Shi Le, the Later Zhao monarch of the early Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms, was a tyrant who was born into a slave but eventually achieved imperial success. He once asked his subordinates, saying that compared with the emperors of the previous dynasty, who am I more similar to? The subordinate patted the horse's ass and said, your old man is similar to Han Gaozu Liu Bang.
Shi Le smiled: "If I meet Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, I am willing to obediently serve him as a subordinate and go along with Peng Yue and Yingbu." If I met Liu Xiu, the Emperor of Han Guangwu, I would have to fight with him, and I didn't know whose hand the deer had killed. How can cao cao and Sima Yi bully others into taking over the country and mountains!
In other words, in Shi Le's mind, the ranking of several emperors was Liu Bang> Liu Xiu> Cao Cao = Sima Yi.
This may cause resentment in the hearts of many contemporary netizens. After all, with the development of HouheiXue, Cao Cao and Sima Yi are now idols sought after by the public. And Liu Bang's hat of "old hooligan who does not learn and has no skills" has been worn since the time of Sima Qian. However, in terms of the level of the emperor alone, Shi Le's cognition is basically in line with Lao Ba's personal cognition. Of course, in Lao Ba's heart, Cao Cao was still stronger than Sima Yi.
Let's try to analyze the rationality of Shi Le's understanding.
First of all, look at the difficulty of achieving merit. After all, the more you can start from scratch, the more powerful you are. At the same time, the shorter the time for entrepreneurial success, the more powerful it is.
Let's look at Liu Bang first. Liu Bang raised an army as a pavilion chief (equivalent to a township chief) in the late Qin district + the leader of the local underworld, and in just seven or eight years (209 BC - 202 BC), he attacked the violent Qin (Beiguang Blowing Xiangyu to defeat the main force of the Qin army). Liu Bang quickly invaded Guanzhong with a partial division, which was also very rare), defeated Qiang Chu, swept the princes, and unified the world. This growth rate can be said to be rare in the ages.
Not only is the entrepreneurship fast, but the foundation created is extremely high-quality. The Han Dynasty, founded by Liu Bang, was the first unified dynasty in Chinese history to be supported by the majority. The Han Dynasty lasted for four hundred years, and for most of the time formed a comprehensive military, political, and cultural leader for the surrounding states. Even a hundred years after the fall of the Han Dynasty, this banner still has appeal. Including Shi Le's original boss Liu Yuan, he took Han as the national name and Liu Adou, the lord of the Shu Han Dynasty, as the "first emperor".
Look at Liu Xiu, the Guangwu Emperor of the Zhongxing Han Dynasty. Liu Xiu's foundation for starting an army is much better than Liu Bang's. When Liu Xiu started his army, he at least had the name of the Han Dynasty's clan relative, which was able to have some appeal when the new Mang usurped the throne and the world was in chaos, so the overall pattern was better than Liu Bang.
Liu Xiu started from the beginning of the army, and spent 14-15 years (22 to 36 AD) to unify the world, which was also quite amazing, but it was already twice as long as Liu Bang. Moreover, Liu Bang founded the Han Dynasty, the Han Nationality, and also created the tradition of China's great unification (the great unification of the Qin State, because of its tyranny, was hated by the people of the world. The Han Dynasty really deepened the great unification into the hearts of the people), and Liu Xiu was only revived and restored. Moreover, the Eastern Han Dynasty as a whole, although the duration was comparable to that of the Western Han Dynasty, the historical impact was also much worse than that of the Western Han Dynasty.
Therefore, in a comprehensive comparison, the gap between Liu Xiu and Liu Bang is still very obvious. Of course, Liu Xiu's character and cultivation were much better than Liu Bang's.
As for Cao Cao, the Emperor of Weiwu, the ranking was even lower.
Cao Cao's foundation is better than Liu Bang's Liu Xiu. His grandfather Cao Teng was a powerful eunuch who was above the Ten Constant Attendants. Old Father Cao Song is a lieutenant (minister of defense) and has a wealthy family. The so-called Bad Birth of Cao Cao was seen from the perspective of Yuan Shao, the door valve elite of the Fourth Dynasty and the Third Duke. In the eyes of 99.9% of the world's people, Cao Cao was absolutely born with a golden key.
