In the Three Kingdoms era, after the Battle of Chibi, the general trend of the three divisions of the world has begun to take shape. Liu Bei occupied the nine counties of Jingxiang and had the first base area. In accordance with Zhuge Liang's established policy of "Longzhong confrontation", Liu Bei immediately turned the spearhead of the attack to Xichuan. Xichuan is now Sichuan, and the reason why Liu Bei covets this territory is because of the developed agriculture and prosperous population, and the second is because it is surrounded by Shu Mountains, easy to defend and difficult to attack, which can be called the foundation of the ideal emperor. The third reason is that Liu Zhang, the warlord who occupied Xichuan, is a mediocre man of talent.
However, Liu Beikong had ambitions to plot against Xichuan, but he could not put them into practice for a while. Because Liu Zhang, like him, was a relative of the Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty and a relative of the Eight Classics of the Eight Classics of the Han Dynasty. Liu Bei had been holding high the banner of "reviving the Han Dynasty" at that time, and if he had rushed to attack Liu Zhang, he would not have been ridiculed by the people of the world for his disagreements and prematurely exposed his ambition to claim the title of emperor and establish himself.
Who knew that Liu Bei's luck was surprisingly good. In the sixteenth year of Jian'an (211), Cao Cao sent troops to plan an attack on the Hanzhong warlord Zhang Lu, and Hanzhong was just north of Yizhou, and fools would see that once Cao Cao got Hanzhong, the next step would be to attack Liu Zhang's Yizhou. Liu Zhang's heart was timid, and he knew that he was not Cao Cao's opponent, so he thought of looking for "foreign aid". Liu Bei and he were both relatives of the Han Dynasty, and their usual relationship was quite passable, so Liu Zhang sent Liu Bei to send troops into Sichuan, hoping to use Liu Bei's strength to resist Cao Cao.
There is no shortage of talents under Liu Zhang, and many people of insight in Xichuan have expressed strong opposition to Liu Zhang's bad move, believing that Liu Zhang is luring wolves into the house. Xichuan Bajun Taishou Yan wrote to Liu Zhang, pointing out that he invited Liu Bei to enter Sichuan, just like "sitting alone in a poor mountain and letting the tiger defend himself", he would definitely eat Liu Bei's big loss. However, the simple Liu Zhang, believing that Liu Bei was a benevolent and righteous gentleman, insisted on inviting Liu Bei to Xichuan despite the opposition of the people.
In the seventeenth year of Jian'an, Liu Zhang accidentally learned that his subordinate Zhang Song was Liu Bei's "undercover" and had been secretly hooking up with Liu Bei and exchanging voices and plots, which suddenly realized, killed Zhang Song, and completely turned his face with Liu Bei, and the two sides fought hard. Although Liu Zhang was weak and incompetent, The Generals of Xichuan fought with the same enemy and rose up to meet the battle, and this great war lasted for more than two years.
In the nineteenth year of Jian'an, Liu Bei sent the general Zhang Fei to attack Ba County. Ba Jun's too strict yan sent troops to resist, and as a result, he was not Zhang Fei's opponent at all, and he was captured alive by Zhang Fei after three strokes and five divisions. Yan Yan was brought to Zhang Fei, without any fear, standing proudly. Zhang Fei was furious and shouted yan yan: "Now that the army has arrived, why don't you surrender, but dare to refuse the battle!" ”
Yan Yan was not afraid, glared at Zhang Fei, and said awe-inspiringly: "Qing Qing is waiting for nothing, invading our state." My state but there are severed generals, no descending generals also! Zhang Fei had a bit of a belly, and at that time he was impressed by Yan Yan's integrity, so he personally got up, untied Yan Yan, and treated him with the courtesy of a guest. Yan Yan was deeply moved and surrendered to Zhang Fei.
Since then, Yan Yan's sentence has been summarized by posterity as a famous saying: "There is a severed general, no surrender general", which has been passed down through the ages. Wen Tianxiang, a patriot of the Southern Song Dynasty, sacrificed his life to fight against the Yuan Dynasty at the time of the fall of the Song Dynasty, and was eventually captured by the Yuan Dynasty and killed. Before his death, in order to express the great righteousness in his chest, Wen Tianxiang wrote a famous "Song of Righteousness", in which he listed many heroes with iron bones.
This Yan Yan general was also written by Wen Tianxiang in the "Song of Righteous Qi": "For the head of General Yan", and since then Yan Yan has officially become a great hero in the eyes of the world and is famous in history. However, the author believes that after Yan Yan was captured, although he said something bold, he finally surrendered. That is to say, his bold words are only empty cannons, and they have not been implemented at all. Judging from Yan Yan's entire experience, he was no more than a defeated general, and then surrendered to the enemy army, and it seemed that he did not deserve such a mournful honor behind him.
References: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zizhi Tongjian