Chapter 43 Chapter 43 The Fire of Love and Hate

"Is there a good strategy to suppress this chaos?" Emperor Jing asked Yuan An. "There is a good strategy, but before I tell you, please ask the emperor to ask everyone present to avoid it." Yuan An replied. "Okay, you all avoid it!" Emperor Jing gave an order. All the courtiers except Chao Cuo withdrew.Asking the emperor to order others to avoid it is Chao Cuo's cliché.He, who was used to making such a request so as to face the emperor alone, never thought that Yuan An's request actually included himself.He thought it was natural for him not to leave the emperor's side.

"You can sue now." Emperor Jing said. But Yuan An stared at Chao Cuo's face and said, "What I asked for has not been done yet." "What you asked for..." "The minister asks everyone to stay away." "Didn't all the ministers retreat?" "And Chao Cuo was there." "Oh, right...wrong, you go down too!" When he heard this, Chao Cuo had no choice but to leave the emperor's side in dismay.It was this sense of humiliation that he had always given to the rest of his court. "Okay, everyone is out now, tell us your good plan!" Emperor Jing said.

"Yes. The rebellion with King Wu as the leader was all caused by Chao Cuo's reduction of the fiefdoms of the vassals. Therefore, the first measure that must be taken is to have Chao Cuo executed." "If Chao Cuo is executed, will the rebellion be quelled?" "This point, I can't guarantee it. But the act of beheading Chao Cuo is tantamount to the imperial court admitting that it was a wrong decision to reduce the vassals. If this is the case, the rebellion will lose its reason. And there is no reason to succeed if there is no reason to rebel." "That's true." After thinking for a moment, Emperor Jing made up his mind and said, "Send someone to Chao Cuo's residence in the near future and ask him to report to Ting Wei's office!"

"No, that won't work! You must call him into the palace, then order his car to drive to Dongshi, and kill him there!" "Is it necessary to kill him?" "Yes!" Yuan Ang replied. A doctor cannot be punished, and a commoner cannot be treated with courtesy.This was the principle at the time.That is to say, etiquette should be observed by the scholar-official class, and there is no need to enforce these rules and regulations on the common people.But from the point of view of "those who don't know etiquette are not human beings", this is tantamount to not recognizing the personality of the common people, that is, the common people are regarded as animals.

Scholar-bureaucrats must strictly abide by rituals and music, but they are not punished. In other words, no matter how serious a mistake a scholar-bureaucrat makes, he will not be punished, but this is only a principle after all. According to unwritten rules, when the imperial court sent someone to bring an order to the scholar-bureaucrat's home with an order to "pray immediately to the office of the Supreme Court Chief and Attorney-General to clear up the suspicion", the scholar-official must commit suicide on the spot. Even if it is wronged, as a scholar-bureaucrat, once suspected, he must commit suicide without defending himself.

"Reporting for duty" is just a formality, but actually an order to "suicide".At this time, it is customary for the sender to bring the poison and hand it over to the other party. This is the truth of "you can't be punished by a doctor". However, to quell the rebellion of the seven kingdoms of Wu and Chu, "Chao Cuo committed suicide" is not enough.It is necessary to let them know that "Chao Cuo has been killed", otherwise they will lack the power of persuasion. One day, the imperial court sent a car to pick him up, asking Chao Cuo to enter the palace immediately.Chao Cuo thought that the emperor had something to call, so he hurriedly changed into the palace uniform and boarded the sent car.

As a result, the car didn't go in the direction of the palace, but drove all the way to Dongshi. "Hey! Where are you going? Are you going the wrong way? This is the way to Dongshi!" Chao Cuo said to the driver. "Yes, I was ordered to take you to Dongshi!" the driver replied. Chang'an City has huge markets in the east and west.Doing business outside the market is not permitted.As a result, these two markets often have large crowds. The purpose of punishment is to warn the public.Regardless of Chinese or foreign, the executions in the past were carried out in public and in front of the masses.

