I always hear the story of "Yang Lao Linggong committing suicide and martyrdom", how to talk about the real Yang Jiye?

The Peking opera "Li Ling Monument" and many local dramas have interpreted the story of Yang Lao's heroic martyrdom: Yang Jiye, a veteran general of Yang Men, was framed by traitors, surrounded by the Liao army, unwilling to be captured, and died by hitting the monument.

Such a tragic death must be due to the needs of opera creation. How did Yang Jiye in history die? According to the "Biography of Yang Ye of song history", Yang Jiye was captured by the Liao army, strong and unyielding, and died of hunger strike for three days.

The liao history is quite different from the song history. In the "Biography of Liao Shi Yelü Xiexuan", after Yang Jiye was captured, he was reprimanded by the Liao general Yelü Xieyun (zhěn): "You joined forces with my Liao to resist the Song Dynasty, but now you are helping the Song Dynasty to fight against our Liao, what face do you see me?" "What was Yang Jiye's reaction?" But it's just a capital offense. "The hero who would rather die than die has become a prisoner of shame and confession."

People usually believe that Yang Jiye is the first generation of Yang family generals, and his descendants Yang Liulang, Yang Zongbao, yang Wenguang, all out of blue, carry forward the yang family's prestige. The real history is just the opposite. The Yang family will become famous very early, the Northern Song Dynasty has not yet been established, Yang Jiye and his ancestors already have a prestige, and Yang Jiye's descendants are unknown. By the way, Yang Zongbao and Yang Men female generals are both fictional artistic figures.

The Yang family will start during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, there was chaos among warlords, and several military families appeared in the northwest region, including the Yang family. When the Later Zhou Dynasty was founded, Yang Jiye's father and brother were hired as generals by the Later Zhou Emperor, and the Yang family began to develop.

When his father and brother were reused by Later Zhou, Yang Jiye was sent by his father to the enemy northern Han dynasty and became the adopted son of the emperor of the Northern Han Dynasty. Father and son were divided into two hostile regimes in order to preserve the family incense and not put eggs in one basket.

In the days of the Northern Han Dynasty, it was the glorious years when Yang Jiye made the most military achievements. After the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, Song Taizu and Song Taizong successively attacked the Northern Han Dynasty. Yang Jiye excelled in martial arts and fought bravely, defending the capital Taiyuan for the Northern Han Dynasty. At the same time, he joined forces with the Liao army and repelled the Song army several times in twenty years. It was not until the destruction of the Northern Han Dynasty that Yang Jiye, who was over fifty years old, surrendered to the Song Dynasty with the Emperor of the Northern Han Dynasty.

After entering the Song Dynasty, Yang Jiye was not reused. In the Northern Han Dynasty, he was a "Jianxiong Army Jiedushi Envoy" and an official in Erpin; after the Song Dynasty, he was appointed "Zhengzhou Defense Envoy", and he was not allowed to take up his post in Zhengzhou, just a vacant officer with a false title of six pins.

Why were the brave and warlike generals not reused by the Song Emperor? First, Emperor Song was not at ease with the surrender of the general, and second, because Yang Jiye had united with the Liao army to seriously damage the Song army, and if he was made a general, it would make the Song general dissatisfied.

Fortunately, Yang Jiye was not idle for too long. In 980, when the Liao army attacked the Song, Emperor Taizong of Song remembered Yang Jiye's achievements that year and sent him to garrison Yanmen Pass. There, he repelled the Liao army, beheading and capturing one each of the Liao generals.

With this battle achievement, although Yang Jiye was promoted to "Yunzhou Observation Envoy", he was only promoted from six pins to five pins, and was not really reused.

Yang Jiye was really reused after six years into the Song Dynasty. In 986, Emperor Taizong of Song launched a major campaign against the Liao, with one of the armies commanded by the general Pan Mei and Yang Jiye as deputy commander.

Opera and film and television works portray Pan Mei as the traitor Pan Renmei, saying that he was jealous of Yang Jiye's military achievements and deliberately led the Yang family father and son into a desperate situation. In the "History of Song", Pan Mei is always a positive character. However, a eunuch who supervised the army misdirected, resulting in Yang Jiye being captured and killed.