Chapter 13 Four Depressed Li Shangyin

There is an old saying: "Talented people are not met, and the past and the present are the same." In Chinese history, Li Shangyin is a typical example of "unmet".The situation and fate of literati in history and culture often have some amazing coincidences.However, Li Shangyin's underappreciation of talents is a bit special, because he himself is closely related to the biggest crony dispute in the history of the Tang Dynasty. The earliest introduction to crony disputes began during the reign of Emperor Xianzong.In the third year of Yuanhe (808), Emperor Xianzong wanted to use this to select talents.Both Niu Sengru and Li Zongmin were low-level officials at that time, and they also took the exam, and in the exam paper they criticized the current political abuses fiercely. In fact, the object of criticism was Li Jifu, the prime minister in power.At that time, Yang Yuling, Minister of the Ministry of Officials, and Wei Guanzhi, a member of the Ministry of Officials, admired their integrity and courage. Even the prime minister dared to criticize them, so they were appointed as the first and recommended to Xianzong.

Prime Minister Li Jifu was born in a noble family, and has always looked down on officials who came from the imperial examinations. Now there are still people who use the imperial examinations to expose his faults. Is it tolerable?Therefore, Li Jifu ran to Xianzong and cried, slandering that Niu Sengru and Li Zongmin had a personal relationship with the examiner, so they were recommended.As a result, the examiners were all demoted, and Li Zongmin and Niu Sengru were not promoted, and "each served in the vassal mansion". Niu Sengru was not promoted for a long time, and he held a grudge against Li Jifu from then on, which led to fierce party struggles against Li Jifu and his son Li Deyu for many years.This is the origin of the famous dispute between Niu (Niu Sengru, Li Zongmin) and Li (Li Deyu).

After Li Jifu's death, his son Li Deyu began to rise.Li Deyu had great ambitions since he was a child, and concentrated on studying classics and history, especially proficient in "Hanshu" and "Zuoshi Chunqiu".He is extremely intelligent and very popular with Emperor Xianzong.Once, Prime Minister Wu Yuanheng asked him what books he liked to read, but he kept silent.When Li Jifu found out, he asked his son why he didn't answer.But Li Deyu said eloquently: "As the prime minister, Wu Gong did not ask about the country to adjust yin and yang, but asked about his favorite books. His words are inappropriate, so he should not." ("Tang Yulin Volume 3") Everyone is amazed.

Li Deyu wrote good articles, but he disdained to take the imperial examination.His father Li Jifu advised him to take the exam, but he said: "Good mules and horses will not enter the profession." ("Beimeng Suoyan Volume 6") showed an attitude of disdain to be in the same class as scholars.Later, he became an official by relying on the shadow of his family.After Mu Zong ascended the throne, Li Deyu served as a Hanlin scholar.At that time, Li Zongmin was also an official in the court, serving as a member of Zhongshushe.Li Deyu still holds a grudge against Li Zongmin's criticism of his father Li Jifu.

Just at this time, the Jinshi examination will be held again.Xichuan Jiedu envoy Duan Wenchang had acquaintances to take the exam, and privately asked the examiner Qian Hui.Li Zongmin also took the exam because of his son-in-law Su Chao, so he asked the examiner Qian Hui.As a result, Su Chao was selected, but the person entrusted by Duan Wenchang was not selected.Duan Wenchang was angry and reported the unfairness of the election.Mu Zong didn't know the truth, so he asked Hanlin Bachelor, Li Deyu replied: "There really is such a thing." So Mu Zong ordered the previous exam to be invalid, and a new one was given. Governor.

Li Zongmin thought that Li Deyu deliberately squeezed him out, and so far, the grievances have deepened.After that, Li Zongmin and Niu Sengru formed a faction with some officials who were born in the imperial examination, and Li Deyu also formed a faction with officials who were born in the gentry, and the two began to fight openly and secretly for forty years. At this time, Li Deyu was already very famous, and he himself was indeed very talented, and he had the hope of becoming a prime minister.However, Li Fengji, the prime minister in power, didn't like Li Deyu. In September of the second year of Changqing (822), he appointed Li Deyu as an observation envoy to western Zhejiang.In August of the third year of Taihe (829), Li Deyu was called to the capital to serve as Minister of the Ministry of War.Pei Du, the elder of the four dynasties, admired his talent very much and recommended him to be the prime minister.However, Li Zongmin, the Minister of the Ministry of Officials at that time, became the prime minister first because of the help of the eunuch.Li Zongmin recommended Niu Sengru to Wenzong, and also promoted him as prime minister.As soon as the two came to power, they worked together to reject Li Deyu, and transferred Li Deyu out of the capital to serve as the governor of Xichuan.Those who are close to Li Deyu are also mostly dismissed.

