When it comes to the emperors of ancient Chinese feudal society, people can always hear one staggering story after another. Those glorious and wealthy emperors, who held full power of the country in their hands, deserved to live a carefree life. But the reality is often cruel, and many emperors have to resort to some heinous means in order to consolidate their power. Among them, the practice of Liu Yu, the seventh emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty, once again shocked us.
Legend has it that in order to suppress the opposition, Liu Yu actually made 3,000 soldiers drink dumb medicine and disguised themselves as "ghost troops" to intimidate the enemy. After the battle, the emperor even blatantly executed this "ghost army" secretly! What's going on? Why would a person in power do such a heinous thing? What kind of astonishing conspiracy is hidden behind this? Let's find out.
Liu Yu ascended the throne in the chaotic years
To understand why Liu Yu did such a heinous thing, we have to start with the process of his ascension to the throne. Liu Yu was not the most likely person in the royal family to succeed to the throne, and his elder brother Liu Ziye was the most qualified crown prince at that time. It's just that once Liu Ziye ascended the throne, he showed his brutal and unkind side.
According to historical records, Liu Ziye severely suppressed his cronies and the royal family soon after he succeeded to the throne, and even imprisoned his uncles, including Liu Yu, in the cramped and filthy conditions of the pigsty. For a person like Liu Yu, being locked up in a pigsty is simply the biggest humiliation in life.
In the face of such humiliation, Liu Yu secretly determined that one day he would avenge himself. He waited patiently for the opportunity, and finally in 465 AD, while Liu Ziye was away, he staged a coup d'état, killed the tyrannical emperor, and inherited the throne himself.
The emperor who was afraid of losing power
Although Liu Yu finally got his wish and ascended to the throne of the emperor, his life has not been much joy since then. On the contrary, he began to be on constant fear, for fear that someone would covet his throne.
After all, he understands how difficult the process of ascending to the throne is. He had to secretly accumulate strength, patiently wait for the opportunity, and finally was able to kill two birds with one stone, get rid of the brutal brother Liu Ziye, and at the same time sit on the throne himself.
However, this process also left a deep psychological shadow on Liu Yu. He began to suspect the motives of everyone around him, fearing that his power would be threatened or taken away. Therefore, he is very wary of any dissidents, even the closest cronies around him.
This suspicious approach soon aroused a wave of dissatisfaction and opposition throughout the country. The public began to protest publicly, accusing Liu Yu of losing the benevolence of a Ming Jun for his extreme practices.
In the face of such large-scale opposition, Liu Yu began to panic in his heart. He began to have nightmares, dreaming that he was being killed by the unjust soul of the previous emperor Liu Ziye, and that while he was locked up in a pigsty, other imprisoned cronies came one by one to collect blood debts.
These nightmares tormented Liu Yu again and again, causing his psychological pressure to increase dramatically. In order to sleep peacefully, he had to invite many onmyoji to pray for them to sleep peacefully.
However, these initiatives were in vain. Liu Yu's fear and anxiety grew, and he even began to suspect his subordinates, fearing that they were also secretly plotting to seize power. In order to consolidate his rule, he must find a way to stop this wave of opposition and eliminate all threats once and for all.
Train the "ghost army" to fight the enemy
In the face of an escalating wave of opposition across the country, Liu Yu knew that relying on the palace guards alone was far from enough. He needs an army strong enough to put down the rebellion once and for all and consolidate his dominance.
Just when Liu Yu was anxious, one of his confidants suggested that he could follow the example of Su Jun in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and train a "ghost army" to deter the enemy. The so-called "ghost army" is a special forces force that appears in the dark and is silent.
As soon as this idea was proposed, it was immediately approved by Liu Yu. As a result, Liu Yu ordered to outline outstanding soldiers across the country and form a "ghost army" with a scale of up to 3,000 people.
In order to make the "ghost army" more realistic and terrifying, Liu Yu took some extreme measures. He ordered all 3,000 soldiers to be fed dumb medicine so that they could not speak; At the same time, black and white oil paint was applied to their faces to imitate the appearance of ghosts.
