After the destruction of the Liang Dynasty in World War I, the biggest problem Li Cunxun faced was: How to take over all this?
If it's a game, it's all very simple: the land is yours, the army is yours, just label it.
The problem is that in reality, in an area of millions of square kilometers, hundreds of thousands of troops, how do you control it? If you lack sufficient control, even if these regions and armies are all labeled as yours, it is not yours.
Whose empire is the Empire? Theoretically speaking, nature is the emperor's, the problem is that the big men of the clan town and the elders and courtiers also want to share a piece of the pie.
If these people were divided too much, the empire would become an empire shared by the emperor, the lord of the clan, and the elders and courtiers. If these people were to divide a little more, the emperor could become a puppet, and even have to abdicate and give way.
How to effectively control the big men of the clan town, the elders and the important ministers, and the military and political bigwigs?
The means that Li Cunxun thought of were to continue to strengthen the power of the court (empresses, eunuchs, and servants).
In fact, when Li Keyong had just died, the big men and senior ministers of the clan town were all foolish, and Li Cunxun relied on the court power represented by the empress dowager and eunuchs to attack the elderly ministers (kill Li Kening) and consolidate his power.
In the beginning, Emperor Wu rewarded Rong Gong, many animals and sins, clothes and ceremonies such as concubines for six or seven generations, than the heir king, old teeth and older teeth, and his subordinates were strong soldiers, gathering day and night to discuss, wanting to plot chaos. and Emperor Shaotong, or strong points, depression and indignation, and abandonment of diseases... In February, he ordered The Emperor to save the Zhangfu Jia to curse Ke Ning, so as to calm his difficulties.
Since there is a successful precedent, Li Cunxun will inevitably habitually continue to paint the scoop according to the gourd. Unfortunately, Li Cunxun was screwed up this time, because the result of his reuse of court power was to provoke the big men of the clan town, the elders and the military and political leaders to complain, so he overturned the ship in a vague way.
After the unification of the north, Li Cunxun was on top, and there were about five kinds of forces united in the center of him, from the relationship between relatives and distances, we briefly introduced these five forces in turn.
The first force was the fangzhen gangster, represented by the warlord Li Maozhen of Fengxiang in Shaanxi, Zhu Youqian, a warlord in the Shanxi River, and Wang Du, a warlord in Dingzhou, Hebei.
Although these three forces submitted to Li Cunxun, no one had to admit that they were still warlords. Because these three military and political groups have never been forcefully reorganized, they have always maintained a relatively independent position.
My definition of the warlord group is that their power was not given by Li Cunxun, nor was it given by Li Keyong and Zhu Wen's father and son, but their power was generated in a self-contained power group at the time of the world's great chaos, and it was not completely transformed by Zhu Wen's father and son and Li Ke's father and son. In other words, they are always the forces of their own system.
The Weibo region, because of its basic transformation, is no longer a warlord group in the strict sense. But this old feudal power, if there is a wind and grass, will be revived. In fact, the force that finally triggered Li Cunxun's destruction was Wei Bo's tooth soldiers.
Although the Luoyang Clique represented by Zhang Quanyi, under the transformation of Zhu Wen, was no longer a warlord in the strict sense because Li Cunxun had fixed the capital luoyang, it was obviously unshakable as a deep-rooted land snake in Luoyang. Therefore, Li Cunxun's wife power fell to the opposition, but directly recognized Zhang Quanyi as a dry father.
Of course, when Li Cunxun unified the north, after more than thirty years of annexation wars, the big men of the clan town were no longer in the mainstream. At least for Li Cunxun, the most threatening force at that time was no longer the Power of Fanzhen.
The second force was the Liang Dynasty general, represented by Duan Ning, Huo Yanwei and others.
Because the Liang Dynasty was decapitated and destroyed, and then swept almost bloodlessly through the entire area south of the Yellow River, these senior Liang Dynasty generals all led a complete group army to surrender to Li Cunxun, and Li Cunxun could not completely strip these people of their power for various reasons.
The main way for Li Cunxun to rein in this power was to respect their former vested interests, and to give the high-ranking generals of the Liang Dynasty the surname of Li. Duan Ning later became Li Shaoqin, Huo Yanwei later became Li Shaozhen, Yuan Xiang later became Li Shao'an, Du Yanqiu later became Li Shaoqian, Kang Yanxiao later became Li Shaochen, and Wen Tao later became Li Shaochong.
Speaking of this, a brief introduction to the Liang Dynasty general Wen Tao (Li Shaochong), who was really not a great figure in the fifth dynasty of the Tang Dynasty, but this elder brother was definitely a well-known figure in history.
In the chaotic world, the place occupied by Wen Tao was the location of the tang emperor's tomb, and this old brother was also an evil person who was not afraid of heaven, so when he sat in the local area, he dug up the tomb of the tang emperor over and over again.
