Home Categories Chinese history Emperors Are Crazy, Playful Emperors in History

Chapter 28 Yushu backyard flower, the flower will not last long

After Chen cured his neck and got rid of his rebellious brother, he began to take charge of political affairs.At that time, the Chen Dynasty was the weakest among the southern dynasties, with a narrow territory and a small number of household registrations, which was only half of Liu Song's.At this time, the Northern Zhou Dynasty in the north had been replaced by the Sui Dynasty.Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty aimed at unification, so he stared at this small southern court.Empress Chen was also disturbed by this, so he sent an envoy to Tonghao in the Sui Dynasty. He heard that Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty had an unusual appearance, so he asked the envoy to draw a portrait and bring it back.When he unfolded the scroll and saw the majestic face of the emperor inside, he couldn't help being horrified, threw the scroll on the ground, covered his face and said, "I don't want to see this person."

As soon as Chen Houzhu covered his face, he thought he was out of danger and could start to enjoy himself.He felt that the palace left by Emperor Chen Xuan was too simple, so in the third year of his reign, he couldn't wait to build the three pavilions of Linchun, Jieqi and Wangxian in front of the Guangguang Hall.Each pavilion is several feet high, with dozens of exquisite rooms.The beams, columns, windows, lintels and sills are all carved from agarwood. Sometimes when a breeze blows, there will be a burst of refreshing fragrance, which can be smelled miles away.And it is also decorated with gold, jade, pearls and emeralds, and it is even more colorful and dazzling when it is illuminated by the sun.Bead curtains are hung outside each house, and the bed curtains in the room, as well as the playthings used for decoration, are all rare and precious, which have never existed in modern times.In the courtyard, exquisite strange stones are also used to build rockery, which attracts running water and stores it as a pond.And planted a lot of exotic flowers and trees mixed in it, decorating it like a fairyland on earth.

With such a beautiful palace, Empress Chen began to listen to songs, watch dances, recite poems and compose Fu with a group of officials, and never tire of it every day.Many of these ministers are his former members of the East Palace, and many are high-ranking officials in the court.For example, Mr. Jiang, every day he and a group of scribes serve banquets in the harem, drinking and composing poems with the lord.Speaking of which, he can be regarded as a good writer, "eager to learn, capable of writing, especially good at seven characters and five characters".But he is a servant of Shangshu, equivalent to a prime minister, but he doesn't care about national affairs, he only cares about banquets and frolicking.In addition, there is a man named Kong Fan, who is even more of a follower of power. Because he is also surnamed Kong, he became a brother and sister with Kong Gui, who is favored by the empress, so as to gain the trust of the empress.This group of people had a good time with the queen master, and they "made friends through literature", so they laughed and made jokes, and no longer had an order of superiority and inferiority, so they were called "flirting guests".In addition to this group of well-informed and interesting lovers, of course the literary and elegant Empress Chen cannot do without the company of beauties.He has his beloved Concubine Zhang, Concubine Gong, and Concubine Kong, as well as "collected" from the people Wang Meiren, Li Meiren, Zhang Shuyuan, and Xue Shuyuan, as well as Yuan Zhaoyi, He Jieyu, and Jiang Xiurong.Yingying Yanyan, Liu Meihuajiao.Empress Chen also asked the court ladies to compete in poetry and prose. The court lady Yuan Dashe won the first prize, and he was named a "female bachelor" by him. Every time there was a feast, she and the guests were asked to compose new poems.They also made colored notes to pay for singing poems, and fined them for drinking if they were late.Among them, those with beautiful words are composed into tunes and made into new songs.More than a thousand beautiful court ladies were summoned, accompanied by a large band, singing and dancing.

Of course, Empress Chen is not willing to just be a spectator for such a romantic and wonderful event, he also wants to participate.He was originally a romantic and suave talent, and he was also proficient in rhythm.So he not only wrote lyrics and music, but also acted as a choreographer and director, and sometimes played the piano by himself. He was very busy, but he also enjoyed himself.The new songs he produced include: "Yushu Backyard Flowers", "Spring River Flowers and Moonlight Night", "Linchun Music", "Oriole Staying", "Gold Hairpins Hanging at the Temples", "Dangtang" and so on.Just hearing the name alone, it is already extremely fragrant.These tunes were originally Wuyin and Xiqu tunes in the Shang music of the Qing Dynasty. They came from the folk, and there is no lack of simplicity and innocence, but they did not meet the extravagant mood that the empress liked.Therefore, he changed it so that "the sound is very sad" and has an effect of ecstasy.Now, the vocal parts of these songs are gone, and only the lyrics of "Yushu Backyard Flower" remain.However, this song "The Flowers in the Backyard of the Yushu" has always been regarded as the standard "Voice of Subjugated Nations", and it is very famous in history. Perhaps it is because of this that many people remember the Chen Dynasty, a small court in the south of the Yangtze River.The lyrics of the song are as follows:

