The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms was an era of great chaos in the history of the mainland, which lasted for half a century, and was a transitional stage between the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. Although its existence was not as long as that of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, depending on the degree of internal political chaos, fierce conquest, and bloody cruelty, even the Northern and Southern Dynasties were not far behind.
As the name suggests, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms have appeared in the hinterland of the Central Plains with five relatively powerful regimes, namely the Later Liang, the Later Tang, the Later Jin, the Later Han and the Later Zhou.
Since it is a chaotic era, there are naturally absurd people, absurd things, and absurd countries, but most regimes only account for one or two of them.
There is only one inconspicuous small regime, the Southern Han, which has all three of them, so how ridiculous is this Southern Han?
Image: Screenshot of the distribution data of the five dynasties and ten countries
1. A regime composed of "eunuchs".
1. A kingdom with 7,000 eunuchs
The Southern Han Dynasty was a small regime living in the area of present-day Guangdong, which did not last long before and after, and there were no capable monarchs, but to say that this is absurd, it is necessary to mention the last monarch of the Southern Han Dynasty, Gongzong Liu Gang, who can be said to have all the qualities of a dead monarch in his body.
During the reign of Liu Gang in the Southern Han Dynasty, the main sphere of influence was in most of today's Guangdong and Guangxi, Hunan, as a small kingdom in Lingnan, do you dare to imagine that there were more than 7,000 eunuchs in China?
Later, Zhao Kuangyin and Chen Qiao mutinied, and the yellow robe was added to create the Northern Song Dynasty, and at that time, all the palace maids and eunuchs in the Northern Song Dynasty palace were added together, and there were only more than 300 but less than 400 people.
The more than 7,000 eunuchs under Liu Gang are not all serving themselves, because there is a rather "anti-human" idea in his heart: as long as a man is castrated, it means that he has no family, no offspring, and no ambition, and naturally will not threaten his dominance.
Out of this rather perverted mentality, almost as long as it is considered to be a talented person, a capable minister, all of them have to be arrested and castrated first. In other words, if you live in the Southern Han Kingdom and want to get ahead and become a great official, you must first be prepared to be castrated.
Image: Stills of castration with a knife
2. Before you want to do anything, you must castrate
This is the attitude towards the courtiers, but is it also the same for the generals in the army? Although I am not sure whether all of them have been castrated, at least one thing is known, that is, after Liu Gang came to power, most of the veterans left behind by his Lao Tzu were killed, and the rest were either removed from their posts or driven out of the country, in short, the army must also be led by eunuchs.
What's even worse is that he also suddenly had a whim, and the students with the best grades in each imperial examination were also castrated into eunuchs, only when you become a eunuch, can you become a leader, and you can be entrusted with important tasks, so this is the origin of the more than 7,000 eunuch teams.
It is worth mentioning that I don't know which minister made a suggestion to Liu Gang, saying that his father was able to sit firmly on the emperor's throne back then, relying on no brothers and sisters to come out and snatch it. Liu Gang thought about it and felt that what he said was too reasonable, so he gave an order and pulled all his brothers and sisters out and cut them down.
Image: Stills from the eunuchs
2. Interpret "metamorphosis" to the extreme
1. Violent and extravagant
In addition to being despicable and rude in employing people, Liu Gang is also a tyrant and a faint monarch in terms of ruling the kingdom, and he has come up with a very cruel set of punishments, which are terrifying just by sounding creepy.
For example, he would put people in a cage and steam them alive on top of a hot pot, boil them in boiling water, put them with salt and roast them alive in the scorching sun, fill a mound with swords, and throw them down from above, and so on.
In short, there is only what you can't imagine, there is nothing that Liu Gang can't do, in other words, you can't imagine that a king will treat his courtiers and people like this, and the word "perverted" is vividly expressed in Liu Gang.
Picture: Liu Gang in the court stills
In life, I have to say that Liu Gang is a very "tasteful" person, in the small city of Guangzhou at that time, Liu Gang had dozens of palaces for enjoyment, he loves to change places to live when he is fine, today in the east of the city, tomorrow in the west of the city, the day after tomorrow in the north of the city, if it is not for the people around him, there is something to find him, it is really difficult not to run all over the city.
His favorite is not a Han woman, but a Persian woman, and he married this concubine a very "loud" name: Mei Pig, just like that, Liu Gang and Mei Pig live a luxurious life every day in Guangzhou's large and small palaces.
Because this concubine likes deep-sea pearls under 500 meters, so Liu Gang forced the people to go to the sea every day to look for it, you must know that there was no various diving equipment at that time, hundreds of meters deep is fatal, historical records record that there are countless people who have died by collecting pearls for the pig.
Image: A still from the Deep Sea Pearl
2. A catastrophe is coming
The subjects of the Southern Han Dynasty could not bear it under the brutal rule of Liu Gang, so someone contacted Zhao Kuangyin privately and told him about the internal situation in the Southern Han Dynasty. It is said that at that time, this tough guy who crawled out of the pile of dead people in the southern and northern wars was shocked when he heard about Liu Gang's atrocities, and he said that he would do it himself to save the people of the Southern Han Dynasty.
At that time, Zhao Kuangyin had already established the Song Dynasty in the north, and he successively destroyed the Later Shu and Nanping regimes with a devastating force, and successfully made the border of the Great Song Dynasty border with the Southern Han regime.
Not to mention that the ignorant are fearless, the army of the Song Dynasty at that time arrived at the doorstep, in terms of the comprehensive national strength of the two countries at that time, it was not an order of magnitude at all, the monarch of the Southern Han Dynasty not only did not want to think about how to deal with this catastrophe, but also sent troops to the border cities of the Song Dynasty to burn and loot.
Zhao Kuangyin is worried that there is no reason to beat you, now it's good, the reason is abundant, the top and bottom are united, the same hatred of the enemy, Song Kaibao three years, that is, in 970 AD, Zhao Kuangyin took Pan Mei as the general and Cao Bin as the deputy general to go to the Southern Han Dynasty.
Image: Stills of sending troops to the border cities of the Song Dynasty to burn and loot
Liu Gang lived in Gentle Township every day, the Southern Han army was negligent in training, and the combat effectiveness was extremely weak, and the generals who could fight were almost killed by him, so the Song army attacked the Southern Han Dynasty and entered a no-man's land, and it didn't take long to attack Liu Gang's old nest Guangzhou City.