Chapter 60 Nineteen, internal changes

After killing the six assistants left to him by his father, Xiao Baojuan killed Ming Emperor's old general Cao Hu, old ministers Shen Wenji, and Shen Zhaolue. Even Jiang Xiang, a relative of the Jiang Er brothers, was implicated and given to death.Although Xiao Luan killed people by surprise, at least he worshiped Buddha and burned incense to pray or something. Xiao Baojuan also avoided these "procedures", and he killed anyone he wanted.All the ministers in the DPRK and China were in danger, and the ministers of the prefectures and counties outside the country conspired one after another and raised their troops to revolt.

Taiwei Chen Xianda, like Wang Jingze, was an old general from the time of Emperor Gao and Emperor Wu.He kept a low profile during Emperor Ming's period, and with the frequent wars in the north, Emperor Ming didn't do anything to him; the only thing was that he had hinted several times that he wanted to retire and return home (Chen Xianda was over seventy years old). get permission.After Xiao Baojuan ascended the throne, he was transferred to Jiangzhou as the governor, and then he was ordered to take advantage of the Northern Wei Dynasty to withdraw troops and send troops to the Northern Expedition to recover the lost five counties of Yongzhou.

Chen Xianda was very happy to lead the army outside, at least he didn't have to look at the emperor in Jiankang, a place of right and wrong.On the battlefield, he repeatedly broke the army of Yuan Ying, the former general of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and shocked the dying Emperor Xiaowen.Emperor Xiaowen personally supervised the army in a decisive battle with the Qi army in the area of ​​Yingzishan (now southwest of Xichuan, Henan), and then repelled Chen Xianda's army and stabilized the defense line of Huaishui. The defeat on the battlefield is not the end of the world. When Chen Xianda returned to Jiangzhou, he really couldn't sleep when he learned what Xiao Baojuan had done for more than a year.At this time, there was a rumor in Jiangzhou that the imperial court had finished killing Xu Xiaosi and others, and the next step was to send troops to Jiangzhou to attack Chen Xianda.

Chen Xianda decided to turn against the court. In November of the first year of Yongyuan (AD 499), he set up troops in Xunyang, sent a letter to the ministers of the court, and listed Xiao Baojuan's crimes of killing the ministers, and then pretended to support King Jian'an. Under the banner of Xiao Baoyu, he went eastward along the river and took Jiankang directly. Chen Xianda has a way of leading troops, but the number of soldiers he can mobilize to resist the imperial court is really limited, less than 10,000.These soldiers had high morale at first, and it was relatively easy to deal with the partial troops sent by the imperial court.The Jiangzhou army crossed the river overnight and attacked outside the palace city. Once they confronted the elite and powerful Taiwan army, they seemed to have more than enough energy but not enough strength. The more they fought, the less they fought.Chen Xianda held a spear in his hand, resisted up and down, killed and wounded several people, but after all he was old, if someone didn't pay attention, the spear in his hand broke into two pieces.Seeing the continuous arrival of Taiwan troops, the crowd surrounded them in darkness.Chen Xianda was powerless to resist, he turned his horse's head and was about to be defeated when a spear stabbed at him from the rebel army, he fell off his horse and died unexpectedly.Chen Xianda's sons and his accomplice, Yu Hongyuan, were executed together.

Even Chen Xianda, who was well-known on the battlefield of the Northern Expedition, became a ghost under his sword. How could the young little emperor not be proud?Without the restraint of these "hateful ministers", he is like a bird out of a cage and a horse out of the rein, and can be even more dissolute and wanton.The seventeen-year-old Xiao Baojuan is acting more and more like Liu Yu, the deposed emperor of Liu Song. (As we said before, Liu Yu is a "model tyrant", and Xiao Zixian, the author of "Book of Southern Qi", is the grandson of Emperor Qi Gao, and he hates Emperor Ming and his descendants in his bones, so it is also very possible. That is to say, Xiao Zixian applied the template of Liu Yu again, shaping another great faint king. In any case, there is no doubt that Xiao Baojuan's perverse actions directly led to the rapid demise of Southern Qi within two or three years.)

Liu Yu's strength is pole climbing, while Xiao Baojuan's strength is the acrobatic "topping".When he was full, he had nothing to do, so he took a seven-foot-five-foot white tiger pillar in the palace to support it, and used his shoulders, head, and even teeth, and it would not be a pity to knock off his front teeth.These stunts were spread among the people and became tricks used by entertainers in the rivers and lakes to make ends meet. Today’s common juggling show "Top the Banner" probably originated from this "activity" carried out by Xiao Baojuan in the court.