At first glance, it is full of beautiful rhetoric, but if you look carefully, the artistic conception is shallow and the style is not high. It is still a typical routine of Qi and Liang palace style poems, with the style of cutting red and emerald green, and moaning without illness.But although the level of this poem is not high, there is no excessive description. Some people criticize it as obscene, so it is unavoidable.In fact, such mediocre works can be said to have caught a lot in the Southern Dynasties.But only this poem, because of its reputation as the "Voice of Subjugated Nations", has been widely praised for more than a thousand years, which is a strange thing.

However, not all of Empress Chen's poems are of this kind. After all, he is a talented man, and he also wrote very delicate and interesting poems, such as:
A faint emotion, delicate and complicated, but when the dream is awakened from the wine, it completely turns into a melancholy and illusory.However, the panic in the dream and the setting sun by the window have hinted at a feeling of uneasiness and twilight.Even though Empress Chen was singing and singing every night, drunk and dreaming, he could still feel that the days of this small imperial court were waning and time was running out.

Empress Chen ruled the palace, had endless banquets, and lived a luxurious and luxurious life. Even his royal horse was extremely delicate, and he thought the beans were too rough and refused to swallow them.The resulting huge costs will naturally be passed on to the common people.When he was the prince, Shi Wenqing, an official of Shi Wenqing, and his old friend Shen Keqing were in charge of the financial power, and they kept increasing the taxation and exploitation of the people. , the prisons are always full", so the people are destitute and complain.And those courtiers around him are mostly flatterers, such as that Kong Fan, who knew that Empress Chen didn't want to be accused of his faults, so whenever a minister offered advice, he dismissed him with various charges, Then he agitated his tongue like a reed, cleverly decorated it, and described the emperor's faults as virtues.When the emperor heard these extravagant and beautiful words, he was elated and appreciated him even more.And this person, relying on Chen Houzhu's favor for him, feels very good about himself, and claims to be an all-round talent in civil and military affairs, and no one in the court can compare to him.He often told the Empress that those generals who were guarding outside were just from the army, and they could only show off their bravery, so how could they know what foresight was.The cowhide was so bragging that the queen master thought he was so talented. Once the general made a slight mistake, he would issue an edict to take away their soldiers and horses and distribute them to Kong Fan and other scribes to command.As a result, the soldiers were separated, and the civil and military disintegrated, which directly weakened the armed forces of the Chen Dynasty.

This situation, of course, aroused the dissatisfaction of the upright ministers of the DPRK and China.Secretary Supervisor Fu Hao, who turned out to be an ex-officer of Empress Chen's East Palace, offended Shi Wenqing and was falsely imprisoned.He wrote admonitions in prison, complaining about the ills of the times, accusing the empress of excessive drinking, appointing treacherous craftsmen, and bribing the public with goods;He also said that if this continues, everyone will definitely betray their relatives, "I am afraid that the southeast will be kingly, and I will die here."

When Empress Chen saw this scolding, he was very angry.But in his heart, he had to admit that what Fu Xuan said was the truth, and he also thought that he was his old man in the East Palace after all.So he sent someone to prison to tell Fu Xuan that he would be pardoned, but the condition was that he must correct his mistakes, admit that he had made mistakes, and stop writing to criticize the emperor.But this Fu Hao was an upright person. He said to the visitors: "The heart of a minister is like the face. The face of the minister can be changed, but the heart of the minister is hard to change." Empress Chen became furious and sent him to death in prison.Seeing this example, the other ministers dare not say more.As a result, the monarchs and ministers, day after day, indulged in feasting, feasting, singing and dancing, and all important national affairs were forgotten.

"The six generations of Taicheng competed for luxury, and the most extravagant thing is to get married and come to spring. Thousands of households and thousands of doors become weeds, only because of a backyard flower." The popular "Taicheng" by Liu Yuxi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, is a reflection of the extravagance of the Chen Dynasty. And the subjugation of the country is described vividly.The monarchs and ministers of the Chen Dynasty lived a luxurious life of "the moon is full every night, and the Qiongshu is new at the morning", but they could not escape the inevitable fate of "the flowers in the backyard of Yushu will not bloom for long".

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