Li Guang's difficulty has always been a necessary word for ancient literati to express their feelings of nostalgia, and the reason for this is precisely because the famous Han Dynasty general Li Guang failed to be crowned marquis throughout his life, and finally ended up with a tragic end of drawing a sword and killing himself. So what happened to Li Guang that made him ambitious and unpaid?
Some people say that he is overdone, some people say that Wei Qing and Emperor Wu of Han deliberately made things difficult, and today let us look for clues from history and uncover the secrets behind Li Guang's difficult sealing. Since we want to answer the reason why Li Guang is difficult to be a marquis, we naturally have to first see if he is qualified to be a marquis, and the Han Dynasty inherited the tradition of the Qin Dynasty and adopted the system of military merit, that is, rewarding knighthoods with military merits, which were divided into twenty grades.
We are familiar with the title of Marquis of the nineteenth rank Guannei, and the marquis of the twentieth rank, of which the Marquis of Guannei, although he has a title, only enjoys the taxation of the fiefdom and does not have jurisdiction over the fiefdom, and the Marquis has actual jurisdiction. At the same time, under the military merit system, the criterion for judging merit and reward is also very simple, that is, how many enemies' heads have you cut off, and since this is the case, it must require superb martial arts to do it, so what is Li Guang's martial arts?
Li Guang was born in Longxi and was a descendant of the famous Qin Dynasty general Li Xin, so Li Guang had been practicing archery since he was a child, and later generations even circulated the allusion of him shooting stones and fighting tigers. It is said that once Li Guang was out hunting, suddenly he saw a stone in the grass, but at this time Li Guang saw the stone as a tiger, so he searched the ground and shot an arrow, resulting in the entire shear being shot into the stone.
Later, when he was stationed in Youbeiping, he actually encountered a real tiger, but Li Guang shot it and was injured in a fight with the tiger. It can be seen that Li Guang's archery skills are definitely not bad, and there is another point worth mentioning here, that is, in the impression of many of us, archers can only shoot arrows, and once they are close, they can't do anything. But in fact this is completely wrong, and the strength of the archers may be higher than that of other classes.
According to the "Ming HuiDian" record, the pull of the Ming army's war bow is divided into 4 grades, from 40 kg to 70 kg per 10 kg for the first class, converted to now is 48 to 84 kg, and in the Qing Dynasty, it is based on force, this chart records the results of the Qing Dynasty martial arts competition, we can see that the people above can basically pull 12 to 13 force bows and arrows.
In the Qing Dynasty, one pound is equal to nine pounds and fourteen two, one pound is equal to 16 two, and in the Qing Dynasty, one pound is equal to about 598.4 grams, then one force is equal to 5909.2 grams, which is about 13 pounds if converted into pounds, then according to this standard, the arm strength of those who participate in martial arts should be 70 to 76 kilograms.
And the Qing Dynasty Wu Zhuangyuan level of people can reach the standard of fifteen forces, and Li Guang from childhood training martial arts plus historical records record that he has an arm length like an ape, coupled with the situation that he shot arrows into the stone, then the real Li Guang is undoubtedly a super macho man, so force is definitely not the reason why he is difficult to be marquis, so since this is the case, let's take a look at his record.
First of all, Li Guang became famous in the First World War, in 166 BC, he had followed Emperor Wen of Han out of the pass to fight against the Xiongnu, during which his riding and shooting showed vividly, so he was appointed by Emperor Wen of Han as Han Zhonglang, and said to him, If you were born in the era of Emperor Gaozu, it would be absolutely not a problem to seal a Marquis of Ten Thousand Households. Later, during the reign of Emperor Jingdi of Han, the Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms broke out, and Emperor Jingdi of Han sent Zhou Yafu to suppress the rebellion, and Li Guang happened to be serving as a lieutenant under him, and he eventually grabbed the rebel flag in battle, which was a great achievement at that time.
It can be said that Li Guang could be crowned marquis here, but what happened later ruined everything, because the King of Liang at that time was plotting for the throne, so he awarded Li Guang the general seal, according to the thinking of ordinary people, it is impossible to pick up, but Li Guang just took it, and as a result, Emperor Jing of Han saw that you were not obviously supporting others. Therefore, he was not given the title of Marquis, and it was after this that Li Guang, instead of making any more great contributions, suffered setbacks one after another. In the autumn of 129 BC, Emperor Wu of han ordered Li Guang, Wei Qing, Gongsun Ao, and Gongsun He to lead 10,000 cavalry out of the pass each, but Gongsun He did not encounter the enemy army, Wei Qing killed and captured 700 people to seal the Marquis of Guannei, and Li Guang and Gongsun Ao were sad, first Li Guang's 10,000 cavalry collided with the main force of the Xiongnu of more than 100,000 people, and the result was naturally that the entire army was destroyed, and even he himself was captured by the Xiongnu, but later he escaped.
