Yang Xiu, a character in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is portrayed as a conceited and arrogant prodigy. In the 60th episode, Zhang Qiuyu, a native of Shu, showed Cao Cao a map of central Sichuan, but was met with Cao Cao's rude attitude. When Zhang Song ridiculed Cao Cao's men, Yang Xiu appeared and showed his erudite and eloquent side. Zhang Song realized that Yang Xiu was good at arguing with tongues, relying on his own intelligence and conceiting about the world. These few sentences reveal Yang Xiu's conceited and arrogant character, which is obviously not loved by everyone. Cao Cao once led a large army to fight Liu Bei for Hanzhong, facing the dilemma of defeat and loss of generals. Yang Xiu, as the chief bookkeeper of the march, immediately ordered the soldiers to prepare to withdraw after hearing Cao Cao's feelings about chicken soup. He used "chicken ribs, chicken ribs, tasteless food, and a pity to abandon it" to express the situation of fruitless advance and shameful laughter when retreating, and suggested returning to the division as soon as possible to avoid humiliation. Xiahou Dun deeply admired Yang Xiu's intelligence and insight, and cooperated. However, when Cao Cao learned that the soldiers were preparing to retreat, his anger at being misled by Yang Xiu led him to order Yang Xiu's beheading. In this story, Yang Xiu shows his cleverness and feeling good about himself, but in the end, he goes astray and dies in his conceit. The story was widely circulated, and it was widely believed that Yang Xiu lost his life due to his conceit.
This also shows Cao Cao's suspicion and Yang Xiu's arrogant and arrogant character, as well as the intricate relationship between them. But for those who love history, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is a ** after all. So, in real history, what kind of person is Yang Xiu?Through the study of official histories such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, we find that Yang Xiu's death does not seem to be due to a small story such as "chicken ribs and a bite of cake", but because Cao Cao was extremely worried about Yang Xiu's talent and relationship with the Yuan family. In short, there are three main reasons: first, Yang Xiu supported Cao Zhi instead of Cao Pi, triggering a struggle for the throne;Secondly, although Yang Xiu was talented, he was not outstanding compared to other important strategists of Cao Wei, and there is no record in the "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms" that he gave advice or achieved major military exploits for Cao Cao;In the end, Yang Xiu was put to death because he was Yuan Shu's nephew, and this reason seemed very far-fetched. However, these reasons seem to be untenable after much consideration. In fact, many important figures under Cao Cao were surrenderers of other camps, such as Jia Xu was Dong Zhuo's general, and in the end Cao Cao still appointed him, and even gave him ** Houlu.
Therefore, the main reason why Cao Cao killed Yang Xiu and left Sima Yi was that Yang Xiu was not killed just because of his talent, but because he came from a large family force, which was what Cao Cao was really worried about. Yang Xiu's ancestor was Yang Xi, who snatched a piece of Xiang Yu's body after being killed by Wujiang, the overlord of Chu, and was worshiped by Liu Bang as the Marquis of Chiquan. Yang Xiu's ancestors Yang Zhen, Yang Bing, Yang Ci and Yang Biao were all high-ranking officials in the Han Dynasty, his mother was born in the Yuan family, and his Fu family was also a prominent family. Yang Xiu is known for his left and right sources and extensive connections, which is completely different from the image created in **. He had been embroiled in a battle for the succession, which forced Cao Cao's suspicion to guard against him, and he had to nip any potential threat in the bud. Therefore, Cao Cao finally took tough measures against Yang Xiu, as the saying goes, the praying mantis catches the cicada, and the yellow finch follows. In contrast, although Sima Yi is also from a famous family, there is a huge gap compared with Yang Xiu's family background. However, having the right side of the line also added a lot of advantages to him. In addition, although Cao Cao was also quite suspicious of Sima Yi, he did not rush to solve the problem, mainly because Sima Yi did his best for Cao Pi and showed loyalty.
Sima Yi has a lot of opportunities every day, sleeps all night at work, and even forgets to sleep and eat. In addition, Cao Pi often praised Sima Yi, which made Cao Cao deceived by the appearance and mistakenly believed that Sima Yi would not act rashly after Cao Pi succeeded to the throne. However, the scheming Sima Yi did everything possible to achieve the end of his life, and he did not expect that his junior would be able to span the three generations of the Wei family, thus establishing the family hegemony of the Sima family.