Chapter 49 After my flowers bloom, a hundred flowers will kill

The New Year is here again. This is the first year of Guangming (880 AD), the seventh year after Emperor Xizong Li Xuan came to the throne.This year, Li Xuan was already nineteen years old, and he was no longer a little emperor.However, his playability has not changed at all, and his various game skills have also improved by leaps and bounds. He is good at horse riding, archery, sword dancing, Cuju, cockfighting, etc., especially mathematics, music and gambling. Among all cultural and sports activities, Xi Zong was best at playing polo.He once said to Shi Yezhu, an opera actor in the palace: "If I take the 'playing ball Jinshi' examination, I will definitely be the number one!" .” Xi Zong laughed out loud.

The empire was riddled with holes and crumbling, but Xizong Li Xuan didn't realize it, and was still at ease in his small world. At this time, Li Xuan would never have dreamed that in this winter, that private salt dealer named Huang Chao would lead an army into Chang'an, and then sit down on his golden palace and take everything that belonged to him; But the emperor of the Tang Dynasty could only run desperately on the road to escape, panicking like a bereaved dog. Only at that time, Li Xuan will suddenly realize that - it turns out that being the emperor is not so fun. The first year of Guangming was undoubtedly Huang Chao's lucky year, and it was also the most glorious year in his life.

In the first half of this year, he encountered some short-term setbacks in the Jiangxi battlefield, and was trapped in Xinzhou (now Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province) for a period of time, and his soldiers lost more than half due to the plague again.But in May, the goddess of luck began to take care of him frequently. He first defeated Gao Pian's fierce general Zhang Lin by means of false surrender, and then broke through Gao Pian's blockade line in one fell swoop, and his military power has been greatly enhanced since then.Throughout the second half of the year, Huang Chao was on the way to the north, like a broken bamboo, as if he had entered the land of no one.

On June 28, Huang Chao's army captured Xuanzhou (now Anhui); in July, they crossed the Yangtze River from Caishi (southwest of Ma'anshan City, Anhui) and marched northward; in September, they captured Sizhou (now the north bank of the Huaihe River in Xuyi County, Jiangsu Province) ); in October, they captured Shenzhou (now Xinyang City, Henan Province), and swept across Yingzhou (now Fuyang City, Anhui Province), Songzhou (now Shangqiu City, Henan Province), Xuzhou (now part of Jiangsu Province), and Yanzhou (now part of Shandong Province); Wherever the front of the soldiers reached, the soldiers and the people fled one after another.

On November 17, Huang Chao's army of 600,000 troops conquered Luoyang, Tokyo; Liu Yunzhang, who stayed behind in Tokyo in the Tang Dynasty, led hundreds of officials to greet him. On the first day of December, Huang Chao's vanguard troops began to attack Tongguan, and conquered it two days later. The army then pointed directly at Chang'an and arrived in Huazhou (now Huaxian County, Shaanxi Province) that day. On the fourth day of December, Emperor Xizong hastily issued an edict to designate Huang Chao as the governor of Tianping, but Huang Chao's only reaction to the edict was to let out a wild laugh.

On the fifth day of December, the civil and military officials of the Tang Dynasty heard that the rebels had conquered Tongguan, and after the dynasty dispersed, they began to flee for their lives.The eunuch Tian Lingzi fled from Jinguangmen with 500 magic soldiers in his arms, with only the four kings Fu, Mu, Ze, Shou and several concubines in his entourage. As soon as the emperor and all the officials fled, Chang'an immediately fell into anarchy. The soldiers and people in the city took advantage of the chaos to rush into the palace and wantonly plundered the treasury's property, gold and silk...

The fifth day of December in the first year of Guangming.dusk.Zhang Zhifang, the general of the Jinwu Guard of the Tang Dynasty, brought dozens of civil and military officials to Bashang respectfully, ready to welcome Huang Chao. A round of blood-red setting sun hangs in the western sky, rendering the field outside Chang'an city golden. From a distance, Zhang Zhifang saw a sedan chair decorated with gold slowly come into his field of vision, and a group of warriors with loose hair, tied with red scarves, and embroidered clothes stood guard on both sides of the golden sedan chair.Behind them, there are armored cavalry all over the mountains and plains.Further on, there are endless, as if stretching for thousands of miles, all kinds of baggage vehicles.