Tao was in the town for seven years, and the Tang Tombs in its territory were excavated... But the Qianling wind and rain cannot be sent.
Because Wen Tao committed such a heinous crime, when some people tried to attack the Liang Dynasty generals, they had to plan to start with Wen Tao: We revived the Tang Empire, but Wen Tao dug up the Tomb of the Tang Dynasty, how can we stay? Such people should be killed!
In this regard, Li Cunxun means that when I entered Bieliang, I had forgiven all the sins of liang dynasty generals, so how could I turn over the old accounts?
The reason why Li Cunxun handled the Liang Dynasty generals in this way. Probably for three reasons.
First, there were too many Liang troops who surrendered, and all of them surrendered as an institution, and if they were fully reorganized, it was likely to cause many unnecessary rebellions.
Second, if these Liang armies are reorganized on a large scale, it may cause the power represented by the elders and heavy ministers to suddenly expand, thus making Li Cunxun lose the power to control the elders and heavy ministers.
Third, leaving these Liang troops behind can be used as pawns to contain the old forces of the Later Tang. In fact, Li Cunxun had always used this kind of power to contain the old forces of the Later Tang Dynasty.
The most classic thing is that Li Siyuan left the town of Youzhou, and his deputy was Huo Yanwei, the general of the Liang Dynasty. Of course, the final result was that Li Siyuan and Huo Yanwei cooperated together, and the relationship became increasingly close, and when Li Siyuan rebelled, Huo Yanwei became the most important assistant.
When Emperor Mingzong wanted to go north to Changshan, Yan Wei and An Zhongzhi pleaded to go to Que. From Luoyang, Yan Wei led Qing Xiang to persuade him to enter the Zhide Palace. Between the ten days, internal and external affairs are decided by Yan Wei.
At the last moment, in order to restrain Li Siyuan, Li Cunxun wanted to enable Liang Chao to surrender Duan Ning, but seeing Duan Ning's sinister look, Li Cunxun finally found that if Duan Ning was reused, I am afraid that it would be more dangerous to use Li Siyuan.
Zhao Zaili rebelled, Shao Hong asked to use condensation to solicit, Zhuang Zong made the condensation strip play the strategy, and the condensation please was biased, all of which were his old party, and Zhuang Zong doubted it, but stopped.
Therefore, Li Siyuan was used to suppress the rebellion, and as a result, everyone knew that Li Siyuan arrived in Hebei and, with the support of Huo Yanwei, quickly pushed and half pushed south to capture Bieliang.
The third force is the Elder Heavy Minister, represented by Li Siyuan.
My definition of the elders and ministers is that they had a pivotal position before Li Cunxun became the King of Jin. In other words, in the era of Li Keyong, they began to put their heads on the waistband of their pants and followed Li Keyong to fight the world; after Li Keyong's death, they began to fight the world with Li Cunxun.
Based on people's most simple view of history, when the interests of the empire are distributed, this force should be given priority. But in fact, this power was often the power that the emperor most wanted to eliminate. After Zhao Kuangyin came to power, it was with this kind of strength that he was cleared out in large numbers that he finally completed the centralization of power.
After Li Cunxun took office, the most important goal to achieve was actually to clear out this kind of power. It was only in the time of Li Cunxun that this kind of power was still very powerful, so the result of Li Cunxun's suspicion and cleansing up this kind of power was that he was ruined and died.
We can imagine that if Zhao Kuangyin wanted to clean up the elderly ministers after becoming emperor, and as a result, let the elders and important ministers kill him, Zhao Kuangyin would definitely be synonymous with arrogance.
Because Zhao Kuangyin at that time did not even unify the five northern provinces, Youyun Sixteen Prefectures were controlled by the Khitans; even the area centered on Jinyang was still controlled by the Northern Han Dynasty; jiangnan was controlled by various separatist regimes. In this context, Zhao Kuangyin did not work together with the Elders and Heavy Ministers to work together on the ZTE Empire, but he was full of suspicion and cleaning up the Elders and Heavy Lords, what was he trying to do?
The problem was that Zhao Kuangyin won. Therefore, he was jealous of the elders and heavy ministers, and cleaned up the elders and heavy ministers out of the game, and people thought that this was the performance of his chess moves. It is even inevitable to feel that if Zhao Kuangyin's previous emperors also knew how to play like this, the era of military intervention in politics would have ended a long time ago.
The problem is that in the face of power, there is no warmth to speak of, and no one will easily hand over power. You want to cut the power of the elders and ministers, first weigh your own strength, otherwise the elders and ministers will turn their faces, and you will definitely not be able to cry.
