"'Ma Songyi Mutiny' refers to the second year of the Anshi Rebellion, when the rebels broke through Tongguan and Chang'an was in danger, when Tang Xuanzong fled to Ma Songyi with Yang Guifei and Wenwu Hundred Officials, the accompanying generals mutinied, and finally killed the chancellor Yang Guozhong and forced Tang Xuanzong to kill Yang Guifei. The result of this mutiny was that Emperor Xuanzong took refuge in Sichuan, and the crown prince Li Heng went north to clean up the mess. Soon after, Li Heng established himself as emperor and Emperor Xuanzong as Emperor Taishang, and Emperor Xuanzong of Tang lost power.
Ma Songyi mutinied
As a military coup, the "Ma Songyi Mutiny" was definitely not accidental. Who its director is and why it launched this mutiny has always been controversial. Some of the forbidden army general Chen Xuanli said that the chief plotter said, there was the crown prince Li Heng who said it, and there was also the grand eunuch Gao Lishi who said it. However, at present, the mainstream of historiography is still two opinions, that is, the chief plotter of prince Li Heng or the mastermind of Gao Lishi. Let's go back to Ma Song in 756 and explore the deep causes of this mutiny.
First, how much energy Colliers has
Gao Lishi was not an ordinary eunuch, he was an official to the Grand General of the Hussars, the Kaifu Yi Tongsan Division, the Duke of Qi, loyal and loyal all his life, inseparable from Tang Xuanzong, and was known as "the first person of the ancient sage eunuchs". When his power was at its peak, the folds presented to the emperor by the world would first be sent to Gao Lishi for reading, and the weight would be divided, and the major matters would be decided by themselves before the emperor was enshrined.
If Gao Lishi was the mastermind, then Chen Xuanli, the forbidden general who guarded Tang Xuanzong, was Gao Lishi's conspirator, because it was Chen Xuanli who came forward to launch the mutiny. However, there is no historical evidence of how Chen Xuanli colluded with Colliers. Chen Xuanli was promoted to the General of the Forbidden Army Longwu because of the merits of Princess Anle after Wei Hou and Princess Anle, he was not a general promoted by Gao Lishi, and if Gao Lishi led the change of Ma Song, there was no reward for Chen Xuanli afterwards.
Colliers
Although Gao Lishi was in power, he did not have much contradiction with Yang Guozhong, and he did not have the ability and strength to manipulate the imperial court. In fact, before the Outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, Gao Lishi's attitude toward Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong was not guilty. The eunuch dictatorship of the Tang Dynasty began during the reigns of Emperor Suzong and Emperor Daizong, and there was no precedent for emperor Xuanzong of Tang, who, although trusting Gao Lishi, did not have the will to hand over the administration of the dynasty to a eunuch. Therefore, Gao Lishi could not have the idea of getting rid of Yang Guozhong and controlling the government himself, and he had no reason to launch a mutiny.
After doing so, it seems that Gao Lishi was not the beneficiary of this mutiny, Tang Xuanzong lost power, and the biggest victim was Gao Lishi. In the end, Gao Lishi was also framed by Li Fuguo and exiled to QianzhongDao, and after learning of Tang Xuanzong's death, Gao Lishi Beiwang cried bitterly and vomited blood and died. Therefore, the evidence is difficult to convince people that Colliers manipulated the "Ma Songyi Mutiny".
Second, the role of the Forbidden Army and Chen Xuanli
After the Forbidden Army fled with Xuanzong, its first stop was Xianyang. According to the original plan, the sergeants would take a short rest here, eat and then set off. However, the Old Book of Tang records that the situation at that time was "when the chenshi arrived at Xianyang Yi, the officials were terrified, there was no return to the nobility, and they sat under the big tree at the palace gate." Pavilion noon, on the uneaten. In Russia, there was an old father who offered food, and the emperor ordered food to be eaten", and the other people did not eat. It wasn't until the people and horses went to Jincheng County that they raised a little grain, "Yang Guozhong's self-city Hu cake to offer." It can be seen from Tang Xuanzong's food that at this time, he and his soldiers were basically in a state of food shortage, and the soldiers were hungry and tired, and the dissatisfaction would continue to ferment. It was a hand behind the scenes that took advantage of the discontent of the generals and directed the ensuing mutiny.
Chen Xuanli
Will this be Chen Xuanli behind the scenes? This is not possible. Chen Xuanli was only a general, and he did not have the strength to direct a premeditated and planned mutiny, nor did he have the guts. Moreover, Tang Xuanzong's escape was not planned in advance, it happened suddenly. Two days before his escape, Tang Xuanzong also shouted out the slogan of "Imperial Driving and Pro-March" rebels, and it was not until July 12, when Tang Xuanzong saw that less than one-tenth of the hundred officials were in the dynasty, that he knew that the chief could not be kept safe. After dark that day, Emperor Xuanzong ordered Chen Xuanli to gather the six armies of the Forbidden Army, reward them with money and cloth, and select more than 900 horses in the idle stables. On this day, hundreds of officials and those who entered the dynasty saw that the guards of the honor guard were still standing neatly on both sides of the palace gate, but the emperor was gone. Therefore, from the perspective of time, Chen Xuanli did not have enough time to arrange for the soldiers to launch a mutiny.
In fact, the fleeing party arrived at Ma Songyi because the soldiers of the entourage were hungry and tired, and they were resentful and angry in their hearts, and they expressed their dissatisfaction with Chen Xuanli one after another. Provoked by a behind-the-scenes hand, Chen Xuanli accepted the idea that the chaos in the world was caused by Yang Guozhong,leading his soldiers to surround Tang Xuanzong's residence and kill Yang Guozhong.
