Chairman Mao loved to read history and read ancient and modern times, and he once commented on an emperor: "In the land of four wars, he is slightly the same as Cao Cao, but cunning is more cunning." ”
In Chairman Mao's view, this person who was even more cunning than Cao Cao, who was known as the "adulterous male", was the founder of the Later Liang in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms: Zhu Wen, and he was also the gravedigger of the Tang Dynasty. Today, this episode takes you to tell the story of The Later Liang Emperor Zhu Wen and the absurdities of his later years.
If the founding emperor of Later Liang is still alive today, I am afraid that I would not want to hear people call him "Zhu Wen", because the name "Zhu Wen" is in harmony with "swine fever". In history, another of his names is more often mentioned, which also confirms his dramatic life: Zhu Quanzhong.
In 852, Zhu Wen was born into a family of scholars in Wugou, Zhongshan County, SongZhou. In successive dynasties, Yanshan County was a stronghold for building palaces and building large civil engineering, and Li Bai once had a poem: "Jun looks at Shi Mangzhong, hiding tears and sorrows for eternity." "It is said that the Tang Dynasty royal family spared no effort to cut wood and quarry on Mount Mangzhong. However, the era of Zhu Wen's birth is no longer the prosperous era of the Tang Dynasty in which Li Bai lived. After the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty was already shattered and the wind and rain were shaking, but the emperor still did not know how to sympathize with the people's strength, and the servitude was still there. Perhaps it was also the slavery of childhood that made Zhu Wen have the determination to overthrow the Tang Dynasty since childhood; or perhaps it was providence in the darkness that allowed the Tang Dynasty to build a large number of civil engineering places, and its real gravedigger was born.
Because of the chaos of the world, the people's livelihood was poor, and Zhu Wen's family conditions as a child were not very rich. However, there is still no shortage of people in the countryside who hope to intermarry with the Zhu family. The reason is because Zhu Wen's father, Zhu Cheng, is a private school. During the Tang Dynasty, the imperial examination system was further developed, and reading became one of the few channels in society at that time to achieve class rise, and Mr. Private School was the one who took this key. Therefore, although the old Zhu family was poor in the local area, its status was very lofty. However, what Zhu Wen and others did not expect was that the early death of his father completely buried the hope of the Zhu family's revival.
What the rulers of the Tang Dynasty, who carried forward the imperial examination system, did not expect that the imperial examination system, which had once put "the hero of the world into my belly" in the past, would eventually regurgitate his own empire. In that year's imperial examination, a failed leader wrote such a poem: "When the autumn comes on September 8, I will kill a hundred flowers after the flowers bloom." The incense of the sky penetrated Chang'an, and the city was full of golden armor. And the person who wrote this poem is the yellow nest that has failed many times and finally unveiled the pole.
In 874, floods and droughts broke out across the country, which became the last straw that crushed the Tang Empire: in the same year, Wang Xianzhi, who sold private salt, led the people to launch an uprising, known as the "Great General of Heavenly Supplement", and led the army to conquer the important towns of Caozhou, Puzhou and Yunzhou, and for a time the prestige was great. Huang Chao, who had long been dissatisfied with the Tang Dynasty, joined Wang Xianzhi's ranks with more than 8,000 people the following year to respond to the uprising, which was the "Yellow Nest Uprising" in history that completely brought the Tang Dynasty to the road of collapse. In the third year after the outbreak of the uprising, Zhu Wen and his second brother Zhu Cun bid farewell to the township and joined the rebel army led by Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao.
After participating in the Huangchao Rebellion, Zhu Wen's experience can be described as a series of twists and turns: the imperial army saw that the hard fight was not the opponent of Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao's two armies, so it adopted the strategy of recruiting and dividing, and Wang Xianzhi saw that the imperial court promised a high-ranking official Houlu, so his heart was shaken, and since then the leaders of the two major rebel armies of Huang and Wang have broken up, and the strength of the rebels has been weakened. During the huangchao army's transfer to Lingnan, Zhu Wen's brother Zhu Cun was killed on the battlefield, and Zhu Wen was promoted to captain for his merits.
At this time, although the Huangchao rebel army once came to Chang'an City, it had long lost the vigor of the beginning of the uprising, and every time the officers and soldiers were able to buy and buy, and if they could persuade them to surrender, they were persuaded to surrender. When Huang Chao was about to attack Chang'an, the Tang general Zhuge Shuang was stationed in Liyang to prepare for an opportunity to counterattack, and Huang Chao ordered Zhu Wen to persuade Zhuge Shuang to surrender. In the end, Zhuge Shuang submitted to Huang Chao under the advice of Zhu Wen, and the rebel army's belly and back were plagued by the enemy. Since then, Zhu Wen, as the captain of the team, has been given special attention by Huang Chao and has been given the rank of knight.