The common people look at these things to find something fresh and interesting; if the emperor plays with this all day long, the common people will suffer.Xiao Baojuan also likes to play around like Liu Yu, and he is very particular about wearing strange clothes, and he doesn't want others to see him.The left and right cronies catered to his habit, and every time before going out, they went to the places they were going to pass, and drove the people away, leaving only empty houses.When the emperor travels, the drums and gongs are loud, and passers-by must dodge, and those who do not dodge in time will be killed casually.Xiao Baojuan felt that it was not enough, so he ordered people to hang cloth curtains on both sides of the market alleys and field paths that passed by, forming a high barrier, and manning guards.The emperor's trip to a faraway place is really much more terrifying than robbers and robberies.

Once, Xiao Baojuan passed a small town and went into a house by the side of the road. He saw a woman who had not left, so he ordered his men to drag her over for interrogation.At first glance, it turned out to be a pregnant woman with a big belly and about to give birth.Xiao Baojuan actually ordered the pregnant woman's stomach to be cut open on the spot to check whether the fetus was male or female; another time, when his guard of honor passed by the temple, an old monk was ill and had no time to escape, so he hid in the grass When he was caught by the sergeant, he ordered all arrows to be fired from left and right, and shot the old monk into a big hedgehog in an instant; sometimes he would meet local officials who were too late to leave, and he would never forgive him and kill them as usual.

Xiao Baojuan is cold-blooded and ruthless to the people under his rule, but he is responsive to his beloved concubine, giving unlimited satisfaction from both material and spiritual aspects.His favorite concubine is Concubine Pan Gui, who was called "the thing that died in Qi" by later generations. Concubine Pan's surname is not Pan. Her real name is Yu Nizi. She came from a humble background and worked as a kabuki in Wang Jingze's family.When Wang Jing was suppressed by Emperor Ming, Xiao Baojuan called her into the palace when he saw her beauty and beauty.Someone told Xiao Baojuan that Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty had a favorite concubine named Pan (see the upper part of "The Struggle Between Song and Wei"), so he ruled for thirty years.Xiao Baojuan ordered Yu Nizi to change his surname to Pan in order to be closer to Emperor Wen of Song Dynasty.Every time he ran to his father-in-law's house, the mighty little emperor worked extraordinarily hard, fetching water, cooking, busying himself, and telling some jokes from the market to enliven the atmosphere (this emperor Every time I go out, I can’t see the people, and I don’t know where I heard the funny little joke).In order to please Concubine Pan, he made great efforts to build a palace, and collected a large number of rare treasures to watch in the harem.He recruited a group of skilled craftsmen to chisel lotus flowers out of gold on the ground in the palace, and let Concubine Pan walk on them, while he lay on his side, admiring them carefully, and praised the beauty of "lotus flowers growing step by step".

Well, for such an emperor, no one can bear it. The difference is only the level of "ninjutsu" and whether the preparations before the rebellion are sufficient.Before Chen Xianda's body was cold, Pei Shuye, the governor of Yuzhou who was stationed in Shouyang, an important northern town, went against him.Before the rebellion, Pei Shuye wrote to Xiao Yan, the governor of Yongzhou, for consultation. He believed: "The general trend of the world is known, and there is no reason for self-survival. If you don't turn back to the north, you can still be the Duke of Henan." Unlike Chen Xianda, he chose The strategy is to surrender to the Northern Wei Dynasty, seek semi-independent status in Yuzhou area, and then use the power of the Northern Wei Dynasty to fight against the Southern Qi Dynasty.Xiao Yan is such a smart person, he immediately wrote back to him and said: "How can the current emperor conspire with those underlings to make a big deal. If there is any accident, I will use 20,000 horse infantry to go down the river and calm the world in one fell swoop. If you take refuge in In the north, the people of Wei will definitely send someone else to replace you, and send you to a small remote state in Hebei, where can you be a Duke of Henan? Then you won’t even think about coming back to the south.” People, this remark not only predicts Pei Shuye’s fate of voting for Wei, but also hints at his ambition and means of leading the army to replace Qi.)

