The story of Yang Jiajiang and Hu Jiajiang is widely circulated among the people in the form of storytelling, and "Hu Yanqing Fighting" is even more popular, and it is not inferior to the legend of Yang Liulang and Yang Qilang.
However, was there a general in the real history of the Northern Song Dynasty?
The answer is: Yes!
In the early days of the Northern Song Dynasty, the father and son soldiers of the Hu family were really famous. However, it is completely different from the Hu Jiajiang in the romance commentary.
Next, the author will talk about the story of the Hu family in the official history.
** Huyanzan character picture.
Judging from the surname, Huyanzan's ancestors should be the descendants of the Huyan clan of the Xiongnu, or the descendants of the Xianbei Huyan clan.
After the great ethnic integration of the two Han and Northern Dynasties, and the Tang Dynasty after the establishment of Shatuo, no matter what their ancestors were, the Huyan clan had already become the son of the Han family.
Huyanzan joined the army when he was a teenager, and at that time, it was the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and the martial artists had a noble status, and those who were brave and good at fighting would always attract attention. And Hu Yanzan was born in a family of military officers, with outstanding martial arts and more courage, and he is undoubtedly the best in the army.
Zhao Kuangyin, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, launched the Chenqiao Mutiny, and after ascending to the throne, he reshuffled the Praetorian Guard, and selected the brave from the soldiers and soldiers to serve as officers. The new emperor basically played this hand, personally promoted a large number of newcomers into the army, and those who were promoted would definitely be grateful to Dade and loyal to the new lord. This means that when the army is stable, the position will be stable.
At this time, Hu Yanzan, a knight in the Xiao cavalry army, stood out with his skillful martial arts, brave combat, and loyalty, and was directly selected by Song Taizu from among the soldiers and transferred to the imperial front guard.
Since then, Hu Yanzan has been officially promoted from the native soldier to the officer of the Imperial Guard of the Great Song Dynasty.
Being promoted by the emperor himself, coupled with the status of the imperial attendant, actually means that the life of the cavalry Hu Yanzan is about to begin to rise steadily.
When Hu Yanzan was in the Xiao cavalry army before, he was known for daring to fight and being good at fighting, but people with ability often have tempers, and his personality is very strange, and he has never been liked by Shangguan. Therefore, he has not been promoted.
However, as soon as Song Taizu took the position, he immediately promoted Huyanzan, which made Huyanzan grateful.
Therefore, in order to repay Taizu's kindness, "swearing allegiance to the imperial court with all his heart" has become the motto of the Northern Song Dynasty general's life.
Song Taizu was the "weakest branch", strengthened the centralization of power, and collected the world's elite soldiers to be reorganized into the Praetorian Guard, making the Praetorian Guard of the Northern Song Dynasty the most elite field corps in the imperial court. In case of war, the soldiers of the forbidden army have to take turns to go to battle.
Therefore, although Hu Yanzan was transferred to the imperial court, he still participated in the early Northern Song Dynasty expeditions many times.
When the Song army invaded Shu, Hu Yanzan followed the expedition and led a group to act as the vanguard of the army. In every battle, he took the lead and moved forward bravely, breaking through the formation all the way, and winning many battles.
Because as soon as he encountered a battle, he rushed with arrows and stones, and often rushed into the enemy formation on a single horse to fight, so in the battle of Shu, Huyanzan suffered many wounds. After Pingshu, he was promoted again for his military merits, and was promoted from a junior officer to a middle-level officer of the Praetorian Guard.
After Song Taizong ascended the throne, the emperor once again selected elites among the first-class officers in the army, battalions and colonels.
At this time, Huyanzan, who was outstanding in martial arts and famous for his bravery, stood out for the second time, and was appreciated by Taizong and appointed as the commander of the Praetorian Guard's Iron Cavalry.
The position of commander of the First Army also means that from then on, Huyanzan officially became a middle-level officer and became a general.
