#实话实说#
(Tang Xianzong Li Chun's inscription)
In the first year of Yuanhe, in 806 AD, Li Chun, the emperor of Tang Xianzong, had just ascended the throne, which was the twelfth emperor of the Tang Dynasty.
As soon as the emperor ascended the throne, Liu Pi, the envoy of Xichuan Jiedu, rebelled.
But Liu Pi is a person with great dreams and very little ability, he took the initiative to rebel and take the initiative to attack, but he was defeated again and again, and he basically never won the battle with the regular army of the imperial court, and in the end he was defeated and captured, and died.
In the ninth year of Yuanhe, Changyi Jiedu made Wu Shaoyang die of illness, his son Wu Yuanji not only did not report the funeral to the imperial court, but raised the military power by himself, and the imperial court sent people to condolence and investigate by the way, Wu Yuanji also refused to receive it, and then directly tore his face with the imperial court, and directly raised troops to rebel.
At the beginning, the court was more tolerant of his behavior, hoping that he could figure it out for himself, and one day he would rein in the precipice, after all, he was the son of the former envoy of the festival, as long as he returned to the court, he would also be an official in the future.
But Tang Xianzong waited and waited, and after waiting for two years, Wu Yuanji still fought against the imperial court, and the emperor finally couldn't stand it.
The Changyi Jiedu Envoy, in other words, is the Huaixi Jiedu Envoy, which is today's Henan Runan, this place is located in the Central Plains, is a strategic place, and if it cannot be taken down for a day, the rule of the imperial court will be seriously threatened.
Therefore, two years later, Tang Xianzong used troops against Huaixi.
Tang Xianzong's use of troops against Huaixi obviously showed the emperor's determination to completely eradicate the feudal town, but as a result, Li Shidao was afraid that the emperor would clean himself up again, so he immediately stated that he would help the imperial court to crusade against Wu Yuanji together.
However, Li Shidao is a chicken thief, he ostensibly claimed to support the imperial court in order to establish his status as not an anti-thief in the general environment, so as to avoid public opinion, but in fact he not only did not use troops against Wu Yuanji, but also sent troops to reinforce Wu Yuanji. It's a sturdy duplicity.
Xianzong is the emperor, and he rarely has the opportunity to go directly to the battlefield, so we will ignore his ability to use troops for the time being, but this benevolent brother's ability to use people is very strong.
On the issue of quelling the Huaixi Rebellion, the emperor's appointed ministers Pei Du and the general Li Yu were both used correctly.
(Suppressing the rebellion of the feudal domain)
Pei Du is the prime minister, but he is willing to take the lead and rush to the front line in person, and Li Yu is a famous general in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, and the characteristics of using troops are in a fast word, Wu Yuanji is still planning how to use Huaixi as a base to fight steadily, Li Yu has quickly defeated most of his troops in Huaixi, Wu Yuanji has no choice but to be captured.
As soon as Wu Yuanji died, Li Shidao had no way to be duplicitous, so he first showed submission to the court to paralyze the emperor, and the undercurrent was surging.
In the face of Li Shidao's insidious means, the emperor didn't want to show mercy, so when he conscripted Li Shidao, Xianzong sent out all the teams that could basically be mobilized.
The army was pressing, Li Shidao was under great pressure, he mismanaged internally, and there was a disagreement for a while, but he was killed by his subordinates, and the rebellion collapsed immediately.
So you can see that after Tang Xianzong Li Chun ascended the throne, he was very effective in governing the feudal towns, at least judging from his actions to subjugate the three towns of Hebei, he was not imbecile, anyway, he was an extremely smart emperor.
However, Tang Xianzong inevitably fell into the vicious circle of the middle and late Tang emperors who liked to reuse eunuchs.
When the Anshi Rebellion broke out, Tang Xuanzong took the Minister of Civil and Military Affairs and Yang Guifei to Maweiyi, and Chen Xuanli, the general of Jin Wuwei, led the soldiers to mutiny under the command of the crown prince Li Heng, which greatly reduced the emperor's trust in the pro-soldier forbidden army.
In the first year of Guangde, Tubo attacked the Tang Dynasty, and Li Yu of the Tang Dynasty avoided the chaos in Shaanzhou, Henan.
In the third year of Jianzhong, there was a rebellion called Li Xilie, the imperial court transferred troops from Jingyuan, Gansu to attack Li Xilie, and as a result, when Jingyuan soldiers passed through Chang'an, there was a mutiny because of bad food, and the incident happened suddenly, Tang Dezong Li Shi had no time to react and could only escape, but in the process of the emperor's escape, there was neither a civil servant nor a military general to protect, and there were only a few attendants and eunuchs who were willing to really sacrifice their lives to protect them.
(Ancient Eunuch)
We can say that since the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, the credibility and influence of the emperor of the Tang Dynasty have become smaller, and the collapse of the Kaiyuan Dynasty is not only a serious social and economic damage, but also leads to the loss and collapse of people's hearts, so the relationship between the monarch and the minister began to become very delicate at this time.
Based on this experience, the emperor inevitably resisted the civil officials and was worried about the frequent defection of the military generals, so the emperor had no choice, such as Xianzong, who could not even trust the forces of his relatives, because Xianzong never made an empress.
Regarding the fact that Xianzong never canonized the empress, many people will think that this should be a wise move by the emperor, because without the empress, then the power of foreign relatives cannot be established, and without the power of foreign relatives, the tilt of imperial power will be so less.
However, judging from the available information, in fact, Xianzong did not appoint a queen, and there was a more personal reason, that is, he did not want the queen to interfere with his arbitrary liking and pampering of concubines.
