Dahan first prince

Chapter 112 Fanwai: Character Analysis - Lu's Relatives
This chapter is the popular science of background characters, please subscribe as appropriate.

Hey~
In the past few days, I have had some physical problems, and my head has been groggy. I didn't plan to continue writing character analysis, but writing the text is always very slow.

Just take this piece of characters to interpret and adjust the state, which can be considered as a refresher.

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Many readers have different views on the interpretation of the last article, that is, "Zhou Lv Ling Wuhou Lv Ze".

It can be roughly summarized as the following points.

[-]. If Lu Ze really made great contributions to the country, even comparable to Han Xin's, why was he not crowned king?

[-]. If Lu Ze really held the military power and had a strong personal military accomplishment, how could he be easily killed by Liu Bang, or be killed by the North Wall inexplicably?
[-]. Why is it so concluded that Lu Ze is a great general with outstanding merits, not a mediocre brother-in-law who was promoted by Liu Bang only because of his blood status?

After the last character analysis chapter, I also discovered everyone’s doubts, so in the follow-up character analysis and the content of the text, I will try to use clearly recorded history as the basis.

As for these questions, I also have the basis for my actions.

First of all, why wasn't Lu Ze crowned king?
Before discussing this issue, the first thing we need to know is: Liu Han, not Ji Zhou.

Different from the Zhou royal family's standard of "you can be a king if you have meritorious service", Liu Han is pessimistic about the matter of being a king, especially a feudal prince.

We can see this from Liu Bang's process of unifying the world.

First, the second Hu Hai succeeded to the throne, and the world changed. Liu Bang, Xiang Yu and other rebel leaders resisted Qin's oppression, and finally overthrew Qin's "tyranny".

But in this 'anti-Qin alliance', the pursuit of each party is different.

The purpose of the nobles of the six kingdoms, or "remnants", including the overlord Xiang Yu, was to overthrow the unified regime of the Qin Dynasty and bring the unified Central Plains back to the situation of feudal feudal lords in the Warring States Period.

This point can be seen from the fact that Xiang Yu entered the pass, ended the privately ordered Hongmen Banquet for Liu Bang, and then divided the world into eighteen vassal states, and then killed the Yi Emperor Chuhuai King. .

In other words, as the actual leader of the Anti-Qin Rebel Army (the theoretical leader is King Huai of Chu), Xiang Yu does not want to be an emperor, but a...

Well, Chu Overlord.

From a modern point of view, Xiang Yu, including those princes who were conferred by Xiang Yu, are actually turning back the wheel of history, and the Central Plains, which was finally unified by the First Emperor Yingzheng, was once again fragmented and returned to the Warring States plus era.

But from another perspective, it is not difficult for us to see that: the first emperor won the government to unify the world and abolished the feudal system. Although from the perspective of history and nationality, it is "the merits of the present age will benefit the future", but it is precisely because this concept is too Advanced, so at the time, it may not have been widely recognized.

Then, let's look back: after the fall of Qin Dynasty, is the world structure really the "Chu-Han struggle for hegemony" between Liu and Xiang?

Looking through the history books a little bit, it is not difficult for us to find out: In fact, this is not the case.

After killing the son of the third generation of Qin in Xianyang, the Central Plains was divided into eighteen independent vassal states, including King Liu Bang of Han and King Xiang Yu of Chu.

And these eighteen vassal states were eventually divided into two camps.

On one side is Xiang Yu, king of Chu who 'led to destroy Qin', and on the other side is Liu Bang, king of Han who entered Xianyang first.

From the fall of Qin in 208 BC to the next battle in Gai in 202 BC, when the overlord Xiang Yu Wujiang slayed himself. During these six years, in fact, it was not a 1v1 man battle between Liu Han and Xiang Chu, but a battle between these two men. The two hostile groups headed by each other are fighting for something.

——What Liu Bang wants to fight for is the world and the throne, and he wants to imitate his idol Ying Zheng and reunify the world.

And what Xiang Yu wants to win is a relaxed environment like Ji Zhou, where the emperor is an eraser, and everyone is a prince and king, each having fun in their respective lands, and coming out to fight for hegemony when they have nothing to do.

To be precise: the dispute between Liu Xiang and Chu and Han is not so much about the world, but rather about the historic topic of "whether the enfeoffment system should be abolished".

