This person should be known to everyone, Li Cunxun, the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty after the Five Dynasties period, he had two obvious shortcomings: one was to spoil the eunuchs, and the other was to connive at the empress to interfere in politics. These two shortcomings, which we are not very good at evaluating today, can only be said to be carried by the steppe people in their bones and affected his life.
Let's start with the pampering of the eunuchs. What is a eunuch? It was the singing of the emperor who did things around him, or, the artist. Li Cunxun's shortcomings are too obvious, too famous, and it is also a major hobby of his. Since he was a child, he liked to sing opera, often playing with people, and had a stage name called "Li Tianxia", which he had given himself. Once, he frolicked with many people, looking around and shouting, "Li Tianxia, where is Li Tianxia?" "A man stepped forward, raised his hand and slapped him. He was stunned, and the others were horrified. The man who beat him said, "The emperor is the only one in the world, so who else are you calling out to?" The men laughed. Instead of being angry, he rewarded the men who beat him.
In the early years, this "rational world" had delayed the war because of the appointment of men as assassins, but they did not learn a lesson, and still continued to promote and reuse them, so that later the servants entered and exited the palace at will, bullied the ministers, and the courtiers dared to be angry but did not dare to speak, and some even turned around to curry favor with the servants in order to ensure their wealth. This not only caused the undesirable consequences of bullying and fighting for power, wantonly interfering in the military and government, and bullying the generals, but also made the court a mess and did not become a system. However, the "rational world" turned a blind eye to this, still regarded the people as confidants, and let them do some somewhat "private" things for themselves, for example, Zeng Lingren went to all parts of the country to select beautiful women to enrich the harem, and snatched 3,000 young women at one time, and even the families of soldiers were not spared.
Let's talk about conniving at the empress to do politics. During Li Cunxun's reign, Empress Liu was extremely powerful, and the edicts issued had the same effect as the emperor's edicts, and they had to be implemented by local governments. Liu Shi was greedy and miserly by nature, and not only gathered money with Li Cunxun, but also sent people to do business in various places, and even sold firewood, fruits and vegetables to profit from them. All the money contributed by the four parties was appropriated by her, and she only went in and out, and never rewarded. Others were immediately promoted if they gave her gifts, and many ministers were valued by generously rewarding her.
In 926 AD, the domestic famine, the Luoyang treasury was empty, the emperor's forbidden army had no food to eat, and many soldiers' relatives and relatives could only fill their hunger with wild vegetables, so that countless people died of freezing and starvation, and even forced to sell their wives and children. At this time, a mutiny broke out again, and the prime minister led hundreds of officials to the table and asked Li Cunxun to open the inner treasury to relieve the disaster. Li Cunxun agreed, but Liu Shi refused to agree, saying that life and death had a destiny decision and could not be saved by human beings. Later, when the prime minister was discussing countermeasures in the other halls, Liu Shi hid behind the screen to eavesdrop, and even sent his own toiletries, two silver basins, and three young princes to the prime minister, saying that there were only these left in the palace, and let them sell them as military salaries, which frightened the prime minister to retreat one after another.
It is surprising that such a woman actually became the empress of Li Cunxun, sitting on an equal footing with Li Cunxun and driving side by side, but if it is analyzed from a cultural point of view, it will be as interesting as Li Cunxun's favor and eunuch, and it is also Li Cunxun's fate. Let's start with the pampering of the eunuchs.
The ancient Chinese ethnic groups lived in the Central Plains and became the center of civilization, so the northern nomads were very yearning for the scenery, customs and rich products of the Central Plains, and they were also very eager for the lifestyle and cultural traditions of the Central Plains peoples. This is more or less like the people we live in today in the townships want to go to the big city, the reason is also very simple, because it is the center of the economy and culture, it will always give people a sense of superiority, and it is human nature to yearn for superiority and live a better life. Li Cunxun is a Turkic Shatuo tribe, from a nomadic ethnic group, although he has been an N-generation immigrant here, but his yearning for the Central Plains civilization has not changed, and his personal hobby has changed from liking to listening to plays to spoiling eunuchs. With this, Li Cunxun's connivance with the empress to interfere in politics is also better understood - the existence and inheritance of matrilineal culture among the nomadic peoples is much deeper and older than that of the Central Plains, because of the difference in production and lifestyle, the women of the ethnic groups in the northern grasslands have always had a very high status, and they all have the meaning of "half the sky", and Li Cunxun cannot be an exception. Because of this, after the northern ethnic minorities entered the Central Plains to establish political power, women's participation in politics, participation in politics, and even obedience to the government and the king's presence in the world are all cultural and historical traditions.
In 926, when Liu shi was reluctant to Liu Shi, Li Cunxun, who was only 34 years old, died in a mutiny. In February of that year, there was a mutiny in Bei Prefecture, the rebels invaded Wei Prefecture, Xingzhou and Cangzhou also mutinied, and Hebei was in chaos. In March, Li Cunxun personally led an army on the Eastern Expedition, but soon after leaving the city, he saw that the situation was irreparable, so he had to order his division to return to Luoyang in a hurry. In April, Li Cunxun wanted to send troops again to suppress the rebels, he gathered his troops, but he felt that he was a little hungry and wanted to enter the palace to eat something. Let the generals wait, and he ordered his troops to wait outside the palace gate and eat themselves in the inner temple. However, he did not expect that the general of the command team would suddenly launch a rebellion and lead his troops into the palace. He took his own guard unit into battle, killing hundreds of rebels alone, and was eventually shot by a stray arrow and died in the Temple of Daixiao. What if the emperor dies? His man was funny enough to cover him with several musical instruments and then set fire to his body and "cremated" him.
At this point, the story of history has been told by us. However, there are still many things to say: Li Cunxun was a very capable warrior, and during his reign, he and the Qi state, destroyed the Former Shu, and obtained the land of Fengxiang, Hanzhong and Liangchuan, so that the territory of Tang after 930 AD reached its peak. There are about present-day Henan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Ningxia, Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Hunan, Hubei and other provinces and cities, the area south of Zhangjiakou in Hebei Province, the area east of the Min river and the Dadu River in Sichuan Province, the eastern part of Gansu Province, the northern part of Guizhou, the xuzhou area of Jiangsu Province, the northwestern part of Anhui Province, the northern part of Guangdong Province, and the southwest of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Of Theokezhao League. It can be said that in addition to the Song, it is the largest territory of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. Some historians in this regard regret that if his political wisdom had been a little higher, he might have been able to end the chaotic world of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms as soon as possible, but history did not have an "if".
As early as 925 AD, liu Gong, the lord of the Southern Han Dynasty, heard that Li Cunxun had destroyed Liang, and became frightened, sent emissaries to pay tribute, and spied on the truth. After the emissary returned, he reported to Liu Gong that Li Cunxun was "arrogant and unscrupulous, and not fearful enough." Why "not enough to fear"? In our words today, there are only 3 words - no culture. This is also the reason why the northern peoples in history have entered the Central Plains because they admired the Central Plains civilization, but they were assimilated by the Central Plains civilization and the Central Plains civilization stood firm, and they sometimes came to the Central Plains only for wealth and enjoyment, and did not attach importance to civil rule, so they soon gave way to the stage of rule under the swarm of resistance.
Li Cunxun told people the fact that the ruler of the country must first marry a good wife; again, it is not enough to listen to the drama.
For more exciting content, come and follow the human geography of the west