As long as you are a little familiar with history, almost all have heard of the name Huo Quzhi, as the most brilliant and dazzling general in the Han Dynasty, his life has left a lot of commendable legends.
At the age of seventeen, he fought the Huns for the first time, broke it, and was named the champion Hou; at the age of nineteen, he recovered Hexi, and was outside the Weizhen Fortress; at the age of twenty-one, he was named the wolf Juxu in the battle of Mobei.
This is Huo Quzhi, a national hero who represents courage and miracles.
However, such a hero's life came to an abrupt end when he was twenty-four years old, and his life was like a meteor, leaving a brilliant light and shadow and then quickly disappearing.
It is precisely because of the suddenness of Huo Qu's illness and death that there are only a few words about the cause of his death in the history books, so there are many speculations in later generations, among which there are many theories such as "conspiracy and murder theory".
For example, there is a theory that Huo Qubing died at the hands of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
The point of view of this statement is that as Huo Quai's credit became greater and greater, there was gradually a tendency to overshadow the master, and Liu Che, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, who had always taken power very seriously, simply killed him secretly in order to prevent Huo Qubing from threatening his rule.
Moreover, those who hold this statement also pointed out that the reason why Huo Quai's son Huo Huan died suddenly after following Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty Taishan to seal Zen was also because Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty moved his hands and feet on Mount Tai, the purpose was to cut the grass and eradicate the roots.
In short, this statement firmly believes that Huo Qu's illness was killed by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
There is also a theory that Huo Qu died of illness at the hands of Wei Qing's wife, that is, Princess Pingyang.
The point of view of this statement is that Princess Pingyang married Wei Qing in the first place, so that she could stay rich and prosperous for the rest of her life, and the continuous rise of Huo Qubing threatened Wei Qing's status.
Therefore, for herself and for her husband Wei Qing, Princess Pingyang designed to frame Huo Quai, and finally killed Huo Qubing through various covert means.
An even more outrageous statement is that Huo Qu's illness was killed by Wei Qing.
Why did Wei Qing kill Huo Quai? It is similar to the motive of Princess Pingyang in the previous article, and in addition to thinking about himself, Wei Qing also took into account the overall interests of the Wei family.
As for the interests of the Wei family, those who hold this view believe that Huo Qubing never thinks about the future of the Wei family, and rarely places the children of the Wei family in his army, so the military merits after every victory are given to outsiders.
And this is obviously very inconsistent with Wei Qing, who wants to make the Wei family brilliant.
Therefore, after several attempts to persuade him to no avail, Wei Qing was worried that Huo Qubing was getting better and better, and sooner or later he would pose a threat to the Wei family in the future, so he could only kill Huo Qubing by killing him.
These are the three theories about the cause of Huo Qu's death, and these three theories have one thing in common, that is, they are all "historical conspiracy theories".
In other words, these three theories have elevated the cause of Huo Quai's death to a serious political incident.
So, how credible are these claims? To put it very seriously, they are basically nonsense and belong to typical "historical nihilism."
Why? In a word, because these views are simply untenable.
First of all, let's talk about "Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty killed Huo Quai", for this kind of argument, anyone who is a little familiar with Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty will know how ridiculous it is.
Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, was the seventh emperor in the history of the Western Han Dynasty, and he did have many criticisms that were criticized by later generations, such as suspiciousness, lack of gratitude, cruelty, and so on.
But there is one point, his desire to resist and defeat the Xiongnu is the strongest among all the emperors of the Western Han Dynasty.
From the beginning when he stabilized the situation and took power into his own hands, he actively planned and promoted many campaigns against the Quartet, such as the two conquests of Minyue.
What did Liu Che come for? In order for the Han Dynasty to be able to dominate the world, in order to realize the ultimate goal of "the Han Dynasty is the sect of the world, and the handle of killing and killing is used to control the life of the sea."
As for the Xiongnu, Liu Che was even more eager to completely eliminate them.
Since the beginning of the fight against Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu have repeatedly invaded the Han Dynasty, but the strength of the Han Dynasty is not good, so that it can only be exchanged for a short peace by relying on "harmony" later.
