Author: Yang Zheng
This is a country that is poor and miserable after the war, where wives and children are scattered and waiting for rejuvenation.
It was the Tang Dynasty that operated dismally after the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty of Bai Juyi's "Selling Charcoal", and the Tang Dynasty of Du Fu's "Three Officials", "Three Distinctions", and "Soldier Carriage Line".
What is particularly bitter is that the protagonist of this article is also a sinister and vicious courtier, who uses power for personal gain, frames Zhongliang, makes the entire people unhappy, and suffers from the scorn of future generations.
He is Lu Qi.
Lu Qi (鲁杞), courtesy name Ziliang, was a native of Lingchang, Huazhou (present-day Hua County, Henan).
He was the grandson of Lu Huaishen, the chancellor known for his incorruptibility in the early days of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, and the son of Lu Yi in the imperial history. His father was killed by rebels for defending against the rebels of An Lushan, so his family enjoyed the reputation of "loyalty".
Even though the family is from a good background, what is missing is that Lu Qi's appearance is relatively ugly, how ugly is it? The 135th volume of the Book of Later Tang records that "the appearance of the qi is ugly and the color is like blue, and everyone looks at it as a ghost." "Ugly looks because of the gift of parents, but the sinister heart is purely the result of their own acquired nature."
Lu Qi never pays attention to food and clothing, his life is very simple, his eloquence is very good, it can be said that he has a very affinity.
In the fourteenth year of Tianbao, the emperor and his courtiers remembered the honor and loyalty of his grandfather and father, and promoted him to the throne, serving as an official in the dynasty, and Yin Supplement was appointed as a soldier of The Qing Dynasty to join the army, and was recruited by Shuofang Jiedushi to serve as the secretary of shuofang's government, but was later dismissed from his official post due to illness.
Not long after, he was promoted to the rank of Hongxu Cheng (洪胪丞) and was sent to serve as the Assassin of Chungju, and when he went to meet Wei Boyu, the envoy of Jiedu, who was in charge of Chungju, Wei Boyu saw that he looked ugly and did not want to see him, and he saw that the situation in this place was not good, and he pretended to be ill and resigned. After his return to Chang'an, he was appointed by the imperial court as the official Langzhong (吏部郎中), and was soon sent to be the Assassin of Yu Prefecture (虢州刺史).
The days of embarking on the career path did not go well, an ugly and inferior child, he walked with his head down, more and more people in front of him, he looked up, the eyes in the crowd, there was compassion, there was expectation, there was warmth, there was some, seeing his face, could not help but sigh, or smack.
What a person feels is often not what reality has given him, but what he has in his heart. Only because he was inferior and sensitive to the extreme, even a speck of dust could make him penetrate his heart.
He seems to be beautiful, but in fact he is a fragile mess, this little man, because of inferiority, no matter how smooth the road, he will walk up, it will be extra hard.
After he entered the career, because the desire for power was very strong, he went to great lengths to please the emperor, usually showing a loyal appearance, so few people were wary of him, only the general Guo Ziyi was wary of him, according to legend, once Lu Ziyi went to visit Guo Ziyi, Guo Ziyi let all the maids retreat and come alone to meet him, after which the family asked him why he did this, he replied: Lu Qi looks ugly, the maids will inevitably laugh and taunt when they see him, he is fierce and cunning, and the revenge psychology is relatively strong. Once he gains power, we are afraid that there will be a disaster of annihilation, and the facts that follow have proved that Guo Ziyi was right.
In the first year of Jianzhong, Lu Qi played Tang Dezong's words: There are 3,000 official pigs in this prefecture, which has caused a certain adverse impact on the lives of local residents, Tang Dezong ordered him to move pigs to Tongzhou, and Lu Qi also said: The people of Tongzhou are your people like Your Majesty, and these 3,000 pigs will still become a scourge there, so it is better to give these 3,000 pigs to the local people.
Tang Dezong was very touched, so he said: Being an official in Yuzhou but worrying about the living conditions of other people, this is a person with the talent of the prime minister! Therefore, Emperor Dezong of Tang issued an edict to reward 3,000 official pigs to the local poor, and it was because of this incident that Lu Qi was recalled to the court and took up the post of Yushi Zhongcheng.
