Chapter 48 Huang Chao: People Forgotten by Society

In the winter of the first year of Qianfu, the thirteen-year-old Xi Zong Li Xuan was naturally at a loss when faced with the battle reports from all over the world. After some intense planning, the new prime ministers Zheng Tian and Lu Xie came up with a countermeasure.He ordered Yanzhou, Yunzhou and other Taoist soldiers to jointly encircle and suppress Pang Xun's remnant party, and dispatched Gao Pian, the hero who recovered Annan and was the envoy of Tianping Jiedu, to Xichuan to resist the Nanzhao invasion. Gao Pian is worthy of being an excellent general.As soon as he arrived in Xichuan, he personally led 5,000 elite cavalry to take the initiative to attack, smashed the Nanzhao army, and drove them across the Dadu River, hacked and captured a large number of enemy troops, and captured and killed more than a dozen barbarian chiefs.Later, Gao Pian repaired Qionglai Pass and various fortresses along the Dadu River, and built a castle in Mahu Town, Rongzhou (now Yibin City, Sichuan), and sent heavy troops to garrison it, named "Pingyi Army"; The only way to enter Shu and the construction of castles in various strategic locations, each castle sent thousands of soldiers to garrison, thus building an iron wall in front of the Nanzhao army.

Since then, the Nanzhao army never dared to invade easily.A few years later, with the death of King Shilong of Nanzhao, the once prosperous Nanzhao Kingdom went into decline like the Li and Tang Dynasty, and the war between Nanzhao and Tang Dynasty that lasted for many years finally came to an end. In the second year of Qianfu (875 A.D.), the foreign aggression had just subsided, and the turbulent peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty kicked off. The first rafter to emerge is Wang Xianzhi. Wang Xianzhi, a native of Puzhou (now Juancheng County, Shandong), raised troops in Changyuan (now Henan) in December of the first year of Qianfu, returned to his hometown in June of the following year, and captured Puzhou and Caozhou (now Dingtao County, Shandong) ), the number of scholars rapidly grew to tens of thousands.Tianping Jiedu envoy Xue Chong sent troops to attack, but was repeatedly defeated by Wang Xianzhi.

The person who followed Wang Xianzhi to the surface of history was Huang Chao. Huang Chao, a native of Yuanju (now in the south of Dongming County, Shandong Province), had teamed up with Wang Xianzhi to sell private salt in his early years. He was good at riding and shooting, and he was a hero.However, there is a big difference between him and Wang Xianzhi, that is, he can read and break characters, and he has dabbled in some Confucian classics roughly, so he can be regarded as half a literati.Therefore, he also once had the ideal of "the book has its own golden house", trying to change his destiny with knowledge, and like all scholars, he passed the imperial examination to enter the official career.However, reality has ruthlessly mocked and attacked him time and time again.Huang Chao took part in the Jinshi examination many times, but failed every time.

Huang Chao feels that he has become a person forgotten by society. Just when he was desperate, the fickle fate opened another window for him—an opportunity that was far more dangerous than official career and salt smuggling, but more profitable. Huang Chao seized this opportunity tightly and entered the magnificent and bloody history of the late Tang Dynasty. In June of the second year of Qianfu, Huang Chao gathered thousands of people in Yuanju and raised the banner of rebellion in response to Wang Xianzhi.Soon, these two former private salt dealers became leaders of the rebel army fighting side by side.They joined forces, plundered prefectures and counties, and ran across Shandong (east of Xiaoshan).Those poor people who couldn't pay heavy taxes and lost their land scrambled to join them, and joined the ranks of robbing money, food, and land without hesitation.

In July of the second year of Qianfu, another large-scale locust plague broke out in the Gyeonggi area.Where the locusts that covered the sky and the sun passed, thousands of hectares of fertile land instantly turned into a piece of red land.Jing Zhaoyin Yang Zhizhi hurriedly played to the emperor Li Xuan. However, what he played was not disaster, but good news. He said in the memorial: "The locusts flew to the Gyeonggi area, and they didn't eat the rice, and they died with thorns in their arms!" Since Pangu created the world, there has never been heard of this kind of locust that sacrificed its life for righteousness and starved to death. What does this mean?It shows that the virtuous government of the emperor Li Xuan is enough to benefit all things, even the stubborn locusts are influenced by him.

