Fu Bo only wished to wrap the body back, and he was determined to be born into the customs.
Mo Xie only returned to the sea cave, still leaving an arrow to shoot at the Heavenly Mountain.
- Li Yi, "Plugging down the Song"
In history, the works of praise for the famous Eastern Han Dynasty general Ban Chao, especially li Yi's "Plugged Down Song" of the Tang Dynasty, are the most magnificent.
Ban Chao, a famous military figure and historical general of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was born in Fufeng Anling (present-day northeast of Xianyang, Shaanxi). Although he was a famous general, he came from a family of historians, his father Ban Biao, his elder brother Ban Gu, and his sister Ban Zhao were all famous historians, leaving behind works such as "Afterword to the History" and "Book of Han".
When Ban Chao was a teenager, he read a lot of books and was very ambitious. In the fifth year of the reign of Emperor Yongping of the Han Dynasty (62 AD), Ban Chao moved to Luoyang with his brother Ban Gu and found an errand at the official palace to support his family. The daily "dabbling in book biography" has enabled him to accumulate profound historical and cultural literacy. However, after a long time, Ban Zhao felt bored and distressed. One day, he threw his pen and sighed: "The eldest husband has no other ambitions, just like Fu Jiezi and Zhang Qian to make meritorious contributions to a foreign land to seal the Marquis, An Nengjiu's pen is in the middle of it!" So he threw the pen in his hand on the ground. This is the allusion to the idiom "throwing pen from Rong".
Ban Chao's envoy to the Western Regions was during the reign of Emperor Ming of Han, by which time the Xiongnu had split into the Northern and Southern Xiongnu. The Southern Xiongnu submitted to the Eastern Han Dynasty, while the Northern Xiongnu often led cavalry to plunder southwards, and for a time controlled the countries of the Western Regions, extorting heavy taxes from the countries and cutting off the exchanges between the Western Regions and the Eastern Han Dynasty.
In the sixteenth year of Yongping (73 AD), Emperor Ming of Han issued an edict to send troops to attack the Xiongnu with Dou Gu, the duke of Chedu, and Ban Chao followed the Northern Expedition and served as a false Sima in the army. The fake Sima Guan is small, but it is the first step of Ban Chao's throwing pen from Rong. As soon as Ban Chao arrived in the Han Army, he showed his outstanding military ability. He led his troops to attack Yiwu (present-day Hamisi Fort, Xinjiang), tried a small bull knife, won a great victory, and captured many enemies. Dou Gu admired his military prowess and sent him and Guo Ke to lead 36 envoys to the Western Regions. When they arrived at Shanshan, they were first treated with courtesy and then neglected. Ban Chao learned that it was the Xiongnu who also sent envoys to come here, and Ban Chao inspired his subordinates to "not enter the tiger's den, but to get the tiger", and took advantage of the night raid to kill the Xiongnu envoys and their entourage of more than 130 people, and finally defeated the numerically superior Xiongnu with a small number of people and horses, so that King Shanshan made up his mind to return to Han and restore his jurisdiction over the Western Regions.
Since then, Ban Chao has been in the Western Regions for 31 years, serving as the Protector of the Western Regions for a long time. Overcoming all kinds of difficulties and hardships, he administered the army and administration with "leniency and smallness, and the general outline," relied heavily on strategy with his troops, was good at taking advantage of contradictions, guided by the situation, and defeated the strong with the weak, successfully opened up the long-interrupted Silk Road, enabling more than 50 states such as Guizi, Khotan, Gumo, and Shache to belong to the Han Dynasty, consolidating the rule of the Eastern Han Dynasty in the western regions, and making outstanding contributions to the economic and cultural exchanges and development between the Eastern Han And the western regions. He also sent Gan Ying on an envoy to Great Qin (the Roman Empire) to communicate with Europe. Because of his repeated achievements, Ban Chao was enfeoffed as the Marquis of Yuan.
By 102 AD, when Ban Chao was 71 years old, he once again appealed to the emperor, saying that old age and infirmity had made him unable to perform his duties, and he expressed his thoughts for Zhongyuan and his relatives. He said that his only wish was to return to his homeland before he died, and he said in the song chapter: "The subject does not dare to look to Jiuquan County, but to survive and enter the Jade Gate Pass." Ban Chao's sister Ban Zhao also wrote to the emperor: "I heard that in ancient times, men took up weapons at the age of 15 and enlisted in the army, and returned their weapons at the age of 60 to return to their hometowns. My brother is now 71 years old and still serving in the frontier, I risked the death penalty to seek the emperor's pity, and begged for Ban Chao for more than the rest of the year, so as to comfort him in the 31 Spring and Autumn Period in the Western Regions! After The Han and Emperors finished reading the song, Ban Yong, the third son of Yuzhun Ban Chao, stepped on his father to guard the Western Regions, and Ban Chao returned to his hometown. In August, Ban Chao returned to Luoyang with a serious illness and died in September. He was buried in Banzhuang Village, Huayin, Shaanxi Province.
In the 31st year of Ban Chao's reign in the Western Regions, he restored the eastern Han court's rule over the western regions and the communication between China and the West, so that the economic and cultural exchanges between the Eastern Han and the western regions could continue to develop. With his outstanding diplomatic, military, and political talents and strong will, Ban Chao calmed down the internal strife of the Chengguo states and defended against strong enemies externally. He was lenient and simple in government, and united in officials.
Since the Han Dynasty placed the Western Regions Protectorate, no one who held this position before and after could compare with his merits.