Next is the long night battle training of the "ghost army". They operate at night and hide during the day, as silent as real ghosts. Soon, with the continuous enhancement of the combat power of this "ghost army", they showed strong combat effectiveness in night battles.
The mere nature of the "ghost army" being elusive and silent is enough to instill fear in the hearts of the enemy. Not to mention their hideous and terrifying "ghost appearance", which is enough to make people shudder at first sight.
Sure enough, soon many hostile forces lost their helmets and fled after encountering the "ghost army". Even some rebels who originally opposed Liu Yu took the initiative to disarm and submit to Liu Yu's rule after hearing the terrifying rumors of the "ghost army".
To cover up the cruel side of the truth
Although the "Ghost Army" once won a lot of battles for Liu Yu, his heart was never at peace. Liu Yu knows very well that if the truth about his training of the "ghost army" is revealed, the consequences will be unimaginable.
After all, feeding thousands of soldiers dumb medicine and wiping their faces to pretend to be ghosts was a heinous act at the time. Once the truth is exposed, the reputation of the royal family will be irretrievable, and Liu Yu himself will be blamed and spurned by thousands of people.
In order to cover up this heinous secret, Liu Yu had no choice but to resort to even more brutal means - to completely eliminate all members of the "ghost army" and keep his mouth shut forever.
So, after a "ghost army" returned to the camp, Liu Yu secretly ordered that all 3,000 members of the "ghost army" be killed without knowing it. The executions were carried out in such a brutal manner that some were beheaded, some were strangled to death, and some were burned alive.
What is puzzling is that even for a person who has been imprisoned in the pigsty, Liu Yu's approach is really too cruel. He should have felt guilty and guilty in the face of the tragic deaths of 3,000 of his own people, but he turned a blind eye to the matter and immersed himself in the reasons for maintaining his power.
Until one day, the tragic scene of the execution was witnessed by Liu Yu. When he saw the piles of corpses, the miserable wails, and the brutal slaughter of the soldiers who had once followed him, a trace of remorse and guilt finally burned in his heart.
But it was too late, 3,000 lives had already withered in vain, just to protect his own selfishness. In the face of such a tragedy, the fear and uneasiness in Liu Yu's heart struck again, and he began to wonder if the souls of these dead soldiers would come to ask for revenge.
The emperor was haunted by ghosts at the age of 33
Liu Yu's worries were fulfilled. Soon after the brutal massacre of the "ghost army", he began to have nightmares in which he saw the soldiers who had been killed one by one showing their true forms, accusing him of his crimes and seeking justice.
During the day, Liu Yu often saw the ghosts of dead soldiers wandering around the palace, everywhere. It kept him awake at night, mad, and scared all day. In order to get rid of these undead spirits, Liu Yu found countless onmyoji and asked them to spend time for those dead soldiers, hoping to let their souls rest in peace.
However, these efforts were in vain. The undead still pestered Liu Yu all the time, demanding that he pay for his atrocities. Seeing that no means could get rid of the torment of nightmares and ghosts, Liu Yu's mental state deteriorated.
The emperor, who was neat and ruthless and would do whatever it took to gain power, has now become a poor worm who is crazy and sleepless, unable to sleep all day long with fear and guilt. The eunuchs and guards also had to watch over him 24 hours a day, for fear that he would hurt himself in the event of nightmares.
In this way, Liu Yu's physical condition deteriorated, and finally he died at the age of 33 after only 5 years in power. Before he died, he kept repeating the words "ghost army" and "murder" in his babble, which shows how deep the shadow of those undead has left him.
end
Liu Yu's life can be described as exciting and ups and downs. In order to ascend to the throne, he had to get rid of his brutal brother first; In order to stabilize his power, he sacrificed the killer weapon of "Ghost Army"; In the end, in order to cover up the truth, he brutally killed 3,000 of his soldiers. The price of all this is that he was haunted by unjust souls for the rest of his life, and finally died at a young age.