Tips are from Cao Cao, feather fan is from Zhou Yu , and fire attack is from Huanggai ... Apart from fiction, what else is left of Zhuge Liang (7)
writes a living historical figure • Zhuge Liang
last issue talked about Zhuge Liang going to Chaisang, and analyzed the feasibility and necessity of Sun Liu Alliance to Wuzhu Sun Quan , and made important contributions to the formation of the Sun Liu Alliance. But then I stayed in writing for a long time and kept hesitating whether to continue to describe the specific process of the "Battle of Red Cliffs" in Zhuge Liang's series.
There is a reason for hesitation, because in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Shu Book: Zhuge Liang Biography", Chen Shou only gave the dear ten words about the specific war process of the "Battle of Red Cliffs": "Cao Gong was defeated at Red Cliffs and led his army to Ye."
Well-known Luo Guanzhong The immortal Zhuge Liang in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" who "masteriously plan, strategize, and command as if he is determined" cannot be found in official history. What are the fire burning Bowangpo, fire burning Xinye , the words fighting against scholars, the wisdom of Zhou Yu, the wisdom of borrowing the east wind , the straw boat borrowing arrows, etc., are all made up by Mr. Luo Guanzhong's transplanting flowers and trees or fabricating them out of thin air.
"Battle of Red Cliffs" has been unable to find Zhuge Liang's name throughout the article from determining strategic deployment to forming a front-line command team, and then to specific division of labor implementation. Whether it is Zhou Yu, Cheng Pu, the home battle between Chibi and Wulin along the Yangtze River, or the peripheral battle between Sun Quan and Zhang Zhao, the outer battle between Hefei and Dangtu, there is nothing Zhuge Liang has done. Whether it was the cooperation battle along the line of Hanshui, such as Cao Cao's other army, led by Zhao Yan, or the Jiangling offensive and defensive battle between Zhou Yu and Cao Ren, there was still no Zhuge Liang. Even his own lord, Liu Bei, led by Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei, , taking the opportunity to catch fish in the troubled waters and seize the four counties of Jingnan, there was no record of Zhuge Liang even if it was a punctuation mark.
We know that due to political reasons, Chen Shou wrote the Cao Wei regime as orthodox, and adopted some melodies and brief descriptions of content that were not conducive to Cao Wei's image. For example, in the Wei Wudi period, the Battle of Red Cliff was adopted, and a vague process was adopted and a method was handled with one stroke. Chen Shou used only one sentence to describe: "Duke Cao arrived at Chibi and fought with Liu Bei. He failed in the battle. At this time, a great plague occurred. Many officers and soldiers died, so Cao led his troops to return to the north." With just 36 words, he fooled things.
As the defeated party, Cao Wei downplayed it as much as possible. But in Chen Shou's mind, there are still severity arrangements. In contrast, for the Sun and Liu coalition forces who were defeated, Chen Shou roughly recorded the process of the Battle of Red Cliff in the biography of the personnel who participated in commanding the war. I made a comparative study on the biography of the First Lord Liu Bei, the biography of the Wu Lord Sun Quan, the biography of Zhou Yu, the Lusu , and the biography of Cheng Pu, and found that only the biography of Zhou Yu was described in relatively detailed detail. So I decided to classify the content of the Battle of Red Cliff into Zhou Yu's series and not cover the details of it for the time being.
Zhou Yu served as the left governor in the Battle of Chibi, Cheng Pu was the right governor, Lu Su was the military captain, translated to the present, Zhou Yu was the commander-in-chief, Cheng Pu was the deputy commander-in-chief, and Lu Su was the chief of staff.
Liu Bei led Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, etc. Liu Qi led his original subordinates, but as a coalition force to cooperate in combat, he had no command authority in the entire Battle of Red Cliff. For the fledgling Zhuge Liang, he did not even have the position of deputy chief of staff. Of course, Zhuge Liang would not stand idly by. Although he did not hold any position, he would definitely help Liu Bei with advice, at least he could be considered a military observer.
In fact, Chen Shou’s account of the Battle of Chibi is originally a confusing account. There are too many unexplained issues in the middle, as well as many contradictory points.
