On the battlefield, if you want to survive, you must first risk your life. "The brave will win when we meet on a narrow road." This is especially true in ancient times when cold weapons were widely used.
Huo Qubing is a typical representative of the "life-threatening" characters. "The Huns are not extinct, how can we take care of our family?" This powerful statement has aroused the passion of many generations of young people dreaming of heroes.
Huo Qubing had a special fate with Emperor Wu, not only because his aunt Wei Zifu became Emperor Wu's queen, but also because the year he was born was also the year Emperor Wu ascended the throne.
Huo Qubing's mother was Wei Shao'er, who, like his maternal grandmother, worked as a slave girl in Princess Pingyang's family, while Huo Qubing's father Huo Zhongru was a minor official in Princess Pingyang's fiefdom. Huo and Wei fell in love, got married, and gave birth to Huo Qubing.
Originally, Huo Qubing should have continued to be a slave like other slaves' sons for the rest of his life. However, because his aunt Wei Zifu was favored by Emperor Wu, Huo Qubing, who was born as a slave, lived the life of a noble son with no worries about food and clothing.
It can be said that Huo Qubing grew up under Emperor Wu's watch and was trained by Emperor Wu. His relationship with Emperor Wu was comparable to that of father and son.
Emperor Wu noticed Huo Qubing's military talent very early and wanted to personally teach Sun and Wu the art of war. However, Huo Qubing's reaction greatly exceeded Emperor Wu's surprise. He said that marching and fighting depends on the enemy's situation and does not need to be rigid. Ancient military books. This is very insightful.
When Huo Qubing grew up to eighteen years old, he was already a powerful and strong young man. Whether it was riding a horse, hunting, or wielding a sword or a gun, he could learn to master it in a short time.
In 123 BC, the Huns invaded the border again. Emperor Wu then sent General Wei Qing to lead Li Guang, Su Jian and other six generals out of Dingxiang to attack the Xiongnu. This time, the young Huo Qubing also went with the army. He was taken by his uncle Wei Qing and became his captain Yao. He led 800 carefully selected knights, all of whom were brave and good at riding and shooting.
Wei Qing led his army to attack twice, killing more than 19,000 Huns in total. However, the Han army also suffered casualties. The troops led by Su Jian were completely wiped out, and Zhao Xin, who was originally the little king of the Huns, surrendered to the Huns. However, Huo Qubing achieved amazing performance on the battlefield. He led his 800 knights to deviate from the main force and ran for hundreds of miles in the rolling desert to attack the Huns. He killed a total of 2,028 enemies, including the grandfather of the Xiongnu Chanyu, and even captured them. He killed Shanyu's uncle and the state minister.
Although they were all elites among the elite, there were only 800 of them. With such a small number of people, they dared to go deep into the desert to fight against unknown enemies. This not only shows Huo Qubing's bravery, but also his eagerness to perform meritorious deeds.
As the saying goes, "Thousands of armies are easy to come by, but one general is hard to find." Although Su Jian's entire army was annihilated and Zhao Xin's surrender made Emperor Wu quite heartbroken, the unexpected emergence of Huo Qubing allowed Emperor Wu to see the hope and hope of the next generation of the Han army. He generously granted Huo Qubing the title of "Champion Marquis" and granted him a settlement of 2,500 households. The so-called "champion" means bravely winning the three armies. In the spring of the second year of Yuanshou (121 BC), Emperor Wu sent Huo Qubing to fight again. Huo Qubing once again went deep alone. He led 10,000 cavalry to attack thousands of miles and broke out of Yanzhi Mountain. There was the territory of King Xiutu of the Xiongnu. Huo Qubing met the Xiongnu troops and killed King Zhelan, King Luhou and other Xiongnu dignitaries. He also captured more than 8,900 first-level prisoners, and also obtained the treasures used by King Xiutu to worship heaven. golden man. This summer, Huo Qubing and the veteran Gongsun Ao attacked again, each with 10,000 troops. As the Huns were driven west and north by the Han Dynasty, Huo Qubing and Gongsun Ao pursued them further and further. They attacked for more than 2,000 miles, killed more than 30,000 Xiongnu soldiers near the Qilian Mountains, and captured more than 70 people. A Hun nobleman below the rank of Xiaowang.
