In the beginning, the emperor lost his crown prince, and Empress He gave birth to a son, who was raised in the Family of the Daoist Shi Zi and was called "Shi Hou". Wang Meisheng had a son, empress Dowager Dong raised herself, and was known as "Dong Hou". The courtiers asked for the appointment of a prince. The emperor was frivolous and undignified, and he hesitated to make a decision.
—— Zizhi Tongjian · Volume 59 · Han Dynasty 51
How bad can people be?
History has always been consequential—only about results, not about motives. Because for future generations, you simply cannot restore the whole consideration of the decisions made by people in history in the environment and conditions at that time.
It is like the evaluation of the Sui Emperor, if we discuss it from the motive, we will end up in a scuffle.
Opponents can think that the Sui Emperor was very happy and rewarding, and the people were hurting their wealth. But supporters can also say that he is determined to eliminate the difference between the north and the south, but the result is not successful, but this is mainly due to various external conditions.
You see, in the end, it basically went to the dead end of conspiracy theory.
So when we read history, we can only read consequentialism.
Based on this logic, you will find that the Han Ling Emperor is simply a model of bad. If the Sui Emperor wanted to do big things and toss around blindly, then the Han Ling Emperor was a blind toss who didn't understand anything.
In the previous articles, we have separately introduced many glorious and bad deeds of the Ling Emperor, such as: trusting eunuchs, causing the disaster of the party twice, selling officials to save money, centrifuging patriots and doctors, and so on. Today, we will talk about the last bad thing that Emperor Ling did in his life: he tossed and turned before he died, and finally killed his mother, wife and son.
The cause of the matter was the election of a prince.
Before Emperor Ling's death, there were only two living sons: the eldest son, Liu Jie, was born to Empress He and was raised in the people after giving birth; the second son, Liu Xie, was born to Wang Mei and was personally raised by Emperor Ling's mother, Empress Dong.
At that time, the Qunchen may have seen that Emperor Ling's life was imminent, and they wrote to persuade Emperor Ling to become crown prince. To put it more precisely, everyone wrote to the Emperor of Ling and established Liu as the crown prince. Because Liu Wei was the eldest son of a concubine, he should naturally be the prince.
But Emperor Ling himself had ideas, and he felt that Liu Wei was "frivolous and powerless" (I wanted to sing "Flammable and Explosive" again orz... ）。
This matter was quite strange, because Emperor Ling himself was a frivolous and formless lord, so I really didn't know how he could see that Liu Wei had this shortcoming. This is like Jia Yu scolding Jia Lian for being greedy and violent, it really makes me wait for others to sigh...
But Emperor Ling was still quite stubborn, and the group of ministers went to the book like this, and he always grinded and chirped, that is, dragged on.
If he is in the spring and autumn, it will be enough to drag it out. But the problem was that at this time, he was already quite ill, and he himself knew that he would soon die.
So in the end, he entrusted this matter to Jian Shuo.
Who is Jian Shuo?
He was a eunuch.
However, he was a eunuch with military power.
Why Jian Shuo can have military power, this is a long story, we will explain it a little here:
At the beginning of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the empress's brother He Jin was appointed as a general in charge of recruiting Zhang Jiao.
Zhang Jiao was soon defeated, and Emperor Ling wanted to take back He Jin's military power. However, the appointment of a foreign relative as a great general was the standard of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and He Jin himself was not at fault, and it was not easy to be dismissed.
What to do?
Emperor Ling gave full play to his ingenuity and wisdom, and set up the eight lieutenants of Xiyuan in Luoyang (including Yuan Shao and Cao Cao), and appointed Xiao Huangmen jianshuo as a lieutenant of the shang military academy, in charge of his affairs.
In this way, the great general He Jin was instead under the command of Jian Shuo.
In addition, in order to further divide He Jin's power, Emperor Ling also appointed his uncle Dong Zhong as a general of the Hussars.
Therefore, when Emperor Ling was about to die, he handed over his younger son Liu Xie to Jian Shuo. The implication is to let him help Liu Xie to take the throne.
