Wen Chou in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is as famous as Yan Liang, and he is the two strongest generals in martial arts under Yuan Shao of the Hebei Army. However, because he was killed by Guan Gong Sanhe, who was like a god descending from heaven in the Battle of Yanjin, it has been questioned.
In line with the principle of objectivity and fairness, we analyze the few battles of Wen Chou in the romance, and see how this Hebei fierce will behave if he meets Zhang Fei.
The Battle of the Iwagawa River
Wen Chou and Yan Liang can almost be regarded as iconic figures under Yuan Shao. When Huaxiong flaunted his martial arts and made the princes of the Eighteenth Road disgraced, Yuan Shao once sighed that it was a pity that Yan Liangwen was ugly, otherwise as long as there was one person, why be afraid of Huaxiong. Then when Yuan Shao and Sun Jian tore their faces, Wen Chou and Yan Liangzeng, who rushed to the battlefield at some point, drew their swords and confronted Jiangdong Cheng Pu, Huang Gai, and Han Dang. Later, when Yuan Shao took Jizhou, Wen Chou killed Guan Chun, although these are not worth making a fuss about, but they also let readers remember this famous Hebei general.
The first time Wen Chou really showed his strength was the battle of Panhe that broke out between Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zhan. At that time, Wen Chou took the lead, fought alone against four unknown generals in Beiping in the chaotic army, killed one and frightened three people, and then carried out a beheading operation with a clear goal, directly taking Gongsun Zhan, and the two fought Shihe Gongsun Zhan and left. There is an indirect contrast here, that is, Gongsun Zhan, who has always boasted of his bravery, was defeated after fighting with Lu Bu in the Tiger Prison Pass. According to the substitution, it can be seen that Wen Chou is slightly inferior to Lu Bu.
Then when he was in pursuit, Wen Chou saw that he was about to succeed, but with a thunderclap on the ground, he killed the fledgling boy Zhao Yun. Many people think that according to Zhao Yun's age at the time of his death, Zhao Yun should be in his thirties at this time, and the reason why he is called a young general is because he looks young, which is too far-fetched. Because the young general is pointed out by the author through narration, its purpose is to express that Zhao Yun is not very old, not young. From the fact that Guan Yu later disdained to be on the same list as Huang Zhong and called Zhao Yun his younger brother, it can also be seen that Zhao Yun at this time could not have passed the age of establishment. Therefore, Zhao Yun's age is actually a bug in the book, there is no need to push it forward or backwards, there is more than one case in the book of similar situations, and there is no need to delve into it.
The reason why Zhao Yun's age is emphasized is to show that Zhao Yun at this time is not at his peak, so Wen Chou and his fifty or sixty battles are not worth the winner, and it cannot be regarded as the same strength of the two, if they are compared according to the peak, Wen Chou is undoubtedly slightly inferior to Zhao Yun, of course, the gap will not be too big.
In any case, through the three battles in the Battle of Panhe, we can get a relatively clear military positioning about Wen Chou, that is, it is slightly inferior to Lu Bu and Zhao Yun at their peak, but the gap is not too big, and it can be regarded as what we usually call a super-first-class general.
The battle of Yanjin that drove high and went low
The battle of Yanjin is the second time that Wen Chou has fully demonstrated his strength, and the background is that not long ago Yan Liang was killed by Guan Gong in Baima, Wen Chou and Yan Liang were like brothers, so they took the initiative to invite Ying and led the army out of Yanjin to fight against Cao Cao.
Cao Cao deliberately gave up the weight of grain and grass and led the Hebei army to compete with each other, resulting in a great chaos in the formation, Cao Cao's army took advantage of the situation to attack, the Hebei army trampled on each other, and the dead were countless. In this case, Cao Cao sent Zhang Liao and Xu Huang to fight.
Originally, Wen Chou saw that the situation was difficult to turn around, and he had already returned to his horse, but when he heard Cao Jun's second general, he chased after him by name, and knew that if he didn't retreat, he would not be able to get away, so he turned over and returned to his horse to fight. At this time, Wen Chou responded very calmly, first calmly shot, an arrow hit Zhang Liao's mount to make it fall off the horse, and then fought Xu Huang, at this time the Hebei army also calmed down, and the whole was killed from the back, Xu Huang expected the enemy to be unable to return to the horse and left.
So far, we can see two points, first of all, there is a gap between Wen Chou and Yan Liang, because Yan Liang defeated Xu Huang with only twenty combinations, and when fighting against Wen Chou, Xu Huang was expected to be the enemy and left, that is to say, there is still a battle power;
But the highlight of Wen Chou's battle was like a meteor, fleeting, and then he was greeted by the nemesis Guan Yu. In the book, the two of them are written very briefly, fighting three times, Wen Chou is cowardly, and he returns to the horse and walks around the river, but is caught up by Guan Yu and cut under the horse. Therefore, many people think that Wen Chou was killed if he couldn't even stop Guan Yu Sanhe, which shows that he is not worthy of his name, and at the same time, he also lowered Xu Huang, who was defeated to him, and Zhao Yun, who had drawn before.
However, combined with the analysis of various previous situations, this battle is actually not the embodiment of Wen Chou's true strength. First of all, Wen Chou had just regained the overall disadvantage, Guan Yu shouted and killed, Wen Chou saw Guan Gong, who was bare-faced and long-bearded, like a god, and immediately realized that this person was Cao Jiang who killed Yan Liang in seconds (at this moment, I am not sure if this person is called Guan Yu). Wen Chou knew Yan Liang's ability and didn't think the rumors were true, so instead of panicking and retreating, he stepped forward to face the battle, trying to defeat Guan Yu like defeating Zhang Liao and Xu Huang, so as to completely turn the tide of the battle. But it is foreseeable that his mentality at this time is completely different from when facing Zhang Liao and Xu Huang. First, Guan Gong's appearance and prestige will inevitably make people feel awe-inspiring; second, Guan Yu brought the prestige of killing Yan Liang, which invisibly increased the psychological burden on Wen Chou. In other words, Wen Chou and Guan Yu fought in the hope of defeating him, but he was not as confident as he was in the battle against Xu Huang.
