Why did Cao Cao have to kill Hua Tuo in the first place? The Book of the Later Han gives the answer,

Mondo Culture Updated on 2024-02-20

In "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Hua Tuo is the world's best doctor.

first scraped the bones of Guan Yu of Shu to cure the poison, and then pulled Zhou Tai of Wu State, who was shot twelve times in his body, back from the Ghost Gate Pass, but finally died in the hands of Cao Cao, a patient of Wei State.

Some people say that Cao Cao made a big mistake by killing Hua Tuo, but why did it prove that Cao Cao's original choice was correct in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty?

According to the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, Hua Tuo was a native of Bozhou, Anhui Province today, and left his hometown to study in Xuzhou when he was young.

After years of hard study, while learning the Confucian classics, he also learned the medical skills of curing diseases and saving people.

In the Later Han Dynasty, the medical skills were no longer witch doctors, but had standardized and standard diagnosis and treatment procedures, which gradually enriched the origin and pathology of pharmacology and pathology, and had formed a relatively scientific and rigorous discipline.

It is on the basis of the theories of our ancestors that Hua Tuo has his own unique and effective medical methods.

In the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, it is said that Hua Tuo is proficient in the art of traction and channeling, and has created a set of five poultry operas, although he is nearly 100 years old, he looks like a young man.

When Hua Tuo is giving acupuncture to patients, he often chats with patients and asks about the patient's physical feelings.

When the patient is amazed at the changes in his body, he can do it**.

Hua Tuo was also good at *** that people didn't like at the time*** According to legend, an official wife in Ganling had abdominal pain when she was more than six months pregnant, and other doctors said that the baby was gone, but Hua Tuo said that it was not only there, but also a baby boy.

After drinking the decoction prepared by Hua Tuo, the lady gave birth to a baby boy.

What makes Hua Tuo famous all over the world is his superb surgery.

According to legend, the patient who drank the "hemp boiling powder" he prepared could "add a knife and axe to the body without knowing it", and he could remove the lesion in the patient's body, which is very similar to today's surgical methods.

In "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", when Zhou Tai was protecting the young Sun Quan, he was shot twelve times in his body and was in danger.

Hua Tuo was invited by Sun Quan to give Zhou Tai**, and Zhou Tai was reborn in just one month.

In the seventy-fifth episode of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", a classic story that everyone knows is staged: scraping bones to cure poison.

The story says that Guan Yu was injured by a poisoned arrow during the attack on Fancheng, and the poison penetrated deep into the bones, and at this time the divine doctor Hua Tuo took the initiative to give Guan Yu **.

Originally, he wanted Guan Yu to drink the hemp to boil to avoid unbearable pain, but Guan Yu talked and laughed and let him scrape his bones.

Guan Yu here shows heroic spirit, and Hua Tuo also shows superb medical skills.

However, these two stories are apocryphal.

According to the records of "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms" and "Book of the Later Han Dynasty", Hua Tuo did not give Zhou Tai** a gunshot wound, nor did he treat Guan Yu's arrow wounds.

When Guan Yu attacked Fancheng, there were indeed doctors who scraped the bones to cure the poison, but they did not mention that it was Hua Tuo, and according to the time, Hua Tuo, who had been dead for more than ten years, had no way to treat Guan Yu for poison.

According to the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty", Hua Tuo did not treat Guan Yu with poison, but gave Cao Cao ** a "headache", and he still died at Cao Cao's hands.

When it comes to Cao Cao, the evaluation among the people is indeed not very good, especially his sentence "Rather teach me to bear the world", which is still criticized by others, and even the image in the opera is a "white-faced" traitor.

Arbitrary, treacherous, and suspicious have become synonymous with Cao Cao.

If we put aside romance stories and folklore, purely from the perspective of history books and history, Cao Cao is actually not as "traitorous" as we think, but has more "male" characteristics of the times.

In terms of judgment, he judged the situation and was able to make a contribution in the Yellow Turban Rebellion when the world was in turmoil, and he also dared to assassinate Dong Zhuo and lead the princes of the Eighteenth Route to discuss the plan.

In terms of strategy and tactics, although there are often victories and defeats, he can continue to expand in the turbulent times.

Although he did not unify the Three Kingdoms, his credit for pacifying the chaos in the Central Plains still outweighs his fault.

Cao Cao also has a characteristic, that is, he is eager for talents.

Yu Ban, Dian Wei and other veterans were used by him, Zhang Liao, Xu Huang and other generals were willing to serve him, Xun You, Wang Lang, Guo Jia, Cheng Yu and other small officials and ordinary people also became a generation of famous ministers because of his support.

Just looking at Cao Cao's performances, he can be called a capable minister in troubled times, but this will not affect future generations to distort his image for various reasons.

Killing Kong Rong, killing Ma Teng, killing Yang Xiu, and killing Lu Bohao, these things did come from Cao Cao, of course, including the killing of Hua Tuo.

If it is said that Cao Cao killed Kong Rong because he pretended to be clear and ignorant of current affairs, he killed Ma Teng because of the needs of the war situation, he killed Yang Xiu because he was arrogant and wanted to make an example of him, and he killed Lu Boyu because he was too suspicious in the process of fleeing.

So, what is the purpose of killing Hua Tuo?

In "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Cao Cao asked Hua Tuo to give him a headache, and Hua Tuo came up with a "good method" to split the head with an axe and take out the lesions in the head.

In this way, the outspoken Hua Tuo met Cao Cao, who was seriously suspicious, and was directly imprisoned, and then died in prison.