Looking at the series of events after the Hongmen Banquet, it is not difficult to see this.

——Liu Bang, the king of the Han Dynasty, recaptured the land of the Three Qins from Hanzhong by "building plank roads in the open and keeping the warehouses in the dark", which is called "resetting the Three Qins".

When the overlord Xiang Yu attacked Tian's Qi State because of "not being respectful enough", the banner he played was "big punishment for small precepts".

To put it simply: Liu Bang went out of Hanzhong to attack Sanqin, and he wanted unity and territory; while Xiang Yu went out to attack other vassal states, he wanted face, happiness, and the "overlord of Western Chu" false name.

However, in the process of Han King Liu Bang defeating Chu King Xiang Yu and establishing the unification of the world, there was a very critical relief.

——The Han eradicated Chu not only by themselves, but by integrating the world. The rest of the forces who were named princes by Xiang Yu besieged Xiang Yu together, and finally forced the overlord Wujiang to slay himself.

It is not difficult for us to see this from Liu Bang's entanglement with the 56 allied forces of the princes and his intention to go straight to Pengcheng, the capital of Chu.

So, after Xiang Yu Wujiang killed himself, is the world really unified?

Is Xiang Yu the last stumbling block in front of Liu Bang, the last hurdle to abolish the enfeoffment system?

Actually, no.

After the Hongmen Banquet, the world was divided into eighteen, removing the state of Chu owned by Xiang Yu, the Qi state of Tian's family that was conquered by Han Xin, and the three princes Zhang Han and Sima Xin who were conquered during the process of the Han army's restoration of the Three Qin Dynasty , When Liu Bang established the Han Sheji and inherited the throne, there were still more than a dozen princes and kings in the Central Plains.

And the emperor Liu Bang, to put it mildly, was promoted as an eraser like the emperor Zhou—at least those princes and kings should think so.

If it sounds harsher, Liu Bang's proclaiming himself emperor can also be said to be for self-entertainment. Except for Zhao Wang Zhang Ao, Jiujiang Wang Yingbu, Huainan Wang Wu Rui, etc. who bowed their heads to Liu Han early, the other princes from all walks of life, in fact Liu Bang's status as emperor was not recognized.

But Liu Bang still proclaimed himself emperor brazenly, what happened?

——From the fifth year of the Han Dynasty, when Liu Bang inherited the throne, until the death of Liu Bang in the 12th year of the Han Dynasty, the chaos of princes and kings with different surnames has never stopped!

In this way, the process of Liu Bang's unification of the world and the establishment of Han Zuo is obvious.

In the beginning, everyone was princes and kings, but due to different ideas and inconsistent interests, they were divided into two hostile camps. To put it bluntly, they were fighting in groups.

As for Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, at most they can be regarded as the bosses of the two parties.

When Xiang Yu Wujiang slays himself, this group fight will be over. The younger brothers in Liu Bang's camp, some choose to give the elder brother face and let the elder brother be the emperor, and some younger brothers refuse to accept it and hope to return to the usual way. The princes and kings are in an equal situation.

And Liu Bang, Emperor Gao of the Han Dynasty, after using these younger brothers to defeat Xiang Yu, he began the purge of "rabbit dead dog cooking".

After knowing this point, looking back at the point of "why Lu Ze was not crowned king", the answer will be obvious.

——After Liu Bang proclaimed himself emperor, he conferred feudal lords with different surnames, originally with the idea of ​​"stabilizing the power of the vassals first, and then defeating them one by one"; The fate of waiting for people is already doomed to death.

Because judging from Liu Bang's every move in history, in the choice of "unification" and "enfeoffment", Liu Bang undoubtedly chose to follow in the footsteps of idols.

However, compared with Huang Yingzheng's direct abolition of enfeoffment at the beginning, Liu Bang's handling method is obviously more sophisticated: If you want to be crowned king, I will seal it up, and then I will kill you when you make a mistake. In this way, the enfeoffment system can be "pictured slowly" and "abolished slowly".

In this way, for the elder brother Lu Ze, how could Liu Bang do this kind of operation of "making you a king and then killing you"?

He was a relative of his own, so how could Lu Ze be so stupid as to fight for the position of a prince with a different surname who would surely die without a burial in the future?

Compared with being a vassal king who will die in the future, it is obviously more cost-effective and safer to help his nephew Liu Ying to the throne and make Lu the number one relative of Liu Han.