Song Taizong personally conquered the Northern Han Dynasty, and most of the powerful generals in the forbidden army went out with the Son of Heaven, and the fierce general Hu Yanzan was of course no exception.
The most arduous battle of the Northern Han Dynasty was the Taiyuan Siege of Taiyuan, the seat of the Northern Han regime.
Since the Northern Dynasties, Taiyuan has become the first male city in the world, with strong, tall and thick city walls. The Northern Han city defense was complete and the elite soldiers in the city were sufficient, which made the Song army fight particularly fiercely in the battle of Dengcheng, and really suffered a lot.
After the Song army began to climb the city, the arrows and stones on the city poured like a torrential rain, and the corpses of the Song soldiers who landed in the city were all over the ground and miserable.
As a result, under the repeated attacks and heavy losses, the officers and soldiers of the army gradually became cowardly.
At this time, the generals who were personally promoted by Taizong played a role, and in order to boost their morale, they went into battle in person and put on armor to go to the city.
The commander of the Iron Cavalry made Hu Yanzan once again take the lead and led the first soldiers in the army to climb the city and attack. When Huyanzan led the team to assault, he put on heavy armor and personally rushed to the first.
Four times when he approached the city, he was knocked over the ladder by the enemy, fell from a great height, and then the next time he attacked, he was the first to charge.
During the final general attack, Hu Yanzan led his troops to finally board the fortified Taiyuan City and firmly occupied the position at the head of the city, and the follow-up troops poured into the enemy city in an endless stream.
Song Taizong watched the battle under the city and witnessed Huyanzan's bravery, and was greatly moved.
The history books do not seem to record whether Hu Yanzan participated in the battle of Song Taizong's invasion of Youzhou. It is possible that he did not participate because of his serious injuries, and during the siege of Taiyuan in Bizhang, he fell off the city four times, and his internal organs were injured by the shock, which is not a joke.What is Huyanzan's depression?
After the Battle of Taiyuan, he never went to the battlefield again, which was the biggest depression of the fierce general Hu Yanzan!
After returning to Bianliang from Taiyuan, Hu Yanzan successively served as the deputy head of the Ma Army, the chief of the internal Chazhi Du Yuhou, and the deputy head of the Ma Bu Army in the Praetorian Guard.
However, compared with generals with the same qualifications, Huyanzan's employees are obviously low, why is this?
This is related to Huyanzan's character, as he inadvertently violated the taboo of the Great Song Dynasty.
So, what exactly is the taboo?
Hu Yanzan, who wants to serve the imperial court, has only two things in his life. When he was on duty, he led soldiers in the forbidden army, and after returning home, he studied the art of war and martial arts.
As a result, he made marching formations, wrote a lot of military art essentials for army management and training, and military strategies such as setting up passes, building fortresses, and building camps in the field. He also wrote a book to present to Emperor Taizong, and took the initiative to ask that he was willing to go out of Beijing to the border pass to guard.
Attention, what Hu Yanzan, who served the country with a red heart, didn't know was that at this time, the Great Song Dynasty was already beginning to suppress the military, and there was no longer a need to make his own formation diagram and write the generals of the art of war!
Because the military strategy for these major matters should be done by the emperor and civilian officials, and the duty of the general is to lead the team to charge under the command of the civilian officials.
Therefore, Huyanzan's dedication to Emperor Taizong of the formation map, military strategy and art of war is obviously out of bounds.
Secondly, Hu Yanzan took the initiative to ask to go out to lead the troops, which was actually a taboo. At that time, the Great Song Dynasty was forming an atmosphere of using literature to control martial arts, and military generals only listened to orders, but never had thoughts, which was already an unspoken rule. As a result, almost none of the Praetorian Guard generals would take the initiative to ask to go out to lead the troops.
And Hu Yanzan didn't hear what was going on outside the window, but went against the wind, and he committed everything.
Fortunately, Song Taizong knew that Hu Yanzan was a person, and he never had personal relationships with others, which was almost a pure soldier who didn't even have friends.