The Battle of Red Cliff has been around for more than 1,800 years since our era, but the academic "Battle of Red Cliff" has never stopped.
As of now, at least the following questions are not absolutely concluded.
First of all, who was Cao Cao launching a war against? After accepting the surrender of Liu Cong, Cao Cao chased Liu Bei all the way, from Xiangyang to Dangyang, and then gave up on continuing to chase Liu Bei in Xiakou, but rushed to Jiangling. After two months of repair, he walked down the river and headed to Liu Bei's headquarters Xiakou, but encountered the Sun and Liu coalition forces in the middle of the Red Cliff. Was Cao Cao fighting against Liu Bei? Or hit Sun Quan? Or maybe they mainly beat Liu Bei and then hit Sun Quan?
Secondly, does the intimidation letter written by Cao Cao to Sun Quan really exist? If it really exists, why didn’t Chen Shou take it into the Three Kingdoms? Although the letter was included in the letter by " Jiangbiao Chuan " written by Yu Pu , it was later than "The Three Kingdoms". Is this letter reliable?
The third is where the Red Cliff is in the Battle of Red Cliff? There are five versions now, and the ones that are more inclined are today's Puqi and Jiayu in Hubei. This Red Cliff and the Red Cliff in Su Shi written by the "Red Cliff Fu" back then are two different things, and are now called the "Red Cliff in the Civil and Military Red Cliff. I believe that with the improvement of archaeological technology, this issue will sooner or later be concluded.
The fourth is how many troops have both sides invested? The Sun-Liu coalition forces can be confirmed to be around 20,000, Liu Bei's army is about 10,000, and Liu Qi's one is about 10,000. What about Cao Cao? 800,000? 200,000? 100,000? 5000 elite soldiers? Due to the conflicting descriptions of several places, it is impossible to determine.
The number that experts prefer is at least 100,000. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain how many troops Liu Bei brought when he saw Zhou Yu. When Zhou Yu said 30,000 elite troops, Liu Bei said two words "Hate the young man"; it is not easy to explain that Zhou Yu asked Sun Quan for 50,000 troops, and Sun Quan said that he could not get so much at the moment; it is even more difficult to explain that Zhuge Liang calculated the 800,000 military power of Cao Cao. The saying of 5,000 elite soldiers may be because in the first encounter in the Battle of Red Cliff, Cao Cao actually invested insufficient troops because he underestimated the enemy. He just chased Liu Bei's 5,000 elite cavalry, but failed in the first battle. After retreating to Wulin, a large number of naval troops were replenished in time.
The fifth is why Zhou Yu took the initiative to choose to station on the southern bank of the Yangtze River? Why dare to choose a fire attack strategy? Is the Southeast Wind a blind cat hitting a dead mouse, or is there another mystery?
The sixth is the seven soldiers sent by Cao Cao, led by Zhao Yan, led by Zhao Yan, Yujin, Zhang Liao , Zhang He , Li Dian, Zhuo and Feng Kai, who went down the river along the Han River from Xiangyang, preparing to attack Liu Bei's Xiakou directly. What exactly did they encounter? Was he defeated Guan Yu? Or give up on your own initiative?
The seventh is what kind of infectious disease did Cao Cao’s army get? What is the ratio of those who died in battle, those who starve to death, and those who died of plague? Is the main reason for the failure of the war due to plague or command errors?
…
For the above many suspenses, we will first propose them for everyone to think about. As for the specific analysis, I will put in detail in the Zhou Yu series in the future.
written by Mr. Lu Xun's evaluation of Zhuge Liang's artistic image in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" as: "Zhuge Liang is wise and close to the monster." But Zhuge Liang is a human and cannot be a monster. So, starting from the next issue, it’s time to “get rid of the trap” for Zhuge Liang! Remove the many god hats imposed on his head and replace them with the human hat that originally belonged to him. For more exciting things, please continue to pay attention. Author profile: Li Ruiqing, from Luyi, my hometown, now lives in Zhengzhou. Engaged in media and education, and also dabbled in literature, history and calligraphy research. He has written five reading notes, including "Writing a Living Historical Figure", and seven medium-length novels, including "The Mist and Sun" and "Hunting City".