But as soon as he died, who to make the emperor was a matter for the ministers, and Jian Shuo couldn't interject at all.
In desperation, Jian Shuo could only make dangerous moves.
Jian Shuo's plan was to trick He Jin into the palace and kill him. But helplessly, the news leaked, and the success was lost. Liu Wei was put on the throne, He Jin gained power as an uncle, and Jian Shuo was killed.
The matter did not stop at this point, because He Jin's appetite had more than that, and he set his sights on other eunuchs. The eunuch clique was greatly alarmed and quickly turned to support Dong Zhong and confront He Jin.
Between Dong Zhong (not Dong Zhuo, not Dong Zhuo, not Dong Zhuo) and He Jin, the contradiction is not small.
First of all, after the Young Emperor ascended the throne, He Jin recorded Shang Shushi. Dong Zhong is a foreign relative, but he does not have his share.
Secondly, Empress Dowager Dong and Empress He did not get along peacefully in the palace—of course, this was also commonplace, and there were mothers-in-law and daughter-in-law who could have a good relationship.
Again, the battle for the throne. Liu Xie and Liu Xie belonged to the two camps, and Dong Shi was naturally inclined to Liu Xie. Therefore, Dong Zhong and He Jin could not get along well, but they had the same interests as the eunuchs, and it was normal to get together.
But this time, He Jin took the lead.
He Jin preemptively attacked, and Dong Zhong was forced to commit suicide. Then He Jin wrote a letter and drove Empress Dowager Dong out of the palace. Soon after, Empress Dowager Dong died, the cause of death is unknown.
He Jin came step by step, methodically, and basically eliminated the eunuch's extra-palace forces.
But then there's no way to go any further.
The eunuch's power outside the palace was eliminated, but the palace was still the eunuch's world. Moreover, He Jin encountered the same problem as his predecessor Dou Wu: he wanted to kill the eunuchs, but his sister Empress He did not agree.
This is tricky.
On the one hand, He Jin has already borne a considerable notoriety and pulled quite a bit of hatred. On the other hand, he was very clueless in the matter of eliminating eunuchs: he did not dare to go to the palace, but the empress dowager and the emperor were all in the palace. With a single move, the eunuchs could hijack the empress dowager and then occupy the moral high ground to suppress him—dou wu and Chen Fan had failed before.
Therefore, at this time, He Jin was quite entangled, and the eunuchs were not in a hurry, of course, they also knew the glorious deeds of their ancestors who killed Dou Wu Chen Fan, and among them, such as Zhao Zhong, Zhang Rang and others, they had also experienced it firsthand.
He Jin then asked Yuan Shao. And then the later things, everyone is more familiar: Yuan Shao suggested that foreign generals be summoned to Beijing. The person he summoned was Dong Zhuo. Before Dong Zhuo could enter the capital, He Jin was already killed by the eunuchs.
Later, Dong Zhuo Bingzheng deposed Liu Wei as the King of Hongnong and established Liu Xie as emperor, as emperor for the sake of Han. Later, Liu Wei and Empress He were poisoned.
Although the change of status between the Young Emperor Liu Wei and the Xiandi Emperor Liu Xie was completed in the hands of Dong Zhuo. But in fact, the source of everything began with the Spirit Emperor. Moreover, Dong Zhuo was also indirectly involved because of the abolition of the establishment.
Tracing back to the roots, Emperor Ling wanted to depose Chang Liyou, which opened up endless disasters after that: he could not succeed in his work, entrusted to Jian Shuo, and aggravated the contradiction between eunuchs and foreign relatives; he appointed Dong Chong as a general on horseback in the hope of dividing the power of He Jin, which resulted in the deaths of Dong Zhong and Empress Dong; and in the end, Dong Zhuo used this as an excuse to depose Chang Liyou and kill the young emperor Liu Zheng and Empress He.
If it is said that the pit harms outsiders, then killing one's own family should be considered bad enough to lose one's conscience.