The emperor felt that the elderly ministers threatened him, so he wanted the elders and heavy ministers to take a generous salary to retreat to the second line; when the elders and heavy ministers felt that the emperor could not represent their own interests, they also wanted to send the emperor a pension and let the emperor return to the harem for the elderly?
Doing this kind of thing, if one party has absolute strength, it can naturally be achieved in your business, if it is only slightly dominant, it also wants to do this, except to take a knife to cut the other party, as if there is no other choice. Because on this kind of issue, who will easily accept defeat?
The fourth force is the upstart that Li Cunxun pulled up, represented by Guo Chongtao, Feng Dao, and Kong Qian.
Is this power completely reliable? Obviously also unreliable. At least Guo Chongtao is not reliable at all. Because based on the interests of the previous groups, they will definitely hope that the Later Tang will become a two-headed pattern, at least not that Li Cunxun will monopolize power.
The key is that in this context, Guo Chongtao is willing to play the role of restricting Li Cunxun, so Guo Chongtao once had the strength to compete with Li Cunxun; and often openly sang against Li Cunxun, but Li Cunxun could not treat him like this.
Chongtao is also a general, reinstating the festival, taking the world as his duty, the power of the people, and filling the door with cars and horses.
Li Cunxun finally plucked up the courage to kill Guo Chongtao (the empress took his place), and the situation was finally out of control. In a sense, guo Chongtao's death was an important reason for the collapse of Li Cunxun's power base.
What kind of person Feng Dao is, we all know, although he is not as ambitious as Guo Chongtao and is bent on fighting li Cunxun, but everyone knows that expecting Feng Dao to be loyal to Li Cunxun is really looking for the right person.
Kong Qian has always been loyal to Li Cunxun, but because Kong Qian is doing dirty and tiring work, Li Cunxun also appropriately draws a line with him. In this context, although Kong Qian has always been in power and opposition, he has always been the deputy of the empire in charge of the economy.
In the face of this situation, Kong Qian was mad and even wanted to pick a pick, but he was still only a deputy. Later, it was easy to get into a full-time position, but whoever talked about Kong Qian was also a great traitor, so after Li Cunxun's death, Li Siyuan directly destroyed Kong Qian.
When Emperor Zhuangzong first built a large number, Qian claimed to be a tenant envoy, while Guo Chongtao used Wei Bo to observe the judge Zhang Xian as an envoy, with Qian as his deputy. Humility has been humbled. Even if Emperor Zhuang destroys Liang... And the prime minister Douluge sentenced the rent to yong. Humble disappointed... With King Zhengyan of The Xingtang Dynasty as his envoy. Humble and indignant, because of the dismissal... Having said that he was sick and did not do anything, Jing Jin thought that he was speaking, but he was right-handed, and he took humility as a rented envoy, and gave "rich wealth to support the country's heroes" and deeds.
One of the characteristics of the upstarts that Li Cunxun single-handedly promoted was that they were mainly civilian officials.
Of course, later the feudal era gradually ended, mainly because this power became more and more powerful, and finally all kinds of power in the empire were taken over by them, so the military boss became a simple military supervisor, and the administration, economy, and personnel had nothing to do with them; the point was that even if it was military, there were always civilian officials next to them to restrain them.
The fifth force is the power of the court.
Li Cunxun's initial success was achieved with the support of the power of the court. In fact, when Li Cunxun was the King of Jin, his birth mother, concubine, and eunuch all sat in the most important positions in the center of power.
Based on the power of inertia, Li Cunxun would continue to advance along this road later. Of course, this road has developed to this point, and it has more or less entered a dead end.
After the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Emperor, no matter how much he was criticized, trusted and reused the power of eunuchs without exception, and the key was that he relied on this bizarre and infamous method to give the Tang Empire more than a hundred years of life.
And Li Cunxun can unify the world, also because he has been reusing a eunuch named Zhang Chengye.
But by this time, it had already entered a dead end, at least Li Cunxun used this way to control the empire, and soon failed, the key is that in the following hundreds of years, no one tried to control the world in this way.
There is no essential difference between the politics of the people and the politics of eunuchs. Eunuch politics means that many high-ranking officials are selected from among eunuchs; the politics of the eunuchs means that many high-ranking officials are selected from among the eunuchs.
We think this politics is absurd because we always think that these people can have senior positions without having to learn any professional knowledge or have any specific resume. In fact, these people also need to learn professional knowledge, and they need to have enough resume, performance, performance. Otherwise they are only worthy of doing chores.
When the emperor reused eunuchs and eunuchs, eunuchs and eunuchs entered the fast lane of the political arena. Because they could have close contact with the emperor, they would have more opportunities to express themselves; and Li Cunxun was bent on selecting officials from such people, and naturally he was willing to give them more opportunities to express themselves, and as long as they achieved results, they would be promoted immediately.