Let's see, there is such a sentence recorded in the "Old Tang Book: The Biography of the Queen": The emperor has a lot of personal love, and the family is prosperous in the future.
What does this sentence mean, it means that there are many concubines in Xianzong's harem, and the emperor still has a lot of affection, which one of them loves, and he wants to be pampered, if he has a queen, then the queen will definitely not allow him to be so attentive, but if he doesn't have a queen, then the emperor can come how he wants to come in the harem.
Emperor Xianzong did not expect that such a rule set by himself in order to meet his personal life was frequently imitated by his descendants, starting from Tang Xianzong, Tang Muzong, Tang Jingzong, Tang Wenzong, Tang Wuzong, Tang Xuanzong coincidentally did not have a queen, the queen mentioned in the history books in this period was essentially not canonized by the emperor's husband at that time, but basically posthumously crowned by the emperors after that.
This can't be used, that can't be used, this one must be guarded against, that one must be calculated, but the emperor is an identity and a profession, and the work undertaken by the emperor cannot be completed by himself alone, he must divide power to a certain extent ideologically.
Therefore, he chose to appoint eunuchs.
(Tutu Chengxuan)
During the reign of Xianzong, a eunuch named Tutu Chengxuan was reused.
To what extent did the emperor reuse Tutu Chengxuan, the emperor directly put it in place in one step, and appointed Tutu Chengxuan as the general of the left and right Shence and the soldiers and horses of the Daoxing battalion of Hezhong, Heyang, Zhexi, Xuanshu and other Taoist battalions and the envoy of the disposition.
Friends, this inch is long and strong, we don't need to understand what this position is specifically for, just look at such a long list, you know that the power of this position is not small.
In fact, for the entire dynasty, it is not a big deal for the people below to have power, because if the emperor does not give power to the bureaucracy, how can the bureaucracy do things for you?
Moreover, in the bureaucratic class, which is one level at a time, there will always be people who will restrain you, and you can use power, but inevitably your power will not be limited.
Secondly, most of the power of the bureaucratic class is temporary, for example, a general who leads troops to fight a war, when he is not fighting, he cannot mobilize the army, he wants to mobilize the army, he gets the imperial court to ask for military power, and when he has the military power, he can command the army, and when the war is over, he has to hand over the military power.
But the eunuch is different, because the eunuch does not belong to the bureaucratic class, he is not responsible to anyone but the emperor, and the only person who can manage and restrain him is the emperor himself.
Not to mention that Tutu Chengguang is in an important position, he can also command the Shence Army, what is the Shence Army, this is the Central Beiya Forbidden Army, this army is not only responsible for defending the Beijing Division and guarding the palace, he is also the most important military force directly managed by the Central Court.
(Divine Army)
In other words, the Shence Army is the hole card of the imperial court to maintain its rule.
When you put the command of such an army in the hands of eunuchs, aren't you just playing with fire?
Of course, the ministers expressed deep dissatisfaction with the emperor's arrangement, but Tang Xianzong had his own understanding, in the emperor's view, Tutu Chengxuan was one of his own domestic slaves and a vassal of himself, because from ancient times to the present, the fate of eunuchs is closely related to the emperor, without the emperor there will be no eunuchs, eunuchs and emperors have always been a state of sharing honor and disgrace, they are following the emperor to prosper and lose.
Therefore, in the eyes of the emperor, the eunuch is just a tool for him to maintain the balance of power, and Tutu Chengxuan is just a cup, when the emperor holds him, he is glamorous, the emperor doesn't need him, he is just a glass ballast that falls to the ground.
Xianzong's idea of using eunuchs is correct, use you when you are used, and rectify you when you are not needed, so that no matter how the emperor appoints eunuchs, he will always be in an invincible position, but the emperor can't understand a truth, you can be so skillful in conditioning these eunuchs, so that they can become cheap and can be eliminated at any time in your hands, because you have this courage and ability, so the question is, you have this ability, it does not mean that others also have this ability, you do not set up a queen, the emperors behind will not stand, and you use eunuchs so much, will future generations of emperors also follow suit？
They can follow suit, but can they control it as well?
Those who make good use of the sword die by the sword.
(Reminiscing about the past Kaiyuan Dynasty)
Of course, Xianzong could not predict that the tragedy of the eunuchs in the late Tang Dynasty was more serious than any dynasty in history, and the eunuchs overthrew the emperor, controlled the emperor, and even killed the emperor, in a sense, the Tang Dynasty died at the hands of the eunuchs.
In his later years, Tang Xianzong was satisfied with his contribution to pacifying the feudal town, and began to become depressed day by day, ignoring the government and politics, blindly asking for immortals, and finally died gloomily.
A person who was once most likely to restore the prosperous Tang Dynasty era, just abandoned his martial arts and embarked on the road of light and darkness.
The emperor compares himself to a true dragon and an existence overlooking the world, but he doesn't know that when everything is destroyed, the sky is full of blood, and the eternal night comes, the only thing that survives is the cockroach.
When he was a teenager, the emperor also had great ambitions, the emperor also had unlimited ideals, when he was in power, the emperor also had a night of food and clothing, and he would work hard and complain, he also read the records of the saints and sighed with a lot of emotion, remembering the Zhenguan Kaiyuan and couldn't help himself, but after years of hard work, it seemed that he did not meet the emperor's expectations, so his collapse also came so drastic.
The emperor used to hate those mediocre emperors so much, and the emperor once fought with the envoys of the feudal towns for so long, but in the end he had to become the same person as them.
In the cruel feudal era, before you want to realize any ideal, you will pay such a tragic price and sink.