Relying on the backgrounds of his grandparents and fathers, Cao Cao became a high-ranking official at a very young age and easily had a wide range of contacts. In this case, Cao Cao counted from the time of the crusade against Dong Zhuo in 190 to his death in 220, a full thirty years, although sweeping the crowds, but also occupying only two-thirds of the Tianxia Prefecture. And in his lifetime, there was no prospect of reunification at all.
The Cao Wei regime he established was even more short-lived and chaotic. Thirty years after Cao Cao's death, the regime had changed to Sima and was in power, surviving in name only, becoming the first of the Three Kingdoms to be effectively overthrown. In another 10 years, Sima Yan usurped the throne. Therefore, Cao Cao's exploits were much worse than those of Liu Bang and Liu Xiu.
As for Sima Yi, this aspect is even worse. He came from a family background in the Han Dynasty and was roughly equivalent to Cao Cao (his grandfather's power was not as great as Cao Cao's grandfather's father, but his family lineage was more magnificent and honorable than Cao Cao's). At the age of 40, he became a heavy minister above 10,000 people in the Cao Wei Dynasty, but he relied on the correct side in the cao pi and cao zhi competition for the throne. His descendant Sima Yan established the Jin Dynasty, and the territorial foundation came mainly from the Jiangshan laid by Cao Cao, and partly from the Shu Han dynasty destroyed by his son Sima Zhao. Sima Yi himself spent his main energy on balancing internal forces, Gao Pingling's coup d'état to kill Cao Shuang, and PinghuaiNan's rebellion to kill Wang Ling. Although he also fought several battles with Eastern Wu and Shu Han in the military field, his achievements were limited in the end. In terms of expanding the territory, it was only the destruction of Gongsun Yuan in Liaodong Province. Compared with Cao Cao's occupation of two-thirds of the world, this is not a small gap, and it is even more incomparable with Liu Bang and Liu Xiu.
On the other hand, Sima Yi's sons Sima Shi and Sima Zhao were more capable than Cao Cao's sons Cao Pi. Sima Yan was also more capable than Cao Rui. Coupled with the Jin Dynasty's Jiangshan, although it was chaotic very early, after all, it lasted much longer than Cao Wei. Combined with this, it can barely be said that the three generations of the Sima family's grandchildren and the three generations of the Cao family's grandchildren are close to the comprehensive comparison level. But they are worse than Liu Bang and Liu Xiu.
Second, let's talk about the legal system. If "merit" is similar to the talents of historical figures, then "legal system" can be reluctantly understood as the moral status of historical figures, that is, the extent to which the country they have achieved has been morally recognized by the world.
Although Liu Bang came from a very ordinary background, he walked very correctly step by step in the process of fighting the world. First rebelling against the tyrannical Qin who was completely lost, then against the tyrannical Xiang Yu, mourning for the Chu Yi Emperor who was killed by Xiang Yu, etc., firmly occupying the commanding heights of the Fa, and finally claiming the title of emperor with the strongest strength.
Liu Xiu, as a relative of the Han Dynasty, overthrew Xin Mang and usurped the government, but in the overall process, he had to fight with other rebels, and his legal unity was not so strong, and it could only be said that he was the most cattle among those who had legal system, so after taking Jiangshan, it became "the destiny of heaven".
As a minister of the Han Dynasty, Cao Cao, since moving the capital to Xuchang in 196, on the one hand, he has gained a lot of benefits in the name of the Han Dynasty (mainly in terms of talents and strategic alliances), on the other hand, the contradictions with Emperor Xiandi of Han have become increasingly intense, including the killing of Dong Guifei and the killing of Empress Fu. To his son Cao Pi was even more blatantly usurper. In this way, it is inevitable that people will be criticized at the level of legal system.
As for Sima Yi, let alone it. Although Cao Cao threatened Tianzi to order the princes, the good and evil territory was all laid down by himself, and Tianzi had become a dog that lost his family before being held hostage by Cao Cao. The Sima family, on the other hand, relied on currying favor with Cao Pi to gain trust, and directly changed the dynasty on the foundation laid by the Cao family. This legality is even weaker. The only thing stronger than Cao Cao was that Cao Pi usurped the Han dynasty for four hundred years, while Sima Yan usurped only a Cao Wei for several decades, and Cao Wei himself was a usurper of Han. As a result, Cao Wei's ministers (most of whom came from the Han Dynasty' courtiers) were not alarmed by this, and some even felt that this was retribution, but they were less disgusted with this behavior.
In summary, whether from the perspective of personal achievements or from the perspective of being recognized by the world, Shi Le's ranking is no problem.
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