As an eloquent monarch, maintaining the territorial integrity of the country and border stability is what Liu Che must do, and this kind of situation of looking up to people and looking at people's faces is also the last thing Liu Che wants to see.
Therefore, soon after Liu Che ascended the throne, he sent Zhang Qian as an envoy to the Western Regions, why did he do this? Isn't it just to unite the Dayue clan, the feud of the Xiongnu, and join hands to fight against the Xiongnu?
It's just that Otsuki's is more stretched, so this plan was not realized in the end.
After that, the minister of the DPRK and China proposed to restore "harmony" in order to maintain "friendly relations" with the Xiongnu, but Liu Che sternly refused, that is, during this period, Liu Che decisively promoted Wei Qing and Huo Quai, and began the process of attacking the Xiongnu in the north
And after Wei Qing and Huo Quai's success, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty Liu Che was extremely excited, in addition to rewarding the two of them, he simply changed the year name, such as Wei Qing's great victory in Heshuo after the attack on Longcheng, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty changed the year name to "Yuan Shuo", and on the eve of the Battle of Mobei, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty changed the year name to "Yuan Hunt" in order to commemorate this counteroffensive.
The word "Yuan Hunting" had the meaning of conquering the Quartet in ancient times, which shows how strong his desire to defeat the Xiongnu was.
In this case, would Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty kill a general who could help him achieve this strategic goal? Although there were indeed many generals who could fight at that time, there was only one genius like Huo Quzhi.
If he really wanted to kill, then when Huo Qubing shot Li Kang, Emperor Wu of Han could justifiably execute him, so why wait until later?
As for saying that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty wanted to find a suitable opportunity and reason to kill Huo Quai, this is even more ridiculous, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, who he wants to kill, never needs a reason, there are not a few ministers who have made great achievements but have been killed by him, if he really has the intention to kill Huo Quai, there is no need to be so troublesome.
Similarly, it is groundless to say that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty killed Huo Quai's son in order to cut the grass and eradicate the roots, as we all know, the Taishan Feng Zen carried out by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty is the first time since Qin Shi Huang, for this reason, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty planned for several years, spending countless financial resources and manpower, such a solemn and serious thing, is it to kill a child under the nose of God?
When will he not be killed? But when he killed him during the Zen ceremony, did Liu Che think that the national glory of the Han Dynasty was too long? Or did he think his life was too hard?
After talking about Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, let's talk about the statement that "Wei Qing and Princess Pingyang killed Huo Quai".
Everyone knows that Huo Quzhi and Wei Qing belong to the relationship between nephews and uncles, and the two are connected by blood, so in the eyes of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and all the ministers, the two are the same thing.
If there is a so-called "Wei Huo struggle", then why did Huo Qubing take a great risk to shoot Li Dare to vent his anger for his uncle Wei Qing?
You must know that the laws of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty were still quite strict, and there is an incident that happened to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty himself to prove it.
At the beginning, Princess Lin Xi, the younger sister of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, took out all the family's property (gold thousand catties, tens of millions of money) and handed it over to her brother Liu Che, in order to entrust her son to her brother.
Moreover, Princess Lin Xi also said that she hoped that her brother would hand over all the family property for the sake of herself, and if her son accidentally made a mistake in the future, he could spare his life.
Emperor Wu of Han did agree at that time, but as a result, his nephew really committed a big crime later, so Emperor Wu of Han finally killed him in tears.
In other words, under the strict laws at that time, Huo Qubing dared to shoot Li Kang with an attitude of risking his life.
With such a relationship of being willing to give up one's future and one's life, how could there be a so-called "struggle to defend Huo"? If there were, Huo Qubing would not have taken such a big risk at all.
Speaking of Wei Qing, the record left by Wei Qing in the annals of history, in addition to the immortal achievements of the Huns, there are two impressions, that is, cautious and honest.
At the beginning, when Wei Qing was in the position of general, a man named Su Jian from his subordinate made a suggestion to him, suggesting that Wei Qing recruit talented disciples in order to establish a reputation for recruiting talents.
But this suggestion was rejected by Wei Qing, and Wei Qing told him that in the early years, it was because Tian Wei and Dou Ying recruited doormen, so they attracted the jealousy of the Son of Heaven, so recruiting doormen was undoubtedly to find a handle for himself to make the Son of Heaven dissatisfied.
