Liu Bei and Liu Xuande can be regarded as a generation of heroes in both the records of "Three Kingdoms" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
Liu Bei had a total of 3 sons in his life, namely Liu Chan (that is, the heir of Le Bu Sishu), Liu Li and Liu Yong, in addition to one is the hero of today's story, Liu Bei was attached to Liu Biao, the righteous son Liu Feng received in Jingzhou.
At the beginning, Liu Bei cultivated Liu Feng's righteous son in the direction of his successor (Liu Chan was not born when he adopted Liu Feng), so he put a lot of effort into Liu Feng's training.
And Liu Feng also performed very well after following Liu Bei, not only made a lot of military achievements in Liu Bei's many battles such as conquering Xichuan, but also had his own uniqueness in internal affairs and people's livelihood governance, which can be described as outstanding among the young generation in the Three Kingdoms period.
Therefore, Liu Feng has grown into a general who can take charge of himself when he was in his twenties, and he worships the deputy general of the army and is ordered to guard the mediocrity.
However, Liu Bei later gave Liu Feng to death for some reason, but later in the final stage of his life when he was defeated and retreated to the White Emperor City, he regretted his decision to kill Liu Feng at that time. Even realized that Liu Feng's death might have been a conspiracy, but it was already too late and irreversible.
So, why did Liu Bei accept Liu Feng as his righteous son, and why did he give him death after cultivating him to become a talent, and regretted it after giving him death?
Today we will talk about Liu Feng, the story of this poor man who could have become the "Optimus Pillar" of Shu Han but had no choice but to become a victim.
After the real fame
Liu Feng's original name was Kou Feng, the ancestor was a famous family in the Han Dynasty, according to the "Three Kingdoms Chronicles: Liu Feng's Biography" record, Liu Feng's ancestor Kou was named Luo Hou (after Luo Hou Kou), and his mother's family was Changsha Liu.
Speaking of the title of Marquis Luo, it was real in the Eastern Han Dynasty, but only Dou Bi and Deng Qiu were awarded this title, and they were both named relatives (after all, the Eastern Han Dynasty was an era when relatives were in power for a long time).
Then some people will ask, Kou Feng's surname is Kou is not Dou, nor is he surnamed Deng, is he really a descendant of Luo Hou?
Speaking of Dou Bi and Deng Qiu, we have to mention the "Yuntai Twenty-Eight Generals" awarded by Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu when he reshaped the mountains and rivers, these two people are the descendants of Dou Rong and Deng Yu in the Yuntai Twenty-eight Generals.
Therefore, there is a saying that Kou Feng should actually be called Dou Feng, because the pronunciation of these two words is very close, coupled with the difference in pronunciation in the dialect, it is likely that it is called a fork when it is called.
However, the author prefers the second version.
According to records, among the twenty-eight generals in Yuntai, there was a general named Kou Sui, who ranked fifth among the twenty-eight people, and had served as Yingchuan Taishou and Runan Taishou under Emperor Guangwu.
On the other hand, Kou Sui's granddaughter was the wife of the then general Deng Qiu (the two married during the reign of Emperor An of the Han Dynasty), and Deng Qiu's fief was in Xinye.
Liu Bei took refuge in Liu Biao, and he was stationed in Xinye, and he received Liu Feng in Fancheng, both of which were under the jurisdiction of Jingzhou at that time, and they were not far away from each other (riding a horse could go back and forth on the same day).
Secondly, although Deng Qiu was once knighted, he had a niece (cousin niece) who was the empress of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty, so the Deng family, the in-law of the Kou family, was still powerful at this time.
In addition, although Kou Rong has a cousin named Kou Shang, who is the concubine of Emperor Huan's sister Princess Yiyang, this is a real relative, and Emperor Huan of Han also included Kou Rong's cousin and niece in the harem.
Moreover, the fiefdom of the eldest princess of Yiyang is in Yiyang County, where is Yiyang? Of course, it is in Changsha, and Luo County is also in Changsha, and these two places are basically next to each other.
Therefore, Luohou Kou is likely to be Kou Shang, or the title of the descendants of him and the eldest princess of Yiyang.
