Chapter 27 9. Decline of Cheng Han

After suffering from Qianyan, Shihu dare not underestimate Murong Hao, but his ambition to rule the world has not changed.In the second year of the Battle of Thorn City, Hou Zhao and Qian Yan had a military conflict in the west of Liaoxi, which was Duan Liao's territory at the time. The cavalry composed of Jie people and Huns lost again to several Xianbei cavalry led by Murong.Shi Hu fought in the north and south in his life, participated in and commanded countless wars, and lost two consecutive battles in front of an opponent, which was the first time.Shi Hu was naturally angry, but he couldn't come up with any good strategy to deal with Qianyan for a while, so he had to find a soft persimmon first, and the Eastern Jin Dynasty with constant internal strife became Shi Hu's next crusade.

I mentioned in the "Yongjia Rebellion" that since the founding of the country by Yuan Emperor Sima Rui in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Wang family has gradually gained power.Wang Dao was in power inside, while Wang Dao's cousin Wang Dun was in charge of the army outside, so powerful for a while, that when Emperor Yuan ascended the throne as emperor, he even proposed to sit on the same throne with Wang Dao, so there is a folk saying that "the king and the horse share the world". said.Wang Dao was loyal to the emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, but Wang Dun held a heavy army and relied on his great achievements, so he gradually became arrogant. .

In the first year of Emperor Yongchang of the Yuan Dynasty (322 A.D.), Wang Dun, the governor of Jingzhou, led troops to attack Jiankang in the name of punishing the treacherous official Liu Wei. Emperor Jin and Yuan hurriedly ordered Diao Xie, Liu Wei, Dai Yuan and others to fight.The few people trusted by Emperor Yuan were obviously not Wang Dun's opponents in the war. Wang Dun's army quickly invaded Jiankang City. Diao Xie was killed by his men on the way to escape. In Jiankang City, Dai Yuan and other ministers who opposed him were killed before returning to Jingzhou. Emperor Jin Yuan became sick from anxiety and anger after all these tossing, and died soon after. His son Sima Shao came to the throne, that is, Emperor Jin Ming.During the reign of Emperor Ming of the Jin Dynasty, Wang Dun's family had mastered the military power of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.However, the "good times" didn't last long, only two years later, in the second year of Emperor Taining (324 A.D.), Wang Dun was seriously ill. Emperor Ming listed Wang Dun's crimes and ordered a crusade against Wang Dun.Wang Dun ordered his brother Wang Han to be the marshal, and led 50,000 troops to attack Jiankang again. This time, Emperor Ming personally recruited soldiers, and the imperial army won a battle.When Wang Dun got the news, he died of extreme anger, while Wang Han was defeated and killed. Wang Dun's rebellion finally subsided.

Emperor Ming was young and promising, he quelled the internal turmoil, and logically he could be ranked as a good monarch in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Unfortunately, he was short-lived and died at the age of twenty-seven.The prince, who later became Emperor Sima Yan, was only five years old at the time. His mother, Yu Shi, was in charge of the court as the empress dowager. During Wang Dao's assistant government, he was tolerant and decent in dealing with people, which won the hearts of everyone. However, Yu Liang was in power as a foreign relative, and he often acted inappropriately, and his prestige was not as good as Wang Dao.Yuzhou Inspector Zuyue, the younger brother of Zuti who supported the army abroad, was repeatedly rejected and held a grudge against Yu Liang.Su Jun, the internal historian of Liyang (now Hexian County, Anhui Province), gained prestige because of his meritorious service in quelling the Wangdun Rebellion. He gathered tens of thousands of elite soldiers in the Jiangbei area and despised the court very much.

In the second year of Emperor Cheng Xianhe (327 A.D.), Yu Liang believed that Su Jun would rebel if he was away for a long time, so he refused to listen to the opinions of most ministers headed by Wang Dao, and recruited Su Jun into the court as Da Si Nong.Su Jun understood Yu Liang's intentions, so he secretly united with Zu Yue to launch a rebellion and invaded Jiankang.This is the second time that Jiankang City has been robbed in just a few years. Su Jun's soldiers plundered the city wantonly and expelled hundreds of officials.Yu Liang and others fled to Xunyang. Looking at the territory of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, they could only ask for help from Tao Kan, the governor of Jingzhou and the general who conquered the west.

