The so-called "distance produces beauty", for many celebrities in history, because they are too far away from us, resulting in hazy beauty, their advantages are magnified, but their shortcomings are ignored, Zhang Handan is such an example.
Regarding Zhang Handan, the literati after the Qin and Han Dynasties spoke highly of it, basically to the point of "Zhang Handan is there, the Qin Dynasty exists; Zhang Handan goes, the Qin Dynasty dies", and believes that Zhang Handan is the last loyal pillar of the Qin Dynasty. In fact, this is not the case, but because people hate Hu Hai and Zhao Gao to the bone, they subconsciously portray Zhang Handan as a loyal and courageous pillar of the country to form a sharp contrast, and if you look at Zhang Handan's military performance and attitude towards the Qin State in the Battle of the Giant Deer that determined the fate of the Qin State, you can find that Zhang Handan is the third sinner to perish in the Qin State.
During the reign of Qin Shi Huang, zhang handan's experience and what he did are not recorded in the history books, but in the second qin dynasty, Zhang Handan held the position of Shaofu, that is, a functional institution for the imperial family to manage private wealth and daily life affairs, a position to collect taxes for Hu Hai and take care of daily life, equivalent to the emperor's tax collector and housekeeper, this person is undoubtedly Hu Hai's close confidant, and at the same time from the current point of view, he is also a civilian official. Therefore, Zhang Handan may have been Hu Hai's subterranean man, who was deeply trusted, and Hu Hai promoted him to Shaofu after succeeding to the throne.
What Zhang Handan did before serving as a Shaofu, whether he had military experience, is not known now, but in the pre-Qin period, there was no difference between the positions of civilian and military officials, and many officials who seemed to be civilian officials could actually command large armies, such as the Shang martingale we know well, etc. Later, the Han Dynasty Minister Dou Bao could also fight wars, and it was not until after the Song Dynasty that the civil and military forces were completely divided. Therefore, Zhang Handan may have commanded the army and was promoted to Shaofu after accumulating battle achievements, or he may have taken other routes, and in any case, he could not find his military talent from Zhang Handan's past experience.
In modern times, Mr. Zheng Yimei once said: "There is a big year in the world, why should I take supplements often?" Born a famous general, do not need to read more military books. "Ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, there are indeed some military geniuses who do not read military books, the most typical is Huo Toyi, unwilling to be restricted by the rules and regulations of the previous military books, but such military geniuses are extremely rare, and it has not been possible to produce one for hundreds of years. Zhao Hao, the father of the Warring States Zhao Kuo, was originally a tax official of the State of Zhao, and when the State of Qin attacked the State of Zhao, Lian Po retreated and stepped forward, almost annihilating more than 100,000 Qin troops in one fell swoop, but Zhao Hao had read the book of soldiers, so Zhang Handan, who was similar to Zhao Hao's original identity, was not a genius like Zhao Hao?
In the situation at the end of the Qin Dynasty, the Kwantung region has reached the point of disintegration, the disintegration is to break into pieces, the landslide is to become a grain of dust, the Qin Dynasty's rule in the Kanto region has become incurable, so the anti-Qin forces can roll bigger and bigger. After Chen Sheng's rebellion against Wu Guang, the ranks swelled rapidly, and then sent the general Zhou Wen to attack Guanzhong, and when he reached the water, the number of troops was as high as hundreds of thousands, the Book of Han recorded that Zhou Wen's strength was 100,000, and the Former Han Record recorded that Zhou Wen's strength was about 1.2 million.
Suddenly, Guanzhong was in a hurry, the Qin State was in a hurry, and Hu Hai was panicked. At this time, The Shaofu Zhang Handan stepped forward and thought that he could arm the Lishan prisoners and let them attack the "thieves", and Hu Hai adopted this suggestion. Subsequently, Zhang Handan led the prisoner army to break Zhou Wen, forcing Zhou Wen to commit suicide, and then defeated and killed Tian Zang, Li Gui, Xiang Liang, etc., winning consecutive battles, threatening Huaxia, and also showing the style of a world-famous general.
In the Battle of Dingtao, after Zhang Handan killed Xiang Liang, the famous generals of Chu were already dead, and Zhang Handan thought that Chu was worry-free, so he crossed the Yellow River north to attack the Zhao State, and conquered Handan to break the Zhao army, and the King of Zhao and others fled to Julu City, and the Battle of Julu, which determined the fate of the Qin State, was about to break out. But what is puzzling is that Zhang Handan's behavior in the Battle of julu is extremely abnormal, and it is difficult for people to associate him with the patriotic world-famous general, and the course of the war shows that either he is not patriotic or belongs to paper.
