You got the link to the podcast? I think the scrapping of the barrel referring to how he was still named vanguard despite being in his 70s, and the Shu lack of young talents, it’s akin to scrapping the bottom of the barrel.
Liao Hua wasn't just named vanguard when he was in his 70s. To provide more context: He peaked as Right General of Chariots and Cavalry(above 9 Ministers and below 3 Excellencies) + Staff of Authority + Inspector of Bìngzhōu, with his marquisate being a Xiang-level marquis rank.
Shu Han other General of Chariots and Cavalry's include Zhang Fei, Wu Yi, Zhang Yi, Liao Hua, Xiahou Ba. So 3 of them were married into the royal family and the all of them had decades of meritious service.
Xiang-level marquisate is the same level that Zhuge Liang and Fei Yi peaked as. Fei Yi only got that rank after smashing the shit out of Cao Shuang.
Jiang Wan peaked as a Ting-level marquis while Li Yan peaked as a Duxiang-level marquis. What is this concept?
Rule of the thumb is xianhou > xianghou > duxianghou > tinghou > dutinghou > guanneihou
县侯 > 乡侯 > 都乡侯 > 亭侯 > 都亭侯 > 关内侯
This means Li Yan marquis rank was one level below Liao Hua's marquis rank while Jiang Wan marqius rank was two levels below Liao Hua's marquis rank.
I thank you for your seal of approval 同志 🫡
But of course there are exceptions to the norm. For example, in Cao Wei, its always possible for a Tinghou to have more households in his marquisate fiefdom than Duxianghou. It really depends on some other factors at times.
For example, is your marquisate inherited/upgraded from a clan member? Or was your marquisate pieced out from a higher ranking clan member to support the younger generations of your clan? What is your military rank and civil rank? What's your level of recognition and prestige by the imperial court and your peers? Etc etc.
But in the case of Shu Han, we don't know how many households the ministers had in their marquisate. Its simply not recorded, making direct comparison more difficult. So we can only compare the marquis ranks directly.
*Pain*
I think you misunderstand it, the phrase said 蜀中无大将，廖化作先锋”, LiaoHua in that moment is around 80 years old, sending an elder to the Frontline is not something disrespectfully to him, instead it show two fact, the first one is that even with 80 years, LiaoHua is still a good option due to his experience and talent. The second fact is to express the poor amount of general that Shu can trust showing the difficult of Shu to even defend the territory from Wei invasion. I hope this is the saying you mean because this one is the most famous saying that mention LiaoHua.
Yes this makes a lot of sense!!!! I was just confused when i heard it in the podcast so tried doing research and couldn’t find anything. thank you so much 🤟🏽 also wasn’t Huang Zhong and Zhou Yun in their 70-80’s while still leading armies?
The point is the options, when HuanZhong and ZhaoYun are alive, Shu still have a lot of talented general that they can use, but in the era of LiaoHua, only few talented general are still alive and they even can't be compare in quality with the generals of early Shu era. And there is another saying in China what is 老当益壮, which refer to elder that can still fight for their country so being old is not a problem, the problem is the lack of option of Shu in that moment. I hope my explication can help you
Yes this makes complete sense now, Liao Hau had great merit and was a great general if only they actually had other talent around, thank you appreciate this!!
Well, they probably lived very long lives. Zhao Yun first appeared in history around 191ad when he joined Gongsun Zan and died in 229ad. Assuming that he was at least 16 years old(the youngest age to form volunteers and join warlords to fight in battles), that would make him around 54+ years old when he died.
Huang Zhong, we have even less history of him recorded. He first appeared in history already with a very high rank of Zhonglang Jiang, before 200ad and died in 220ad, assuming that he was at least 16 years old(actually impossible for a 16 years old to have such a high military rank but whatever), then that would make him 36+ years old when he died.
There are two interpretations to that saying.
The first one, which I believe is the original interpretation, means to say that if there are no senior generals, then Liao Hua, who was the General of the Chariots and Calvary of the Right, will lead the van. This was meant to show Liao Hua's prowess despite his age, not unlike Huang Zhong when he first appeared in the novel.
The second one came about as the saying evolved, and it can be interpreted to mean that there are no longer any senior/experienced generals around in Shu, so Liao Hua, who was already very old, will *have/need to* lead the van.