Although Empress Deng was later deposed and Kou Rong was killed, Kou Shang survived because of his relationship with the eldest princess of Yiyang, and the title was retained.
But later, after Emperor Ling ascended the throne, Liu Feng's father was likely to be taken away.
After all, Emperor Ling is not Emperor Huan's biological bloodline (Emperor Han Ling is Emperor Huan's cousin), and it is very likely that he will reshuffle Emperor Huan's reward at that time, so when it comes to Liu Feng, the power of the Kou family is indeed not good, otherwise his uncle should not agree so easily to let Liu Bei, who was "so poor that only fame remains", accept Liu Feng as his righteous son.
But in any case, Liu Feng's identity after "Luohou Kou's Clan" is real, even more convincing than Liu Bei's identity after "King Jing of Zhongshan".
Moreover, Liu Feng's mother's maiden family "Changsha Liu" should be the king of Changsha who was rewarded by Liu Xiu after establishing the Eastern Han Dynasty, and later after Liu Xing, the Marquis of Linxiang, he was also a real royal family.
I believe that everyone should be able to understand the reason why Liu Bei has to accept Liu Feng as his son. One is that Liu Bei had no children at that time, and more importantly, Liu Bei, who had just arrived in Jingzhou, needed to win over the local forces, so it was obviously a good way to accept a "son of a poor family" as a righteous son.
Young and promising
As mentioned above, after Liu Bei adopted Liu Feng, he always attached great importance to him, and took Liu Feng with him on almost every expedition, and Liu Feng himself performed quite well.
Next, let's take a look at whether Liu Feng is in line with what "Three Kingdoms" said, "He has martial arts and great strength".
Liu Feng's first battle after being accepted as a righteous son by Liu Bei should have been when Xiahoudun attacked Xinye, together with Guan Ping, with the strength of five hundred soldiers, burned the baggage of Xiahoudun, the vanguard of the Cao army, in the battle of Bowangpo;
Immediately afterwards, Xinye and Mi Fang intercepted Cao Ren's defeated army together, captured a lot of weapons and captured many prisoners, and Liu Feng was not yet 20 years old at this time;
After Liu Bei occupied Jingzhou, he and Guan Ping intercepted the waterway together, so that Zhou Yu, who intended to capture Xichuan, returned in vain.
In the battle to take Xichuan, Liu Feng accompanied the army as a general of the Chinese army, and the other three main military officers led by Liu Bei were Wei Yan, Huang Zhong and Guan Ping.
In this way, even though Liu Bei already had a biological son at that time, he still attached great importance to and trusted Liu Feng.
In this battle, Liu Feng was first at the banquet at Fushui Pass, and received the eyes of Wei Yan, who wanted to kill Liu Zhang directly in the name of sword dancing, and signaled to fight Zhang Ren together.
You must know that Zhang Ren's martial arts are very high in both romance and official history, if Liu Feng's martial arts are low, Wei Yanduan will not ask him to help, because Liu Feng is also Liu Bei's righteous son no matter how he says, so it can be seen that Liu Feng's martial arts have been recognized by Wei Yan.
Next, he and Guan Ping captured Yang Huai and Gao Pei in Fushui Guansheng, and after Feng Xiao fell downhill, he led the army to intercept and kill Zhang Ren's army, and tried his best to ensure that Liu Bei retreated.
In addition to the above-mentioned battles with others, Liu Feng's personal performance in the battle was not lacking in a three-way defeat to Meng Da, three battles with the top military general Xu Huang, one of which was a full-body retreat in the sandwich of Xu Huang and Xiahou Shang, and a three-round defeat to Cao Zhang's men.
Although it is said that there are many losses and few victories, Xu Huang and Cao Zhang are fierce generals even if they look at the entire Three Kingdoms period, one is praised by Cao Cao as "the wind of Yafu", and the other is Cao Cao's most fierce son.
On the other hand, after capturing Xichuan, Liu Bei rewarded the original officials of Yizhou and the officials of Jingzhou.
