Chapter 323: Although Guan Yu is dead, Mi Yang is still here
Not everyone can have a eulogy.
Considering Guan Yu's identity and status during his lifetime, it is only reasonable that after his death, the Han Emperor Liu Bei recited a eulogy for him in public.
This point has long been speculated by the ministers.
What the ministers did not expect was that the content of this eulogy was very different from the common eulogies in the world.
Since it is a eulogy, the natural content should be mainly about mourning.
However, the content of this eulogy recited by Liu Bei today is not all words of condolence.
On the contrary, it is more like a tribute to Guan Yu and the Han army after the Xiangfan Battle!
It can also be seen as a proclamation by the Han army to show off their martial arts.
It's just that no matter what speculations arise in the minds of the ministers, their current mood seems to be quite turbulent.
In the martial Han Dynasty, a passionate article could inspire people to a great extent.
If that article was based on facts, the effect would undoubtedly be greater.
It is obvious that the eulogy to Guan Yu recited by Liu Bei has such an effect.
Liu Bei, who was standing on the altar, looked at the excited expressions on the faces of the ministers below, and there was some comfort in his eyes.
He looked at where Guan Yu's Zi Palace was and thought to himself:
"This kind of eulogy should be exactly what Zi Sheng said, and it is what Yunchang likes."
And this kind of eulogy was also liked by the Han subjects.
Before leaving Xinye, Liu Bei asked Mi Yang to write a eulogy for Guan Yu in advance because of Mi Yang's identity and his usual writing skills.
Compared with other tasks Liu Bei assigned to Mi Yang, the task of writing a memorial for Guan Yu made Mi Yang feel relaxed.
However, when writing the eulogy, Mi Yang considered that Guan Yu died after the Han army's victory in the Battle of Xiangfan, which might have a certain impact on the morale of the Han army.
Even when the news of Guan Yu's death was learned by Cao Wei's monarchs and ministers, it would fuel their arrogance to a certain extent.
Out of this consideration, Mi Yang adopted a completely different way of writing eulogies from his predecessors.
In fact, he mixed the battle report of the Han army's victory in the Xiangfan battle into the eulogy for Guan Yu.
When such a eulogy was recited from Liu Bei's mouth, it not only greatly affirmed Guan Yu's achievements during his lifetime.
It will also prevent the Han subjects from being saddened by the content of this eulogy and affecting the morale of the military and the people.
It may even boost their morale invisibly.
And when this "Essay on the Sorrow of General Yu" spread throughout the world, whether it was Cao Pi or Sun Quan, who had been quite silent recently.
They will all naturally feel the momentum and power shown by the Han army in this eulogy.
When Mi Yang handed this "Essay on the Sorrow of the General Yu" into Liu Bei's hands, Liu Bei naturally understood Mi Yang's good intentions.
Therefore, after reading this eulogy on the altar, Liu Bei handed the eulogy in his hand to Deng Zhi who had just ascended the altar. He ordered Deng Zhi:
"Publish it to the world, and the envoys will know it."
If Deng Zhi can be favored by Liu Bei and become an important minister, then he can naturally understand the profound meaning of Liu Bei's move.
So after he took the eulogy from Liu Bei, he bowed to Liu Bei and bowed to Ying Wei.
After handing the eulogy in his hand to Deng Zhi, Liu Bei looked at the burial place of Guan Yu's Zi Palace, and his eyes became extremely reluctant to part with him.
"Brother is leaving."
"In a few years, brother will definitely take you to Chang'an."
After muttering these two sentences silently in his heart, Liu Bei slowly bowed to the place where Guan Yu's spirit was.
To express a temporary farewell.
After Liu Bei bowed, many sacrifices on the altar behind him were thrown into the fire.
Fueled by the grease-filled animal carcasses, the flames on the altar suddenly shot up.
The rising flames appeared behind Liu Bei, the emperor of Han Dynasty, seeming to reflect that Yan Han's current national power was booming.
After Liu Bei paid his respects, it also announced the end of Guan Yu's grand funeral.
Shortly after Guan Yu's funeral, many messengers set out from Xiangyang and quickly traveled to various parts of the world.
These messengers were sent by Deng Zhi.
When these messengers announce the mourning for General Yu to the world, the world will inevitably stir up waves again.
...
Xiangyang City was the seat of the Emperor of the Han Dynasty and the command center of the previous Battle of Xiangfan. The city was already densely populated with spies from all sides.
It was impossible for such a major event as the funeral of the Han general Guan Yu to be concealed from spies from all sides inside and outside Xiangyang City.
