When it comes to tyrants, everyone may think of the Shang Dynasty King who invented the punishment of cannon branding, the Qin Shi Huang who burned books and pit Confucianism, and the Sui Emperor who killed his father and brother and mutilated Zhongliang. So, what exactly does a tyrant mean? It has been answered that an overbearing and brutal monarch or ruler is a tyrant. According to this argument, The Northern Yan Emperor Feng Hong, who forced his brother to die, forcibly married his sister-in-law, and killed more than 100 of his own nephews, was rightfully regarded as a tyrant.
However, the dictionary says that tyrants are those who are absolutely unscrupulous monarchs, rulers who brutally or brutally exercise absolute power. One of the main points here is "no way", so the Northern Yan Emperor Feng Hong was not a tyrant. Because although Feng Hong can't talk about "having a way", he is not "without a way", he stands in a gray area of the Tao. To understand this statement, we must first make other explanations.
Who is Feng Hong? What did he do to be considered a tyrant?
Here I first want to give you a popularization of historical knowledge. The so-called Sixteen Kingdoms period is that after the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Five Hus, which were mainly Xiongnu, Xianbei, Qiang, and Qi, were established in northern China, also known as the "Five Hus and Sixteen Kingdoms". These sixteen kingdoms included Chenghan, Former Zhao, Later Zhao, Former Liang, Former Yan, Former Qin, Later Yan, Later Qin, Western Qin, HouLiang, Southern Liang, Western Liang, Northern Liang, Southern Yan, Northern Yan, and Northern Xia. And The Feng Hong we are talking about today is the last emperor of Northern Yan. Speaking of Northern Yan, there were two emperors, the older brother founded the country, and the younger brother destroyed the country.
▍ There are two eras of great chaos in Chinese history, one is the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms, and the other is the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. In these two eras, China was in turmoil, the military was divided, and the regimes of all sizes rose and fell like marquees, and the clues were chaotic. Network illustration
The founding emperor of Northern Yan was Feng Hong's older brother Feng Bao. When mentioning Feng Bao, you can't help but sigh a sentence of "Great! During his reign, in addition to doing good deeds such as vigorously rectifying the rule of officials and lightly assigning small gifts, he also made great contributions to the succession of the family. In almost 22 years, he actually gave birth to more than 100 sons, which means that on average, 5 sons are born in 1 year. Oh hey, what a character who has worked hard for the prosperity of his family! Great sowers. However, what is more tragic is that the son has more children and has no egg use, Xiaomiao has not grown up and has been pulled out by his brother, and the throne and his wife have been inherited by his brother.
It turns out that it is all the trouble caused by women! Brother Feng Bao had a favorite concubine at that time, known as Lady Song, not long after she gave birth to a child, Feng Bao was sick, or the rhythm of being sick to the dog, Lady Song looked at this look and was very anxious, husband, it doesn't matter if you die, but what do we two want to do, my son is going to be the emperor! So he rushed to the hospital and planned to launch a coup d'état and kill the prince. I didn't expect that at this juncture, his own small actions were all looked at by Feng Hong, although Feng Hong was not a murderous demon but also not a good man and a woman, who did not love some game of thrones, there was no little struggle, and soon Feng Hong took his own soldiers into the palace and swept away Lady Song and her henchmen, because the process was too tragic, the picture could not bear to look directly, which frightened Feng Bao, who was already seriously ill, to see the King of Yan Luo early.
▍ Song Shi, the wife of Emperor Wencheng Feng Bao, was very favored after marrying Feng Bao in his early years. Network illustration
And the world criticizes Feng Hong, all because next, he not only married all kinds of sisters-in-law left by his brother, but also the blood of ethnic minorities, that is, lasciviousness; In order to sit on the throne one step closer, he actually killed his nephew, more than 100 of them killed more than one by one, even if they were newborn babies, none of them were spared. All this made Feng Hong bear the reputation of absurdity and cruelty.
Of course, this emperor did not get any good end in the end, and had nothing to do with his absurdity and cruelty, purely because the strength of Northern Yan was not enough in the chaotic world, after 6 years of reign, he was attacked by Northern Wei soldiers, because he could not resist the attack of the other side, he was forced to flee to Goguryeo, and Northern Yan, which had only been established for 28 years, declared its demise. Still not knowing how to restrain himself in a foreign land, he was killed two years later by the King of Goguryeo, who had originally paid tribute to him, and died in a foreign land.
Many people judge according to the life of the Northern Yan Emperor Feng Honghu, believing that his series of works do not show that he is an out-and-out tyrant, but in fact, Feng Hong, a tyrant, has done a special job, and he has not changed the tricks like Zhu Yuanzhang to find excuses to kill people, such as the literal prison; He was also not as perverted and cruel as Liu Yu, the deposed emperor of the Song Dynasty, and liked to dissect the human body and other heavy taste things.
Feng Hong issued an edict saying: "Evil disasters have fallen from heaven, the great line has collapsed, the prince does not serve the sick, the qungong does not run to the funeral, there is a suspicion of rebellion, and the society will be in danger." I was the brother's relative, and he took the throne of the Country of Yining; Hundreds of officials knock on the door, enter the second class. "Kill all the hundreds of Feng Bao's sons, including Prince Feng Yi." Network illustration
The only cruel thing he had ever done was to cut the grass and remove the roots, and kill his more than 100 nephews, but I believe that whether it was Cao Cao or Chen Youyu would do so if they were in Feng Hong's position, "I would rather kill three thousand by mistake than let one person go." Everything is just to maintain his own autocratic rule, and what emperor in history did not climb up the mountain of corpses and the sea of blood. From a certain point of view, the removal of those who threaten their position is not called an atrocity.
If we have to analyze it from the perspective of modern humanism, no matter how many people are killed, what means are used, and for what purpose, killing people is killing people, it is an atrocity. Then every emperor in history was a tyrant.
Therefore, the concept of tyrant should be mainly guided by the concept of the ancients, Feng Hong is the king of the subjugated country, although it is not entirely his fault, but Feng Hong will not be called "Tao" by the world; He killed more than 100 nephews, which was necessary in the eyes of the ancient tyrants, so his behavior cannot be called "no way". In the author's opinion, Feng Hong is just an ordinary emperor who has been scandalized by his latecomers and has no historical merits to whitewash himself, and he is still 18,000 miles away from the so-called "tyrant".