As a result, the prime ministers came in one after another to congratulate Emperor Xizong. Hearing that under his benevolent government, an unprecedented super auspiciousness appeared unexpectedly, and the little emperor Li Yan couldn't help but laugh from ear to ear.Especially when he heard that those locusts would rather starve to death than eat rice, the little emperor thought they were simply too cute. In the autumn of the third year of Qianfu (876 A.D.), Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao moved to the Central Plains and captured Yangdi (now Yuzhou City, Henan), Jiacheng (now Jiaxian County, Henan) and Ruzhou successively.Luoyang, the eastern capital, was terrified, and the scholars and people, with their families, left the city to flee.In November, the rebels went south to conquer Yingzhou (now Zhongxiang City, Hubei Province) and Fuzhou (now Tianmen City, Hubei Province).In December, Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao swept Shenzhou (now Xinyang City, Henan), Guangzhou (now Huangchuan County, Henan), Luzhou (now Hefei City, Anhui), Shouzhou (now Shouxian, Anhui), Shuzhou (now Anhui) Qianshan County), Qizhou (now Qichun County, Hubei Province) and other places, the officers and soldiers were invincible wherever they passed.

Seeing that the momentum of the rebellion was getting bigger and bigger, Xizong's court had no choice but to accept Prime Minister Wang Duo's repeated suggestions, recruited Wang Xianzhi, and gave him the official position of Zuo Shence army guard and supervisor of the censor. On the day he received the imperial order, Wang Xianzhi was so excited that he didn't close his eyes all night. From a private salt dealer who was hunted down by the government all day, to a general of the Imperial Guards and a central official of the empire, Wang Xianzhi felt that smoke was rising from his ancestral grave.

He is content. Wang Xianzhi decided to accept the recruitment immediately.However, just as he was dreaming about the scene where he walked up to the Golden Luan Hall holding the wat in his hand, Huang Chao stood in front of him expressionlessly. His brother Huang Chao was looking at him with contempt, and there were two meanings in his eyes. 1. Brother Wang, are you so promising?Did the imperial court buy you just by giving you a half-job? 2. Why did the imperial court appoint you as an official, leaving Lao Tzu and brothers aside? That day, Huang Chao once again felt the pain of being forgotten.Therefore, he has been trying to express his confusion and anger to Wang Xianzhi with his eyes.However, Wang Xianzhi couldn't extricate himself from the extreme excitement and joy for a while, so he didn't understand Huang Chao's eyes at all.

Finally, Huang Chao went up and said to Wang Xianzhi, "We once made an oath before the gods to eradicate violence and bring peace to the world. Now that you are going to be an official in the court alone, where are these five thousand brothers going to go?" Before Wang Xianzhi could react, Huang Chao had already punched him hard in the face. Blood flowed down Wang Xianzhi's face.Through the blurred eyes of blood, Wang Xianzhi saw countless brothers behind Huang Chao shaking their fists at him. It seems that I will never be clean. Wang Xianzhi let out a long and sad sigh in his heart - a thief will always be a thief!

Later, Wang Xianzhi tore up the letter of appointment given to him by the imperial court, burned, killed and looted in Qizhou City for a day, and then rushed away with another deputy, Mr. Shang, and more than 3,000 people. But Huang Chao parted ways with him, and took the remaining two thousand people to another path. From the first month of the fourth year of Qianfu (877 A.D.), Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao sometimes fought independently, and sometimes joined forces. Gains and losses have failed to establish a long-term base.The peasant army and the official army fell into a stalemate and stalemate.

