Honesty and trustworthiness are priceless treasures, but some people always abandon them for petty gains. In the history of
, many people with lofty ideals regard "integrity" as the foundation of their lives, and Liu Bei, who was influential in the Three Kingdoms period, is one of the most outstanding. He went from nothing to power. It can be said that "integrity" allowed him to own the world.
Looking at the heroes at the end of the Han Dynasty, only Liu Bei possessed the noble character that dazzled the world.
Cao Cao, a "traitful hero", was a scheming man. He admired the so-called martial arts philosophy and declared that "I would rather bear others than others would bear me." He was really embarrassed in character; Sun Quan was suspicious by nature and killed many innocent officials. It can be described as extremely cruel, making everyone in his command dangerous. But at the beginning of the matter, Liu Bei, who did not occupy the right time and place, emphasized honesty, benevolence and righteousness, and is well versed in the moral bottom line of being a man.
Even though he was wandering for the first half of his life, he realized his ambition of sitting on half of the country in the second half of his life. As one of the contenders for the hegemony of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei's personality should be a politician who is "full of popular hope" and whose political ideas are most in line with Chinese tradition. Nowadays, most of the images of Liu Bei depicted in various film and television dramas and novels are biased, and even distort some historical truths.
Today, the Liu Bei we are discussing is the Liu Bei who has existed in history, and has not been exaggerated artistically. For example, novels such as The Romance of the Three Kingdoms have a large audience, and some people even treat the stories told in them as true history. Therefore, it is very necessary to study Liu Bei from an objective historical perspective.
Liu Bei was originally a descendant of Zhongshan King Liu Sheng, but Liu Sheng was deprived of the title due to violation of the law, which led to the decline of the Liu family.
Liu Bei's father and grandfather had both served as officials in Zhou County. Although they belonged to a family of officials and eunuchs, by the time of Liu Bei's generation, their family business has declined and their power has declined. Liu Beisheng suffered from famine during wars. Probably because of this reason, when Liu Bei was promoted to Pingyuanxiang, he was extremely generous to the people and gave away money at every turn. Liu Bei's generosity and benevolence won the love and attachment of everyone in the mansion, and it can be said to be deeply popular.
However, there was a wealthy room named Liu Ping who had many opinions on Liu Bei. Unwilling to be controlled by others, he hired an assassin to assassinate Liu Bei. Naturally, Liu Bei didn't know this, he treated the assassin as a man in his palace with enthusiasm. After that, the assassin was grateful for Liu Bei's benevolent heart, and he would tell Liu Bei to leave. At the beginning of the
uprising, Liu Bei had only a thousand soldiers under his command, and he only achieved the position of Pingyuanxiang as an official. But even so, Liu Bei still relied on his own virtues to win a crowd of followers. In 196 AD, Xuzhou Mu Taolian was seriously ill. He asked Mizhu: "Only Liu Bei can stabilize this state." Later, Mizhu led people to welcome Liu Bei, but he would not accept it. After
, after the strong persuasion of Kong Rong and Chen Deng, Liu Bei agreed to take over. Soon after, Lu Bu and Yuan Shu came to attack Xuzhou, and Liu Bei was forced to run away.
Although Liu Bei had no territory and no military strength, he was respected and treated everywhere he went.
At first, after Liu Bei was driven away by Lu Bu, he defected to Cao Wei. Cao Cao treated him very seriously. He not only gave him the official position of Yuzhou Mu, but also helped him fight back against Lu Bu. Cao Cao's strategist once proposed to kill Liu Bei, saying that he "has a great talent and is very popular," and sooner or later he will stand on his own. But Cao Cao didn't agree with this proposal, because he admired Liu Bei from the bottom of his heart, and felt that killing him in a hurry would lose the hearts of the people.
It is precisely because of this concern that Cao Cao left a formidable opponent for himself. Later, Cao Cao sent Liu Bei to stop Chen Yu, but did not want Liu Bei to take the opportunity to escape. After Cao Cao heard it, he regretted it, but it was done, and everything was too late. After Liu Bei fled, he killed the Xuzhou governor Cha Cha and led his troops to station in Pei. At that time, the battle of Guandu was imminent, but Cao Cao, full of worries, decided to attack Liu Bei first.
At this time, his counsellors had advised him to deal with Yuan Shao first. After all, if he fought against Liu Bei first, Yuan Shao would have the opportunity to get in. However, Cao Cao said: "Liu Bei is a distinguished person today. If you don't attack today, you will have endless troubles in the future." So he personally led his troops to attack Liu Bei, and as a last resort, Liu Bei defected to Yuan Shao. Yuan Shao respected Liu Bei very much, and when he heard that he was coming to join him, he immediately sent someone to meet him along the way.