In addition to Zhuge Liang, Guan Zhang, Zhao Ma Huang, and Wei Yan, Liu Feng's reward order was second only to Sun Qian, Jian Yong, Mi Zhu, and Mi Fang, and higher than Ma Liang, Zhou Cang, and his old partner Guan Ping.
And Liu Bei also specially created 3 official positions when he rewarded him, one of which is the "deputy army general" belonging to Liu Feng, and the other two are Zhuge Liang's "military division general" and Zhao Yun's "Yijun general", which can also reflect Liu Bei's attention to him.
Later, Liu Feng captured Dingjun Mountain with Meng Da in the battle between Liu Bei and Cao Cao for Hanzhong;
He burned grain and grass in Micang Mountain, intercepted and killed Cao's army, and led the army to capture Shangyong, Fangling, Xicheng and other places as the main general, and made many military achievements.
Therefore, after Liu Bei became the king of Hanzhong, Liu Chan was named the crown prince (Liu Chan was about seven or eight years old at that time), and Liu Feng was directly named the deputy general of the army (the meaning of the deputy election of the commander).
And Liu Feng's "deputy" army here should be Liu Bei's army, even if this official position cannot be compared with Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and others, but after all, he holds the military power, and he is also Liu Bei's deputy, which is similar to Cao Cao calling the Queen of Wei the queen of Wei as the general of the five passes, and the deputy prime minister, which shows Liu Bei's doting on him.
However, this reward was already Liu Feng's peak, because not long after, Liu Feng completely ruined his future and lost his life because of a wrong decision of his own.
This nephew is not qualified
In the autumn of Jian'an 24 and in July of 219 AD, Liu Bei ascended to the throne of Hanzhong, and Feng Guan Yu was the head of the five tiger generals and the governor of Jingzhou military.
In the same year, in order to block Cao Cao's plan to take Jingzhou, Guan Yu led the order to send troops to attack Fancheng, Cao Ren was defeated, and most of his troops asked Cao Cao for help. Cao sent Yu Ban as the general and Pang De as the vanguard, and raised the Seventh Army to go to Fancheng to rescue.
Unexpectedly, the autumn rain suddenly came, Guan Yu flooded the Seventh Army to break the Cao army, captured the ban, beheaded Pang De, and shocked China.
However, Cao Ren was good at guarding and wounded Guan Gong's right arm with a poisoned arrow, but fortunately Hua Tuo scraped the bone to heal the injury. After healing, Guan Yu led the crowd to attack Fancheng again, but he didn't want Cao Cao to be afraid of Guan Yu, so he listened to Sima Yi's plan to unite Sun Quan of Eastern Wu, and persuaded Sun Quan to attack Jingzhou to relieve the danger of Fancheng by cutting land and rewarding him.
Sun Quan listened to Lu Xun's suggestion, showed weakness to Guan Yu's heart, Guan Yu did not doubt, and transferred most of Jingzhou to attack Fancheng, but unexpectedly, Lü Meng said that he crossed the river in white clothes and attacked Jingzhou.
The words are divided into two ends, when Lü Meng attacked Jingzhou, Cao Cao sent Xu Huang to send troops to attack Guan Yu and defeat Guan Yu in Yuncheng. After Guan Yu's army was defeated, he threw himself into the public security and left, not wanting to defend the general Fu Shiren and the Nanjun guard Mi Fang to surrender to Wu, Guan Yu had to send Ma Liang and Yi to Chengdu for help, and on the other hand, he wanted to recapture Jingzhou.
Unexpectedly, he was attacked by Cao Wei and Eastern Wu, Guan Gong was defeated, and led 300 people to guard Maicheng and wait for rescue, while Liao Hua desperately fought his way out of the encirclement and went to Shangyong to ask Liu Feng for help.
However, Liu Feng, who has always loved Guan Yu, did not immediately send troops to save Guan Yu this time, but went to discuss countermeasures with Meng Da.
This is good, Meng Da first poured Liu Feng a bowl of poisonous chicken soup with "Eastern Wu is strong, and it has joined forces with Cao Cao, we will not only not be able to save Guan Yu, but may also wipe out the whole army";
Immediately afterwards, he moved out again, and Guan Yu said when Liu Bei was unrestrained, "My brother already has a biological son, why use the son of a moth" to provoke an uncle-nephew relationship;
In the end, Liu Feng was asked to prevaricate Liaohua on the grounds that "Shangyong has just been attached, the people's hearts are undecided, and now the army may lose the city".