In November of this year, Yang Fuguang, the imperial court's deputy envoy and eunuch of the chief army, once again conveyed the message of recruiting to Wang Xianzhi, and Wang Xianzhi, who had always been hopeful about this, was right in his arms, and immediately sent Shang Junzhang to contact Yang Fuguang.Unexpectedly, Shang Junchang was captured by the envoy Song Wei just as he walked halfway.Song Wei held a grudge because he lost many battles with the peasant army. He wanted to put Shang Junzhang to death, so he immediately went to the court and lied that he had captured Shang Junzhang alive in the battle.Yang Fuguang hurriedly played, declaring that Mr. Shang had surrendered and was not captured on the battlefield.The imperial court sent a censor to investigate, but before the results came out, Song Wei cut off Shang Junchang's head without stopping. He tried to be recruited twice but failed, and lost another right-hand man. Since then, Wang Xianzhi's confidence and combat effectiveness have also been greatly weakened, so he lost successively on the battlefield.On the sixth day of the first lunar month in the fifth year of Qianfu (878 A.D.), Zeng Yuanyu, the deputy envoy of the imperial court, defeated Wang Xianzhi in the east of Shenzhou (now Xinyang City, Henan Province), beheaded and killed more than 10,000 people, and recruited and dismissed more than 10,000 people. .Zeng Yuanyu was promoted to recruit envoy because of his meritorious service, and Song Wei was dismissed. Since then, Wang Xianzhi has never recovered. Just one month later, Wang Xianzhi fought a decisive battle with Zeng Yuanyu in Huangmei (now in Hubei), resulting in a disastrous defeat; Wang Xianzhi died in battle, and his head was sent to Chang'an; With Wang Xianzhi's death, Xizong's court removed a major threat.But at the same time, new threats came one after another. With the support of several lieutenants, Li Keyong, who was the deputy soldier and horse envoy of Shatuo at the time, launched a mutiny taking advantage of the war in the Central Plains, killed Duan Wenchu, the defense envoy of Datong, and occupied the Yunzhou (now Datong City, Shanxi). The Xizong court, which had been devastated by the civil uprising in the Central Plains, was no longer able to attack Li Keyong, so it had to think of a way to transfer Li Keyong's father, Li Guochang, who was the Zhenwu Jiedu envoy at the time, to Datong Jiedu envoy, and sent another person to take over the Zhenwu Jiedu envoy. The purpose of the Wu Jiedu envoy was to put Li Guochang and his son in one town so that they would not stick to Zhenwu and Datong respectively. However, the imperial court's wishful thinking soon came to nothing. After Li Guochang received the transfer order, he tore it to pieces, and at the same time completely tore away the mask of honoring the court.Not only did their father and son want to occupy the two towns at the same time, but they also wanted to take advantage of the chaos in the world to seize more territories, and even compete in the world. Afterwards, Li Guochang hacked and killed Zhenwu's eunuch who supervised the army, and joined forces with Li Keyong to break through many court barracks around Datong, including the Zhelu Army, Ningwu Army, and Kelan Army, and quickly became the largest separatist regime in the north of the empire. power. After Wang Xianzhi's defeat, Shang Junchang's younger brother Shang Rang led the remnants to Huang Chao, elected Huang Chao as the commander-in-chief, named "General Chongtian", changed his name to "Wang Ba", and appointed hundreds of officials. In the days that followed, Gao Pian, who had been appointed by the imperial court as the envoy of Zhenhai Jiedu, went all out to deal with Huang Chao, constantly dispatching troops and generals, and intensified his encirclement and suppression.Huang Chao failed repeatedly in the Central Plains battlefield, and dozens of generals under him were recruited to surrender. He had to cross the Yangtze River in March of the fifth year of Qianfu and fight in the south.In July, Huang Chao's army entered eastern Zhejiang, dug a mountain road of 700 miles, and transferred to the Fujian battlefield.In December, Huang Chao captured Fuzhou, and Fujian Observer Wei Xiu abandoned the city and fled. In the spring of the sixth year of Qianfu (879 A.D.), Huang Chao sent his troops to Lingnan. Guangzhou, the wealth center of the empire, was thus exposed to Huang Chao. After entering Lingnan, Huang Chao sent a letter to Cui Ji, the observer envoy of Eastern Zhejiang Province, and Li Tiao, the Jiedu envoy of Eastern Lingnan Province, revealing his intention to submit to the imperial court, on the condition that he be granted the Jiedu envoy of Tianping (Yunzhou, now Dongping County, Shandong Province) job.This is Huang Chao's hometown, and he obviously hopes to return home in good condition. However, the imperial court flatly refused, shattering his hope of returning to his hometown.Huang Chao took a step back and asked to serve as the Jiedu envoy of Guangzhou.Emperor Xizong summoned the ministers to discuss, and the left servant shot Yu Cong and said: "Guangzhou is an important distribution center for international merchant ships and various precious goods. How can it be handed over to the rebels?" , Zheng Sipin Shang) position, Xi Zong agreed. However, this time it was Huang Chao's turn to quit. After receiving the letter of appointment from "Leading the House", Huang Chao tore it to pieces on the spot, and then launched a fierce attack on Guangzhou.In September of this year, Guangzhou fell.Huang Chao arrested Li Tiao, the Jiedu envoy, and ordered him to draft a memorial to say that he had surrendered to Huang Chao.Li Tiao said: "I have been kind to the Dutch country for generations, and my relatives and old relatives are all over the court. Hands can be broken, and hands can't be careless!" Huang Chao cut him off immediately. Since Huang Chao's soldiers were all from the north, they were not acclimatized to the environment after entering Lingnan, and they were infected with the plague in just over a month, and 30 to 40% died. His subordinates persuaded him to return to the Central Plains.Huang Chao also realized that Guangzhou was not a place to stay for a long time, so he led his troops up the Xiangjiang River at the end of October to capture Tanzhou (now Changsha City, Hunan Province), and then went north from Jiangling to Xiangyang in the next month.