In 589, the Sui Dynasty destroyed Chen. One night after the capture of Jiankang City, Kaifu Yi, who accompanied the army, issued a "send Chen Gaozu Mausoleum, burn the bones to take ashes, throw water and drink it", that is, dig up the tomb of Chen Baxian, the founding emperor of the Chen Dynasty, take out the remaining bones, burn them into ashes, and then flush the water and drink it.
The cause of such a horrific act is actually very simple: killing the father's revenge, not sharing the heavens. In 555, Wang's father, Wang Shengxian, was booby-trapped by his former comrade-in-arms, Chen Baxian. After eliminating this formidable opponent, Chen Baxian successfully replaced the Liang Dynasty and established the Chen Dynasty after two years of hard work.
However, if we look back at the ins and outs of Wang and Chen's anti-purpose, we will come to a conclusion: This is a typical political struggle, and there is no right or wrong between the two sides; Chen Baxian even occupies the advantage of popular will and public opinion, which is also an important reason for his success. At the same time, this dramatic event is also a microcosm of the era of violent turmoil after hou Jing's rebellion.
In 548, Hou Jing raised an army with a mere 8,000 men, but unexpectedly captured jiankang city. In this process, the Liang Dynasty exposed its own essence of "gold and jade outside the country", the high degree of decay of the ruling group, the huge gap between rich and poor, and the severe class contradictions... The problems of the Southern Dynasty itself eventually became a weapon in Hou Jing's favor.
This war brought to the Liang Dynasty not only the tragic situation of thousands of miles of red land and deserted people, but also the subsequent impact was even more fatal: the Xiao clan was already scattered everywhere to control the military power, and when Hou Jing besieged Jiankang, Xiao Yu, the king of Xiangdong, Xiao Yu, the king of Hedong, and Xiao Xiao, the king of Yueyang, and others did not go out of their way to work; after the Death of Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu, these descendants not only did not think about quelling the chaos, but instead insisted on fighting and infighting with each other.
But at any moment of crisis in history, a group of backbone figures who dare to turn the tide and shoulder heavy burdens will emerge. At that critical juncture of the Southern Dynasty, it was Chen Baxian and Wang Shengzhen who stood out.
When the news of the outbreak of Hou Jing's rebellion reached southern Xinjiang, Chen Baxian, who was born poor and had great military achievements on the side of the shock, immediately set out to go north to Qin Wang, but he was constrained by all sides, and Shi Yuanjingzhong of Guangzhou and Xiao Bo of the Southern Liang Sect successively prevented him from going north. Helplessly, Chen Baxian had to send people to Jiangling and throw himself into xiao Yan's seventh son, Xiao Xuan, the king of Xiangdong, to realize his ambition to save the country.
In 550 AD, Chen Baxian led an army to set out along the road, first defeating the interception of Xiao Bo's generals, then defeating Hou Jing's party Li Qianshi, and finally advancing north smoothly in the following year, with the goal directly aimed at Hou Jing.
At the same time, in order to meet Hou Jing, who was advancing westward, Xiao Xuan, the king of Xiangdong, sent his general Wang Shengquan and others to lead an army to the east, and defeated Hou Jing's main army in the areas of Baling (present-day Yueyang, Hunan) and Yingzhou (present-day Wuhan, Hubei), forcing the other side to switch from attack to defense, and the situation on the battlefield was reversed.
Wang Shengxuan was originally a descendant of the Xianbei Karasuma clan, and his family had served as officials in the Northern Wei Dynasty. In the early days of Southern Liang, he followed his father Wang Shennian Nantou and served Xiao Xuan, the king of Xiangdong, for many years.
When the Hou Jing Rebellion broke out, Xiao Xuan sent Wang Huoyi to lead an army of 10,000 to Qin Wang. But by the time they arrived, the city of Jiankang had fallen and Emperor Wu of Liang was dead. Subsequently, the powerful Xiao Xuan and Xiao Yu and Xiao Qi launched a battle for the throne, allowing Hou Jing to continue to rage.
