Chapter 46 third quarter

The Dou brothers are wise and powerful, but it is still unavoidable that sour literati always talk about their physical characteristics, and Tong Guan, who appeared on the stage at the end of the empire, has a much better innate condition than the Dou brothers.First of all, although Eunuch Tong is a eunuch, he has a beard, not many, two or three beards, but after all, it grows out of his face like a fake. Based on this, Eunuch Tong can be regarded as unprecedented. To avoid embarrassment like Dou Shenxing. Secondly, the eunuch Tong is tall and burly, with strong skin and bones (presumably with extraordinary skills), he has broken away from the eunuch's sissy, and he is a sturdy professional soldier in military uniform, which will earn him a lot of money in the military. Less image points.

As Li Xian's protégé, Li Xian did not give much care and support to the first eunuch of the Northern Song Dynasty who became famous in the future of the empire. A lot of military experience, and the Northwest has become the capital of his future rise.In addition, Tong Guan had studied in a private school for several years in his early years, so he was a little ink in his stomach. At least he stood out from the eunuch group with a low level of knowledge and culture. For the eunuch group, this is a good seedling with both civil and military skills. But until the age of forty-six, Tong Guan's life still did not see any light and hope, and he was still just a small servant. Whether the empire was in power by the new party or the old party, would an old eunuch like him be a match? Those who don't go to the world, his mentor Li Xian has already died in Chenzhou, which marks the apex and bottom line of being a eunuch in the empire.

Not surprisingly, in a few years, he can apply for retirement, adopt one or two adopted children, and live his whole life. But his fate still changed, and the talented Duan Prince Zhao Ji became the emperor.When the new emperor came to the throne, he was very cautious (the queen mother was still watching from behind), and he didn't dare to do things that were too outrageous, but it was still a legitimate hobby to find a confidant eunuch to go out of the palace to search for a few calligraphy and paintings. Tong Guan, who is a bit educated, took this job. Not only did he find many rare paintings for the emperor, but he also found a person for the emperor——Cai Jing.

His subordinates didn't understand at the time, saying that it's not good to curry favor with anyone now, but to curry favor with Cai Jing, who is not as good as a phoenix. Tong Guan has his own unique vision. Cai Jing's reputation is not good at this time, and his status is new and old. People from both parties dismiss him, but Tong Guan sees some kind of channel and bridge between him and the new emperor. Let him make the most important risky political investment in his life (it turned out to be a huge profit afterwards). Cai Jing, who gained power and ascended to the throne, naturally reciprocated the referendum of Tong Gong. How the eunuchs of the empire slowly moved to the core political stage of the empire, the way is very clear, not in the court, but in the battlefield.

Zhao Ji changed from the dual use of the two parties when he came to power to expressing the ambitions of his father and brother and implementing the new law.The two cores of the new law are naturally indispensable. One is financial management, and Prime Minister Cai will take care of financial management; the other is to open borders and give Xixia military persecution.For the opening of the frontier, Prime Minister Cai recommended Tong Gonggong, who is familiar with the northwest frontier affairs, and Wang Hou, the son of Wang Shao, the famous Xining general. One is Wang Shao's son, and the other is Li Xian's protégé. Can Wang and Tong reshape the glory of their ancestors in the Northwest?

In March of Chongning (AD 1104) and June, Zhao Ji sent Wang Hou as the commander-in-chief, Tong Guan supervised the army, and sent troops to the northwest to recover the four prefectures of Hehuang. The battle was fought beautifully, and the Song army regained the four states of Hehuang in one fell swoop, and achieved the best record in the northwest since the Shenzong Dynasty.No matter how well the battle was fought, it is reasonable that the first contribution should be made by the coach Wang Hou, but an incident happened during the period that made the soldiers of the Western Expedition unanimously believe that the greatest contribution to this battle was none other than the Boy Supervisor.

At that time, the army was marching towards Huangzhou, and the soldiers of the whole army held an oath meeting, and their morale was high. At this time, Tong Guan received Zhao Ji's edict. The content of the edict is simple: truce. The reason is also very simple: the palace caught fire, the Taoist priests said it was unlucky, and of course the emperor also felt that it was unlucky, and fighting at an unlucky time was more ominous than auspicious. The emperor's destiny is greater than the sky, and all the subjects of the empire understand this truth, and so does Eunuch Tong, who has served the emperor for most of his life.

But he still hid the edict. Wang Hou and others would ask him what the emperor's edict was about. Tong Guan just said indifferently that the boss hoped that we would be victorious, and there was a celebration wine waiting for us in Tokyo. This war was fought against the four prefectures of Hehuang, and it was fought against Tong Guan's life. It wasn't until the celebration meeting for the recovery of the four prefectures of Hehuang that Tong Guan showed the edict to Wang Hou and others. Everyone was shocked or scared, and asked Eunuch Tong why he didn't show the edict to the generals.

