Two Jin Dynasty And Northern and Southern Dynasties Character Chronicle - (Eighty-Six) Xiao Gang
In the previous story, we have already talked about the Liang Dynasty princes and nephews who are highly compatible with the characters in the "Langya List",Xiao Tong, the Prince of Zhaoming, and Xiao Zhengde, the Prince of Linhe. Their destination is similar to that of Xiao Jingyu and Xiao Jinghuan. So, what about Xiao Jingxuan, who has always played a supporting role or even a funny role in the play?
Historically, after Xiao Tong's death, his half-brother Xiao Gang succeeded to the throne as crown prince. And this prince eventually became the prototype of the prince in the high-scoring drama a thousand years later.
After Xiao Tong's death, who to appoint as the heir became the elder difficulty of Emperor Wu of Liang. At that time, he was already sixty-seven years old, and he had personally experienced the endless calamities left by the former emperor Xiao Zhao because of his grandson. Therefore, after thinking about it, he decided not to make Xiao Tong's son a grandson, but to make Xiao Gang the crown prince.
It should be said that Xiao Yan's approach successfully avoided the catastrophe after his own death--because the Hou Jing Rebellion had already broken out before he died.
During Hou Jing's rebellion, Xiao Gang, who volunteered to be responsible for the jiankang garrison, behaved extremely mediocrely, and made mistakes in key decisions, and even his father Xiao Yan was inferior to him on the issue of war and peace: when Hou Jing pretended to make peace, he could still angrily rebuke "peace is better than death", and all Xiao Gang could do was to promise and coax the old man to agree to Hou Jing's peace conditions.
When Hou Jing, as a victor, made great strides into Jiankang City, he maintained a calm and humble attitude and chose to enter the palace to see the emperor and the crown prince.
In front of the imperial court, Hou Jing and Xiao Yan father and son staged a movie of three people:
Before facing the saint, Hou Jing first sent someone to confess his sins, saying that he had been deceived by the adulterers, so he led his troops into the court to alarm the holy car and asked the emperor to forgive the crime. Xiao Yan replied only one sentence: "Where is Hou Jing?" He could have come to see me. ”
When he came to the imperial palace, Hou Jing knelt on the ground, sweating and not daring to move. Xiao Yan said, "Sir has been in the army for a long time." It's a pity that there's nothing to reward you for! Hou Jingzhan trembled and could not answer.
Xiao Yan asked again, "Where are you from?" Is the wife okay? Did you come with me? ”
Hou Jing still couldn't say it, or his subordinates replied: "Hou Wang's men and women have all been killed by Eastern Wei, and he has defected to His Majesty alone." ”
Xiao Yan smiled, "How many people were there before you crossed the river?" ”
Hou Jing came to the spirit: "A thousand people." ”
"How many people were there before you broke the city?" "One hundred thousand!"
"How many people do you have under you now?" "The coast of the land, is there something that is not mine?"
At this point, It was time for Xiao Yan to be silent. Hou Jing also became arrogant from the beginning of the only promise, walked out of the emperor's palace with his head held high, and went to visit the prince.
Seeing Xiao Gang, Hou Jing was still the same set of words that were blinded by the adulterers to disturb the Holy Driver, and Xiao Gang's words were much sharper than his father's:
The prince should see it with courtesy, why should it be so!
In just ten words, Hou Jing was so frightened that he fell to his knees and prostrated his head. The prince asked him a few questions, but did not answer any of them, and finally slipped out of the prince's bedchamber in a gray manner.
Two months later, Xiao Yan, who was seriously ill and could not be treated, finally died on the night of a month. When he was dying, he wanted to drink a mouthful of honey to moisten his throat, but he couldn't do it. At the time of his death, he only made two sounds of "lotus, lotus", and there was no last word.
Xiao Yan's death bears a striking resemblance to the death of Yuan Shu at the end of the Han Dynasty. Yuan Shu, the false emperor, was so angry that he caused siege by the princes of the four directions; at the end of Xiao Yan's reign, the gap between the rich and the poor had reached the brink of social collapse, and was finally vented by a great riot led by Hou Jing and with the participation of the whole people.
Hou Jing suppressed the news of Xiao Yan's death and did not send him to death until seven days later. Logically, Xiao Tong was also promoted from prince to emperor, and was known as Emperor Jianwen of Liang.
