Xiang Yu. In the first volume of Guan Cone, Qian Zhongshu analyzed the characters in Historical Records as "spit with words" and "scold with evil", "respect and love" and "fierce and slippery thief", "love courtiers and avoid sages", "women's benevolence" and "kill the disabled in the pit", and "eat and drink separately". "It is precisely because of Xiang Yu's complex personality that people have misunderstood Xiang Yu's performance at the Hongmen Banquet, especially made a wrong judgment. For example, the teaching reference books compiled by the Chinese department of senior high school give many negative words: poor employment, not listening to the minister's words, arrogance, indecision, stubbornness, short-sightedness, recklessness, tiger returning to the mountain, leading to the failure of the Chu-Han war and so on. By comparing Xiang Yu's interpretation of Liu Bang and Liu Bei's interpretation of Liu Zhang, the article "The Hongmen Banquet and the Guanfu Banquet" selected in the H edition of the Chinese textbook for senior high schools in Shanghai easily denies Xiang Yu's performance at the Hongmen Banquet: "Xiang Yu, the overlord of Chu at that time, ignored Fan Zeng's advice, easily spared Liu Bang at the banquet, and finally committed suicide in Wujiang, leaving a painful historical lesson. "Middle school textbooks are like this, and so are college textbooks. Guo He's China Ancient Literature (I) has the following words: "Xiang Yu is simple-minded and lacks strategy ..." "Because of his arrogance, lack of political mind and not listening to ministers, he finally fell into the predicament of being besieged on all sides and was forced to throw himself into the river ..." It can be said that most historians almost agree that Xiang Yu's release of Hong Men Liu was a strategic choice mistake.
There are many reasons for the above misunderstanding, besides Xiang Yu's complex personality, it is also related to the traditional concept of "the winner is king and the loser is the enemy" rooted in people's minds. Because Xiang Yu finally failed, people belittled his performance at the Hongmen banquet. Imagine how people would feel if Xiang Yu was the ultimate winner of the Chu-Han War. Perhaps Hong Men's explanation of Liu became a beautiful talk of Xiang Yu. In fact, a close reading of Biography of Xiang Yu reveals that although Sima Qian expressed regret for Xiang Yu's failure, he also complained about some words and deeds of Xiang Yu, but Sima Qian did not deny Xiang Yu's behavior of letting Liu Bang go at the Hongmen banquet from beginning to end, nor did he affirm that letting Liu Bang go was the reason for Xiang Yu's failure. Although at the end of the Hongmen banquet, Fan Zeng scolded Xiang Yu: "Alas, the vertical shaft is not enough. Whoever wins the title of king of the world will be rewarded by the audience. I was arrested for this today. " However, this can only be used as evidence of Sima Qian's straightforward writing style, but not as a basis for Sima Qian to deny Xiang Yu. Throughout the historical records, Sima Qian didn't have much affection for Fan Zeng, a self-righteous, selfish and narrow-minded counselor who overstepped his duties and ignored the overall situation.
We know that a specific object has a certain causal relationship at every point in its historical development. Therefore, it can't be said that the Hongmen banquet has nothing to do with the historical result of Chu's downfall, but it is definitely not the main cause. Regarding the reasons for Xiang Yu's failure, Sima Qian made an incisive analysis in The Biography of Xiang Yu: "It is difficult for northern Henan to take care of Chu, exile the righteous emperor to stand on his own feet, and blame the princes for betraying themselves. Being conceited and successful, not learning from the past and not forgetting personal wisdom, is called the industry of overlord, and wants to govern the world by force. " Sima Qian believed that Xiang Yu failed for three reasons: first, he cared about Chu, that is, he gave up Guanzhong, a strategic place; Second, exile, killing the righteous emperor, so politically passive; The third is to be superstitious about one's own strength, instead of learning from the ancient sages. Xiang Yu inherited the spirit of Chu culture and represented the ideological tradition of Chu culture, that is, the tradition of heroic age. Therefore, when the country is in turmoil, he can "win the world at once" by force, but after winning the world, it is impossible to "rule the world under the horse", so failure becomes an inevitable logic. Therefore, Xiang Yu's defeat was not to let Liu Bang go at the Hongmen banquet. Even if Liu Bang died in the Hongmen, there were still "Li Bang" and "Wang Bang". In addition, Sima Qian did write about all kinds of weaknesses in Xiang Yu's personality, but this was mainly not reflected in the Biography of Xiang Yu, let alone in The Hongmen Banquet. Sima Qian initiated the method of "meeting each other" in order to highlight a certain personality of the characters and avoid repetition of narration. The author says that the main characters and important events of characters experience are written in his own biography, and the minor characters are written in the biographies of other relevant characters. Judging from the whole book, the character's personality is still intact. For example, Biography of Xiang Yu highlights the protagonist, Xiang Yu, who is brave and good at fighting as a hero, honest and frank. The major events in Xiang Yu's life include the Battle of the Julu, the banquet at Hongmen and the siege of Gaixia. As for other weaknesses of his personality, we can find them in Biography of Emperor Gaozu and Biography of Hou Huaiyin. So we can't impose some of Xiang Yu's personality weaknesses on Xiang Yu at the Hongmen Banquet.
