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How tragic was the fall of the Tang Dynasty? The palace was killed until only 30 people remained, and 9 princes were dumped into the Yellow River
In 875, two years after Emperor Yuzong of Tang ascended the throne, a swarm of locusts flew from east to west, sweeping in like dark clouds.
Everywhere the locusts went, the farmers' crops were wiped out. Finally, the swarm of locusts stopped in Chang'an.
Jing Zhao lied: "In fact, this group of locusts did not eat crops, and they held the thorns and stabbed them to death." ”
Such an obviously absurd statement has won the approval of hundreds of officials in the DPRK and China. The prime minister also took the lead in congratulating the emperor, saying that it was a harbinger of abundant grains.
No one expected that this group of locusts would become the last straw that crushed the camel. The peasants were forced to rise up, and the Tang Dynasty perished.
How tragic was the fall of the Tang Dynasty? It is no exaggeration to describe it as "the destruction of the country and the extinction of the species".
First, the snipe mussel competition - the ten-year extinction of the farmer's yellow nest
In 873 AD, the new emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Yuzong, ascended the throne, and this emperor's favorite thing was to sound dogs and horses, fighting cocks and playing ball.
With the cooperation and performance of a group of eunuchs, Tang Yuzong considered himself invincible on the court, and sometimes used his official position as a bet. Chen Jingxuan, the younger brother of the eunuch Tian Lingmei, won the game and was appointed as the envoy of Xichuan Festival.
Emperor Yuzong of Tang also often held and goose fighting competitions with the prince, and the win or loss of a chicken and goose was 500,000 yuan.
While the emperor was mediocre and corrupt and treated national affairs as a child's play, the natural phenomenon of the late Tang Dynasty became more serious, political corruption caused water conservancy to fall into disrepair, and floods and locust plagues caused hundreds of people to starve to death.
At that time, many peasants were forced to rise up, among which the rebel army led by Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi who greatly promoted the process of the demise of the Tang Dynasty.
Huang Chao was not actually an authentic farmer, he grew up studying private school, liked horseback riding and archery, and prepared for the imperial examination like the readers at that time.
That year, he went to Chang'an to participate in the imperial examination, and his name fell to Sun Shan. Later, he regrouped and prepared to take the martial arts exam. Originally, he could have won the first place in the martial arts examination, but for various reasons, he still fell to Sun Shan.
One theory is that Huang Chao does not have a strong backer to recommend himself, and another theory is that Huang Chao is ugly and dark-looking, which makes people look bad.
In short, Huang Chao could not find a way out in the social environment of the time, and he was determined to overthrow the dark and decaying Tang Dynasty and create a fairer world. Later, he and Wang Xianzhi jointly raised an uprising of peasants.
At the time of the uprising, Wang Xianzhi called himself the "Great General of Heaven Supplement", and by exposing social darkness and corruption, he won the response of poor peasants, which led to the rapid expansion of the rebel ranks.
The peasant rebels opened warehouses and released grain everywhere they went, severely punishing corrupt officials, which made their ranks invincible, and they easily took many prefectures and counties from Shandong to Henan.
When the peasant rebels arrived in Jixian, Wang Xianzhi's greedy nature was exposed, and he was moved by the official rank of the Tang government and wanted to surrender with his soldiers. Huang Chao was furious and parted ways with him with a group of soldiers and horses.
It has to be said that Huang Chao was a leader of the peasant rebel army with considerable military talent, and he knew that the Tang Dynasty's military strength in the Central Plains was strong, while the southern army was weak, so he led his troops south to accumulate strength for himself.
Sure enough, Huang Chao's rebel army was in full swing along the way, successfully crossing the Yangtze River, entering eastern Zhejiang, and after more than a year, it reached Guangzhou.
After recuperating in Guangzhou for a while, he thought he had eliminated the Tang government's ability and turned north, preparing to attack Chang'an and destroy the Tang dynasty in one fell swoop.
So, in 880 AD, Huang Chao marched into Tongguan with an army of 600,000. Strangely, the people of Chang'an City did not flee everywhere, but took the initiative to open the city gate and welcome them.
The rebel army opened a warehouse to release grain, making the poor people cheer and rush to tell each other, and Huang Chao took Chang'an City. A few days later, Huang Chao ascended the foundation in the Daming Palace, established a new regime, and changed the name of the country to Daqi.
But Huang Chao was obviously happy too early, although he had the ambition of a king, but he had no land. The rivers and mountains he laid were not solid, the system was not perfect, the salaries could not be paid, and the food shortage also made the rebellious peasants panic.
