Speaking of Zhang Fei, everyone should know it, but when it comes to his image, everyone's first impression must be a savage with a leopard head and a beard, especially in the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms or TV series with the theme of the Three Kingdoms, Zhang Fei also exists in this image.

So is Zhang Fei really such an image in real history? Let's take a look now.

According to historical records, Zhang Fei was born in a wealthy family and had no worries about food and clothing since childhood. He doesn't have to work for a living like other poor children, let alone live on the street. So from the skin alone, he will never be as black as the novels and plays say.

Then, since I was born in a rich family, my education must be better than that of a poor family. Especially in the Han Dynasty when the gentry rose, cultural education was also a compulsory course for any rich children. Ancient culture and education was nothing more than piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, so Zhang Fei, as a rich boy, must have been educated since childhood.

According to archaeological findings, today's cliff stone carvings in Bameng, northeast of Quxian County, Sichuan Province can prove Zhang Fei's calligraphy. This cliff stone carving describes the historical fact that Zhang Fei was in Brazil at the beginning, and now the Zhanghe River in Cao Jiang suffered a crushing defeat in the East Sichuan Basin. This campaign is the key to ensure that Liu Bei Yizhou is not bound by Cao Wei, which is of great significance. The inscription on the stone wall reads: "General Han flew at a rate of ten thousand deaths, and the thief immediately set up an inscription when he first dipped in Bamengmeng." This stone carving is called "Zhang Ma Fei Ming". The inscription is vigorous and powerful, and it is the original of Zhang Fei's calligraphy. The late Taiwan Province historian Li Dongfang said: "Such an inscription can only be written by a great hero like Zhang Fei." Mr. Li also said that Zhang Fei can draw, and Zhang Fei's "lifelong hobby is to draw beautiful people." For details, please refer to his book The History of the Three Kingdoms. This statement is probably based on the Qing Dynasty's "Collection of Paintings of Past Dynasties", in which "Zhang Fei, a native of Zhuozhou, is good at painting beauties" is recorded.

Therefore, the foolish image of Zhang Fei in traditional Chinese opera novels is not true, so when was this image of Zhang Fei established? Looking through the data, we can find that this image first appeared in the folk drama Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the Yuan Dynasty. It is described like this: "But there is a man named Zhang, whose word is Yide, who is also from Fanyang, Yanbang County. He was born with a leopard head and eyes. He is a bearded tiger. His body is more than nine feet long and his voice is like a huge bell. "

Pinghua is a story book used by ancient storytellers, which contains a lot of folklore in the form of telling history. The Pinghua of the Three Kingdoms, which we are seeing now, was published from1321-1323 yuan to Zhengnian.

This description of Pinghua was later inherited by the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It's just that Romance changed "more than nine feet" to "more than eight feet" and gave "more than nine feet" to Guan Yu, but the words "a leopard has courage and eyes and needs" were retained and became the basic appearance characteristics of Zhang Fei, the later artistic image.

Speaking of which, some people may ask, what does Zhang Fei look like? In fact, it is not recorded in the official history, but his two daughters have successively become the first ladies of the late Liu Chan, and their biographies are all contained in the Biography of the Three Kingdoms, Shu Zhi and Second Princess. Zhang Fei's eldest daughter was the queen of her late master, and her younger sister entered the palace as a nobleman, and was made queen the following year. In feudal times, if you were not an extremely beautiful woman, you would not be a queen. If Zhang Fei looks like a leopard with eyes, I'm afraid his daughter's charming face will not be much better.