What Huang Chao may not have imagined at that time was that Zhu Wen, who had persuaded the Tang army to surrender today, would one day turn against himself under the persuasion of the Tang army: in February 882, Zhu Wen, who had given Huang Chao's order to guard Tongzhou, was severely damaged by Wang Chongrong's tens of thousands of troops in Hezhong Jiedu. Zhu Wen repeatedly asked Huang Chao for help, but at this time, Huang Chao, who had already claimed the emperor, had been overwhelmed by the victory of the capture of Chang'an, and the officials around him also hid the war situation on Zhu Wen's front, which made Zhu Wen have the idea of surrender. In September of the same year, Zhu Wen surrendered to the Tang Dynasty, and the Tang general Wang Chongrong, instead of pardoning him for his capital crimes, instead showed Emperor Tang, who had fled from Chang'an to Shu County, expressing the hope that Zhu Wen would be entrusted with a heavy responsibility and use his knowledge of the rebels to severely damage Huang Chao.
After seeing Wang Chongrong's performance, Tang Xianzong was overjoyed and couldn't help but sigh: "It is a gift from heaven!" Therefore, he gave Zhu Wen the name "Zhu Quanzhong". But what Tang Xianzong did not know was that this was not Zhu Quanzhong's first "anti-water", and his next "anti-water" would completely bury the Tang Dynasty.
Zhu Quanzhong's defection made the situation of the Huangchao rebel army even worse, and after Huangchao became emperor, the rebel army was distracted, and the balance of the war was tilted towards the side of the Tang army. Zhu Quanzhong, who had been made an envoy by Emperor Wuzong of Tang and an envoy to Xuanwu Junjie, led all the Tang troops to besiege Chang'an in 883, and Huang Chao, who claimed to be emperor, could only leave with the remnants of the rebel army. A year later, Huang Chao was defeated and killed—his former comrades-in-arms eventually became the clothing for Zhu Quanzhong's red-dyed official robes.
Why was Zhu Quanzhong able to win many battles in the process of later conquest of the rebel army? This has to mention a new invention of Zhu Quanzhong in the process of reorganizing the army: the detachment chop. Since the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty army has become increasingly disciplined, and whenever the soldiers are defeated, there will be soldiers abandoning the general, which eventually leads to the general being killed in the rebel army. In order to cope with this situation of poor military discipline, Zhu Quanzhong promulgated a military law called "beheading the troops": this military law stipulates that "those who have lost the war in the general school shall be beheaded." In order to prevent the soldiers from escaping, Zhu Quanzhong used the method of the later Song Dynasty to govern the prisoners: "Where a soldier tattoos his face to mark the military name." In this way, Zhu Quanzhong relied on the harsh military law to create an army that was second to none in military discipline at that time, and completely defeated the huangchao rebel army that was once overwhelming.
However, after the defeat of the Huang Chao soldiers, Zhu Quanzhong's conquest did not end. He gradually discovered that it was easier to take the power he wanted by fighting between the government and the opposition than to take the risk of killing the head and revolting. In 901, he finally waited for his chance: emperor Zhaozong of the Tang Dynasty at the time was imprisoned by the eunuch Han Quanzhi. The eunuch dictatorship has always been a serious problem in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty prime minister cui Yin at that time bluntly said the drawbacks of the eunuch dictatorship: "The big one builds a fan town and endangers the country; the small one sells the official and the lord, and harms the government." In order to save the emperor from danger, Cui Yin issued a secret order to suppress Huang Chao's meritorious service, and was given the title of Jiedu so that Zhu Quanzhong led troops to rescue the driver and killed the eunuchs, but unexpectedly this time it was to drive away the wolves and lead the tigers.
After Zhu Quanzhong received the secret order, he led a large army to surround Fengxiang City, which was controlled by eunuchs. Because of the long attack on Fengxiang, Zhu Quanzhong ordered the whole army to besiege Fengxiang without attacking, cutting off the supply of the city. Because of the weather into winter, there is no food in the city, and there are countless people who die of hunger and frost in the city. At that time, Zhu Quanzhong, who was ordered to "save the car", seemed to have completely forgotten, and Tang Zhaozong, the son of heaven in the city, was also suffering from "freezing". Subsequently, Fengxiang was conquered by Zhu Quanzhong's army. The prime minister Cui Yin knew that he had lured the wolf into the room, and it was too late to repent, while Zhu Quanzhong sent someone to carry a message to Cui Yin: "I have not tasted the Son of Heaven, and I am afraid that it is not, and the Son has come to discern it for me." Cui Yin saw that Zhu Quanzhong was so rude, he could only get sick.
