Chapter 207 Chapter 206 Mu Zong Li Heng

In the fifteenth year of Tang Yuanhe (820 A.D.), Emperor Xianzong was killed by eunuchs, and his third son, Prince Li Heng, ascended the throne under the support of eunuchs Liang Shouqian, Wei Yuanyuan, Wang Shoucheng and others, and became Tang Muzong.In the second year, the name was changed to "Changqing".During the four years when Tang Muzong was in power, the feudal towns all over the country came back and rebelled in an all-round way. The situation of crony disputes in the court and the eunuch's monopoly became more and more fierce, and the political situation of the Tang Dynasty became more and more out of control.

At the beginning of Mu Zong's accession to the throne, the feudal town held its breath, and the world was peaceful, but as soon as Mu Zong came to power, the political situation immediately changed fundamentally.In the fifteenth year of Yuanhe when Mu Zong came to the throne, Wang Chengzong, Chengde's Jiedu envoy, died. His younger brother Wang Chengyuan temporarily took charge of military affairs, and wrote to the imperial court, please send a Jiedu envoy.The replacement of old and new Jiedu envoys is often a critical moment related to whether the feudal town will belong to the central government or stand on its own in the future. Mu Zong should have carefully considered and chosen a competent person to take office.But Mu Zong was so stupid that he sent Tian Hongzheng to serve as Chengde Jiedu envoy.Tian Hongzheng has conquered Chengde twice, and the two sides have been feuding for many years. How could Chengde's soldiers obey his jurisdiction?Especially at that time, not only the local Jiedushi could leave the central government at will, but it was common for the arrogant soldiers under him to kill or expel the Jiedushi if they didn't like it.Sending Tian Hongzheng to go must be a disaster.General Zuo Jinwu Yang Yuanqing once spoke to Mu Zong, thinking that such an employment was inappropriate, but Mu Zong insisted on going his own way.

Since Tian Hongzheng led Wei Bozhen to join the central government, he has been obedient to the imperial court wholeheartedly. This time Wei Bo was transferred to Chengde. Although he knew it was dangerous, he still obeyed the transfer.In order to prevent accidents, he brought 2,000 soldiers to the post.However, the imperial court did not provide food and grass for these people.Hongzheng petitioned four times, and the judge Zhi Cui Lai had no foresight and stubborn temperament. He thought it was not appropriate to set this precedent, so he did not report it. Hongzheng had no choice but to send 2,000 soldiers back to Weibo.

At this time, Mu Zong issued an edict to reward Chengde's army with millions of dollars. The Duzhi responsible for the supply did not arrive in time. The Chengde sergeant originally resented Tian Hongzheng. This made him even more suspicious that he had withheld the court's reward, and became even more angry. Chengde knew that the military envoy Wang Tingcouu had been plotting to cause rebellion, because he was afraid of Tian Hongzheng's 2,000 soldiers and did not dare to attack.As soon as the soldiers were repatriated, Wang Ting took advantage of the resentment of the sergeants to kill Tian Hongzheng and more than 300 people including Liao Zuo, generals, and family members in the first year of Changqing (821 AD), and then went out to attack and plunder, captured Jizhou, and entered Surrounded Shenzhou and threatened the court to make him a Jiedu envoy.

Mu Zong didn't understand the situation of the feudal towns all over the world, nor how to deal with the conflicts between the central government and the feudal towns.Mr. Liu, the Jiedu envoy of Youzhou, resigned from the imperial court to become a monk because of his cruel life and remorse in his later years. Appointed to Jingzhaoyin Lu Shimei, and together to Zhang Hongjing, Xuanwu Jiedu envoy.Dezong had no opinion, so he handled it according to the approval. The power ministers Cui Zhi and Du Yuanying were biased towards Zhang Hongjing, so they handed over Ying and Mo Erzhou to Lu Shimei, and the rest were under the jurisdiction of Zhang Hongjing. According to the arrangement, they were still ordered to return to Lulong to be driven by Zhang Hongjing.After Zhang Hongjing arrived in Lulong, he rebelled against the tradition of Youyan Jiedushi sharing weal and woe with the soldiers. As a Jiedu envoy, Kou plundered nearby counties.

Due to the serious mistakes mentioned above, the flames of war in Hebei, which had been extinguished, were rekindled.Since the war started, the Tang Dynasty has no power to recover. Mu Zong ordered to mobilize more than 170,000 troops from Wei Bo, Henghai, Hedong, Yiwu and other armies, and use Pei Du as the recruiting envoy for the camps on all sides of Zhenzhou to attack Hebei. When Pei Du was in Emperor Xianzong, he once supervised the army to fight against Huaixi.Xianzong had no doubts in him when he was in power, but now he is unable to do what he wants.Because Yuan Zhen, a scholar of the Imperial Academy, and Wei Hongjian, a privy clerk, were in the way.The two were deeply afraid of Pei Du's success, so they re-entered the prime minister. Whatever Pei Du planned for the military, they did everything possible to sabotage it. The stupid Mu Zong only listened to their slander.

