In ancient times, there may be three images of an important historical figure, namely: historical image, literary image, and folk image, but with the passage of history, the historical image is likely to be forgotten by people, and replaced by the literary image in the work of art, as well as the folk image in the minds of the common people.
For example: Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu Han.
Nowadays, once Zhuge Liang is mentioned, everyone will first think of the "empty city plan", and when it comes to the empty city plan, it will definitely show Zhuge Liang's super high military talent.
So, the question arises: has Zhuge Liang's empty city plan happened in real history?
In fact, the image of Zhuge Liang is an image that is vigorously created in literary and artistic works, not a source of water and a tree without roots, it also has a history: since the death of Wei, the respect and respect for Zhuge Liang has gradually begun.
In the early years of the Jin Dynasty, there was a person named Guo Chong, as a die-hard fan of Zhuge Liang, he thought that the world's respect for Zhuge Liang was far from enough, so he wrote an article called "The Five Things of Tiao Liang Hidden from the World" to praise and respect Zhuge Liang.
Note: "The five things that are hidden from the world", I want to announce to you five unknown things about Zhuge Liang.
Later, when Pei Songzhi annotated the "Three Kingdoms", he also quoted five things written by Guo Chong, and refuted them one by one, saying that those five things did not exist at all, including (the third thing) "empty city plan".
It can be seen that the "Empty City Plan" was not made up by Luo Guanzhong, but originated from Guo Chong's "Five Things of Tiao Liang".
According to the description in Guo Chong's article: When Sima Yi led the army to attack Yangping, because Zhuge Liang had no soldiers in his hands at that time, he made an empty city plan, and Sima Yi hurriedly withdrew his troops for fear of fraud.
And Pei Songzhi's reason for refuting Guo Chong is: According to research, Sima Yi was the governor of Jingzhou at that time, stationed in Jiewan City, and was not on the battlefield of Yangping at all.
It's just that the story of "The Empty City" is indeed very exciting, so our literary works will be told again and again, and the drama works will be played again and again.
Next, let's take a look at what the "empty city plan" is in literary and artistic works......
In the face of Sima Yi's army, Zhuge Liang was in a hurry, and he opened the city gate and sent a few old and weak soldiers to sweep the floor at the door, and then he took two children with a piano, sat firmly on the top of the city tower, burned incense and played the piano.
We can fully imagine Zhuge Liang's lyrics at that time: I was watching the mountain scenery from the city tower, and I heard the chaos outside the city, waving the flag and flipping the shadow, but it turned out to be a soldier ...... sent by Sima
At the same time, we can also imagine Zhuge Liang's subtext at that time: only blame Ma Jian for not being useful, and there is no harmony between them, you Sima Yi got a lot of places by luck, but now you are insatiable and come to beat me again. I have already cleaned the tower, waiting for you to come and garrison the army, I have also killed the sheep and boiled wine, ready to treat your three armies, since you have come, why don't you enter the city, what are you still hesitating to do there? Tell you, I only have two piano boys here, there is neither ambush nor soldiers, you don't hesitate and hesitate there anymore!
In the play, Zhuge Liang finally sang: "You come, come, please come to the city to listen to me play the qin." ”
At this time, Sima Yi had already come to the city, looking at an empty city in front of him, he hesitated and ordered the withdrawal of the army.
Regarding this matter, Pei Songzhi has made it very clear: it is not a fact!
Moreover, this matter is also illogical: why didn't Sima Yi dare to attack? It's nothing more than being afraid that there will be an ambush in the city, but the city is so big, how many people can be ambushed?
It stands to reason that Sima Yi could have sent a small group of men into the city to explore the truth at that time; Moreover, according to the description of the play, Sima Yi was under the city tower at that time, very close to Zhuge Liang, and he could have sent someone to shoot Zhuge Liang with arrows.
In addition, according to Guo Chong or Luo Guanzhong, the disparity between the forces of Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang was very great at that time, some said that Sima Yi led an army of 200,000, and some said that he led an army of more than 100,000, so he only needed to surround the city, cut off the grain and grass in the city, and soon he would not attack himself? Why do you want to turn around and withdraw your troops?
Therefore, when Pei Songzhi was annotating this matter, he also said: Sima Yi can completely surround and not fight, cut off his food and grass, why should he turn around and leave?
Therefore, there are some historical materials that are actually unreliable!
As for other things, such as: the burning of Bowang, the burning of Xinye, the borrowing of arrows from grass boats, and the borrowing of ...... from the east windIn fact, these are all historical unfounded things.
In fact, Zhuge Liang is an outstanding politician, and he can even be said to be a great politician, and his talent is mainly reflected in politics, and his contributions are mainly the following three points-
A set of strategic development plans for Liu Bei Group has been formulated - Longzhong Pair.
Contributed to the alliance between Liu Bei and Sun Quan's group.
After Liu Bei's death, help him govern the Shu Kingdom.
Therefore, Zhuge Liang's statecraft is very outstanding, but in comparison, his military talent is inferior to his statecraft.
Regarding this point, Chen Shou also made a more objective evaluation of Zhuge Liang: governing Rong is long, scheming is short, and managing the people is better than generals.
However, in the literary image and folk image, Zhuge Liang has become a military genius who is strategizing and clever, while the generals of Liu Bei's group, including Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao and Huang Zhong, all seem to be stupid and will only obey Zhuge Liang's orders, obviously treating war as child's play.
Let's talk about "borrowing the east wind", according to the description in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and the performance on the drama stage, Zhuge Liang was wearing a Taoist robe, a pair of bare feet, and holding a sword in a cloak, where he was babbling about "Dharma things", is this really the image that Zhuge Liang should have?
Therefore, Mr. Lu Xun once said such a sentence: "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is wise and close to demons!
Note: The "demon" in it refers to the demon who pretends to be a ghost, not a goblin or a monster.
Of course, according to the statement in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Zhuge Liang's demon is naturally pretended, but there is really no need, after all, when Sun and Liu joined forces against Cao Cao, they should have worked together, and as for the war between Sun and Liu in the future in order to fight for Jingzhou, it was a later matter.
Therefore, it is actually very inappropriate to portray Zhuge Liang as a demon image!
In fact, Zhuge Liang's appearance is still very handsome, the history books once said that he is "eight feet long, very great", eight feet is used as a Han ruler, the eight feet of the Han ruler is about equal to five feet five inches of the current city ruler, which is equivalent to one meter eighty-four.
Moreover, Zhuge Liang was only 26 years old when he came out of the mountain, just imagine: what kind of image should a man who is both young and handsome, and has a very tall posture?
It can be seen that there is still a big distance between the literary image and the historical image!
To sum up, we can know that although "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is based on the official history, many plots and character activities in it are enriched and developed on the basis of the story of the Three Kingdoms.
Therefore, we can be sure: the historical image is not equal to the literary image, nor is it equal to the folk image.