Wen | reversed the north
He was defeated, but not by anyone but by fate; he was killed, but not conquered. The bravest are often the most unfortunate. Cheng Ren is more enviable than success.
- Montaigne, "About Man Eating Man"
01 An Shi rebels drove straight in, and Tang Xuanzong lamented that Hebei had no loyal subjects
In 755, An Lushan rebelled against the Tang in Fanyang under the name of "Qing Junfang". In just a few months, more than twenty counties north of the Yellow River were controlled by the rebels at An Lushan, of course, more of which were county officials who were intimidated by the rebels' troops and were forced to surrender for fear of slaughtering the city. However, regardless of its starting point, An Lushan's large army was like entering no man's land at the beginning of the rebellion, and then it even reached luoyang, the eastern capital of the Tang Empire, and the reason for this undoubtedly had a lot to do with the "non-resistance" practice of the Tang dynasty magistrates.
In the face of the fierce rebel army and the increasingly eroded situation, Tang Xuanzong lamented that "there is not a single loyal subject loyal to the imperial court in the twenty-four counties of Hebei."
Tang Xuanzong's statement was actually a roundabout way to justify his mistakes. An Lushan had been plotting a rebellion for a long time, and many officials in Hebei Counties had long been replaced by An Lushan as his cronies, and Zhang Jiuling, a major minister around the emperor, had reminded him to be careful, but he was treated as a deaf ear by Emperor Xuanzong. Now that the great calamity was approaching, Xuanzong had eaten his own fruit, and it seemed that there was nothing to shirk his responsibility.
However, then again, these Hebei magistrates who succumbed to the arrogance of the rebels, after all, used to eat the Tang Dynasty's Feng Lu, and many of them were loyal to the Tang court from their grandfathers and even great-grandfathers. The silence and inaction of these local elites can be said to be the greatest humiliation suffered by the Tang Empire for many years in carrying out "education in the ideology of loyalty to the king and patriotism."
Fortunately, at this critical juncture, a pair of brothers stepped forward to save the collective sense of honor of the Hebei Shi people and also to protect the last dignity of datang. They are Yan Gaoqing and Yan Zhenqing.
02 Yan Gaoqing's uprising set off a baotang climax in Hebei
The Yan brothers are from a famous family, have a high cultural attainment, and write beautiful calligraphy. However, they were not undesirable vases, and when the An Shi rebels swept through the vast area north of the Yellow River, the two had already taken active action, pretending to perfunctory An Lushan's orders, and secretly accumulating strength on the other hand, rectifying the interior, and preparing to light a fire behind the rebels' butts to relieve guanzhong under the threat of An Lushan's heavy army group.
Among them, when his brother Yan Gaoqing, then serving as the Taishou of Changshan and the local regimental training envoy, was close to the lair of The An Shi rebels, his movements could especially attract the attention of An Lushan. However, An Lushan believed that Yan Gaoqing had been his old subordinate in Fan Yang (Fan Yang Hu Cao), and Yan Gaoqing could do a great job and have his own merits, so from the perspective of personal relations, Yan Gaoqing should be "loyal" to An Lushan, even if he could not be regarded as a close confidant of An Lushan.
(Portrait of Yan Gaoqing)
However, An Lushan quickly thought wrong, Yan Gaoqing did not think so, he felt that he could rise step by step in the official arena, all by relying on the grace of his ancestors Shi Tang, even if An Lushan had promoted himself, it was also because An Lushan himself had been heavily used by Tang Xuanzong. Otherwise, where did An Lushan come from to control the personnel system in Hebei?
Therefore, in the face of An Lushan's rebellion, Yan Gaoqing was disgusted in his heart, but he lacked elite soldiers in his hands, changshan had been peaceful for a long time, and the city was not strong enough to resist the rebel soldiers. Not to mention that he himself was in the vicinity of the enemy's old base. Yan Gaoqing was loyal to Tang, but the comparison of the objective strengths of the two sides made him hesitate a little, if he counterattacked, could he save the stormy Tang Empire?
The complication of the situation soon made Yan Gaoqing put aside his hesitation and wait-and-see, because the An Shi rebels had already occupied Luoyang and drove directly to Tongguan City. Once Tongguan is lost, Chang'an will become the mouth of An Lushan because there is no danger to defend. Just at this moment, Yan Gaoqing's brother, Yan Zhenqing, who was then the Taishou of the Plains, also sent someone to urge Yan Gaoqing to raise an army anyway.
Time was not waiting, Yan Gaoqing decided to take immediate action, and in the conversation with Changshi Yuan Luqian, he seemed to have a premonition of what kind of end he would usher in when he did so. The imperial court did not have time to take care of itself, and there were no extra troops to support Hebei, and although Guo Ziyi, Li Guangbi, and others had the responsibility of detouring the enemy army in Fanyang, their troops were thin and far from Changshan, and they could not provide favorable support to Yan Gaoqing in a short period of time.
