Chapter 12 Eleventh, six towns uprising

While Gao Huan was looking for an opportunity in Huaishuo Town, the two factions in the Northern Wei Dynasty were fighting to the death. Empress Dowager Hu became the de facto female emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Apart from her efforts to promote the cause of Buddhism (most of the Buddha statues in the Longmen Grottoes were excavated during this period), she has no commendable achievements.She believes that fathers and mothers are not as good as Buddha relatives, and honoring Buddha is the first priority in life.Therefore, Buddha statues should be made of gold, and Buddhist pagodas should be built with nine floors.When the interest came, she selected another group of monks, led by the envoy Song Yun, to go to Tianzhu to learn Buddhist scriptures. (This Buddhist scripture-seeking activity was the largest one during the Southern and Northern Dynasties after Faxian of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It lasted four years and traveled all over North India and Central India, bringing back 170 Buddhist scriptures. In terms of quantity, it exceeds There are a lot of faxians. There are very detailed descriptions in "Luoyang Jialan Ji" about what Song Yun and others saw on their journey to the west.)

Of course, besides Buddha, Queen Mother Hu also likes men.The number of male favorites in her bedroom is no less than that of her predecessor, Queen Mother Feng.Moreover, she was moved with true feelings and fell in love with Emperor Xuanwu's younger brother, Qinghe Wang Yuanyi.The result of this love was unexpected to her, and brought disaster to the Northern Wei Dynasty. Emperor Xiaowen had six adult sons. Emperor Xuanwu's elder brother Yuan Xun was deposed and died, and his younger brother Jingzhao Wang Yuanyu rebelled and was killed, as mentioned above.The remaining three younger brothers, Wang Yuanhuai of Guangping only loved money all his life, and died of illness in the second year of Xiping (517 A.D.). Wang Yuanyue of Runan was a homosexual with an extremely eccentric temperament.Only Wang Yuanyi of Qinghe is not only handsome and personable, but also has extraordinary literary talent, is good at political affairs, and has first-class character.This son was the favorite of Emperor Xiaowen during his lifetime, and Wang Yuanxie of Pengcheng was full of praise for him.After Empress Dowager Hu came to court, he served as Taifu and servant, and took the post of Taiwei, and had close contacts with Empress Dowager Hu.With such an excellent man in front of him, the flame of love in the Empress Dowager's heart was naturally ignited for a long time.

Empress Dowager Hu found an excuse to lure Yuan Yi into the bedroom, and used both soft and hard methods to force him to submit.A good boy like Yuan Yi who grew up in the palace is no match for the charming Queen Mother Hu. Even if he is a little unwilling, he can only obey in the end.From then on, the uncle and the sister-in-law often went in and out of the inner palace together, and they became lovers without a name, which was known all over the world. Empress Dowager Hu trusted her brother-in-law and lover very much, and entrusted Yuan Yi with all the government affairs, intending to let him be the young emperor Zhou Gong and Huo Guang.Yuan Yi did not disappoint his sister-in-law's kindness, and devoted herself to assisting the government.Because he enforced the law impartially and never showed favoritism, the laws of the Northern Wei Dynasty improved to a certain extent.However, the building is about to collapse, how can it be saved by one person?Those law-breaking officials in the DPRK were sanctioned by him, and dissatisfaction gradually accumulated.

The most resentful person is the queen mother's brother-in-law and the leading general Yuancha, followed by Liu Teng, the eunuch who protected the queen mother and served as the general Wei at the time.Yuan Cha is both the clan and the emperor's uncle. He has always been arrogant and arrogant, and was punished by Yuan Yi many times; Liu Teng wanted to help his younger brother become an official, but was blocked by Yuan Yi.The two got together and discussed how to remove this thorn in their side. Their method was similar to that of Gao Zhao (officials used some methods to harm people, and it would be unreasonable if the Northern Wei Dynasty did not perish), and they bribed Longxiang Governor Shi Songwei to slander that someone wanted to support Yuan Yi as emperor.Empress Dowager Hu didn't believe it, and ordered a careful inspection, but no evidence of Yuan Yi's rebellion was found at all. Yuan Yi was fine, and Song Weifan was demoted.

Yuan Cha and Liu Teng couldn't figure it out, and realized that with the escort of Queen Mother Hu, they couldn't play with Yuan Yi, so they decided to use the Imperial Guards under their control to launch a coup d'état. In the third year of Shengui (520 A.D.), Yuancha and Liu Teng suddenly led a team of imperial guards to welcome Emperor Xiaoming to the Xianyang Hall, the main hall of the harem, and falsely passed an imperial decree in the name of Queen Mother Hu, claiming to return all power Emperor Xiaoming.They confined Empress Dowager Hu in the North Palace, cut off Emperor Xiaoming from her communication, and detained Yuan Yi, charged him with a bunch of crimes, and executed him.