When Li Deyu was the envoy of Xichuan Jiedu, Xi Tanmou, the general guard of Tubo Weizhou (where the government is located in today's Lixian County, Sichuan Province), led his troops to Chengdu to surrender.Surrounded by water on three sides and mountains on one side, Victoria is a strategic location.At that time, Wei Gao, the envoy of the Xichuan Festival, had been operating for many years, and he wished he could not regain the city until his death.Li Deyu was overjoyed when he learned about it, and grandly accepted Xita's plan. While playing the court, he sent troops to occupy the city quickly, so that the city of Weizhou, which had been lost for forty years, was returned to the Tang Dynasty without a single soldier. .However, Niu Sengru, the prime minister in power, hated Li Deyu. He was afraid that he would make meritorious service. He used the excuse of "China's royal army should be trustworthy" as an excuse to order Li Deyu to refuse to accept the surrender, to return Weizhou to Tubo, and to tie up Xitamou and his entourage. To Tubo.Tubo brutally killed Xi Tanmou and others on the border.Niu Sengru used selfishness to harm meritorious deeds, and people at the time "all said that Sengru was holding on to old grievances, arbitrarily discussing it and dispelling it, and the emperor thought it was unfair."

Later, Xichuan Supervisor Wang Jianyan returned to the capital to serve. He told Wenzong that withdrawing from Weizhou City was a major mistake of the court, and pointed out that this matter was Niu Sengru's way to squeeze out Li Deyu.Wenzong was very remorseful and began to resent Niu Sengru.Niu Sengru felt uneasy and asked to resign, so he was dismissed.Soon after, the famous Ganlu Incident occurred. Many prime ministers and ministers were killed, and the eunuchs were unscrupulous and did whatever they wanted.Under such circumstances, Niu Sengru "stays out of the matter and doesn't care about the details", and often "chants it with his friend Bai Juyi, and he has no desire to make progress".

And Li Deyu made outstanding achievements in Xichuan, and once again entered the court as Minister of the Ministry of War.Li Zongmin saw Wenzong's confidant Li Deyu, fearing that his political opponent would become prime minister, he tried his best to stop him.But Wenzong hated Li Zongmin and others for forming cronies and interfering with the government. Besides, Li Deyu was indeed a talented person, so he still promoted Li Deyu as prime minister. Soon after, Wen Zong fell ill, and Zheng Zhu, a rare scholar, offered medicine to Wen Zong through the eunuch Wang Shoucheng, and was favored by Wen Zong.Zheng Zhu also recommended Li Xun to Wenzong, which was very much in the favor of Wenzong.Wenzong wanted to appoint Li Xun as an admonisher and place him in the Imperial Academy.Li Deyu believed that Li Xun was a treacherous villain and firmly opposed it.When Wenzong asked Prime Minister Wang Ya to confer Li Xun another official, Li Deyu waved his hand to stop him, so Wenzong was very dissatisfied.Wang Shoucheng and Zheng Zhu also resented Li Deyu and worked together to exclude Li Deyu.Therefore, Wenzong recalled Li Zongmin to assist the government, and Li Deyu was dismissed as prime minister and appointed as Zhenhai Jiedu envoy.

In this way, the two factions of Niu and Li are going around like a revolving lantern. Almost every year there will be a wave of "slamming" and "slamming away". When one faction is in power, the other faction is bound to be unlucky. It is dazzling and makes the government very chaotic.These people have no political ideals, only personal grievances, endless struggles, and conflicts.At that time, Li Deyu's ability and Niu Sengru's morality were all respected, but when it came to party disputes, they lost their rationality.Wenzong was controlled by eunuchs, and he couldn't figure out who was right and who was wrong. He wanted to work with the ministers to eradicate the eunuchs, but the ministers were busy with party disputes.Wen Zong sighed and said: "It is easy to pacify Hebei, but it is really difficult to get rid of the cronies of the imperial court!"