So, how should we treat Xiang Yu at the Hongmen banquet? How to evaluate Xiang Yu's release of Liu Bang? This point must be grasped from the whole biography of Xiang Yu. Only by connecting Xiang Yu's all-powerful life and even the rise and fall of his family can we draw a correct conclusion.
In the eyes of ordinary people, Xiang Yu is a cruel and easy-to-kill military commander. More than ten million people died at the hands of Xiang Yu. But Xiang Yu's killing has his principles: as long as he stops his ambition of revenge and dominating the world, no matter how high or low, no matter how strong or weak, no matter how old or young, he will be ruthlessly and completely eliminated. This is because Xiang Yu grew up in a social environment immersed in an atmosphere of revenge. History shows that from the mid-Spring and Autumn Period, Chu dominated the Central Plains; Although it declined later, even in the Warring States period, Chu and Qin also had unified qualifications. However, the State of Chu was finally destroyed by the State of Qin. The Chu people with strong national consciousness can't accept this cruel reality, and the flame of revenge has been burning in their hearts. Xiang Yu is not only a Chu person, but also a descendant of Chu nobles. His ancestors were generals of Chu for generations, and his grandfather Xiang Yan died for Chu. Therefore, his family has a flesh-and-blood relationship with the Chu Dynasty. Although Chu was destroyed, Xiang did not stop his revenge activities. Xiang Liang used the Art of War Department to help Wuzhong guests' children, and Xiang Yu said that Qin Shihuang could take his place, all of which were concrete manifestations of this revenge. Xiang can be said to be a figure who combines national hatred and family hatred. More than one hundred years of hatred, more than one hundred years of blood and tears, strong revenge anger and personal ambition have jointly created the hero Xiang Yu (see Chen's Comments on Historical Records, Shantou University Press, 1996 edition). It can be said that Xiang Yu only fought for revenge and hegemony all his life, and all his actions were carried out under the control of these two goals. Then, after the Chen She Uprising broke out, Xiang Yu, under the arrangement of his uncle Xiang Liang, killed the rebellious soldiers in Huiji County and the government with lightning speed, seized the political power, and began his ambitious and omnipotent life. When the general, known as the top scholar, was ordered to save Zhao, he stayed for more than forty days, wandering and watching, which brought the cause of resisting Qin to the most critical juncture. He killed decisively, swept away the obstacles of marching, won the crown of the three armed forces and defeated the main force with the momentum of burning one's bridges, thus reversing the situation and laying the most solid foundation for the final elimination of Qin. When he found that Qin surrendered because he was "unwilling to obey Guanzhong, things would be dangerous", he did not hesitate to order that "the Chu army attacked more than 200 thousand chi at night south of Xin 'an". Why did such a decisive commander-in-chief of the three armies let go of his future enemy Liu Bang easily at the Hongmen banquet? Is it really his indecisive character that has the upper hand? No. Because, in Xiang Yu's view, Liu Bang was not an obstacle to his goal, and he needed Liu Bang's cooperation at that time. If Liu Bang is easily killed, it will cause dissatisfaction and panic among the governors and lead to the disintegration of the anti-Qin alliance. It is in this context, coupled with Xiang Bo's matchmaking and Liu Bang's condescending apology, that Xiang Yu finally gave up his plan to destroy Liu Bang. It should be said that this is not Xiang Yu's blindness, but his wise decision after careful consideration.
