In ancient times, in order to maintain diplomatic relations between the two countries, envoys would be sent to other countries, so there were also a large number of virtuous envoys, such as Lin Xiangru, Yanzi, and Su Wu. I used to study the story of "Su Wu Shepherd" when I was in school, in addition to admiring Su Wu's backbone, I was also very puzzled for a while, you said that you raise so many sheep, you will roast one and eat it when you are hungry?Why bother almost starving yourself to death?The story of Su Wu shepherding sheep During the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu king Shan Yu expressed his submission to the Han and respected the Han as his father-in-law. In order to show peace, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent Su Wu as an envoy to the Xiongnu, sent a reward to the Xiongnu king Shan Yu, and returned the Xiongnu envoys who had been detained in the Han Dynasty. At first, the mission was completed smoothly, but when he was about to return home, something happened. The Xiongnu were in turmoil, the regime was unstable, Su Wu and his party were implicated, were detained in the territory of the Xiongnu, and asked them to surrender to the Xiongnu, but Su Wu refused to give in. The king of the Xiongnu, Shan Yu, sent Su Wu's former colleague Wei Lu to persuade Su Wu, promising ** Houlu, gold and silver treasures. Su Wu was unmoved, and scolded Wei Lu for seeking glory and betraying the lord ungratefully. 
When the Huns saw that Su Wu was not tempted, they wanted to use severe torture to force Su Wu to submit. In the cold winter, the Huns threw Su Wu into the cellar and did not give him water and food, hoping to force Su Wu to surrender to the Huns. Su Wu fed his hunger with snow and sheepskin jackets, and he would never give in when he was dying. Shan Yu respected Su Wu's integrity, but he was unwilling to let him go back to the Han Dynasty, so he exiled Su Wu to an inaccessible place, (one said it was near Lake Baikal, and the other said it was Baitinghai, Gansu) and asked him to herd sheep. What did Su Wu survive on when he was shepherding sheep?Su Wu was taken to the place of exile, and when he saw that it was really desolate and inaccessible, and then he saw that his flock of sheep was all rams, he knew in his heart that Shan Yu didn't want to let himself go back. But Su Wu was not discouraged, there is no endless road, there will always be a way. According to the "Hanshu Su Wu Biography", it is recorded: "When Wu goes to the sea, he can't eat it, so he digs wild mice to go to the grass and eats it." Shepherding sheep on the cane Han Festival, lying up and exercising, the festival is exhausted. After Su Wu was exiled, there was no one to bring him food, so when he was hungry, he had to dig up wild mice, eat grass and fruits, drink some snow water, and sleep with the sheep without warm clothes to keep warm. Every day, he held his scepter to herd sheep, and after a few years, Su Wu's beard was white, and even the oxtail decoration on the scepter fell off. 
But Su Wu did not always survive like this, after five or six years in exile, Shan Yu's younger brother Yu Jing Wang met Su Wu while hunting, at this time Su Wu was able to weave nets to fish, and made his own bow and arrow hunting, Yu Jing King loved Su Wu very much, and gave him some clothes and food. But the good times didn't last long, and three years later, King Yu Jing fell ill and died, and no one helped Su Wu anymore. Moreover, in the winter, Su Wu's cattle and sheep were stolen by Ding Ren, and Su Wu fell into poverty again. Why didn't Su Wu eat sheep?There is no clear record of this in history, so I made the following conjectures. Conjecture 1: Su Wu has actually eaten sheep. Su Wu has always had a positive image in history, and the people who wrote the biography for him will not pay attention to whether he eats mutton or not, so it is very likely that Su Wu ate mutton, after all, if people are hungry, they will eat Yizi, and they don't care if they are sheep or not. But since there is no record, no one knows about it. Conjecture 2: Su Wu's living situation is not bad, and he doesn't need to eat sheep. According to the "Complete Biography of Su Wu", a few years later, Su Wu was able to weave nets to fish and hunt to satisfy his hunger. It shows that Su Wu already had a certain ability to survive in the wild at that time, and he might not starve to death if he didn't eat sheep, so he wouldn't touch the sheep of the Huns. 
Conjecture 3: Su Wu is detached and does not bend his waist for five buckets of rice. This is also a more accepted statement. Su Wumu's sheep belonged to the Huns, and if he ate the sheep, he would have surrendered to the Huns. As an envoy, Su Wu represents the face of the entire Han Dynasty. I'd rather starve to death than lose the face of the Han Dynasty. Moreover, Su Wu did not surrender to the Xiongnu for nineteen years abroad, so he still had the backbone of not eating mutton. Su Wu, as an envoy, has a sword and axe without yielding, and gold and silver are in front without being **. Mencius said: "The rich and the rich cannot be lewd, the poor and the lowly cannot be moved, and the mighty cannot be bent, this is called a great husband." "Isn't this Su Wu!If it's really a big man's behavior, it's very comparable!