(Late Tang Dynasty in the Sunset)
The thirteenth year of Xiantong, 872 AD, this year is a year of nongchen.
At that time, the wind and rain of the Tang Dynasty were not smooth, and the people of Guotai were uneasy.
There were occasional disturbances in the local area, but they were quickly quelled.
The Sheng Tang Dynasty never returned, and the entire Tang Dynasty was surrounded by an inexplicable decadent atmosphere.
In this way, this year can only be regarded as a very ordinary year in the long history of the Tang Dynasty.
Inside the Daming Palace in Chang'an City, a young man dressed in Chinese clothes had been playing in the imperial garden for a whole morning.
This morning, he performed activities such as riding and shooting, sword dance, Go, playing silk bamboo orchestra, and minions rolling dice gambling.
This young man was none other than the fifth son of Emperor Yizong of Tang, Li Yizong of Pu.
Everyone in the Daming Palace knew that Li Yan, the king of Pu, loved to play and could play, not only did these three-way things play pure fire, but also played a good polo.
Polo, as the name suggests, is a sport of riding on a horse and hitting the ball with a club to shoot a goal.
This kind of sport began in the Han Dynasty, developed and grew during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and flourished in the Han and Tang Dynasties, especially in the Tang Dynasty royal family, and among the royal children of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yan can be said to be the best at playing polo.
Running fast, strong strength, accurate shooting, can be called "Datang C Luo".
Li Yan grew up in the deep palace, most of the time accompanied by a group of eunuchs, the thick palace wall to isolate this child from the outside world, so that he can play unscrupulously, if all goes well, he can even play in the palace for a lifetime.
His stubborn temperament, the young and young prince, does not seem to have much to do with being a prince and inheriting the throne.
But fate chose him.
Tang Yizong died and died, and the Tang Empire could not be without a monarch for a day. Therefore, under the control of the eunuch clique, the young Li Yan became the new master of the Tang Empire. (i.e. Emperor Tang)
Li Yan was not a lucky man, and the choice of him as emperor was not an accident, but the result of careful consideration by the eunuch comrades.
They believe that Li Yan was young, playful, idle, looked unambitious, and did not look like the material of a good emperor, and these elements perfectly met the eunuchs' demands to support the "puppet emperor" to continue to manipulate the power of the Tang Empire.
Li Yan ascended the throne.
Because he had been soaking in the imperial garden all day before this, basically without any experience and political foundation for governing the country, he could only rely on eunuchs to help him deal with the power of the country.
Among these eunuchs, there was another person who grew up with Li Yan, called Tian Lingzi, this eunuch surnamed Tian was extremely close to the emperor, and the emperor also trusted him very much, and even affectionately called him "Father", so soon after, Li Yan handed over the major affairs of the military state to Tian Lingzi.
(Portrait of Emperor Li of Tang Dynasty)
He became the emperor of the hands.
At this time, Datang was actually very chaotic.
There was an official in the Tang Dynasty, who served as a Hanlin scholar and was quite literate, and he believed that "the state is nine broken", which means that the crisis faced by the Tang government has nine aspects.
These nine aspects are complex and lengthy, and it is difficult to describe them all, but they can be summarized as the nine points of rebellion in the feudal towns, riots in the frontiers, extravagant life of the powerful, the control of the government by eunuchs, the occupation of financial budgets by the construction of Buddhist temples, the bribery of officials, the brutality of law enforcement by local governors, heavy servitude, and unreasonable tax payments.
These nine aspects almost clearly analyzed the reasons for the Decline of the Tang Empire all the way from the Anshi Rebellion, but the emperor was unmoved when he heard it.
But I think it may not be that Li Yan has not done anything, but it is very likely that he cannot understand it at all.
The emperor used all his ingenuity in playing polo, and he neither understood nor did he want to understand the affairs of the country.
He had reluctantly agreed to preside over an imperial examination of the Tang Dynasty at the request of the ministers, which was originally the emperor's own job, first, to show his heavenly might, and second, to select talents.
But Li Yan prevaricated for a long time before agreeing.
Because the ministers were forced to preside over the imperial examination this time, Li Yan was very uninterested in his work, and the test papers sent from the examination room on the table were piled up one after another, and Li Yan was very impatient, did not look at it, and quickly hit one fork after another on the pile of examination papers with a Zhu pen. (Fork is not passed)
And in this exam paper that did not pass, there was a person whose name was mixed in, and this person's name was called Huang Chao.
A few days later, Enko put the list on the list.
Huang Chao, who was on the Chang'an City Appearance List, was very depressed after learning the news that he had fallen off the list.
He not only felt depressed, but even very disappointed and angry.
This is the third time I have participated in the scientific expedition.
But to fall off the list is to fall off the list, and there is no way to let yourself have any temper.
Huang Chao had no choice but to scold and leave Chang'an.
He thought that he might not be able to enter the Daming Palace through the imperial examination method, but he might be able to enter it in another way.
Soon after, the emperor in the Daming Palace heard this name for the first time, and again, because the minister of the military department, 100,000 people, gave him a fold in a hurry, the content of which was roughly a private salt dealer named Huang Chao, entangled many people, and formed a huge rebel team, directly attacking Chang'an.