You must know that Yuan Shao was the strongest local separatist force at that time, and he was willing to condescend to welcome him., But also because Liu Beide excels. Although Liu Bei was displaced and sent under the fence at this time, he did not suffer the slightest humiliation. It can be seen that the "virtue" of a politician is also the most fundamental guarantee for his settlement.
Liu Bei's virtues in troubled times were further demonstrated during his stay in Jingzhou.
Liu Bei and Liu Biao were originally from the same clan in the Han Dynasty, so Liu Biao naturally welcomed Liu Bei's demise. However, as more and more Jingzhou heroes came to Liu Bei, Liu Biao gradually became suspicious of him and stopped reusing Liu Bei. But even so, Liu Biao still respects Liu Bei very much, and always treats his guests with courtesy. Liu Bei, who has been sent to someone under the fence several times, is naturally very grateful for Liu Biao's courtesy. This point of
can be seen from his later refusal to attack Jingzhou. In the "Book of Wei", Liu Biao wanted to entrust Jingzhou to Liu Bei before his death, but Liu Bei's answer was, "This person treats me favorably. Now according to what he says, people will treat me thinly and can't bear it." Here he used the word "forbearance", which shows that Liu Bei's main concern at this time is the issue of faith.
Although Zhuge Liang had listed Jingzhou as the primary target of Tuqiang at that time, Liu Bei still refused to treacherously take advantage of his benevolence and righteousness. While Liu Bei was dependent on Liu Biao, although he had no power, he still conquered the military and civilians of Jingzhou with virtue. When Liu Bei retreated from Fancheng, more than 100,000 people in Jingzhou followed to the death.
During this period, his subordinate counselor persuaded Liu Bei to move forward quickly. Those who called it a major event should not be trivial and asked him to abandon the 100,000 people who followed behind him, so as to avoid the team from being followed by Cao Cao. But Liu Bei, who has a benevolent heart, is determined to share weal and woe with the people. At this critical moment of life and death, Liu Bei still chose to protect the people. This kind of politician with sentient hearts was rare in ancient times.
Later, because there were too many people following, the troops moved slowly, and Liu Bei and his party were overtaken by Cao Cao's Qingqi troops. Liu Bei suffered a very heavy loss in this confrontation. Not only did he lose his wife, but his son, who had just turned one year old, almost died young. However, there is no unparalleled road, Liu Bei's troops happened to meet the Guan Yu fleet, and his party was able to save their lives.
Although Liu Bei paid a huge price for maintaining political character, at the same time, he also gained praise from generation to generation.
As a politician, Liu Bei's fairness in employing people and dealing with the world is as important as his political character.
Overview of the heroes of the three countries, only corporal Liu Bei, Sun Quan, Cao Cao and Lixian, recruit talents, this is the common ground of the three of them. However, when it comes to dealing with people and things, Liu Bei is the most sincere and sincere. In dealing with the relationship between the emperor and the minister, Liu Bei insisted on taking care of each other, which is especially reflected in his relationship with Zhuge Liang.
In the cold winter season, Liu Bei visited the thatched cottage three times, and he was sincere and sincere;
Liu Bei left his lonely dying, Zhuge Liang bowed to his death and died. In addition to Zhuge Liang, we can also see his noble character in dealing with people and things from his relationship with Huang Quan.
Huang Quan was originally Liu Zhang's leader. He once persuaded Liu Zhang to prevent Liu Bei from entering Sichuan, but Liu Zhang did not adopt his opinion and demoted him from Chengdu. Later, Liu Zhang and Liu Bei turned against each other, and Liu Bei occupied Yizhou. At that time, all counties fell in favor of the wind, and only Huang Quan stood by the city. After Liu Zhang surrendered later, Huang Quan returned to Liu Bei. Regarding the converted Huang Quan, Liu Bei reused it regardless of previous complaints.
