The Tang Dynasty, as the premier dynasty in ancient China, fell from the altar in a rebellion of An Shi, and An Lushan was the initiator of this rebellion. In only 23 years, he rose from a sheep thief to the peak of imperial power and personally ended the Kaiyuan dynasty, but it was Tang Xuanzong's favorite concubine Yang Yuhuan who helped him achieve all this. What's going on here?
An Lushan was not originally called by this name, but by The Mountain of Rolling Dragons, because he was not a Han Chinese but a Sogdian, and Mount An lushan meant "fighting", and later his mother remarried to An Yanyan, the brother of the right-handnight Lin general An Bozhuo, so An Lushan followed suit. But An Lushan did not like this stepfather, so he fled the Turks and came to Youzhou, because An Lushan was proficient in the languages of the six ethnic minorities, so he started a business of buying and selling intermediaries, and at the same time did some chicken and dog things. As a result, he was once caught stealing sheep, and then escorted to Zhang Shoujue, the governor of Youzhou at that time, and was ready to beat him to death, and at this time, An Lushan burst out of amazing wisdom.
He shouted, "The Doctor doesn't want to destroy the two yarrows?" What is killing Lushan! Doesn't that mean, lord, don't you want to destroy Tubo and Xi? So why kill me? Zhang Shoujue was immediately intrigued when he heard this, so he looked up and down An Lushan and found that he looked white, fat, and tiger-headed, so he took him under his command as a catcher, that is, a scout who went out to catch prisoners and came back to ask for information, and An Lushan also lived up to high expectations, and every time he went out, he could catch people. And in order to get Zhang Shoujue's promotion, he did not hesitate to diet to lose weight, because he was very fat at that time.
The old Book of Tang records that An Lushan's belly fell over his knees, which means that his stomach was drooping to the knee position, so he often needed to lift his shoulders to walk, and finally after some effort he finally reduced his weight to three hundred pounds, one pound in the Tang Dynasty was equal to about 660 grams, so An Lushan was still very fat at this time. Nevertheless, this still made Zhang Shoujue impressed him, so he adopted An Lushan as a righteous son, and later after Zhang Shoujue's death, An Lushan took over his position as the envoy of Pinglu Jiedushi, and two years later he took over Pei Kuan's Fanyang Jiedushi, and the reason why he was promoted so quickly? It all depended on three people, that is, Yang Guifei, Tang Xuanzong and Li Linfu.
Let's first look at his relationship with Yang Guifei and Tang Xuanzong, once An Lushan was sent to the capital for trial because of his defeat in battle, the then chancellor Zhang Jiuling felt that he was not a good person, so he decided to cut off his head, but Tang Xuanzong spared him the death penalty, and later An Lushan has been using treasure to bribe the officials who have come and gone, so they can say a few more good words in front of the emperor, so he attracted the attention of Tang Xuanzong. So he was summoned to Report to Tang Xuanzong, and at the banquet that followed, An Lushan showed his loyalty to Tang Xuanzong, saying that his subjects were too much to be favored and honored, and there was no other material to use as His Majesty's death. The meaning of these two sentences is that although I am from a foreign family and have no ability, I have been used by His Majesty, so I am willing to die for His Majesty.
It is reasonable to say that this kind of sneaky and horse-patting words can fool Tang Xuanzong, but An Lushan captured Tang Xuanzong by virtue of his foreign identity and cute appearance, and at the same time he naturally hooked up with Yang Guifei. So how did he hook up? The answer is dancing, the world knows that Yang Guifei can sing and dance, and she also has Hu ancestry, so An Lushan decided to use the Hu Xuan Dance to approach Yang Guifei, the so-called Hu Xuan Dance was originally a Hu woman following the beat of the drum beat in a circle, because its dance turned sharply like the wind. Commonly known as Hu Xuan, although this does not seem to be difficult, but everyone must not forget that An Lushan is a big fat man who weighs more than three hundred pounds, and the difficulty of you calling him to turn sharply like the wind is not generally high, but as the saying goes, there is no difficulty in the world, only afraid of people with hearts, in order to get appreciation for An Lushan, it is really open-minded.
He practiced the Hu Whirling Dance in private all day long, and finally practiced it for him, and he danced quite well, so good that Yang Guifei had to teach him to dance when he saw it, not only that, Tang Xuanzong was also a person who loved music, so he often played drums for An Lushan, so their relationship became closer. At this time, An Lushan thought that the time had come, so he made a surprising act, that is, to recognize Yang Guifei as a dry mother, and the outrageous thing was that Yang Guifei really agreed. But even more outrageous was still behind, after An Lushan became Yang Guifei's dry son, Tang Xuanzong naturally became his dry father, so he got the privilege of free access to the harem, so he ran to Find Yang Guifei as soon as he had the opportunity.