When Li Deyu was the governor of Huainan, Yang Qinyi, the eunuch who supervised the army, was recalled to the capital. It was rumored that Yang Qinyi would definitely take power when he returned.Before leaving, Li Deyu invited Yang Qinyi to a banquet and gave him a generous gift.After Yang Qinyi went back, he tried his best to recommend Li Deyu in front of Wuzong.As a result, Li Deyu became prime minister again.He tried his best to exclude Niu Sengru and Li Zongmin, and relegated them all to the south. Li Deyu won the trust of Wuzong and served as prime minister for several years. Because of his arbitrary handling of affairs, he was resented by many courtiers.After Wu Zong died of illness, the eunuchs established Wu Zong's uncle Li Chen as Tang Xuanzong.Xuanzong rejected all the ministers in Wuzong's period, and on the first day of his accession to the throne, he removed Li Deyu from the post of prime minister.A year later, Li Deyu was relegated to Yazhou (now Hainan Island, Guangdong).Due to the origin of the family, the forty years of crony disputes have finally come to an end. Until the later period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, wars raged and melees continued. In the cruel and protracted melees, talents can only be measured by military merit.Coupled with the displacement of the people and the barrenness of the land, the big family collapsed.The family family has just disappeared from Chinese history. Under the circumstances of such fierce party struggles, Li Shangyin had relations with Liu Dang and Li Dang at that time, so he inevitably became a victim of party struggles. Li Shangyin, courtesy name Yishan, nicknamed Yuxisheng, also known as Fan Nansheng.Originally from Hanoi, Huaizhou (now Qinyang, Henan), since his ancestors, he moved to Xingyang, Zhengzhou.His ancestors were offshoots of the royal family of Li and Tang. However, since his great-grandfather, his family has declined, and the successive generations of his ancestors were all no more than county magistrates.His father, Li Si, first served as the county magistrate, and later served as the staff of the embassy. He took his family to make a living in the east and west of Zhejiang Province, and finally died as a guest in another country.When Li Shangyin was less than ten years old, his father died. He returned to his hometown with his mother and lived a very poor life. In the land of return, the nine clans have no relatives to rely on" ("Worship of Sister Pei").Almost like a deserter. Because of his humble family background, Li Shangyin had to "support books and sell the pound" since he was a boy to make ends meet.He once lamented: "People living in poverty have nothing to hear and see." One of his elder sisters was sent back to her natal family shortly after she got married, and died at the age of nineteen.This kind of lonely, poor and helpless family background has accumulated many tragic factors in Li Shangyin's psychology since childhood, such as special sensitivity to the warmth and coldness of human feelings, strong sense of loneliness, and sadness about the future and fate. "Fifteen weeps in the spring breeze, and the swing is on the back", "I want to ask Guhong where he is going, but he doesn't know his life experience", these poems written in the early days have already revealed the rare sentimentality of ordinary teenagers. In order to get rid of terrible poverty, revive his family, and realize his ambitions, Li Shangyin began a lifelong struggle.Then, this is a declining era of "the setting sun is infinitely good, but it is only near dusk". Huang's opportunity also gave him a rough and unfortunate life. Li Shangyin has been studying scriptures and articles with an uncle who is proficient in the Five Classics in his hometown.At the age of sixteen, Li Shangyin wrote "Cai Lun" and "Sheng Lun", named for his proficiency in ancient prose. In the third year of Yamato (829), Li Shangyin moved to Luoyang, the eastern capital.There, he got acquainted with seniors such as Bai Juyi and Linghu Chu.Linghu Chu was the envoy of the Tianping Army at that time, and he admired Li Shangyin's literary talent very much. He asked him to make friends with his son Linghuzhen and others, and personally gave him articles.At this time, Li Shangyin was a young man who was successful, cared about social politics, and had the ambition of "returning to heaven and earth" when he wanted to help the world. Later, Linghu Chu hired Li Shangyin as an inspector.Li Shangyin followed Linghu Chu to Yunzhou, Taiyuan and other places.In the past few years, Li Shangyin took the exam actively while studying parallel prose hard. Although he failed repeatedly in the imperial examination, he completed the transformation from scattered to parallel prose in writing.After that he seldom wrote prose again.In the sixth year of Yamato (832), Linghu Chu was transferred to the capital, and Li Shangyin left Taiyuan to return to his hometown. He studied Taoism in Wangwushan for two or three years. In the second year of Kaicheng (837), Li Shangyin went to the examination room again, and Linghu Chen also extended his reputation and recommended him, and he was awarded a Jinshi.After that, he once went to Xingyuan (now Hanzhong, Shaanxi) and entered Linghu Chumu.However, soon after Linghu Chu died of illness, Li Shangyin lost his support, so he entered Jingyuan Jiedu envoy Wang Maoyuan.Wang Maoyuan cherished his talent, hired him as the secretary, and married his daughter to him. At that time, the "Niu Li party struggle" was extremely sharp in the court. Linghu Chu belonged to the Niu party, while Wang Maoyuan was related to the Li party.Li Shangyin was originally from the Linghu family, but he married the Wang family, which aroused dissatisfaction with Linghu Chen and others who had deep family views.The Niu Party attacked him as "betrayal of the Lord", "ungrateful" and "no action".And Li Dang's people didn't give him a good face, they digged out his former followers of Linghu Chu, and vigorously repelled him.Li Shangyin has been in the vortex of Niu Li's party struggle for the rest of his life. He was angry at both ends, and he couldn't get rid of it, and he was depressed. Fortunately, Li Shangyin and his wife Wang have a very good relationship, and they love each other.He has a famous "Night Rain Sending North":