Preface
Since Qin Shi Huang unified the six countries and became the emperor, in the following 2,000 years, China has produced more than 400 emperors, and the ruling level of these emperors is naturally different, including the Qin Emperor, Han Wu and Tang Emperor, as well as Hu Hai, Zhao Gou, Zhu Qizhen, and other waste emperors who have harmed the country for hundreds of years.
But if you want to say that the most magical of these emperors, I think everyone must unanimously point to that man, that's right, it is Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty.
The founding emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, who successfully extended his life for the Han Dynasty for 200 years, is actually quite ordinary, and it is not much different from the well-known Liu Bei, who is a descendant of the down-and-out clan, but people are amazed when they talk about his experience, because this person's repeated creation and blazing the road is like divine help.
What was Liu Xiu's path to becoming emperor in real history? Today, let's take a closer look at this "son of the plane."
1. Different from ordinary people
The term "son of the plane" originally originated from modern science fiction novels, and the meaning is roughly equivalent to the science fiction version of "the proud son of the sky", that is, the person who is favored by the heavens, and the reason why Liu Xiu is called the "son of the plane" is because his good luck in this life is simply breathtaking.
Although Liu Xiu has a good bloodline, but his background is not good, his ancestor is Liu Fa, the elder brother of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, although he is the king of Changsha, but after the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms in the early Han Dynasty, the strength of the royal family is actually not as strong as before.
In addition, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty carried out political measures to reduce the strength of the princes in his later years, such as the "Tui En Order", so that the descendants of the royal family can only be mixed from generation to generation, when Liu Fa's bloodline continued to Liu Xiu's generation, Liu Xiu and his family were no different from commoners, and they could only live by farming, and there was no preferential treatment of royal blood at all.
But in this environment, Liu Xiu's special was highlighted, according to legend, when Liu Xiu was born, the dazzling red light filled his mother's delivery room, this incident had already made Liu Xiu's father Liu Qin very surprised, thinking that this must be a proof that his son was different from ordinary people, but another thing made Liu Qin even more happy.
The day after his son was born, Liu Qin saw three millet plants growing in his farmland overnight, and each millet plant had nine ears, all of which were extremely full.
You must know that in ancient times, there was one such crop that could already represent the blessings of heaven, and as soon as Liu Xiu was born, three such crops grew in his family, how could this not make Liu Qin love his son? Liu Qin believed that his son must have been favored by the gods, so he named his son "Liu Xiu" with these three millet plants that grew well.
But Liu Xiu's performance was very mediocre when he was young, he didn't have any big ambitions, and his performance was also very wooden, on the contrary, his brother Liu Yan was even better and had great ambitions, but Liu Qin firmly believed that his youngest son would be able to make a difference in the future, so he did his best to train Liu Xiu.
However, when Liu Xiu was nine years old, Liu Qin died of illness, and the mother and son were lonely and had no choice but to go to their uncle Liu Liang, who was very generous to Liu Xiu's family, and saw that Liu Xiu was very talented in reading, so he continued to invite teachers to teach Liu Xiu homework, and Liu Xiu also made rapid progress, and even entered Chang'an's Taixue when he grew up.
Second, the revival of the Han Dynasty
Xi In his eyes, as the descendants of Gaozu Liu Bang, they should do the great cause of chasing the world, just at this time the relatives of the Western Han Dynasty were in turmoil, and the great Sima Wang Mang deposed Liu Ying, the last little emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, and he sat on the throne of the emperor and changed the name of the country to "Xin".
The power of the Liu family was snatched away by outsiders, and the descendants of the Liu family were extremely dissatisfied with this, and they rose up one after another, under the banner of recovering the Han dynasty to conquest Wang Mang, but because the political measures carried out in the early days of Wang Mang's usurpation of the throne made the people's livelihood develop in a short period of time, so the people did not have a great response to this conquest.
However, with the passage of time, Wang Mang's administrative measures showed a lot of drawbacks, because too far ahead of the level of productivity but the development of the national economy and people's livelihood was restricted, and the people's lives began to suffer, so there were more people who complained, and there were more people who responded strangely, and the restoration battle of the royal family officially kicked off.
