"Ask Jun how many worries there are, just like a river of spring water flowing east."
Speaking of Li Yu, the empress of the Southern Tang Dynasty, people's instinctive reaction was that this was an emperor who did not do his job, weak and incompetent, and had been used as a negative model in history for many years.
In a sense, it was Li Yu's political and military incompetence that set off the strength of his contemporary, Emperor Taizu of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin.
For example, the story to be told today, Zhao Kuangyin wanted to send troops to destroy the Southern Tang, Li Yu sent envoys twice to seek peace and become a courtier, and Zhao Kuangyin became a famous saying after a sentence.
So, what kind of story happened during the Northern Song Dynasty's annihilation of the Southern Tang? Which of Zhao Kuangyin's words has become a famous saying through the ages?
Ranked sixth, he has no intention of taking the throne
Throughout China's 5,000-year history, it has been a process of merging and merging. Since Zhu Wen destroyed the Tang Dynasty in 907, five dynasties have appeared in the north, and ten kingdoms have appeared in the south almost simultaneously. And the most powerful in the south is none other than the Southern Tang.
The Southern Tang monarchs claimed to be descendants of Emperor Xianzong of Tang, and in fact, historians have verified that they are genuinely not related to the Tang emperor.
Li Yu's father, Emperor Li Jing, had six sons, and he was the sixth. In the feudal dynasty, which emphasized "orderly growth and childhood", Li Yu originally had no possibility of encroaching on the imperial throne.
In fact, Li Yu did not want to be emperor at all. Unlike other princes, who are tall and mighty and have a heroic face, Li Yu is more like a weak scholar, who follows the teacher all day to compose songs.
However, Li Yu's second, third, fourth, and fifth brothers all fell seriously ill when they were infancy or teenagers and unfortunately died.
Li Yu's eldest brother, Li Hongyi, the crown prince of the dynasty, was outstanding in martial arts, was willful and reckless, and had a short temper, which annoyed Li Jing again and again. Li Jing even threatened him, deposed him as crown prince, and then let his younger brother Li Hongyi's uncle Li Jingsui succeed him.
After Li Hongyi saw his father's rage, he did not change his past mistakes, and even did not have any convergence, entangled the fox and dog friends and prepared to kill Li Jingsui.
After the incident was exposed, Li Hongyi's spirit was greatly hit, and soon after, his heart was weak and his mental pressure was too great, and he died of a violent illness.
Li Jing's previous words about letting Li Jingsui succeed to the throne did not come true, and in the inheritance of the imperial throne, he still gave priority to his son. The princes died one by one, and the only one who could succeed to the throne was Li Yu.
In 961, Li Jing died and Li Yu succeeded him, and later became known as the Empress of Southern Tang. Literary and artistic young people who had no intention of taking the throne were driven to the shelves and took charge of the largest country in the south. What awaits him?
A strong enemy rises with the intention of becoming a subject
Li Yu's luck was not good enough, if the north had maintained the situation of continuous regime changes during the Five Dynasties period, he would not only be able to serve as the lord of the city, but even lead the Southern Tang to become the most powerful country.
The facts did not give Li Yu a chance to develop.
Just a year before Li Yu's succession, in 960 AD, Zhao Kuangyin and Chen Qiao mutinied, and almost without bloodshed and war, he successfully succeeded to the throne, established the Song Dynasty, and completely consolidated his rule through the release of military power through a cup of wine.
The Song Dynasty unified northern China and became stronger day by day after reform. Zhao Kuangyin took the opportunity to wage war against the countries in the south and began the process of national unification.
At this time, advisers from other countries came to lobby Li Yu, drawing on the experience of the various princely states in the Warring States period to jointly resist Qin and Wu Shu to resist Cao Cao during the Three Kingdoms period, and the southern countries united to jointly resist Zhao Kuangyin's aggression.
Originally, this was a very good idea, and Nantang, as the most powerful country in the south, was indispensable in this matter.
However, Li Yu flatly rejected this proposal, and he adopted a capitulation strategy against the Song Dynasty: he ordered people to collect a wide range of rare treasures in the country, and sent them and a large amount of gold, silver, silk and brocade to Bianliang, the capital of the Song Dynasty.
