In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao is portrayed as a "supernatural master" and an "extraordinary person", while Liu Bei possesses the "wind of gaozu" and "the instrument of a hero", and only Sun has many problems. Sun Jian's Meng Lang, Sun Ce's frivolity, and Sun Quan's city government are all described bluntly, making their advantages and disadvantages very clear. In evaluating Sun Quan, Chen Shouyi changed the pen back to the front of the guard, directly saying that although Sun Quan had "the master of the heroes", he was "jealous of sex, and he was the result of killing", and was the perpetrator of the eventual demise of Eastern Wu.
In fact, the same evaluation can also be added to Cao Cao and Liu Bei, who not only established Cao Pi as an heir, but also favored Cao Zhi, resulting in mutual suspicion between brothers. After Cao Pi ascended the throne, he therefore took strict precautions against the clan, so that Cao Wei's roots were transferred and controlled by powerful ministers. In his later years, Liu Bei was anxious to claim the title of emperor, which led to the loss of people's hopes, and he rushed to cut down Wu, causing the elite of the Han army to die and be wounded, and completed a defensive position. However, Chen Shou was silent about this, because he had served as an official of the Shu state and then submitted to Cao Wei and the Western Jin Dynasty. Therefore, in the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao is called "Beng", Liu Bei is called "Fu", and Sun Quan is called "Xue", which means that Cao Liu is regarded as the son of heaven and Sun Quan is deposed as a prince. In the Book of Wei, Cao Cao is called "Taizu", in the Book of Shu Liu Bei is called "First Lord", while in the Book of Wu, Sun Quan's name is directly called. It is precisely because of this emotional attitude that Sun Quan in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is closer to the original historical appearance, while Cao Cao and Liu Bei are both glorified.
Li Zongwu, a man of the Republic of China, once believed that "the ancient hero Haojie, there must be a secret that will not be passed on", so he went through the Four Books and Five Classics and the Twenty-four Histories to find out the secret recipe for the fame of the heroes and heroes, and finally he found the answer in the history of the Three Kingdoms - "The ancient is a hero haojie, but the face is only thick and dark!" ”
The secret to becoming a hero: the face should be thick, the heart and liver should be black
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > Liu Bei is actually a cheeky hypocrite</h1>
Chen Shou established the image of Sun Quan in the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, he was allied with Liu Bei, and he also had the relatives of Lang's uncle, but in order to compete for land, he did not hesitate to break the covenant and ordered Lü Meng to sneak up on Guan Yu from behind and seize Jingzhou. After capturing Jingzhou, Sun Quan feared Liu Bei's retaliation, and he preemptively claimed to be subordinate to Cao Wei; as a result, because he did not want to send Shizi as a hostage, after defeating Liu Bei, Sun Quan turned around and united with the Shu state, and his face was not thick. But compared with the two predecessors, Sun Quan is not as black as, thick is not as good as preparation, so he is always wavering, he can't do things thoroughly, and Wu Guo can only be decent.
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei is portrayed as a man of great virtue and benevolence, to which Lu Xun criticized it as "wanting to show Liu Bei's strengths and thickness and seems to be fake", believing that this way of writing is overheated. However, because of the excessive fire, it is closer to the real Liu Bei - Liu Bei is a cheeky hypocrite.
The distinction between righteousness and profit is the key to distinguishing between a gentleman and a villain, a gentleman can sacrifice his life for righteousness, a villain is only interested, and a hypocrite is obviously also a priority of interests, but always pretends to be righteous and awe-inspiring. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Pei Song's Notes, Liu Bei's flaws are often described. For example, the "Biography of the Ancestors" says that Liu Bei crossed the river with the people, and some people advised him to quickly break away from the people and quickly flee to Jiangling to take refuge, But Liu Bei righteously and sternly refused: "The great affairs of Fu Ji will be people-oriented, and now that people return to me, why should I bear to abandon them!" As a result, when Cao Jun approached, he immediately abandoned his wife and son, and fled alone with dozens of horses, resulting in "Cao Gong being greatly captured by his people" and his people. This shows that Liu Bei cannot start and end well, and when righteousness and escape cannot be combined, he still chooses the latter. This is no different from Liu Bang's practice of pushing his children out of the car when Pengcheng was defeated, so that he could escape alone.
