The Xiong Nu had not fought for several years since their defeat by Wei Qing and Huo Zhaoyi. They verbalized that they wanted to make peace with the Han Dynasty, but in reality they still wanted to invade the Central Plains at any time.
The monarchs of the Xiong Nu sent envoys time and again to beg for peace, but when the Han Dynasty's envoys went to the Xiong Nu to return their visits, some of them were detained by them. The Han Dynasty also detained some Xiongnu emissaries. In 100 B.C., Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was about to send troops to fight against the Xiong Nu, when the Xiong Nu sent envoys to beg for peace, and they even released all the envoys of the Han Dynasty. In reply to the Xiongnu's show of goodwill, Emperor Wu of Han sent Su Wu, a lieutenant general, on a mission to the Xiongnu with a banner and a deputy, Zhang Sheng, and an attendant, Chang Hui.
Su Wu arrived in Xiongnu and sent back the detained messengers with gifts. Su Wu was waiting for Shan Yu to write a reply for him to go back, but he didn't expect that just at this time, something unlucky happened. Before Su Wu arrived at Xiong Nu, there was a Han man named Wei Lu, who surrendered to Xiong Nu after his mission to Xiong Nu. He was honored by Shan Yu, who made him his king. Wei Lu had a subordinate named Yu Chang, who was very dissatisfied with Wei Lu. He was friends with Zhang Sheng, Su Wu's deputy, so he secretly discussed with Zhang Sheng to kill Wei Lu, abduct Shan Yu's mother and escape back to the Central Plains. Zhang Sheng was sympathetic. He did not realize that Yu Chang's plan did not succeed, but was caught by the Huns instead. Shan Yu was furious and asked Wei Lu to interrogate Yu Chang and to find out who the conspirators were. Su Wu did not know about this. At this time, Zhang Sheng was afraid of being implicated, so he told Su Wu. Su Wu said, "The matter has come to such a pass that I will surely be implicated. Wouldn't it be more disgraceful to the court if I let people interrogate me and then die later?" Saying this, he drew his sword to commit suicide. Zhang Sheng and his attendant Chang Hui were quick to see, snatched the knife from his hand and persuaded him to stop.
Yu Chang suffered all kinds of punishment, but he only admitted that he was friends with Zhang Sheng and had spoken to him, and refused to admit to being a conspirator with him even to the death.
Weilu reported to Shan Yu. The government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been working on this issue for a long time, and the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been working on this issue for a long time. As soon as Su Wu heard that Wei Lu told him to surrender, he said, "I am an emissary of the Han Dynasty, if I go against my mission and lose my temper, what face will I have to live to see others." He drew his sword again and wiped it at his neck.
Weilu rushed to hold him, Su Wu's neck had been seriously injured, fainted. Wei Lu quickly called for resuscitation, and only then did Su Wu slowly wake up. The first time I saw him, I thought he was a good man, and I admired him very much. After Su Wu recovered from his wound, Shan Yu tried to force Su Wu to surrender. Shan Yu sent Wei Lu to interrogate Yu Chang, and let Su Wu listen to the interrogation. First, he convicted Yu Chang of a capital offense and killed him; then he threatened Zhang Sheng with his sword, and Zhang Sheng, fearing for his life, surrendered. Wei Lu said to Su Wu, "Your deputy is guilty, you must also be implicated." Su Wu said, "I neither conspired with him nor am I his relative, why should I be implicated?"
Weilu raised his sword again and threatened Su Wu, who did not move. Wei Lu had no choice but to put down his raised sword and persuaded Su Wu, "I surrendered to the Xiong Nu only because I had no choice but to do so, Shan Yu treated me well, made me king, gave me tens of thousands of subordinates and mountains full of cattle and sheep, and enjoyed all the riches and honor and glory. If you, sir, could surrender to the Xiongnu, and be like me tomorrow, why give up your life for nothing?" Su Wu stood up angrily and said, "Wei Lu! You are the son of a Han man and have become a vassal of the Han Dynasty. You are ungrateful, betrayed your parents, betrayed the court, and shamelessly became a traitor, so what face do you have to come and talk to me. I will never surrender, and it is useless to force me any way." Wei Lu went back with a snub and reported to Shan Yu. Shan Yu locked Su Wu in the cellar, did not give him food and drink, and wanted to use long-term torture to force him to yield. It was the beginning of winter and it was snowing heavily outside. Su Wu starving, thirsty, held a handful of snow to quench their thirst; hungry, pulled some belts, pieces of sheepskin to gnaw on hunger. After a few days, actually did not starve to death. Shan Yu see torture him useless, sent him to the North Sea (now Lake Baikal) to go to sheep, and his subordinates Chang Hui separated, not allow them to communicate news, but also said to Su Wu: "when the ram gave birth to lambs, before you let you go back." How could a ram give birth to a lamb? This was just a way of saying that he would be imprisoned for a long time.
