If you could really travel back in time to a dynasty of the past, where would you hope to go? I believe that many people will think that the Tang Dynasty is a good choice, indeed, the heyday of the Tang Dynasty made the whole world look at it, and to this day there are people who admire its prosperity and prosperity. However, when the Tang Dynasty faced the fall of the country, its tragedy was unimaginable to future generations, and even if we look back on this period of history today a thousand years later, we still feel sad and indignant. At that time, the entire imperial court was covered in blood, the princes and ministers were all killed, and two successive emperors were brutally killed.
Stills from the Tang Dynasty
In the late Tang Dynasty, this former co-lord of the world had become in decay. The kings of the various clans outside were divided into one side, and the eunuchs in the inner eunuchs were chaotic and the government and people were not happy, and the lives of the people were very difficult, so the peasant revolts often broke out. Coupled with the fact that there were two absurd emperors, Yizong and Emperor Xianzong, aggravated the decline of the country, and when Tang Zhaozong Li Ye ascended the throne, he was handed over to a Tang Dynasty that was about to collapse.
Li Ye was a rare Ming Jun in the late Tang Dynasty, who was a good reader from an early age, paid special attention to Confucianism, and was an aspiring king. In order to save the fate of the Tang Dynasty, he made great efforts to govern and treat the ministers with courtesy, hoping to restore the national prestige of the Tang Dynasty and re-order the world. At the beginning of his ascension to the throne, he had made some achievements, but he still could not reverse the end of the fall of the Tang Dynasty, and because he allowed Xuanwu Jiedu to make Zhu Wen expand his power, he eventually caused a big mistake in the destruction of the country.
Li Ye stills
In 903, Zhu Wen took control of Li Ye, who was emperor, and then ordered that all the powerful eunuchs be executed, and then the military group belonging to the eunuchs, the "Divine Strategy Army", was disbanded on the spot. Since then, the eunuch forces that controlled the Tang Dynasty for more than 150 years have been eliminated, and Zhu Wen has become the real master of the Tang Dynasty because he was crowned king of Liang.
The following year, Zhu Wen took Chang'an hostage to Luoyang on the grounds that the conquest was too dilapidated to protect the emperor's safety. At that time, Luoyang was very close to Zhu Wen's territory, so the emperor at this time had completely become a prisoner of Zhu Thief. However, Zhu Wen was still worried that there would be an accident, so he ordered people to secretly kill all the more than 200 of the emperor's cronies, and then found some people with similar appearances and shapes to impersonate the emperor's cronies, and the emperor knew this, but in order to survive, he could only pretend that he had found nothing.
Stills of Juwen
After holding the emperor hostage, Zhu Wen repeatedly proposed to let the emperor announce to the world that he would be given the title of a knight, and that the emperor should be prepared to abdicate as soon as possible. The emperor was furious and revealed his refusal in his words.
Zhu Wen saw that the emperor was no longer obedient, and was worried that the emperor would unite with other princes to fight against him, so he secretly sent someone to kill the emperor, and in this way, the 38-year-old emperor Li Ye was killed in Luoyang.
After Li Ye's death, in order to continue to control the imperial government, Zhu Wen also put the ninth son of the emperor, Li Xi, to the throne, and was known as the Emperor of Tang. At this time, Emperor Wai was only 13 years old, and he knew that his father and brother had all lost the head of Zhu Thief, and he had no strength to resist at all, so he could only give Zhu Wen the title of official and knight in accordance with the requirements of the traitor, and at this time Zhu Wen was only one step away from the throne.
However, at this time, most of the royal family members, as well as the ministers and secretaries of state, still only recognized the Li family as the masters of the world, so Zhu Wen wanted to usurp the throne and must remove these obstacles.
In 905, Zhu Wen set a trap and summoned all the princes of the former emperor Li Ye to the banquet, and deliberately let all the princes get drunk, and when the princes were drunk, ordered his subordinates to hang all the princes, and then threw them all into the pool, completely cutting off the possibility of Li Tang's royal family ascending the throne.
Later, Zhu Wen ordered that all ministers and princes loyal to the Li Tang imperial family be deposed. Then, regardless of good or evil, they were all imprisoned in the White Horse Station, and then all of them were executed and thrown into the Yellow River. His actions made no one in the court dare to oppose him. After removing all the obstacles, Zhu Thief became careless, and his next step was to call himself emperor.
In March 907, Zhu Thief had already purged all of Li Tang's supporters and executed all of Li Tang's successors, and then, under zhu thief's persecution, Emperor Wai ordered him to abdicate, and Zhu Thief finally ascended the throne, and the Tang Dynasty, which lasted for 289 years, was completely overthrown. After Emperor Wu abdicated, he was sent to Cao Prefecture as the King of Jiyin, and Emperor Wai was full of fear for Zhu Thief and only hoped that he could continue to live. However, Zhu Thief was still not at ease, and after only one year, he poisoned Emperor Wai, who was only 16 years old at this time.
However, no one expected that 4 years later, Zhu Wen was actually slashed and killed by his own son, and the world did not have half pity for his suffering, and felt that he deserved it.
References: Old Book of Tang, New Book of Tang