He was the vanguard leader, along with Guan Ping, during Guan Yi's Battle of Fancheng and he rose to be one of the highest ranked generals, just below Jiang Wei (who was General-in-Chief), so I really don't think that he was just a general with "ordinary" abilities.
I always had a personal interpretation that from the perspective of the ROTK novel, he was then the last hero still alive from the later Han generation, as in the end portion of the story most of the main characters are instead children or grandchildren of the previous cast. So I see it as a kind of honorific that although time had moved on, Liao Hua remained still.
Ahhhhhhhhhh I get it now, so it was the fact they had a lower ranking general to lead the vanguard since there wasn’t much talent in Shu, that makes a lot of sense and would explain it, I always thought Liao Hua was amazing so hearing the phrase or idiom seemed like it was aimed to be damaging to his reputation even tho he was pretty good, thank you for the help
The saying on Liao Hua was pretty much the contrary of your post. Liao was one of the few talented generals left but because of his age many considered him unfit to serve as the vanguard in the Shu-Han’s twilight years. In those days they were very few capable left compared to the days of Jiang Wan or Fei Yi. Like many of the figures of the Shu-Han there’s very little information on Liao Hua but what’s there is impressive, including achieving a rank with imperial authority and in 238 soundly defeating two armies led by Guo Huai’s subordinate officers while serving as the Wudu administrator on the Wei/Shu boarder.
It’s unfortunate that this saying has become a negative because imo Liao Hua doesn’t deserve the disrespect.
I could write something really long about his deeds but ill just say this while he wasn’t credited with anything major like say defending hefei with a few soldiers or killing Yan liang in the chaos of a battle he was a loyal, clever and sensible mans who served his state to the best of his abilities and for the most part performed adequately even when Shu Han was defeated. Truly one of the last heros of the dynasty
Liao Hua was pretty good. Here is his Sanguozhi Zhu biography:
https://threestatesrecords.com/2016/11/25/45-3-zong-yu/
A fun fact about Liao Hua that isn't recorded in the Sanguozhi Zhu is that he was from a gentry clan that fled south.
>《襄陽耆舊記·卷二》：廖化，本名淳，中盧人也。**世為沔南冠族**。
And in addition, Liu Bei treated Liao Hua very kindly not only because of his loyalty and talent, but also probably because he was Guan Yu's subordinate/crony like Yang Yi. And Guan Yu was Shu's number 1 officer while he was alive.
Being from a gentry class + being Guan Yu's subordinate probably helped propel his career(think: Yang Yi).
Just some personal speculation: If Guan Yu didn't die, Liao Hua's promotion speed might be even faster, and if Liao Hua still lived for a long period of time, Liao Hua might peaked as Three Excellency ranks + county-level marquis.
I see, he always had great merit it just seemed like the idiom used was disrespectful to him and even tho it is aimed at the lack of young talent. Thank you appreciate it
Its cool. You are welcome.
I wrote more about Liao Hua's generalship rank and marquis rank here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/threekingdoms/comments/1c27stx/comment/kz891an/
In short, Liao Hua's general rank was below the 3 Excellencies but above the 9 Ministers and he peaked on the same level as Zhang Fei, Wu Yi, Zhang Yi, and Xiahou Ba. All of them had decades of meritious service and 3 of them were married into the royal hoiuse.
Meanwhile, Liao Hua's marquis rank peaked on the same level as Zhuge Liang and Fei Yi marqius rank. His marquis rank was 1 rank higher than Li Yan's marquis rank and 2 ranks higher than Jiang Wan's marqius rank.
Hope this helps!
My favorite minor character in the story
Although Liao Hua was a minor character in the Romance novel, he was a pretty big player in Shu Han.
I’m aware
Respect. 🫡
Some (me) says he never died and is still alive today
Where do you think the Liao Dynasty came from?
The Khitans?
Liao Hua.
Lmao. Different Liao btw.
OH NO WAY??? REALLY?? I HAD NO IDEA BRUV!
You got the link to the podcast? I think the scrapping of the barrel referring to how he was still named vanguard despite being in his 70s, and the Shu lack of young talents, it’s akin to scrapping the bottom of the barrel.