Taizong is still very relieved of Huyanzan's loyalty.
And the imperial court has to suppress the military step by step, and it can't be directly pointed out that "generals can't study the art of war and military strategy", right?
So, in order to appease Huyanzan, Taizong summoned him after receiving Huyanzan's military strategy and ordered him to demonstrate martial arts in court.
Hu Yanzan was full of pride, dressed in military uniform, rode on the war horse he carefully fed in training clothes, put on armor on the horse, galloped the horse and brandished the iron whip and the lance, and circled around the palace to do the actions of stabbing and whipping the horse.
After Hu Yanzan finished his martial arts, he brought his four sons: Huyan Bixing, Bixing, Bichang, Biqiu, and Bixian to the palace, and asked them to present the emperor one by one with the fighting skills of dancing swords, dancing swords, spears, and whips.
The Huyan family is a martial arts practitioner, and the father and son are both skilled and brave, which is the origin of the title of "Hu Jiajiang".
However, the sad thing is that although there is a strong enemy in the north of the Great Song Dynasty, the clouds have not recovered, and the west is restless, and the national policy of suppressing military force in the imperial court has been decided, and there is no longer a need for "Hu Jiajiang" and other generals.
Marginalizing the door until it disappears is the big deal.
Therefore, after Huyan's father and son performed in the court, Song Taizong gave their father and son hundreds of taels of silver as a reward. As for going out to lead troops to fight and so on, there was no follow-up, and the emperor seemed to have forgotten about it and did not say anything more.
But it is safe to say that Huyanzan's martial arts are amazing. And judging from his formation diagrams, military tactics and other things, he is not an unwritten martial artist, but unfortunately, he just can't see the situation clearly and doesn't know the current affairs.
And Song Taizong did not let Hu Yanzan go out to lead the troops, to put it bluntly, he wanted to secretly suppress this kind of "old general" who was a legacy of the five dynasties of the late Tang Dynasty. What the Great Song Dynasty needs in the future is a "brand-new general" who only promises, rather than a general with a strong and unique personality like Hu Yanzan.
Hu Yanzan's courage is superhuman, and his desire to make meritorious contributions is extremely strong, and he seems to be a maverick among the generals of the Praetorian Guard in the Song Dynasty, and he is also incompatible with his colleagues.
The history books call Yanzan "courageous, warbler and rash, and often willing to die to the enemy." ”
Note that these terms and comments are not without ironic elements, and there are some explicit and implicit connotations, why is this?
To put it bluntly, after the Song Dynasty, the civil and military were divided into two ways, and most of the literati valued the literature and looked down on the martial artists more and more. Therefore, Hu Yanzan, who has a body of martial arts and military strategy, lacks the opportunity to lead the troops to fight, so slowly, of course, it will become a joke in the mouths of later generations of historical and civil officials.
has no ambition to repay the service, and he can't use his martial arts, which makes Hu Yanzan's temper more and more extreme. In the eyes of the civil and military officials of Bianliang City, Huyanzan already existed like a "monster in the world".
The Song Dynasty had a custom of embroidering tattoos. Hu Yanzan tattooed the words "Killing thieves with a naked heart" all over his body. And his wives and servants were also tattooed by him one by one with this kind of tattoo of allegiance to the country.
He also tattooed two lines of words on the back of his sons: "Go out and forget your home for the country, and forget about death when you go into battle." ”
The imperial court has not allowed Huyanzan to go out to lead the troops, but he has been preparing to go out.
As a result, Huyanzan never interacted with his colleagues or superiors, and all his free time when he was on duty was spent studying martial arts, making weapons, and always preparing to go out for the country and go into battle to kill the enemy.
At that time, the iron armor of the Northern Song Dynasty enemy and the generals of the Liao ** team became stronger and stronger, and Hu Yanzan specially made a war knife that broke the iron armor according to his early experience in the battle formation, which was named - Breaking the Formation Knife.