In the Biography of Pang Tong, it is said that Pang Tong once advised Liu Bei to seek xichuan, and Liu Bei replied: "Now those who have broken the righteousness of the world for a small reason, I will not take it." "As if he could stand up for morality. However, after entering the river, in the face of the temptation of profit, he occasionally revealed his mercenary nature when he was drunk. After the counterattack against Liu Zhang, Liu Bei put on wine and said to Pang Tong: "Today's meeting can be described as a pleasure. Pang Tong replied, "The kingdom of the people is considered to be happy, and the soldiers of the non-benevolent are also happy." Liu Bei was furious about this. In this regard, Xi Chisel commented: For the attack on Xichuan, which is "negative faith and violation of affection, morality and righteousness", Pang Tong, as the mastermind, still feels uneasy about his conscience, but Liu Bei has no shame, and looks like a villain who has won the zhi, and the previous sentence is like two people.
After that, Liu Bei successfully captured Xichuan and Hanzhong, but Guan Yu lost Jingzhou. The following year, Cao Cao died, and Cao Pi continued to hold Emperor Xian hostage. The Wei Luo records that in order to fight against Eastern Wu, Liu Bei actually sent Han Ran to send an envoy to Cao Wei, hoping to communicate with the emissaries through mourning, and Cao Pi hated him for seeking goodwill because of the mourning, and gave up his mission. The Biography of Zhuge Liang says that after Cao Pi became emperor, all the courtiers advised Liu Bei to be called emperor, but Liu Bei did not agree, and under the persuasion of Zhuge Liang, he accepted the support of everyone. However, Pei Songzhi quoted the Biography of the Lingling Ancestors in the "Biography of Liu Ba", saying: At that time, Cao Wei usurped han, and the people of The Middle Xia were not in harmony, and when they heard that Liu Bei was in Shu, all four sides looked at each other. However, Liu Beirui wanted to claim the title of emperor, and Liu Ba thought that doing so would lead to the loss of people's hearts, so he and Yongmao advised Liu Bei to suspend the title of emperor, so Liu Bei "killed Mao with his own affairs, so that the distant people would not return to the end." This shows that Liu Bei not only intends to be called emperor, but also eager to be called emperor.
Liu Bei, who claimed to be emperor, did not regard the usurper Cao Pi as the main enemy, but instead wanted to raise an army to attack Eastern Wu, so Zhao Yun could not see it anymore, and he advised: "The thief of the state is Cao Cao, not Sun Quanye, and if he destroys Wei first, then Wu submits to himself." Although the body is killed, the Son Pi usurps the thief, when the hearts of the people, early in the guanzhong, juhe, Wei upstream to please the fierce rebellion, the Kanto righteous soldiers will wrap grain and horses to welcome the king's master. Liu Bei abandoned Zhao Yun for this reason and did not allow him to participate in the war against Wu. As a result, this battle lost all the family foundations of the Shu state.
It can be seen from this that in the main history, Liu Bei has obvious problems. In many cases, he was able to uphold morality and ignore interests; but in times of emergency, he often abandoned morality for the sake of profit. He can't kill himself and sacrifice his life for righteousness, but he often talks about morality. Tempted by a series of major interests such as seizing Xichuan and claiming the title of emperor, Liu Beidu chose to do something contrary to morality. Therefore, Zhou Yu said that he was a "tyrant", and Sun Quan scolded him for being a "slippery hooker". Chen Shou also said that Liu Bei "has the right to strategize and does not arrest Wei Wu", they are actually all the way people, the difference is that one is thick-skinned, and the other is just a black heart.
Liu Beikou claimed benevolence and righteousness, but he often saw profit and forgetting righteousness
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="12" > Cao Cao's hypocrisy is no less than Liu Bei's</h1>
Cao Cao once said to Liu Bei, "The hero of the world is the only one who makes the king and the ear." And "Gu Zhi is a hero haojie, but his face is thick and dark!" "Liu Bei has a thick skin and is good at disguise, Cao Cao has a black heart, but he is straightforward and explicit. But sometimes Liu Bei would also show the posture of a villain, and Cao Cao often made a disguise. For example, "holding the Son of Heaven hostage to order the princes" is a big disguise, and later historians also actively do this kind of whitewash for Cao Cao. In the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao was promoted to the rank of Knight, and often wrote "with Taizu as a great general", "Tianzi as the duke of Jizhou Mu", and "Tianzi jin duke as the king of Wei", as if Cao Cao's official titles were all given to him by Emperor Xian of Han. In the Book of Hindi of Han, it is written that "Cao Cao is a sikong of himself", "Cao Cao established himself as the Duke of Wei", and "Cao Cao's self-promotion of the King of Wei", which is in stark contrast to Cao Cao's practice of resigning from the throne and the throne, highlighting the ridiculousness of his self-directed and self-acting and forgery.
