In various ancient books and history books, we often see a sentence like, "eight feet tall". In many books, this sentence always appears in the description of the character's appearance, especially A military commander seems to be of such height.
Such a description appears many times in the history books of the Three Kingdoms, and this sentence appears in the introduction of almost every famous military commander. For example, the description of Zhuge Liang is like this: "Eight feet tall and very majestic in appearance", which means Zhuge Liang is eight feet tall and has a majestic appearance. Of course there is some beautification involved.
This description also appears many times for other people in the Three Kingdoms, especially military generals. For example, Guan Yu is nine feet tall, Zhang Fei is eight feet tall, and Ma Chao is more than eight feet tall. Zhou Yu was eight feet tall, and Lu Bu was more than nine feet tall. It seemed that the generals at that time should have a height and appearance that could match their achievements, and eight feet tall seemed to be a standard configuration.
If according to current standards, one foot is equal to more than thirty centimeters, and three feet is one meter, then those generals who are eight feet tall should be two meters six, and those who are nine feet tall must be three meters tall. rice. Were all people in ancient times so tall? Of course not. The conversion units in ancient times are very different from modern ones. For example, a pound now is ten taels, but in ancient times a pound was sixteen taels. There is a big difference between the two, so there is the phrase "half a catty eight taels" The emergence of words.
For the same reason, a foot in ancient times was completely different from a foot today. According to the current research on Han Dynasty culture and some unearthed cultural relics, historians have judged from the Han Dynasty rulers unearthed from ancient tombs that one foot at that time was approximately equal to 23 centimeters today. From this, it can be inferred that an eight-foot tall person is approximately 184 centimeters. About 9 feet tall, and 207 centimeters tall.
Looking at it this way, although it is far less scary than we originally thought, it is definitely a standard tall guy.
In this way, we have a basic judgment on the height of the famous generals in the Three Kingdoms.
Zhou Yu is eight feet tall and one meter eighty-four meters tall.
Zhang Fei is eight feet tall, about 1.85 meters.
Zhao Yun, eight feet tall, should be about 1.85 meters tall.
Guan Yu is nine feet long. Even if the planing error is taken into consideration, he should be about two meters long.
Lü Bu is more than nine feet tall. The most powerful general in the Three Kingdoms is taller than Guan Yu. He is estimated to be two meters tall. With such a height, it is no wonder that Lu Bu invited Yuan Shu's general Ji Ling when he was shooting a halberd at the gate. As soon as Ji Ling saw Liu Bei's presence, he wanted to run away, but Lu Bu snatched him back like a child. As a general, Ji Ling must be over 1.7 meters tall, but Lu Buti just wanted to mention him as easily as a child. This shows how exaggerated Lu Bu's height and strength are.
The representative military commanders of the Three Kingdoms are probably about this height. However, I think that "eight feet tall" may be used to praise and beautify many times. It is possible that the actual height of the military commanders is not like this. Height, of course, this is just my guess. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, descriptions of generals’ weapons often weigh tens of kilograms. If there is no matching height, it may be difficult to even pick up weapons, let alone wield them in battle.