After this war, the Xiongnu Chanyu was very angry at the losses of King Hunxie and King Xiutu, and wanted to kill them to vent his anger. When the news leaked out, King Hunxie and King Xiutu fled and surrendered to the Han Dynasty, taking their troops to the Han-Hungarian border. Emperor Wu was afraid that the two men were pretending to surrender and their purpose was to seize the opportunity to invade the border, so he sent Huo Qubing to lead his troops to welcome the surrender. At this time, King Xiutu suddenly repented and wanted to return to the Huns. King Hunxie took the opportunity to kill him and took back his troops. At this time, Huo Qubing arrived across the river. When King Hunxie's men saw Huo Qubing coming, most of them were unwilling to surrender to the Han Dynasty, so many of them fled north, and King Hunxie could not stop them. Huo Qubing led his army into the Hunxie King's army and slashed at those who escaped with their swords. In this way, after killing more than 8,000 people, no one dared to escape anymore. Because of this contribution, Emperor Wu increased the food for 1,700 households of Huo Qubing.
Over the past year, the Huns suffered heavy losses. Not only did many people die and flee, but they also lost the Qilian Mountains, Yanzhi Mountains and other natural pastures with excellent vegetation.
"If you lose me in the Qilian Mountains, my animals will have no rest; if you lose my Yanzhi Mountain, my married woman will be colorless." This is the painful groan that Huo Qubing's butcher knife brought to the Huns.
After Zhao Xin surrendered, he analyzed the strength comparison between Han and Huns for the Xiongnu Chanyu. He told Shanyu that the Han Dynasty had a vast land, a large population, and a prosperous society, while the Xiongnu was just the opposite. It was impossible to win with them. result. Previously, Yizhixie Chanyu had been pursuing a head-on war strategy with the Han Dynasty. As a result, he repeatedly failed on the battlefield and paid a heavy price. Zhao Xin's words can be said to have awakened the dreamer, so the Xiongnu's strategy against the Han from then on was to return to the past plundering that came and went like the wind. If they missed a blow, they would immediately retreat to the depths of the desert and not entangle with the Han army. At that time, in order to avoid a distant attack by the Han army, the Huns fled further north.
In the fourth year of Yuanshou (119 BC), the Huns entered Youbeiping and Dingxiang, killed and plundered thousands of people, and then fled to the desert. Emperor Wu decided to retaliate against the Huns and give them a fatal blow, so he ordered Wei Qing and Huo Qubing each to lead an expedition of 50,000 cavalry against the Huns. Not only that, nearly 40,000 war horses were also privately recruited from the private sector, and the number of infantrymen responsible for supporting them and those who transferred food and wages to the army totaled hundreds of thousands. This was Emperor Wu's biggest move since he launched the war against Hungary. However, Emperor Wu was obviously more optimistic about Huo Qubing, because the cavalry assigned to Huo Qubing were all "men who dare to fight hard", and presumably their equipment was better than that of Wei Qing.
However, Wei Qing's prestige was accumulated over many years, so Li Guang, Gongsun He and other outstanding generals were still under his banner. After Wei Qing's troops left Dingxiang and traveled more than a thousand miles, they met Yizhi Xie's pro-unification troops in the yellow sand. The two armies formed a stalemate. In the evening of that day, a strong wind blew up without warning. For a time, the sky was filled with yellow sand, and it was impossible to see even one's fingers. The Huns were in chaos. Wei Qing divided two groups of troops to outflank Chanyu from the left and right. The Xiongnu were defeated. Shanyu escaped from the northwest corner with the protection of hundreds of Xiongnu warriors. Wei Qing sent his light cavalry in pursuit and stayed with him all night, but in the end he gained nothing. During this battle, the Han army pursued northward to Zhao Xin City in Tianyan Mountain and returned, killing more than 19,000 Huns in total.