Of course, we can't avoid the final result of history, and we can't help but admit that Xiang Yu didn't see through Liu Bang's ambition in time, but we can't blame Xiang Yu for releasing Liu Hongmen, and we can't think that releasing Liu Hongmen is a short-sighted performance. Looking at Xiang Yu's biography, we can't see that Xiang Yu is a simple-minded person politically. On the contrary, he is insightful on many issues. Look at what he said before he killed him: "We will attack the State of Qin with all our strength, but we can't hold on for long. At this age, the hungry people are poor, the foot soldiers eat taro, and the army has no food. It is a high meeting for drinking. Not to lead troops across the river with Zhao Zhili's grain, but to attack Qin with Zhao Zhili, is "bearing its disadvantages." "Husband with the power of the qin dynasty to attack the newly created zhao, is bound to raise zhao. Zhao Ju and Qiang Qin, our promise! Moreover, the national army is newly broken, the king is restless, sweeping the territory, belonging exclusively to the general, which is related to national security. Today, I am not selfish for soldiers, nor a minister of the country. " A Yu Can can't break Liu Bang, which can only prove that Liu Bang's camouflage skills are excellent, his forgery skills are superb, and his lying skills are superb. How can Xiang Yu resist such a "three highs" political hooligan? As historians have pointed out, the dispute between Chu and Han is actually "the dispute between the fox and the lion, and the dispute between the villain and the gentleman" (see China Civilization History by Qi Liang, Huacheng Press, 200 1 edition). This reminds us of a famous episode in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms-cooking wine on heroes. In fact, Cao Cao is testing whether Liu Bei has the ambition and ability to be king, and Liu Bei knows Cao Cao's scheming well and handles it carefully. When Cao Cao said that the heroes in the world were "only you and Gu Er", Liu Bei was so scared that even his chopsticks fell to the ground. Fortunately, a thunder helped Liu Bei a lot and fooled Cao Cao. Cao Cao thought that even a person who was afraid of thunder could not become a climate, relaxed the supervision of Liu Bei and let Liu Bei escape. What kind of character is Cao Cao? He is the best in the world, and it is inevitable to be cheated, let alone others. Looking at Liu Bang's despicable performances in Historical Records, we can see that his hypocrisy and treachery are not inferior to Liu Bei, but comparable to Cao Cao, who is not a political strategist of Xiang Yu. Therefore, it is not beyond Xiang Yu's power to see through Liu Bang's political ambitions at the Hongmen banquet. If we connect with the tragedy of Han Xin, we can prove this point even more. According to Records of the Historian Biography of Huaiyin Hou, after Han Xin defeated Longyi, Xiang Yu once sent a military attache to persuade Han Xin: "Hanwang doesn't have to be in the hands of Xiang Wang. Xiang Wang lived a miserable life, and then he had to take off, and he won many battles and hit Xiang Wang again. This is not credible. Although the first step was to be intimate friends with Hanwang, I tried my best to fight for it and was finally captured by it. The first step is that the king is still alive today. " It can be said that these words show that after experiencing a painful lesson, Xiang Yu thoroughly recognized Liu Bang's true face and saw his lofty aspirations. It's a pity that a clever man like Han Xin was confused by Liu Bang's hypocrisy. After Kuai Tong's incisive analysis, he still insisted: "Hanwang met me very thick, took me with his car, dressed me with his clothes, and ate me with him." He rejected Kuai Tong's suggestion, because he thought he had done more work and all three families had been slaughtered. Han Xin sighed before he died: "I regret that I didn't use Kuai Tong's trick, but I was cheated by my daughter. Isn't it heaven! "
