Chapter 5 A sweeping reform

On the first day of the first lunar month in the 21st year of Zhenyuan (805 A.D.), the princes of Li Tang's clan and all the relatives of the emperor entered the palace to pay New Year's greetings to Emperor Dezong. The whole Daming Palace was filled with festive atmosphere. Li Shi kept nodding and smiling at his relatives.But his anxious eyes kept wandering back and forth among these familiar figures. He is looking for someone. The result, of course, disappointed him—that person didn't come. Although the old emperor had long expected that the bedridden prince would no longer be able to visit him, when the New Year greetings people left one by one, two lines of clear old tears still flowed down Li Shi's face involuntarily.

Li Shi fell ill that day.And in the next twenty days or so, his condition became increasingly serious.The eunuchs headed by Ju Wenzhen cut off the news inside and outside the palace, and planned to establish another prince. The mountain rain is about to come and the wind is all over the building. During the more than 20 days when Emperor Dezong was seriously ill, no one in the civil and military affairs of the Manchu Dynasty knew the safety of the emperor and the prince.It was not until the 23rd day of the first lunar month that Dezong, who was dying, ordered people to summon Hanlin scholars Zheng Yu and Wei Cigong to enter the palace to draft the will.By the time Zheng Yu and Wei Cigong entered the emperor's bedroom, Dezong Li Shi had already passed away.The eunuch said: "The ban is still under discussion, and who will be the emperor has not yet been finalized."

When everyone heard the words, they looked at each other in blank dismay.Knowing that this is a rebellious statement, but no one dares to say anything.Only Wei Cigong couldn't help standing up and said: "Although the crown prince is ill, he is the eldest son, and the government and the people will return to his heart. If the situation is really not allowed, we must also establish King Guangling (the eldest son of the crown prince Li Chun), otherwise there will be chaos. !” Zheng Yu and the others quickly echoed. The eunuchs looked at each other, and couldn't say anything more, but they were sneering in their hearts - how can the prince be an emperor with his body?I'm afraid it's a big problem to even stand up and walk to the Golden Temple?

That's right.For Prince Li Song, how to stand up - and walk to the throne that everyone covets - is indeed a big problem. But to everyone's surprise, the prince, who had been paralyzed for a whole winter, suddenly stood up miraculously, and was assisted to board the car, and came to Jiuxianmen to meet the generals of the forbidden army.Seeing this scene, the eunuchs with ulterior motives were dumbfounded, while the civil and military officials who had always been uneasy were overjoyed. Perhaps, this is the power of will. Prince Li Song knows better than anyone else that there is nothing more important and urgent in the Great Tang Empire than him walking on the ground.

This belief awakened his will, and this will propped up his body. On the twenty-fourth day of the first lunar month, the day after Dezong's death, Prince Li Song, dressed in mourning clothes, summoned civil and military officials in Xuanzheng Hall and announced his will at the same time. On the 26th, Li Song was enthroned in the Taiji Hall as Tang Shunzong. At the enthronement ceremony that day, many soldiers of the Imperial Army stood on tiptoe in doubt, looking around, not believing that the new emperor on the Golden Temple was really the prince who had suffered a stroke for several months.Later, the soldiers saw clearly that the person on the Golden Luan Hall was indeed Li Song. It is said that some people were so excited that they shed tears on the spot.

No wonder they were excited.If the crown prince really can't stand up, political turmoil will erupt in the Daming Palace due to the fight for the throne, and if there is bloodshed, the soldiers of the Imperial Army will bear the brunt of it. Although the tenacious will supported Li Song to sit on the throne of the emperor, it couldn't make him speak, and naturally he couldn't make him decide government affairs at the court meeting.So the new king could only sit in the palace, with a curtain hanging in front of him, and the eunuchs Li Zhongyan and Zhaorong Niu were waiting beside him. All the officials played outside the curtain, and the emperor's approval came out of the curtain.

