Throughout the entire Southern and Northern Dynasties era, among the few monarchs who can be called the upper brightest and the darkest, they can single-handedly exert their wisdom and darkness to the extreme:
There was only Emperor Gao Yang of Northern Qi.
Gao Yang stills
Before talking about Gao Yang, we need to first clarify some things within Northern Qi:
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Gao Yang's father, Gao Huan, later known as the "low-grade version of Cao Cao", supported Yuan Shan to become emperor and established Eastern Wei.
Similar to the leadership team of Western Wei Yuwentai, the internal subdivision of Gao Huan Group is:
The heroic marshals of the Six Towns Uprising, the family clans of Hebei, the Huhan nobles of the old capital Luoyang, and the remnants of Erzhu Rong.
Among them, the Xianbei people dominated, and gao Huan, after stabilizing the situation, gathered the displaced people of the original Six Towns Uprising into the area centered on Jinyang, so the main force of the Eastern Wei army was the Xianbei people.
At the same time, it also formed a situation in which Gao Huan sat in the military town of Jinyang (present-day Taiyuan) and used this army to control the capital of Yecheng.
In this situation, Gao Huan and the six towns under his command are not a master-servant relationship in the strict sense, but a network of glorious relationships established through Gao Huan's power.
However, with Gao Huan's position as a very popular subject, the status of the six towns and marshals also rose, and he became an aristocratic group.
Gao Huan knew that the power of the nobility was too great, and in the long run, the status of the Gao family would also be shaken.
So he arranged for his son Gao Cheng to use the corruption of the Six Towns Xungui to weaken his power and establish prestige for his son.
In order to weaken Xun Gui, Gao Cheng began to promote the status of Han officials by reforming the selection of officials.
This move worked, but the Xungui Group was also dissatisfied with Gao Cheng.
After Gao Huan's death, Hou Jing, commander-in-chief of the Daxingtai (similar to the commander-in-chief of the Henan Military Region) in Southeast Province, rebelled in Henan, and the nobles took the opportunity to blame the Han officials, but in fact aimed the spearhead at Gao Cheng.
Fortunately, Hou Jing's rebellion was led to Southern Liang after the intervention of Western Wei and Southern Liang, and Gao Cheng took the opportunity to take Yingchuan City and gain military achievements, which stabilized people's hearts.
When Gao Cheng was preparing to plan to become emperor of Wei, he was assassinated by his own cook Lan Jing, who once again upset the balance within the Eastern Wei regime as a destabilizing factor.
Judging from the relevant materials of the Northern History and the Book of Northern Qi, Gao Cheng's death was indeed an accidental event planned by Lan Jing.
However, regarding Gao Cheng's death, there is always a view that his brother Gao Yang is the speculation behind the scenes, after all, who has the more benefits, the greater the suspicion of who. After Gao Cheng's death, his successor Gao Yang naturally became the object of suspicion.
Unfortunately, due to the limitations of historical materials, this matter has become a historical suspense case. Scholars from all sides have speculated on the existing basis, but this cannot be regarded as historical truth.
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Gao Huan had a total of 15 sons, the eldest of whom was Gao Cheng, and the history books recorded:
When he was twelve years old, he looked handsome and cheerful, and he was like an adult. Shen Wu (Gao Huan) asked about the gains and losses of current events, and the discernment was all reasonable. Since the military and the state have planned to do so... He was added to the government of the imperial government, and was added to the left and right, and the governor of Gyeonggi. Although the people of the time heard the instrument, they were like teenagers, but the machine was slightly strict, and there was no condensation, so the government and the opposition were solemn.
- Book of Northern Qi and WenXiangji
After that, from the third to the fifteenth son, except for the twelfth son, who had no evaluation, the thirteenth son who was the weakest, and the fifteenth son who died early, the rest of the sons were all positive evaluations.
When gao yang was the second son, although the "History of the North" and the "Book of Northern Qi" emphasized that Gao Yang's appearance was very mediocre, but the heart was smart:
Not good at teasing, deep and generous.
Although the inside is sensitive, the appearance is insufficient.
- Book of Northern Qi and Wenxuanji
However, in the eyes of Gao Yang's brothers, Gao Yang is a stupid look, and the third brother Gao Jun often sees his second brother Gao Yang, and every time he sees the eldest brother, he has a runny nose:
"Northern Qi Shu Yong'an Wang Jun Biography": "Wen Xuan is a female coward, and every time he participates in Wen Xiang, sometimes he drools..."
The change of events occurred when Gao Yang was a child, Gao Huan once handed over a bunch of chaotic silk threads to his sons, let them separate, to observe their talents,
When everyone was in trouble, Gao Yang cut off with a knife and won Gao Huan's praise, which is also the origin of the idiom "quick knife to cut chaos":
Book of Northern Qi, Chronicle of Emperor Wenxuan: Gao Zu (Gao Huan) tried to look at the consciousness of the sons, each making chaos, and emperor (Gao Yang) drew his sword alone to cut it, saying: "Those who are chaotic must be cut!" ”
Then Gao Yang became stupid again, a large part of the reason is that Gao Yang, as the second son, was jealous of the eldest son Gao Cheng, Gao Cheng needed to be on guard against his second brother at all times in order to maintain his position, and Gao Yang had to be patient in order to save himself, and even deliberately showed stupidity and hidden talents:
Emperor Wenxuan of the Northern History of Qi Jizhong: "And the emperor (Gao Yang) is good at obscurity, does not speak, constantly degrades himself, and is salty and obedient, so he is deeply light,although his family also thinks that he is not enough. ”
This continued until Gao Cheng was assassinated, when Gao Yang was serving as the governor of Gyeonggi, Shang Shuling.
