"The district highway wants to be honored by the county; the trivial Bojue is called the business of Baoyijing." He was both embarrassed and sad. "Gongsun Zhan at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was once mighty, why did he quickly degenerate into an ending similar to Yuan Shu's?
Gongsun Zhan's starting form did seem to be good, but this was mainly due to the fact that he caught up with the good times; from beginning to end, he was mixed in the big era at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty as a military general, and did not improve himself with the changes in the situation, which doomed him to go far. (Note: This article is based on the main history, not the interpretation)
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the pattern of the herds chasing deer was actually divided into several stages. Gongsun Zhan played early and started high, but the curtain end was also very fast, almost not surviving the half.
Stage one, we can call it the "feast of the careerists" period. The biggest "hero" at this stage was Dong Zhuo: this border general entered the capital, and his original task was to serve the king, but he blatantly destroyed the political rules that had been running for hundreds of years, controlled the imperial court by force, and destroyed the original monarchical order.
Dong Zhuo's move is equivalent to opening Pandora's box, and the tragic era of "white bones exposed in the wild and no chickens chirping in thousands of miles" has begun for decades. But for those tyrants who were already looking forward to becoming the emperor of the fangtu, Dong Zhuo was his great benefactor: with this evil man who took the lead in rebellion as a target, everyone had a legitimate reason to recruit troops and buy horses.
For a time, various princes rose up, most of them were local officials of the Eastern Han Dynasty court, there were also some family families who "went to the sea", and of course, there were military people such as Dong Zhuo and Gongsun Zhan.
At this stage, those princes who were born as warriors naturally occupied a lot of advantages: they were originally eating this meal, experienced and skilled, and compared with those peers who were literati and peddlers, they did not need to be familiar with the process of business and directly play their greatest combat effectiveness.
Therefore, we can find a law: the princes who are born of military generals are more fierce at this stage. For example, Dong Zhuo, the "leading big brother", later lü Bu from the Chengyi faction; of course, there is also the protagonist of this article, Gongsun Zhan.
Gongsun Zhan was an "indigenous" native of western Liaoning, although the family was quite noble, but as a humble concubine, at first he could only serve as a small scribe in Yamen; fortunately, due to his superior appearance, he was later favored by the local Taishou, and from then on, the carp jumped the dragon gate and became the son-in-law of the Taishou, and under the sponsorship of his father-in-law, he was given the opportunity to study with Lu Zhi, a famous scholar in Zhuo County. It was this experience that allowed him to accumulate the first pot of gold in the political circle and be promoted to a county petty officer.
However, at this time, Gongsun Zhan did not have the strength to control his own destiny. During this period, the Taishou he served was convicted of the crime, and Gongsun Zhan also suffered, and even prepared to accompany lingnan and die in a foreign country, but then he was pardoned on the way south, thus escaping the disaster.
The loyal and responsible Gongsun Zhan was elected as a filial piety after his return, which was really on his way, and later became the governor of this border county of Liaodong, and since then he has joined the army.
In the military industry, Gongsun Zhan quickly showed his talent. He once led more than ten Han troops to a bloody battle with ten times the Xianbei cavalry that was ten times larger than himself, and killed a bloody road, so that the other side's liver and gallbladder were broken, and they did not dare to approach the border plug for a long time. Because of this fearless performance, Gongsun Zhan was promoted to Zhuo County Order.
Later in the reign of Emperor Ling of Han, Bianzhang and Han Sui of Liangzhou in the northwest rebelled, and Gongsun Zhan was ordered to gather three thousand elite cavalry in the Youzhou area to go to conquest. However, zhang chun and the Wuhuan people also rebelled in the youzhou area, and Gongsun Zhan suppressed it strongly, made great military achievements, and was successively promoted to knight lieutenant, lieutenant general, and knighted marquis of Duting.
For the next five or six years, Gongsun Zhan led an army to garrison western Liaoning, and fought against various rebels for many years. He fought bravely and was a pioneer, and once the battle began, he was like a fierce tiger, and he would not give up on pursuing and fighting the enemy; he often took dozens of soldiers who were good at riding and shooting to cross the border plugs, because they were all crotch white horses, hence the name "White Horse Yicong".
However, the chaos in Youzhou at that time was essentially a chain reaction caused by the successive collapse of the political and economic levels of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and it could not be solved by force alone. Therefore, even though Gongsun Zhan fought fiercely, the situation in Youzhou was still not effectively alleviated, and even the four prefectures of Qing, Xu, You, and Ji, which were close to the north, were deeply affected.
