In Chinese history, Lü Bu is an amazing legend, he was a famous general who fought bravely and skillfully in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and was known as the "first fierce general of the Three Kingdoms". However, as time passed, Lü Bu's image became more and more negative, and he was seen as a repetitive villain who "forgot his righteousness for the sake of profit, and was brave and unscrupulous".
So, what is the reason why people's evaluation of Lu Bu has gradually become so negative? What has happened to this?
In the historical books, Lu Bu is known as the "flying general", his bow and horse are skillful, the riding ability is outstanding, and the strength is outstanding. Chen Shou commented on Lu Bu in "Wei Shu VII" as "cunning and repetitive, mercenary".
Although there are mixed reviews, Lu Bu's bravery and vigor are undoubtedly admirable.
Lu Bu's two acts of killing the master were to kill Ding Yuan after being lured by Dong Zhuo, and killing Dong Zhuo at the instigation of Wang Yun. These behaviors are not socially acceptable.
During the Liu and Song dynasties of the Southern Dynasties, Pei Songzhi collected a large number of folk histories, notes**, official histories and other materials to fill in the information that was not included in the "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms". He made an important contribution to the supplementary work of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and the originally thin characters were recorded under the addition of Pei Note, showing a number of different aspects, so that the images of many Three Kingdoms characters were more fleshed out and three-dimensional.
In Chen Zhizhong, Lü Bu is portrayed as a villain with repeated positions, while in Pei's Note, he retains more historical materials.
The Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms Pei Note quoted "Cao Concealment Biography" once praised Lü Bu as "Lü Bu among people, red rabbit among horses", this evaluation shows the excellence of Lü Bu's riding ability, making his image of bravery and good at fighting more distinct.
Pei's note contains a large amount of information about Lü Bu, which not only enriches Lü Bu's character, but also provides detailed explanations for relevant historical events.
Pei Zhu played a key role in the preservation and enhancement of Lu Bu's historical materials in the "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms". According to the "Heroes", Lü Bu's sneak attack on Liu Bei was instigated by Yuan Shu to a certain extent.
And "Spring and Autumn in Kyushu" revealed that Lu Bu's generals would defect to Cao Cao, which was actually the result of Lu Bu's anger at Hou Cheng and others. Pei Note retains a large number of materials related to Lü Bu, and the addition of these contents not only enriches Lü Bu's character experience, but also provides reasonable explanations for related historical events.
Heroes" shows that Lu Bu's sneak attack on Liu Bei may have been instigated by Yuan Shu; The Spring and Autumn Period of Kyushu records the surrender of Lü Bu's generals to Cao Cao, which may be due to Lü Bu's anger towards Hou Cheng and others.
Therefore, Pei Note is of great significance for preserving and enriching the historical materials of Lu Bu in the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms.
The Book of the Later Han Dynasty is a masterpiece by Fan Ye in the Liu and Song dynasties of the Southern Dynasty, and he lived in the same era as Pei Songzhi, so the historical materials obtained by the two are roughly the same. The biographies of the characters in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty are more detailed than the original text of the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, and some of the contents of Pei's notes are directly incorporated into the text of the Book of the Later Han.
In general, Fan Ye's attitude towards Lu Bu is relatively tolerant. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty not only downplays Lü Bu's negative image, but also describes his battlefield performance more concretely.
Through the detailed depiction of Lu Bu and the Red Rabbit, the Book of the Later Han Dynasty makes the legend of "Lu Bu among the people and the Red Rabbit among the horses" better presented.
Zizhi Tongjian" is a chronicle of the compilation of the Northern Song Dynasty historian Sima Guang, and the Song Dynasty Shenzong gave the name "Zizhi Tongjian". This historical book is very detailed in its account of Lü Bu, most of which comes from Pei Songzhi's annotations, which vividly shows Lü Bu's rich character experience in the form of chronology.
In the long course of history, Lu Bu's image has begun to be reshaped during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. In the Tang Dynasty, after the re-creation of literati, Lu Bu's image took on new characteristics.
Li Shangyin, in the "Gift to Situ Gongwen from His Uncle", made an analogy between the enemies encountered by Lü Bu and Wang Maoyuan, believing that Lü Bu was an enemy that was difficult to defeat and loosen his bonds.
This shows that Lu Bu's image is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and people's admiration for him is self-evident.