Tao Kan was a generation of virtuous ministers and famous generals in the early years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. He came from a humble background and was from a poor family. Later, he was recommended as Xiaolian through his own efforts. He became a county magistrate in Wugang, a small county in Jingzhou, when he was almost fifty years old. .In the troubled times at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, there were also a large number of refugees in Jingzhou who rebelled. Tao Kan showed outstanding military skills and made many military exploits in the fight against the chaos.Later, the Eastern Jin Dynasty was able to effectively control the Jingxiang area, which was directly related to Tao Kan's campaign. When the Eastern Jin Dynasty was established, he had already become the governor of Jingzhou.

Wang Dun was afraid that his military achievements would be too great to be controlled, so he transferred him to Guangzhou as the governor, but he gained the reputation of "Lucky Man": at that time, Guangzhou was far away from the Central Plains, sparsely populated, and Tao Kan's affairs were too leisurely, so he just Every morning, hundreds of bricks are moved outside, and then moved back indoors in the evening, rain or shine.Someone felt strange and asked him why he did this.He said: "I used to fight in the Central Plains. I was afraid that I would not be able to adapt to such a comfortable place all of a sudden, so I found something for myself every day."

The governor who loves to do things is concerned about the safety of the court day and night in his heart. After the chaos in Wangdun subsided, Emperor Jin Ming granted him and transferred him back to Jingzhou for defense. When Su Jun rebelled, Tao Kan was nearly 70 years old. Outside Jiankang City, he had the highest prestige, a powerful army, and he was an upright and strict official, and he was very convincing.Yu Liang and others elected him to be the coach of rebellion, saving the situation in the Eastern Jin Dynasty that was at stake.Tao Kan used the Jingzhou army to resist Su Jun. After withstood the three axes of the rebel army in the early stage, the situation gradually improved. It took Tao Kan and others two years to finally defeat the rebellion army and kill Su Jun and his younger brother Su Yi. After regaining Jiankang, Zu Yue was forced to flee to Hou Zhao, and was later killed by Shi Le (the brother of Zu Ti, a famous general in the Northern Expedition, ended up dying, such a contrast, pitiful and hateful).The Eastern Jin Dynasty was in chaos for eight years before it managed to settle down.

(These generals in the Eastern Jin Dynasty were all outsiders in foreign wars and experts in civil wars. When they encountered the north, the attacks of Zhao and other countries were often defeated, and they were all focused on "fighting in the nest". Although the north was chaotic, it was still between different ethnic groups. However, the civil strife in the south is all open and covert struggles of the Han people themselves. Although it is not as chaotic as in the "Eight Kings Rebellion", every time you have to fight to the death. Thinking about Jiankang City is also miserable enough. It was ravaged twice at the beginning, and it was all done by our own people. The barbarism of the Han people is no less than that of the barbarians in the north.)

Seeing the weakness of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Shi Hu personally wrote a letter to Li Shou, the monarch of the Southwestern Han Kingdom, to discuss the division of Jiangnan.This state of Han was Li Xiong's Cheng state at the beginning, and the change of the name of the state also experienced some court battles. Li Xiong reigned for thirty-one years. He was famous for his generosity and simple criminal law. Central Sichuan became a "happy land" at that time, and many celebrities came from all over the place to seek refuge.But in the twenty-fourth year of Yuheng (334 A.D.), a sore suddenly developed on Li Xiong's head, which caused the recurrence of old injuries all over his body, the abscess burst and he died.