This is the answer I gave to "Why Lu Ze was not crowned king": Lu Ze, or the Lu family, is not that stupid.

As the second shareholder of Liu Han Sheji, Lu's relatives clearly know what they can fight for, what they can't fight for, and what is the most beneficial and safest thing to fight for.

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The second question is, does Lu Ze have military power in his hands, and does Lu Ze have such great abilities?If so, how did Liu Bang kill him?Or, how could he die so inexplicably?
We can see some clues about this issue from Tai Shigong's "Historical Records".

——In the battle of Pengcheng in the Chu and Han Dynasties, Liu Bang, the leader of the allied forces of the princes, defeated all the 56 troops of the allied army in the first battle, and was thrown away by Xiang Yu's [-] elite soldiers!
Such an unimaginable defeat, if it were most people, I am afraid that they would all be devastated.

For example, during the Three Kingdoms period, when Guandu was defeated, Yuan Benchu ​​collapsed in place; when Chibi was defeated, Cao Cao’s steps to unify the world came to an abrupt end;

But in this situation where it was basically declared that Liu Han's camp had lost all games and there was no possibility of a comeback, the figure of Zhou Luling Wuhou Lu Ze happened to appear at the place to support and respond to Liu Bang.

Some people may say that this is just a coincidence.

Then, looking at another interesting phenomenon, it is not difficult to see what status Lu Ze, the uncle, is in Liu Bang's heart.

——Pengcheng was defeated, he abandoned his wife and son on the way to escape, and finally got his brother-in-law Lu Ze to take over, almost immediately, Liu Bang issued an edict to confer the eldest son Liu Ying as the crown prince!
Is this still a coincidence?
What forced Liu Bang to put aside other business matters on the way to escape, and go to register an heir immediately?
Could it be that the old rascal Liu Bang felt guilty for "abandoning his wife and son" unprecedentedly, so he took the crown prince to make up for Lu Ze and Lu's relatives?

Obviously, the greater possibility is: if at that time, Liu Ying had not been canonized as the crown prince immediately, then Liu Bang might not be able to secure the soldiers and horses in Lu Ze's hands!
Only by conferring Liu Ying as the crown prince, and reassuring the Lu family and Lu Ze, can Liu Bang fully grasp this army that can be called the last family property and will be used for a comeback in the future.

In this way, the answer to the second question becomes obvious.

Can Liu Bang, the founder of Houhei School, the emperor on horseback and the founding emperor of the country, not hesitate to confer the crown prince as a reward in order to gain military power, would Lu Ze be an incompetent person?

Can let the army under him form a cohesive force that "without Lu Ze's order, even Liu Bang cannot control the military power", will Lu Ze be a worthless idiot who was brought up by Liu Bang only because of his status as a big brother-in-law?
This is the basis for my denial of the statement that 'Lu Ze is an idiot relative' - it is absolutely impossible for Lu Ze to be an idiot if he can force Liu Bang to become a prince on the spot.

The death of Lu Ze actually verified that Lu Ze had military power and had a difficult task in his hands.

According to the records of "Historical Records", Lu Ze died about the eighth year of the Han Dynasty, that is, 199 BC; the cause of death was "War Dead Daibei".

Where is Daibei?
——The Zhao Great Wall area where Han Wangxin was stationed before rebellion.

The battle of Pingcheng between the Han and Xiongnu, and the siege of Baideng, which Liu Bang regarded as a great shame and humiliation, were also caused by the fact that Han Wangxin was in his own capital: Mayi fell into a heavy siege, and immediately surrendered to the Huns, and joined forces with the Huns to go south.

In this way, Lu Ze should be the general who Han Wangxin was originally responsible for defending the area after Han Wangxin defected to the Huns, and Liu Bang used it to replace the defense of the northern region.

This also confirmed Lu Ze's ability.

The reason is simple: Daibei is so important and has strategic significance for the defense of the north. Why didn't Liu Bang send famous generals like Fan Kuai, Zhou Bo, and Li Shang, but let his uncle Lu Ze go?
It is true that "my family can be trusted" should also be one of Liu Bang's important considerations, but if Lu Ze is really an idiot, it is impossible for him to be entrusted with such a heavy responsibility.

As for Lu Ze's death, it can be said that there are many opinions, and there is no historical data to sit on it, so we will not comment for the time being.

(End of this chapter)