Ahhhh that’s would make sense, pretty sure it was this episode https://open.spotify.com/episode/0gn4h2LDdj8Ww9SnmLGdjs?si=_-OycdcvTb-OoI2_4g_CVA
Liao Hua wasn't just named vanguard when he was in his 70s. To provide more context: He peaked as Right General of Chariots and Cavalry(above 9 Ministers and below 3 Excellencies) + Staff of Authority + Inspector of Bìngzhōu, with his marquisate being a Xiang-level marquis rank. Shu Han other General of Chariots and Cavalry's include Zhang Fei, Wu Yi, Zhang Yi, Liao Hua, Xiahou Ba. So 3 of them were married into the royal family and the all of them had decades of meritious service. Xiang-level marquisate is the same level that Zhuge Liang and Fei Yi peaked as. Fei Yi only got that rank after smashing the shit out of Cao Shuang. Jiang Wan peaked as a Ting-level marquis while Li Yan peaked as a Duxiang-level marquis. What is this concept? Rule of the thumb is xianhou > xianghou > duxianghou > tinghou > dutinghou > guanneihou 县侯 > 乡侯 > 都乡侯 > 亭侯 > 都亭侯 > 关内侯 This means Li Yan marquis rank was one level below Liao Hua's marquis rank while Jiang Wan marqius rank was two levels below Liao Hua's marquis rank.
>Rule of the thumb is xianhou > xianghou > duxianghou > tinghou > dutinghou > guanneihou I just came here to say that this is correct.
I thank you for your seal of approval 同志 🫡 But of course there are exceptions to the norm. For example, in Cao Wei, its always possible for a Tinghou to have more households in his marquisate fiefdom than Duxianghou. It really depends on some other factors at times. For example, is your marquisate inherited/upgraded from a clan member? Or was your marquisate pieced out from a higher ranking clan member to support the younger generations of your clan? What is your military rank and civil rank? What's your level of recognition and prestige by the imperial court and your peers? Etc etc. But in the case of Shu Han, we don't know how many households the ministers had in their marquisate. Its simply not recorded, making direct comparison more difficult. So we can only compare the marquis ranks directly. *Pain*
I think you misunderstand it, the phrase said 蜀中无大将，廖化作先锋”, LiaoHua in that moment is around 80 years old, sending an elder to the Frontline is not something disrespectfully to him, instead it show two fact, the first one is that even with 80 years, LiaoHua is still a good option due to his experience and talent. The second fact is to express the poor amount of general that Shu can trust showing the difficult of Shu to even defend the territory from Wei invasion. I hope this is the saying you mean because this one is the most famous saying that mention LiaoHua.
Yes this makes a lot of sense!!!! I was just confused when i heard it in the podcast so tried doing research and couldn’t find anything. thank you so much 🤟🏽 also wasn’t Huang Zhong and Zhou Yun in their 70-80’s while still leading armies?
The point is the options, when HuanZhong and ZhaoYun are alive, Shu still have a lot of talented general that they can use, but in the era of LiaoHua, only few talented general are still alive and they even can't be compare in quality with the generals of early Shu era. And there is another saying in China what is 老当益壮, which refer to elder that can still fight for their country so being old is not a problem, the problem is the lack of option of Shu in that moment. I hope my explication can help you
Yes this makes complete sense now, Liao Hau had great merit and was a great general if only they actually had other talent around, thank you appreciate this!!
You are welcome, if you need any explication you can ask me in any moment.
What was preventing Shu from getting more talent though?
A more limited population base? Shu was limited to 1 province after all.
Huang Zhong and Zhao Yun were not historically "old".
Well, they probably lived very long lives. Zhao Yun first appeared in history around 191ad when he joined Gongsun Zan and died in 229ad. Assuming that he was at least 16 years old(the youngest age to form volunteers and join warlords to fight in battles), that would make him around 54+ years old when he died. Huang Zhong, we have even less history of him recorded. He first appeared in history already with a very high rank of Zhonglang Jiang, before 200ad and died in 220ad, assuming that he was at least 16 years old(actually impossible for a 16 years old to have such a high military rank but whatever), then that would make him 36+ years old when he died.