(Huangchao Uprising)
Unexpectedly, the emperor was not shocked or angry when he heard it, but was a little excited, and immediately decided to hold a polo game to suppress the shock.
Usually the emperor plays polo, winning or losing is a bet, but today this polo game is very special,
This game does not bet on gold or silver, but on official positions and territory.
The contestants in the competition were four generals in the Daming Palace Divine Strategy Army, and the prize was the position of three jiedushi in the central region of the Tang Dynasty.
Emperor Tang ruled that when four people play polo, whoever plays the best can go to the richest Xichuan region to be a festival ambassador, while others can only choose the relatively backward Shannan and Dongchuan to take office.
This is the famous (infamous) "batting bet on Sanchuan" in the history of the Tang Dynasty.
In the eyes of the emperor, the people of the world, the people of Li, and the land of mountains and rivers are just a relaxed and pleasant game.
This may seem absurd, but it actually has a deep meaning.
Huang Chao's rebel army was huge, hovering around Luoyang, and could attack Chang'an at any time, and the Xichuan area, which was the grand prize of polo matches, was just the strategic rear of the capital Chang'an, and if Chang'an City was lost, Li Yan, as emperor, could also follow the path of his old predecessor Tang Xuanzong Li Longji, flee to Sichuan, and retreat to Shuzhong.
Xichuan is the key place in Shuzhong, which means that whoever makes Xichuan Jiedushi can firmly control the emperor in his hands.
The polo game in Chang'an City here is in full swing, and the rebellion of the Yellow Nest Rebel Army over there is also in full swing.
It is reasonable to say that when a local uprising broke out, the local government should take the lead in organizing troops to quell the chaos, but the governors of the prefectures and counties, in the attitude that more is better than less, actually concealed the rebellion without reporting it, and the moderation of the mercenaries in various places made it impossible to see that the local government did not do anything, so why did they make a fuss? Therefore, they all held a wait-and-see attitude, so HuangChao's rebel army was equivalent to giving the green light, all the way unimpeded, and soon arrived at Chang'an City.
Only then did the emperor begin to panic,
Above the court, he asked the minister what he should do now, but he was told that the minister Lu Had already committed suicide in fear of sin.
There was no way, Li Yan had no choice but to turn his attention to the eunuch Tian Lingzi.
What good idea could Tian Lingzi give to the emperor? The two discussed, the opinions reached a unified, run!
The familiar scene reappeared, and Li Yan became another emperor who had run away to Sichuan since Emperor Xuanzong.
Chang'an City was destroyed, and Luo Dixiucai, who had not been valued and recognized by the Tang government, now occupied the capital of the country, changed the day, and established a new dynasty (Daqi).
And the emperor Li Yan, who hid in Sichuan, did not seem to care, he thought that shuzhong was rich enough to allow himself to live here for a long time, so Chang'an City did not want to stop.
(Polo in the Tang Dynasty)
For him, there is only one regret, that is, shuzhong is mountainous, and there are few open and flat fields for him to play polo.
But fortunately, the Envoys of the Tang Dynasty were not all opportunists, the capital of the country was lost, and the Emissaries of the Whole Country began to organize troops one after another to counterattack the Yellow Nest.
In this process of resisting the rebel army, the local emissaries of the festival naturally wanted to make a big fortune, plunder everywhere, and occupy the territory, and in this group of rebel troops, taking advantage of the fire and looting, the most fierce momentum of development was the Hedong Jiedushi envoy Li Keyong.
At the time, the name was not conspicuous, but in the future, we will mention his name again.
In order to make a profit in the war, the various regions contributed their own strength, so Chang'an City was quickly recovered.
However, after such a toss by Huang Chao, the century-old foundation of the Tang Empire no longer exists.
(Mountains and rivers are broken, and the prosperous Tang Dynasty no longer exists)
Taking advantage of the chaos of the war, the various local governments have divided up their territories.
Division is autonomy, and autonomy, in a sense, is a kind of independence in disguise.
On the surface, the emissaries were still the courtiers of the Tang Dynasty, but in fact, the ambitious military experts of this group of wolves no longer obeyed the unified command of the central government.
For Li Yan, this is still not a big deal.
He was just worried about whether his body, which had been worn out by the journey, would be able to play beautifully on the polo field.
The emperor's heart is very wide, and the emperor's heart is also very large.
Under his rule, the Tang Dynasty was an unprecedentedly intense time for the development of various contradictions and ills.
Under such circumstances, Datang has begun to irreversibly move towards extinction.
Therefore, even if Li Yan was a wise and strong emperor, it would be difficult for him to turn the situation around.
Maybe he had already figured this out, and since he couldn't change it, it was better to have a good time.
Wende first year, 888 AD.
The number of this year is very auspicious, but for the Tang Empire, it is only a very ordinary day.
Chang'an City was no longer prosperous, and even daming palaces had lost a lot of glory.
The 27-year-old Tang Emperor Li Yan fell to the ground after a polo match and died immediately.
Before that, he had told his servants that if the content of the imperial examination in the world was a polo game, then he must be a champion.
As the sun sets, the once mighty Tang Empire seems to emit a series of mournful cries, and the playful emperor has completed his life, and where will the fate of the empire fall?