Du Xian (222-285 AD), courtesy name Yuankai, was a native of Jingzhao Duling (present-day southeastern Xi'an, Shaanxi), a famous politician and scholar of the Western Jin Dynasty, and one of the commanders of the war to destroy Wu.
The eunuch family is erudite and knowledgeable
Du was born into a family of high-ranking bureaucrats in the Cao Wei government. His grandfather Du Qi (杜畿) was greatly credited to Cao Cao, and he successively served as a lieutenant of the Qiang Dynasty, a taishou of Hedong, a lieutenant of the Si Li school, and a servant of Shangshu, and was given the title of Marquis of Fengle Ting. His father, Du Shuguan (杜許官), went to Youzhou to assassinate Shi, and led the position of Lieutenant of Karasuma with the title of General Jianwu.
Although Du Pre grew up in a family of officials and eunuchs, he was not the kind of humble disciple who only knew pleasure. From an early age, he read a wide range of books and wrote diligently, studying economics, politics, calendar, law, mathematics, history, and engineering. People at that time gave him the nickname "Du Wuku" and praised him for his erudition, like a arsenal of weapons, everything. He especially loved to read "Zuo Biao" and claimed to have a "Zuo Zhuan" fetish.
During Du Qian's adolescence, two opposing political groups, the Cao clique and the Sima clique, gradually formed within the Cao Wei government. Du Qian's father, Du Shu, was loyal to the Cao Wei regime. As early as the sixth year of Taihe (232 AD), Du Shu wrote to remind Emperor Ming of Wei to pay attention to Sima Yi's movements of forming a party. Du Shu thus offended Sima Yi, was repeatedly ostracized, and was dismissed as a foreign post. In the first year of Jiaping (249 AD), Sima Yi launched the Gaopingling Rebellion, completely defeating the Cao clique led by Cao Shuang and fully grasping the actual power of the Cao Wei government. At that time, the Zhengbei general Cheng Xi adhered to Sima Yi's will and impeached Du Shu, almost putting him to death. Implicated by his father, Du Pre did not make a career until he was in his thirties.
After Sima Yi and Sima Yi's sons died of illness one after another, in the second year of the reign of Gaoguixiang Zhengyi (255 AD), Sima Zhao succeeded his father and brother in power. At this time, the balance of forces within the ruling class had undergone a fundamental change, the Political and Military Strength of the Cao Yu Party had been gradually eliminated, and it was only a matter of time before Sima Shi dai Wei. In order to expand the base of his rule, Sima Zhao bribed the sons of certain political enemies. Sima Zhaosu heard of Du Pre's talents and tried his best to win him over, personally marrying his sister to Du Pre as his wife. In the second year of Ganlu (257 AD), du was restored to the power of the Lord of The Raiders, and he was conscripted as Shang Shulang. After Sima Zhao became the governor of Xiangguo, Du Wasappointed as a military officer of the XiangFu.
In May of the fourth year of Jing Yuan (263 AD), the Wei army divided into three major attacks on Shu. Du Pre was appointed as the commander of the main army, Zhong Hui, the governor of the Zhenxi General's Mansion. The Wei army attacked shu han, and Zhong Hui joined forces with the Shu general Jiang Wei to rebel and prepare to kill the Wei generals who came with them in order to divide Yizhou. In the first month of the following year, Zhong Hui was killed by the rebels while implementing the plan. Wei Jun's supervisor Wei Wan also took the opportunity to kill Deng Ai, who knew about this plot. During this turmoil, many of Zhong Hui's subordinates were killed. Du Pre survived with wisdom. Afterwards, at the risk of being framed by Wei Wan, he publicly accused Wei Ou of killing people and killing people, believing that Wei Ou was also responsible for this turmoil.
