Xu Rong (?-192), a native of Xuanju (一說) was a Xiangping of Liaodong Province, and in the Biography of Gongsun Du it is said that Gongsun Du was a native of Xiangping, Liaodong Province, and moved to XuanJue, where he was appointed as the Taishou of Liaodong Province. Tong County was the same as "XuanJue" County), a general in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Originally a general of Zhonglang, he once recommended to Dong Zhuo That Gongsun Du, who was from the same county, to be the Taishou of Liaodong. Defeated Cao Cao's independent pursuers at the Battle of Bishui and Sun Jian's forces at the Battle of Liangdong. After Dong Zhuo's death, he was ordered by Situ Wang Yun to engage Li Dai and Guo Feng, and died in the Battle of Xinfeng, where he was killed in the rebellion.
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In the impression of ordinary people, the most famous general under Dong Zhuo was none other than Hua Xiong. This comes from the rendering of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", after all, people read too many novels. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Eighteenth Route princes recruited Dong Zhuo, and Dong Zhuo sent the general Hua Xiong to fight. This Huaxiong martial artist was very proficient, and after defeating the princes Sun Jian, he beheaded Yuan Shu's general Yu Shi in less than three rounds, and immediately beheaded Pan Feng, the general of Han Fu, and for a while the princes panicked. Fortunately, there was a Gongsun Zhan among the princes, who met Liu Bei on the way to meet the master. Liu Bei had a Guan Yu Guan Yunchang under his command, who was "wenjiu and huaxiong" to help the princes get through the dangers, otherwise, the princes really didn't know how to fight this battle? In this way, this Huaxiong is also like that! No, who is this Guan Yu? People are martial saints, heavenly gods and immortals! Therefore, this should be a sentence, not Hua xiong is incompetent, but Guan Er ye is too powerful. There was no way, the martial saint wanted to appear, hua xiong had to be aggrieved, to give Guan Erye a sword sacrifice.
In fact, this Huaxiong only appears in the main history of one name, that is, "Three Kingdoms Chronicles of Sun Jian", is a person who has neither a record nor a resume. However, another of Dong Zhuo's generals was a truly capable general, and he won both battles against the princes, and defeated the two most powerful of the princes at that time, Sun Jian and Cao Cao.
This man's name is Xu Rong.
Xu Rong's first appearance was against Cao Cao.
At that time, Dong Zhuo had already moved the emperor and the capital to Chang'an, and he himself remained in Luoyang, and the princes' army against Dong Zhuo was stationed at Sour Jujube. Yuan Shao and other armies were afraid of his strength, and none of them dared to advance their troops. Cao Cao said, "The purpose of raising righteous soldiers is to eliminate the riots, and now that the armies have converged, what are you hesitating about?" If Dong Zhuo had relied on the royal family, embraced the old capital, and marched east to control the world, even though he had no way to administer, he would still become a scourge to us. Now he burned the palace and houses, abducted the Son of Heaven and moved west, causing the world to shake, the people did not know what to follow, this is the time when the heavens want to exterminate Dong Zhuo, the first war can calm the world. Therefore, he ignored the other princes and led the army to the west alone, occupying Chenggao, only Chen Liu taishou Zhang Mi divided a part of his troops and sent the general Wei Zi to follow him. Cao Cao's army marched to Xingyang Andishui, encountered Dong Zhuo's general Xu Rong, and the two sides went to war, Cao Cao's army was defeated, he was shot by a stray arrow, and the horse he was riding was also wounded. His cousin Cao Hong gave his horse to Cao Cao, but Cao Cao did not accept it. Cao Hong said, "The world can be without Cao Hong, but it can't be without you!" So he followed Cao Cao on foot and waited until night to escape. Xu Rong saw that there were very few soldiers led by Cao Cao, but he fought hard all day, believing that sour dates were not easy to attack, and also led his troops to retreat.
The second time was against Sun Jian.