Soon, as Hou Jing's claimed army of 200,000 marched westward, the militaryly talented Wang Shengquan was given a heavy responsibility, and after winning the victory in the Battle of Baling, he led his army to the east, recaptured Jiangzhou and Yingzhou, and pointed his sword at Jiankang City. At Baimao Bay (east of present-day Huaining, Anhui), he met chen Baxian's Qin wang army.
The military talents of Wang and Chen were equally outstanding, but when they first met, their pattern immediately showed a distinction between superior and inferior.
At first, because Chen Baxian was already famous, it aroused the jealousy of Wang Monk. Knowing that the friendly army was short of grain, Chen Baxian generously took out 300,000 stones from his own 500,000 stone army grain and gave it to the other party, which not only changed Wang Shengquan's view of himself, but also made the entire Western Route Army feel good about him.
In 552, the two armies worked together and after a bitter and bloody battle, they finally completely destroyed the murderous Hou Jing forces. Xiao Xuan then took the throne at Jiangling and was emperor of Liang Yuan. He admired the merits, and Wang Shengquan was promoted to situ and Zhenwei generals, and Chen Baxian was promoted to general Of Zhengyu and Kaifu Yi tongsan division.
Just as Wang and Chen were cleaning up the mess in the east and resisting the Northern Qi invasion, Xiao Xuan in the west was in big trouble.
First of all, before Xiao Yi became emperor, Xiao Ji, the king of Wuling in Chengdu, had already claimed the title of Emperor of Yizhou. In order to compete for orthodoxy, he mobilized soldiers and horses to fight with Xiao Xuan, who in a hurry even asked Western Wei for help. For Yuwen Tai, this was tantamount to dropping a pie in the sky, and he sent Wei Chi to take advantage of the void and easily annex shu land.
After that, Xiao Xuan, who had defeated his brother, forgot the scars and forgot the pain, and he turned his face to Yuwen Tai and did not recognize anyone, resulting in a strong attack of 50,000 soldiers and horses of Western Wei. At that time, Wang Shengquan and Chen Baxian could not save the nearby fire, and Jiangling fell and Xiao Xuan was killed. Subsequently, Yuwen Tai supported Xiao Chen, the king of Yueyang in the Liang Dynasty, as a puppet and gave him the land of Jiangling Projectile, which was the vassal state of Western Wei, Western Liang.
In this case, Wang Shengquan and Chen Baxian, who were on the eastern front, became the generals without a master. Faced with two strong enemies in the west and north, the two once worked together to support his son Xiao Fangzhi as emperor. But soon they parted ways over interests and positions.
The following year (555 CE), Northern Qi, who had taken advantage of the fire, launched a large army to escort Xiao Yan's nephew Xiao Yuanming (who had been captured by Northern Qi in the early years) to return to the south, with the intention of supporting a puppet emperor who was close to him.
This kind of action is tantamount to "covering the ears and stealing the bell", called escort, which is actually an invasion. Wang Shengquan tried to resist, but his arm could not twist his thigh, and after the other party promised to guarantee Xiao Fangzhi that he would be crown prince, he accepted Xiao Yuanming.
After being a prisoner for many years, Xiao Yuanming counterattacked and became emperor, and then he appointed Wang Sheng as the Grand Sima and Chen Baxian as his attendants.
In this case, Southern Liang had effectively become a vassal state of Northern Qi. In the face of this humiliation, countless bloody men in Jiangnan were filled with righteous indignation, of which Chen Baxian was naturally represented.
At the beginning, due to joining forces to destroy the powerful enemy Hou Jing, Wang and Chen were "very good in love" and even formed a family of children. However, when Wang Shengyi decided to accept Xiao Yuanming, a rift appeared between the two, and Chen Baxian fiercely opposed it, sending people to persuade him four times, but it had no effect.