At the beginning of the Battle of Julu, Wang Li besieged Julu City, but has not been able to capture it, Zhang Handan was stationed in Julu South Thorn Plain, "Building Yong Dao belongs to the river, the king left", sent military food to Wang Li, and confronted Chen Yu, who had tens of thousands of troops, the history books said that "Chen Yu had few troops, did not oppose Qin, and did not dare to go forward", and later Chen Yu sent 5,000 people under the order of King Zhao to attack Zhang Handan and failed.
Regarding the giant deer area, the Lü's Spring and Autumn Book lists it as one of the "sǒu", surrounded by lakes with many grasses, mountains, lakes, swamps and other surrounding places, the terrain is dangerous, and the ancient siege warfare has always been difficult, so it is normal for the king to be unable to attack the giant deer for a while. The problem is that Zhang Handan has 200,000 troops, and can face Chen Yu in part and participate in the siege of the city, but Zhang Handan did not participate in the siege, nor did he attack Chen Yu, but sat and watched the battle, which is difficult to understand. In other words, we can understand on the bright side, due to the dangerous terrain of Julu City, too many troops cannot be deployed, so Wang Li, who arrived first, became the main force of siege warfare, and Zhang Handan was responsible for logistics, and at the same time was responsible for intercepting various reinforcements and protecting Wang from the rear, but Zhang Handan could not say how to attack Chen Yu without attacking.
During this period, various rebel armies rushed to the aid of Julu, and finally arrived in about 60 days, of which the Chu state was originally led by Song Yi and later replaced by Xiang Yu. The other rebels were all watching from the sidelines due to the qin army's combat effectiveness, but after Xiang Yu arrived, he soon launched an attack. However, after Xiang Yu launched an attack, Zhang Handan was indifferent and allowed Xiang Yu and the princes to besiege Wang Li.
After Xiang Yu arrived at the battlefield, he first launched a tentative attack, ordering General Dang Yangjun and General Pu to lead 20,000 people across the Zhanghe River and prepare to directly attack the rear army of the king. According to normal circumstances, Zhang Handan was bound to block the Chu army outside so that Wang Li could concentrate on attacking the city, but what was unbelievable was that Zhang Handan did not send troops to intercept the chu army and let the Chu army cross the river, and the 200,000 Qin army did nothing in front of the 20,000 Chu army. What is even more outrageous is that 20,000 Chu State vanguard troops then attacked the "Yongdao" that provided logistics for Wang Li, and the "Commentary on the Collection of Historical Records" said that "the enemy was afraid of copying heavy, pretending that the walls were like streets and alleys", so attacking "Yongdao" was similar to attacking the city, but after this tentative attack, Zhang Handan quickly withdrew, the "Yongdao" was broken, and Wang Lijun and Zhang Handan's army were divided into two pieces. Subsequently, "Xiang Yu's soldiers were overwhelmingly Zhang Yongdao, Wang Left the Army was hungry, and Xiang Yu xi led his troops to cross the river", Xiang Yu seized the fighter, broke the cauldron, and led the remaining 30,000 troops to cross the river, while Zhang Handan still did not move, allowing Xiang Yu to cross the river to attack the hungry Wang Lijun, and the "Records of History" said that "Zhang Handan led the troops to solve".
Of the battle of Julu recorded in the "Records of History", only the "Biography of Zhang Er Chen Yulie" records that Zhang Handan participated in the battle, that is, Xiang Yu's army first repelled Zhang Handan, and then Xiang Yu and the princes besieged Wang Li, and the rest of the chapters do not say that Zhang Handan participated in the battle. In fact, even if Zhang Handan was defeated by Xiang Yu on the outskirts of Julu, the loss should not be too much, and later Xiang Yu pit killed 200,000 Qin troops, further indicating that the Qin army had almost no losses, so Zhang Handan was fully capable of returning to the battlefield, or besieging Xiang Yu from behind. Unfortunately, when Xiang Yu attacked Wang's army, Zhang Handan remained stationary and allowed the rebels to surround and annihilate Wang's army. Due to the lack of grain and grass, and the siege of the princes, the king was eventually defeated and his whereabouts were unknown.
It can be seen from this that Xiang Yu won the first stage of the Battle of Julu, and to some extent, his first hero was not a general of the Chu Army, but the Qin commander Zhang Handan. If Zhang Handan did not passively avoid battle and actively cooperated with Wang Li, Xiang Yu estimated that it would be difficult to annihilate Wang Li, and he might even be defeated by the Qin army, and it would naturally be difficult for Xiang Yu to surrender Zhang Handan in the next step.
Zhang Handan did not move, sitting and watching the friendly army being destroyed, was Zhang Handan's military ability not good, or was there another reason?