Pei Shuye did not have Xiao Yan's long-term considerations, hesitated again and again, and handed over the surrender form to the Northern Wei Dynasty in the second year of Yongyuan (500 AD).The Northern Wei Dynasty immediately sent Yuan Xie, Wang Su and others to lead 100,000 infantry cavalry southward to take over Shouyang.Pei Shuye died of illness in Shouyang before the handover, and his subordinates pushed his nephew Pei Zhi to supervise the state.After the army of the Northern Wei Dynasty entered Shouyang, they immediately took Yuan Xie as the governor of Yangzhou to guard Shouyang, and moved Pei Zhi and others to the northern states of Yan and Qi to serve as governors of Yangzhou. Everything was exactly as Xiao Yan expected. The Northern Wei Dynasty easily captured Shouyang, an important town in Huainan, threatening the defense deployed by the Southern Qi Dynasty in Jiangbei.Xiao Baojuan hastily recruited Pingxi general Cui Huijing to lead the navy to attack Shouyang, and appointed Wei Wei Xiao Yi as the governor of Yuzhou. Now that Shouyang has entered the tiger's mouth, how can there be any reason to change hands?General Xi Kang of the Wei Dynasty defended Shouyang for a month, when reinforcements from the Northern Wei Dynasty arrived, defeated the Qi army, attacked Hefei, and captured Li Shuxian alive. The front line suffered consecutive defeats, and there was another rebellion within the Qi army.Cui Huijing, the commander of the waterway sent by Xiao Baojuan, is a general who has made military exploits on the battlefield of the North-South War like Chen Xianda and Pei Shuye, and has long had the heart of rebellion.After setting off from Jiankang, he walked slowly until he reached Guangling (northwest of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province). He summoned his generals and said: "I have received the kindness of the three emperors, and I should do my best to help the country. Now the young master is dark, the government is corrupt, and it is at stake." , If you don’t help me, the crime will be heavy. I want to make great contributions together with the lords, so as to secure the country, what do you think?” The generals responded to Cui Huijing's call.Cui Huijing's army turned against each other in the name of supporting Xiao Baoxuan, the king of Jiangxia, and returned to march towards Guangling.The guard of Guangling was Cui Gongzu, who was of the same clan as Cui Huijing, so he opened the city gate to welcome Cui Huijing's army into Guangling. Cui Huijing's wishful thinking is that after Guangling rests, he will advance to Jingkou with elite soldiers, and then join forces with Xiao Baoxuan who guards Jingkou to attack the capital Jiankang.Xiao Baoxuan didn't agree with him at first, and even killed the envoy Cui Huijing sent.But Cui Huijing's army crossed the Yangtze River from the north bank of the Yangtze River, and the momentum was overwhelming.Xiao Baoxuan secretly contacted Cui Huijing, killed Xiao Baojuan's cronies who had been planted in Jingkou, and let Cui Huijing enter the city. Cui Huijing took two fortresses smoothly, and then sent his sons Cui Jue and Cui Gongzu to attack Jiankang.The rebels and the Taiwan army fought in Zhuli in the north of the city. Cui Jue and others had a good idea. Every time they attacked, they took advantage of the time when the Taiwan army started cooking. After a few rounds, the soldiers of the Taiwan army were hungry and unable to fight. Just lost Zhuli. The rebels continued to advance and captured Dongfu, Shitou, Baixia and Xinting all the way, and surrounded Taicheng.Cui Huijing felt that victory was in sight, and claimed that he had obeyed the Queen Mother's secret order to abolish Xiao Baojuan as King of Wu, but he immediately made continuous mistakes and ruined the good game. He was hesitant at first, originally he wanted to set up Xiao Baoxuan, but now that Emperor Qi Wu's grandson Baling King Xiao Zhaozhou also came to join him, he wanted to set up the latter.Then there was an internal conflict. The two commanders, Cui Jue and Cui Gongzu, competed for merit, but Cui Huijing failed to deal with it seriously, and even rejected Cui Gongzu's reasonable combat proposals several times, which made Cui Gongzu deeply dissatisfied with him.Then, the situation turned and Xiao Baojuan's rescuers came. The general who commanded the rescue was Xiao Yi, the governor of Yuzhou. After he received Xiao Baojuan's secret order to ask for help, he immediately led the Northern Expeditionary Army to cross the river from the quarry in the north of the river to attack Cui Huijing.Cui Huijing only stared at the defenders in Taicheng, and was completely defenseless against Xiao Yi in the west.As a result, it is conceivable that Cui Jue's thousands of elite soldiers were wiped out by Xiao Yi, Cui Jue fled back alone, and Cui Gongzu surrendered to the Taiwan army in chaos. Cui Huijing's remnant troops were attacked internally and externally by the Taicheng Army and Xiao Yi Army, and the entire army was wiped out.Cui Huijing was desperate and fled to the riverside. A fisherman chopped off his head and offered it to Jiankang. Cui Jue, Cui Gongzu and Xiao Baoxuan, the king of Jiangxia, were also captured and beheaded.Xiao Yi made great contributions and was granted the title of Shang Shu Ling.He never thought that being a meritorious official under Xiao Baojuan, the perverted monarch, would actually end up no different from being a traitor.