Emperor Gao Yang of the Northern Qi Dynasty can be said to be the most bizarre of the emperors of the ancient Chinese feudal dynasty, leaving a great controversy in history. He was a Ming Emperor in the first half of his life, pushing the Northern Qi forces to the peak position, suppressing the Western Wei and Southern Liang of the same era. However, when the national strength reached its peak, he fell into the misunderstanding of slacking off and being tyrannical, and became a complete tyrant. His absurd and tyrannical reign recorded in the Book of Northern Qi surprised all lovers of history books. In his short nine-year career as emperor, there was such a big contrast, which was really difficult to understand. Later generations of scholars have speculated and analyzed this strange situation, making it one of the biggest mysteries in the history of Northern Qi.
Gao Yang was the founding emperor of Northern Qi, and his father Gao Huan and brother Gao Cheng were both powerful vassals of Eastern Wei. He inherited the inheritance laid by his father and brother, and further abolished the Eastern Wei Xiaojing Emperor Yuan Shanjian and ascended the throne. At the beginning of his ascension to the throne, Gao Yang exerted great efforts to govern, promoted many political and military reforms, and developed northern Qi's national strength to its peak. It can be said that in the early days of his reign, Gao Yang's achievements were very brilliant, and he was also outstanding among the emperors of ancient China. He straightened out the bureaucracy and revised the laws, which improved the chaotic and corrupt political situation of the Eastern Wei Dynasty. He promoted and appointed a large number of capable civilian and military generals, breaking the old system of monopolizing the selection of talents by the Mengmen clan, and making the politics of the Northern Qi court appear a rare qingming
After the political enlightenment, he also vigorously promoted the selection of Confucian materials, and enabled the ministers of the Han Mongol clan to govern the country, so that the national economy recovered rapidly from the war and stood out in the Three Kingdoms in the late Southern and Northern Dynasties. In the face of the invasion of the ethnic minorities in the north from the south, Gao Yang reformed the military system, selected talents of the Xianbei and Han ethnic groups to form a new army, and personally led the army to the north to meet the attack, and repeatedly won great victories. Moreover, he also rebuilt the Great Wall and various passes to establish a defense line against the invasion of ethnic minorities in the north, with a total of nearly 2,000 kilometers of the Great Wall. His efforts made Northern Qi the most powerful state at that time, covering the vast plains of Shanxi, Shandong, Hebei, Henan, Inner Mongolia, northern Jiangsu and northern Anhui, with a population of 3 million households and 20 million mouths.
Because of the strength of Northern Qi and the great victories in the war with the northern minorities, Gao Yang was also respected by the chiefs of these ethnic minority tribes and praised by the Turkic Khans as the "heroic son of heaven". In terms of fighting against his old enemy Western Wei, he surprised The Western Wei chancellor Yuwen Tai, so that he not only did not dare to lead an army to invade Northern Qi, but also sent people to cut through the frozen yellow river ice surface every winter to prevent the Northern Qi army from taking advantage of the winter to cross the river and sneak attack. Xiao Xuan, the King of Xiangdong, who later became Emperor Yuan of Liang, also took the initiative to send emissaries to Northern Qi to seek peace, and regularly sent envoys to pay tribute. And the Southern Dynasty Liang's Jiaozhou Thorn Shi Li Jingsheng, Liang Prefecture Thorn Shi Ma Songren, Yizhou Thorn Shi Xiahou Zhenqia, Xinzhou Thorn Shi Li Han and others together with their prefectures and counties to northern Qi, reflecting Gao Yang's arrogance as a generation of british lords.
However, after achieving the above achievements, Gao Yang gradually became addicted to wine. He not only slackened the government, but also acted arbitrarily, committing many tyranny that made people angry and resentful. The Book of Northern Qi describes Gao Yang as tyrannical and ruthless, and records many specific plots. For example, he built a high platform in a large number of buildings, and danced naked on the high platform in the cold winter. Another example is that he wears women's clothes, greases and powders the market, and behaves absurdly. There are also scenes of attracting a large number of beautiful women into the palace, day and night wine and indulgence. His brutality makes people feel cruel, no worse than the King of Shang in the novel. For example, after drinking, he tortured and killed his favorite Concubine Xue, and personally dissected the corpse, made the hip bone into a lute, and sang himself through wine.