In July of the first year of Xianxi (264 AD), Sima Zhao commissioned Xun Xun, Jia Chong, Pei Xiu, Zheng Chong, and others to reform the ceremonial, legal, and official systems to make final preparations for coming to power. Du Pre was then the shou henan yin and was ordered to participate in the formulation of the law. This law was promulgated by Emperor Tai of Jin in the fourth year (268 AD), which inherited the Han law and the Tang law, which had a great influence on the feudal laws of later generations. The official who nominally presided over the revision of the law was Jia Chong, but in fact Du Pre bore the heaviest labor, and all the annotations of the Jin law were completed by him. Du Pre pointed out in the "Order of laws": "The law is based on the right crime, and the order is based on the system of existence" (Taiping Imperial Records, vol. 638). This is the earliest definition in China's legal history to clearly distinguish between laws (criminal law system) and orders (rules and regulations), and the formulation of the Jin law is based on this principle, which makes the boundaries of the Jin law more clear and more complete than the old law of Han and Wei. Du Pre also pointed out that the law is the standard for officials to determine the sentence, not a reasonable book, so the law should be reduced in entry and the text should be concise and popular, so that the people can easily understand and dare not violate it. The Han law before the Jin Dynasty was characterized by harsh punishments and dense entries, totaling more than 7.7 million words and more than 26,000 articles, with repetitive content and poor memory, providing officials with the opportunity to go up and down their hands and cheat from them. Although the Cao Wei government has reformed this, the changes have been limited. Based on Du Pre's proposal, the Jin Law drastically cut the old laws of the Han and Wei Dynasties, with only more than 2,900 articles and more than 126,000 words, so the Tang praised it as "light and flat, called simple" (Book of Sui And Criminal Law). Emperor Sima Yan of the Jin Dynasty proclaimed himself empress dowager of Wei and pursued a policy of indulgence among the clans, the pillars of his power. Therefore, the society is extremely dark and corrupt, and officials at all levels are hiding in the camp of dogs, and the public has blocked and shielded each other. In the fourth year of the Tai Dynasty (268 AD), Du Pre, in view of this situation, proposed to Emperor Wu of Jin to implement a system of examinations, to evaluate the merits and demerits according to the actual situation of the officials, and then to treat them differently, or to be moved or deposed. However, Du Pre's proposal was not accepted by the imperial court.
At the beginning of the sixth year of the Tai Dynasty (270 AD), Du Pre was relieved of his post of Shou Henan Yin (守河南尹) for offending Shi Jian , a lieutenant colonel. In June, Emperor Wu of Jin used him to leave the border pass of the town, first as the Commander of the Anxi Army, and then as a lieutenant of the Eastern Qiang Commandery and a light car general in Qin Prefecture. Du Pre had just taken up his post in Qin Prefecture, and his rival Shi Jian had also arrived here. Shi Jian took the post of general of Anxi and oversaw the military forces of Qin Prefecture and was Du Qian's immediate superior. At that time, du pre's longyou region was very unstable, and the Xianbei people's bald trees were able to rebel and have great power, and the generals sent by Emperor Wu of Jin to suppress them were either defeated or killed. Shi Jianguan took revenge and ordered Du, who had only three hundred soldiers and a hundred mounts, to attack. Du foresaw The conspiracy to break Through Shi Jian and refused to send him to death. He confronted Shi Jian and said that the June of grass and horse fat was not suitable for fighting the Xianbei people at all, and that the problem of supplying the government army's troops must also be solved in advance, so the time for the engagement could only be set in the spring of the following year. Du Pre summed up his opinion as "five must not, four do not need." Du Pre refused to send troops, angering Shi Jian. Shi Jian found a crime and sent Du Pre's arrest to Ting Wei for punishment. Thanks to Du Pre's marriage to the royal family, within the pardon of the "Eight Opinions", he saved his life, but still lost his title. Soon, Shi Jian was defeated by the bald tree function in a battle, and it turned out that Du Qian's opinion was correct. In November of the seventh year of the Tai Dynasty (271 AD), the Xiongnu living in the Shanxi region rebelled armedly under the leadership of the chief liu meng. Because Du was well-informed and good at planning, the imperial court reused him to consult the military and national strategy. Soon, he was appointed as the Duzhi Shangshu to oversee the government's economic and financial affairs. Thereafter, until the fourth year of Xianning (278), Du Pre served as the Du Zhi Shangshu for a total of seven years. In the meantime, because of Shi Jian's revenge, he was dismissed from his post for a short time. During his term of office, Du Pregong made more than fifty proposals to Emperor Wu of Jin for governing the country and the army, including the construction of Changping Warehouse, the adjustment of grain prices, the management of salt transportation, the formulation of lesson adjustments, and the construction of border defenses. In addition, he put his talents to good use and actively carried out scientific inventions. The company pre-manufactured successfully row new devices and copied the long-lost tools. In order to solve the traffic problem in Luoyang, he vigorously defied public opinion and presided over the construction of the Fupingjin Bridge. In the process of building the bridge, from the design to the construction of Du Pre, great efforts have been made. Du predetermined that the calendar in common at that time did not fit the dial, and after calculation, corrected the discrepancies in it, and revised the "Dual Dry Degree Calendar". This calendar was verified and finally replaced the calendar and passed on to the world.