Perhaps the spies in Xinye City or Xiangyang City had found out that Guan Yu had passed away.
But because this news was too sudden, and the Han army has always been good at using tricks.
Therefore, before there was complete and definite information, many spies made special remarks that the news was doubtful when reporting it.
Faking death to trick the enemy into attacking was a tactic that no one had used in the past.
But when Guan Yu's funeral was held grandly outside Xiangyang City, this incident undoubtedly proved the authenticity of the news of Guan Yu's death.
Therefore, after confirming that the news of Guan Yu's death was true, spies from all sides reported the news at an extremely fast speed through various channels.
Among them, the spies sent by Wancheng reported the fastest.
At the end of February in the second year of Emperor Zhangwu of the Han Dynasty, just when Cao Pi had arranged everything and was preparing to drive back to Luoyang, this information happened to be delivered to Cao Pi, who was about to embark on his journey, through the hands of Liu Fang, the supervisor of the Central Secretary.
Liu Fang is a descendant of Liu Jian, the first king of Guangyang in the Han Dynasty, and is also a Han clan clan member like Liu Ye.
The only difference from Liu Ye is that Liu Fang has more trust from Cao Cao and Cao Pi than Liu Ye.
After Cao Pi became emperor, he appointed Sun Zi as Zhongshu Ling and Liu Fang as Zhongshu Supervisor, and they jointly took charge of the important institution of Zhongshu Tai.
Liu Fang was able to gain the trust of Cao Cao and Cao Pi, except for the fact that he had made great contributions to Cao Cao's pacification of Hebei.
It's also because he himself is a very talented person, and he has a strong ability to analyze all kinds of documents.
This has led to Cao Pi recently handing over the power of summarizing intelligence from all parties to Liu Fang, the Central Secretary Supervisor.
Liu Fang, holding a piece of intelligence that was urgently sent back to Wancheng, stopped Cao Pi who was about to get on the imperial chariot with one sentence.
"Guan Yu is dead, the news is correct!"
When Liu Fang's words reached Cao Pi's ears, Cao Pi's raised foot suddenly stopped.
He was stunned for a moment, then a look of surprise appeared on his face.
Surprised, Cao Pi no longer bothered to board the imperial chariot.
He immediately kicked his feet and returned to the imperial chariot, and then quickly used his hands to attract Liu Fang to come forward.
Under Cao Pi's invitation, Liu Fang quickly stepped forward to Cao Pi and presented the information in his hands to Cao Pi.
Looking at the information covered with red feathers in Liu Fang's hand, Cao Pi's face became even more joyful.
As early as before, there was a lot of news about Guan Yu's death circulating inside and outside Wancheng.
It's just that the news had not yet been confirmed at that time.
In addition, Cao Pi was psychologically affected by being deceived by the Han army, so Cao Pi did not believe the news.
Not only did Cao Pi not believe it, but many ministers of Cao and Wei did not believe it either.
But just when Cao Pi thought that Guan Yu's death from illness was false news, on the day he was about to leave Wancheng, he actually received confirmation that Guan Yu had died from illness.
How could such news not surprise Cao Pi?
Cao Pi knew Liu Fang's character. If such news was not supported by accurate evidence, Liu Fang would not dare to read it out in public.
What surprised Cao Pi even more was what happened later. After Liu Fang handed over the information in his hand, he immediately said:
"Liu Bei abandoned Mi Yang and instead appointed Zhang Fei as the governor of Jingzhou."
After learning the news, Cao Pi and the ministers around him were even more happy, and they breathed a long sigh of relief in their hearts.
Before the Battle of Xiangfan, the evaluation of Liu Bei's power by both the Wei government and the public was usually like this.
"Liu is the leader of a small country, and his famous generals Wei Yu and Yang are no match for the great Wei."
Such an evaluation is based on the confidence of the Cao Wei government and the public in their own national strength, and is also based on a judgment of objective facts.
It is true that Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun and other generals were still around at this time, and Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun had made many military exploits in the past.
However, they did not have the glorious record of Guan Yu flooding the Seventh Army and forcing them to surrender, and Mi Yang burning the Han River to siege Cao Ren.
Therefore, their deterrence among the Cao Wei court and the public was naturally not high.
Even after the Battle of Xiangfan, the judgments of the Wei monarchs and ministers about Liu Bei's famous generals did not actually change fundamentally.
Especially compared to Mi Yang, Guan Yu, who had won two Xiangfan battles in a row, was more like a towering mountain, overwhelming all the monarchs and ministers of Cao and Wei and almost suffocating them.
