Chapter 15 5. Green Forest Heroes

The four units of Xiajiang, Xinshi, Pinglin, and Chongling active in Hubei and Henan can all be called the "Green Forest Squad".But in terms of their closeness, Xiajiang and Xinshi are the closest, while Pinglin and Chongling are peripheral elements. However, it is the two peripheral elements, Pinglin and Chongling, who have greatly added points to the historical achievements of the "Green Forest Clan". Among the soldiers of Pinglin was Liu Xuan, a small officer in "Anjiyu". This was the emperor "Gengshi" who would be an important figure between the two Han Dynasties in the future.Among the Chongling soldiers, Liu Xiu, the famous coward and honest man, will be the future founding emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

The history of ancient China has always been that the winners are princes and the losers are thieves. With such two emperors, the limelight of the green forest will naturally overshadow the red eyebrows, so later generations only have "green forest heroes" and no "red eyebrow heroes". Liu Xuan, courtesy name Shenggong, was born in Chongling. He belonged to the Han Dynasty. After Emperor Jing, he belonged to the lineage of Chonglinghou of the Changsha royal family.In Xinmangzhong, because of breaking the law and escaping, he joined the Pinglin Army as Anji, and was co-biography with Liu Penzi, another Caotou emperor, in the "Book of the Later Han". There are very few early deeds.

Liu Xiu, styled Uncle Wen, also came from the lineage of the Marquis of Chongling. He is seven feet three inches long, has a beautiful man and eyebrows, and has a big mouth and a long Zhunri horn—in short, according to historical records, he looks very emperor.However, his personality and hobbies are not at all like his ancestor Liu Bang, but quite similar to Liu Bang's second elder brother who is famous for his good at managing the industry. When Liu Bang was young, he was idle and gave birth. His father often used his second elder brother who was good at making money as an example to educate him. , When Liu Bang became emperor, the whole family gathered together to drink. He toasted his father with a jade cup and asked: "Your Excellency often blames the death of his ministers. If he can't manage the property, he is not as good as Zhong Li. Today's business is just as good as Zhong Li. Which one or Zhong Duo?" Back then you always said that I was a scoundrel, not as good as my second child, but now I compare with my second child, whose property is bigger?

Because of this, his elder brother Liu looked down on him quite a bit, thinking that Liu Xiu was just a worthless farmer, and often made jokes about him with the allusion of "whose career is now with Zhongduo".Thanks to Liu Xiu's good temper, not only did she not get angry, but she also giggled with everyone. Liu Zibosheng, his hobbies are quite similar to those of his ancestors, he likes to raise knights, often harbors desperadoes, he is a happy and troubled master. During the reign of Wang Mang and Tianfeng, Liu Xiu was sent by his family to Chang'an to study "Shangshu", but he didn't make any great achievements in reading it, so he came back half-understood and continued to be his farmer.What he does all day long are those trivial things that his elder brother is too lazy to do, such as helping people to sue for money and food, selling rice in big cities to buy tools, bribing officials to evade taxes, etc... Among the founding emperors of all dynasties, Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty, was the most unpromising when he was young.Occasionally express your ambitions, but it is nothing more than "officials are treated as Jinwu, and wives are treated as Yin Lihua", with a very small appetite and no heroic spirit in the whole body.

But the future emperor occasionally had flashes of inspiration.For example, at that time there was a prophecy that "Liu Xiu should be the Son of Heaven", everyone thought it should be Wang Mang's master Liu Xiu, but Liu Xiu, the farmer, also joked with everyone: "An Zhi is not a servant?" What do you think? Know that it is not me who is fulfilled? In the twenty-second year of A.D., there was a famine in Nanyang, and among the guests of Liu Xiu's house, there were quite a few people who were secretly thieves.For this reason, local officials often trouble him, and naturally they will inevitably make a few tricks.Liu Xiu, who was frightened by the officials, ran to Xinye to hide. The "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" honestly called it "Guangwu avoids officials in Xinye"-I feel ashamed when I think about it.However, Liu Xiu is a diligent person in managing the industry. Although he was fleeing, he heard that the price of grain in the nearby metropolis Wancheng was high, so he went to Wancheng to sit in town and resell the grain produced on the manor.Wancheng tycoon Li Tong and others intended to rebel, and wanted to call someone surnamed Liu, so they lobbied Liu Xiu with pictures and prophecies, saying: "The Liu family will rise up, and the Li family will be assisted."