Such a situation determines that the new emperor must rely to a large extent on the group of advisers behind him.Therefore, history is destined to quickly push a few unknown figures to the center of the empire's political stage at this moment. The core figures of this group are known as the "two kings" in history. They are Wang Shuwen and Wang Yi. Speaking of it, these two people are real grassroots.They all came from the southeastern border of the empire, from humble backgrounds, with shallow qualifications, neither family background nor political foundation.What made Manchu civil and military contemptuous in particular was that neither of these two men was born as a Jinshi.The reason why they were able to enter the court and stay with Prince Li Song was because they both had special skills.Wang Shuwen is "good at playing games" and is a master of Go; Wang Yu is "good at calligraphy" and is a master of calligraphy; both of them entered the East Palace to serve the prince as "Hanlin Daizhao".

Perhaps because they came from the common people, they lacked the hypocrisy and arrogance of the officialdom in Chang'an, and instead had a kind of simplicity and frankness unique to the grassroots class, so they were deeply appreciated by Prince Li Song.Especially Wang Shuwen, who has a deep feeling and understanding of the political chaos and the suffering of people's livelihood during Dezong's reign, and has a strong sense of mission and political ambition, so these years have had a profound influence on Li Song, and even to some extent Has become the prince's teacher. In addition to the two kings, the main figures in this political group include Wei Zhiyi, Liu Yuxi, Liu Zongyuan and so on.In contrast, Wei Zhiyi's qualifications are obviously deeper than those of the two kings.He was born in the Guanlong family. He had read poetry and books since he was a child. He became a Hanlin scholar in his early twenties. But Jinshi on the same list, and all of them were famous masters of essays for a while, and they were all officials worshiped as supervisory censors at that time.

Obviously, a political group composed of such people may lack experience and strategy, but it definitely lacks vigor, vigor and courage.So as soon as Shunzong came to power, Wang Shuwen and others couldn't wait to start the reform. For this day, Wang Shuwen has been waiting for many years. At this moment, Wang Shuwen is full of ambition, seeing the political situation of the new dynasty and the future of the empire like a chessboard waiting for his moves. Wang Shuwen started the layout with confidence. On February 11th, the twenty-first year of Zhenyuan, under the planning of Wang Shuwen, Emperor Shunzong Li Song appointed Wei Zhiyi, a doctor in the Ministry of officials, as Shangshu Zuocheng and Tongping Zhangshi, and pushed the rookie to the position of prime minister at lightning speed. High position; on the 22nd, appointed the prime minister in the palace as the regular attendant of Zuo Sanqi, and also served as the imperial edict; while Wang Shuwen himself was promoted to the living room and Hanlin bachelor.

The reason why Wang Shuwen made such a personnel arrangement was that among the few of them, only Wei Zhiyi had relatively high qualifications and popularity, so he had to be pushed to the foreground; while he himself and Wang Yi were only courtiers, and they spoke lightly. , It is difficult to be popular, so it can only be behind the scenes.But everyone knows that Wang Shuwen is the leader and soul of this group. After the layout, they quickly made a division of labor.All memorials and proposals first entered the Hanlin Academy, and Wang Shuwen made the decision, and then the palace was banned by the king, and then conveyed to the emperor through the eunuch Li Zhongyan and Shunzong's favorite concubine Niu Zhaorong. Liu Yuxi, Liu Zongyuan, Han Tai and others collected information outside the palace, fed back information, and echoed each other.