Li Yu also made a big effort to conduct beauty pageants in Jiangning and its surroundings, but he did not enjoy it himself, but sent it to the bedside of Zhao Kuangyin and Song Da officials one by one.
Not only that, Li Yu also called himself "son" to Zhao Kuangyin and recognized Zhao Kuangyin as his godfather. This series of servile and condescending actions did allow the Southern Tang to survive and he was not attacked by the Song Dynasty.
However, the tiger will not spare any prey. Zhao Kuangyin led troops to destroy some countries around the Southern Tang, such as Former Shu, Later Shu, Southern Wu, etc., and these countries bordering the Southern Tang were destroyed one by one by the Great Song, and anyone with discerning eyes could see that the next 100% would destroy the Southern Tang.
Taizu replied, a famous saying through the ages
The Song Dynasty had already sent three men and horses to station on the border of the Southern Tang from the north, east and west, and a big war was imminent.
Li Yu is not a fool, he knows the situation of himself and his country. Therefore, he sent an envoy to the Song Dynasty to ask Zhao Kuangyin to surrender, and after the envoy arrived in Bianliang, Tokyo, he extensively bribed various senior officials of Song, and finally got the opportunity to meet Zhao Kuangyin and presented Li Yu's personal letter.
"How is Father Emperor? The child kneels thousands of miles away, the father and son are a family, but the father and the emperor want to force the child bitterly? ”
Li Yu's humble attitude did not move Zhao Kuangyin's heart in the slightest, and Zhao Kuangyin read the contents of the letter aloud in front of the envoys and the Manchu Dynasty. The Manchu Dynasty laughed loudly, and the envoy blushed and had a thick neck, and he couldn't wait to find a seam to drill into.
"Since it is a father and son and a family, why separate? Then be together forever! ”
"Hahahaha..." Above Song's court, the loud laughter of the ministers sounded again.
Li Yu's journey to seek peace hit a wall, and he did not give up, and immediately wrote another long letter and sent another envoy to the Song state non-stop, asking for a chance to bow down.
The letter was more earnest, offering more tribute to the Song state, and also proposing to cede territory, only hoping that the Song state could retain Jiangning and other places and maintain the existence of the Southern Tang regime.
Zhao Kuangyin stared at the letter with a serious face, and the kneeling messenger below was heartbroken, and he waited for the moment when the fate of the Southern Tang was announced.
Zhao Kuangyin threw the letter directly after reading it, and then shot up. "On the side of the couch, how can others sleep soundly!"
"Emperor Shengming! Long live my emperor, long live long live! ”
The entire court of the Song Kingdom was indignant, and with the ancient saying of Zhao Kuangyin, the fate of Southern Tang and Li Yu had been sealed.
Forced to fight back, strategic mistakes
In fact, although Li Yu was weak, he was not a comatose monarch, and he had long ordered people to secretly prepare for war. Therefore, at the beginning of the war, the Song Dynasty army discovered that the Southern Tang was not the "soft persimmon" expected.
In particular, the Southern Tang army took advantage of the natural danger of the Yangtze River, leaving the Song army completely helpless for several months. The Song State even suffered heavy casualties and constantly sent reinforcements in the rear.
At this time, some ministers told Li Yu that he would take advantage of the setback in the Song state's war, take advantage of the flexibility and mobility of his navy division, and take the initiative to cross the Yangtze River to launch an attack on the Song army, because the best defense is to attack.
Being able to resist the offensive of the Song State in the past few months was already thankful for Li Yu, where did he still have the courage to take the initiative to launch an attack on the Song State, thinking that it would anger the Song State and Zhao Kuangyin.
He did not know, and asked for the top to get the other, and the best of the to get the bottom.
It was supposed to be the best negotiation qualification to pursue Song Bing at the time of victory, but Li Yu did not cherish it, he only wanted to seek peace through this "humble" method.
The ministers looked at each other one by one, they knew that the emperor's attitude made Nantang miss the best opportunity to change his life against the sky. This best opportunity was given up by Li Yu, who did not know that this wrong decision made him lose his dignity and life.
The country was captured, leaving a swan song
Sure enough, as the war progressed day by day, the Southern Tang army gradually became overwhelmed.
There was a big gap in the national strength of the two countries, and the Great Song Dynasty increased its army and adjusted its strategy, even though the soldiers in front fought bloody battles, even though there was a natural danger of the Yangtze River, after more than a year of fierce war, in August 975, Jiangning finally fell, Li Yu was captured, and the Southern Tang regime officially perished.