Gao Yang's habit of drinking almost fell into madness, and once he was drunk, he would not recognize his relatives. His mother, Lou Zhaojun, had beaten him with a cane after he was drunk, and he not only forced his mouth back, but also scolded Lou Zhaojun to the point of fainting. After he was drunk, he laughed with his mother, and without a word, he overturned his mother's small bed and seriously injured the person. His niece Princess Le'an had a quarrel with her mother-in-law Li Shi, so he broke into the door through drunkenness and personally cut off Li Shi's head and threw it outside the wall. He committed adultery with the empress's sister Li Shi, and after getting drunk, he shot his mother-in-law with a bow and arrow, and his attitude was extremely arrogant. In the late period of Gao Yang's reign, he tortured and killed countless princes and nobles, including both Xianbei nobles and Gao clan relatives, and the close relatives of the Yuan clan of the Northern Wei imperial family were killed by him.
These brutal rules of his have left a heavy mark on the history books, also known as one of the synonyms of ancient Chinese tyrants. It can be that the behavior of the two people before and after his administration has puzzled many historians, and has also formed a lot of speculation and suspicion. Some people think that Gao Huan's sons are mentally ill, and some people have even diagnosed it as schizophrenia, and Gao Yang's brutal behavior is to operate indiscriminately after the onset of the disease. Some people also believe that Gao Yang has been discriminated against and excluded by his mother and brothers since he was a child, making his personality obedient and violent. Before becoming emperor, he was suppressed by Gao Cheng, so he chose Taoguang to raise obscurity. After becoming an emperor, especially after his achievements, his character was stimulated, so there was a phenomenon of brutal rule.
Reading these articles carefully, many of them are also from famous historians, but it can be seen that these speculations are difficult to justify. The theory of mental illness obviously has no direct evidence, and the theory of violent personality due to discrimination is only speculation. There is a big loophole that if this speculation is true, then Gao Yang's violence should be independent of each other. In fact, from the "Book of Northern Qi", Gao Yang's brutality is a fact, but the victims are very debatable. There were Xianbei nobles, Eastern Wei royal families, Gao clan relatives, and princes and ministers, but it was rare to see ordinary people being treated like this by Gao Yang. Even among the Han door valve officials, not too many were bullied and humiliated by such violence. Could it be that Gao Yangfa was mentally ill to kill people, or could it be considered a choice of objects?
If Gao Yang has the action of choosing the object when he carries out his brutal behavior, this can show that he is obviously not really crazy, and he pretends to be crazy by drinking. The most interesting thing is that every time he kills or commits a brutal act, he never operates in a sober state after he is drunk. Although he repeatedly said that he would quit drinking, he killed people after drinking as usual afterwards, which made people feel very suspicious. The history books believe that this is an accidental phenomenon, an uncontrolled behavior of Gao Yang after drinking. But there are too many such uncontrolled phenomena, which become the norm. Gao Yang may not be controlled after drinking, but he is very good at picking times, which is very deliberate. So there is reason to believe that these atrocities of his were carried out by the choice of personal will, and that drinking and pretending to be crazy was just to find an excuse.
There are many incredible records in the history books, which can prove this inference from the side. For example, in the late Gaoyang period, it was brutal, but northern Qi's national strength was still thriving. Gao Yang entrusted all the affairs of the government to the chancellor Yang Yan, who was in charge of state affairs and did his best to govern the country. Therefore, from a political point of view, Northern Qi was very stable, so people at that time said that the monarch above was faint, but the politics below was clear. It is obviously impossible for a mentally ill person to do this, especially for the military affairs of the country. If Gao Yang was really an out-of-control tyrant, it would have been abolished by Yang Yan and others who were in charge of the imperial government. From this point of view, Gao Yang's brutality and fainting are not only not true, but also a kind of power manipulation of the country.
So the question is, what is the purpose of Gao Yang doing these cruel things so crazy? Judging from some details in the history books, behind Gao Yang's brutality, there is unknown political pressure. These political pressures had actually threatened the imperial power, so he had to take crazy steps to maintain his rule. The author of the history book only one-sidedly records the phenomenon of Gao Yang's madness, but hides the details behind it.
