Is the city full of golden armor a movie?
That's not wrong. However, its first identity is a famous anti-poem in history: the incense of the sky penetrates Chang'an, and the city is full of golden armor.
The author of the anti-poem, Huang Chao, a Tang Dynasty native, is now a native of Heze, Shandong, and his family sells private salt for its own business.
Huang Chao's family may be relatively wealthy, he learned to practice martial arts from an early age, was keen on fame, and wanted to become an official through scientific examinations.
But at that time, the once strong and brilliant Datang had reached the end of its life. It may be that the officials of the late Tang Dynasty were too corrupt, or it may be that his literary style and talent were insufficient, and Huang Chao repeatedly fell off the list.
After much trial and error, Huang Chao wrote this famous anti-poem:
Not the first post-fu chrysanthemum
Stay until the autumn comes september 8,
I kill a hundred flowers after they bloom.
The incense of the sky penetrates Chang'an,
The city is full of golden armor.
The meaning of the first two sentences of the poem is that after the flowers have fallen in autumn, the chrysanthemums bloom in the cold.
The meaning of the last two sentences is: chrysanthemums in Chang'an City are in full bloom, the aroma is pervasive, and as far as the eye can see, it is golden.
The superficial meaning of the poem seems to be commonplace, but the wonder of this poem lies in the imagery, and the wonderful thing lies in the prediction after this.
Ordinary flowers wither and fall, but use the word "kill" to express; ordinary yellow chrysanthemums use "golden armor" to borrow.
Whether it is "kill" or "golden armor", it is reminiscent of the battlefield of Jingo Iron Horse, and ordinary literati will not use such a peculiar way of writing.
The most extraordinary image of the whole poem is the third sentence, "The incense of the sky penetrates Chang'an."
The fragrance of chrysanthemums pervaded Chang'an City, which was originally an ordinary thing, but Huang Chao used the image of "soaring incense array penetrating Chang'an" to write out the image of thousands of troops and horses in a strict and orderly army, and breaking through all obstacles with the momentum of rushing straight through the mountains and the sea for nine days.
And the obstacle that Huang Chao wanted to break through in his heart was the city wall of Chang'an, or the Tang Dynasty.
The imagery is not the most wonderful, the most wonderful thing is the prophecy of the future in the poem.
In the main history, in 881 AD, Huang Chao occupied Chang'an, calling it the founding of the emperor, the name of the country was Daqi, and the era name was Jin Tong.
Later, Huang Chaozhen led hundreds of thousands of rebels to attack Chang'an City.
The city is full of golden armor: "Golden Armor" is Huang Chao's rebel army, and the city is full of his army, that is, the rebel army completely occupies Chang'an.
The "Golden Armor" also implies Huang Chao's surname "Huang" and the era name of the Great Qi he established, "Jin Tong", so this poem also has the meaning of Chang'an City changing from surname Li to surname Huang, changing hands of the capital of the country, changing lords of Jiangshan, and replacing the Tang Dynasty.
Of course, if the historical Huang Chao did not revolt after he wrote the poem, nor did he kill countless lives, then even if this poem can be passed on to future generations, the world may not be able to read the heinous rebellious meaning and the murderous spirit of the Xiao Han in the poem.
Once the Tang Dynasty, how powerful it was, all the nations came to the dynasty, and the four seas were served.
However, in the hundred years after the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, after one turmoil after another, the vitality of the Tang Dynasty had been lost for the most part, and the end of the dynasty was only the last fatal blow.
The last years of the empire were often plagued by disasters, and great floods and droughts were often accompanied by catastrophes and chaos.
In 875, Huang Chao was 45 years old, and Wang Xianzhi, a Puyang man who was a salt smuggler like Huang Chao, led an uprising of several thousand people. Huang Chao quickly responded.
A few months later, they had gathered tens of thousands.
The rebel army rampaged through the Central Plains, with great momentum, rapidly expanding to hundreds of thousands of people.
The Tang Dynasty was unable to suppress the rebels for a while, so it adopted the strategy of suppressing and caressing at the same time, and gave Wang Xianzhi the title of an official, hoping to recruit him.