And Tang Zhaozong was also kidnapped by Zhu Quanzhong, and he couldn't help himself, Tang Zhaozong sighed in front of Zhu Quanzhong: "Knowing that the Temple of the Sect of Self-Knowledge is Qing's reconstruction, and qi and his relatives are Qing's regeneration." Everyone knew that Tang Zhaozong was here to protect himself. However, whether it was hypocrisy or sincerity, these words failed to touch Zhu Quanzhong's heart. Once the ambition for power began, there was no going back: in 901, Zhu Quanzhong abolished the Tang Emperor's pro-Wei Shen Ce Army, completely controlled the Tang King, and beheaded hundreds of eunuchs.
In 904, Zhu Quanzhong beheaded Cui Yin, who had previously ordered him to come to "rescue the driver", and forced Tang Zhaozong to move from Chang'an to Luoyang, which was under his control, and on the way to the capital, Zhu Quanzhong, worried that Tang Zhaozong had other eunuch cronies around him, ordered the army to kill all the eunuchs regardless of their age, after being drunk, and Tang Zhaozong truly became a "lonely man" around Zhu Quanzhong. In August of the same year, Zhu Quanzhong ordered his men to kill Tang Zhaozong and make his son Li Yu (李柷), the last emperor of the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Ai of Tang.
At this time, Zhu Quanzhong, what exactly he wanted to do next on the road to power, was already Sima Zhao's heart, and everyone knew it. However, Henan and Shandong controlled by Zhu Quanzhong were in the land of four wars, with Yang Xingmi and Wang Jian in the south. There are Li Keyong and Liu Rengong in the north, and at the same time, before the historical king is crowned emperor, there will be an important step: jiajiuxi. However, when Liu Xuan, the minister of the DPRK at the time, advised Zhu Quanzhong to suspend his title as emperor, Zhu Quanzhong angrily rebuked: "Not by Jiu Xi, you must not be evil as a son of heaven? In the end, Liu Xuan, who advised Zhu Quanzhong to suspend the title of emperor, was split and died by the car, and the rest of those who did not support Zhu Quanzhong's claim to the emperor were also killed, which is known as the "Disaster of the White Horse Station".
In 907, Zhu Quanzhong took his final step to the peak of power: he accepted the Zen concession of the last emperor of the Tang Dynasty, The Emperor of Tang, officially called himself Emperor, and set the name of the country as "Liang", and set the capital kaifeng. Since then, the Tang Dynasty has collapsed, and the chaotic world of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms has just begun.
However, Zhu Quanzhong, who became emperor, revealed his extremely absurd side in private morality: in 904, after Zhu Quanzhong's original partner Zhang Shi died of illness, Zhu Quanzhong became more and more indulgent in sound and color dogs and horses. Whenever his sons went out to command the army, he summoned his daughters-in-law to the palace for pleasure. When the general Zhang Quanyi was taking refuge in the summer at home, he was even more "chaotic about his women". Zhang Quanyi's son wanted to draw his sword and assassinate Zhu Quanzhong, but was bitterly persuaded by Zhang Quanyi. However, the sons of the Zhu family, who knew their father's bad habits, instead of deeply believing that they were evil, instead offered their own family to Zhu Quanzhongjin in order to compete for the position of the son of the world, and it is no wonder that the historian Bai Shouyi commented that he "walked like animals and beasts, and it was difficult to find two among the ancient feudal emperors."
In 912, Zhu Quanzhong was killed by his son Zhu Youjue, who seized power, and after his death, he wrapped his body in a mosquito net and buried it hastily under the floor tiles of the palace, ending his dramatic and absurd life.
Perhaps, from the perspective of private morality, Zhu Quanzhong has a cruel and faint side. However, under his rule, the later Liang peasants paid far less taxes and servitude than those of the Tang Dynasty, and Zhu Quanzhong explicitly limited the tax set except for the "Two Taxes Law", and local officials were not allowed to increase the harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes. In order to encourage production, he is even more prepared to lease the cattle to farmers at a low price. Under his rule, the people's livelihood in Henan and Shandong was improved, and the capital of Dingliang laid the foundation for the governance of the capital of the Later Song Dynasty. Perhaps this is also an important reason why Zhu Quanzhong, while being called a "beast", was also considered by Chairman Mao to be "slightly similar to Cao Cao". In the history of China, the complex Zhu Quanzhong has finally left a strong mark.
bibliography:
[1] The History of the Old Five Dynasties: The Benji of Liang Taizu
[2] The Cambridge History of China's Sui and Tang Dynasties: A New Structure of Power in China in the Late Tang Dynasty
[3] Zizhi Tongjian, Vol. 254