Maybe someone will prove that Xiang Yu is not good at employing people and doesn't listen to his advisers. Because, even if Xiang Yu didn't see through Liu Bang's political ambition, Fan Zeng was well aware of it and advised Xiang Yu: "When Pei Gong lived in Shandong, he was greedy for money and loved Maggie. Today, when I entered the customs, I didn't take my belongings. The woman was lucky. This is not a small ambition. I made people look at it, all dragons and tigers, colorful, and the son of heaven was angry. Don't lose it. " It should be admitted that Xiang Yu's failure is closely related to his poor employment. Sima Qian pointed out in "The Family of Prime Minister Chen": "You can't trust people, and their feelings are not everything, that is, the wife's kundi, although there are strange people who can't use it." But just because he didn't listen to Fan Zeng's persuasion at the Hongmen banquet, he can't be labeled as "not good at employing people and not listening to counselors". On the one hand, Xiang Bo was also a senior adviser to Xiang Yu, and Xiang Yu took his advice. With his mediation, Xiang Yu had to consider this matter; On the other hand, Fan Zeng made inappropriate remarks. He didn't come up with enough strong evidence to convince Xiang Yu. Moreover, at the Hongmen banquet, without the consent of Xiang Yu, Xiang Zhuang was called to dance the sword and took the opportunity to assassinate Pei Gong, which was undoubtedly embarrassing to Xiang Yu. This meddling behavior is not allowed by Xiang Yu. If Xiang Yu didn't respect Fan Zeng as his father, Xiang Yu's character wouldn't lead to a good result for Fan Zeng. More importantly, as we mentioned earlier, Xiang Yu has his own strategic considerations. He only released Liu Bang out of kindness and let Liu Bang continue to help him, thus completely destroying Qin and establishing his own hegemony. In fact, Xiang Yu's two goals have been achieved. On the other hand, if Xiang Yu killed Liu Bang and caused infighting, then even if Xiang Yu had the spirit of "carrying the tripod" and "the courage of the three armed forces", I am afraid that even one wish could not be realized. So we can't completely deny Xiang Yu's decision just because the final result fulfilled Fan Zeng's prediction. Actually, Xiang Yu did not completely refuse to listen to Fan Zeng. After dominating, he secretly discussed with Fan Zeng and made Pei Gong Hanwang, "dividing Guanzhong into three parts, and Qin Wang reduced Hanwang". Another example is "In the third year of the Han Dynasty, Wang Xiang invaded the Han corridor, and Hanwang was hungry and afraid. Please make peace and cut Xingyang to the west of Han. Wang Xiang wanted to listen, and Liyang's wife said, "Han Yihe, if you let Fu go, you will regret it later." Wang Xiang is eager to surround Xingyang. "Thus, xiang yu is not stubborn people who don't listen to advice. In fact, as long as what you say is reasonable, Xiang Yu will listen even if he is a yellow-tongued child. For example, Xiang Yu struggled to capture the outer Huang Shi and flew into a rage. He wanted to bury/kloc-men over 0/5 years old alive in the city. At this time, the youngest son of Waihuangling, who was only 13 years old, persuaded Xiang Yu: "Peng Yueqiang robbed Waihuangling and was afraid of it, so he surrendered and waited for the king. When the king arrived, he was cheated. How can people go home? From then on to the east, Emperor Liang was afraid of more than ten cities, so he didn't want to go down. " Xiang Yu listened to his words and pardoned the liar. As a result, "the east is Suiyang, and the smell is the king." In contrast, Pei Gong did not listen to the adviser more than Xiang Yu. For example, after he entered Qin Gong, Xianyang, he developed lust for thousands of women in the palace and wanted to live in it. Fan Kuai advised Pei Gong to leave the palace, but he wouldn't listen. If it weren't for Sean's earnest persuasion, Pei Guild gave Xiang Yu an excuse, and the Hongmen Banquet wouldn't be near misses. At the same time, Liu Bang often listens to villains. In addition to "Yun Sheng said I said,' Refuse to be a vassal, Qin land is king'" at the Hongmen banquet, Liu Bang also mentioned in "Suihou Shijia" that he listened to his bad idea and prepared to "restore the six countries to future generations", but only told Sean the reasons why he could not. Make sales interesting. "But why don't critics criticize Liu Bang for not being good at coachable? Is it true that if Liu Bang wins, he can cover up all the ugliness with a handsome man?
