In the long history of our country for thousands of years, many extraordinary kings have been born, including the history of Ming Junbiaobing, who is brilliant and strategic, who is civilized and martial, and who is absurd and cruel, and who is spurned by people, and there are even emperors who are inactive and mediocre. For example, like Li Yu, the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, whose poetry achievements were unprecedented, he only did not sympathize with political affairs; the Northern Song and Song Huizong could do everything, but could not be the ear of the king! Emperor Qi of the Great Tomorrow was even more of a carpenter, and the abandonment of the government was jaw-dropping.
And today we are going to talk about the emperor is also a strange monarch, as the emperor he "out of the mud without staining" for 40 years is not close to the female color, because of the belief in Buddhism is known as the only "bodhisattva emperor" in history. The forty-eight years of his reign were the longest-lasting period and the most prosperous economic and cultural period in the entire history of the Entire Southern Dynasty for hundreds of years, known in history as the "Rule of Heavenly Supervision". However, it was also the late period of his reign that lured wolves into the house to raise Kou Yi, causing the "Hou Jing Rebellion" that brought a devastating blow to the social production of Jiangnan, resulting in his own death and the destruction of the country, and the cause of death was reduced to the laughing stock of the millennium!
The only "bodhisattva emperor" in history, who was not close to a woman for 40 years, died as a laughingstock for a thousand years
The great poet Du Mu of the late Tang Dynasty had a popular poem "Jiangnan Spring", the content of which reads: "Thousands of miles of warblers cry green and red, water village mountain Guo wine flag wind, the southern dynasty four hundred and eighty temples, how many buildings in the smoke and rain." This masterpiece of eternity vividly describes the prosperity of Buddhism during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the reason why Buddhism was respected at that time was that there was a fanatical emperor who believed in Buddhism, and he was Xiao Yan, the Emperor of Liangwu. Xiao Yan was born in the Xiao clan of The Lanling Dynasty, and was the twenty-fifth grandson of Xiao He, the Chancellor of the Western Han Dynasty. With his family background, Xiao Yan served as an aide to the Founding Hero of Southern Qi and the Wei general Wang Jian when he first came out.
In the early days, Xiao Yan was promoted to Zhongshu Shilang for helping the Qi Ming Emperor Xiao Luan ascend the throne, and later promoted to Huangmen Shilang, and from then on Xiao Yan's position began to become prominent. Subsequently, Xiao Yan began to hold an important position in Xiangyang, guarding the northern border of the country, and once repelled the enemy Northern Wei's 300,000-strong army in one fell swoop at the Battle of Xianshou Mountain. In the fifth year of Jianwu (498 AD), the Qi Ming Emperor Xiao Luan died, and his son Xiao Baojuan ruled the country without skill and tyranny, killing everyone in danger, Xiao Yan took the opportunity to raise an army in Xiangyang, and spent only one year to attack the city of Jiankang to overthrow the absurd Xiao Baojuan regime. Because of his outstanding military achievements, Xiao Yan was promoted to the position of Grand Sima and began to take charge of the major affairs of Chinese and foreign militaries and countries.
Finally, in 502 AD, Xiao Yan led a large army to overthrow the rule of the Qi Dynasty and forced the Emperor of the Qi Dynasty to "zen" the throne to him, establishing the Liang Dynasty. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Xiao Yan was still a good emperor, diligent in government affairs, abandoned sleep and forgot to eat, cared for the people, was diligent and thrifty, and reused people of insight, just like a generation of Ming Monarchs. If this had been the case, Xiao Yan would have left a strong mark in history, comparable to the Qin Emperor Han Wu. However, history has no if, in his later years, as the king of a country, he indulged in Buddhism and neglected political affairs, and did many absurd things.
Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu became obsessed with Buddhism in his later years, and he became a demon, and as an emperor, he became a monk four times in his life. In the eighth year of the common era (527 AD), Xiao Yan tried for the first time to go to Tongtai Temple to sacrifice himself, and when he returned three days later, he pardoned the world and changed his era name to Datong. In the next three renunciations, he also took off the imperial robe and changed into a monk's robe to become a monk, and the minister had to plead bitterly to return to the palace to manage the government. At that time, Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu still listened to the advice of his courtiers, and every time after a few dozen days, the monks would return to the world, and according to the regulations, the monks should redeem themselves from the monastery, so the ministers took out hundreds of millions of dollars to redeem the "Bodhisattva Emperor" in the flesh.
Because Xiao Yan carefully studied Buddhism, he eventually found a theoretical basis in the Great Nirvana Sutra and ordered monks to eat vegetarian food. Since then, Chinese Buddhism has formed a vegetarian tradition. Buddhist believers do not kill or think about adultery, so Xiao Yan abstained from sex, and the "History of Liang" records that Xiao Yan "broke his house when he was fifty years away, and did not share a room with a woman." If you take his death at the age of 86, he has not touched a woman in the past 40 years. At that time, Xiao Yan's harem concubines, except for the noble concubine Ding Lingguang, who stayed in the capital, the rest let him go and live with their sons who were separated from each other.
As the saying goes, once the emperor of a dynasty has no intention of ruling the government, it will inevitably cause the country to decline, and Xiao Yan is no exception. When Xiao Yan accepted the Eastern Wei rebel Hou Jing in spite of the objections of his subjects, he never imagined that he had lured the wolf into the room. Hou Jing was a major general under the account of Northern Qi Gao Huan, with outstanding military achievements, but this person had a lot of scheming. After Gao Huan died, he came to surrender, knowing that this person was a villain and did not dare to accept him. Emperor Wu of Liang's heart was soft and his heart was soft, and some ministers in the court learned of this matter and said a sentence that became a proverb: "Chaos is coming", but I did not expect it to come soon!
In 548, Hou Jing, dissatisfied with the liang dynasty and the goodwill of eastern Wei, rebelled at Shouyang (present-day Shou County, Anhui) in the name of the Qing emperor, known in history as the "Hou Jing Rebellion". The rebels drove straight in, and finally the soldiers approached Jiankang and besieged Taicheng, originally Xiao Yan had already called on the troops and horses from all over the country to rush to the aid, but because the reinforcements had different intentions, they sat still after attacking the rebels several times and watched the success or failure. Eventually, after Hou Jing invaded Jiankang, he surrounded Taicheng, where Emperor Wu of Liang was staying. Only then did Emperor Wu of Liang wake up like a dream, and finally he was starved to death at the age of 86 and could not die well, and the emperor's "bodhisattva heart" died because of a thousand years of laughter!
Finally, we must say that Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu was indeed an all-rounder of literature and martial arts, who had retreated from Northern Wei and won the throne in a military coup at the age of 38, which is rare in history in terms of the speed of achieving imperial achievements. In the turbulent Southern Dynasty, he was the emperor for 48 years, and during his reign he was diligent and frugal, the country was strong, and the society was stable, but in his later years, his fascination with Buddhism caused a decline in political achievements, and the Hou Jing Rebellion erased all his achievements. Later, the Northern Song Dynasty literary scholar Ouyang Xiu commented on him: "The Liang Xiao clan flourished in Jiangzuo, and it really contributed to the people, and there was no great evil in the end." The famous historian Qian Mu also praised: "There is a unique Xiao Yan old man, thrifty over Han, diligent as Wang Mang, can be described as a master of the Southern Dynasty." ”