Secondly, we all know that Guan Yu's broadsword is the heaviest weapon in the book, reaching eighty-two catties, and it cannot be controlled by those who are not of extraordinary strength. And the biggest feature of Guan Gong's martial arts, which is fierce and heavy, is that it can be called a brutal early attack, like a raging storm, and it is difficult for ordinary people to survive it. Although Wen Chou has strength, he was also frightened by Sanhe. felt that if such a rapid attack was Guan Yu's regular operation, then this kind of bravery beyond his cognition was definitely not his own enemy, and once he was defeated, the rout of the Hebei army would be inevitable. In other words, whether it was out of consideration for his life or the overall battle situation, the more Wen Chou thought about it, the more frightened he became, so retreating became the only choice, so Wen Chou retreated decisively under cowardice. It's just that he didn't expect the speed of the red rabbit horse to be so fast, and he was brutally beheaded.
Combined with the above reasons, and then through the battle with Xu Huang, it can be seen that Wen Chou's strength ranks among the super-one, and then being killed by Guan Yu does have some irresistible objective factors, but no matter what the reason, it can be seen that compared with the real super-one general who has almost no weaknesses, Wen Chou's psychological quality is problematic, and even some first-class generals who are not afraid of death are inferior. Imagine if he fought to the death and survived Guan Gong's fierce attack in the early stage, where would he die?
Overall, Wen Chou's hard power is strong enough, and it is only slightly inferior to Lu Bu, Zhao Yun, Yan Liang, etc., but to what extent can it be played in actual combat, that is to say, the actual combat strength has ups and downs. Assuming that Zhao Yun was fought in the Battle of Panhe after Changbanpo became famous all over the world, then once the army was unfavorable, Wen Chou would probably also be cowardly, which was the gap between him and other generals of the same level.
Zhang Yide's hard power and combat characteristics
After analyzing Wen Chou's strength and martial arts characteristics, let's talk about Zhang Fei again. Zhang Fei's record is quite tough, and the two draws with Lu Bu in Tiger Prison Pass and Xuzhou are enough to prove the hard power of his super-first-class generals, and he is therefore recognized by many people as the second in the world. Of course, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao and others will not have the opportunity to fight against Lu Bu, so it cannot be said that they will not be able to achieve the same record as Zhang Fei against Lu Bu, but it is an indisputable fact that Zhang Fei is infinitely close to Lu Bu, so if it is called the second favorable contender in the world, it is foolish to think that there is no problem. In other words, Zhang Fei belongs to the top-ranked existence among the super-first-class, and in terms of hard power, he is slightly better than Wen Chou.
As far as the combat characteristics are concerned, Zhang Fei focuses on "potential", and no one in the world can match it in this field. The so-called "potential" sounds like it is not as good as strength and skill to understand, after all, this kind of thing is more mysterious, but if you think about it carefully, you will find that no matter whether it is good wind or adversity, as long as Zhang Fei is on the battlefield, there is no time when the hero is short of breath, but his opponent is a little trembling regardless of the level of martial arts. So we can think of this so-called potential as a buff that buffs oneself and debuffs one's opponent at the same time. For example, when Lu Bu attacked Xuzhou, Zhang Fei's situation was so bad that he couldn't even take care of Liu Bei's family, and he was also drunk, but he still gave people a terrifying feeling, and even Lu Bu didn't dare to pursue because of "Su Zhifei Yong".
Another battle of adversity has completed a big turnaround, and it has become famous all over the world in one fell swoop, this is the famous Dangyang Bridge retreating Cao Bing alone. Single-handedly facing an army of 830,000, he frightened Cao Jun away with his angry shouts, and at the same time made Xiahoujie die of terror and heart. Such miraculous achievements, even Lu Bu, who is unparalleled in the world, and Guan Yunchang, who is respected as a "martial saint" by later generations, can hardly match.
Interestingly, Wen Chou was originally the one with the worst psychological quality among the super-first-class, so when facing Zhang Fei, both hard power and martial arts characteristics were suppressed. It is conceivable that if he faced Zhang Fei, who was already famous in Yanjin, maybe Wen Chou would just look at his scary posture of shaking his head and leaving without a fight.
So if Zhang Fei is not well-known, and the two of them only rely on their real skills, what will be the result? Although theoretically there are subtle differences in strength between the two, it is difficult to reflect them in battle, and I am afraid that it will be difficult to distinguish the winner without one or two lilies. But this is a situation that only happens under absolute idealization, and there is no absolute idealization in actual combat. The longer the fight, the stronger Zhang Fei's "momentum" will be, and Wen Chou is likely to be more and more frightened the more he fights, even if he does not lose a single cent in his moves, but the shock in his heart is likely to affect the combat performance. Therefore, conservative analysis, even if Wen Chou meets Zhang Fei, who has not yet become famous, I am afraid that at most Lily will abandon the battle and leave.
To sum up, there are too many subjective and objective factors in Guan Yu's second kill of Wen Chou, which is not a reflection of complete strength, but in comparison, it can be regarded as a real battle against Zhao Yun. If Wen Chou is against Zhang Fei, who has not yet become famous, he should not be so bad that Sanhe is scared away, but he may not be able to play at his full level, I believe that even if one hundred and eighty He does not win or lose, I am afraid that he will take the initiative to retreat.