Some critics believe that Xiang Yu's release of Hong Men Liu reflects Xiang Yu's kind character, which makes sense, just as Fan Zeng said "unbearable" to Xiang Zhuang. However, we are opposed to attributing Xiang Yu's spontaneous charity to a woman's charity. As a military commander who immediately kills the item with a horizontal knife, he can be called a temperament middleman. He won't be as pretentious as Liu Bang, nor will he do Liu Bang's despicable act of letting 2,000 women put on armor and seduce themselves to escape from you. Even in order to save his own life, he pushed his children out of the carriage ... Xiang Yu was aboveboard, daring to love and hate, killing people like hemp, and pitying the organic unity of the people on him. There is such a record in Xiang Yu's Biography: "Chu and Han fought, Ding Zhuang suffered in the army, and the old and weak went to Cao." King Xiang called Hanwang and said,' All Hungarian people of several years old in the world are willing to fight to the death with Hanwang without suffering the people and their descendants. "Although his idea seems naive, his love for the people's kindness is vividly on the paper. It's a pity that he only has sympathy for the people, but he has no plan to love the people and has no ability to buy people's hearts. He believed in force and relied on war, which finally ruined his bright future. In a word, Xiang Yu is cruel, but he wants to kill anyone he thinks should be killed, including all those who hinder his career and violate his dignity. On the other hand, at the hongmen banquet, liu bang didn't do anything to undermine his grand plan, nor did he do anything against his will. Liu Bang apologized so "scared" and explained so "sincerely" that Xiang Yu didn't kill him. If Xiang Yu drew his sword at this time, he would not be as strong as fire and as weak as water.
Xiang Yu's "benevolence" should also be analyzed in connection with his "righteousness". Xiang Yu was born in the Xiang family of Chu, and his early living environment was also this clan society, which cultivated his quality of "keeping his word". For example, after Xiang Yu seized the world, he reused everything that was good for Xiang Jia; Another example is that at the critical moment of the Chu-Han dispute, Liu Bangpa sent a harem to persuade Wang Xiang to carve up the world. "The west of the watershed is Han and the east is Chu." Xiang Yu promised to return Liu Bang's father and daughter and lead the troops to clear the way. Maybe we will accuse Xiang Yu of credulity, but in Sima Qian's mind, it is because of this benevolence and righteousness that Xiang Yucan is called a real hero.
From this, it is not difficult to explain another psychological motive-righteousness-that Xiang Yu's Hongmen banquet did not kill Liu Bang. Liu Bang started from the Xiang Liang Uprising, and then followed Xiang Group to fight against Qin Jun. Liu Bang once joined forces with Xiang Yu to attack Chengyang, Dingtao, Qiu Yong and Waihuang ... which can be described as "comrades-in-arms" who have passed the test of blood and fire. In Xiang Yu's view, Liu Bang was very kind to Xiang's family. Secondly, Huai Wang once agreed with the princes that "the first one who broke the Qin Dynasty and entered Xianyang was king". Although Xiang Yu was the real hero who destroyed Qin, after all, Liu Bang was the first to enter Xianyang. Xiang Yu's attempt to attack Liu Bang has already deviated from his beliefs. Now Liu Bang has come to apologize and bow down. Killing Liu Bang at this time is against one's conscience, which is unacceptable to Xiang Yu. Xiang Yu would rather fight Liu Bang with one knife and one gun on the battlefield than play such an unkind plot to defeat his opponent. So he ignored Fan Zeng's repeated hints, tolerated Fan Kuai's disrespect, and even felt like a hero cherishes each other. The real heroes in ancient China all came from the former America, such as the interpretation of Cao Cao and Guan Yunchang. It is this spirit of benevolence and righteousness that Sima Qian wants to highly evaluate. Because Sima Qian was imprisoned because of the disaster of Liling, he hoped that a hero like Xiang Yu would save him. However, at that time, the so-called intimate friends around him left him one by one, watching Sima Qian suffer great humiliation. It is conceivable that Sima Qian was full of great indignation and contempt for those who protected himself when he portrayed Xiang Yu.
