Zhao Kuo has now become a highly controversial figure. He has always been a celebrity, but in the past history, there were Zhao Kuo and then Ma Mo, all of whom were celebrities as negative teaching materials, and their popularity was not under the Qin Emperor Han Wu Tang Zong Song Zu. Nowadays, once discussed, the limelight can even overshadow Jobs's funeral and the wedding ceremonies of many celebrities.
In 1998 or 2000, the magazine "Hundred Tribunes" saw zhao Kuo defend for the first time. To this end, the relevant historical materials were specially checked, and the reasons and basis for the objection were carefully written on the side comments. Whether that article is an abuse of follow-up discussion, this is not clear, anyway, now that the network is developed, the information comes out of nowhere. At that time, this article was very detailed and thoughtful, and basically covered all the views of those who affirm Zhao Kuo today, and the purpose was to prove that Zhao Kuo was not a person who talked about soldiers on paper.
In Zhao Kuo's defense, the arguments basically have the following aspects:
First, Zhao Kuo is a staff-type talent with extremely high military theoretical attainments, otherwise his father Zhao Hao would not have debated;
Second, Zhao Kuo is a famous general who has not had time to grow up, if he is given time, he will inevitably be a generation of famous generals;
Third, Zhao Kuo was very strong, on the grounds that even if he was surrounded and killed, he would also cause heavy losses to the Qin army;
Fourth, Zhao Kuo took over a mess, Lian Po could not win the fight, and whoever went up was also losing;
Fifth, and the national strength of the Zhao state is not good, Zhao Kuo is a man with a back pot, such as not enough grain to drag, the Qin state has two grain production bases in Bashu Guanzhong to ensure logistics, such as the zhao guo temple decision-making error is the root cause of failure.
From the above point of view, each of the reasons is specious. People's IQ is not much different, but their thinking is different, causing many people to support the above views.
First of all, let's talk about the first one, Zhao Kuo is a staff-type talent. What is a staff-type talent is that the military theory is very high, the thinking is outstanding, and it can convince other people, especially the garrison generals. Zhao Kuo has been familiar with military books since childhood, and military dogmas should be unquestionably memorized, but they cannot be convincing. Even his father was not convinced, and he saw his fatal weakness: he could only memorize books, and could not convince people's hearts. Is Zhao Kuo's thinking outstanding? Nor is it outstanding. Everyone had read the book of soldiers, and Lin Xiang was like a literati who did not believe in him. Moreover, the focus of staff-type talents is still that talents are not staff officers, and Zhao Kuo has not shown the appearance that talents should have. The appearance of talent, the temperament is calm and introverted, zhao Kuo is the opposite.
Saying that Zhao Kuo did not have time to grow, the result was that Bai Qi, a master, gave seconds, and if he let him practice for a few years, he would inevitably shine. This is typically confirmed by falsehood. History has never been if, and almost any one man, given enough time, can become a talent. Yang Xiuqing, the eastern king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was a charcoal burner before the uprising (perhaps occasionally cameo selling charcoal), at most he had seen the Hakka family at that time fight and did not even participate in it, where he had seen what it was like to march and fight, in just three years he could fight the Qing army and could not find the north. We can't talk about heroes in terms of success or failure, but we must also talk about heroes with success or failure, otherwise we can't make any correct evaluation.
Now the most talked about is that under the command of Zhao Kuo, although the battle was defeated, the Qin army lost more than half of it, with more than 300,000 casualties. The argument for this statement lies in Bai Qi's statement that "now more than half of the Qin pawns are killed and injured" and the "Hanoi void" mentioned in the "Records of History", and it is interesting that the original "Hanoi void" has also made some people exaggerate it as "domestic air". It has become a joke to say that the Qin state sent 200,000 or 300,000 troops and more than 300,000 casualties, and moreover, when Bai Qi said this, it was during the siege of Handan, and at the same time, with a lot of negative resistance, naturally it cannot be used as evidence.
The funniest defense is "you say he can't do it, you can do it." The irony originally used to ridicule Comrade Chang Kaishen, a famous military logistics scientist in China's modern history, has become an intuitive evidence for the positive maintenance of Zhao Kuo. This is engaging in agnosticism, denying the role of indirect experience. The world can be known, and there is no end to knowledge, which provides the soil for agnosticism to exist. However, it may not be possible to change to you and me, but it may not be impossible to change to someone else.
Finally, let's talk about the impact of national strength on war. National strength is the foundation of war, but this strategic level cannot completely determine the tactical level. If national strength is not enough, it is necessary to lose a war, then the battle will be much simpler after that. Analyze the national strength of the enemy and us, comprehensively compare, the national strength is not good, forget about the fight, directly surrender. That's how Wang Jingwei analyzed the Sino-Japanese war, so he became a traitor.
War is the result of relying on the concentration of forces to achieve victory by local superiority, thus providing more convenient conditions for political development. War is limited by the strength of national strength, and at the same time it can change the strength of national strength. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the State of Wu and Chu; the Boer War, 300,000 Boers against 300,000 British troops; during the Qianlong period, the first Battle of Jinchuan, the 70,000 tribes defeated 70,000 troops, and so on, all of which concentrated local forces to reverse the overall strength and weakness. If it is said that the national strength must be defeated in the war, then Nurhaci was destroyed by the regiment as early as Salhu, how can there be a later Qing Dingding Central Plains; then the Netherlands will not be independent until today, the sea beggars and forest beggars those guerrillas have long been swept away, the Netherlands will become part of Britain; then the Western Xia will never appear, it is still the local magnate of the Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, war can change the strength of the country.
From the above point of view, Zhao Kuo is still on paper.
What is "talk on paper"? Many people sneered: There was no paper back then, what about paper? But the word "paper", which is found in the golden text, means "slag on the drifter". Before the paper was formed, bamboo and cloth took on the function of paper, and talked about soldiers on these simple plates, and did not personally examine the war, only theory and practice were not enough, let alone talk about soldiers on the slag? In this way, the irony is even stronger, and Zhao Kuo is not even a staff-type talent. Because the simple veil can carry the text, the scum cannot even bear the text.
Zhao Kuo said that he could be invincible in the world except for Bai Qi. King Xiaocheng of Zhao also believed Zhao Kuo, thinking that he could bring a victory to the Zhao state. Confucius still has at least one more sentence to be right, listen to his words, but also depend on his deeds.