The statements in this article are based on reliable sources and are repeated at the end of this article
In 196 BC, Han Xin, who helped Liu Bang win the world, was deceived by Empress Lu and Xiao He, and after entering the palace alone, he was tied up by the guards arranged by Empress Lu. [Pathetic]
However, before he died, Han Xin not only did not show fear, but also left a cruel sentence to Liu Bang: "I don't need to use tricks, but I was deceived by a woman, isn't it a natural disaster!"
When Liu Bang, who rushed back to Chang'an from the front line, learned Han Xin's words, he suddenly felt a chill down his spine, broke out in a cold sweat, and immediately ordered Kuaitong to be executed.
So why is Liu Bang so afraid of this sentence? What did Kuaitong say to Han Xin?
01
When he was young, Han Xin could be described as a "jobless vagrant", although his family was not wealthy, but Han Xin did not want to do some farm work or small business to make a living, and wandered around the village every day.
And the way he fills his stomach, except for occasionally catching fish by the river when he is lucky, is to go to the neighbor's house to eat around.
When Han Xin was rubbing rice, he always told everyone about his ambitions, and when it came to the climax, he would take out his ancestral saber and dance a sword, and finally he didn't forget to say that he was passionate but had nowhere to show it.
Those of us who have known history know that Han Xin does have a strong ability to lead troops in battle, and his heart is also full of ambition to serve the country, but the villagers don't know that Han Xin in their eyes is an image of being idle and boasting and talking big, so gradually the villagers are reluctant to let Han Xin eat.
Just when he was about to starve to death on the street, an unbearable lady cooked him a bowl of noodles, pulled Han Xin, who stepped into the ghost gate, back, and ate several meals at the eldest mother's house in a row, and Han Xin, who had recovered his vitality, was very moved.
Before saying goodbye to the eldest mother, he told the eldest mother that he would definitely repay her when he had a chance, but he didn't expect to receive a scolding from the eldest mother, saying that he was a young man who didn't want to get ahead, and only knew how to talk empty words with his mouth.
But Han Xin still looked like a mess, until 209 BC at the end of the Qin Dynasty, when Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rebelled, which finally ushered in Han Xin's life-changing opportunity.
He first joined the team of Xiang Liang, who he was very optimistic about, and followed him around to fight, but Xiang Liang didn't pay attention to Han Xin at all, and he didn't accept Han Xin's advice, and when Xiang Liang died, Xiang Yu, who became the new boss, still didn't listen to Han Xin, and didn't follow his plans. ”
Han Xin, who was disheartened by the Chu State, immediately turned his head to the Han State, and Han Xin, who had just entered the war camp, did not have the opportunity to display his talents, so Liu Bang did not care much about this "nobody", and only gave him a small position to guard the grain and grass warehouse.
02
Han Xin really walked in front of Liu Bang, it was entirely the credit of his Bole Xiao He, Xiao He accidentally discovered Han Xin's amazing talent, and tried his best to recommend this person to Liu Bang, so that Han Xin could be reused.
The first time Liu Bang met Han Xin, Han Xin expressed his views on the Chu-Han War, in his opinion, the final winner of this war must be Liu Bang, and also wanted Liu Bang to put forward his own battle plan, the very famous "Hanzhong Pair" in history is from this conversation.
And this conversation also successfully allowed Liu Bang to see Han Xin's military strategy, so he immediately regarded Han Xin as the general who led the troops to fight.
Facts have proved that Xiao He's vision and Liu Bang's decision are very correct, and there are three Xiang Yu's henchmen in the Guanzhong area, the first place in the Han State, who are staring at the every move of the Han State and Liu Bang, in case Liu Bang suddenly marches into the Central Plains, which also greatly restricts the process of Liu Bang's establishment of a grand cause.
No one can break the situation, but Han Xin easily solved it: he asked Liu Bang to order Fan Hao and Guan Ying to repair the burned plank road in Qishan Road, and explain that the bigger the movement they made, the better.