In the autumn of the fourth year of Xianning, heavy rain fell in yanyu prefectures and counties, and a large area of waterlogging was caused in the western Jin dynasty, and Emperor Wu of Jin issued an edict to ask for advice. Du pre-wrote twice to state the disaster relief plan. These two chapters, which are included in the Book of Jin and The Chronicle of Food and Goods, are important documentary materials for posterity to study the socio-economic conditions of the Jin Dynasty. Because Du Pre had investigated and studied the disaster situation at that time, his analysis of the causes of the disaster and the disaster relief methods proposed were more in line with the actual situation. He pointed out that extensive reclamation, fire cultivation and the disrepair of water conservancy facilities (Pyo) were the root causes of the disastrous consequences. "When the age of pi is decided, the fertile fields are transformed into reeds, and the people live in depression. Land and water are out of place, grazing is extinct, trees are withered, and all are harmful. The soil is shallow and shallow, and it cannot be moistened. Therefore, whenever there is water and rain, it flows back and forth, extending to the land field. "Du Pre believes that the solution can only be bad Pi Xuan diarrhea." In common sense, there is no water that accumulates much useless water, and in this case, the water is overflowing, which is a great disaster. The subject thought that instead of being improper, he would rather be careless. Those who are more reasonably built are "the old ruins of the Han dynasty and the private small pits of the valley should be repaired to accumulate water." For "what has been built since the Wei dynasty and all the reeds and horses that have been spilled by the rain and the like, they are all decided to drain." "It is advisable to greatly destroy the eastern boundaries of Yanyu and promote them as they return." As for the victims, in addition to relying on the government to relieve the official valley, they can also use aquatic products as a daily supply. If bad Pi's plan can be realized, "After the water is gone, fill the silted fields and harvest a few chungs per acre." In the spring, the grain will be abundant, and this will benefit next year." Du Pre also suggested renting cattle that were not used for farming to the victims. In the above book, Du Pre expressed concern about the efficiency of the Western Jin government. He denounced certain departments and individual officials for proceeding only from their own interests, and for strifeing and arguing with each other, so that the disaster relief work in some areas could not continue.
South to Xiangyang Three Chen Ping Wu
In November of the same year, Emperor Wu of Jin changed Du Pre to the post of General of Zhennan. After being appointed, Du Prenan went south to Xiangyang (襄樊, in present-day Xiangfan, Hubei) to succeed the deceased former Governor of Jingzhou, Yang Hu, in preparation for the upcoming war against Wu.
