march towards Goryeo, and the Tang army was invincible all the way, and every time he fought, Xue Rengui showed great bravery, hoping to stand out among the soldiers, but the leaders only verbally praised him a few times and did not give him the opportunity to be promoted.
Xue Rengui knew that in ordinary battles, it was difficult for the commander to see his ability, and he had to find an opportunity to make a splash, and soon, the army came to Liao'andong.
In a battle in Liao'andong, a general named Liu Junqiong Lang was besieged by the Goryeo army because of the light enemy, and it was difficult to get out, and the main general was in a hurry, but Xue Rengui was secretly happy in his heart, and the opportunity had come! He stepped forward, and Mao recommended himself to rescue Liu Junqiong.
The lord saw that Xue Rengui was confident, so he agreed.
Xue Rengui flew on his horse, until outside the encirclement, the other party's generals saw him coming single-handedly, and they were secretly amused, but before he finished laughing, he was beheaded by Xue Rengui with a knife.
Xue Rengui hung the head of the enemy general on his horse and rushed directly to the encirclement, and when the Goryeo officers saw this, they were so frightened that they retreated, and Liu Junqiong took the opportunity to kill the encirclement.
Xue Rengui became famous in one fight!
Two months later, Li Shimin personally commanded the battle, and Xue Rengui certainly couldn't let go of the good opportunity to be seen by the emperor. He deliberately wore a white coat, when fighting, he held a halberd in his hand, shouted and rushed into battle, the powerful aura shocked the Goryeo army to retreat one after another, invincible, the Tang army then attacked in a big way, the Goryeo army was defeated, and more than 20,000 people were beheaded.
After the war, Li Shimin was very happy, specially summoned Xue Rengui, who was still an ordinary soldier, and gave him two horses, 40 horses and silk, and 10 captives as slaves, and made him a guerrilla general.
Xue Rengui's life has taken a turn since then.
On the way back to the division, Li Shimin promoted Xue Rengui to be the general of the right leading army, guarding the Xuanwu Gate of the palace.
Later, Li Shimin died and Gaozong succeeded to the throne, and Tang Gaozong was still optimistic about Xue Rengui.
Time flies, and in 661 A.D., the Hui leader Po Yan died, and Bisu, who succeeded to the throne, began to be an enemy of the Tang Dynasty.
Gaozong Li Zhi was very angry, and sent Zheng Rentai, the general of the Right Tun Guard, as the main general, and Xue Rengui as the deputy general, and led the troops to the Tianshan Mountains to attack the nine surnamed Tiele of Hui.
Before the army left, Li Zhi set up a banquet in the inner hall, and during the meal, Li Zhi stroked Xue Rengui's back and said: I heard that in ancient times, people who were good at archery could penetrate seven layers of armor with one arrow, can you shoot through five layers of armor? Xue Rengui didn't say a word, he bent his bow and set up an arrow, and one arrow shot through five layers of armor.
Subsequently, the Tang army marched towards Huifu, and the commander surnamed Tiele led 130,000 soldiers to battle, and ordered the 10 bravest soldiers in the army to go to the battle.
Xue Rengui immediately shot three arrows, and the three of them died in response to the arrows, and the army surnamed Tiele was subdued by Xue Rengui's courage and aura, and they dismounted and surrendered.
At this time, Xue Rengui made a shocking decision to kill all the 130,000 Tiele people who surrendered.
After winning the battle, he not only did not stop the looting behavior of his subordinates, but also embezzled the captured booty and forcibly married Princess Tiele as a concubine.
Many of the Tiele tribes who occupied the dangerous places of the Tianshan Mountains came to ask the Tang army to surrender, which immediately aroused the anger of the Tiele people, and many tribes that had originally surrendered rebelled again.
Xue Rengui crossed the moraine and further pursued these armies, and from then on, the nine surnamed Tiele people, who had repeatedly invaded south, never became a border trouble.
After the news of Xue Rengui's killing of Tiele people was reported back to the capital, the ministers were very angry and asked Gaozong to severely punish Xue Rengui, but Gaozong Nian made great contributions to him and did not pursue it.
Time flickered, in the first year of Qianfeng, Goguryeo's prime minister Quan Gai Suwen died, and his son Quan Nan inherited his father's position, Quan Nanjian, the younger brother of Quan Nanjian, held a grudge and took advantage of Quan boys to go out to inspect and occupy the national capital.
Tang Gaozong sent Xue Rengui to lead the army to Goguryeo, Xue Rengui on the one hand with the Quannan boy should cooperate with the outside, and on the other hand, unite the troops of the Khitan, Jin and other tribes, surrounded Goguryeo on all sides, Goguryeo was destroyed, and became the jurisdiction of the Tang Dynasty.
Soon after, the western Tibetan rebellion was suppressed, and Xue Rengui went to Liaodong to suppress it.
Due to the long distance, there are many miasma, the environment is very bad, the Tang army is difficult to adapt, on the way to damage most of the damage, Xue Rengui immediately decided, decided to fight quickly, he left the materials in Dafeiling, leaving only 20,000 people responsible for building fortifications, and then led the remaining soldiers to ride out, trying to catch the enemy by surprise.
Xue Rengui led the army to the estuary, defeated the enemy, occupied Wuhai City, did not want the other party's reinforcements to arrive in time, Xue Rengui was outnumbered, did not dare to fight hard, so he retreated to Dafeichuan, as a result, the enemy was in hot pursuit, the Tang army was defeated, and finally the whole army was annihilated, and this battle also became a rare fiasco in Xue Rengui's military career.
Xianheng four years, Xue Rengui has passed the age of sixties, he was finally able to rest after a lifetime of fighting, but at this time, someone accused corruption and bribery, Tang Gaozong in the early days in order to win people's hearts, when others impeached Xue Rengui, he always turned a blind eye, but with the stability of his position, he no longer needed to implement a policy of forgiveness for these old ministers, so Xue Rengui was exiled to Xiangzhou.
Later, Gaozong granted amnesty five times, and Xue Rengui was able to be exempted from punishment and return to Beijing.
In Xue Rengui's later years, because "the west is not quiet" was enabled by Gaozong again, Xue Rengui took the lead and immediately set off with his troops, and the Turks heard that Xue Rengui was coming, and they all thought that the Tang army was to scare them, so they made up a deception, because the information they got was that Xue Rengui had already died in Xiangzhou.
As soon as Xue Rengui heard that the Turks did not believe it, he took off his helmet, and the Turks were shocked when they saw it, and immediately scattered and fled.
In 683 AD, in the second year of Yongchun, Xue Rengui died of illness at the age of 70.
People are rare in their 70s, and in ancient times, few princes and nobles who were dressed and fed all day long could live to be 70 years old like Xue Rengui.
End:
Xue Rengui, as a famous general in the early Tang Dynasty, was brave and strategic, and made great achievements in battle, and made great contributions to the stability of the Tang Dynasty, but he killed 130,000 soldiers, and corruption and bribery became his lingering stain.
Compared with other famous generals in history, Xue Rengui finally lived to be 70 years old before he died, which is probably unprecedented and unprecedented!