Regarding the reasons for Zhang Handan's passive avoidance of battle in the Battle of Julu, it is generally believed that there are three: First, Hu Hai and Zhao Gao constantly washed high-ranking officials in blood, Li Si was just executed before the Battle of Julu, Feng Went ill and Feng committed suicide in prison, and the blood of the temple made Zhang Handan lose the motivation to fight; secondly, there were many internal contradictions in the Qin State, Zhang Handan belonged to Hu Hai's hand-picked cronies, Wang Li belonged to the old Xun Gui, and Hu Hai washed a lot of Xun Gui in blood, so the relationship between Zhang Handan and Wang Li would not be good, so this may be the main reason why Zhang Handan sat and watched Wang Leave's army being destroyed; third, Sima Xin and Dong Fei pushed Zhang Handan to passively avoid fighting, and it is not known when these two men surrendered to Chu, but after Zhang Handan surrendered to Xiang Yu, Xiang Yu let Sima Xin lead Zhang Handan's army, which shows that Xiang Yu had already had contact with Sima Xin, so he would hand over 200,000 Qin troops to his management, if Sima Xin temporarily surrendered, would Xiang Yu still trust him so much? In addition, Sima Xin once helped Xiang Liang during the Qin Shi Huang period, and the two had long been in contact.
But no matter what Zhang Handan encountered, at this critical moment, sitting back and watching the destruction of friendly troops, the character was obviously to be doubted. More importantly, no matter how bloody the struggle at the upper levels is, and the relationship with Wang Li is even worse, if you consider the Qin state, you can't sit back and watch the 100,000 elite soldiers collapse, this price is too big, and for the sake of their own safety, wang leaves the army to collapse, Zhang Handan's army can be safe?
Before the Battle of Julu, Chen Yu wrote a letter to Zhang Handan, revealing his true thoughts, describing the situation of the Qin state, and the fact that Hu Hai and Zhao Gao were very likely to kill him, so he suggested: "Why doesn't the general return the army and the princes to attack Qin together, divide the king's land, and call it lonely in the south?" That is to say, before the Battle of julu, Zhang Handan already had the selfish intention of opening the country and becoming a king, so he would always passively avoid war, and the ridiculous thing was that Wang Li, who was fighting a lonely and bloody war for the country, left behind a derogatory comment of "poor ability".
If Zhang Handan has no selfish intentions, then it can only show that Zhang Handan's military ability is actually not good, and the reason for the repeated victories in the early stage is that the enemy is arrogant and arrogant and the enemy is a group of rabble-rousers, that is, when it encounters weakness, it is strong, but when it encounters real war, it collapses, that is, it is strong and weak, just like those who talk about soldiers on paper, so they committed a series of unforgivable and unimaginable military mistakes in the Battle of Julu. When Chu and Han were fighting for hegemony, in the face of Liu Bang's attack, Zhang Handan did almost nothing and was quickly eliminated by Liu Bang, which also proved that Zhang Handan's military ability was limited. In short, from the perspective of Zhang Handan's life, he can only be regarded as a famous general above the horizontal line, and it is even more impossible to think that he is a famous general in the world, let alone compare with Han Xin.
After the fall of Wang's army, Zhang Handan still had the opportunity to defeat Xiang Yu, at least to maintain a state of confrontation, but he was bent on signing a contract with Xiang Yu, which was essentially a rebellion against Qin. The history books record such a detail, and Xiang Yu summoned the officers to discuss: "There is not much food and grass for the troops, and I want to promise them to make a contract." Therefore, if Zhang Handan insisted, Xiang Yu would not retreat, and even had a chance to defeat Xiang Yu. After the two parties signed the contract, when Zhang Handan met Xiang Yu, the history books record that he could not help but shed tears and told Xiang Yu about Zhao Gao's various bad deeds, which was a fierce, intelligent and wise god of war, and it was clear that he was a person with a broken mentality! Unfortunately, Xiang Yu ignored Zhang Handan, and after making him the Queen of Yong, he put him under house arrest in the camp and sent Sima Xin to control Zhang Handan's army. Later, in order to prevent the potential threat of 200,000 Qin troops, Xiang Yu found an excuse to kill all these Qin troops, and Zhang Handan became a light rod commander, not knowing that he did not regret it after hearing the news. Regarding Xiang Yu's killing of 200,000 Qin troops, there is also an explanation that Xiang Yu was short of food, and at that time he was eager to attack Guanzhong, so he killed them and obtained the qin army's grain and grass supply to the rebels.
For Zhang Handan, the ancient and modern literati spoke highly, the so-called "Handan is undefeated, Qin is not dead", but in fact he is the military culprit of the demise of the Qin Dynasty, and in the Battle of Julu, when he chose to passively avoid the war, he was doomed to the demise of the Qin Dynasty, which not only indirectly caused the collapse of Wang's army, but also directly buried the last Qin army of the imperial court, just like Wu Sangui of the Ming Dynasty, which was disgraceful. Therefore, the sinners who perished in the Qin Dynasty can be ranked as: Hu Hai, Zhao Gao, Zhang Handan!
References: Chronicle of History, etc