Since entering the dynasty, Lu Qi was very good at guessing Tang Dezong's thoughts, and it just so happened that Liu Yan, the chancellor of the dynasty at that time, was mistakenly killed by Yang Yan, and he gradually attracted the attention of Tang Dezong, and a year later he was promoted to the rank of Imperial Shi Dafu, and then he actually worshiped the chancellor, and the people in the dprk were very surprised by this, because it was too unexpected by them.
Lu Qi, who became the prime minister, did not put his mind on governing the country's government, but specifically attacked those who had once despised him, as long as he was not careful, it would cause him to retaliate and even lead to the disaster of killing. Because he was good at foxes and tigers, the ministers could not do anything about him.
Since Yang Yan, who was also the prime minister, looked down on him in the past and now, and became the first target of his attack, he promoted his close confidant Dali Siqing Yan Yin to be the imperial master, and then the two of them dealt with Yang Yan together, eventually framing Yang Yan to death. He also expelled another prime minister, Zhang Yi, from the central government and served as Fengxiang. Du Zhi's envoy Du You was also slandered by him, and eventually became the Assassin of Suzhou, and the famous calligrapher Yan Zhenqing and the former chancellor Li Yuyou were framed and killed by her.
Therefore, in Lu Qi's career path, all the way is "indiscriminate harm": Yang Yan implements the two tax laws to benefit the country and the people? Steal the limelight from me? Then he black material, directly framed! Yan Yin helped Lu Qi get rid of Yang Yan? But he also won the trust of Tang Dezong, and exiled Feizhou on the charge of fabricating crimes! Li Yu is going to go out of the mountains to become the prime minister again? Although he and Lu Qi did not have a conflict, he wanted to seize Lu Qi's power! Then he praised him in front of Tang Dezong, saying that he was full of literary and martial arts, and that he was suitable for sending an envoy to Tubo. He called this old and depressed old minister, who died of illness on the way to Tubo.
During his political service, in order to fill the military materials needed by Emperor Dezong of Tang to use troops against the town, he began to extort rich people such as Shangjia, saying that the property of shangjia and other people exceeded tens of millions, and the excess should be used for military expenses, and those merchants did not have so much property, so they had to sell their fields, slaves, and even borrow money to repay the tax they had paid. They complained about this, but Lu Qi ignored it, because this move seriously endangered commercial circulation, and finally let Tang Dezong know about it, and finally issued an edict and stopped.
Seeing that this method was no longer feasible, Lu Qi came up with methods such as collecting interstitial racks and removing the strange tax to increase the tax. Due to the favoritism and fraud of the officials in charge, a lot of taxes were stolen, resulting in less than half of the taxes entering the national treasury as before, and the most serious thing was to cause the people's resentment to boil over, which triggered Zhu Zhu's "jingshi change." The rebels soon invaded Chang'an City, and Tang Dezong had to flee to Fengtian. The rebels shouted in Chang'an City: From now on, there will be no more money from merchants, no quarrels, and no taxes for strangers, and this rebellion has been supported by merchants and people.
Shuofang Jiedu made Li Huaiguang eventually suppress the uprising and wanted to meet Tang Dezong, but Lu Qi was afraid that he would let Tang Dezong kill him, so he persuaded Tang Dezong not to receive him, and after Li Huaiguang received the edict, he was very angry, and even raised the anti-flag and joined forces with Zhu Zhu. Under the pressure of public opinion, Tang Dezong demoted Lu Qi to a remote place to become a Sima (司馬). In the first year of the Xingyuan Dynasty, Lu Qi fell ill and died in Lizhou.
Lu Qi, who committed great treachery and great evil, framed good ministers, brought calamity to the country and the people, and boiled with anger.
He finally tasted the consequences and his life came to an end.
The year was 785 AD, more than 1200 years ago.
There are countless people in Lu Qi's pits, but the one who wants to talk about "pitming" the most is his immediate boss: Tang Dezong Li Shi. So much so that the Northern Song Dynasty politician Wang Anshi sighed: Emperor Dezong used Lu Qi's disciples to dredge up the land, and his immortals were fortunate to have stalled such a pit goods as Lu Qi, and if you did not perish, you were lucky. Lu Qi gives everyone a treacherous and evil face, only he will pretend in front of you, and it is you Li Shi who pits it.
The treacherous and evil people have mutilated Zhongliang, and this kind of thing has existed since ancient times; what is surprising is that Dezong is the king of man, but he abandons Zhongliang and appoints villains, listens to rumors, so that the country will be destroyed, and there is still no true face of Lu Qi, which is really sad!