According to the "Zizhi Tongjian", since Lushan entered and exited the palace, or ate with the noble concubines or did not come out all night, there were quite scandals outside, and there was no doubt on the top, not only that, once when An Lushan had a birthday, he went up to the noble concubines to buy clothes, summoned Lushan into the forbidden place, and the noble concubines wrapped Lushan with splendid embroidery as a big swaddling, and went up to the joy of looking at themselves, giving the noble concubines to wash their gold and silver money, and giving Lushan a generous gift. The description of this passage is even more powerful, he said that when An Lushan celebrated his birthday, Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei bought him a lot of clothes and summoned him into the palace to celebrate his birthday, and at the same time held a ceremony called "washing three" for him, the specific content was to take a bath, only to see more than three hundred pounds of An Lushan shed a fine light, and then lay down in the large bath, and then Yang Guifei personally bathed him; after the bath, Yang Guifei wrapped An Lushan in a large bath towel and sent him into the eight-wheeled caravan, and then she sat in it herself. And as the palanquin moved, she also coaxed up her big baby An Lushan, and while patting him, she also shouted affectionately to Lu'er Lu'er.
But you should know that An Lushan is 16 years older than Yang Guifei, and on the other side, Tang Xuanzong is not willing to show weakness, instead of getting angry after hearing this news, he moved a small horse to sit next to him and laughed, and even rewarded Yang Guifei with "washing money", and An Lushan also received the reward. But even this is not the peak of An Lushan's acting skills, his best acting skills have twice, once he entered the palace and always worshiped Yang Guifei and then tang Xuanzong, and when Tang Xuanzong asked him why, he said that the subject was a man, a mother and then a father, Tang Xuanzong was immediately impressed by his honest and generous appearance, and then Yang Guozhong falsely accused An Lushan of rebellion, he said to Tang Xuanzong that you summon him to the palace now he absolutely did not dare to come, but after a few days An Lushan really came to the palace. At that time, as soon as he saw Tang Xuanzong, he cried and told him that his subjects were illiterate, his majesty was not inferior to a minister, and he was killed by Yang Guozhong, which meant that I had no culture and could not understand the edict, so I was used by Yang Guozhong to kill me, and as a result, Tang Xuanzong not only did not blame him, but also promoted him to the position of left servant, which was equivalent to the position of prime minister at that time.
Since then, once someone gossiped about An Lushan, they would be arrested by Tang Xuanzong and sent to An Lushan for disposal, and at this point Tang Xuanzong had completely let down his guard against An Lushan, but this could not help but make people wonder, was Tang Xuanzong really so stupid? Of course not, and this brings us to Li Linfu, the last nobleman of An Lushan, who was also the prime minister at the time, and in order to consolidate his power, he proposed to Tang Xuanzong the policy of reusing Han shi and foreigners, and the reason he gave was that Han Shi and foreigners were of low origin, so they would not be controlled by external forces, and this was right for Tang Xuanzong, who had ascended to the throne through a coup.
So at his behest, Li Linfu began to vigorously exclude the Han people, and supported a large number of foreigners, and An Lushan was his most proud work, according to the "Old Book of Tang An Lushan Biography", Li Linfu was the prime minister, the courtiers did not dare to resist the courtesy, Lushan Cheng'en Shen, the entry was not very broken, Lin Fu ordered Wang Fu, Lu Xiang worshiped Even, Lu Shan was terrified, the waist was gradually curved, and Wang Hao's position at that time was comparable to That of Li Linfu. However, he was respectful to Li Linfu, which made An Lushan realize that Li Linfu was not easy to provoke, and it turned out that this was indeed the case, and in the subsequent conversation, every time he talked to Him, he knew his feelings and said it first, Lushan thought that he was a god, and every time he saw Lin Fu, he was sweating in the middle of winter.
When An Lushan and Li Linfu spoke in this passage, every time the other party could guess what he was going to say and speak first, which made An Lushan feel that Li Linfu was a god, so every time he saw Li Linfu, even in winter, he would be scared out of a cold sweat, so An Lushan naturally became Li Linfu's confidant, and this was the guarantee for him to travel unimpeded in the middle of the dynasty, and for Tang Xuanzong, An Lushan was his weight against the crown prince Li Heng? Because the power of the crown prince Li Heng was getting bigger and bigger at that time, Tang Xuanzong was afraid that he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, so he decided to support An Lushan, so after that An Lushan became the envoy of the three towns, holding 200,000 soldiers and horses, you must know that at that time, the entire Tang Dynasty was only 600,000 troops, he alone mastered a third, but in the end, neither Li Linfu nor Tang Xuanzong thought that An Lushan was not afraid of anyone from beginning to end, and he brazenly launched the An Shi Rebellion after holding heavy troops, and drove Tang Xuanzong off the throne in one fell swoop. Her dry mother, Yang Guifei, was also given death because of him.
Although Li Linfu fell ill and died, he was later falsely accused of rebellion by Yang Guozhong, and ended up being cut down and buried, and the fate of his descendants being exiled, and the unpredictable words of the people's hearts were vividly reflected in An Lushan, who repeatedly disguised himself as a silly and honest image, and was well versed in the purposes of Tang Xuanzong and Li Linfu and others.