Comrade | Guevara
When the Jin Dynasty army invaded the Central Plains, most of the Northern Song Dynasty ministers and ministers took negotiating peace and preserving glory and wealth as their top priority, and rarely had the ambition to fight to the death with the enemy and recover the mountains and rivers, making them martyred even more unimaginable. But there are exceptions to everything, during this period, there was a high-ranking official who chose to martyr the Song Dynasty, which can really be described as a "clear stream" among thousands of "turbid streams", and even the future Southern Song Dynasty traitor Qin Ju admired him. This loyal minister was Li Mi, the prefect of Zhending, who was killed for refusing to surrender to the Jin Dynasty.
01 The Sea of Eunuchs rises and falls
Li Mi (李邈), also spelled Yansi ( 字彦思 ), a native of Qingjiang County ( present-day Zhangshu City , Jiangxi Province ) , and a descendant of Li Shizhi , the tang dynasty chancellor , was described in history books as " a man of few talents , a man of great talent , a man of great courage and a resolute mind , and a man of great talent " ( see History of the Song Dynasty , vol. 447 ) . After Li Miao became an adult, he relied on his father's yin to serve as the Taimiao Zailang and gradually rose to the Tongjue of Hejian Province. However, because Li Mi was born with a straight nature and refused to submit to the magnates, he offended the traitorous ministers Cai Jing and Tong Guan, and had to be transformed into a low-level military officer, and after being suppressed for many years, he was promoted to Bazhou Zhizhou with extraordinary military achievements.
Song Jin signed a maritime pact and agreed to attack the Liao Dynasty
In the seventh year of the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty (1117), the Northern Song Dynasty signed a "Maritime Pact" with the Jin Dynasty, agreeing to jointly attack the Liao Dynasty, and Tong Guan was the supreme commander of the Northern Expedition of the Song Dynasty. In order to investigate the falsehood of the Liao Dynasty, Tong Guan recommended that The Eunuch Wailang Tao Yue serve as the Messenger of the Liao State He Zheng (The State Messenger) and Li Mi as the deputy envoy, and instructed them to find out the movements of the Liao Dynasty's monarchs and troops, thus providing valuable information for the Northern Expedition. However, after Li Miao returned to China, he did not abandon their monarch to the Chen Khitan people, and the Jin state was greedy and untrustworthy, so it was impossible to cut down the Liao.
Tong Guanli was earnest and did not take Li Miao's suggestion to heart at all, but he was worried that he would raise objections in front of the emperor and thus obstruct the Northern Expedition plan, so he ordered him not to enter the capital to play the right thing, and directly returned to Bazhou. However, out of a strong sense of responsibility, Li Mi still wrote to the imperial court, declaring: "The Khitan is indestructible, if you delay the important matter, please kill me to apologize to the border officials." Tong Guan was furious at Li Miao's actions, and soon dismissed Li Mi on the pretext of disobeying orders during the construction of the Shenxiao Palace.
Children's embroidery
Although Tong Guan deposed Li Mi from his official position, he still admired his talent in his heart, so after the Fang La uprising, he recommended Li Mi to the imperial court to serve as the governor of Yan Prefecture and follow him to quell the rebellion. After quelling the Fangla Rebellion, Tong Guan decided to send an army to the Northern Expedition, with the goal of capturing Yanjing (present-day Beijing) in the Liao Dynasty. In this regard, Li Mi once again raised objections, persuading Tong Guan to abandon the Northern Expedition plan with the principle of "cold lips and cold teeth", and secretly helping the Liao Dynasty against the Jin army, only in order to ensure the security of the northern border.
Li Mi always opposed the Song Dynasty's alliance with the Jin Dynasty to destroy the Liao, because when he was on a mission to the north, he learned that the Jurchens who established the Jin Dynasty were a barbaric and murderous people, not only lagging far behind the Khitans in their civilization, but also greedy and cruel, untrustworthy, and dealing with it would only bring endless disasters to their own country. However, Tong Guan paid no attention to Li Miao's concerns and stubbornly implemented the Northern Expedition plan. Seeing that Tong Guan refused to accept his advice, Li Miao, discouraged, asked Zhi Shi to return to his hometown to live in an idle body.
Schematic diagram of Tong Guan's first logging of Liao
Tong Guan's Northern Expedition was a disaster, and after two humiliating defeats in a row, he was finally able to take Yanjing with the help of the Jin State and renamed it Yanshan Prefecture in the fourth year of Xuanhe (1122). Afterwards, Tong Guan wrote to the imperial court and successively recommended Li Mi to be appointed as Zhizhuo Prefecture and Yi Prefecture, but both were rejected by the latter. Not only that, after learning of the amazing combat effectiveness of the Jin Army, Li Mi was deeply worried about the fate of the country and sighed: "The disaster of the country has begun here!" ”
02 The city was destroyed and captured
Li Miao's prediction soon became a reality. Three years after Tong Guan's conquest of the Liao Dynasty (1125), the Jin Dynasty, which had completely destroyed the Liao Dynasty, used the Song Dynasty's "illegal acceptance of surrenders and unauthorized border challenges" as an excuse, and the State Minister Sticky Han (Completed Yan Zonghan) and the Second Crown Prince Hu Li Bu (Completed Yan Zongwang) divided the troops into two roads to invade the south. In the first month of the first year of Jing Kang (1126), when he arrived at the capital city of Bijing, Emperor Qinzong of Song, at the suggestion of the Hanlin scholar Yuwen Xuanzhong, revived Li Mi and led the southeastern remnants of the army to aid the capital, and then appointed him as the imperial envoy of the western wall of the capital.