At that time, the whole country had not yet been unified, the Western Jin Dynasty only had half of the rivers and mountains, and Sun Wu's regime still controlled the area south of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. However, Sun Wu's national strength was far weaker than that of the Western Jin Dynasty, and coupled with the political turmoil, it was difficult to compete with the Western Jin Dynasty. After Emperor Wu of Jin ascended the throne, he always wanted to launch a war against Wu, but the opinions within the Western Jin court were not unanimous. Except for a few ministers such as Yang Hu and Zhang Hua, who supported Emperor Wu of Jin's ideas, most of them had an ambiguous attitude. Some powerful figures in the imperial court, such as Jia Chong and Xun Xun, held different views, so that they missed some excellent fighters to destroy Sun Wu. In the spring of the fourth year of Xianning, The Commander of the Jin Army on the Jingzhou Front, Yang Hu, suddenly fell seriously ill, and Emperor Wu of Jin, who had been indecisive, regretted that he wanted Yang Hu to go out with his illness, but Yang Hu soon died. Before dying, Yang Hu recommended Du Pre to replace him to Emperor Wu of Jin, believing that he could fully shoulder this heavy responsibility. Yang Hu recommended Du Pre, on the one hand, because in the internal debates in the imperial court, Du Pre always sided with Yang Hu and actively supported the war against Wu; on the other hand, because Du Pre had excellent military ability. Xiangyang, where Du was stationed, was the capital of Jingzhou on the southern border of the Western Jin Dynasty. At that time, the Western Jin Dynasty and Sun Wu each had a Jingzhou, forming a situation of confrontation between the north and the south. At the beginning of the war, Du Pre's first task was to capture Sun Wu's Jingzhou.
After Du Pre arrived in Jingzhou, he actively carried out military deployment and at the same time sent troops to raid Xiling. Xiling (西陵, in present-day southeast of Yichang, Hubei) was a western border town of Sun Wu and was strategically important. As long as the Jin army can break through Xiling, the water division of Yizhou can go down the river and gallop through Jingzhou. For the importance of Xiling, Sun Wu also paid attention to it earlier. The general Lu Xun once pointed out that Xiling was Sun Wu's western gate, and if Xiling was lost, the entire Jingzhou would not be protected. Therefore, from Lu Xun to his son Lu Kang, he never relaxed his control over Xiling. However, Du Found out that since Lu Kang's death, the Wu lord Sun Hao had gradually reduced his troops here. Only the governor stationed here was Sun Wu's famous general Zhang Zheng; without Zhang Zheng, Xiling was likely to become a huge obstacle to the advance of the Jin army in future wars. Therefore, Du Pre implemented a plan to kill people with a knife. He selected a group of strong soldiers from the army and suddenly attacked Zhang Zheng. Although Zhang Zheng was wary of Du Pre's arrival, he never expected that as soon as he arrived, he would come to sneak attack, because he was not prepared to suffer defeat. Zhang Zheng was afraid that Sun Hao would punish him and did not report the situation truthfully. Du Pre had long understood that Sun Hao was suspicious and distrustful of his subordinates, and deliberately sent the captives captured at Xiling to Sun Wu's capital Jianye. Sun Hao was sure of the plan, and angrily recalled Zhang Zheng and appointed Liu Xian, the governor of Wuchang, to take his place. Before the great war, the enemy changed commanders and the military was turbulent, which created favorable conditions for the victory of the Jin army. In August of the fifth year of Xianning (279 AD), after Du Was ready, he wrote to Emperor Wu of Jin requesting war. At this time, Wang Hun, the commander of the Jin army stationed at the yangzhou front, declared that Sun Wu was going to send troops to attack the Jin Dynasty. The opposition took the opportunity to make Emperor Wu of Jin hesitate to make Du Pre's request for war, and finally agreed to postpone the plan to destroy Wu until the next year.