In the end, Wei Qing ended his conversation with Su Jian with the sentence "People can obey the law and obey their duties, why not recruit soldiers?".
Through this record, it can be clearly seen that Wei Qing is well aware of the seriousness of raising disciples, and only by not doing so can he avoid being suspicious of the emperor.
In fact, Wei Qing did the same, even if he was a general, he still acted cautiously, even if Li Guang's son Li dared to injure him, he only bandaged his wounds by himself, and told his family not to make a noise.
Is he afraid of Li Dare? Of course he is not, he is just worried that he will make a public statement and cause unnecessary trouble.
Such a cautious Wei Qing was said to be a person who harbored evil intentions and was bent on camping everywhere for the sake of the family's longevity and wealth, and even killed his nephew Huo Qu because he was sick and he was not on the same path.
If Wei Qing was really this kind of person, before he could start acting, Emperor Wu of Han, who had always been suspicious, would attack Wei Qing.
Once, a minister named Ning Cheng told Wei Qing that now that Mrs. Wang is favored in the harem, Wei Qing should talk to Mrs. Wang's family in advance, such as giving gifts or something, so as to pave the way for her future.
As a result, Wei Qing was very obedient and did so, and this matter was not surprisingly known by Emperor Wu of Han, who knew that Wei Qing belonged to the kind of character who was not good at drilling, so he asked Wei Qing who taught him to do this.
And Wei Qing honestly told Emperor Wu of Han that it was Ning Cheng who taught him.
Even Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty didn't believe that Wei Qing was the kind of person who was full of scheming, so it was enough to show that it was impossible for Wei Qing to do anything that was deliberately trying to kill Huo Quai.
There is also the saying that Princess Pingyang murdered Huo Quai, it is even more impossible, first of all, she does not have such great energy, if she really has, she will not be in order to keep her wealth and wealth, and she will not present beauties to her younger brother Liu Chejin twice before and after.
The second is that assuming that she is really the murderer behind the murder of Huo Quzhi, then according to the temper of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, how could she not have any punishment for Princess Pingyang afterwards? Not only did she have a good death, but she was also allowed to be buried with Wei Qing?
Therefore, this kind of conjecture and speculation to conclude that Huo Qu's illness was the result of being murdered by others is completely irresponsible "conspiracy theory", which is not only disrespectful to history, but also a kind of misleading to today's people.
So, speaking of which, how did Huo Qubing die? As explained earlier, he died because of illness.
Due to the progress and development of modern medicine, we have the illusion that there must be some special reason behind the sudden death of a strong young man.
But in reality, in ancient times, it was extremely normal for young people to die suddenly.
Ancient medical technology is not developed, many of our current minor illnesses, it is very likely to kill a person, for a very simple example, if modern people because of a cold caused pneumonia, at most it is to go to the hospital for a few days to hang the bottle.
In ancient times, there were no antibiotics, and if you couldn't carry it, you could kill in minutes.
Not to mention the ancient times like the Han Dynasty, just talking about the Republic of China, the average life expectancy of people was only forty years old, and even the eighty or ninety years old people around us, in the era when they were born, many people died because of a small illness, and many of them died soon after birth.
Therefore, in the era of Huo Quai's illness, it was not uncommon for him to die of illness, even if he was a talented general.
Moreover, what is Huo Qubing best at? It has been clearly stated in historical materials that it is a high-intensity blitzkrieg, a thousand-mile attack, and a large army that is out of nowhere, and this is the characteristic of Huo Quzhi's battle.
And this way of fighting, it is obvious that it is exchanged for burning physical strength and willpower, Huo Quzhi is a human being, not a god, once or twice, he can withstand it by relying on his youth, but what about the number of times?
According to historical records, from the sixth year of Yuan Shuo to the fourth year of Yuan Hunt, in just five years, Huo Qubing went on six expeditions, and four of these six times were still as the commander.
To put it bluntly, it means that when he was a child, he was not in good health, and his family hoped that he would grow up without illness or disaster.
It's like we modern people name children "healthy", "strong", and "stone", all of which want children to grow up strongly.