Liu Feng was under Meng Da's "advice", the CPU burned in one go, no matter how Liao Hua begged him, he didn't send troops anyway, and finally simply waved his sleeves and left directly, so angry that Liao Hua could only go to Chengdu to report the news.
At this time, Guan Yu fell into the dilemma of having no food and grass inside and no rescue soldiers outside, so he could only abandon the city and break through, and was finally captured alive by Pan Zhang when he was sleepy and lacking horses.
After being captured, Guan Yu refused to surrender and angrily scolded Sun Quan and the people in Jiangdong, Sun Quan saw that he could not persuade Guan Yu to surrender, so he had to order Guan Yu and Guan Ping's father and son to be beheaded.
Liu Bei decided to personally lead his troops to rescue Guan Yu as soon as he learned that Guan Yu was besieged by Eastern Wu, but temporarily put aside the idea of revenge under the strong persuasion of everyone.
But soon after, Cao Cao fell ill and died, and his sons were busy fighting for the throne at this time, and they had no time to manage their allies Eastern Wu, which gave Liu Bei the opportunity to crusade against Eastern Wu.
At this time, Liao Hua sued Liu Feng in front of Liu Bei, saying that Guan Yu's death was precisely because they did not send troops to rescue each other, and they should send troops to fight against Liu Feng Mengda first.
But Liu Bei did not immediately express his position at this time, but just followed Zhuge Liang's suggestion and transferred Liu Feng to guard Mianzhu and separate the two of them. This can show that Liu Bei is still giving Liu Feng a chance at this time.
Because Liu Bei understands that although Liu Feng is wrong in not sending troops to save Guan Yu, the reason he said that "Yong has just returned to the army, the people's will is undecided, and it is not suitable to send troops" is indeed reasonable, and this sentence in the official history said to Guan Yu when Guan Yu besieged Fancheng and transferred troops to Liu Feng:
"Since Guan Yu surrounded Fancheng and Xiangyang, he even called (Liu) Feng and (Meng) Da, and ordered the troops to help themselves. Seal and resign to the beginning of the mountain county, can not be shaken, do not accept the life of the feather". - "Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Biography of Liu Feng"
In other words, Liu Bei did not think that Guan Yu's defeat and death were directly related to Liu Feng, and at that time, Shangyong Shen Tan and Shen Yi were two generals who did not know their henchmen, and it was not unreasonable for Liu Feng to be wary of them taking advantage of the opportunity to send troops to turn back.
However, Liu Feng could completely let Meng Da take one of Shen Tan and Shen Yi to lead the troops to help Guan Yu, even if it was only to bring a small part of the troops or send some grain and grass over to relieve Guan Yu's pressure, after all, Shangyong was already the closest city to Guan Yu's troops at that time.
But Liu Feng never sent a single soldier to watch from beginning to end, and watched Guan Yu's soldiers defeat and die, which is really a bit unreasonable. Even if Liu Bei didn't hold him accountable for the first time afterwards, he must have had a problem with him in his heart.
At the right time, Meng Da, who was worried that Liu Bei would attack him, directly surrendered the city to Cao, and sent people to Xiangyang to persuade Liu Feng to surrender Cao together. Liu Feng was quite backbone this time, not only tore up the letter and killed the messenger, but also directly led the troops to kill Meng Da.
It's just that Meng Da at this time already had Cao Wei's support, although he couldn't beat Liu Feng, but with the help of Xu Huang and Xiahou Shang, Liu Feng was almost wiped out, and fled back to Chengdu in embarrassment.
And when Liu Bei saw Liu Feng, he was furious, and loudly reprimanded him for not saving Guan Yu from death, without caring about the feelings of his uncle and nephew, and gave Liu Feng to commit suicide soon after.