Wang Xianzhi was shaken in his heart and wanted to accept Zhao'an, but Huang Chao did not agree, and a fierce conflict broke out with Wang Xianzhi, and most of the rebels did not agree, so the matter was abandoned.
Although the rebels did not accept the offer, after the conflict, the two sides had become suspicious, and Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi led their respective teams to part ways.
In 878, Wang Xianzhi was defeated and killed in Huangmei, Hubei Province, and the remnants of the army defected to Huangchao. At this point, Huang Chao became the sole leader of the rebel army, and Huang Chao was embraced as the "Yellow King" and also known as the "Great General of the Sky".
Huang Chao gathered tens of thousands of people and ran rampant in Jianghuai.
Huang Chao wanted to move north and west, but because the Tang Dynasty had mobilized a large number of troops in the north, the rebel offensive was blocked. At the same time, the rebels in the south also suffered major defeats.
In order to protect himself, Huang Chao had to pretend to submit to the imperial court.
But soon, he surrendered and rebelled.
Huang Chao could not open the situation to the north, so he turned south.
The rebels crossed the Jiangxi of Anhui and invaded Fuzhou in late 878, killing tens of thousands of foreigners in the city. In 879, he crossed the Nanling Mountains, captured Guangzhou, and slaughtered more than 100,000 foreigners in the city.
Huang Chao originally wanted to use Lingnan as a base, but the rebels could not adapt to the hot climate of Lingnan, and the plague epidemic in the army was prevalent, and there were three or four soldiers who died of infection.
As a last resort, the rebels moved north.
At the beginning of 880, it invaded Hunan, and then it was invincible in the Yangtze River Valley, and the strength of the army soon grew to 200,000.
In September 880, the rebel army crossed the Huai River and went north to the Central Plains, and the army expanded to hundreds of thousands.
In November, it captured the eastern capital Luoyang.
In December, tongguan was breached.
In January 881, huang Chao was 61 years old, and he had repeatedly failed in scientific expeditions, leading hundreds of thousands of rebels to capture Chang'an City, the heart of the Tang Empire.
Huang Chao took the throne in Chang'an and established the state as emperor. Because he is from Shandong, Huangchao's national name is "Daqi". Change the yuan "Jin Tong", and take the current year as the first year of the Jin Tong.
This is the peak of Huang Chao's life. Huang Chao was not able to create a great dynasty like the later Zhu Yuanzhang.
After capturing Chang'an, he seemed to be beginning to gain self-reliance, and did not suppress the remnants of Li Tang in time.
This allowed Emperor Tang, who had fled into Sichuan, to order armies from all over the country to counterattack Chang'an.
The soldiers and horses of the Qin kings and horses approached everywhere, and surrounded Chang'an, and Huang Chao abandoned the city and left, but after the officials and troops entered Chang'an, they actually rushed to plunder the property of the people in the city, and the military discipline was scattered.
Huang Chao took the opportunity to counterattack, annihilated the officers and troops, and occupied Chang'an City again.
In 882, the situation began to be unfavorable to Huang Chao, and his general Zhu Wen defected and surrendered to the Tang Dynasty, and Emperor Tang, in recognition of his loyalty, gave him the name "Quan Zhong", which was later Zhu Quanzhong.
In 883, Huang Chao again abandoned Chang'an and retreated eastward.
In 884, all the way back, Huang Chao, who had fallen to Pingyang, was defeated by his former subordinate Zhu Wen in Henan.
After successive defeats, he fled into Shandong, his hometown and where his uprising began.
In 884, Huang Chao was 64 years old and was defeated and killed in Taishan. At this point, the great uprising he led finally came to an end.
Although the Huangchao Uprising ultimately failed, the rebel army swept across the territory of the Tang Dynasty, covering the Central Plains, Jiangnan and Lingnan, giving the Tang Dynasty the final fatal blow and completely exhausting the vitality of the Tang Dynasty.
In 907, 23 years after Huang Chao's defeat and death, his former subordinate Zhu Wen (Zhu Quanzhong) usurped the throne as emperor, and the Tang Dynasty officially collapsed.
Follow @Tiger of the Wild Hills to read more articles by the author.