There is another fact that needs to be clarified. Not only teaching reference books, but also many experts in history books believe that Xiang Yu's easy attitude towards Cao, an insider, is the biggest failure of Xiang Yu and a typical embodiment of his thoughtlessness. So is Cao Wushang an insider of Xiang Yu? Let's see how Cao "reported" Wu Shang. According to "Biography of the Great Emperor", Xiang Yu "Wen Peigong was in Guanzhong, and he was furious, which made others break through the letter valley pass. 1In the middle of February, I went to the play. Pei Gong Sajima, Cao, who was angry at the news, wanted to attack Pei Gong and made people say to Xiang Yu ... "This fully shows that Cao was not an insider of Xiang Yu, and Cao's informant was after Xiang Yu prepared to send troops to attack Liu Bang. Therefore, his whistle-blowing is just a despicable act of inviting pets to leave a way out for themselves, which objectively only adds fuel to the fire. In Xiang Yu's eyes, he is just a disloyal and unjust villain. This kind of person has enough weaknesses, so there is no need to protect him.
Finally, it should be pointed out that Xiang Yu did not kill Liu Bang because of his heroic mentality, or because of his full confidence in his courage. Indeed, Xiang Yu has never known that there is a word "fear" in the world since the Huiji Uprising and the siege of the city. As he said to his men after the siege, "after more than 70 battles, he lost, he lost." Even if there are only 28 cavalry left, he can still run around in the encirclement of the Han army, killing soldiers will be like nobody's business. This kind of self-respect is enough to shake the three armed forces and move the world. The Qin of the tiger and the wolf is not in his eyes, and Liu Bang is a cinch. So, is this courage as blind and brave as people have commented? Our answer is no, even Liu Bang himself has repeatedly admitted that he is not as good as Xiang Yu. Han Xin also believes that Liu Bangshan is not good at using soldiers and has little military talent. In fact, after the Chu-Han War broke out, Xiang Yu still had many opportunities to destroy Liu Bang. Once, in the battle of Pengcheng, the Han army was defeated and fled to the water east of Lingbi. The result was either killed by the Chu army or fell into the water, and the water stopped flowing. The Chu army surrounded Liu Bang and it was difficult to escape. Who knows that "the wind started from the northwest, breaking wood to build houses, raising sand and stones, and it was dark and dark to meet the Chu army." Chu Jun chaos, bad scattered, and Hanwang is dozens of ride dun ". Although Liu Bang saved his life in this battle, he almost lost his own child, while Taigong and Lv Hou were captured alive by the Chu army. The second time, in order to save Cheng Peng, Xiang Yu chased Liu Bang to Xingyang and seized the food supply channel of the Han army. Although Liu Bang used Chen Pingji to alienate Xiang Yu and Fan Zeng, the Chu army still surrounded Liu Bang. Finally, Liu Bang quietly escaped from the west gate of the city with dozens of riders at the expense of 2,000 women and general Ji Xin. It can be seen that there is absolutely no need for Xiang Yu to kill Liu Bang by assassination. If it weren't for his blunders in other aspects, such as burning the palace, killing the city at every turn, leaving no survivors, giving up the land blocked by Guanzhong and returning it to Pengcheng in the east, he was fully capable of controlling Liu Bang. Therefore, his heroic mentality is quite basic, not arrogant.
In a word, although Xiang Yu failed, his sin was not that Liu Bang was spared at the Hongmen banquet. On the contrary, although there are not many descriptions of Xiang Yu in the Hongmen Banquet, it shows us his wisdom, benevolence, righteousness and courage. If Liu Bei interprets Liu Zhang as the release of the benevolent, Guan Yu interprets Cao Cao as the release of the righteous, and Kong Ming interprets Meng Huo as the release of the wise, then Liu Bang's release of Xiang Yu not only has everything, but also increases the release of the brave. It is precisely because of this that Xiang Yu's tragedy is so tragic, Xiang Yu's siege makes people sigh, and his Wujiang River makes readers cry.