Therefore, in the Han Dynasty, the market was also the execution ground. "What! To Dongshi! Oh..." Chao Cuo was aware of his fate all at once, and only then did he know that he was framed, but it was too late. "Yuan Ang asked the emperor to ask people to avoid me a few days ago... It turned out that he asked the emperor to execute me at that time... I didn't expect this to be my mistake!" Chao Cuo, who was once particularly favored by the emperor, was beheaded in Dongshi while wearing court clothes. Rebellion is no small matter. Once the uprising is over, it cannot be stopped simply by calling a stop.

——Chao Cuo, the minister of thieves, to take back the lost homeland! This letter of call has been widely sent to the hands of kings everywhere.The object of their hatred, Chao Cuo, has been beheaded by the court.But you can't withdraw troops because of this.It is impossible to stop the war while the battle is still going on. Of course Yuan An knew this.But he was once demoted to a commoner because of Chao Cuo. He did this for revenge. However, beheading Chao Cuo did have the effect of dampening the momentum of the rebel army. But the rebellion of Wu Chu and the Seven Kingdoms finally failed, and the reason was not that Chao Cuo was beheaded.The biggest reason is the failure of the battle.

When Liu Bi, the King of Wu, mobilized more than 200,000 troops to march westward, Tian Lubo, the great general of the Wu State, once offered advice: "I only know that leading the army forward is not a wise strategy. I respectfully ask the king to grant 50,000 troops to my ministers. As a mobile force, we will attack Changsha from Huainan, then enter Guanzhong from Wuguan, and then merge with the main force. In this way, the enemy will be defeated in a very embarrassing manner." "I will think about it." Although the king of Wu replied in this way, when the same clan meeting was held later, the prince expressed strong opposition: "Rebellion itself is an action against order. What we do, our subordinates will follow us. At this time, Tian Lubo was given 50,000 soldiers and horses. , what should he do if he rebels? We have to raise our troops this time, no matter what, we must win, so how can we adopt a strange strategy that we don't know whether it will succeed or not!"