But the romance is ** after all, we open the "Three Kingdoms" and "Later Han Book", but the records in them are not the same.

Hua Tuo in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was left by Cao Cao with a headache.

At first, Hua Tuo was cured of the disease, but he always treated the symptoms but not the root cause, and later Hua Tuo lied that his old wife was seriously ill and asked Cao Cao for leave to go home.

Until this time, the relationship between Cao Cao and Hua Tuo was relatively normal, but what happened next directly led to Hua Tuo's death.

Cao Cao sent someone to Hua Tuo's home to check, and at the same time instructed: If Hua Tuo's wife is really seriously ill, then give her Xiaodou forty Hu, and give Hua Tuo some more grace vacations.

But Cao Cao's reply was: deception.

Cao Cao is a person who "can't bear me in the world", of course, he can't let Hua Tuo deceive himself like this, so Hua Tuo was arrested and finally died in prison.

The records in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty are not much different from the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, and it is almost certain that Hua Tuo died at the hands of Cao Cao.

So, which nerve did Hua Tuo touch to Cao Cao that caused him to be killed?

Regarding Hua Tuo's death, people have always said that Hua Tuo, who has noble medical ethics, is not at fault, but is completely the fault of the traitor Cao Cao.

So, is that really true?

As a famous acupuncture doctor in the Jin Dynasty who was close to the Later Han Dynasty, Huang Fu Mi, once described Hua Tuo in the "Acupuncture A and B Sutra" as "a bad character, which eventually led to death".

Hua Tuo's death, is it related to his character?

Chen Shou in the "Biography of Fang Ji" in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", there is a description of Hua Tuo's heart, saying that he originally became a scholar through reading, but now he is practicing medicine and often regrets it.

Why does Hua Tuo regret being a "wonderful and benevolent" doctor?

In fact, since the Qin Dynasty, doctors have been the "middle nine streams" in the "three religions and nine streams", which are the same as qin, chess, calligraphy and painting, fortune telling, and monks, and their status is far below that of Shinong and industry.

Qin Shi Huang believed in alchemists and sought immortality, and the profession of doctors was also in the group of "alchemists".

Because of this, he escaped the catastrophe when he burned books, and related books can continue to circulate in the community.

However, after the Confucian culture of the Han Dynasty became dominant, medical skills were once again neglected, falling directly from the "scholar" level to the "worker" level, so in the "Three Kingdoms", the biography of the doctor will be included in the "Fang Ji Biography".

Even in the later Tang Dynasty, Han Yu also mentioned in the "Shi Shuo" that "witch doctors" and musicians and craftsmen who played musical instruments were all "low-class professions" and were despised by gentlemen.

Some people may ask, also in "The Biography of Hua Tuo", it was mentioned that someone recommended him as "filial piety" and "official", why did Hua Tuo not agree?

First of all, it should be said that when Hua Tuo was still very young in the early days of his medical career, he may not be able to look down on the two magistrates.

After decades of immersion, it is not necessary to regret the original choice.

If even Hua Tuo himself dislikes the profession of doctors, then what about Cao Cao?

Although Cao Cao can be reused for Ban, Zhang Liao, Xun You, Guo Jia and others, these people are either military or political, they are all "usable talents", but "doctors" are not "talents".

This idea is not Cao Cao's professional bias, but the overall identity of the era.

Therefore, when Cao Cao just kept Hua Tuo by his side as a "tool man" and only let him be responsible for his own headaches, his positioning was just a "tool".

and Kong Rong, who was born in the clan, Yang Xiu, and Ma Teng, who was born in the military, are not on the same level.

It can be seen from this that when he learned that Hua Tuo deceived himself with the lie that his wife was seriously ill, what kind of mentality the arrogant Cao Cao would have.

It is recorded in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty that Cao Cao said that Hua Tuo at that time was a "villain" who could cure my illness but could not cure it, and he wanted to blackmail me, even if I didn't kill him, he would not cure me.

From this point of view, Hua Tuo at this time has become a useless "tool" in Cao Cao's eyes.

In fact, there is a more important reason for Hua Tuo's death, which is "great disrespect", which is also Cao Cao's crime of announcing Hua Tuo to the outside world.

According to the "Book of Han", "deceiving superiors" is a great disrespectful crime, and when it comes to Hua Tuo, it is "bullying".

Another reason is that after Hua Tuo returned home, he turned a deaf ear to Cao Cao's repeated orders, so this is "not conscripted".

Whether it is from personal feelings or using Hua Tuo's death to "be a typical example", Hua Tuo has already used his own actions to provide Cao Cao with a murderous hilt.

Cao Cao killed the famous soldier Yang Xiu in front of the two armies because Yang Xiu's talent leaked, ripped off Cao Cao's fig leaf, and shook the morale of the army.

Now Hua Tuo has made the same mistake, and if Cao Cao does not deal with him, he will definitely "affect the morale of the army".

Hua Tuo's death, to a certain extent, was a kind of sorrow caused by that special period.

But the bigger reason is that Hua Tuo is too confident in himself and doesn't know enough about Cao Cao, which makes Cao Cao "lose face".

References:

[1] Chen Shou: "Romance of the Three Kingdoms";

[2] Fan Ye: Book of the Later Han Dynasty;

[3] An Jing: "Hua Tuo and Cao Cao";

[4] Huangfu Mi: "Acupuncture A and B Sutra". **10,000 Fans Incentive Plan

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