At the same time, he sent a large army to attack the enemy's Chencang from the old road behind his back, and this is one of Han Xin's famous scenes in history. ”
Later, Han Xin led a large army and captured the four kingdoms of Wei, Zhao and Yan, and the number of soldiers in the army he led once increased to a terrifying 100,000, but when he went to the city of Qi and prepared to march to attack Qi, Qi chose to surrender.
Because the lobbyist sent by Liu Bang Li Shiqi relied on his three-inch incorruptible tongue to persuade Qi Wang Tian Guang to be his subordinate, Han Xin at this time could only reorganize the army and prepare to return to the court.
03
Liu Bang, who was fighting with Xiang Yu on the Xingyang front, suddenly received a letter from Han's messenger, and Liu Bang was furious after reading the content of the letter.
Because Han Xin wrote in the letter that he had taken down the Qi State, but because the Qi State was close to the Chu State and there was no one to guard, for the sake of the stability of the place, he asked Liu Bang to make himself the acting king of Qi.
Han Xin's move, in Liu Bang's opinion, was a proper act of forcing the palace, just as he was about to reprimand Han Xin, Zhang Liang hurriedly persuaded Liu Bang, with Han Xin's current prestige and status, there was no way to offend him.
So Liu Bang, at Zhang Liang's suggestion, not only gave Han Xin the title of king, but also the official king of Qi, but what Han Xin didn't know was that the relationship between the two had already been suspicious from this moment.
The initiator of all this was Han Xin's advisor Kuaitong, when after the surrender of the Qi State, Han Xin, who had decided to withdraw his troops, suddenly persuaded him:
"The King of Han just asked you to attack the State of Qi, and did not let you withdraw the troops, not to mention that Li Shiqi was just a scholar, so he only made the State of Qi surrender with lip service, but you really led the troops to fight and destroyed the State of Zhao, is your credit not as good as that of a poor scholar?"
After hearing this, Han Xin immediately led his troops to destroy the already crumbling Qi State, and Li Shiqi, who had persuaded the King of Qi at the beginning, was also brutally killed by the King of Qi, who was considered to have betrayed him.
When Han Xin was named the queen of Qi as he wished, Kuaitong began to advise Han Xin: "The king now has a heavy army in his hands, and he has Zhao, Yan, Qi and other places, why not stand on his own? Wait for Liu Bang and Xiang Yu to fight to the death and go south to win the world in one fell swoop." ”
In order to avoid Han Xin's rejection of him, Kuaitong also used the method of "face-to-face" to euphemistically remind Han Xin, saying that his back has the appearance of a nobleman, and he is an existence that can dominate one side, and if he forcibly cooperates with Liu Bang, he is likely to be killed and killed.
However, what Kuaitong didn't expect was that Han Xin, an indomitable general on the battlefield, was so timid in his heart.
Han Xin thought that he could do what he did today because of Liu Bang, and it was impossible for him to betray him, and he also confidently said that Liu Bang also believed in him very much, and would not take away his Qi country, let alone betray himself.
Seeing that Kuaitong, who couldn't convince Han Xin, walked away in a fit of anger, in order not to lose his life because of today's words, Kuaitong could only pretend to be crazy and stupid and run for his life.
04
In 203 BC, Liu Bang, who was trapped by Xiang Yu in Guling, wanted Han Xin to bring troops to support, just like he promised that if he defeated the Chu State, the two of them would divide the world equally.
However, what Han Xin didn't expect was that when Liu Bang, with the help of himself and others, defeated Xiang Yu and sat firmly on the throne of the emperor of the Han Dynasty, he immediately took away the military power in Han Xin's hands and gave Han Xin to the king of Chu.