Cao Cao said in his "Order of Self-Hai" that he "wanted to make meritorious contributions to the country", and after his death, he "inscribed the tomb of the tomb of cao Hou, the general of the Han Dynasty". He also said rather aggrievedly that others accused him of "having inferior ambitions", and he "used Geng Geng" for this kind of "delusional degree". Cao Cao claimed that he wanted to support the royal family like Qi Huan and Jin Wen, but he did not intend to replace it; he also praised Meng Tian III for doing qin, preferring to die rather than live up to it. The reason why he refused to give up his power and go into hiding was only because he was afraid that "he would be a disaster for others to leave the army." Compared with Cao Cao's later practice of forcing Xun Yu to die in order to claim the title of prince, and then killing Cui Yan and Mao Jiu because of his words, it shows that Cao Cao was also a hypocritical person who loved face very much.
In his later years, Cao Cao had already "set up the Tianzi Banner", "crowned ten and two, riding on a golden root car, driving six horses, and setting up a five-hour deputy car", the etiquette was no different from tianzi, the reason why he could not be called emperor was that he was old and had enough power; the second was that the family han official, who did not want to take a high position and be cursed, so he preferred to be the ear of King Wen of Zhou; it was not that he did not want to be emperor, but his face was not as thick as Liu Bei's, but Cao Cao's heart and liver were far darker than Liu Bei.
Cao Cao was by no means a true disposition, but a hypocritical man
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15" > Cao Cao also has a brutal and dark side</h1>
The "Biography of Cao Cao" written by Wu Guoren records many things about Cao Cao's "cruel abuse and deceit", allowing people to see Cao Cao's sinister and cruel side. In Chen Shou's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, another side of Cao Cao's role as a tyrant can occasionally be read.
The Records of Emperor Wu say that Tao Qian killed Cao Cao's father, so Cao Cao sent an army to attack Xuzhou; Wei Yao's Book of Wu says that Tao Qianbu did zhang Min's own actions, "Taizu blamed Tao Qian, so he cut it", which shows that Cao Cao used revenge as an excuse to invade Xuzhou in the east, slaughtering the city everywhere, "killing tens of thousands of men and women in Surabaya, the water is not flowing", "attacking the counties of Sui, Suiling, and Xiaqiu, all slaughtered; chickens and dogs were exhausted, and there were no more people in the ruins." In the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao's records of Tu Pengcheng during the attack on Lü Bu, Tu Yongqiu during the attack on Zhang Mi, Tu Liu Cheng when attacking Karasuma, Tu Xingguo when attacking Ma Ma, Tu Fenghan when attacking Song Jian, and Dou Mao also slaughtered tens of thousands of people. Therefore, when the State of Wei was first established, the total population was only equivalent to one state in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
For the innocent, Cao Cao wantonly slaughtered, and for the meritorious people, he did not stop. In the Biography of Cui Yan, Chen Shou said: "In the beginning, Taizu was jealous of nature, and those who were unbearable, Lu Guo kongrong, Nanyang Xu You, and Lou Gui, all of them were cursed for their old age. And Yan is most deplored by the world, and has been wronged so far. "Xu You, Lou Gui, Cui Yan, and Xun Yu are all meritorious people, but they are not allowed to die well, and it is not objective to say that Cao Cao never kills meritorious people."
Cao Cao once said, "I'd rather bear the burden than the others bear me!" Zhou Bu was no doubt that he was only a seventeen-year-old boy and had not committed any crimes, but Cao Cao said to Cao Pi, "This person is beyond ru's ability to control the imperial court." So he sent assassins to assassinate Zhou Buxi. The grain officer of the main valley was not at fault, but only because of the lack of grain in the army and the soldiers were resentful, Cao Cao said: "It is especially necessary to borrow the death of the king to disgust the people, otherwise things will not be solved." "So he was killed." It can be said that compared with bullying the Han Room, the indiscriminate killing of innocents and the slaughter of heroes can better reflect the darkness of Cao Cao's heart.
The chaotic world is the breeding ground for adulterous males and tyrants, and in this social environment, "thick face and black heart" has become the secret of survival. But Li Zongwu believes that the level of Cao Cao and Liu Bei has not yet reached the extreme, they are only "thick and hard, black and bright", and have not yet reached the point of "thick and invisible, black and colorless". Therefore, it is easy to be exposed and infamous. Only those who disguise themselves to the extreme can not be detected by people to the nature of thick blackness. They slaughtered all the people, but they were worshipped as creator heroes; they deified themselves, but they were really regarded as great men of the style of a holy king, and such people were the "great sages of the ancients" also.