In this battle, Liu Yan raised troops early as Hou Yi of the Han Dynasty and began to fight, while Liu Xiu waited until 22 AD to finally participate in his brother's rebel army, and the brothers began to work together to revive the Han Dynasty, but because their family background was really not enough, the brothers' rebel army was still relatively rabble and had no combat effectiveness.
But compared to them still struggling among the people, there are already descendants of the Han family with higher status who have seized the opportunity to take advantage of this world chaos to ascend the throne and claim the emperor, this person is Liu Xuan, who is known as the first emperor, Liu Xiu's brothers knew about this and decisively went to Liu Xuan's Green Forest Army, and found an official and a half-position in the army.
Liu Xuan's claim to be the emperor annoyed Wang Mang, and he directly sent an army of 400,000 to Kunyang City to clear the rebels, at that time, the number of defenders of the Green Forest Army in Kunyang was not even more than 10,000, and anyone with a discerning eye could see that this was absolutely impossible to win, but Liu Xiu insisted on staying, thinking that he would definitely be able to defeat Wang Mang's 400,000 army.
As a result, the Battle of Kunyang, which can be regarded as outrageous in Chinese history, was about to break out under the leadership of Liu Xiu, and Liu Xiu's reputation was also passed down through the ages because of this outrageous battle.
3. Fortune is at its peak
When the two armies lined up on the battlefield, even though the dead soldiers under Liu Xiu's command had already been mentally prepared to die in battle, when they saw the black and oppressive army on the opposite side, they inevitably felt fear and sadness in their hearts, and the morale of the whole army instantly dropped a lot.
But Liu Xiu was not afraid, he was ready to command the soldiers to fight as if he had a chance to win, and the soldiers saw Liu Xiuzhen's calm momentum, and they also felt that they had a bottom in their hearts, and they calmed down and prepared for battle.
However, just when the battle was about to break out, I saw that the sky suddenly changed dramatically, lightning and thunder, and then people watched meteors fall from the sky and smashed straight into Wang Mang's army, 400,000 troops were in chaos in an instant, and there were not a few soldiers who were killed by meteors, Wang Mang's army collapsed in an instant, and the soldiers scattered and fled for their lives, and Liu Xiu finally won the battle without a fight.
It is precisely because of such outrageous luck that Liu Xiu is called the "son of the plane" by later generations, and such a disparity in battle allows him to win in this way, which is really outrageous.
After the Battle of Kunyang, Liu Xiu became famous, and it was smooth sailing in the subsequent battles, but as Liu Xiu's reputation became better and better, the first emperor Liu Xuan was dissatisfied with him in his heart, thinking that Liu Xiu threatened his position, so he seized an opportunity to kill Liu Xiu's brother Liu Yan.
The death of his brother made Liu Xiu very sad in his heart, and at the same time, he was forced to rebel without any objection, Liu Xiu first returned to his hometown Taoguang for a period of time, so that his sense of existence dropped, and after a period of time, the first emperor asked Liu Xiu to go to Hebei to quell the rebellion, Liu Xiu knew that his opportunity to go out of the mountain came.
After Liu Xiu came to Hebei, he collected his own forces while quelling the rebellion, and finally formed the famous Yuntai Twenty-eight Generals, and after quelling the local rebellion, Liu Xiu formed an alliance with Liu Yang, the local king of Zhending, and formed a very powerful army and began to march towards the First Emperor, and finally killed the First Emperor.
At the same time, Liu Xiu also announced that he would ascend the throne as emperor and restore the Han Dynasty, because Liu Xiuding's capital was in Luoyang, east of Chang'an, so the restored Han Dynasty was called the Eastern Han Dynasty by later generations.
epilogue
Liu Xiu is definitely one of the best emperors in the history of the Han Dynasty, and it can be seen from his nickname "Emperor Guangwu" that this emperor is definitely an eloquent emperor, and even because the nickname contains the word "Wu", his status can compete with Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
It is true that Liu Xiu continued his life for two hundred years for the extinct Han Dynasty, and it is no wonder that the descendants of the Han family praised this king of Zhongxing so much.