And Huang Quan is not burdened. His plan to seize Hanzhong contributed to the growth of the Liu Bei Group. After Guan Yu lost to Jingzhou, Liu Bei led an army to attack Wu. At that time, Huang Quan suggested that Liu Bei sit behind the troops and test the enemy's reality first, but Liu Bei did not accept it. He appointed Huang Quan as the Zhenbei general and supervised the Jiangbei team to guard against Cao Wei's troops. After
, Liu Bei was defeated in the battle of Yiling, Huang Quan's return to Shu was blocked, and he was forced to surrender to Wu. Upon receiving the news, Shu State immediately arrested Huang Quan's wife and children. When the officials reported the matter to Liu Bei, Liu Bei said, "I am alone with Huang Quan, and I am not in charge of I." He ordered people to release Huang Quan's relatives immediately and treat them with courtesy as before.
Previously, Wei Guo had rumored that Huang Quan's wife and children had been beheaded by Liu Bei, but Huang Quan didn't believe it after hearing about it. He said that he knew Liu Bei was a man and he would not do such a thing. After that, not long after, news came from Shu that his relatives were forgiven.
Liu Bei emphasizes love and righteousness, but never because of personal loveBreaching the law for personal gain, this is particularly obvious in its handling of relations between monarchs and ministers.
Although Cao Cao and Sun Quan like to recruit talents, they often suffer from suspicion. Such capable ministers as Lu Xun and Xun Yu ended up because of their suspicion and depression. Looking back at Liu Bei, it seems that this has never happened. Liu Bei treats Jingzhou’s old men and those who belong to him after entering Shu, Liu Bei treats them equally. Guan Zhang is his brother of a different surname, but he is not partial in the relationship between monarchs and ministers, and he is not prejudiced if he does not talk about "mountains".
Take Huang Zhong as an example. He was originally a general under Liu Biao's command. He joined the Shu Han after the Battle of Chibi. Huang Zhong fought bravely and made great contributions to the capture of Hanzhong. Liu Bei established himself as the Queen of Hanzhong, and immediately named Huang Zhong a post-general, alongside Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Ma Chao, without fear of his former status. Besides Wei Yan, he was originally a strong local Yiyang. After Liu Bei entered Sichuan, he brought his personal armed forces to seek refuge. After
, Liu Bei promoted him to the general of Yamen because of his courage and strategy, and repeated outstanding achievements. After establishing himself as the King of Hanzhong, Liu Bei wanted to move the palace to Chengdu and needed a heavy general to guard Hanzhong. At this time, everyone thought that Liu Bei would choose Zhang Fei, but unexpectedly he promoted Wei Yan. After the news spread, the officials and soldiers were all surprised, showing the fairness of his dealings.
In the two matters of Liu Bei's promotion of Huang Zhong and Wei Yan, it is enough to see that Liu Bei is a person who knows and uses people well and is fair.
There is indeed the so-called "Liu Guanzhang" trio within the Liu Bei force group, saying that no one can compare to these two in personal relationships. However, Liu Bei did not give any special care to Guan and Zhang, but rather rewarded them with merits and no partiality. In the past, he ordered Guan Yu to be stationed in Jingzhou not out of personal affair, but because of Cao Wei's fear of his abilities. Later, Liu Bei led an army to defeat Wu, not simply for justice, but to retake Jingzhou.
Liu Bei's way of knowing and employing people is always sober. In order to advance the great cause of the Shuhan, he used Huang Zhong and others in an extraordinary way, which Zhuge Liang couldn't do. In addition, Liu Bei also told Zhuge Liang not to reuse horses before his death, but Zhuge Liang did not obey, and he really suffered a lot later. It can be seen that the political character reflected in Liu Bei's body is inseparable from the cultural environment he lived in since childhood.
Confucian culture has always advocated "rule by virtue", that is, rulers must "convince others with virtue." Although Liu Bei did not like to read when he was young, he had long understood that only Confucian political ideas were the orthodox ideas that ruled the world. Affected by this thought, Liu Bei attaches great importance to the cultivation of his own morals, and has been working hard to establish the demeanor of a virtuous monarch. This is also an important reason why he can be widely loved by the people.
Liu Bei's political character is marked by Confucianism, but it still has a very realistic meaning today. In the past, people often regarded supporting Liu and opposing Cao as feudal orthodoxy, as if supporting Liu was supporting Han. This kind of thinking now seems a bit shallow. In fact, objectively speaking, the most valuable discussion today should be what kind of character a politician should possess. This is also the eternal historical value of Liu Bei.
Reference materials:
["The History of the Three Kingdoms·Juan Twenty-two·Shu Shu II·The Second Biography of the First Master", "The History of the Three Kingdoms·The Book of Wei·Wu Di Ji No.1", "The History of the Three Kingdoms·Volume 35·Shu Shu·Zhuge Liang Biography 》】Z1z
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-