"The people, only the people, are the driving force for creating world history." This is an irrefutable Marxist truth. However, the exploiting classes always try their best to distort the facts, saying that history was created by a few "heroes" of the exploiting classes, and so was the author of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The two outstanding artistic images in the works-Liu Bei and Cao Cao-are two opposing figures within the ruling class. For example, Liu Bei said to Pang Tong: "I am eager to fuck, and I am lenient; Fighting violence with violence, I am benevolent; Cao Cao is arrogant, I am loyal: I am always opposed to Cao Cao. " (Sixtieth time) The author describes two diametrically opposite performances of Cao and Liu in the same incident, with a strong political tendency of "supporting Liu and opposing Cao", and this description is all over the book. However, no matter whether it is praise or disapproval, no matter whether it is praise or disapproval, the author advocates the "heroic" historical view.
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms describes Liu Bei as an idealized ruler, who is the representative of "kingly way" and "benevolent government". The essence of his feudal ruling class was covered up by a lot of empty talk. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms denies the great impetus of the Yellow Scarf Uprising to the historical development, while the feudal rulers who brutally suppressed the Yellow Scarf Uprising and counterattacked the peasants are touted as the creators of history. When Tao Qian ceded Xuzhou to Liu Bei and Liu Bei refused to accept his resignation, the author arranged such a plot: "The next day, Xuzhou people crowded in front of the yamen and cried and worshipped, saying,' If Liu Shijun doesn't take over this county, we can't have peace!'" (the twelfth time) when Liu Bei's army defeated Cao Bing in Bowangpo and "moved troops back to Xinye", the author arranged such a plot: "The people of Xinye looked at the dust and worshipped, saying,' I belong to the whole life and made you a sage! "(back to the 39th) In this description of reversed history, the feudal ruler Liu Bei became the savior. In order to show how Liu Bei was supported by the people, he wrote the story of hunter Liu An who killed his wife and offered meat. When Liu Bei defeated Xuzhou, the people "all fought for food", and Orion Liu An "wanted to find game to eat, but he couldn't get it at the moment, so he killed his wife to eat" (back to the 19th). This false praise of the landlord class aggravated the hypocrisy of Liu Bei's image. Lu Xun pointed out in "A Brief History of Chinese Novels" that "it is the most appropriate criticism to show Liu Bei's long, thick and false". As the opposite of Liu Bei, Cao Cao is a prominent figure in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Cao Cao is a famous politician, strategist and poet in history. He played a considerable role in unifying northern China during the divided and chaotic Three Kingdoms period. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms does not affirm these functions, but denies that he is a traitor in troubled times who destroys orthodoxy and violates discipline, which embodies the author's Confucian political view that "this is not the real way to observe Cao Cao" (Lu Xun: the relationship between Wei and Jin demeanor and articles, medicine and wine). However, the image of Cao Cao in Romance of the Three Kingdoms reflects the cruel and cunning characteristics of the feudal ruling class, which has profound typical significance.
Cao Cao was also the sworn enemy of the peasant uprising and suppressed the executioner of the Yellow Scarf Army. In the process of powerful melee, he expanded his power step by step, and finally reached the position and power of "relying on the emperor to make the princes". Cao Cao's philosophy of life is "I would rather teach the world to be negative than the world to be negative to me", which is the condensation and generalization of the philosophy of the exploiting class. Cao Cao has the extreme characteristics of harming others and benefiting himself, and has endless greed and power desire. Cao Cao concentrated all the evils of the feudal ruling class. As a representative of the feudal landlord class, Romance of the Three Kingdoms highlights him by enriching specific details and describing psychological activities. There are many complicated personality characteristics in him. As a strong and victorious person separated by clans, in the era of sudden changes, Cao understood the strengths and weaknesses of various groups, understood various contradictions in the development of events, and was good at discovering and using talents. The villain Cao Cao has not been written as a pure and transparent villain. In him, cunning and cruelty are particularly profound. As mentioned above, Cao Cao has strategy and talent, but his so-called strategy and talent all serve his extreme solipsism, so strategy makes him more cunning and talent makes him more cruel. Cao Cao killed the Lv Boshe family out of fear and suspicion; Because he wanted to seduce Lu Bu, he used the prisoners as cannon fodder. In order to avenge his father, when he attacked Xuzhou, the army "killed people and dug graves" (the tenth time), which was really a bad thing. But he tried his best to dress himself up as a good man, and often used hypocrisy and small favors to wash away the blood on his hands. He gave orders under the banner of Emperor Xian of Han Dynasty and went north to explore the south. Obviously, it is developing its own political and military strength to replace the Liu Han dynasty, but it is advertised as "eliminating evil with the country" and "saving the country and saving the people." Obviously, he ordered the deduction of rations, but borrowed the head of the warehouse officer to stabilize the morale; In order to prevent assassination, kill the waiter and pretend not to know; It shows that the military law is strict, and it also plays the trick of "cutting power first". And so on, to name a few.