Under such circumstances, how could Cao Pi and Wei ministers not be surprised when they learned about Guan Yu's death?
Just like when the news of Cao Cao's death spread throughout the world, the whole world breathed a sigh of relief.
After Guan Yu's death, Mi Yang did not become the next governor of Jingzhou, which made Cao Pi and other Wei officials feel relieved.
This was especially true for Sima Yi, who was in charge of military affairs in Jingzhou.
When seeing Cao Pi off today, almost all the ministers currently in and outside Wancheng came. Only General Zhang He of the left led tens of thousands of fine cavalry outside.
Isn't it Zhang He who is guarding against Mi Yang who is currently in Xinye?
After learning these two great news, Cao Pi said excitedly to the ministers on the side:
"With the thieves no longer living in Jingzhou, Wanluo will have no worries from now on."
In Cao Pi's view, Guan Yu's death was not something that could be reversed by human will.
However, after Guan Yu's death, Liu Bei did not allow Mi Yang to inherit Guan Yu's power. This was beyond his expectation and made him become optimistic about the situation in Jingzhou.
Cao Pi's words made all the ministers around him nod, and there were looks of approval on their faces.
But Cao Pi didn't notice that while the officials and him were all happy, Liu Fang's face remained tense.
However, although Cao Pi did not notice this, his movements were not slow at all.
He reached out and took the information from Liu Fang's hand. For the first time since he became emperor, he wanted to read a piece of information with joy.
Cao Pi had already thought about it. After he read the contents of this intelligence, he would immediately announce the contents of the intelligence to the world in order to boost the morale of his own army.
When Cao Pi's slender fingers traced the edge of the cloth, and the contents of the cloth in his hand were fully displayed in his eyes, Cao Pi's face was still very happy at first.
But when Cao Pi's eyes wandered all the way on the cloth in his hand, and after seeing the "Essence of Mourning the General's Feathers", his eyes suddenly tightened.
The title of this eulogy made Cao Pi very curious. Of course he would be happy if his enemy mourned.
But it was obvious that the content of this eulogy was completely beyond his expectation.
As Cao Pi continued to read the contents of the memorial, the joy on Cao Pi's face gradually dissipated.
The look of joy on his face was replaced by a look of gloom.
Under that gloomy expression, Cao Pi's eyes gradually became colder.
He felt that there was a kind of grief and anger that he had deliberately suppressed in the past, and under the influence of the content of this eulogy, it began to resurface in his heart.
As a well-known talent in the world, Cao Pi's rich knowledge reserve allowed him to read the contents of this eulogy very quickly.
He also knew immediately what the metaphor in this eulogy was referring to.
But precisely because of this, the gloomy look on Cao Pi's face became more and more intense.
After reading the contents of this eulogy, Cao Pi angrily closed the cloth in his hand.
His behavior seemed to be concealing the fact that he had read the eulogy.
But facts are facts and cannot be changed by deceiving oneself or others.
The great talent's memory and imagination allowed the contents of the eulogy to appear before his eyes like scenes from two battles.
Seeing the miserable and miserable scene of the Wei army, Cao Pi felt more and more sad and angry.
Is this mourning Guan Yu, or is it mourning the 70,000-strong army of Wei Dynasty?
Cao Pi gritted his teeth angrily, pointed his white fingers at Liu Fang, and asked Liu Fang with a cold tone in his voice:
"Do you know who wrote this eulogy?"
The intelligence did not specify who wrote the eulogy.
However, Liu Fang was a great literary figure who was relied upon by two generations of the Cao family, and he was also the current compiler of information about Cao Wei.
It was possible for him to guess who the author of this eulogy was from the comparison of writing styles.
Sure enough, after Cao Pi asked Liu Fang, even though Liu Fang had discovered that Cao Pi was in a bad mood at this time, he could only bite the bullet and answer Cao Pi:
"According to my speculation, this eulogy may have been written by Mi Yang."
Liu Fang did not speculate without reason. As Cao Wei's life and death enemy, Mi Yang's previous battle reports had been carefully studied by Liu Fang.
Because of this, Liu Fang felt a similar writing style to Mi Yang from this eulogy.
Based on facts and supplemented by heroic writing.
When Cao Pi heard that the eulogy was written by Mi Yang, a self-deprecating smile appeared on his face.
Although Guan Yu is dead, Mi Yang is still here, so what can he be happy about?
You must know that Xia Houshang, Man Chong and other generals of Wei are still imprisoned in Mi Yang's Xicheng.