Sun Jian moved his army to garrison the eastern side of Liang County, but was defeated by Dong Zhuo's general Xu Rong, who gathered scattered troops and stationed them at Yangren. Dong Zhuo sent The Eastern Commandery Taishou Hu Yi to lead 5,000 infantry and cavalry to attack Sun Jian, using Lü Bu as the cavalry governor. Hu Yun and Lü Bu were at odds, and Sun Jian attacked, defeated Hu Yun, and cut off the head of the capital Governor Huaxiong to show the public.
Among the princes, Cao Cao's scheming was far-reaching, Sun Jian's bravery was unusual, and such two princes could win against Xu Rong, and his ability was indeed extraordinary. The large army of princes concentrated in the sour jujube was afraid of Dong Zhuo's strong army, but except for Xu Rong, they did not see other generals with outstanding performance, which showed Xu Rong's outstanding ability. When the Zizhi Tongjian records Xu Rong, there are two things that are worth pondering, namely, Xu Rong's different endings with Cao Cao and Sun Jian. Against Cao Cao, he finally wrote about Xu Rong's insight that he could not capture the sour dates, so he withdrew his troops. Cao Cao was known for his wisdom, and Xu Rong ended up with wisdom. Against Sun Jian, the last contrast is Huaxiong, Sun Jian is known for his bravery, and he chops the capital to supervise Huaxiong, which sets off Xu Rongzhi's courage. This wisdom and courage showed that Xu Rong's military ability was indeed not a generalist.
So the question is, why did "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" write Hua Xiong's heroism? The most fundamental reason is that this Huaxiong died as soon as he appeared. This person only has a name and no deeds, which allows the author to have room to play fully, without being questioned whether he has or is not. Guan Yu beheaded Huaxiong, the purpose of which is to shape Guan Yu's image, this Huaxiong who died as soon as he showed his face is the most appropriate. Hua Xiong and Lü Bu were both governors (Lü Bu was the governor of cavalry), and it would only have weight for such a person to die under Guan Yu's sword. In this way, we can see that among Dong Zhuo's generals, the one who can best fight against the Kwantung princes is Xu Rong, at least from the information we have seen.
How did Xu Rong die?
After Dong Zhuo was killed, his generals did not receive a pardon edict from the imperial court, and at this time there were rumors that the new rulers were going to kill all the people of Liangzhou. The generals of Dong Zhuo's army were basically Liangzhou people, and the generals Li Dai and Guo Feng joined forces to set out from Chen Liu and Yingchuan to prepare to attack Chang'an. When Wang Yun heard about it, he sent Dong Zhuo's former generals Hu Yun and Xu Rong to lead troops to attack. In Xinfeng (a suburb of Chang'an), Xu Rong was killed in battle, and Hu Yi led his army to surrender. Was hu yixian surrendering or Xu Rongxian dying? This is not easy to say, but one thing can be understood, even if Hu Yun surrendered, he would certainly not fight to the death before. In this way, Xu Rong faced two major problems, fighting alone and outnumbering the enemy. When Li Dai and the others came to Chang'an City, there were already 100,000 people.
Xu Rong's death is not only because he has a group of hungry wolf-like opponents, but also because he has a teammate like a pig, and more importantly, he also has a donkey-like boss, which is a pity. A general, martial arts ability is certainly one aspect, but it is more important not to be able to meet a clever commander. For example, the general Zhang Guo of Cao Wei not only had no record under Yuan Shao, but also worried about his own life all day, and when he arrived under Cao Cao, he made great progress and achieved brilliant battle achievements, becoming a well-known commander of the front army. However, when he became an obstacle to Sima Yi's monopoly of power, he would die in a simple pursuit battle, and this pursuit battle was not because of his pride and light enemy, but because he knew that the enemy would consciously retreat and there would be an ambush. Some people say that if Xu Rong is under Cao Cao's hands, he will definitely become a general, which may be another reason why people pity Xu Rong!