Mr. Huang Yilao is a famous martial arts novel, his work "In Search of Qin" was popular all over the country, and Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling in "The Legend of the Double Dragon of the Tang Dynasty" were also deeply loved by readers. In "The Legend of the Two Dragons of the Tang Dynasty", Du Fuwei, the father of Double Dragon, is portrayed as a conspirator with deep calculations and strong martial skills. So, what was the historical Dewey?
The real Du Fuwei was a tyrant in the chaotic era of the late Sui Dynasty, the boss of the Jianghuai Army. Dewey's entrepreneurial history can be described as difficult, he came from a poor background, and when he was a child, he did the business of stealing chickens and dogs. Du Fuwei had a brother named Fu Gong Zhi, who often stole his aunt's sheep and gave them to Du Fuwei, so that Du Fuwei was saved from starvation. Fu Gongwei's aunt hated Fu Gong and Du Fuwei, so she denounced them for stealing, and the government issued a wanted warrant, and Du Fuwei and Fu Gongwei were cornered and could only go up the mountain and fall into the grass, and this year, Du Fuwei was only 16 years old.
Du Fuwei and Fu Gongruo were initially only pawns of a small rebel army, but Du Fuwei fought bravely and was good at planning, and was soon elected as the leader. Through coercion and inducement, Dewey swallowed up many small rebel armies, and his power gradually became stronger.
From a thief who stole sheep to a tyrant who occupied Jianghuai, the hardships that Du Fuwei experienced along the way can be imagined. After the strength increased greatly, Du Fuwei claimed to be a general, and his forces spread throughout Huainan, and his troops pointed directly at Jiangdu. Jiang Du naturally did not sit idly by and watch Du Fuwei's continuous growth, and left behind to send officers and soldiers to suppress it, but du Fuwei designed to introduce reeds and burn them all to death.
This battle made Du Fuwei famous in Jianghuai, and Li Zitong of the East China Sea led more than 10,000 people to defect to Du Fuwei. Li Zitong was not a small liukou, he was one of the anti-kings of the late Sui Dynasty, and his prestige was great, and with his joining, the strength of the Du Fuwei Group increased greatly. However, Li Zitong was not willing to live under the people, and after he defected to Du Fuwei, he actually launched a mutiny to annex Du Fuwei's forces. Du Fuwei was defenseless, if it were not for the desperate efforts of his adopted son to save him, he would almost die at the hands of Li Zitong.
When the Sui army saw Du Fuwei and Li Zitong's civil unrest, they decided to beat up the falling water dog and send troops to attack Du Fuwei. After Li Zitong's rebellion, Du Fuwei was seriously wounded and unable to command, and his army was greatly weakened, and he was not an opponent of the Sui army. Dewey lost his soldiers and survived with difficulty.
The two blows directly extinguished Du Fuwei's hegemonic momentum, he was originally the overlord of Jianghuai, but now he became a dog that lost his family. But Dewey did not give up, and the tyrant who had gone from being a beggar all the way to the leader of the first army came back from scratch, he survived from the cracks, and constantly absorbed the displaced people to expand his power. Half a year later, Du Fuwei had tens of thousands of troops, and controlled Liuhe next to Jiangdu, standing on three feet with Zuo Caixiang in Huaibei and Li Zitong in Hailing.
However, Du Fuwei was really plagued by many disasters, and the Liuhe he occupied was under the eyes of Jiangdu, and after Yang Guang decided to patrol Jiangdu, the Sui Dynasty naturally could not let Du Fuwei go, so Du Fuwei became the key target of the Sui army.
The Sui army sent troops to attack Du Fuwei twice, but without success. Soon after, the Sui Dynasty Emperor arrived in Jiangdu by car, and the 100,000-strong army was huge. Logically, the Xiaoguo army has arrived, and the overthrow of Du Fuwei should be a matter of certainty, but who would have thought that the arrival of the Sui Emperor would become an opportunity for Du Fuwei to grow.
Yang Guang's tour of Jiangdu became the last straw that crushed the camels, the people were exploited and could only sell their children and women, displaced, tens of thousands of displaced people were cornered, all absorbed by Du Fuwei, and their power rapidly expanded.
After experiencing Li Zitong's betrayal, Du Fuwei attached great importance to the loyalty of the troops, he selected the most elite members from the army, formed a guard, treated them very kindly, and distributed all the money to them, but the requirements during the war were very strict, so that they were the vanguard in every battle, and if they found wounds in the back after the war, they were immediately beheaded. It was the soldiers who fought to the death for DuFuwei and were loyal.
With this invincible army, Dewey swept through Jianghuai and established a political organization. Du Fuwei was very similar to Zhu Yuanzhang, he came from a poor background and sympathized with the people, but he hated corrupt officials very much, so the taxes of the people under Du Fuwei's jurisdiction were very low, and corrupt officials were executed regardless of their severity.
After Yang Guang was killed, Li Zitong occupied Jiangdu, and Du Fuwei took over the Sui army in Jiangdu, which was very powerful. At this time, Li Yuan threw an olive branch to Du Fuwei. According to the current situation, Li Tang was not a single family, his base camp was being attacked by Liu Wuzhou, and his power was not much different from Du Fuwei. There was no need for Dewey to turn to Li Yuan. Perhaps Du Fuwei had a unique vision, and he did not have the ambition to dominate the world, so he chose to attach himself to Li Tang early.
In the third year of Wu De (620), Du Fuwei took the initiative to attack, defeated Li Zitong under the leadership of Fu Gongruo, and dominated Jianghuai, saving Li Yuan and Li Shimin a lot of credit.
After Li Shimin destroyed Dou Jiande and Wang Shichong, the unification of the Tang Dynasty was a foregone conclusion, and Du Fuwei simply wrote to request to join the dynasty. Li Yuan was very satisfied with Du Fuwei's knowledge of the times, and made him the Crown Prince Taibao, becoming the fourth person in Li Tang after Li Yuan, Li Jiancheng, and Li Shimin.
Du Fuwei came from a grassroots background and did not become emperor, but it was not bad to be a rich man. Unfortunately, it backfired, and Du Fuwei was willing to give up his hegemony, but his Jianghuai army was unwilling. Fu Gong And Du Fuwei were friends of life and death, but as the power grew, the rift between the two became larger and larger, and Du Fuwei not only seized the military power of Fu Gong, but also let people monitor Fu Gong when he left.
As a result, as soon as Du Fuwei left on his front foot, Fu Gongrui launched a mutiny, and imitated Du Fuwei's handwriting to forge secret orders and launch the Jianghuai army against Tang. Fu Gongrui led the Jianghuai army to rebel, and du Fuwei, the boss of the Jianghuai army, was in a precarious situation, and he was restless in the capital, and finally died on March 27, 624, the seventh year of Wude (624). The history books record that Du Fuwei was poisoned by eating immortal dan, and It is true that Du Fuwei was poisoned, and it is difficult to say where this poison came from.
Later, Fu Gongruo's mutiny was suppressed, and before he died, he seemed unwilling to go down alone, and bit back several people, most of Du Fuwei's righteous sons were zhu lian, and there were few generals left in the Jianghuai Army. This once powerful warlord force, like Du Fuwei, ended with an extremely tragic ending.
Resources:
Old Book of Tang
"Reading through the Theory"