On the other side, Gongsun Ao was not much better, he also lost 7,000 men and horses, and as a result, after the war, both of them were sentenced to be beheaded, but the latter two used huge sums of money to atone for their sins and were demoted to Shuren, and then in the second year of the Yuan Hunt, Li Guang and Zhang Qian led 4,000 and 10,000 people out of the blockade respectively, and as a result, the two got lost in the desert, and finally bumped into the Xiongnu Zuoxian King's 40,000 cavalry and caused the siege, resulting in another fierce battle between the two sides, but originally this battle must have been a victory for the Han army in the end. Because Zhang Qian was on his way to come at the moment, as long as he came, he could attack the Xiongnu, and as a result, Zhang Qian, who had opened up the western region, would also get lost, and when he arrived, Li Guang's four thousand people would be left with hundreds.
In the end, although Li Guang was not convicted but also did not work, Zhang Qian took the title and money of the Marquis of Bowang to pay the death penalty, after which Emperor Wu of Han basically lost trust in Li Guang, and finally when it came to the Battle of Mobei, Li Guang was already old, but he was still unwilling after all, so he softly and hard bubbled to Emperor Wu of Han to get the position of a former general, but this time the situation was different, Li Guang, who was originally a former general, should have taken the lead in opening the way for the army, but Wei Qing had to transfer him to the ranks of the right general. Was Wei Qing disgusted with Elder Li Guang? Of course not, it was because Emperor Wu of Han had quietly instructed Wei Qing when he was on the expedition, and Emperor Wu of Han thought that Li Guang's life was not good, so he asked Wei Qing not to let Li Guang fight alone, and on the other side, Wei Qing just wanted to take Gongsun Ao, who had lost his title before, to get credit, so he dropped Li Guang into the ranks of the right general.
And Li Guang was also aware of this, so he said that he would not go at all, and finally Wei Qing had to use military orders to force him to go, and unfortunately Li Guang got lost again, he should have reached his destination first, but the reality was that the Xiongnu all ran from Wei Qing's hands Li Guang failed to arrive, and finally Wei Qing met Li Guang on the way back, seeing this, do you think Li Guang is a bit wronged, but in fact, all this has long been laid.
Li Guang once did such a thing, one day in the right Beiping he guarded came three Xiongnu, they are all known as the elite of archers, often two or three people can destroy hundreds of Han troops by riding and shooting, and Li Guang should have ignored it after learning the news, but he personally led two hundred people to pursue, once the other side's horses were still chasing, and finally he shot two people alive with his own archery, but at this time they encountered two thousand Xiongnu cavalry, but Li Guang did not panic. He rested directly in place, which made the Huns think that there was an ambush nearby, so they retreated after dark, and Li Guang escaped the disaster.
From this example, we can see that although Li Guang was brave and resourceful, he was too rash, as a defender of the city, he personally went to pursue for three enemies, if the Xiongnu took advantage of this attack on the city, the consequences were unimaginable, and in addition to this, he got lost in mobei because of his own problems, he once looked for a divination face called Wang Shuoren, and when Wang Shuo asked him if he had done anything very regrettable, he said that he had killed 800 Surrendered Qiang people, and this was the reason he did not think of later. Because if you were a captive he caught, would you still give him his life if you knew that he had killed eight hundred captives before?
But in this Li Guang actually has not told the truth, he was actually because of the night out hunting was prevented, in the post of Right Beiping Tai Punctual General before the arrest of the Baling Lieutenant also transferred, the result of the Baling Lieutenant just arrived was killed by Li Guang, it can be seen that Li Guang is still a little careful, and finally talk about Li Guang's governance of the army. According to historical records, Li Guangzhi's army was very loose, although he shared happiness and hardship with the soldiers, but he also neglected to discipline them, and every time he went out to camp, he never made arrangements, allowed the soldiers to move at will, and even stood guard at night.
Not only that, he never wrote relevant documents and records, and this happened to be the direct reason for forcing him to die, because after the Battle of Mobei, Wei Qing did not immediately pursue his responsibility, but first asked him to hand over the relevant documents and records, because as long as the documents recorded in detail his lost journey, then he would probably not be responsible, but Li Guang happened to have none of these things. And how could such a great responsibility be refuted by his mouth alone, so he said the sentence: In the end, he could not repeat the sword and pen official, and then swung the knife to kill himself, and now a generation of famous people will come to an end.
Throughout Li Guang's life, although he was brave in fighting with force, he was too upright, and even Sima Qian said in his biography that he could not speak up, which meant that Li Guang was honest and generous like a countryman, and would only do things that were not good at communication, but in spite of this, when the news of Li Guang's self-destruction spread, the world knew and did not know that they were all mourning, so it can be seen that this veteran who fought for the country all his life finally got the respect he deserved, so Li Guang's sealing on him was not so much a reward for his ambitions. It is better to say that it reminds us that no one is perfect, and that there is no foot in the air.