King Wu thought this was also reasonable, so he did not adopt Tian Lubo's idea of ​​a mobile attack. General Huan, Major General of the State of Wu, made the following remarks: "Wu uses infantry as the main force, while Han uses chariots and cavalry as the main force. Infantry is good at fighting in mountains, while chariots and cavalry are better at fighting on flat land. Therefore, our army in When a city on flat land encounters stubborn resistance, it should immediately give up the idea of ​​attacking the city and move westward as soon as possible, and occupy the west of Luoyang with complex mountains and rivers as soon as possible. In this way, there is no need to pass Hangu Pass, which is equal to the pacification of the world. If you want to conquer the flat land one by one If we advance further into the city, our army will surely be caught in a bitter battle in the Liang-Chu Plain under the swarming of Han army chariots and cavalry.” King Wu asked the veterans for their opinions on this matter. ——This is the young man's strategy. Based on this, the orthodox generals rejected General Huan's proposal. To face the attacking front of the enemy from the front - this is the violent tiger Feng He's style of warfare.If you don't conquer the stubbornly resisting city first, you will definitely be pursued by the enemy.The veterans all think that the young people's thinking is not comprehensive and not worth adopting. War must be fought on a down-to-earth basis, step by step, and veterans want to use traditional tactics. Although there is no need for strange tactics, the rebel army is too helpless. At that time, there lived a chivalrous man named Jumeng near Luoyang, who was very powerful.When advancing from Wu and Chu to the west, if you can win over Jumeng and get his assistance, it will definitely make the westward army even more powerful.However, no one in Wu and Chu's military divisions thought of this. It was Zhou Yafu, son of Zhou Bo, who was ordered to crusade against the rebel armies of Wu, Chu and other seven countries. When the Lu family was destroyed, his father had attracted much attention as a Taiwei, and this time the suppression of an unprecedentedly large rebel army was carried out by his son as a Taiwei.It is an honor for the two generations of father and son to take on such a big task. Zhou Yafu hurried to Luoyang, and after meeting Jumeng, he let out a sigh of relief. "Wu and Chu's idiots dared to rebel and never thought of winning over Jumeng. Ha! This shows their combat acumen!" Zhou Yafu said happily. The rebel army only knew the ancient tactic of conquering cities one by one, and there were no new tactics at all.How can such a tactic be successful? Zhou Yafu adopted a combat method against the rebel army, on the one hand, fighting them in Liang, and on the other hand, cutting off the grain road of Wu and Chu. Liang Wang Liu Wu is the younger brother of Emperor Jing, of course he did not participate in the rebellion of Wu and Chu.Therefore, the rebel army attacked Suiyang, the capital of Liang. If the King of Wu followed General Huan's advice, they would definitely abandon Suiyang, which was firmly defended by the other side, and continue to advance westward to Luoyang, right?However, the Wu and Chu armies who rebelled only knew how to fight in the usual way, and they spent three months here.Zhou Yafu used this period of time to cut off the rebel army's food road, so that the surrounded generals had to be defeated due to hunger. When Liang was attacked by the rebel army, he sent someone to ask Zhou Yafu for help.But Zhou Yafu did not send reinforcements.Liang therefore urgently asked Chang'an for help. The defeated king of Wu crossed the Yangtze River and fled into the Allied East Vietnam Army stationed there.Dongyue joined the Wu and Chu joint army under the lure.At this time, the Han Dynasty had already started to lure Dongyue. Dongyue then killed King Wu and sent his head to Chang'an. Liu Wu, king of Chu, committed suicide. King Jiaodong, King Jiaoxi, King Suichuan, King Jinan and King Zhao all died.King Jibei was not executed because he joined the rebel army under threat. The chaos in the world was thus subsided.But the aftereffects persisted for some time. Zhou Yafu, who has made great contributions for two generations, has become more and more arrogant.In fact, being stubborn by nature, he often had conflicts with Emperor Jing. On the other hand, Liang Wang Liu Wu, who once asked Zhou Yafu for help but was ignored, held a grudge against him. As mentioned earlier, both Emperor Jing and King Liang were brothers born to Empress Dowager Dou.Empress Dowager Dou loved Liang Wang very much, almost to the point of doting. Empress Dowager Dou even said something like this - how about letting Wu (King of Liang) succeed after Qi (emperor) died? Since the throne of the Han Dynasty did not adopt the method of succession by brother and brother, this matter was of course rejected by all the ministers.Among them, the most violent opposition was Yuan An who killed Chao Cuo. Liang Wang was angry and sent assassins to assassinate him. One of the assassins spoke out because of his admiration for Yuan An: "I was ordered by the king of Liang to assassinate you. But for a virtuous person like you, I really can't bear to do it. But, There are more than a dozen assassins besides me, I hope you will be more careful." In the end, Yuan An was assassinated by the assassins sent by the King of Liang at the gate of Anling Guo on the way back from visiting the fortune teller. After the chaos between Wu and Chu, Zhou Yafu became the prime minister, but he also didn't get along well with Emperor Jing. When Xu Lu, king of the Huns, surrendered, Emperor Jing intended to make him a Marquis.The reason for this is to expect more surrenders. Zhou Yafu firmly opposed it. "They betrayed their master and surrendered to us. If you make him a lord, it is tantamount to encouraging people to rebel. It is absolutely impossible to make him a lord." However, Emperor Jing disregarded the opposition of the prime minister and granted Xu Lu the title of Marquis. "Zhou Yafu is so stubborn!" Emperor Jing felt resentful in his heart.Someone who is prime minister should have a sharper political sense - this is one point of his dissatisfaction. After Xu Lu was made a Marquis, Zhou Yafu resigned due to illness. Zhou Yafu was originally hated by King Liang and Queen Mother Dou who doted on King Liang.If Emperor Jing is displeased now, his fate can be said to be in jeopardy. Zhou Yafu's son bought funerary objects made by palace officials for use in his father's funeral.This is just an imitation of the armor and shield.However, after this incident was discovered, it caused an uproar. Although they are only funerary objects, the things made by the palace officials are only for the use of the emperor in principle.Arbitrary use by subordinates is considered an illegal act. Zhou Yafu died of hunger strike. His death happened in the first year of Emperor Jing's reign (143 BC), and Liu Wu, king of Liang, died in April of the previous year.