From the time Gao Yang ascended the throne and became emperor, he was under tremendous political pressure and opposed it. Among them were the old ministers of the Gao Huan era, the Xianbei clan who were loyal to the Eastern Wei Xiaojing Emperor Yuan Shanmi, and also their own relatives. For example, Gao Yang's mother, Lou Zhaojun, opposed him to being called emperor, and said, "Ru father is like a dragon, brother is like a tiger, as if the heavenly throne cannot be presumptuous, all his life is north, Ru is alone, and he wants to do shun and Yu' things!" ”
Even his own mother did not support it, which shows how much political pressure Gao Yang has. It can be said that under the circumstances at that time, the humble old ministers and magnates who laid the foundation of Gao Huan did not support Gao Yang's claim to the throne, but instead supported the Han ministers represented by Gao Dezheng and Yang Yan in a subordinate position. Under such circumstances, Gao Yang forcibly declared himself emperor, and through a series of political and military tough means, he barely controlled the overall situation of the imperial court.
At the beginning of his reign as emperor, Gao Yang faced the pressure of internal and external troubles. Since he only executed Yuan Shanmi and retained the vast majority of the Eastern Wei Yuan clan, this led the Xianbei nobles to form a political group around the Yuan clan and confront them in the imperial court. Externally, there was both the threat of Western Wei Yuwen tai and the northern minorities who were eager to move and could invade the south at any time. In this critical situation, Gao Yang could only adopt the strategy of first going external and then internal.
When the northern border was in turmoil, the Yuwentai army was repelled, and the southern Liang and Huai lines were captured, the national strength of Northern Qi developed to the peak, and Gao Yang's dominance over the country was strengthened. In this case, it is necessary to eliminate hidden dangers at home, strengthen one's own rule, and prepare for the unification of the world. Judging from the victims of Gao Yang's madness, it is clear that he is targeting the groups that oppose his claim to the throne, including his own mother, Lou Zhaojun. Lou Zhaojun was a Member of the Xianbei Clan, born in Liuzhen, and was originally one with the Xianbei nobles. She opposed Gao Yang's claim to the throne, both because she was worried about the turmoil of the empress dowager, but also to safeguard the interests of the Xianbei clan. She had always been close to the Xianbei nobles and attached great importance to maintaining the balance between the Han and Xianbei tribes.
Gao Yang claimed that Emperor and Gao Cheng had the same purpose, that is, to break the balance between the Han and Xianbei tribes and establish a state with the Han gate valve as the main ruling class. In this way, the interests of the Xianbei clan could not be guaranteed, and they would naturally be opposed by the nobles and generals of the Xianbei clan who were in power. As mentioned earlier, Gao Cheng's death was most likely the result of the counterattack of these humble nobles. The first targets of Gao Yang's later madness were aimed at the Xianbei nobles and Gao Huanshi's old courtiers, and their purpose and significance were self-evident. Because of this, although he was not satisfied with his crown prince Gao Yin, he still arranged for Gao Dezheng, Yang Yan and others to assist him, that is, to maintain his political ideas. This is because although Gao Yin was cowardly, he believed in Confucianism, which was what Gao Yang valued most.
Unfortunately, Gao Yang's efforts were in vain, and the power of the Xianbei nobles was too deep. The Xianbei nobles not only received the support of Lou Zhaojun, but also several younger brothers who coveted Gao Yang's throne were also close to the Xianbei nobles. Gao Yang was still able to suppress these forces, and once Gao Yang died, it was difficult for the Han gate valves to gain any advantage. Fundamentally, this is also the scourge left by Gao Huan's rise from the Xianbei clan.
Although Gao Huan was a descendant of the Bohai Gao clan, because his grandfather was exiled to Liuzhen, he was a Han Chinese who grew up among the Xianbei tribe. His rise was all supported by the Xianbei clan of the six towns, and this foundation was difficult to change. No matter how much Gao Cheng and Gao Yang want to sinicize, this root will become their constraint. If you want to rely on the Han gate valve to change the overall situation, you must first eradicate the roots of Xianbei, so Gao Yang adopted the brutal means of borrowing wine to pretend to be crazy.