The chaotic world produces heroes, and the country is difficult to produce a bright king
Speaking of this yellow robe plus body, the first thing that comes to mind must be Zhao Kuangyin, who did not leave at Chen Qiao, pretended to be drunk, and took advantage of the death of Emperor Chai Ronggang, who was bullied by only orphans and widows in the middle of the country, so he put on the yellow robe from his subordinates and usurped the throne of Later Zhou.
In fact, he had a master, that is, Guo Wei, the first emperor of the Later Zhou, but the yellow robe of Guo Wei was different from the color of Zhao Kuangyin's yellow robe, Zhao Kuangyin was a heart to usurp the throne, and Guo Wei was forced to be helpless. He was moved to kill after the death of Liu Zhiyuan of the Later Han Dynasty, when the new emperor came to power and killed his entire family. At that time, Shi Zai's whole family was "babies and children without exemption", so Guo Wei was still forgivable.
Guo Wei, ZiWenzhong, a native of Longyao, Hebei. Tall and brave. After his birth, he was tired of great merit, and bai yi stayed behind and was a privy councillor. The Later Han Emperor Liu Chengyou, disgusted by his ministers, wanted to send someone to execute Guo Wei. So Guo Wei launched a mutiny and attacked Kaifeng. The following year, Guo Wei established Hou Zhou, with the era name Guangshun. During his reign, he advocated frugality, modesty, and reform of maladministration, thus promoting a turn for the better in the political and economic situation in the northern region. At the age of 51, he died of illness, and the temple name Taizu ordered his adopted son Chai Rong to take the throne.
Speaking of these five generations and ten kingdoms, it is really a chaotic world. Foreign invasions, divided regimes everywhere, the head of the city frequently changed the banner of the king, including a "Later Han" established by Liu Zhiyuan, a Shatuo person.
Guo Wei was born into poverty, and when he was young, he was a small, and in the chaotic world of soldiers and strong people as kings, Guo Wei had a place to play. Because of Guo Wei's bravery in battle, he was appreciated by Liu Zhiyuan and gradually grasped the military power of the Later Han Dynasty.
By the time of Liu Zhiyuan's death, his successor son Zhi Dacaishu (志大才疏) was prepared to get rid of Guo Wei in order to be less constrained and take charge of the government alone. Under the pretext of the Liao invading the south, he let Guo Wei go north to resist the enemy, thus transferring Guo Wei away from the Beijing Division. Subsequently, he purged Guo Wei's party and secretly sent people to murder Guo Wei. However, the person who received the secret edict fell to Guo Wei. Subsequently, Guo Wei raised an army on the "Side of the Qing Emperor", and then deposed the emperor and established himself.
Guo Wei's entire family was killed, and according to the custom of for tat, blood for blood, he should have killed the other party's family as well, but Guo Wei did not do so, he did not retaliate against the Hou Han Liu family and the people who directly carried out the massacre order, but only killed the person who gave the order. In this way, he is indeed a very generous monarch.
Guo Wei is definitely a legend among the Chinese emperors. He started from an ordinary soldier, started from scratch, and fought on horseback, in the decades of attack and scuffles, from a low-level officer to a moderate envoy, and finally the yellow robe was added, and he was honored to the throne, and he ruled the country well, with outstanding political achievements, and was the best among the emperors of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.
Guo Wei was different from those "warlord emperors", after he ascended the throne, he did not act in time like other emperors, but reformed the shortcomings, reduced the burden of the people, scattered the fields to the hungry people, let them have food to grow, and reformed a series of ills in the chaotic era of the late Tang Dynasty.
Guo Wei was able to implement such a relaxed national policy, which was related to the fact that he had suffered from loneliness since he was a child and knew the suffering of the people at the bottom. He reformed many cruel punishments of the former dynasty and rectified corrupt officials, so that the government and the opposition were clear and the military was stable. As a result, the people who had suffered from decades of war began to be able to settle down, and the devastated country was gradually on the right track.
When he was young, Guo Wei was really a problem youth, it can be said that he was a little, and his success was really a coincidence, and he had to help his wife Chai. Of course, it can also be said that Chai's discerning hero, without Chai's help, this Guo Wei may be like a big head soldier mixed up.
Chai was originally a concubine of Emperor Zhuangzong of Later Tang, Li Cunxun, and when Emperor Zhuangzong died, Chai and other concubines became widows. In order to reduce provincial expenditures, li Siyuan, the successor of Emperor Mingzong, dismissed all his concubines from the palace and sent them back to their hometowns. On the way back to his hometown, Chai met Guo Wei, who was a low-ranking officer at the time, and fell in love with him at first sight, despite his parents' opposition, insisting on marrying Guo Wei. Guo Wei also fell in love with Chai at first sight, and the two married.