At the beginning, prime ministers Xiao Fu and Duan Wenchang, on the grounds that the world was peaceful and the army should be disarmed, urged Mu Zong to order Tianxia Chezhen to reduce the number of people by 8 out of 100 people every year, so as to reduce the number of troops.As a result, many soldiers lost their military registration, and the soldiers who were registered as soldiers gathered in the mountains to become bandits, and Zhu Kerong and Wang Ting joined forces to cause chaos.However, Zhuche Town had few soldiers, and they were recruited temporarily, and they were all mobs who had not received military training.After arriving at the front line, not only the military governors from all over the country had eunuchs to supervise the army, but also the generals who led the partial army also had eunuchs to supervise the formation.The supervising army also made brave soldiers their own guards, and only let the old, weak, sick and disabled go into battle, which greatly reduced the combat effectiveness of the officers and soldiers.

At that time, Wang Ting was in a hurry to besiege Shenzhou, Henghai Jiedu envoy Wu Chongyin rescued Shenzhou with the whole army, and took charge of the southeast side alone, serving as the backbone of the government and army to fight against the enemy.Chongyin sees that the enemy is difficult to break for a while, so he sticks to the wall.Mu Zong violated the big taboo of military strategists again. He changed his commander in front of the battle and replaced Wu Chongyin with Du Shuliang. The army lost the backbone to fight against the enemy.As a result, every battle must be defeated, and more than 7,000 people died.

The rebellion of Chengde and Lulong towns had a bad influence on other towns.Tian Hongzheng was transferred from Wei Bo, and Tian Bu was appointed as the governor. His general Shi Xiancheng instigated the town soldiers, forced Tian Bu to obey the old system of Heshuo, and betrayed the imperial court.Mu Zong had no choice but to establish Shi Xiancheng as Jiedu envoy.Shi Xiancheng served the court outside, and secretly colluded with Wang Tingcou and Zhu Kerong.The rebellion in Weibo Town made the situation on the front line worse and worse. In the last years of Emperor Xianzong of Tang Dynasty, due to the conquest of the Quartet, the use of the country has been emptied.After Mu Zong came to the throne, he gave rewards and banquets without restraint.The whole division sent troops, not only the division failed for a long time, but also the treasury was exhausted.In the late Tang Dynasty, when the troops of each town left their homeland, the central Duzhi was responsible for supplying military supplies.All the troops in the attack were unable to attack due to lack of food, and the sergeants even gathered their own firewood, and the daily supply of army food was no more than a spoonful of old rice.Even Li Guangyan, a famous general at the time, had to shut himself up.In the second year of Changqing (822 A.D.), Mu Zong had no choice but to make a compromise with Wang Ting, recognizing him as Chengde Jiedu envoy, and the imperial court stopped troops.The war against Hebei ended in the complete defeat of the central government.

As a result, the prestige of the central government was greatly damaged, and the power of the feudal town became more arrogant and domineering.Zhu Kerong, the Jiedu envoy of Youzhou (Lulong), made fun of the imperial court by presenting 10,000 horses and 100,000 sheep first, and then asked the imperial court to reward the horses and sheep back to Youzhou. The three towns of Lulong, Chengde, and Weibo in Hebei were lost, and the defense line of the Tang Central Committee against the feudal towns in various places collapsed. News of rebellions in various places spread to the Central Committee one after another.Zhaoyi Jiedu envoy Liu Wu was humiliated and excluded by the supervising army Liu Chengkai, and imprisoned Liu Chengkai. Following the example of the three towns in Hebei, he recruited unsuccessful people and rebelled against the central government.Wang Zhixing, deputy envoy of Jiedu in Wuning, expelled Cui Qun, the envoy of Jiedu, robbed salt, iron, money and silk, as well as the offerings and business trips given to the emperor in Bianhe River, and sent light soldiers to attack Haozhou.Li Chen in Xuanwu Town rebelled, and the general Wang Guoqingyao in western Zhejiang responded.