At that time, the increasingly mature imperial examination system was, to put it bluntly, and there was no essential difference between eunuch politics and the politics of the people.
It is just that where the imperial examination system is placed, it is also relatively tall, because the people who are in power of the imperial examination not only control the power of the empire, but also control the discourse power of the empire. And eunuch politics and the politics of the people, where to put it, are also a bit off the table, because this kind of person will no longer have the right to speak in history.
For similar reasons, on the eve of the withdrawal of the imperial examination system from the stage of history, we look at various articles criticizing the imperial examination system, the absurdity and absurdity of the imperial examination system, and the eunuch politics and the politics of the people, that is, the difference between difficult brothers and difficult brothers. Because some people who are dead readers and dead books have entered the fast lane of the political arena and quickly become the heads of various fields of the empire.
The imperial examination system can strengthen the imperial power, which is the same principle that eunuch politics and the politics of the servants can strengthen the imperial power. That is, more and more people who could only rely on imperial power began to fully grasp the central and local power of the empire.
These people, apart from their stubborn loyalty to the emperor, seem to have a hard time having a good tomorrow; it is also difficult for them to accumulate the power to compete with the imperial power.
It is inevitable that the imperial examination system is a bit harsh in this way, but as long as you look at the various articles mocking the imperial examination system after the end of the Qing Dynasty, you will probably know that my statement is really not too mean.
However, in any case, the emergence and maturity of the imperial examination system has gradually reduced the personnel system that relies on blood, nepotism, and mutual praise and recommendation to a marginal position. No matter how much we criticize the imperial examination system, there is a fact that cannot be denied, the imperial examination system has selected more famous ministers, and it has given the lower class more room for upward mobility, and has made the empire more and more stable.
Many people believe that Li Cunxun was confused and destroyed the country, usually because under the imperial power politics, he always exaggerated the power of the emperor himself. Therefore, it is inevitable to think that as long as Li Cunxun has the IQ of a normal person, he can do the same.
In fact, under the power structure at that time, it was difficult for Li Cunxun to see the way out. Because no matter how hard he tries, it seems that he can only share the world with all kinds of military and political leaders. But this pattern, it seems, is also a very dangerous mode of existence.
Of course, if Li Cunxun is willing to admit this pattern, he can definitely exist for some time longer, but Li Cunxun hopes to solve this problem quickly and chaotically, and as a result, he just makes his predicament bigger and bigger.
As we said earlier, Li Cunxun gambled wildly all the way in front of him, and every time he was smooth sailing and won victory like divine help. But from now on, he seems to be starting to take a backhand, because every step he tries, he will force more and more people to his opposite. When there were more and more people on the opposite side, these people suddenly exerted their strength at the same time, and Li Cunxun could not even find the north at that time.
When Li Cunxun personally led the army again for the last time, he finally found that there were fewer and fewer people behind him, and at the last moment, the people around him also betrayed him, so Li Cunxun was finally killed by the people around him.
When his son led the Shu army and tried to return to the Central Plains to suppress the rebellion, he also encountered a similar dilemma, in short, there were fewer and fewer people willing to stand behind him, and finally he could only choose suicide in despair.
Looking at this kind of bridge section, some people may always be tempted to think, since he has the heart to die, why not lead the army to fight a final decisive battle with Li Siyuan? The question is, does he have the determination to become a ren if he does not succeed, and what about the people who follow behind him?
Suicide is sometimes a more decent way of dying, because there are fewer and fewer people following behind you, and how much meaning you can make if you hold on, it is nothing more than to make your death more ugly.
At this time, Li Cunxun was basically the same as the dilemma faced by Zhu Wen when he was in his heyday.
Should he strengthen centralization? Simply looking, it is obviously a must. Because the consequences of not strengthening the centralization of power can be seen in the late Tang Dynasty, that is, the endless division of the feudal towns, and it can also be seen in the five generations that it is as easy to change the emperor as it is to change a manager.
The problem is that you really want to strengthen the centralization of power, and the consequences may be unbearable for you.
In general, the predecessors planted trees and the latter were cool.
Although the efforts of Zhu Wen and Li Cunxun have made them face an insurmountable rebound, the relevant achievements can obviously be preserved to the greatest extent when the productive forces develop to a certain stage.
Future rulers, if they continue along this path, will be able to make the centralization of power stronger and stronger. Moreover, the emperors who later ascended to the throne also continued to work hard along this road, and when Zhao Kuangyin came to the throne, he gently pushed it, and the problem that plagued the late Tang Dynasty and the five dynasties for two hundred years was solved.
Based on the heroic historical view, all this is really amazing, magical enough to make people feel that Zhao Kuangyin's predecessors are brainless people, because such a simple move has never been thought of.