Prince Li Ban is the son of Li Xiong's elder brother Li Dang. He is a man of benevolence and filial piety, not the material to be an emperor.After Li Xiong's death, even though he was the emperor, he only attended mourning in the funeral palace and handed over all the political affairs in the court to his uncle, Li Xiong's cousin Li Shou, the king of Jianning.At this time, Li Xiong's own son Li Yue, the chariot general, returned to Chengdu for the funeral.He believed that Li Ban was not Li Xiong's own birth, and he was dissatisfied, so he and his younger brother Anton General Li Qi secretly planned to overthrow Li Ban.Li Ban's younger brother Li Jun was aware of this and advised Li Ban to send Li Yue and Li Qi to other places so as not to stay in Chengdu and cause trouble.Li Ban thought that Li Xiong hadn't been buried yet, so he couldn't bear to order, and treated Li Yue and others sincerely. Instead, he felt that Li Xiong was too suspicious, so he sent him to Fucheng to guard.Li Yue didn't know how to be grateful to Dade, so he killed Li Ban while he was crying in the funeral palace at night.At the same time, he killed his brother Li Du, made Li Qi the emperor, and changed his Yuan to Yuheng, which was Cheng Yougong. After Li Qi came to the throne, he appointed his brothers Li Yue, Li Ba and his cronies Jing Qian and Xu Fu, and sent Li Shou and others to other places.Li Qi was extravagant and killed innocent people indiscriminately. What he did was completely opposite to his father's, and Chengguo's politics began to deteriorate.Li Qi's elder brothers Li Ba and Li Bao died without illness. According to the legend in the palace, Li Qi poisoned him, which aroused the fear and uneasiness of the ministers.Then Li Qi poisoned Li Shou's adoptive brother, Anbei General Li You, in preparation for finally getting rid of Li Shou, the "thorn in the side".Li Qi, Li Yue, Jing Qian and others planned a surprise attack on Li Shou, and agreed to send troops on the pretext of burning the bridges in Chengdu.Li Qi was worried, and sent Xu Fu to Li Shou's residence several times to spy on him. Li Shou is also a very alert person. After Li Qi came to the throne, he felt murderous.There was a strong man in Brazil, Gong Zhuang, whose father and uncle were killed by Li Xiong's father Li Te, and he always wanted to avenge Li Te's descendants.Li Shou had a very close friendship with him, and Gong Zhuang urged him to take Chengdu to the west and accomplish great things. After hearing this, Li Shou finally made up his mind to use offense instead of defense. In the fifth year of Yuheng, the Duke of Chengyou (338 A.D.), Li Shou forged a letter from his brother-in-law Ren Tiao, and handed the letter to his soldiers, saying that Li Qi wanted to harm him.The soldiers were furious, so Li Shou took general Li Yi as the vanguard and led an army of 10,000 troops from Fucheng where he was stationed to attack Chengdu.How did Li Qi expect Li Shou to move so fast, and there was no defense in Chengdu at all.Li Shi, Li Shou's eldest son, was serving as the lieutenant of the Yi Army in the court, and now he became an internal response. He opened the city gate to welcome Li Shou's army, and Li Shou sent troops to guard the palace gate.Li Qi, who hadn't yet assembled an army, became a soft-shelled turtle, so he had to send someone to reward Li Shou's army in embarrassment.Li Shou first reported that Li Yue, Jing Qian and others were disorderly in government, and got rid of all Li Qi's cronies. Then he falsely spread the order of the queen mother, abolished Li Qi as Duke of Qiongdu County, and placed him under house arrest in the cold palace.Li Qi lost power and lamented in loneliness: "The lord of the world has become a small county prince now, he might as well die!" Then he hanged himself and died. Li Shou wiped out Li Qi's influence. Ministers Luo Heng, Xie Siming and others advised him not to be emperor anymore, but to change his name to King of Chengdu, and to claim the feudal domain in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, while his brother-in-law Ren Tiao and others advised him to become emperor. Li Shou asked a fortune-teller to tell his fortune, and the fortune-teller concluded: "You can be the emperor for several years." Ren Tiao said happily: "One day is enough for the Son of Heaven, let alone several years!" Xie Siming shook his head and said, "How can a son of heaven for several years compare to a prince of hundreds of generations!" Li Shou replied: "If you hear the Tao in the morning, you can die in the evening." Li Shou was the emperor, changed the name of the country to Han, and changed the Yuan to Han Xing.Because this Han State was the former Cheng State, in order to distinguish it from the Western Han, Eastern Han, Shu Han and other Han, the Han State of Li Shou was called "Cheng Han" in history.Among the Sixteen Kingdoms, Chengguo and Chenghan are the same country. Although Li Shou changed the name of the country and tried his best to restore Chenghan to the situation when Li Xiong was in power, after three consecutive dynasties, Chenghan's decline has become unstoppable, and the proclaiming of the emperor has also been questioned by the ministers of the court.Shi Hu asked Li Shou to destroy the Eastern Jin Dynasty together. Li Shou himself was very excited, so he collected military rations and presided over the military parade in person.At the military parade, the ministers headed by Xie Siming remonstrated with Li Shou with the principle of "death lips and cold teeth". , Cheng Han has been unable to protect himself. Since Cheng Han was unable to advance eastward and destroy Jin, its fate could only be to wait for the Eastern Jin to destroy it.