In Li He's poems, Lü Bu is portrayed as a heroic figure, and General Lü is also compared to Lü Bu, which shows Li He's praise for him. However, Li He's life has not been reused, and the image of Lu Bu depicted in his poems is actually his yearning and envy.
He aspires to be like Lu Bu, riding a red rabbit horse to gallop across the field and realize his ambitions. However, the reality is that he is frail and sickly, unable to make a difference in his career, and can only express his yearning and envy through poetry.
Above the Huai River, under the White Gate City, the star of Lu Bu fell", this is Su Shi's creation when he was too punctual in Xuzhou. Compared with the depiction of Lu Bu by Li He and others in the Tang Dynasty, the image of Lu Bu shown in Su's poems is more negative.
The reason for this is that Su Shi mainly expressed his political views indirectly through the evaluation of Lu Bu. In the poems of the Song Dynasty, the image of Lü Bu reflects more of his personality and discipline than that of the Tang Dynasty, and the Song people represented by Su Shi criticized Lü Bu even more strongly.
In the long course of history, Lu Bu's image has been controversial. Some people compared him to the powerful ministers at that time, Lu Huiqing and Zeng Bu, thinking that their attitude was just like that of Lu Bu to Dong Zhuo.
This gives Lü Bu's image some metaphorical qualities. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the birth of "The Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms" further strengthened Lu Bu's unrighteous behavior and made great changes to his shaping.
In "Romance", in order to highlight Lu Bu's unrighteous behavior towards Liu Bei, many plots were created to show Liu Bei's benevolence, which was in stark contrast to Lu Bu's danger.
As a result, Lu Bu was portrayed as a brave and unscrupulous, arrogant and arrogant character in "Romance". However, no matter how history judges, Lu Bu's image has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and has become an important symbol in the history of Chinese literature.
Lü Bu's image has undergone many evolutions in the course of his literary development, mainly showing two directions: one is the intensification of his portrayal of martial arts, and the other is the expansion of his moral defects.
From the Two Jin Dynasties to the Qing Dynasty, Lü Bu's image has left rich traces in various literary forms. In early documents such as the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, and the Zizhi Tongjian, Lü Bu's image shows a certain stability.
In the stage of "Three Kingdoms Zhipinghua" and the drama of the Yuan Dynasty, Lu Bu's image has been further enriched and developed. In later works such as "The Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms Mao Commentary", Lu Bu's image was finally finalized, and it was also accepted and transformed by the poets of successive dynasties.
In general, Lu Bu's image has undergone various forms of evolution and inheritance in the long course of history, which not only reflects the changes of history, but also reflects people's different understandings and expectations of heroes.
From the history books and the history of the past dynasties**, we can see that Lu Bu's image has always been negative. And as the times went on, the criticism of Lü Bu gradually intensified, especially in the Qing Dynasty.
From the perspective of literary creation, the evolution of Lu Bu's image is the result of internal needs. This is reflected in the unanimous evaluation of Lu Bu in the historical books and history of the past dynasties, they pay more attention to Lu Bu's moral character, and promote feudal ethics and morality by evaluating the typical image of Lu Bu.
The image of Lü Bu is closely related to the changes in the image of the main characters, and from the existing information, Lü Bu is an important foil for the formation of Guan Yu's image in the text to a certain extent.
In ancient China, especially during the period when Confucianism was dominant, the ethical code of "monarchs, ministers, fathers, and sons" was often inviolable. Because Lü Bu forgot his righteousness and betrayed and hurt his master, he was spurned by the world, and was used as a negative example in the history books of the past dynasties to warn future generations.
The image of Lü Bu has undergone a major transformation in historical records and in the poetry of literati doctors, and this transformation is closely related to the background of the era in which he lived. The difference in the social outlook of the Tang and Song dynasties made the image of Lu Bu in the Tang and Song dynasties significantly different.
Tang Dynasty unification. First, the national strength was strong, and the mentality of literati and doctors was positive and high-spirited, while the Song Dynasty was always under the oppression of external strong enemies, which made the literati of the Song Dynasty unable to have an open state of mind like the Tang Dynasty, so they used Lü Bu more as the object of satire, or used it to express their personal ideas.
In the long course of history, Lu Bu's image has shown a diversified appearance in various documents. From the perspective of the authors of the documents, historians and literati mostly had negative evaluations of Lü Bu and condemned them from the moral level.
Although there have been many criticisms of Lü Bu in history, the fact that he fought bravely cannot be changed.