After all, Emperor Xiaoming was only eleven years old when he was in charge, and the power undoubtedly fell into the hands of Yuan Cha.The death of Yuan Yi sent a message to the ruling and opposition parties: the power center of the Northern Wei Dynasty was extremely unstable, and the princes of all parties took advantage of the problem and geared up.First, Yuanying's son, Zhongshan Wang Yuanxi launched a crusade in Yecheng on the side of the Qing emperor, but failed because of the rebellion of his subordinates.Then Xi Kangsheng, the general of the left guard, went out of the palace to save the Queen Mother Hu, murdered Yuancha, and was arrested and beheaded before he succeeded.

After three years, Liu Teng died.Yu Zhong's younger brother, Yu Jing, the general of Wuwei, thought there was an opportunity to take advantage of it, and secretly planned to abolish Yuan Cha. When the matter was revealed, Yuan Cha deposed him to Huaihuang Town and punished him as a town general. Yu Jing escaped death with Yuan Cha, but it was not something worth celebrating.After he arrived in Huaihuang, he was angry and hated in his heart, beating and scolding the soldiers under him all day long, and his attitude was extremely bad.The long-standing conflict between soldiers and generals has further deteriorated.

At this time, another civil strife broke out in Rouran in the north, and a new Khan Anagui was established, and the country's power recovered.In the summer of the fourth year of Zhengguang (AD 523), there was a famine in various parts of Rouran. Taking advantage of the emptiness of the frontier defenses of the six towns, Anagui broke into the vicinity of Pingcheng and ransacked wildly, abducting thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of cattle and horses.The six towns suffered heavy losses, and there were hungry people everywhere.When the imperial court in Luoyang rushed to the border town, Rouran had long since disappeared.

The imperial army withdrew, Rouran made a comeback, and Yu Jing organized the soldiers and civilians in Huaihuang Town to resist.The people in the town haven't had a full meal for several months, how can they have the strength to fight?Everyone asked to open a warehouse to release grain, but Yu Jing was very impatient and refused. The hungry people were furious, thinking that you, who took a small life in Luoyang, ran to our border town to make a fortune, completely desperate for life and death.Unbearable, they rushed into Yu Jing's house, dragged out his husband and wife, slaughtered them, divided the granary, and announced an army against the court.

The killing of generals by soldiers and civilians in Huaihuang Town immediately triggered a domino effect. The frontier residents of Woye Town in the west were led by a Huns named Po Liu Han Baling (Po Liu Han is a surname, descended from the descendants of Hun Shanyu), Killed the town general of Woye, occupied Woye, marched all the way east, and raised a bigger banner of uprising.The long-accumulated contradictions of the soldiers of the six towns finally erupted, and the rebellion spread rapidly like a plague, and intensified.In just five or six years, there was almost no place in the northern land that was not burning with flames of war, and almost no place was not devastated.

Among the many rebel forces, the most influential and powerful ones, in addition to breaking Liuhan Baling, are Du Luozhou of Yanzhou Shanggu, Dingzhou Zuorencheng (ie Zuocheng) Xianyu Xiuli, and Jixian Yuxiu Ge Rong, who rose from the ceremony.The rising troops of the last three are actually reprints of the Baling of the Six Hans. The Six Towns Army that broke through Liuhan Baling swept across the north of Hetao. The government army lost consecutive battles and abandoned the city and lost ground.In order to comfort the townspeople, Emperor Xiaoming issued an edict to change the town into a prefecture, cancel the discriminatory policy on border towns, and improve the status of the townspeople.However, the soldiers and civilians in Six Towns and its surrounding areas have all rebelled, and these late measures are simply scratching the surface and will not help the matter. The desperate government army did not hesitate to seek help from Rouran, its arch-rival for more than a century. Guangyang Wang Yuanyuan led his troops to join forces with Rouran Khan Anagui, and it took a lot of effort to defeat them with ambushes on the bank of the Yellow River. Break the Liuhan Baling. (Po Liuhan Baling disappeared after the army was defeated. Some people think that he was killed by the Rouran army, and some people think that he escaped the pursuit and disappeared. For this very important figure who is not written much in history books, Let us leave it as a mystery to our imagination.) The court of the Northern Wei Dynasty did not learn the lesson, and placed the 200,000 town troops that surrendered in the three prefectures of Ji, Ding, and Ying in Hebei.Within half a year, the soldiers who were relocated to Hebei, led by Du Luozhou and Xian Yu Xiuli, took up arms and rebelled again. "When the sea is flowing, the true qualities of a hero can be shown." One is the panic of the Northern Wei court and the fire everywhere; the other is the massive anti-Wei wave;Those who devote themselves to it, whether they are active or passive, righteous or evil, loyal or betrayal, will witness the birth of a great era under the horns of one after another on the battlefield.Because the heroes who dominated for nearly half a century later, without exception, will stand the temper of this war. In the first year of Xiaochang (525 A.D.), Gao Huan led a group of brothers to defect to Du Luozhou's uprising army, and took the first step in a long journey; In the rebel army, there is his future strong opponent, "Black Otter" Yu Wentai.