Therefore, when the dragons were leaderless, the old ministers of the Gao Group wanted to find Gao Yang to preside over the overall situation for the first time.
Yecheng
Gao Yang changed his stupidity and stupidity in the past, commanded in an orderly manner, and calmly stabilized the situation in Yecheng.
After Gao Yang succeeded Gao Cheng, the first thing he did was to win over the Xun Gui Group:
Jinyang old minister, Su general Su Light (Gao) Yang. At that point, the conference was full of civility and martial arts, full of vigor and wisdom, and the words were sharp and smooth, and everyone was shocked. If there is any inconvenience in the Cheng Government Decree, the foreign government decree will be changed.
The "inconvenient person with government decrees" here refers to Gao Cheng's policy of suppressing Xun Gui at the beginning, but the problem is that Gao Yang has been dressed as a fool for so many years that he has become normal, but everyone feels abnormal.
Not only did the nobles think so, but his brothers did not believe him very much, so after he took over power, his prestige was even inferior to that of Gao Cheng, and it was difficult to obtain the full support of the nobles.
Therefore, controlling the situation by claiming the title of emperor was placed in front of Gao Yang.
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Gao Yang wanted to control the situation by calling himself emperor, but calling him emperor also meant that the relationship between the Gao clan and Xun Gui would change from an ally to a master-servant relationship of superior and inferior.
Xun Gui, who had once been prosperous with the Gao clan, would also become a courtier under the imperial power.
Therefore, from the perspective of Liuzhen Xungui, a mediocre man suddenly proposed to ascend the throne and become emperor, but also to divide some of their military power and political privileges.
Map of Northern Qi
The nobles certainly did not agree.
Even Gao Yang's mother was against Gao Yang:
Ru father is like a dragon, brother is like a tiger, as if the heavenly position can not be vain, lifelong north, Ru alone who, want to do Shun, Yu's things!
Gao Dezheng, who favored Gao Yang's title of emperor, and Yang Yan were both Han ministers, who were only subordinate to the original Gao Huan clique, and they had to handle affairs under the supervision of Xun Gui.
But now they could rely on imperial power and rise to the status of ministers equal to Xun Gui, and Gao Yang, through this force against Xun Gui, thus accomplished the goal of changing the dynasty.
However, due to the fear of dissatisfaction and rebellion of the Xun gui, Gao Yang also made concessions and left the original military power of Jinyang to Xun Gui.
Therefore, at the beginning of Gao Yang's claim to the throne, he desperately showed his talents in order to dispel the stereotype of the world. Therefore, when fighting foreign wars, Gao Yang often personally charged into the battlefield, also in order to gain prestige against The Nobles of Jinyang.
After expelling the Xiongnu, Rouran, and suppressing the Shanhu forces, Gao Yang's next goal was to destroy the Western Wei and re-complete the task of unifying the north.
However, he found it impossible to concentrate the military forces of the Northern Wei State, and Western Wei took advantage of Hou Jing's rebellion to take Jiangling and Yizhou, and its strength increased sharply again, and it seemed unlikely that Western Wei would be destroyed.
The resistance at the military level comes from The Jinyang Xungui. For them, after the previous five major wars, the forces of the East and the West have been balanced, and the military forces of the whole country have been mobilized to fight, in case it is too risky to put themselves in.
More importantly, in the case of the existence of Western Wei, Jinyang would always be the military center of Northern Qi, and the status and power of the nobles would not be greatly affected. This contradiction led to the inability of Xun Gui and Gao Yang to be in the same heart.
Northern Qi repeatedly suffered setbacks in attacking jiankang (present-day Nanjing) of the Southern Dynasty, and the lack of strength at the military level led Gao Yang to rely more heavily on the clan and Han ministers to strengthen imperial power.
After reusing the Han people, the Confucian Han masters often used etiquette to restrain Gao Yang, and Gao Yang has always advocated the customs of the Xianbei Hu people, so this restraint method of the Han people will cause Gao Yang to be strongly dissatisfied.
After ascending the throne for 6 years, Gao Yang also stepped from the peak of the heroic Tianzi to the abyss:
Both conquest of four grams, Wei Zhen Rong Xia. After six or seven years, he is self-conscious of his deeds. So he was merciful and wantonly committed adultery.
Why did Gao Yang's temperament change so suddenly? Li Baiyao, the author of the Book of Northern Qi, believes that this is self-indulgence and burnout after Gao Yang's achievements.
Today, there is another theory that Gao Huan and Lou Zhaojun and their children have mental illness.
In addition to these points, perhaps we can analyze the causes of Gao Yang's coma through the psychological level.
Gao Yang began to restrain his sharp edges from childhood, pretending to be stupid and stupid every day, but once he gained power, he was questioned by the ministers and his family, and he tried his best to solve the problem of Xun Gui, and finally paralyzed himself by drinking alcohol, and demonstrated his power through tyrannical criminal law.
The combination of the above factors may have become one of the reasons for the sudden change in his temperament.
These two mysteries have become Gao Yang's legendary experience and an unsolved secret of ancient Chinese history.
Welcome to discuss in the comments section and analyze the answers you think!