Only two years after Tang Muzong came to power, he completely tossed the unification situation that Xianzong had painstakingly managed.Rebellions happened one after another, wars continued for years between the feudal town and the central government, and between the feudal town and the feudal town. The dilapidated Tang Dynasty could never be revived. Tang Muzong was not only a fatuous emperor with no ambitions, but also a playboy who ignored political affairs and only cared about pleasure and corruption.In the fifteenth year of Yuanhe, Mu Zong was supported by eunuchs and came to power. He rewarded the Left and Right Shence Army with 50 coins (one thousand coins per coin), the Sixth Army and the Weiyuan Army with 30 coins each, and the Left and Right Jinwu with 15 coins each. Once such a huge reward was set, the emperor who came to the throne was overwhelmed. At that time, Xianzong's bones were still cold, and the burial ceremony had not yet been held. Mu Zong did not feel the sorrow of losing his father at all. On the contrary, he was immersed in the pride of being enthroned and sitting in the palace.First, he watched advocating zaju in the Danfeng Gate Tower, and then went to Zuo Shence Army to watch hand-craft zaju.As for how to consolidate his rule and stabilize the world, he didn't even think about it. After Xianzong was buried, on the first and fifteenth day of each month, Mu Zong led his officials to visit the Empress Dowager in Xingqing Palace, where the clothes and food provided by the Empress Dowager were extravagant and gorgeous.Another 2,000 people from the Shence Army were sent to dredge the fish and algae ponds for their own entertainment. According to the ancient Chinese etiquette system, when the father died, the son had to serve in filial piety for three years, not to perform official duties, and not to be close to sensual entertainment.Because the emperor wants to govern the world, in the Tang Dynasty, after 27 days, he can take off his filial piety and change to a public uniform, and go to the court to handle political affairs, which is called public elimination.Just after Mu Zong passed the edict, he indulged in sensuality and rewards, and ordered to choose a resort first on the Double Ninth Festival in September, and feast all his officials.Li Jue and his colleagues dissuaded him from picking up the relics, but Mu Zong refused to listen. In October of this year, the Dangxiang clan colluded with Tubo to invade Jingzhou (now Jingzhou, Gansu Province), with a huge army, with a company battalion of 50 miles, and there were frequent reports of urgent battles on the border, but the courtiers could not find Mu Zong.The admonishing doctor Zheng Qin and others advised him to stop the banquet in case of emergency. Mu Zong didn't know what official position Zheng Tan and others were, so he asked the prime minister, "Who is this generation?" Pretending to comfort him, he said, "Dang Yiqing's words."In fact, he didn't listen to it at all, he still went his own way, and felt at ease with his behavior. Since Tang Muzong didn't pay attention to the safety of the world, he certainly didn't pay attention to carefully selecting talents for governing the country.The prime ministers successively appointed by Mu Zong included Xiao Fu, Duan Wenchang, Du Yuanying, Wang Bo, Yuan Zhen and others.These people are either snobs who specialize in flattery and intrigue, or mediocre people who are short-sighted and have low talents. These prime ministers trusted by Mu Zong, when the country was in crisis, could neither propose economic measures related to the national economy and people's livelihood, nor could they propose strategic decisions to govern the country and stabilize the country, nor did they have the political ambition to take the world as their own responsibility and eliminate troubles for the court. On the contrary, they are all flattering the emperor for their own self-interest, forming cliques for personal gain, and rejecting dissidents.The emperor was fatuous and incompetent, ignoring political affairs, and the prime ministers were vying for power and profit, not doing business, which made the rule of the Tang Dynasty turn from chaos to chaos, and the situation went from bad to worse. During Mu Zong's time, the courtiers were not without talents, such as Pei Du, Cui Qun, Bai Juyi, Han Yu, etc. were famous officials of a generation, but Mu Zong neither trusted them nor adopted their opinions. Mu Zong used more than 100,000 people to crusade against Wang Tingcou, and spent more than half a year without success. He wasted military funds, only for Wei Bo's army, and the monthly sum was 280,000 yuan.Bai Juyi, a member of Zhongshushe, pointed out that the reason why the imperial court failed to achieve success for a long time was mainly due to the fact that there were too many generals, their hearts were not in harmony, and the imperial court was unclear about rewards and punishments.It is suggested that Li Guangyan be sent to lead 30,000 to 40,000 elite troops from all walks of life to advance quickly from the east, and Pei Du to press the entire Hedong army from the west, forming a situation of flanking east and west, and sending the rest of the army back to the town. success.A total of 60,000 troops were left in the two routes, and the expenditure was not much, and the expenditure and supply were easy to be plentiful.If Mu Zong can really adopt Bai Juyi's opinion, the pacification of Hebei will be just around the corner.However, Bai Juyi's letter fell into the sea like a stone, and there was no reply. In the second year of Changqing (822 A.D.), Mu Zong and the eunuch were playing ball in the palace. One eunuch fell off his horse by mistake.At that time, Li Fengji was the prime minister, and he colluded with the eunuch Wang Shoucheng to control the government, and the power was poured inside and outside.After this serious illness, Mu Zong also took the medicine of gold and stone that the alchemists had brought in.At the beginning of the fourth year of Changqing, he finally died in Qingsi Hall in Chang'an Palace due to the recurrence of wind disease at the age of 30.Buried in Guangling, he was posthumously named "Rui Sheng Wen Hui Xiao Emperor" and the temple name was "Mu Zong".