The so-called picture prophecies and prophecies are a bit like rumors in nature—I always hear them flying around, but I don’t know who they came from.Since the end of the Warring States period, there have been prophecies in history. For example, the saying "Although there are three households in Chu, Chu will die in Qin Dynasty" is a prophecy. Because there are too many prophecies circulating in the rivers and lakes, it is inevitable that a few sentences will happen to be right, so people regard the prophecy as a revelation of secrets, and some boring people specialize in the study of prophecy, and even make it into a science— —Of course, rather than believing that these rumors are secrets, we might as well say that they are public opinion, public opinion that cannot be put on the table.When Wang Mang usurped the Han, he borrowed the power of prophecy to a considerable extent, so the period between the Han and Han was simply the golden age of prophecy.

Without the prediction of the prophecy, the great heroes would be terrified, unable to eat well, sleep well, and even dare not be emperors.Until the Southern and Northern Dynasties, prophecies had considerable power to influence the political situation.In the subsequent history, its strange figure can still be seen intermittently.Until the end of the Ming Dynasty, Song Xiance was still presenting the prophecy of "Eighteen Master Artifacts" to Li Zicheng. According to the prophecy, it is really a monster who never dies but becomes a thief in Chinese history. To this day, we can often find it looming around us.

Liu Xiu is a person who believes in prophecies—until he became the emperor, he still regarded these nonsense as treasures, and when he was criticized by the ministers, he got angry and wanted to punish people, so the prophecies shown by Li Tong really moved him. Liu Xiu didn't think he had the appearance of an emperor, but his family had a heroic elder brother who was good at raising chivalrous men, so he wondered if he might be the boss of my family!In addition, he was bullied miserably by the officials, so on a whim, he decided to conspire with Li Tong and others to rebel, and used all the money he earned from selling grain to buy weapons.

In October of AD 22, Liu Xiu, Li Tong, Li Tong's younger brother Li Yi and others set up troops in Wancheng at the age of 28.Even a rabbit like Liu Xiu, who kept his own law and order, was forced to rebel. One can imagine what was going on in the world at that time. Liu Xiu took this team back to his hometown Chongling, when his elder brother Liu had already pulled up an army there to rebel.After the two troops met, they were called "Chongling soldiers" in history. Liu Xiang has always been famous for causing trouble. When he started an incident, he frightened all the Liu family's children: rebellion, that is a serious crime of extermination!Everyone was afraid of being implicated, so they all slipped away and hid.When Liu Xiu also came back with a team, everyone was overjoyed: even such a simple and honest guy took the lead in rebellion, what are we afraid of?

Liu united Xinshi Bing, Pinglin Bing and other green forest ministries, known as the "Han Army", to attack the surrounding cities and settlements, and the troops gradually grew stronger. However, in the eyes of the talented Liu Xiu, the poor Liu Xiu was not born to be a rebel, so he was only willing to give him a cow to ride.So Liu Xiu rode a cow to rebel in this way, and he didn't get a horse until the Han army defeated Wang Mang's Xinye Wei. Gaozu Mangdang Mountain killed the white snake and started a rebellion. He still had a three-foot sword in his hand. He was playing a hero when he died: "Is it fate to use the three-foot sword to take over the world?" But his descendant Liu Xiu rode an ox to open up the world. After two hundred years of the Han Dynasty, the world...

