Frustrated is a tragic figure.
In the era of climax at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, his highlight moment was at the time of debut. At that time, he had just left Han Fu to join Yuan Shao's camp, and a rainbow fart made him a confidant by Yuan Shao, and he was made a Fenwu general by the way. However, in the pages of history that survived thereafter, all his appearances, yes, all appearances, were this embarrassing situation:
Li Dai and Guo Feng rebelled, and Frustrated Zhi proposed to seize the opportunity and blackmail the Son of Heaven and order the princes to "not obey".
Yuan Shao sent his eldest son Yuan Tan to administer Qingzhou, and Frustrated Zhi objected to this separation of powers, "Shao did not listen" .
After defeating Gongsun Zhan, Yuan Shao planned to attack Cao Cao again, but Frustrated Zhi proposed to rest first, but Yuan Shao did not accept it.
Yuan Shao sent Yan Liang to Baima to attack Liu Yan, the Taishou of Dong Commandery, and frustrated him, saying that he had a narrow personality and could not be competent alone, "Shao did not listen".
After the defeat of the White Horse Army, Yuan Shao decided to cross the river to pursue the enemy army, and Frustrated Zhi proposed to stay in Yanjin and divide the troops into officers and crosses, "Shaofu Cong".
The armies of Yuan Shao and Cao Cao fought each other, frustrated with suggestions and materials, and the southern army, which lacked materials, fought a protracted battle with the northern army with more troops.
Yuan Shao sent the general Chun Yu (淳于瓊) to escort grain and grass, and Frustrated Zhi proposed to send another army to assist him in preventing Cao Cao from copying the back road and "Shao did not obey".
We can even draw a "first law of the Three Kingdoms": when Frustrated Zhi makes a suggestion to Yuan Shao, Yuan Shao will certainly not listen to it (I wonder how Yuan Shao will respond if Frustrated Zhi advises never to follow his own advice).
And also doing things under Yuan Shao, one did not obey, Xu You ran to Cao Cao; one did not listen, Zhang Gao and Gao Lan ran to Cao Cao, and by the way, without talking about Wude, they burned the arsenal of weapons. There is only discouragement, constantly making suggestions, constantly being rejected, and then constantly making suggestions. From the very beginning of the command of the three armies, to the unification of the first army (the Shao Nai sub-commission was unified as the governor of the three capitals, so that Guo Tu and Chun Yu Ji could be the first army), and finally to the control of himself (Qiu ..., the province of his own department did not belong to Guo Tu), although the middle also wanted to resign from illness, he still could not help but speak.
Even in the Book of Later Han, the catastrophe of Frustrated Zhi seems to have begun under Han Fu: when Han Fu intended to surrender to Yuan Shao, Frustrated Zhi, Geng Wu, and Min Chun, who were serving him at the time, objected—the ending, of course, was "Fu did not listen" (although in the Versions of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Zizhi Tongjian, Li Li took the position of Frustrated Zhi, but based on Han Fu's choice of suicide in order to avoid being murdered by others, there is reason to believe that the first law of the Three Kingdoms can be generalized).
If you do a "touching three kingdoms" character selection, I think frustrated teaching should be counted as one.
Frustrated loyalty is puzzling. If the talk ends from one end, Yuan Shao is not his first master; if he talks about the grace of knowledge, in addition to the horse ass when he first joined, yuan Shao greatly praised, followed by a long period of "not listening" and "not obeying". When Guandu was defeated and captured by Cao Cao, Frustrated Zhi refused to surrender, and after being pardoned by Cao Cao, he still plotted to return to Yuan Shao until he was eventually executed—which had to make people suspect that Frustrated Zhi had some kind of masochistic tendencies. Of course, his explanation of Cao Cao was to take care of the lives of his entire family (uncle, mother and brother, and county commander Yuan), but it was a bit far-fetched.
The catastrophes of ancient Greek mythology always contained some kind of endless cycle: Sisyphus, who pushed the boulders tumbling down the foot of the mountain again and again to the top of the mountain; Prometheus, who was pecked by eagles again and again at the re-grown liver; Dana Ides, who poured water over and over again into a bottomless tank. Frustrated experienced such an ancient Greek mythological catastrophe—advice to a master who would never listen to his advice.
Dana Ides, the Punishment of Irrigation, illustrated by John William Waterhouse (Source: Wiki)
In that era of "good birds choose trees and perch", the frustration of hitting the south wall and not turning back is destined to be a tragic figure. Before Yuan Cao's decisive battle, he seemed to have a premonition of his fate, and before he set out, he gathered the clan and scattered his family wealth, which was tragic and heroic for Jing Ke to bid farewell to Prince Dan of Yan.
Compared with other brilliant characters, Frustrated Zhi is unremarkable, appearing only a few times in the history books, and each time it is the same plot. But there was a certain gentle power in him that ordinary people possessed. This power is not the heroic divine power of moving mountains and reclaiming the sea, it is a little tepid, a little dull, even a little stupid, but it survives tenaciously and can still touch another ordinary heart at some point in a thousand years.
In the novel "The Great Gatsby", Jay Gatsby buys a mansion, gives gifts, and throws a big party in order to save his materialistic crush, Daisy. In the end, he replaced Daisy with car accident charges and was shot and killed by the husband of the accident victim. Scott Fitzgerald writes the end of the novel in such a mournful way that I forgive me for taking the space to excerpt the original text here:
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning ——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
As I sat there reminiscing about that ancient, unknown world, I also thought of the surprise Gatsby had felt when he first recognized the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have been so close at hand that he could hardly have grasped it. He did not know that the dream had been lost behind him, somewhere in the boundless chaos of the city, where the dark fields of the United States stretched forward in the night.
Gatsby believed in this green light, a blissful future that was fading before our eyes year after year. It used to escape our pursuit, but that doesn't matter — tomorrow we'll run a little faster and stretch our arms a little farther... Someday...
So we rowed forward, the boat that was going up against the current, and kept going backwards, into the past. (Translated by Wu Ningkun)
In reality, Fitzgerald, in order to let his "Daisy", the daughter of the famous Zelda Searle, continue to maintain a luxurious life after marrying him, and eventually died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.
Scott Fitzgerald's tomb, with the stone slab below printed with the classic ending of The Great Gatsby (Source: Wiki)
There is a line in the Korean movie "The Melting Pot": We fight all the way, not to change the world, but to prevent the world from changing us. But many times, it is difficult for us to do even this. The boat was constantly being pushed past by the rapids, and we had only our hands.
But fortunately we still have hands.
Past Articles:
A confession triggered by shoes
Bodhisattva difficulty "take it for granted"
Interesting History 丨 A cloud that triumphs over astronomers
Brain Hole History | A rural guy's path to counterattack