In 188 AD, Liu Yu, the mu of Youzhou, took office. This royal family member who once served as the assassin of Youzhou was not the same as Gongsun Zhan, he was a standard Confucian, benevolent, admiring Enwei and Shi; in the past, during the reign of Youzhou, he was deeply supported by the military and people of all ethnic groups because of his extensive charity. The imperial court sent him here in the hope that he would turn the tide and calm the chaos.
To put it bluntly: Liu Yu is a traditional politician. As soon as he arrived in Youzhou, he sent people to the tribal chiefs and ordered them to send the heads of Zhang Chun and others, and he did not blame these Hu people who were gathered by Zhang Chun to do chaos.
Hearing that Liu Yu had come to take charge, qiu Liju, the leader of Wuhuan, and others supported them from the bottom of their hearts, and they took the initiative to withdraw their troops and rushed to send people to express their submission to Liu Yu; Zhang Chun was frightened to flee in a hurry, but was taken off his head and given to Liu Yu by his men.
The turmoil that had plagued Youzhou for many years was thus put to rest by Liu Yusi and Two Thousand Pounds, and he was also added to the rank of Lieutenant and made the Marquis of Xiangben. And this result, objectively speaking, also set off Gongsun Zhan's powerlessness, which made him once hold a grudge in his heart, and even secretly killed Wu Huan's emissaries.
In 189 AD, Dong Zhuo entered Chang'an, and history entered a new era. Although the Central Plains were in turmoil, Youzhou, under the administration of Liu Yu, presented a scene of national peace and security, abundant food and clothing, which was really a clear stream in the chaotic world.
However, under the seemingly gratifying situation, there is an undercurrent: Liu Yu, who is in charge of the government, and Gongsun Zhan, who leads the army, are completely two types of people, and the contradictions between the two people are becoming increasingly prominent.
Liu Yu was a politician who "crossed the river with a raptor", who advocated benevolent governance and leniency toward the people; Gongsun Zhan was a "snake on the ground", who boasted that he had deep roots in the army, and in order to buy people's hearts, he even often connived at soldiers to harass the people. In this way, the two gradually drifted apart. In 191 AD, Yuan Shu's deception of thousands of elites in Youzhou further exacerbated the deterioration of the relationship between the two.
At that time, the complete collapse of the eastern Han dynasty's ruling order provided a golden opportunity for the rise of warriors like Gongsun Zhan.
In the winter of 191 AD, Gongsun Yue's cousin, Gongsun Yue, who was then the general of Yuan Shu's department, was killed in a battle with Yuan Shao's forces, allowing Gongsun Yue, who was already coveting Yuan Shao's territory and trying to expand his power, seize the handle, and then began to lead his army south to attack the city. In just a few months, with the cooperation of another cousin, Gongsun Fan, he successfully surrendered many Counties in Hebei, and also attacked the Qing and Xu Yellow Turban armies, and his power became increasingly powerful. After the initial success, he also set up Ji, Qing, Yan and other pastoral guards without authorization, just like the posture of the princes on one side.
However, in the following year, Gongsun Zhan was defeated several times in the course of fighting with Yuan Shao for Jizhou, but he continued to organize forces to fight with the other side, and at one point at the Battle of JumaShui to retake a city, and the two sides fell into a balance of power.
Dissatisfied with the war, which cost the people money and harmed one side, Liu Yu became more and more dissatisfied with Gongsun Zhan. He repeatedly weakened Gongsun Zhan's authority and ordered him not to fight again; but this only aroused the anger of the other side, and Gongsun Zhan ignored the order more and more, not only intensifying his repeated violations of the people, but even daring to rob Liu Yu's own property.
In order to solve this embarrassing situation, in 193 AD, Liu Yu organized his own 100,000 troops to attack Gongsun Zhan, who was stationed nearby.
It is reasonable to say that Gongsun Zhan, whose strength is inferior, will undoubtedly be defeated. However, Liu Yu was good at managing the government, but he did not know how to fight: although there were many troops, he was a novice who had never experienced any vicious battles; during the battle, out of his love for the people's houses, he was not allowed to burn the city, which led to the soldiers being tied hands and feet, not only did not defeat the absolutely weak Number of Gongsun Zhan, but was crushed by the hundreds of death squads on the other side. Liu Yu, who fled in defeat, soon became a puppet of Gongsun Zhan.