A turbulent reform hastily kicked off in this way. All the members of the Erwang Group are all gearing up and enthusiastic.But they would never have expected that after only half a year, this vigorous reform would die halfway under the fatal blow, and finally end in the death of the government. And this majestic national player Wang Shuwen, who is proficient in black and white, will also encounter the most terrible defeat in his life in this political chess game. No, it's a fragile defeat, a fragile defeat that wipes out the entire army before starting a fight with the opponent in the middle game. This fragile defeat not only completely buried Wang Shuwen's political ideals, but also cost him his life. Just like other reforms that have been and will continue to be in history, Wang Shuwen's reform blade directly pierced into the heart of those with vested interests. The first target locked by Wang Shuwen was the Taoist king Li Shi who was then Jing Zhaoyin. The reason why he was chosen was, firstly, because this person had always been extortionate and extortionate, and was hated by the people of Chang'an. If he was eliminated, he would be able to win the hearts of the people; Minister, taking a knife from him is tantamount to showing the world that the reform group headed by Wang Shuwen will never be afraid of power, and it is precisely targeting the powerful class; Even the princes of the royal family dare to move, who else in the world would not dare to move? On February 21st, Wang Shuwen issued an imperial edict in the name of the emperor, enumerating a series of crimes committed by Jingzhao Yin Li Shi, and demoted him to be the chief historian of Tongzhou (now Dachuan City, Sichuan).When the edict was issued, all the people in Chang'an cheered, and hid tiles and small stones in their sleeves, waiting on Li Shi's only way to the demolition office, ready to smash his head and blood.Li Shi got the news in advance and secretly changed to the path, which was considered a lucky escape. The second step Wang Shuwen took immediately was to abolish the bad government and rest with the people. On February 24th, under his plan, Emperor Shunzong Li Song boarded the Danfeng Gate, announced the amnesty of the world, canceled all kinds of taxes owed to the court by the people, and stopped all kinds of offerings other than normal taxes; in addition, Abolished many bad policies since the late Zhenyuan period, such as "Gongshi" and "Wufang Xiaoer". The so-called "Gongshi" is a court procurement system in charge of eunuchs.Since it was implemented in the late Zhenyuan period, the eunuchs have been using the name of purchasing to steal the truth.In the beginning, the eunuchs took a piece of official documents and forcibly purchased various goods from merchants in Chang’an at low prices. Later, they almost robbed merchants and common people directly; "Chariot and horse fee", that is, as long as the eunuch said that it was something needed by the palace, the merchants and the people would not only provide it for free, but also bear the cost of transporting the goods into the palace. This is already blatant robbery.The people in Chang'an complained about this, and the courtiers repeatedly remonstrated, but Dezong turned a deaf ear to it. The so-called "five workshop children" refers to the "five royal workshops": the servants in the carving workshop, the falcon workshop, the eagle workshop, the kite workshop, and the dog workshop.These servants are as vicious as the eunuchs in the palace and city. Every day they wantonly extort money in Chang'an with the royal signboard, and the common people are often outraged and dare not speak out. These maladministrations have been a problem for many years, but now that the government is abolished, the people of Chang'an will naturally rejoice. Although Wang Shuwen's move safeguarded the interests of the people, it seriously violated the interests of the eunuch group.From this time on, the eunuch group headed by Ju Wenzhen began to prepare for a counterattack. On March 17, Wang Shuwen appointed Prime Minister Du You in the name of the emperor to concurrently serve as Duzhi, salt and iron transfer envoy; two days later, Wang Shuwen was appointed as Du You's deputy.But anyone with a discerning eye can tell at a glance that Wang Shuwen is the real ruler, and Du You was just pushed to the front of the stage by him to show off. The fact that the reformers have seized financial power so quickly after the administrative power has caused great panic in the opposition.The eunuch leader Ju Wenzhen, who held the forbidden army in his hands, repeatedly put pressure on Shunzong Li Song, asking him to quickly make Guangling King Li Chun the heir apparent.Shunzong had no choice but to issue an imperial edict on March 24, making Li Chun (renamed Li Chun on the same day) the crown prince. On the sixth day of April, at the grand ceremony for the crown prince's appointment in the Xuanzheng Hall, the civil and military officials of the Manchu dynasty saw the prince Li Chun in his prime and stately appearance, and they couldn't help feeling relieved and congratulating each other.Only Wang Shuwen was always depressed.Because for the reformists, the strong combination of the eunuch group and the Donggong group is not a good sign anyway. That day, Wang Shuwen didn't say a word.At the end of the ceremony, someone heard him sighing up to the sky, reciting in his mouth Du Fu's poem in mourning for Zhuge Liang--death before leaving the army will make the hero burst into tears. At this time, Wang Shuwen certainly didn't know that this sentence would eventually become a prophecy.