In order to urge Zhou Yu to make up his mind to fight against Cao Cao, Zhuge Liang deliberately proposed to dedicate Er Qiao of Jiangdong to Cao Cao, so that Jiangdong could avoid the disaster of swords and swords. Zhuge Liang also recited the full text of Cao Zhi's "Tongquetai Fu" in front of Zhou Yu. In Fu, the sentence "Er Qiao in the southeast, having fun with Er Qiao" appeared. This made Zhou Yu furious and decided to promote the alliance between Sun and Wu and fight against Cao wholeheartedly. Therefore, Battle of Red Cliffs in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms can also be said to be a war for a woman.
But after introducing Xiao Qiao above, Luo Guanzhong didn't further process and deal with Xiao Qiao's image, and Xiao Qiao's story came to an abrupt end. Even after Zhou Yu's death, Zhuge Liang and Chai Sang expressed their condolences, and Xiao Qiao was not seen.
Through the above introduction, we can find that Xiao Qiao mentioned in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a rather vague figure, and the author only touched on it and did not describe her further. However, with the extensive influence of movies and TV series in recent years, Xiao Qiao's image has become more and more diverse and rich. The story about Xiao Qiao has also become varied, which is really dazzling and unclear.
However, comparing with historical records, we can find a jaw-dropping conclusion: Xiao Qiao in history is not only vivid and vivid in modern TV dramas and movies, but also has many misunderstandings about the historical truth in the description of Xiao Qiao in Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
So, what is Xiao Qiao like in history?
As mentioned earlier, there are many misunderstandings about the historical truth in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. So, what is the historical truth of the novelist's mistakes?
The first mistake the author made was to get his surname wrong. In history, this character is actually called Joe, not Joe in the novel, which means that this character should be called Xiao Qiao. This record comes from the History of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou and the Biography of Jiang Biao by Zhou Yu.
The second mistake is the identity of Xiao Qiao. In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Xiao Qiao is Zhou Yu's wife. But in history, Xiao Qiao's identity is not the case. There are records here to prove it. The original text in the biography of the Three Kingdoms and Zhou Yu goes like this: Gong Qiao and two women were both beautiful at that time. (Sun) Zina Bridge, (Zhou) Bridge. From the analysis of the word "na" used by Chen Shou, it is not the word used when marrying a wife. China people are used to using the word "take a wife and concubinage". Therefore, Xiao Qiao's identity is probably just a concubine of Zhou Yu.
The third mistake is a bit strange, that is, the introduction of Gong Qiao, Joe's father, in the novel. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms mentioned that Xiao Qiao's father had a close relationship with Cao Cao in his early years. But there is no record of this in historical materials. There is only one person close to Cao Cao whose surname is Joe: Qiao Xuan. This Qiao Xuan was very famous in the late Han Dynasty, and was one of Cao Cao's early Bole. However, Qiao Xuan died in A.D. 183. Therefore, the story that Battle of Red Cliffs's empress Qiao Gong also appeared in the wedding scene of Liu Bei in Kanluoji mentioned in the novel is obviously fictional by the author.
The biggest mistake in the novel lies in the tampering with "Tongquetai Fu". The novel "Ode to a Bronze Quetai" is actually called "Ode to a Stage" in history, with a short length of 126 words. Compared with "Ode to a Bronze Quetai" recited by Zhuge Liang in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there is no such thing as "the southeast embraces Er Qiao, caring for each other". This sentence was obviously added by Luo Guanzhong, the author of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, to meet the needs of the plot. In addition, Cao Zhi's Ode to the Stage was written in 2 12 AD, while Zhuge Liang recited it in front of Zhou Yu in the novel in 208 AD. At this time, Cao Zhi's works have not yet been created. How could Zhuge Liang recite it four years in advance?
So, how did these mistakes come about? Tracing back to the source, this problem has already appeared in the Tang Dynasty. Du Mu, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote a famous poem "Red Cliff", in which he wrote:
A broken iron halberd sank into the sand and disappeared, only to find that it was the remnant of Battle of Red Cliffs after grinding and washing.
If the east wind is not convenient for Zhou Yu, I'm afraid the outcome will be Cao Cao's victory and Er Qiao's detention in Tongquetai.
This poem by Du Mu has a great influence on later generations. This poem illustrates one possibility: in the Tang Dynasty, there were stories or legends about Xiao Qiao and Tongquetai, which linked Xiao Qiao, Zhou Yu, Cao Cao and Battle of Red Cliffs.
In the Song Dynasty, Su Shi wrote a sentence about Gong Jin's early marriage in his famous "Niannujiao Chibi Nostalgia", which showed that the image of Xiao Qiao had been widely circulated among the people and even the cultural circles, and it was a household name.
The Yuan Dynasty was a period of great development of the stories of the Three Kingdoms, during which there were more and more stories about Xiao Qiao. Xiao Qiao's story has begun to take shape in the most important reference book of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Three Kingdoms Pinghua. Of course, Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms is undoubtedly a work that integrates the stories about Xiao Qiao for hundreds of years.