Liu Bei is no stranger to many people, Yu Hewei's sentence "then play music and then dance", is already a popular major video website, not to mention a variety of ghost animal videos. But in addition to various ghost animal videos, Liu Bei has been relatively poor in our impression for a long time, and before knowing Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, they were all making money by selling straw shoes, which led to his scorn as a "mat weaver" practitioner. However, if we open the history books, we will find that Liu Bei does not seem to sell straw shoes much, he is more like zhuo county's shoulder handle and talker.
So, in the real history, is Liu Bei a mat weaver or a powerful local tyrant?
First of all, let's make it clear that Liu Bei did make a living by weaving mats and selling shoes in his early years, and it is clearly recorded in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Volume 32, Shu Shu II, and The Second Biography of the First Lord": The first lord is less lonely, and the mother vendor is a mat weaver. Translated, Liu Bei lost his father when he was young, and because his family was poor, he and his mother lived by weaving mats.
Therefore, those who look down on Liu Bei say that Liu Bei is a "mat weaver" disciple, but it is not to bury him, because Liu Bei did weave mats and sell shoes in his early years, and he was a very good craftsman.
But this is not to say that Liu Bei is really a small person, because Liu Bei himself has a family, and Liu Bei was quite heroic when he was a child. In the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Vol. 32, ShuShu II, and The Second Biography of the First Lord, it is recorded that when the First Lord was young, he played with the children of the Sect under the tree, saying: "I will ride on this feather to cover the car." The uncle and son respectfully said: "Ru do not speak in vain, destroy wumen also!" ”。
This means that When Liu Bei was a child, he pointed to a big tree and said that if he became emperor, his feathered car would be as big as this tree. His uncle Liu Zijing was frightened, and quickly told Liu Beibei to say such a headless thing, and the emperor knew that he had to destroy the Nine Tribes.
Liu Zijing has no eyes and no pearls and does not recognize heroes and good men, but Liu Bei's other uncle Liu Yuanqi does not see it this way, in his eyes, Liu Bei is a talented person who will become a great instrument in the future, so when Liu Bei was 15 years old, he funded him to worship Lu Zhi, a native of Zhuo County, as a teacher. Lu Zhi was a great sage at that time, and he had worshipped Jiujiang Taishou as an official, and his prestige and connections were far from being comparable to ordinary people.
Liu Deran, the son of Liu Yuan, who went with Liu Bei, was certainly unknown, but the other person who went with him was the future great warlord Gongsun Zhan of the late Han Dynasty. In other words, Liu Bei was going to climb the branches from this time on.
Although Gongsun Zhan was born into an aristocratic family, because his mother was from a humble origin, he could only be regarded as a shu out, and he also became a small official in Liaoxi County. However, this Gongsun Zhan was handsome and quite intelligent, so he was hired by Liaoxi Taishou as a son-in-law, and with the financial support of his father-in-law, he worshiped Lu Zhi as a teacher. Liu Bei and Gongsun Zhan were like-minded, and because Gongsun Zhan was older than Liu Bei, he regarded him as an elder brother, and the two had a good friendship, and Liu Bei's living standards also rose in a straight line.
According to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Volume 32, Shu Shu II, and The Second Biography of the Ancestors, the Ancestors were not very happy to read, and liked dogs and horses, music, and beautiful clothes. In other words, Liu Bei did not like to read the sages during his visit to Lu Zhi, and what he was most willing to do every day was to fly eagles and fight dogs, ride horses and bends, and wear gorgeous clothes.
Earlier we said that Liu Bei's own family is poor, all rely on financial support to study, but let's look at Liu Bei's hobbies, either raising dogs or riding horses as an ancient "flying car party", or buying beautiful clothes for himself, these are hobbies that require sufficient financial resources to support.
