The Three Kingdoms period was an era of talents, especially in the Shu camp, and there were many heroes who were popular among the population, such as the "Five Tiger Generals" of the Shu Kingdom, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Ma Chao, Huang Zhong, and Zhao Yun. Each of them has the courage of a thousand men, but among these five people, Ma Chao's identity is the most special.
Ma Chao became famous as a teenager, very brave and good at war, and was praised by the Qiang people as the god of war. He repeatedly rejected Cao Cao's signs. Later, the two also formed an indissoluble vendetta. In the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao is described as "cutting off his beard and abandoning his robe" to avoid Ma Chao. After escaping, he said bluntly, "Horses don't die, I don't have a burial ground!" ”。
A generation of tyrants has fallen to this point, which shows the strength of Ma Chao. In fact, not only Ma Chao, but also Sergeant Xi Liang can be described as a brave man. Ma Chao's cousin, Ma Dai, was a famous general in the late Shu dynasty, and was enfeoffed as the general of Pingbei after the establishment of the Shu Han in 221. Although not as powerful as Ma Chao, he was loyal to the Shu kingdom. This can be seen from the fact that Zhuge Liang was ordered to kill Wei Yan after his death.
And Ma Dai also has a younger brother, named Ma Kang. Compared with his two brothers, it can be said that it is not very remarkable, in 234 AD, Zhuge Liang died of illness in Wuzhangyuan during the last Northern Expedition, and finally failed to complete Liu Bei's will to restore the Han Dynasty. However, the Five Tiger Generals of the Shu Kingdom were also on the verge of extinction.
The Shu state no longer had a pillar figure, and from then on it was preferable to Sichuan shu, until the sixth year of Jing Yao (263), when the Wei general Deng Ai entered from Yinping, Ke Mianzhu, and Liu Chan had no choice but to surrender Kaesong. However, Ma Dai's younger brother Ma Kang did not surrender, but fled to his hometown of Xiliang first.
Since then, Ma Kang has lost news in the Central Plains and has not re-entered everyone's field of vision until more than a thousand years later. It turned out that after Ma Kang fled back to Xiliang, he also used Ma Chao's prestige in Xiliang to live a very dashing life. Soon, however, the Sima family began to send people to investigate Ma Kang's traces in Xiliang, intending to cut the grass and remove the roots forever.
Ma Kang did not want to involve the Qiang people who helped him, so he traveled as far as Persia. Unexpectedly, the Sima family actually chased all the way to Persia, and also asked persians in the name of the dynasty, and the Persian monarch at that time, Ardashir I, did not want to be involved in the war, but he was extremely sympathetic to Ma Kang, so he sent Ma Kang to the neighboring country of Armenia for refuge.
Because of the martial arts of the horse, and the superb talent. Naturally, it was welcomed by the rulers of Armenia at that time, and soon After Ma Kang joined the Armenian army and acquired a new name, Mamikonyan.
Ma Kang, relying on the advanced strategic ideas he had learned from the Shu state, soon became the leading general of Armenia. All the way to the south and the north, he established a lot of battle achievements.
Armenia, led by Ma Kang, eventually repelled the Persian government and helped Armenia become an independent state. Later, the king directly married his daughter to Ma Kang.
However, after Ma Kang's death, the persian and Armenian disputes began again. In order to strengthen its rule over Armenia, Persia even demanded that Armenians convert to Zoroastrianism in the Persian faith. Finally, in 450 AD, Valdan Mamikonyan, a descendant of Ma Kang, led an uprising, but was defeated by the Persian army. His nephew Va'an then took over the banner and eventually won victory and freedom for the Armenians in 484 AD.