Li Yu was escorted by the Song army to Bianliang, Kaifeng, and Zhao Kuangyin had a grand ceremony to "greet".
The former pampered Southern Tang Emperor was forced to sit in a prison car naked. The soldiers of the Song State on both sides of the road were stubborn, pointing at him one by one, and their words were filled with contempt and ridicule.
Li Yu was ashamed and indignant, but helpless. You can only close your eyes, out of sight, out of mind. When he arrived at the lobby, Li Yu was released from the prison car, and as soon as he came out, Li Yu knelt on the ground and bowed to Zhao Kuangyin, making a courtier.
The generals and ministers of the Song Kingdom laughed proudly when they looked at the monarch of the Southern Tang Dynasty so humble.
In order to show his "broad-mindedness", Zhao Kuangyin accepted Li Yu's surrender, made him a "marquis who disobeyed orders", and ordered people to settle Li Yu and his family well, eat and drink well, and "take care of".
Li Yu's life was finally saved, and the words "Marquis of Disobedience" were enough to insult, and Zhao Kuangyin's tolerance could not be seen at all, and it was understandable why there was more bitterness and depression in his poems.
Li Yu is still obsessed with poetry, but his creative style has changed greatly. There is no ease and relaxation in the work, and there is more bitterness. He drank and had fun all day.
During the day, he was accompanied by his beautiful queen and concubine, and in the dead of night, the melancholy and distress of the dead country continued to surge in his heart, and the "disobedient marquis" was like a sharp blade, shattering his dignity and pride.
The king of a country completely buried the rivers and mountains that his fathers had worked hard to beat, whispered down, endured humiliation and burdens without respect, only contempt and disregard, and deep suspicion.
Li Yu regretted it very much, thinking of the suggestions made by the minister and the general before, but he missed the opportunity due to his own short-sightedness and conservatism, and now he is thinking about the situation at that time, and he regrets why he did not give it a go, give it a shot, maybe the result will be different.
"Xiao Lou had another east wind last night, and the country could not bear to look back at the moon and bright middle. The carved fence jade masonry should still be there, but Zhu Yan changed..."
On a bleak morning, the reluctance and longing for the motherland converged into a gentle and desolate song "Poppy" chanted in Li Yu's mouth, and as a calligrapher, he splashed ink and wrote it on rice paper.
Since then, there has been an additional rare treasure in the history of literature, and "Poppy" has become a swan song for thousands of years, and has become a topic that can never be avoided in the study of literature in later generations and poetry in the Song Dynasty.
In reality, this poem soon reached Zhao Guangyi, by which time he had succeeded his brother Zhao Kuangyin as emperor of the Song Kingdom for more than two years.
Zhao Guangyi was even more hypocritical than Zhao Kuangyin, and after he came to power, he changed Li Yu's title to "Duke of Longxi". The ban has changed, and humiliation and suspicion are not less than at all.
Words such as "old country" and "Zhu Yan" touched Zhao Guangyi's sensitive nerves, and he believed that Li Yu had been pretending to be crazy and selling fools, and had been learning from Liu Adou and wanted to end well.
Remembering that Li Yu had sent envoys several times before to request surrender, he even referred to Zhao Kuangyin as a "son-in-law". Outwardly obedient surrender, secretly preparing for war.
Many soldiers of the Song Kingdom died in the early days of the war because they underestimated the enemy, and Zhao Guangyi felt that such people were extremely hypocritical and should not be trusted. Now he has become the "Duke of Longxi", he is still restless, and he still misses his homeland. Will it lead people to rebel at any moment?
Zhao Guangyi himself succeeded to the throne through the "candle shadow axe", and when Zhao Kuangyin's sons were alive and well, Zhao Guangyi's succession as a younger brother originally made the world doubtful.
Therefore, he was more sensitive and suspicious than Zhao Kuangyin and ruthless, and after thinking for a few days, on a stormy night, Zhao Guangyi sent someone to send a bowl of poisoned wine to depression, so that Li Yu could not end well.
At this point, the emperor of the ancient words, Li Yu disappeared into history, and his literary and artistic works remained in the long river of culture and shone brightly today.