In the process, Li Guang got lost halfway because he had no guide. So when he came to the battlefield, the battle between the general and the Xiongnu Chanyu had already ended. Wei Qing wanted to write a letter stating the reasons to Emperor Wu, but Li Guang remained silent. When the chief historian forced Li Guang to go to the military recruitment mansion to confess, Li Guang committed suicide and "no longer dealt with the swordsman and pen official." A generation of famous generals died. Li Guang's son believed that Wei Qing forced his father to death.
The last time he attacked the Xiongnu, Su Jian's entire army was wiped out and he was punished according to law. However, Wei Qing did not kill him. Instead, he took him back to Chang'an and asked Emperor Wu to punish him personally. In the end, Emperor Wu spared Su Jian's life but ordered him to "redemption". For common people". Judging from Wei Qing's consistent kindness to others, he may not have intended to force Li Guang to death.
Huo Qubing's 50,000-strong army galloped across the desert, and finally met King Zuoxian of the Xiongnu two thousand miles away. With his outstanding command ability and courageous enterprising spirit, Huo Qubing defeated the Huns. There were three people who were king-level or above, and the remaining generals and state ministers totaled 83 people, and they captured 70,444 first prisoners. At the 13th level, he even returned to the throne at Langjuxu Mountain. This was an unprecedented victory. After that, the Xiongnu were completely dispersed and could no longer gather an effective force to confront the Han Dynasty. Emperor Wu granted Huo Qubing 5,800 households with food as a reward for his extraordinary achievements.
However, during this expedition, the Han people also suffered heavy losses. There were 140,000 horses during the expedition, but when they came back, there were less than 30,000. The Han people killed more than 90,000 Huns in total, but tens of thousands of Han people were killed and injured. War has never been about who has more blood and less blood, but who can persevere to the end. The Huns did not persist and were defeated first.
In all the previous wars against the Huns, the Han people killed a total of 180,000 Xiongnu people, more than half of whom were killed by the rising star Huo Qubing. Therefore, Emperor Wu became increasingly friendly to Huo Qubing and allowed him and Wei Qing to share the title of Grand Sima. Previously, Wei Qing was "outstanding", so Huo Qubing's rise was also Wei Qing's fall. Wei Qing never cared about such floating fame and fortune, so he just smiled when his old friends and retainers left him and went to Huo Qubing.
It was said before that Li Guang's son Li Gan thought Wei Qing had forced his father to death, so he secretly attacked Wei Qing. However, Wei Qing was only slightly injured. He could understand Li Gan's mood and did not report the matter or take it to heart. . Huo Qubing was different. Once, Huo Qubing and Li Gan accompanied Emperor Wu to hunt. Huo Qubing shot Li Gan with a cold arrow in his back. Emperor Wu was partial and concealed the facts for Huo Qubing, only claiming that Li Gan was killed by a deer.
The fact that Huo Qubing achieved such impressive results does not mean that Wei Qing's military talent is not as good as his. In fact, this is entirely due to the different personalities of the two people. Wei Qing is kind-hearted and cherishes his soldiers, so in his opinion, it is not always advisable to take such risky actions alone. He will only attack when he is very sure. Although Huo Qubing came from a poor background, he had always lived the life of an aristocratic son. This inevitably caused a gap between him and the soldiers from the lower class. This was manifested in the fact that when he returned, the wine and meat in the baggage cart were all rancid, but Soldiers continued to die of hunger. Compared with Wei Qing, the young Huo Qubing did not understand what "compassion for heaven" and "compassion for people" meant.
Perhaps due to excessive killing and divine punishment, the young Huo Qubing suddenly fell ill and died. He was only twenty-four years old that year. After Huo Qubing died, Emperor Wu was very sad and built his tomb in the shape of Qilian Mountain in recognition of his achievements. Huo Qubing's tomb was built next to Emperor Wu's tomb, which shows how much Emperor Wu cherished him.
After successive attacks by Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, the Huns' life was in decline. They continued to migrate north to avoid the pursuit of the Han people. From then on, the Huns could no longer pose a threat to the Han Dynasty as before.