Only a year later, Liu Bang heard the news that Han Xin was preparing to rebel, so he pretended to go to Yunmeng Lake to tour to attract Han Xin, but Liu Bang also remembered Han Xin's merits as one of the three heroes of the early Han Dynasty, took away his prince, and was demoted to the Marquis of Huaiyin.
At this time, Han Xin's mind unconsciously appeared with Kuaitong's words of advice, so he began to plot a rebellion with Chen Xuan.
When Liu Bang went to the front line of the rebellion against Chen Feng, Han Xin, who was raising dead soldiers behind his back, was planning to take the lives of Empress Lu and the crown prince, but what he didn't expect was that his seemingly foolproof plan was reported to Empress Lu by his subordinates.
Liu Bang and Han Xin had an agreement a few years ago, that is, "don't kill when you see the sky, don't kill when you see the ground, and don't kill when you see iron." In order to abide by this agreement, Empress Lu called Xiao He to the kilometer, and the two conspired with a way to execute Han Xin.
Empress Lu and Xiao He used Liu Bang's successful evaluation of Chen Feng and invited Han Xin to the public celebration reason, and successfully tricked Han Xin into the palace, and as soon as Han Xin entered the palace, he was caught by the guards who had already arranged for an ambush on the way by Empress Lu, and hung him in a cloth bag on the beam.
You can't kill people with iron weapons, so Empress Lu asked the palace maid to stab Han Xin to death with a bamboo stick, and this is the origin of what we often say, "Success is also Xiao He, defeat is also Xiao He".
When Liu Bang, who came back from counterinsurgency, heard what Han Xin said before he died: "I don't need to use a trick, but I was deceived by a woman, isn't it a natural disaster!"
At the beginning, his strategist Li Shiqi was cooked and killed by the King of Qi, so Liu Bang, who was angry, immediately made people catch Kuai Peng and threatened to cook Kuai Peng.
However, just before he put Kuai Peng in the pot, the clever Kuai Peng said something like this, which made Liu Bang spare his life:
"After the fall of the Qin State, there were countless people who wanted to win the world, but I only knew about Han Xin, the king of Qi, and I didn't know that there was also a king. And even if I was a dog, I would only bark at people other than the director.
But from the analysis of such words, Kuaitong is indeed a loyal man, so Liu Bang acquitted him, which shows Kuaitong's cleverness.
In fact, as early as before the Qin Dynasty fell, Kuaitong had already seen that the Qin Dynasty would definitely come to an end, so when Chen Wu rebelled, he became a member of the rebel army, and also persuaded Fan Yangling to give up the Qin Dynasty with his incorruptible tongue.
In order to prevent his hometown of Fanyang from being slaughtered by the rebels, Kuaitong also became a lobbyist for the rebels at the same time, so that they could understand that the real enemy they had to face was the Qin Dynasty and not a small Fan Yangling.
And he had already seen that Han Xin would die because of following Liu Bang, so he persuaded Han Xin to establish his own forces as early as possible, so that the three kingdoms of Qi, Han and Chu could divide the world, but "good words are difficult to persuade damned ghosts", Han Xin, who did not listen to his advice, finally ended up with a dead family.
He successfully persuaded Liu Bang, who was about to kill him, with the reason of "those who don't know are not guilty" and his loyalty, to know that the example of being bypassed by the king for rebellion by others is rare in the entire history.
05
If Han Xin had followed Kuai Peng's advice to dominate one side, it was very likely that he would not have ended up so miserably, but Han Xin only had the courage and courage to dominate the army.
In other words, even if he really dominates one side, just because Han Shin is not proficient in politics, the grand hegemony he has built will not last long.
Resources
China.com - Han Xin's death, stabbed to death by a group of palace maids with bamboo, the end of the hero_Look at the headlines_China.com
China.com - Han Xin, the god of war who has a tragic life, said the last words before his death, which has become people's mantra now_Look at the headlines_China.com
Sinology Network - The Original Classics of Sinology, the Department of History, the Twenty-four History Series, the Historical Records, Volume 92