During the Tang Dynasty, China was an international power, and almost every country in Asia had people enter this land, and the aspirations of Brahmins, Japan and other countries for the Tang Dynasty at that time were just like the yearning of many people for the United States today, or even stronger.
Therefore, at that time, the occurrence of foreign assassinations Chinese, and high-ranking officials, was a very surprising thing.
During the wu zetian period, such an incident occurred. Lu Yuanrui, commander-in-chief of the Guangzhou Military Region, was killed by a black man, or more precisely, a massacre. The black man hid his short sword, stepped straight up the steps, stepped up the high platform a few steps, killed Lu Yuanrui and a dozen guards around him, and then flew away. Because he was so arrogant, no one dared to go near him all the way until he walked to the dock and boarded a boat. By the time a large number of military police arrived with weapons, they could not catch up.
This assassination incident really alarmed the government and the opposition. You know, in that period of high degree of internationalization and developed border trade, Guangzhou, as an important port, had a fairly high status, and its customs director was also a fat difference, which was not something that ordinary people could fill. According to the record: "(Guangzhou) is the governor of the six dragons, one army, and the majesty is no different from that of the Son of Heaven." ”
The immediate cause of the assassination was soon clear: when the merchant ship carrying blacks arrived at the port, the Tang officials extorted it as usual, and there was no end. This merchant ship was estimated to have arrived in the local area for the first time, and it was not very familiar with the market economy with "Tang Dynasty characteristics", so it ran to the officials and sued Lu Yuanrui. Unexpectedly, Lu Yuanrui did not investigate and deal with the corrupt and bribe-taking officials according to their expectations, but instead let people take the shackles and arrest and torture the foreign businessmen who did not understand things. As soon as this chivalrous merchant was angry, the above scene occurred.
Digging down from this, we found some reasons behind it: Guangzhou, as a new border city, many people were Beijing officials and their families who were exiled here after breaking the law and committing crimes, they lost their superior lives in the Beijing Division, and they plundered merchants to fully compensate for the suffering they suffered in exile, so they began to extort and extort and extort. Intimidated by the status of the Tang Dynasty at that time, most of the foreign businessmen swallowed their anger. After this case, the situation in Guangzhou finally attracted the attention of the central authorities, and they sent an official with relatively good character to replace Lu Yuanrui, so that the order here was relatively stable for a period of time.
It is not known whether it was inspired by the assassination of Lu Yuanrui or whether the local officials' rule deteriorated again, and more than half a century later, a similar incident occurred again--a group of great cannibals and Persians expelled the governor of Guangzhou, then robbed the official residence, burned the house, and left from the sea. The incident caused Guangzhou's status as a port to plummet, and foreign merchant ships turned to Hanoi to anchor. It seems that extortion must also talk about sustainable development, otherwise no one will benefit.