It is obvious that the author holds a negative attitude towards Cao Cao. However, do heroes make history or do people make history? Thinkers of the feudal landlord class all think it is the former, not the latter. The author of Romance of the Three Kingdoms thinks that Cao Cao is not only a "traitor", but also the master of human history and people's destiny. When recruiting Zhang Xiu, he ordered the sergeant not to trample on the wheat fields. "When the people heard the Oracle, they all rejoiced and praised it, and looked at the dust to cover the road and bowed down." (17th time) After Cao Cao and Liu Bei destroyed Lu Bu together, "The people burned incense to block the road, so please leave Liu Shijun as a shepherd. Cao Cao said,' Your Majesty Wei Liu has made great contributions, and it is not too late to come back now.' People fell on their knees. In a word, the people only begged and bowed their heads in front of Liu Bei and Cao Cao, which was distorted by the author as an inactive "mob", while the representatives of the feudal ruling class, whether "Han thieves" or "uncles", were touted as "heroes" who mastered the people's destiny and dominated the historical process. Although the author's praise and criticism of Liu Bei and Cao Cao are very obvious, the portrayal of these two characters reflects the author's heroic historical view.
At the same time, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms also boasted about the talents of these feudal rulers and attributed their ability to create history to their "talents". For example, write about Liu Bei, saying that he was destined to be a "noble man" from birth, "ambitious" from an early age, unique and "different" (for the first time). When writing about Cao Cao, he said that he was "resourceful and fickle" when he was young, and he was a "talent" who had "settled the world" since childhood (for the first time). And in the "Song of Nakano", he commented on Cao Cao: "Yeze Yecheng is full of water, and there will be strangers from now on." "Heroes don't have vulgar minds, so do they follow people's eyes?" "The article is full of arrogance and anger. How can it become a group?" "Anyou people don't do evil, and the small ones don't dominate the big ones?" (back to the seventy-eighth) further written as a "heterogeneous" impressed by the aura of mountains and rivers. In short, in the author's works, these "heroes" who dominate history and drive people's hearts are all "born" superhuman.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms also eulogizes the ideal "hero" of the author with the help of "destiny". According to the author, the reason why these "heroes" were born into this world to create history and rule the people is to carry out the providence, so-called "being ordered by heaven". The reason why Cao Wei crushed the mighty and unified the north was, of course, "destiny"; The reason why Liu Bei finally became emperor was also "destiny has its return" (the 35th time). So these feudal rulers who were born in heaven were protected by heaven. Back to the 34th and 5th times, Cai Mao wrote to attack Liu Bei, but because of "providence" and "God helps", Liu Bei's horse jumped three zhangs, which made him out of danger. In chapter 49 and chapter 50, I wrote that the reason why Cao Cao survived in Huarong Road was determined by "astronomical phenomena" and "not dead". The book repeatedly claims that "those who go against the sky will flee, and those who go against the sky will work hard" and "those who go against the sky will be self-defeating" (back to chapter 37, 122). Therefore, whoever calls himself the king and the emperor always has the signs of "Phoenix coming to the instrument" and "Huanglong appearing again and again", and every important general who died in the battlefield has the signs of "Shuai Qi suddenly breaking" and "Stars falling". The author advocates this "destiny" thought, which has obvious political purpose. In feudal society, "political power, clan power, theocracy and husband power represent all feudal patriarchal ideology and system, and are the four ropes that link the people of China, especially the peasants." (Report on the Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan) This description in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is to use theocracy to serve the feudal regime and demand that the people obey the rule of these representatives of the exploiting classes who are touted as "nature" and "superman"; And warned people that whoever dares to stand up and resist is acting against the sky and bringing about self-destruction. This further exposes the idealistic spirit that the "hero" historical view always begs for "destiny" in the end.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms has created some artistic images with distinctive personality and far-reaching influence. These characters belong to the ruling class, with distinct class brand, and publicize the author's social and political thoughts to varying degrees. In addition to Cao Cao and other figures mentioned above, there are Guo Jia, Xiahou Dun, Huang Gai, Lv Meng, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun and Huang Zhong, among whom Zhuge Liang is the most prominent.