This also allowed the already ambitious Chen Baxian to find an excuse, he seized on the fatal mistake made by Wang Shengquan and carried out secret and comprehensive preparations, targeting his former close comrades-in-arms.
What is wrong with the monk Wang?
First, he abolished Xiao Fangzhi, the direct son of the old lord Xiao Xuan, and installed Xiao Yuanming, who had a Northern Qi background and was not a direct descendant of Emperor Wu of Liang, as emperor, which was a serious political error;
Second, Wang Monk was a member of the Xianbei Karasuma clan.
At the beginning of the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty and the crossing of the southern crown, although the various forces in the north came and went and the regime changed frequently, from the overall pattern, the confrontation between the north and the south had become the norm; in the period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, this model was more normalized.
However, throughout the past 200 years, although the Southern Dynasty as a whole was weak in attack, self-preservation never became a major problem, and even in the era of Liu Yu and Huan Wen, it could occasionally create the feat of taking the initiative to successfully carry out the Northern Expedition.
Today, it is a rare period of unprecedented humiliation: Hou Jing, who stirred up Jiangnan to ruins everywhere, was originally a Qiren, and Xiao Qin, the puppet regime of Western Liang, was founded by Yuwen Tai, a Xiongnu who was xianbei, and now Xiao Yuanming is relying on the support of Gao Yang, a Xianbei Han, to enter the palace, and seeing that the Southern Dynasty is gradually eroded and controlled, which makes those military and civilians who regard themselves as civilized orthodoxy feel bad?
Chen Baxian keenly grasped this point. He was very enthusiastic about the southern dynasty generals: "Once the prince changes his map, wai yi Rong Di will help Li Non-secondary, what is his ambition!" That is, to draw an equal line between getting rid of the Wang monk's argument and resisting foreign insults, and successfully occupying the advantage of public opinion.
Soon after, Chen Baxian conspired with his close associates Hou Andu, Zhou Wenyu, Xu Du and others to attack and kill Wang's father and son in Stone City (on the outskirts of Health) overnight. Subsequently, he deposed Xiao Yuanming and welcomed Xiao Fangzhi back as emperor, while he himself served as Ren Shangshuling and the governor of various Chinese and foreign militaries, and seized the real power of Southern Liang.
Supporting the orthodox emperor internally and raising the banner of imperial humiliation externally, Chen Baxian played an excellent political card. Subsequently, while eliminating domestic dissidents, he personally led an army to resist the powerful Northern Qi.
In the face of the menacing and powerful Qi army, Chen Baxian united all his forces, calmly coped, and encouraged the soldiers, and when the two sides launched a bloody war north of the Huai River, the people of the Southern Dynasty watched across the river, cheering and cheering.
Relying on the natural time, geographical advantages, and people, Chen Ba, who first withdrew from the strong enemy and calmed the rebels internally, established the Chen Dynasty in 557 AD, and left a political legacy of self-reliance and tenacious struggle, allowing the small Chen Dynasty to support it for more than 30 years in the case of an unprecedented disparity in strength between the enemy and ourselves.
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, when capable people were emerging in an endless stream, only two of the most affirmed emperors in the south were Liu Yu, the Emperor of the Song Dynasty, who was "swallowing like a tiger", and The other was Chen Baxian.
Moreover, Chen Baxian's exploits were particularly valuable: the Southern Dynasty faced an unprecedented catastrophe of internal and external difficulties and lost half of the country; at this once-in-a-century of rare life and death, he stepped forward and tried to turn the tide and defend half of the Southern Dynasty, which was admired by posterity. Of course, at that time, the north and south were all orthodox dynasties in the history of our country, but in their positions and governments, any figure who worked hard deserved respect.
On the other hand, Wang Shengxian, who had fought side by side with Chen Baxian, was equally excellent, but unfortunately, there were huge defects in his pattern and will to fight, and he did not realize that the military and the people's hearts and minds were under the tide of the times, and unfortunately fell victim to political struggle.