At this time, the person sitting in the golden sedan chair was slightly closing his eyes and muttering to himself. He is reciting a poem. He hadn't chanted the poem for many years. Because in the year when he wrote the poem, he was suffering from repeated failures and was chewing on the pain of being forgotten by society.And now, he couldn't help but chant it again.There is no other reason, just because all the pain back then has turned into soaring joy and pride at this moment. When Huang Chao saw the row of battlements on Chang'an City through the gap in the car curtain, he couldn't help but read the song "Ode to Chrysanthemum" aloud——

When Huang Chao's army marched into Chang'an mightily, the common people scrambled to watch, like welcoming the king's teacher.Shang Rang, Huang Chao's deputy, kept telling the people along the way: "King Huang raised his troops for the sake of the people. He will never show no love for you like Emperor Li Tang did. Just live and work in peace and contentment, don't be afraid!" In the first few days, everything was exactly as Shang Rang said—the soldiers did nothing wrong with the common people, and everyone in Chang'an City lived and worked in peace and order.

Over the past few years, Huang Chao's soldiers have fought from north to south, and from east to west. Wherever they went, many of them were already rich. And he often donates generously and donates property to the poor. The common people were both surprised and delighted—they all said that Huang Chao's army was bandits, but such "robbers" were obviously a hundred times better than the officers and soldiers of the imperial court! It seems that the official propaganda is not credible at all. However, just a few days later, everything changed. Because the soldiers really couldn't hold back.Since the day of the rebellion, burning, killing, and looting have gradually become their way of life, and even become their greatest joy in life. Now it is more uncomfortable for them to do nothing every day without burning or looting than to ask them to die.

So, almost overnight, the soldiers of Huangchao tore off their masks of gentleness, respectfulness, and generosity, grabbed weapons and torches one after another, and rushed to the street impatiently. In an instant, the prosperous and prosperous Great Tang Imperial Capital became a city of death. Looting and arson everywhere, rape and murder everywhere.Every house was on fire, every street was filled with smoke, every place was filled with heinous atrocities, and every corner was full of despair and terror.The civilians in Chang'an watched all this dumbfounded, their eyes filled with confusion, panic and helplessness. Huang Chao and Shang Rang could only stare at all this in dumbfounded.Although they repeatedly ordered the soldiers to stop the atrocities, they kept repeating the prohibition... In our middle school history textbooks, when we mention the peasant "uprising", we always use this sentence to summarize and evaluate: "The peasant uprising dealt a heavy blow to the reactionary rule of the feudal landlord class, adjusted production relations, and liberated social productive forces. , thus promoting the development of history.” Among the countless peasant "uprisings" in China's past dynasties, I don't know which one really "propelled the development of history".I only know that this "uprising" led by Huang Chao, in addition to siege, murder, looting, arson, and rape, in addition to allowing Huang Chao and his peasant brothers to turn themselves into masters and change from oppressed to oppressors, did not There is no system building thing, and it is not clear that they have made any contribution to the development of history. Of course, there is still a very prominent contribution, that is, the social population has been greatly eliminated, the tension between the excess population and the limited land has been eased, and the per capita land area has been objectively increased.In addition, what Huang Chao "adjusted", "liberated", and "propelled" was really unclear. On the contrary, wherever Huang Chao's army passed, they only saw "thousands of miles of red land", blood flowing into rivers, backwardness, barbarism, cruelty, tyranny, blood, and huge damage to society.Although the reason why Huang Chao and his brothers rose up was because of the corruption of the government and the poor livelihood of the people, and although the struggle of the peasants for the right to survival has certain legitimacy and rationality, this cannot be an excuse for them to vent their hatred and abuse violence. This cannot be used as a reason for "revolutionaries" to deprive others of their rights to life and property. It is said that China is the country with the largest number of peasant uprisings in the world.In Europe in history, there were only sporadic records of peasant uprisings until the eighth century. From then to the 800 years of the sixteenth century, there were no more than seven or eight peasant uprisings in dozens of countries in Western Europe.According to the logic that the peasant uprising is "the driving force for the development of history", China should have already been ahead of the world and become the leader in the development of human civilization.But in fact, we all know that instead of winning this honor, China fell into a rigid, stagnant, closed, and conservative historical predicament early on. In modern times, it was far behind by the rapid development of Western civilization. It can be seen from this that what the "peasant uprising" brought to China was nothing more than a way of "replacing violence with violence", constantly repeating and intensifying the historical cycle of "one governance, one chaos".Regardless of whether the peasant uprisings of the past dynasties were ultimately successful, it will not help China get rid of the imprisonment and shackles of the autocratic system, nor will it help China get out of the vicious cycle that has remained unchanged for thousands of years.Because in the final analysis, the biggest motivation for countless Huangchao people to rise up is nothing more than the dream of "the prince will have a kindness" and "he can replace him" in yellow robes; and the result of their "revolution" is at best accomplished through violent means. The transfer of political power and private property.Even if they succeed in destroying the old dynasty, history is still standing still, and may even go backwards.Because it won't take long for the new regime to become more authoritarian, corrupt, and darker than the old one. Since the Yellow Chaos do not have the demands and aspirations of institutional reform and cultural innovation, let alone the corresponding wisdom and ability, then why should we assume that they can promote social progress and historical development?