Tong Guan said that after reading the edict, do you still dare to fight? The generals were speechless. Tong Guan then sighed softly again, saying that I was the only one who read the edict, and if I lost the battle, it was Tong who lost his head; The ones to be chopped off are probably the heads of a bunch of people. After listening to Eunuch Tong's words, all the generals were moved and admired Tong Guan. Tong Guan regained not only the four prefectures of Hehuang, but also the hearts of soldiers of the Northwest Army. Not only that, he also adopted the bereaved son of a general who died at that time, which also won a lot of applause.From then on, Tong Guan took all the orphans and homeless teenagers who died in the Northwest battlefield under his banner. More than ten years later, these teenagers became his trump card - Shengjie Army.

With the emperor's favor, the prestige built by his mentor Li Xian in the Northwest, and of course Tong Guan's own talent and management, the Northwest has gradually become the base of Tong Guan's rise. After regaining Hehuang, Tong Guan received the reward from the generous emperor, who promoted him to Jingfu Palace Envoy and Xiangzhou Observation Envoy. This appointment alone has already broken the bottom line of the imperial eunuchs. Conferring these two positions, Eunuch Tong held both positions and completed the breakout of the imperial eunuch group. In the next few years, Tong Guan continued to be active on the northwest battlefield, going out of the village to build, forcing the Xixia people to breathe.His official position has also continued to rise in repeated success reports. In the fourth year of Chongning (AD 1105), he became the envoy of Xihe Lanhuang and Qinfeng Road Economic Strategy Appeasement System; In the second year of Zhenghe (AD 1112), he was promoted to Taiwei; in the fifth year of Zhenghe, Zhao Ji issued an edict to use Tongguan to lead the frontier affairs of the Six Northwest Roads (Yongxing, Yanyan, Huanqing, Qinfeng, Jingyuan, Hexi), clearly written The status of Tongguan Northwest King was confirmed.

The appeasement envoy was a non-established military position in the frontier during the Northern Song Dynasty. Tong Guan’s mentor Li Xian also served for a few days before, but the Wukang Jiedu envoy was a big deal. In the Northern Song Dynasty, it was a vacant position from a second-rank general. , while the Taiwei is the second rank, the highest rank that the imperial military generals could achieve at that time, Tong Guan set the eunuch group's employment record time and time again. The repeated promotions are related to Tong Guan's political environment. The romantic emperor likes heroes, and the exaggerated successes on the western front make Tong Guan a hero in his eyes.And after many years of repeated political baptism between the old and new parties, the civil servants of the empire have all learned to be good. They may complain about the boss's preference for Tong Gonggong, but no one admits to death anymore.And Tong Guan not only knows how to fight, but also knows how to behave. The women, eunuchs, and Taoist priests around the emperor are all managed by Tong Gonggong, and of course that political ally Cai Jing. On Tong’s promotion, Prime Minister Cai has always been a reliable political ally from the beginning. Tong Guan served as the envoy of the economic and strategic appeasement system for four years in Chongning. The reason is simple, this kind of position is not suitable for father-in-laws.But at this time Cai Bian's voice seemed very thin. In addition, although Cai Bian and Cai Jing were brothers and belonged to the New Party (Cai Bian was Wang Anshi's son-in-law), their political views were not the same.Regarding the appointment of Tong Guan this time, although the leaders of the two governments (Zhongshu and Privy Council) are brothers of their own, there are huge differences.The final result was that Cai Bian was dismissed from the Privy Council and expelled from Tokyo to the Henan Prefecture. But "friendship" is short-lived, and benefits are eternal. As Tong Guan's official position became higher and higher, Cai Jing finally felt the threat of this political ally, so when the emperor was about to promote Tong Guan to the chief When Fu Yi was with the third division, Cai Chengxiang, who had always been very obedient to the emperor, directly refused to sign the appointment letter. Cai Jing's refusal was justified. Kaifuyi and the third division were first-rank vain jobs in the Northern Song Dynasty, and they were the patent products of civil servants. Prime Minister Cai did not want to break the rules in his own hands. Of course, the most important thing is that Tong Guan's Sitting big has violated his sphere of influence. Cai Tong turned against each other.Tong Guande let Cai Taishi know that Eunuch Tong is good at fighting, and he is even better at fighting in the officialdom. He colluded with Taoist priests and eunuchs around Zhao Ji to constantly speak ill of Prime Minister Cai, which finally led to Cai Jing's second resignation. Later Cai Taishi returned to the phase, but he could only swallow his anger and reach a political alliance with Tong Guan again. In the sixth year of Zhenghe (1116 A.D.), Tong Guan finally became the third division of Kaifu Yitong who should have been appointed a few years earlier; It officially became the military head of the empire. For an eunuch to reach this point, it is enough to leave his name in history and become the super idol and coordinate of the entire imperial eunuch team. But for Tong Guan, this is not enough. His life is still going on, and his breakthrough will not stop. The remaining step is very important to him. Of course, this is also a step that determines the fate of the empire.