Su Wu arrived at the North Sea with nothing beside him, and the only company he had was the gleam that represented the court. When the Xiongnu refused to give him food, he dug up roots from the holes of wild rats to feed himself. As the days went by, all the spikes on the flag fell off.
In 85 B.C., the Xiongnu's monarch died, and the Xiongnu was divided into three states by civil strife. The new Shan Yu did not have the strength to fight the Han Dynasty any more, and sent another messenger to beg for peace. By that time, Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty had already died and his son, Emperor Zhao of Han Dynasty, had assumed the throne. Emperor Zhao sent an envoy to Xiong Nu to ask Shan Yu to release Su Wu, but Xiong Nu lied and said that Su Wu was already dead. The messenger believed it and did not mention it again.
The second time the Han emissary went to Xiongnu, Su Wu's attendant Chang Hui was still in Xiongnu. He bribed the Xiongnu people to meet with the Han emissary in private and told the emissary about Su Wu's shepherding in the North Sea. When the emissary met Shan Yu, he rebuked him severely, saying, "Since the Xiong Nu is determined to make peace with the Han Dynasty, it should not deceive the Han Dynasty. Our Emperor shot down a goose in the imperial garden, and there was a silk tied to the goose's feet, which said that Su Wu was still alive; how can you say that he is dead?" Shan Yu was shocked to hear this. He thought that it was really Su Wu's loyalty that had moved the birds, and that even the geese had sent messages for him. He apologized to the messenger and said, "Su Wu is indeed alive, we will just put him back."
Su Wu was only forty years old when he went on his mission. After nineteen years of torture in Xiongnu, his beard and hair were all white. On the day he returned to Chang'an, the people of Chang'an came out to greet him. When they saw the white bearded and white haired Su Wu holding a bare pole of jingjie in his hand, none of them was not touched, and said that he was really a man of honor.
2. Bo Yi and Shu Qi lived in Shou Yang Mountain after the death of the Shang Dynasty and resolved not to eat the grain of the Zhou Dynasty.
3. Jikang, a great musician of the Western Jin Dynasty and the head of the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove," preferred to be beheaded in the eastern city of Luoyang rather than be used by the Sima dynasty, and before his execution, he also played his masterpiece of the reserved repertoire of the "Guangling San" in public.
4. Eastern Jin Dynasty poet Tao Yuanming (Tao Qian): I can not for five buckets of rice folded, fist thing countryside villain evil.
5. Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai "up in the sky laughing out of the door, my generation is not the people of Artemisia", "tasted intoxicated on the temple, lead foot to make Gao Li Si take off his boots", "play as bureaucrats and friends, depending on the peers as grass! ". He exalted the personality, declared that "the gentleman can not be beaver cream gold crouch to learn cockfighting, sitting in the nose blowing rainbow", singing "can break the eyebrow and bend the waist of the power and wealth, so that I can not be happy face"!
6. Zheng Xie, Banqiao, first year of Qianlong, did Fan County, Shandong and Weixian County, and then because of the request for relief to help farmers and offended the bureaucrats, the disease of dismissal to return to the "thrown away the hat is not an official", living in Yangzhou to poetry, calligraphy and painting to suit themselves.
7. LU Xun:
"He frequently waved his "throwing gun" to the reactionary authorities and all the evil forces. His pride in sticking to the truth for the sake of the country and the people, not for the sake of power, is simply cast in stone.
8. Zhu Ziqing:
I would rather starve to death than eat "food handed out in contempt" - the U.S. relief food.
9. Mei Lanfang:
Growing a beard, not to act for the Japanese.
Also: Su Wu, Wen Tianxiang, etc.