And in addition to killing his own family, the dispute between the ling emperor and the government caused by the deposed prince eventually turned into an uncontrollable bloody coup. After that, the Han Dynasty fell apart.
Li Chu has always been a major event of the dynasty. How to stand, there is a fixed standard, this standard is to stand tall. By this standard, no matter what, it should be Liu Wei who was elected. However, Emperor Ling had to feel that Liu Xie was more in line with his wishes, which was bound to be opposed by the ministers.
The reason for the minister's objection was, first, because the etiquette was so. If it is easily violated, the scholar who is in charge of defending the tao will inevitably stop it. So we saw he Jin and the scholar group behind him, strongly supporting Liu Wei.
Second, more importantly, once such a motion is proposed, some people will soon begin to exploit this loophole and support the abolition and speculative drilling camp. Dong Zhong and the eunuchs also used this as an excuse to meddle in the government affairs of the dynasty, which eventually led to a catastrophe.
Since then, the center of the government has changed, and what is counterinsurgency and stability of the people, the stability of the frontier, these things have become no longer important. The only important thing in the court was who was going to be the crown prince.
Take a workplace example to illustrate the situation:
In general, companies are business-oriented. Everyone is in the workplace, thinking about how to improve operational efficiency, how to promote performance improvement, and so on.
But one day, the company suddenly said that it was going to split in two, so everyone's energy would start to turn from then on. People will start to argue about how the business should be divided, how the personnel should be distributed... More importantly, what you can get out of it.
When will it be over? Only when the company is truly divided into two can employees receive their hearts and everyone's energy will return to the right track.
The Han Ling Emperor created such a dispute.
And the reason is simply because of personal preference.
Historically, such disputes have been written in history. For example, the Song Dynasty's "Pu Discussion" and the Ming Dynasty's "Great Etiquette" dispute were all forcibly turned the government of the dynasty. More seriously, there is Wang Anshi's change of law, and the old and new party struggles eventually dealt a devastating blow to the Great Song Dynasty. In the end, who is right and who is wrong actually has little to do with it, and the key problem is that the world has formed two factions that are intolerable to fire and water, and the group of ministers have their own positions, and right or wrong has become less important.
Looking back, in the workplace, have you ever seen a company with serious infighting, what are the business achievements?
Fanwai | Our storytelling time
01
Some people must ask: Then, so the prince cannot be abolished?
No, yes.
What the main text says is actually not the harm of the abolition, but the harm of the dispute between the two factions caused by the abolition.
If the emperor himself decides to change the crown prince and does not cause a dispute, then it can be changed.
The positive example is the Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang (this may be one of the very few images of Yang Guang who appears as a positive typical figure...). ）。 Relying on Yang Guang's painstaking solitude, Emperor Wen of Sui deposed Yang Yong in his later years and established Yang Guang, basically gaining the support of all the courtiers, and for Yang Yong, it was pushed by everyone.
In the same way, after the change of Xuanwumen, Li Shimin overtook Li Jiancheng's old department in order to eliminate the rift as much as possible and not to repeat the historical tragedy.
On the other hand, the Ling Emperor opened a dispute, and then he died, which eventually led to the death of his loved ones.
Moreover, throughout Emperor Ling's dim-witted life, what was even more tragic and hateful was that he did not realize the seriousness of the matter of changing the prince at all.
02
History says, let's talk about reality.
"Cherish the situation of stability and unity since the reform and opening up", I wonder if you are familiar with this sentence?
If you think it's a cliché, you're dead wrong.
This situation is precious. Before the reform and opening up, the situation was not the case. At that time, politics was in charge, and the fight was the mainstay. Today's young people are almost unclear about the difference between left and right, but at that time, the anti-left criticism of the right, the eyes are not busy.
Until the 1980s, China established a program of "focusing on economic construction." Since then, the whole country has put aside the dispute of political positions, and then there have been "crossing the river by feeling the stones", "white cat and black cat", "not arguing", "uniting to look forward"... All of this is to bridge the strife and concentrate everyone's energy on economic construction.
Don't forget your original intention, cherish the present.
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