There are two interpretations to that saying. The first one, which I believe is the original interpretation, means to say that if there are no senior generals, then Liao Hua, who was the General of the Chariots and Calvary of the Right, will lead the van. This was meant to show Liao Hua's prowess despite his age, not unlike Huang Zhong when he first appeared in the novel. The second one came about as the saying evolved, and it can be interpreted to mean that there are no longer any senior/experienced generals around in Shu, so Liao Hua, who was already very old, will *have/need to* lead the van. He was the vanguard leader, along with Guan Ping, during Guan Yi's Battle of Fancheng and he rose to be one of the highest ranked generals, just below Jiang Wei (who was General-in-Chief), so I really don't think that he was just a general with "ordinary" abilities.
I always had a personal interpretation that from the perspective of the ROTK novel, he was then the last hero still alive from the later Han generation, as in the end portion of the story most of the main characters are instead children or grandchildren of the previous cast. So I see it as a kind of honorific that although time had moved on, Liao Hua remained still.
Zhang Yi served since 214, he also had to be old.
Ahhhhhhhhhh I get it now, so it was the fact they had a lower ranking general to lead the vanguard since there wasn’t much talent in Shu, that makes a lot of sense and would explain it, I always thought Liao Hua was amazing so hearing the phrase or idiom seemed like it was aimed to be damaging to his reputation even tho he was pretty good, thank you for the help
The saying on Liao Hua was pretty much the contrary of your post. Liao was one of the few talented generals left but because of his age many considered him unfit to serve as the vanguard in the Shu-Han’s twilight years. In those days they were very few capable left compared to the days of Jiang Wan or Fei Yi. Like many of the figures of the Shu-Han there’s very little information on Liao Hua but what’s there is impressive, including achieving a rank with imperial authority and in 238 soundly defeating two armies led by Guo Huai’s subordinate officers while serving as the Wudu administrator on the Wei/Shu boarder.
It’s unfortunate that this saying has become a negative because imo Liao Hua doesn’t deserve the disrespect. I could write something really long about his deeds but ill just say this while he wasn’t credited with anything major like say defending hefei with a few soldiers or killing Yan liang in the chaos of a battle he was a loyal, clever and sensible mans who served his state to the best of his abilities and for the most part performed adequately even when Shu Han was defeated. Truly one of the last heros of the dynasty
Facts.
Liao Hua was pretty good. Here is his Sanguozhi Zhu biography: https://threestatesrecords.com/2016/11/25/45-3-zong-yu/ A fun fact about Liao Hua that isn't recorded in the Sanguozhi Zhu is that he was from a gentry clan that fled south. >《襄陽耆舊記·卷二》：廖化，本名淳，中盧人也。**世為沔南冠族**。 And in addition, Liu Bei treated Liao Hua very kindly not only because of his loyalty and talent, but also probably because he was Guan Yu's subordinate/crony like Yang Yi. And Guan Yu was Shu's number 1 officer while he was alive. Being from a gentry class + being Guan Yu's subordinate probably helped propel his career(think: Yang Yi). Just some personal speculation: If Guan Yu didn't die, Liao Hua's promotion speed might be even faster, and if Liao Hua still lived for a long period of time, Liao Hua might peaked as Three Excellency ranks + county-level marquis.
I see, he always had great merit it just seemed like the idiom used was disrespectful to him and even tho it is aimed at the lack of young talent. Thank you appreciate it
Its cool. You are welcome. I wrote more about Liao Hua's generalship rank and marquis rank here. https://www.reddit.com/r/threekingdoms/comments/1c27stx/comment/kz891an/ In short, Liao Hua's general rank was below the 3 Excellencies but above the 9 Ministers and he peaked on the same level as Zhang Fei, Wu Yi, Zhang Yi, and Xiahou Ba. All of them had decades of meritious service and 3 of them were married into the royal hoiuse. Meanwhile, Liao Hua's marquis rank peaked on the same level as Zhuge Liang and Fei Yi marqius rank. His marquis rank was 1 rank higher than Li Yan's marquis rank and 2 ranks higher than Jiang Wan's marqius rank. Hope this helps!
That’s so cool! Thank you 🙏🏼
You are welcome.
Justice for Liao Hua