Du Premonition learned that Emperor Wu of Jin had changed his mind and was very anxious. Once again, he wrote to state his opinion. He said that Sun Wu's troops were quite tight, and he could only concentrate his forces to protect the east of Xiakou, and even the western front was unable to reinforce. Du Pre-tactfully criticized Emperor Wu of Jin for listening to rumors and abandoning the grand plan to destroy Wu, in fact, indulging the enemy to recuperate and give the enemy a chance to breathe. He believes that the victory in the war against Wu is stable, and even if it is not successful, it will not lose anything. Regarding Du Pre's letter, Emperor Wu of Jin was still hesitant to comment. Du Was anxious and angry, and wrote to him for the third time to request that the war be immediately started. He angrily criticized the opposition's dark psychology and shameful behavior of disregarding the interests of the country and fearing the merits of others. Du Pre also pointed out to Emperor Wu of Jin that since the news that we were going to attack Eastern Wu had been leaked, Eastern Wu might have to take countermeasures, which would certainly bring many new difficulties to our war to destroy Eastern Wu. When Du Xian's letter was sent to Emperor Wu of Jin, the chancellor Zhang Hua was playing chess with Emperor Wu of Jin. Zhang Hua immediately pushed aside the chessboard, advised Emperor Wu of Jin not to be indecisive anymore, and begged him to adopt Du Pre's advice. At this time, Jia Chong, Xun Xun and others came out again to sing the opposite tune. Minister Shantao went so far as to say forcefully: "There will be internal worries in outer Ning." Leaving a Eastern Wu can avoid civil unrest, which may be a great thing! Because Du Pre's several letters analyzed the situation of attacking Sun Wu, Emperor Wu of Jin finally made up his mind and immediately sent troops to attack Sun Wu.
The Battle of Wu Yi was a meritorious achievement
In November of that year, Emperor Wu of Jin mobilized more than 200,000 troops, divided into six roads, and marched on land and water to attack Eastern Wu in a large scale. Du Pre did not serve as commander in this war, and Emperor Wu of Jin only appointed him as the commander of the western front, with specific tasks of taking Jiangling and occupying Jingzhou, and in the Jingzhou area, he was responsible for dispatching the water division of Yizhou's assassin Shi Wang Mao.
In the first month of the sixth year of Xianning (280 AD), Du Pre ordered his army to besiege Jiangling. Gangneung City is strongly defended, easy to defend and difficult to attack. Du Xuan did not want to waste time and troops here, and only surrounded it without annihilating it. After cutting off Gangneung's contact with the outside world, he immediately mobilized a part of his forces to attack westward and seize some cities along the river. One dark night, Du Pre sent several able generals to lead eight hundred elite soldiers to sneak up on Lexiang in Jiangnan. Under the cover of night, this unit crossed the Yangtze River unconsciously. According to the commander's plan, on the one hand, they lit fires everywhere in the mountains, set up banners, and bluffed; on the other hand, they divided their troops to attack various key areas near Lexiang. In this way, Sun Xin, the governor of Wu Jundu in Lexiang City, was frightened and restless, and the Wu army everywhere was also panicked and did not dare to act at will. Then, Du Qian's men and horses ambushed outside Lexiang City, waiting for the opportunity to attack the city. Coincidentally, at this time, a Wu army returned to Lexiang from the riverbank; Du Qian's generals disguised themselves and sneaked into the city mixed with the Wu army's ranks, capturing Sun Xin, the governor of the Wu army, alive. Du Pre's design was ingenious and enjoyable, which made his subordinates very admirable. They all said, "The commander-in-chief fights a war with a plan, and it is really a million!" ”
After clearing the outskirts of Jiangling, Du Pre quickly took Jiangling and occupied Jingzhou. Du then marched eastward with his division and coordinated with various Jin armies in other regions to attack Sun Wu's capital Jianye. Some people were afraid of the continuous march, and at a military conference, it was proposed that the weather turned hot, the rain increased, and the soldiers in the north were prone to infection with diseases and diseases in the water and soil, and should wait until winter to continue the march. Du Xian was not impressed, analyzing the entire war situation, and said: "Now that we have won successive victories and our morale has been greatly boosted, we need to make a big fuss. Fighting a war is like splitting bamboo, as long as you split a few sections, the bottom will be solved. Du Pre's opinion was finally accepted by everyone, and the situation of the war in the future was developing just as Du Pre predicted.
While advancing to the east, Du Pre also divided his troops to the south and captured the Jiaozhou and Guangzhou areas, which are now Guangxi and Guangdong. In the entire battle against Wu, Du Pre's meritorious service was outstanding, killing and capturing fourteen high-ranking officials such as Sun Wu Dudu and supervising the army, and as many as one hundred and twenty middle-level officials such as Yamen and Junshou.