Third, who is behind it?
In fact, many people know that the commander behind this is Prince Li Heng.
Li Heng's position as crown prince has been precarious. In fact, the princes of the Tang Dynasty are similar, whether it is the earliest Li Jiancheng, or Li Xian, the crown prince of Gaozong, and Li Ying, the original crown prince of Tang Xuanzong, the end is not good. After Li Ying's death, Li Linfu advocated Lishou As the crown prince, but was not adopted by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang.
Lee Heng
After Li Heng became crown prince, Li Linfu still wanted to get him down, and according to the New Book of Tang - Biography of Yang Guozhong, when Li Linfu framed Wei Jian and others in the princeling party, he pushed Yang Guozhong to the front desk and asked him to borrow Wei Jian's case to frame the prince. Yang Guozhong wanted to take this opportunity to promote his rank at that time, so he was also more active, wanting to put the prince to death and then quickly. In dealing with the crown prince Li Heng, although Yang Guozhong and Li Linfu were political enemies, their attitudes were the same, and they both wanted to change the easily controlled Shou Wang as the crown prince, so that they could control the government in the future.
Li Heng was a very intelligent person, and history records that he was "intelligent and disciplined, belongs to the words and melodies, and is not forgotten by the eyes and ears", for the framing of Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong, he pretended to do nothing on the surface, but in fact he had already written down this account in his heart. In particular, after the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, Tang Xuanzong wanted to pass the throne to the crown prince, and Yang Guozhong was so shocked that he hurriedly used Yang Guifei to "ask for orders" to prevent Li Heng from succeeding him. In order to prevent any more accidents, Li Heng must kill Yang Guozhong, which is the real reason for the "Ma Songyi Mutiny".
Fourth, how Li Heng chooses
Li Heng's cleverness was vividly demonstrated in the "Ma Songyi Mutiny". Because An Lushan's excuse for launching the "An Shi Rebellion" was the Qing Jun's side and killing Yang Guozhong, all the people under the heavens who were affected by the war targeted Yang Guozhong. At this time, Yang Guozhong was already the target of everyone. In particular, those generals in the army had long had the idea of getting rid of Yang Guozhong.
Death of Yang Guifei
According to the Zizhi Tongjian, another general, Wang Sili, sent someone to contact the general Ge Shuhan and asked Ge Shuhan to raise his arm and ask Yang Guozhong, but Ge Shuhan did not agree. This matter did not know how to be known by Yang Guozhong, he was afraid that Ge Shuhan would be unfavorable to himself, so he forced Ge Shuhan to go out of Tongguan to fight a decisive battle with the rebels, resulting in a major defeat of the Tang army and the loss of Tongguan. Originally, according to Ge Shuhan's insistence plan, Tongguan would not necessarily be lost, and Tang Xuanzong would not necessarily flee. Therefore, Tongguan was lost, countless Tang troops were killed, the situation deteriorated sharply, many people believed that Yang Guozhong was fully responsible for this, and Wang Sili even wanted to send dozens of horses to Chang'an to kill Yang Guozhong.
The mood of the Tang army at the front line also spread to Chen Xuanli's forbidden army, that is, Chen Xuanli himself, and his dissatisfaction with Yang Guozhong was growing. Therefore, as soon as Li Heng contacted Chen Xuanli, he received Chen's support. At that time, the situation was that there was the support of the former prince and the support of the soldiers, and Chen Xuanli weighed it up again and again, and then threw away all his concerns. From Chen Xuanli's point of view, Yang Guozhong has become the finger of thousands of people in the world, and only by following the prince will he have a future.
Lee Hyung ascended the throne
There is evidence to say that Li Heng is the behind-the-scenes conductor. According to the Old Book of Tang, before the mutiny, "the forbidden army general Chen Xuanli secretly qi prince", but after the mutiny, Li Heng disappeared, tang Xuanzong could not find the prince in all directions, and sent soldiers to look around. This is abnormal, the result of Li Heng's deliberate avoidance. Why did he hide? One is that he does not know whether the mutiny can be successful, and he can leave his own affairs far away, and the second is that he is afraid that Yang Guozhong will retaliate after the defeat, and he can have a time to deal with it from a distance. After the success of the mutiny, he immediately parted ways with Tang Xuanzong, also hoping to get rid of his father's control as soon as possible and go to establish a portal on his own.
But there was one thing that Li Heng did not expect, Chen Xuanli actually took the lead in expressing his allegiance to Xuanzong after executing the noble concubine. Although Chen Xuanli sided with Li Heng in the execution of Yang Guozhong, he was still a general loyal to Xuanzong, which was the real reason why Chen Xuanli followed Xuanzong into Shu in the future, and Xuanzong did not blame him, but after returning to Chang'an, he was ordered by Li Heng to be a soldier.
The Old Book of Tang says it very clearly: "The horse is on the ground, and the prince does not dare to go west", why not dare? From Li Heng's point of view, Sichuan was the base camp that Yang Guozhong had painstakingly managed, and Yang Guozhong's power had not yet been eradicated, and he was unwilling to go on adventures in Sichuan with Xuanzong, which was a very wise approach. He was willing to "cross the Wei river in the north and fight a hundred battles a day", until he arrived at Lingwu, the base camp of the Shuofang Army, before ascending the throne as emperor. The life of the prince who has been dangerous for many years has since come to an end, and Yang Guozhong, the opponent of many years, has also died ma Song, and an old era has passed and a new era has begun.
References: Old Book of Tang, New Book of Tang