Liu Bei, who was born from a poor boy, obviously did not have this spare strength, so this money was probably going to come out of Liu Bei's eldest brother Gongsun Zhan, although Gongsun Zhan was out of the house, but the people were serious about taking advantage of the money, Liu Bei relied on the support of the eldest brother Gongsun Zhan, and the serious was a good life.
That is, from the age of fifteen, Liu Bei transformed from the original poor boy into a jianghu person, at that time Liu Bei was moody and angry, in modern times this kind of person may not be very popular, but in ancient times, the canon is the character of a person who has become a big thing, and Liu Bei this person treats people with a wide personality, even if he encounters people whose status is not as good as his own, he can also treat each other kindly, so Liu Bei has accumulated a lot of contacts. Although it is said that Liu Bei was unable to embark on the same career journey as Gongsun Zhan after the end of his studies, Liu Bei began his life of "Huaqiang" at the end of the Han Dynasty after returning to his hometown in Zhuo County.
The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Volume 32, Shu Shu II, and the Second Biography of the Ancestors records that Liu Bei was at that time: a good friend and a hero, and the young people competed for it. That is to say, before the outbreak of the Yellow Turban Uprising, Liu Bei was quite famous in Zhuo County, Zhuo County, and the local heroes and young people were willing to befriend Liu Bei, which can be said to be scrambling to cling to him.
Everyone must remember that although it is said that chivalrous people sound very powerful, but "chivalry" at the time of Qin and Han is not a good word, Han Fei pointed out in "Han Feizi Five Articles": "Chivalrous uses force to violate the prohibition", saying that the ugly point is that this group of people are brave and fierce every day, and there are many violations of law and discipline. Of course, we do not rule out that there are really people who are brave and brave among these heroes, but at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, most of them were people who were quite brave and brave and fierce.
So the heroes and young people are willing to make friends with Liu Bei, which shows who Liu Bei is? It shows that Liu Bei was already well-known in Zhuo County at that time, and the brave and fierce heroes and young people were willing to follow Liu Bei, indicating that he formed his own gang of forces, although it is not necessarily the evil forces, but Liu Bei's reputation in Zhuo County is already not to be underestimated.
It is equivalent to saying that Liu Bei was a well-known gangster godfather in Zhuo County in his early years, and he was the local bearer and talker of Zhuo County, which can be called Liu Huaqiang at the end of the Han Dynasty. Of course, Liu Bei will certainly not be the same as Hua Qiang, to find a fruit stall on the side of the road to give a knife to the stall owner, but Liu Bei's strength is not small.
The merchants Zhang Shiping and Su Shuang described in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms funded Liu Bei, and the answer is yes, but it did not occur after the outbreak of the Yellow Turban Uprising, but before the Outbreak of the Yellow Turban Uprising. According to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Volume 32, Shu Shu II, and the Second Biography of the Ancestors, Zhang Shiping, Su Shuang, and other great merchants in Zhongshan collected thousands of gold, and sold horses around Zhuo County. The lord is to use the disciples.
Since it was the merchants of Zhongshan County who came to sell horses, it was obviously impossible that it was when the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out, otherwise Zhang Shiping and Su Shuang would have been captured and cut down by the Yellow Turban Army. So why did they give Liu Bei money? The three kingdoms chronicle said that the two saw That Liu Bei was extraordinary and intended to befriend Liu Bei, the bearer of Zhuo County, so they spent money to support Liu Bei.
If Liu Beizhen is the same as many people's cognition, at this time still rely on mat weaving and selling for a living, then obviously Zhang Shiping and Su Shuang will not make friends with Liu Bei, these two are not philanthropists, and they are full of money to give poor ghosts money? What does this mean? It shows that Liu Bei is a powerful person in the local area, who is roughly similar to the underworld boss and the godfather of the gang in later generations, not only able to live in a mansion, but also gather a group of younger brothers as his own private armed force. It was precisely because of this foundation that Liu Bei was able to reorganize his younger brothers into rebels when the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in the future, and threw himself into the chaotic world of the late Han Dynasty, and thus began his own conquest.