According to the shortcomings of the commonly used whips in the Song army, he also made a combined weapon of iron whip and iron bones, which was specially used to break the enemy's heavy armor, and was also named - Demon Pestle.
In addition, Huyanzan also specially made an iron scarf hat specially for battle, and the two sides of the hat rose like a sharp sword to the sky, and it was said that the hat weighed more than ten catties.
When he goes out on weekdays, Huyanzan wears a red scarf, rides a blue and white variegated war horse, and wears unusual clothes. He is in Bianliang City, and he looks particularly amazing.
Hu Yanzan couldn't get his wish to go out to the border to lead the troops, so he poured his blood into his family, and he urged his sons to hone their muscles and bones and exercise martial arts day and night. In winter, he used cold water to scrub the bodies of his young sons, hoping that they would grow up to be cold and strong, and to fight for the country; In the summer, his sons had to be dressed neatly and practice the skills of fighting in battle arrays with heavy weapons in hand under the scorching sun.
As a result, under the supervision of Huyanzan, the children of the Huyan family are all skilled in martial arts, which is one of the reasons why the folk have the legend of "Hujia General".
Hu Yanzan taught his children very strictly at home, but his fatherly love for his sons was also sincere. Once, one of his sons fell ill, and Huyanzan listened to the home remedies, and without hesitation, he waved a knife and cut off the meat on his leg, cooked soup for the child to drink, and used it to cure the disease.
In the Song Taizong Dynasty, he never let Hu Yanzan go out to lead the troops to guard the border, so he has always been in the Praetorian Guard.
By the time of Song Zhenzong, Hu Yanzan's qualifications were already the generals, but his position was still not high, and his qualifications were not in line with his qualifications. However, Huyanzan was unconcerned, and everything was calm.
Once, Song Zhenzong wanted to promote the generals in the Praetorian Guard, and at the meeting, a group of ministers and generals vied with each other to state their achievements in the battlefield in the past, so that there was an uproar in the venue.
Only Hu Yanzan did not show off his exploits in the early years, which he had repeatedly defeated and suffered dozens of wounds. When it was his turn to speak, he humbly addressed Emperor Zhenzong: "The ministers have hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, but they spend less than half of their living expenses, and they are honored and ashamed to receive so much. I know that I can't serve the country, and I don't dare to seek promotion again, and I am afraid that there will be too many blessings in the future and disasters. ”
As soon as he finished speaking, Huyanzan bowed twice and then withdrew.
This kind of sincere and selfless mind calmed all the generals present on the spot. But I have to say that this is another big scene. Because using wealth to make generals settle for the status quo is the "way of governing generals" in the Great Song Dynasty. And "generals are not greedy for money" really violates the values that the Great Song Dynasty has become tacit.
As a result, the emperor and the generals present were impressed, but what was the taste in their hearts was very subtle.
Huyanzan is lucky in his life!
Because although he has an unsociable personality, he was able to spend his old age in peace. In the third year of Xianping in the Northern Song Dynasty, Hu Yanzan was sent to the cemetery of the Empress Dowager Yuande and was responsible for guarding the mausoleum there. After completing this tenure, this veteran who had been thinking about guarding the border for the country all his life passed away suddenly.
But Huyanzan is "unlucky" again!
Because he was born at the wrong time, the Hu family will be loyal and good, and his martial arts are outstanding, but he has never had the opportunity to practice his ideal of leading troops to go out and kill the enemy to serve the country. In fact, this is also the fate of the warriors of the Northern Song Dynasty.
According to this, some people say that this is due to Huyanzan's low ability to command soldiers in the army and manage the people in the local area, so the court does not reuse him. That would be a bit unjust to say that.
A person like Hu Yanzan, who has good martial arts, is brave by nature, and is obsessed with studying the art of war, if he was born in the Han and Tang Dynasties, he would definitely be released to let the border generals make contributions.
But Da Song didn't give such a person a chance at all, so that what he had learned in his life could not be used, and then his temper became more and more weird. If you don't give him a chance to show it, how can you say that his ability is good or not?