At emperor Jianwen's enthronement ceremony, Hou Jing made such an alliance with him:
There is no doubt that a subject will not fail his majesty from now on, and his majesty will not fail his majesty, nor will his majesty bear his subjects.
In the ancient times when the monarchs were extremely defensive, this sentence was already extremely beyond the courtesy of the monarchs, and Hou Jing did not even abide by this sentence, which can be regarded as repaying Xiao Yan's words and not believing it.
Xiao Gang reigned for a total of two years. In the past two years, his political measures have basically only been to give Hou Jing a rubber stamp, and he is powerless to stop Hou Jing from committing evil, and he can only watch the people and even his own daughter become Hou Jing's playthings.
At that time, Jiankang had gone from being the first city in the East (Luoyang had been almost destroyed) into a ruin. When the Baekje state on the Korean Peninsula came to congratulate the emperor of the suzerainty on the throne, they could not help but weep over the destruction of Gangnam:
The valley of the year is not ascended, the people are in exile, and the dead are on the ground. Father and son join hands in the rivers and lakes, or brothers want to be in the mountains. The flowers are full of flowers, the roots and leaves of the grass, and the withering of the trees. Although he was false, he also died in Yamazawa. As a result, thousands of miles of smoke are gone, people are rare, and white bones are gathered like hills and longyans.
Man-made disasters are followed by natural disasters, and natural disasters are followed by man-made disasters. Hou Jing widely enforced severe punishment within his control, even to the point of heinousness:
And Jing was abused by torture, cruel and ruthless, and erected a big pillar on the stone, and some offenders killed it. Li Zhan, a native of Dongyang, raised an army, which was held by a thief, and sent Jianye to Jianye. In the city of Jing first, cut off his hands and siblings, analyze his confidants, and break out of his liver and intestines!
I have to sigh that after two hundred years, the cruelty of karma is still unchanged. Hou Jing's fierceness was no less than that of Shi Hu at that time!
And what did Xiao Gang do about this kind of behavior? Sorry, nothing was done.
Realistically speaking, Xiao Gang's name at this time was emperor, but in fact, it was difficult to protect himself. In front of Hou Jing, he had already thrown away the domineering spirit of the king when he first saw him, and he would call him "Xiang Xiang" and "Hou Wang". When the uncultured Hou Jing proclaimed himself the "Great General of the Universe", he only weakly asked: "Does the general have the name of the universe?" ”
In order to please Hou Jing, Xiao Gang also followed the example of his cousin Xiao Zhengde and married his daughter Princess Liyang to Hou Jing as a concubine. He was quite fond of this princess Hou Jing, and always obeyed her words. This annoyed Hou Jing's men, and at their suggestion, Hou Jing made up his mind to depose Xiao Gang.
When the prepared edict of abdication was sent to the imperial court, "please" Xiao Gang copied it again, Xiao Gang gladly agreed. However, when he copied to "the weight of the ancestor's reading of the artifact, the solidity of the thought society, the more ascended, the more the lord shook the fang", he could not help but hide his face and sob. Even the rebels who were guarding Xiao Gang around them also burst into tears.
Two months after his abdication, Hou Jing sent someone to celebrate Xiao Gang's birthday. Xiao Gang knew that this pedestrian's coming to celebrate his birthday was fake, and the request for life was true, and he did not ask much, raised his wine glass to feast with them, and was drunk and unconscious.
In the confusion, Xiao Gang seemed to see the figure of a young man, that is, Nan Qi and Emperor Xiao Baorong. He smiled and asked himself, "When your father killed me like this, do you want to try it today?" ”
Without waiting for Xiao Gang to react, Hou Jing's men had already pressed piles of dirt bags onto Xiao Gang's body. Xiao Gang finally completed the cycle of fate after exactly fifty years.
Fifty years on earth is like a dream and an illusion. There is life and death, what regret do the heroes have?
This is the death song of Oda Nobunaga a thousand years later, and it is used to mourn Forsho, although inappropriate, but it is also appropriate.
The Southern Liang side was already close to human purgatory, and strangely, there was no movement on the northern side. So, in the period from Erzhu Rong's death to Hou Jing's rebellion, what happened in the north?
We'll talk about it next time.