At that time, many rebel troops defected and surrendered, and Huang Chao's general Zhu Wen was one of them.
Huang Chao only served as emperor for four years, but was driven out of the Daming Palace by the Tang Dynasty army and died heroically in the Wolf and Tiger Valley of Mount Tai. Although the peasant uprising of Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi was unsuccessful, the decade of war dealt a heavy blow to the Tang government.
Ten years of snipe mussel competition, Huang Chao and the Tang government both lost, but Zhu Wen became the last fisherman to gain.
Second, the fisherman's profit - the usurpation of power by the traitor Zhu Wen
In 883, Huang Chao was sent out of Chang'an for a final struggle against the Tang army in Henan. And the traitor Zhu Wen was on the rise, smugly on the way to his post.
After the surrender, Zhu Wen was given the name "Zhu Quanzhong" by the emperor, but he was obviously not close to "Zhong", and was not loyal to the peasant Huang Chao or to the Tang Tianzi.
Zhu Wen is a native of Anhui Province, his father was a poor teacher, and soon after his birth, his father died, and he developed a rogue character of idleness.
Later, he joined the peasant rebel army, and in the southern and northern wars, he made many miraculous achievements and gradually rose to the rank of general, and his ambitions continued to expand.
In 882, seeing that the peasant war was in a difficult situation and could not bring him long-term benefits, he rebelled and surrendered to the Tang Dynasty.
His rebellion made the peasant army angry, but he was regarded by Tang Yuzong as a divine soldier. So, with an edict, Zhu Wen got the resounding name of General Zuo Jinwuwei.
In this way, Zhu Wen, as the number one traitor in the peasant rebel army, stepped on the blood and bones of the rebel army and climbed the ladder of his high-ranking official Houlu.
Obviously, Zhu Wen coveted not the higher staircase, but the throne at the top of the staircase.
In 885, after Huang Chao's death, the Peasants' War ended, and Emperor Yuzong of Tang returned to Chang'an from Chengdu. But at this time, the Tang Dynasty had long existed in name only, and even if he wanted to revive the dynasty, he would not be able to return to heaven.
Years of war dragged down the forces of the Tang central government, but nourished the warlords of various domains and towns. They took advantage of the peasants' war to expand their territory.
After the end of the Peasant War, the warlords of the various clans and towns were not satisfied with occupying one side of the land, and the idea of claiming hegemony had long been germinated in their hearts.
"The Son of Heaven, those who are strong and strong should do it, rather have a kind of Yah", this is not only the voice of the warlords of various domains and towns, but also the ambition of Zhu Wen.
When Emperor Yuzong of Tang returned to Chang'an, the Tang royal family was in vain, and new battles began in various clans and towns. The Old Book of Tang records that "the royal family is humble and orders not to go abroad".
This time, the Tang Dynasty faced not peasants, but powerful warlords who were difficult to control. The peasant rebels may be impressed by small favors, but the warlords want the throne.
In a situation where the warlords were divided on one side and the heroes were vying for power, Zhu Wen also grew his power and became one of the powerful warlords.
At that time, the Tang Dynasty was in turmoil, and the warlords of various domains and towns replaced them with a show of hands, but in order to justify their name, they could only control the emperor and then "Zen concession" in the way of "holding the Son of Heaven to order the princes".
So, after the death of Emperor Yuzong of Tang, Emperor Zhaozong of Tang ascended the throne. Emperor Tang Zhaozong became a source of contention among the warlords of various clans and towns. In the past few years, he was driven out of Chang'an many times and traveled from place to place.
In 902, Li Maozhen, the king of Longxi County, took Emperor Tang Zhaozong, the son of Tian, hostage, and Zhu Wen surrounded them in Fengxiang City with an army of 70,000 under the banner of the Qing monarch.
Zhu Wen knew very well that whoever could hold the Son of Heaven hostage at this time would have the opportunity to become the emperor in a righteous manner. So he held Fengxiang City to death, surrounded by water, and the people could not enter or leave until the city ran out of ammunition.
The "Book of Continued Tang" recorded the tragic situation in Fengxiang City that year: "The people froze to death, thousands of people every day, rice buckets worth 7,000, until they burned human feces and boiled corpses to eat."
In the end, Li Maozhen was cornered in the lonely city, so he had to make peace with Zhu Wen and sacrifice the emperor Tang Zhaozong to Zhu Wen.
Zhu Wen brought the emperor back to Chang'an, and Emperor Zhaozong was very grateful to him, and in order to repay him for saving his life, he made him the King of Liang, and relied on him for everything from then on.
But the position of King Liang, Zhu Wen could not look at it. He had the intention of abolishing the emperor and standing on his own, but he was just waiting for a suitable moment and a legitimate opportunity.