As for Wang Chengye of Taiyuan, who was closest to Changshan, although he did not surrender to the rebels, his attitude was elusive, and at the critical time, whether he could fight side by side with Yan Gaoqing was still between the two sides. Therefore, Yan Gaoqing fired the first shot against the An Shi rebels, which was likely to incur cruel and bloody retaliation from the other side and attract the other side's firepower to himself. Of course, Yan Gaoqing's doing so would undoubtedly give Tongguan the necessary time to prepare for war, and if Tang Xuanzong could seize this time to strengthen Guanzhong's defenses, it would also make sense for Yan to do so.
However, later facts showed that Tang Xuanzong did not retreat and hold firm, calmly waiting for the support of the Tang troops on the periphery, but took Yang Guozhong's blind advice to attack and gave up Tongguan to the rebels who were already impatient.
Yan Gaoqing had already made up his mind, and immediately falsely transmitted An Lushan's orders, luring Li Qinzhuo and others who had been sent to monitor him from Tumen Pass, first entertaining them with wine and meat and singing and dancing, so that the other side could relax their vigilance, and then execute them at the banquet. An Lushan was confronted by Ge Shuhan under tongguan city, and feeling that his troops were insufficient, he sent Gao Mi and others back to Fanyang to move his troops, and as a result, he was also ambushed and killed by Yan Gaoqing.
Yan Gaoqing eliminated the problem of elbows and armpits, and immediately sent people to the counties of Hebei to mobilize local officials to kill the monitors sent by An Lushan and jointly protect The Tang. Under Yan Gaoqing's call, there were indeed many responders. Of the twenty-four counties in Hebei, which had been subjugated by the rebels, there were actually eighteen counties (including Yan Gaoqing's Changshan) anyway, causing a huge shock to the rear of An Lushan. It is said that even in Fanyang City, the old nest of An Lushan, there were generals who tried to submit to the Tang court. If it had not been detected by An Lushan's cronies, the An Shi Rebellion would have ended a few years earlier.
03 Chang Shan was unable to support himself alone, and Yan Gaoqing and others died generously
Yan Gaoqing's timely uprising forced An Lushan to draw the main force from the Tongguan front to help, and Tang Xuanzong's monarch seemed to be able to breathe a sigh of relief. The Fu Tang beacon that ignited in Hebei also made the emperor himself, who once lamented that Hebei had no loyal subjects, find some comfort.
However, the situation of Yan Gaoqing and others took a sharp turn for the worse at this time. Because although many counties in Hebei declared baotang, their strength was limited, and the city was basically untrained "unity soldiers" (that is, the tang dynasty militia), and they were fighting separately and did not form regiments, so they were not opponents of the Anshi rebels at all. Taking Changshan, where Yan Gaoqing was dead set on, for example, there were only more than 10,000 people in the city who could fight, how could this be the opponent of An Shi's rebels? King Chengye of Taiyuan, who had agreed with Yan Gaoqing to jointly fight against the rebels, was also watching from the sidelines at the moment, refusing to support Changshan, who was in danger. Ironically, Tang Ting also thought that Wang Chengye was the first to rebel against the rebels, and actually gave him an official and a knighthood.
Changshan's foreign aid was cut off, internally unsupported, and only eight days after Yan Gaoqing fired the first shot against An Shi's rebels, the main force of An Lushan's general Shi Siming conquered the city, captured Yan Gaoqing's men, and escorted them to Luoyang.
After Yan Gaoqing and the others arrived in Luoyang, they were not afraid, and they did not easily succumb to An Lushan's coercion and inducement. An Lushan originally wanted to use his own promotion of Yan Gaoqing in front of everyone to accuse the other party of "revenge for his kindness", and he could also pretend to be "noble", but he was scolded by Yan Gaoqing for a dog blood sprinkler. The reason is also very simple, everything about An Lushan was given by Tang Ting, and now An Lushan is eating Datang anti-Datang, where is the face to question Yan Gaoqing?
(An Lushan in the film and television drama)
In the face of Yan Gaoqing's angry rebuke, An Lushan became angry and tortured him to death, and Yan Gaoqing's family of more than thirty people was not spared. However, for all this, Yan Gaoqing actually had a premonition, he knew that he was fighting in the enemy's lair, naturally he had to bear the worst result, but he did not regret it - "The name of the eldest husband is not hanging on the history of Qingshi, An Yongsheng is born!" But to make death immortal, what hate! ”
As the saying goes, "I don't go to hell, who goes to hell?" Yan Gaoqing used his death to preserve the last dignity of Datang. He let the world know that in the darkest hour, there are still people who stand up and bravely go to the country, even if it is a moth to put out a fire and hit a stone with an egg. Perhaps, it is the existence of such a spirit that has allowed Chinese civilization to last for thousands of years and come to this day.
bibliography:
(Later Jin) Liu Xun et al. wrote the Old Book of Tang, Zhonghua Bookstore
(Song) Sima Guang wrote "Zizhi Tongjian", Zhonghua Bookstore
Li Biyan, Crisis and Reconstruction, Beijing Normal University Press