Fate is really elusive. In the eyes of heroes, even if they are the props of the emperor, the sword is still more majestic than the cow after all.Think about it, if Li He wrote "Why don't men wear Wu hooks" instead of "Why don't men ride a scalper and charge Guanshan fifty states", how many pairs of glasses would have to be broken? Therefore, Shi Le, the chieftain of the Jie tribe in the Sixteen Kingdoms era, said modestly, I can't compare with Han Gaozu, but Han Guangwu, I can probably keep pace with him. This is probably where the sword trumps the ox. After the incident in Chongling, the Liu brothers united with various ministries in the Green Forest and went out to attack the city and conquer the territory. In the first month of the 23rd year of AD, under the command of Liu, the Han army defeated the Xinmang army with 100,000 soldiers, beheading Zhen Fu, a senior officer of Wang Mang's former team, who belonged to Zhengliang Qiuci.Then, Liu defeated the famous generals of the Xinmang Dynasty, Yan You, General Nayan, and General Chen Mao, General Zhizong, and entered the siege of Wancheng with a crowd of 100,000.Who is guarding Wancheng?In the future, Cen Peng, one of the twenty-eight generals of Yuntai in the Eastern Han Dynasty-so the Han army could not attack for a long time. In February of this year, all the ministries of the Lvlin Department promoted the Pinglin Army Anji in Wancheng. Zhu Yu is the Grand Sima, Liu is the Grand Situ, and Chen Mu is the Grand Sikong.The rest of the generals are all ranked as General Jiuqing, and the honest Liu Xiu is also too common and a partial general. At that time, in terms of military exploits and talents, among the Liu clan in Lulin, Liu was the most qualified to become the Emperor of Han. 100,000 catties, the title of the Lord”——no green forest red-browed head can be worth this price. Liu Weiyan has always been famous, he has a great reputation, and most of the heroes and warriors are attributed to him, clearly surpassing the generals of Pinglin and Xinshi.Those who supported Liu were mainly his own Chongling faction and some generals who went down to the river, such as Wang Chang and others. On the other hand, Pinglin, Xinshi, and other generals who went down to the river were afraid that Liu Jie would be difficult to control, and they had strict discipline—they were originally thieves, accustomed to idleness and indulgence, and they really didn't want to be ruled by a strict emperor—so they would rather support Wu Harm the incompetent Liu Xuan.The generals of Pinglin and Xinshi secretly campaigned to support Liu Xuan, and only after it became a fait accompli did they send someone to notify Brother Liu. Liu was quite dissatisfied with this, but in order to take the overall situation into consideration, he euphemistically proposed: "The generals are fortunate to respect and establish the clan, and their virtues are very strong, but their stupid and contemptible views are different. Today, the red eyebrows are green and Xu, and there are many One hundred thousand, I heard that Nanyang established a clan, fearing that the red eyebrows will be established again. If so, there will be internal strife. Today Wang Mang is not destroyed, but the clans attack each other. It is doubting the world and self-defeating power, not because of breaking Mang. And the first soldier Singing songs is rarely successful. Chen Sheng and Xiang Ji are the same. Chongling went to Wanwan for three hundred miles, but it is not enough. Standing up with self-respect, it is the standard of the world, so that future generations can inherit me, it is very important. Those who are good at planning are also good. Now let’s call the king and give orders. If the red-browed person is worthy, follow him; Think about it!" This is said very strategically: I, Liu, oppose the establishment of the emperor now, not because everyone did not establish me (this is really hard to say), but because the time is not enough.We can establish the Liu clan as the emperor, and Chimei can also establish the clan. If Wang Mang is not defeated, the green forest and Chimei will fight first.What's more, most of the people who raised the title of soldiers first did not have good results. Chen Sheng and Xiang Yu are such negative examples.Now it's better to become king first and then emperor later, depending on Chimei's movements, so that you can better grasp the initiative. As soon as this was said, many people echoed it, and the situation was once reversed. In the end, Zhang Ba, the general who supported Liu Xuan, struck the tunnel with his sword: "There is no success in the doubt. Today's discussion must not be two!" So the matter of Liu Xuan's proclaiming emperor was hastily concluded. Regarding Liu's words, we can't just understand that the "Chongling faction" is venting their dissatisfaction. In fact, Liu Xuan's proclaiming the emperor has indeed greatly attracted Wang Mang's attention, which is very strategically wrong. So the famous "Battle of Kunyang" in Chinese history broke out.