But in fact, Liu Bei killed Liu Feng for many reasons, one of which is of course related to Guan Yu's death, but this is not the most important thing, otherwise Liu Bei would not have been like Liu Feng for more than a year after Guan Yu's death;
The second is because he took the initiative to attack Mengda in Xiangfan this time, not to mention the loss of troops, and also lost the strategic place of Xiangyang, which is a very important reason.
Because Xiangyang is the granary of Jingzhou, once Xiangyang is lost, Liu Bei has no territory in the Jingzhou area, and it is impossible to recover Jingzhou again, and the strategy mentioned in "Longzhong Pair" is basically difficult to realize, and the plan to revive the Han dynasty may also be wiped out.
But even for these two reasons, Liu Bei still didn't make up his mind to kill Liu Feng until Zhuge Liang gave him a word of advice.
After all, I regretted it, and after all, it was too late
The third reason is that as we mentioned earlier in the article, Liu Bei raised Liu Feng as a successor when he adopted him, and after becoming the queen of Hanzhong, after having three biological sons, he still hesitated on the issue of Liu Chan and Liu Feng's heirs.
It can be seen that Liu Bei really loves Liu Feng, the righteous son, and it also shows that Liu Feng is indeed capable.
But Liu Feng has a big shortcoming - "spoiled and spoiled", relying on Liu Bei's love for him, he has bullied him, and he has also offended many colleagues.
Even Zhuge Liang later believed that Meng Da's surrender to Cao was not unrelated to Liu Feng's oppression of him when he was in Shangyong.
Therefore, Zhuge Liang told Liu Bei that Liu Feng was too high-profile and had a strong personality, and if Liu Bei "returned to the sky" that day, Liu Feng would be difficult to control, and it was even possible to make a "rebellious" behavior, and he should take advantage of Guan Yu's death and the loss of Xiangfan, and get rid of it as soon as possible.
At this point, Liu Bei finally made up his mind to execute Liu Feng.
Soon after, Liu Bei's troops were defeated by Lu Xun in a decisive battle with Eastern Wu, and in this battle, Liu Bei lost almost all of Shu Han's belongings.
In the last days of his life, he suddenly discovered that by killing Liu Feng, maybe he really did something wrong.
First of all, Liu Feng has been with him for many years as his righteous son, he is a diligent general, maybe he is a little "flying and domineering", but it is precisely because of his character that if he really has the ambition to seize the throne, he would have been exposed a long time ago, and he would not wait until after his death.
Secondly, Liu Feng, as a military general, although he has military power in his hands, he is not in the center of the regime when he leads troops all the year round, and his power and strength cannot be compared with Zhuge Liang at all, and even if he really takes into account that he has the idea of rebellion, it is enough to deprive him of military power, and he can't kill him.
In addition, Liu Bei found that during his recuperation in White Emperor City, the group of people he initially brought out seemed to be only Zhao Yun left, and it seemed that he could only choose Zhuge Liang if he wanted to support Gu, but could he really reassure himself?
Therefore, when he was supporting Gu, Liu Bei tested Zhuge Liang many times, and even said the words "Liu Chan can assist him, and if he can't assist, let Zhuge Liang establish himself as the king", the purpose of which is to let Zhuge Liang show his loyalty in front of him.
And let Liu Chan recognize Zhuge Liang as his "father" because Liu Bei knew that Zhuge Liang was a noble person, so he and Liu Chan could establish this "father-son relationship" to ensure Liu Chan's stability.
In the end, Li Yan, who had always been at odds with Zhuge Liang, was another minister to support Gu, on the one hand, it was to check and balance the power of the Jingzhou and Yizhou officials, and on the other hand, it was also to restrain Zhuge Liang and prevent him from being alone.
Imagine, if Liu Feng is alive, with his talents, he will definitely become the pillar of Shu Han in the later period of the Three Kingdoms, and Shu Han will not end up withering talents;
If Liu Bei hadn't killed Liu Feng, it wouldn't have been Zhuge Zhan who would have guarded Mianzhu in the end, and Liu Feng would definitely have the ability to stop Deng Ai's troops;
If Liu Feng had not died, what he had done for Shu Han would have been to defend both the national and family industries, and how could he not do his best.
It can only be said that Liu Feng's death has its own fault, but it is also helpless that he must become a victim.