With the help of Chai, Guo Wei corrected many problems, and Guo Wei also had considerable respect for Chai, obeying his words, and Chai's teachings and advice received very good results, so Guo Wei quickly grew into an excellent leader while establishing a correct political concept. The "History of the Old Five Dynasties" records that "Taizu was in his prime, liked to drink and drink, was a good warrior, did not act in detail, and was too much after the rules, and every time he had the strength to help him." ”。 But unfortunately, within a few years, Chai's family fell ill and died. Guo Wei proclaimed himself empress dowager, and posthumously made Chai empress, with the posthumous title of "Saint Mu".
However, it is somewhat puzzling that according to the "New History of the Five Dynasties", the successors of Guo Wei's harem are all widows. He had "one queen and three concubines", of which Yang also had two wives, which can be said to be more than cao cao. Some people say that he is "not afraid of mouth", some people say that he is "heavy taste", and some people say that he is "widow control". Zhao Yi, a Qing dynasty, also said in the Twenty-Two Historical Notes: "Unsolvable also"
Guo Wei has been called "the best Han emperor ever", and after the founding of the country, he devoted himself to reversing the ugly image of the military regime during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Striving to eliminate the accumulated shortcomings since the end of the Tang Dynasty, reusing talented and virtuous civil servants and loving the people, he not only attached importance to reducing the people's tax burden, but also took the lead in frugality, he let people smash the treasures and luxury utensils in the palace in public, saying: "Whoever is an emperor, use this in peace!" ”
He never went on a nationwide beauty pageant, but only went around with a few widows; he did not build palaces, and it was enough to use the old dynasty; he explicitly forbade all localities to enter the food treasures, advocated frugality, and once said to the prime minister Wang Jun: "I am a poor man, fortunate to be an emperor, how dare I be generous and self-reliant to support the sick people"; he advocated Confucianism, ruled the world with Confucianism, and laid the ideological foundation for the later Zhou Dynasty to govern the country.
He governed the country, relaxed the ban on transactions, resumed agricultural production, granted unowned land to hundreds of thousands of hungry people in Youzhou who had returned to the Central Plains, exempted them from differential taxes, and distributed land to the existing tenants to fill the permanent industry, increased the enthusiasm of the peasants in production, and increased the number of households by more than 30,000.
To sum up, Guo Wei's main political achievements include: advocating thrift and frugality; rectifying the discipline of officials; alleviating oppression and exploitation; recruiting displaced people and organizing production; controlling river disasters and irrigating fertile land; and preparing for reunification and launching a unified war. These efforts of his have achieved remarkable results, so that Hou Zhou showed signs of going abroad to become rich and strong in a very short period of time, laying a solid foundation for Zhou Shizong Chai Rong to continue his career.
Unfortunately, Guo Wei died when the emperor was only more than three years old, and many things he wanted to do were not done, but he did a very wise thing before leaving, that is, he took people with virtue and talent, passed on to chai rong, a righteous son of the opposite sex, and did not hand over the World to his own family named "Guo", which is the first case in China's thousands of years of feudal society!
History proves that Guo Wei's approach is correct, because after Chai Rong ascended the throne, he ruled the country more diligently, and he can be called a generation of Ming emperors, and under his rule, the national strength of the Later Zhou Became stronger and stronger. It can be said that without Chai Rong, there would be no Great Song.
The second major thing Guo Wei did before his death was to arrange his mausoleum, according to the "History of the Old Five Dynasties", he instructed the people of the country: "The mausoleum does not need to be used, it costs labor, and it is only replaced by bricks." Coated with a clay coffin. Do not guard the people of the Tomb Palace, nor are you allowed to use stone people and stone beasts, only set up a stone to remember it, engraved in the cloud: The Great Zhou Tianzi Linyan and the Emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty, because of their good life and frugality, only let them be buried in a coffin and paper. If this is against this, the yin spirit will not help. ”
His mausoleum is called Songling, located in Xinzheng, Henan, very simple, really not like the mausoleum of a founding emperor, Guo Wei is for the purpose of frugality, and the other is mainly to learn the lessons of the Tang Emperor's thick burial and theft, and the experience that the Han Wen Emperor's thin burial can be kept intact. Because of this, Guo Wei's mausoleum is still intact, although it is slightly desolate, but no one has ever robbed the tomb.
At that time, there was a poem describing the scene here: "The thorns are full of old armor, and the sunset is remnants of the dragon robe." Shuo Yi was quiet in the day, and the iron rode into wheat seedlings. ”