In his works, Zhuge Liang is regarded as an outstanding politician and strategist. The author devoted strong love and reverence to him and regarded him as the embodiment of "loyalty" and "wisdom", especially for Zhuge Liang's "wisdom".
Marxism profoundly points out that knowledge comes from practice. Judging from the historical facts, Zhuge Liang was a keen, courageous, strategic and resourceful person in the ruling group of the landlord class at that time. One of the reasons why he has these advantages is that he attaches importance to practice. For example, when Cao Cao took Jingzhou to lead the troops to the south, Zhuge Liang once analyzed the situation to Sun Quan and predicted that Cao Cao would fail, precisely because Zhuge Liang had experienced the practice of war in the process of Cao Cao's going to Jingzhou and compared the advantages and disadvantages of both sides (see the reflection of the three kingdoms and the biography of Zhuge Liang). As far as Romance of the Three Kingdoms is concerned, in some chapters, the author wrote that Zhuge Liang won because of his investigation and analysis of specific situations. For example, in several wars, Zhuge Liang observed the terrain on the spot in advance, investigated the deployment of the other side's troops, and formulated favorable operational plans according to the terrain and objective actual conditions to defeat the enemy. For another example, Zhuge Liang dared to use the "empty plan" because he analyzed the situation of enemy generals and knew that Sima Yi knew that he was "cautious all his life and would never take risks" (the 95th time), so he took advantage of Sima Yi's long-term understanding of himself and adopted a very "dangerous" solution to the crisis. It can be seen from these places that Zhuge Liang's correct judgment was formed on the basis of his long-term practice. But in more chapters, the author wrote Zhuge Liang as a "prophet" and preached idealistic transcendentalism.
As soon as Zhuge Liang appeared, he said to Liu Bei, "Look at the sky at night. Liu Biao is dying." (Back to the 38th) Zhuge Liang was more seriously ill than Wuzhangyuan. "Pray for Beidou to follow his account." If the main light doesn't go out within seven days, my life can be increased by one year; If the light goes out, I will die. "So, wei stepped into the military situation," actually put out the main light "(the first 1 13 back). He can really "know the enemy's life, break his death and talk about life." In order to highlight Zhuge Liang, his works have written his "sleeve" many times. Every major event, he always gives the person who performs the task a trick up his sleeve and tells him to "see it then." Not only did he not consult others at all, but he also didn't let the people who carried out the task know what to do in advance. Everything is just the "wisdom" that he can be a "prophet" in his work, and the rest are just passive tools driven by his "wisdom". As for the "Seven Stars Sacrifice", it is even more absurd to write that Zhuge Liang went to the altar to beg for rain. Such problems are also found in Eight Arrays, Half Stone Sacrifice to Lushui, Zhang Wuxing and The Sage of Dingjun Mountain. Lu Xun's criticism of The Romance of The Three Kingdoms holds that "Zhuge is wise but close to a demon" (A Brief History of Chinese Novels) is an extremely accurate evaluation. As the saying goes, "Two heads are better than one", which also shows that Zhuge Liang is not an extraordinary "prophet" or an unattainable "genius". The people are the richest in the practice of struggle, and they have unlimited intelligence. The creation of Zhuge Liang's image summarizes the collective wisdom and talent.
The novel also describes Zhuge Liang's so-called "loyalty" in many ways. Zhuge Liang is loyal to Liu Bei. After Liu Bei's death, he continued to serve Adou (Liu Chan). In order to repay the kindness of "caring for the cottage" and "caring for the orphans when they are dying", they "take care of the details and sweat all day", so that they "do their best until they die" (back to 130, back to 97). The starting point of Zhuge Liang's "loyalty" is not only the feudal "orthodoxy" concept, but also the "righteousness" thought of "a scholar dies for a confidant" under the situation of the Three Kingdoms. The novel describes a group of counselors, and Zhuge Liang is one of them. Although this team belonging to the intellectual class has different ideas, talents and personalities, they all started from the standpoint of the feudal ruling class, attached to a political group with personal grievances, and established a relationship with a ruler. Sometimes this relationship takes the form of brothers and friends, but it does not change the nature of class relations. Therefore, Zhuge Liang, as a "saint" of Shu, is loyal to Liu Tianxia. However, Zhuge Liang's image can not be completely summarized by the "foolish loyalty" of feudalism. By describing his personal qualities such as prudence, humility and self-discipline, the author highlights this image through a series of beautified "Qingming" political measures, and shapes him into a typical "perfect man" in feudal society. In that era of social turmoil and political darkness, the author pinned his hopes on the so-called outstanding politicians and hoped that they would practice "kingly way" and "benevolent government".