Third, the destruction of the country and the extinction of the species - the end of the three hundred years of the world empire
In 904, Zhu Wen presented a letter to the emperor, asking the emperor to move the capital from Chang'an to Luoyang. Emperor Zhaozong did not want to, but he did not have the right to say no, because he had already been erected.
However, Zhu Wen not only asked the emperor to move to Luoyang, but also ordered all the people of Chang'an to move to Luoyang. The people of Chang'an were forced to migrate, helped the old and the young to Luoyang, walked for a month, and cried for a month.
In order to prevent the people from returning to Chang'an, Zhu Wen demolished all the palaces, official palaces and private houses in Chang'an, turning Chang'an City into ruins.
After arriving in Luoyang, the first thing Zhu Wen did was to wantonly kill the eunuchs around the emperor, and in the end, there were only more than 30 people left in the palace, and he could only select people from other places to serve in the palace.
Of course, these people are all cronies arranged by Zhu Wen. Zhaozong was shocked and felt that he was "left and right."
But the night is long and dreamy, and if Zhaozong is snatched away by his opponent, then Zhu Wen's dream of becoming an emperor will never have a chance to come true, and he decides to kill Zhaozong.
So when the capital was moved, before Emperor Zhaozong could familiarize himself with the imperial palace in Luoyang, he was killed by a general sent by Zhu Wen, and he died at the age of Chinese New Year's Eve seven.
After killing Emperor Zhaozong, Zhu Wen did not immediately replace him, because his name was not righteous, and he was bound to be attacked by warlords in various clans and towns, and he was waiting for an active Zen concession.
As a result, he put Tang Zhaozong's ninth son, the 13-year-old Emperor of Sorrow, on the throne. Obviously, this is another puppet emperor, and Zhu Wen holds the power of the imperial decree.
Subsequently, Zhu Wen called the remaining nine princes of Zhaozong to Jiuquchi to drink, took the opportunity to hang them all, and threw their bodies into the Yellow River.
"The current affairs are thieves, and the mourning emperor cannot be controlled", the mourning emperor has no relatives, and the only thing he can do is to follow Zhu Wen's wishes.
In November 905, it was time for the emperor of the Tang Dynasty to preside over the ceremony of offering sacrifices to the heavens. Zhu Wen believed that the sacrifice of heaven at this time was to prolong the national fortunes of the Great Tang Dynasty, which was not conducive to his own major affairs, so he ordered it to stop.
At this point, Zhu Wen's emperor's dream was like Sima Zhao's heart, everyone in the world knew it, and he was actually only one step away from the imperial throne.
Some courtiers raised their opinions on his disobedience, and his solution was to go on a killing spree until the Manchus dared to speak out.
In a few years, more than 30 ministers were killed by Zhu Wen and their bodies were thrown into the Yellow River. In this way, Zhu Wen killed all the eunuchs, killed all the princes, killed all the ministers of Zhongliang Death Festival, and killed the emperor of mourning to surrender Jiangshan.
In 907, Emperor Moi could not stand being a puppet emperor and took the initiative to "Zen concession" and pass the throne to Zhu Wen. This was exactly what Zhu Wen wanted, but he still pretended to shirk before accepting it.
Zhu Wen finally sat on the throne that he cherished, and he changed the name of the country to Liang, and he also changed his name to Zhu Huang, which later became Taizu of Liang.
When Emperor Moi gave way, the royal family had basically cut off his descendants, and he did not escape the fate of being killed. A few years later, Zhu Wen poisoned the last emperor of the Tang Dynasty with a cup of poisoned wine.
At this point, the nearly three hundred glorious years of the Tang Dynasty ended tragically with the destruction of the country and the destruction of the species, and the flourishing world empire came to an end.
At the first moment of the fall of the Tang Dynasty, the warlords of various domains and towns openly played the name of the country and established themselves as kings. Five generations in the north and ten countries in the south, the wheel of history has driven into a turbulent period of more than half a century.
Epilogue:
When Li Yuan established the Tang Dynasty in 618, he apparently could not have imagined that China's most powerful era would end tragically after 289 years.
The princes of Li and Tang's descendants were killed, and the ministers of Zhongliang Death Festival were also killed in the Yellow River.
But the worst thing is the ordinary people of Li, who have survived the corrupt social crackdown of the late Tang Dynasty and will survive in the chaotic situation of five generations and ten countries.
"Rejoice, the people suffer; Death, the people suffer"
Resources:
The Old Book of Tang
"Continuation of the Book of Tang"
"General Guide to Governance"