Du Pre himself, there was almost no martial art. According to the Book of Jin, he could not even ride a horse, and his archery skills were terrible. But whenever there was a military activity, the imperial court had to summon his staff to plan. He knows the other and knows himself, and is good at fighting with the enemy. In the war against Wu, the Wu people hated Du Xuan the most, mainly because he was good at using troops and often dealt fatal blows to the enemy. Du Pre had a big neck disease, so the People of Eastern Wu put a water scoop on the dog's neck, saw the tree with a long bag, wrote "Du Pre Neck", and then cut it down to vent their hatred for Du Pre.
Du has a broad heart and can take into account the overall situation when things happen. Yizhou Assassin Wang Mao was a veteran in his seventies who had been building warships, training sailors, and preparing for war in Yizhou for many years. After the war began, he commanded the water army down the river and was invincible. Arriving within the boundaries of Jingzhou, Wang Mao was dispatched under Du Pre's command. However, Du Pre respected him very much and did not use his position to create any difficulties for the other party. Du Pre also told Wang Hao that the water army could command itself according to the development of the war, and suggested that he minimize delays, go straight down to Jianye, and establish a great merit. Du Pre's attitude had an important relationship with the Yizhou water army taking the lead in capturing Jianye. This is also in stark contrast to Wang Mao's encounter in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. There, Wang Hun, who commanded and dispatched the water army, was afraid that Wang Hun would win the first place and do everything to make things difficult for him. Even after Wang Hao had eliminated all kinds of interference to occupy Jianye and capture the Wu lord Sun Hao, Wang Hun was still attacking and framing him. Compared with Wang Hun, Du Pre's character was highly respected by people.
The western Jin dynasty's war against Sun Wu was an important war in Chinese history. It put an end to the state of division and division since the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms, and restored China to reunification. It was also the only successful unification war during the four hundred years of the Wei and Jin dynasties. Du Pre showed outstanding military ability in this war, and his merits were very outstanding.
After the Western Jin Dynasty destroyed Wu and unified the country, Du Pre continued to defend Xiangyang. He opposed the idea that armaments would be abandoned when the world was stable, and during his tenure, he never relaxed the training of the troops. Du Pre focused the defense of the Jingzhou army on dealing with the local ethnic minorities.
In Jingzhou, Du pre-built some water conservancy projects. Among them, on the basis of renovating the canals of the previous generation, he diverted the water of the two rivers into the field, benefiting more than 10,000 hectares of farmland. In order to make both tun tian and ordinary people's land can be irrigated, Du Pre marked the canal with boundary stones according to the lot. Du Pre dug more than 10,000 miles of canals from Yangkou to Baling, so that Xia Shui and Yuan and Xiang waters could be directly connected, which not only solved the problem of flood drainage of the Yangtze River, but also improved the transportation of water between the north and south of Jingzhou. Du Xuan's political achievements were praised by the local people, who called him "Father Du" and sang praises: "There is no rebellion against Du Weng in the future, and he knows his wisdom and courage." However, Du Pre had to be wary of the powerful people in the capital who framed him. Every year, Du Pre would give them a large number of gifts and bribes. He once told others that he was not doing this in an attempt to gain any benefit from them, but only hoped that the powerful would not harm him.
In December of the fifth leap year of Taikang (January 285 AD), Du Pre was recruited to the central government as a lieutenant colonel, and on the way to Deng County, he suddenly fell ill and died at the age of sixty-three.
Du wrote many works before his death. The thirty volumes of the Spring and Autumn Zuo Shi Jing Zhi According to the Sui Shu Jing Zhi, Du Qian's book was preserved in the Tang Dynasty, and there are also three volumes of the Spring and Autumn Zuo Clan Transmission, two volumes of the Spring and Autumn Zuo Clan Commentary, fifteen volumes of the Spring and Autumn Interpretations, twenty volumes of the Vinaya, seven volumes of the Miscellaneous Laws, two volumes of the Collected Works of Funeral Dress, ten volumes of the Women's Records, and eighteen volumes of his collection.
![The two great heroes who destroyed Wu: Yang Hu and Du Pre[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)