Soon after, the imperial court sent people to appoint Liu Yu to take charge of the affairs of the six northern states, and Gongsun Zhan took the opportunity to coerce the other side, so that he was promoted to a former general, and he was given the title of Marquis of Yi, and the false governor of You, He, Qing, and Ji.
In this way, Gongsun Zhan's purpose was achieved. Therefore, after the imperial emissaries announced their appointments, he framed Liu Yu for conspiring with Yuan Shao to become emperor before framing him, and coerced the coercors to behead him.
At this time, Gongsun Zhan's soldiers were strong and strong, and he also used the official control of the four prefectures of Hebei (actually completely controlling Youzhou) given by the imperial court, which can be described as the peak of his life.
The reason why Gongsun Zhan was able to rise strongly as a military general was that he seized the opportunity of Dong Zhuo's unauthorized power and the collapse of the political mechanism; and in the face of his superior Liu Yu, who was proficient in government management and not good at fighting, Gongsun Zhan's perennial military experience was undoubtedly a core competitiveness.
But that's his extreme. At this time, the pattern of the world has entered a new stage: the period of competition in the comprehensive strength of the princes.
With the death of Dong Zhuo, the princes who had lost their common enemies completely tore their faces and began an internal reshuffle. At this time, because all parties have a relatively fixed territory and a stable team, the competition between each other has gone beyond the scope of the military and has become a comprehensive competition of political, talent, economic and other factors.
In this pattern, how to attract talents and win people's hearts and minds will determine how far these warlords can go. And this is the biggest shortcoming of Gongsun Zhan.
First of all, although Liu Yu could not fight a war, he did have a set of rules in handling government affairs and appeasing the people, which gained a broad public opinion base in Hebei. Therefore, when they learned that Liu Yu had been killed, the people of all ethnic groups, while weeping bitterly, could not help but feel resentful towards the culprit, Gongsun Zhan.
Secondly, after getting rid of Liu Yu and controlling Youzhou, Gongsun Zhan thought that he had succeeded, and could not help but become more and more proud and arrogant, and history said that he "remembered the good and forgotten, and the eyes must be repaid", always remembering the faults of others, not remembering the benefits of others, and his heart and eyes were particularly small. At the same time, he, who was already a frequent disturbance of the people, was even more cruel to the people at this time, and countless people suffered from his poisonous hands.
The people's hearts and minds of the people lost the world, and the soldiers and people of Youzhou all missed the time when Liu Yu was alive and disgusted with Gongsun Zhan's rule. In 195 AD, Liu Yu's old subordinates Xian Yufu, Qi Zhou and others jointly rebelled, and they used the people's anger to recruit troops in Youzhou and Saiwai, and it did not take much effort to form a team of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians of all nationalities, and then attacked Gongsun Zhan's Yuyang.
Upon receiving this news, Yuan Shao in the south also sent troops to attack, and Gongsun Zhan was defeated in successive battles, retreating to Yijing (in present-day northwest of Xiong County, Hebei) and stubbornly resisting, relying on the abundant materials in the city, and even survived for several years.
It was not until 199 AD that Gongsun Zhan lost to Yuan Shao. Seeing that the trend was gone, he first killed the whole family and then set himself on fire.
Seeing the process of Gongsun Zhan's downfall, we may have this feeling: Yuan Shao is too good, and he does not have the appearance of a nest bag when he later faced Cao Cao!
In fact, it depends on who to compare with, not how strong Yuan Shao is, but Gongsun Zhan is too weak. To put it bluntly, Gongsun Zhan is just a small number one Dong Zhuo:
He should not have the qualities of a statesman at all, not even the title of tyrant; the reason why he was able to make a name for himself at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was actually only to seize the short period of opportunity for the collapse of the regime and the chaos of the world, and to seize enviable benefits in a short period of time by virtue of his long-term experience in the battlefield.
However, as the game of princes entered the stage of competition of comprehensive strength, the shortcomings of Gongsun Zhan were exposed; and he did not have the willingness and ability to keep pace with the times and learn in practice, and could only be reduced to a background board for a stronger opponent.
As Gongsun Zhan said when he was besieged by Yuan Shao: "In the past, the affairs of the world could be determined by the world", I once thought that the affairs of the world could be solved by military strength. This kind of thinking has actually doomed him to failure.