Guan Yu is also a character described in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The author carefully portrayed his "brave and fearless" side. Among many war generals, his outstanding spirit is the most prominent. Chop Hua Xiong with Warm Wine and Slay Wen Chou with Yan Liang show the bravery of ten thousand enemies, Linjiang Club and Single Knife Club highlight his awe-inspiring power, and Scraping Bone to Treat Poison describes his leisurely manhood. In a word, the author tries to portray Guan Yu as a "hero" through many exaggerated and vivid descriptions. In A Brief History of Chinese Novels, Lu Xun pointed out that "Guan Yu is the only one who speaks well", which also refers to his "grace" and "courage".
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms beautifies Guan Yu in this way, which is entirely to promote the feudal thought of "loyalty" and "righteousness". In Guan Yu, "loyalty" and "righteousness" are combined. Guan and Liu Bei and Zhang Fei "became sworn friends in Taoyuan" with obvious political intentions. They "smell the yellow turban insurrectionary and advocate chaos", and are interested in breaking the thief and comforting the people, so they "become brothers" in order to work together to "serve the country and settle down"; And vowed never to be "ungrateful" (the first time). This clearly shows that the "righteousness" they advertised is based on opposing peasant uprisings and maintaining feudal rule, and its class nature is very clear. However, due to the sharp contradictions within the feudal ruling class, Liu, Guan and Zhang fought against other factions within the landlord class under the banner of "helping the Han family to the death" while suppressing the Yellow Scarf Uprising. In these struggles, Guan Yu was "disloyal and loyal" and "loyal to Liu Bei", and finally "beheaded and died" for Liu Bei. The author of Romance of the Three Kingdoms appreciates this very much and praises him for "the sun is like a mirror, and the spring and autumn are just a thin cloud" (seventy-seven times). It can be seen that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms touts Guan Yu's loyalty, but in fact it just wants people to follow Guan Yu's example and work for a feudal Lord on the premise of maintaining feudal rule.
Because of this, Guan Yu received special attention from the landlord class. In Chen Shou's History of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu's position is only equal to that of Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun. Although the ruling class in Song and Yuan Dynasties honored Guan Yu as "the true king" and "the king of Wu 'an" successively, the degree and scale of praising Guan Yu was far less than that in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Since the Romance of the Three Kingdoms wrote Guan Yu as the embodiment of loyalty, he has become a figure completely in line with the ideals of the ruling class. With the spread of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu's influence among the people has become more and more extensive. The ruling class in Ming and Qing Dynasties called him the "Great Emperor" many times, built temples for him everywhere, and enjoyed the same grand ceremony as Kong Qiu. This clearly shows how the description of "loyalty" and "righteousness" advocated by Guan Yu suits the needs of feudal rulers.
Similarly, in order to advocate serving feudal masters, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms also created a series of so-called "loyal ministers" images, such as Dong Cheng, Wang Zifu and Ji Ping. In order to be loyal to Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, they wiped out Cao Cao, a "national thief". "Although they wiped out the nine clans, they had no regrets" (the 23rd time). Later, because things were exposed, "the whole family" was killed by Cao Cao. The author strongly praised these people, saying that they "gave their lives for enlightenment" and "praised their fame for generations"; Loyalty is eternal. I swear to answer your kindness. Tout these people as immortal model figures. In addition, when writing characters such as Jiang Wei, he advocated feudal "filial piety" and when writing characters such as Mrs. Sun, he advocated feudal "festival". It can be seen that the characters created in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms run through the author's social and political views. Through these images, the author publicized the feudal "benevolent politics", "heroic" historical view, idealistic transcendentalism and feudal morality. Therefore, we must first recognize the ideological essence of these artistic images.