Schematic diagram of the change of Jingkang
Under the leadership of Li Gang, the minister of the main war faction, the soldiers and civilians of Fenjing repeatedly defeated the siege of the Jin army, but Song Qinzong, under the temptation of the lord and the chancellor Li Bangyan and others, agreed to divide the land, pay compensation, and send the prince and the prime minister as hostages in exchange for the withdrawal of the Jin army. After the siege of Fenjing was lifted, Li Mi suggested that the emperor obey the plan of the veteran general Zhongshi Dao to attack the retreating Jin soldiers, which caused the envy and framed of the lord and the chancellor Geng Nanzhong, and in July of that year he was demoted to quanzhi zhendingfu. Soon, Hui Li did not raise troops to the south again because of the Song Dynasty's default, and Zhen Ding became the first target of attack.
Immediately after Li Mi arrived at his post, he began to strengthen his defenses, but found that there were less than 2,000 soldiers in Zhending City, and the copper coins in the treasury were less than 2 million yuan, and they were unable to resist the attack of the Jin army. In this case, Li Mi posted a notice asking the people to donate funds and wealth, and recruited a large number of brave young people to form a death squad, and finally successfully raised 130,000 copper coins, 110,000 stones and thousands of warriors. At the same time, Li Mi requested reinforcements from Xuanfu's deputy envoy, and copied a small road to send a secret message to the imperial court to move rescue troops, but did not get a reply.
True to the defense of the war
Because there was no rescue, when it was really time for the mediation to lead the army to attack, Li Mi could only command the lone army to resist to the death. Although they were outnumbered, under the encouragement of Li Miao, the Zhending defenders were able to stubbornly resist for 40 days and make the besieging Jin soldiers suffer. On October 6 of the same year, the isolated Zhending was lost under the indifference of the Northern Song court, and Liu Yi, the defensive envoy of Jizhou and the commander of the Benlu Soldiers and Horses, died in the ensuing street battle, and Li Miao was eventually captured by Jin soldiers after committing suicide by throwing himself into a well and being forcibly stopped by his neighbors.
03 Unyielding death
Although Li Mi made the Jin army suffer a lot, hui li did not order the execution of Li Mi because he admired his integrity, but instead launched a tender offensive against him, hoping that he could serve the Jin state and follow him south to attack Beijing. However, although he did not wear his lips, Li Mi still refused to give in. In desperation, He had no choice but to send Li Mi to Yanjing, where he was placed under the custody of Liu Yanzong, a han general of the Liao state who was in charge of the remaining affairs. Out of "good intentions", Liu Yanzong repeatedly persuaded Li Mi to surrender, but he was often scolded by the latter to the point of bloodshed.
Sticky statue
After the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, MuHan used the official position of Cangzhou Zhizhou as bait to persuade Li Mi to surrender to the Jin Dynasty, and as a result, he also suffered from "closed doors" (Note: He did not die of illness shortly after the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty). Sticky Han did not have a good temper, and after being rejected, he could not help but be ashamed and angry, and forced Li Mi to shave his hair on his forehead like a Jurchen, and put on clothes that were hidden to the left of the front placket to show that he became a subject of the Jin Dynasty (Note: The ancient Han tradition was to tie his hair to the right). Li Mi vowed to die and shaved all his hair to show his contempt for the Jin Dynasty.
Li Mi's actions completely angered Sticky Han, and after being severely beaten, he was ordered to be beheaded for public display in the second year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1128). Li Mi was indeed a tough man, and did not change his color before the execution, first prayed to the south twice to bid farewell to the Song Emperor, and then sat upright to accept the torture. The people around Yanjing all felt li mi's iron bones, so after learning his news, they all wept bitterly ("Will die, the color will not change, the south will worship again, sit upright and kill, the Yan people will weep for it." See History of the Song Dynasty, vol. 447).
Portrait of Qin Juniper in the Eight Phases Diagram
At that time, Qin Ju, who was a prisoner, lived in Yanjing and served as a staff officer of the Jin Dynasty's general Tart, and he also wept at li miao's murder, but when he talked to people about it, he always admired Li Miao's integrity. A few years later, when Qin Ju fled back to the Southern Song Dynasty with his wife, he told Emperor Gaozong of Li Mi's indomitable death, and the emperor was also deeply saddened. In recognition of Li Miao's loyalty, Emperor Gaozong of Song ordered him to be posthumously awarded the title of Envoy of the Zhaohua Army, with the posthumous title of "Zhongzhuang". If Li Miaoquan knows, should he feel deeply comforted?
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