Chapter 52 Zhaozong: The Lonely Savior

Tang Zhaozong Li Ye was an untimely emperor. No matter how you look at it, Li Ye doesn't look like a subjugated king.When he came to the throne at the age of twenty-two, the history books commented on him like this: "Zhaozong ascended the throne, with a handsome appearance, a heroic spirit, and a love of literature. With Emperor Xizong's prestige sluggish, the court has been humbled, and he has the ambition to restore the former martyr! Respect minister , dreaming of a virtuous man, the beginning of practice, Xin Xin Yan, both Chinese and foreign!" (Volume 257) Such a heroic and determined emperor is indeed completely different from his father and brother Yi and Xi Erzong, but quite similar to Xianzong and Xuanzong.No wonder the ruling and opposition parties are delighted and have high hopes for it.If he had been born a few decades earlier, it might have been possible to create a political situation comparable to "Yuanhe Zhongxing" and "Government of the Great and Middle Kingdom".

However, unfortunately, from the day when Li Ye ascended the throne, or even earlier, the Tang Empire had fallen into an irreversible situation of subjugation. Even if Li Ye has the will to turn the tide and the will to turn the tide, even if he has all the courage, fighting spirit, pride, guts, courage, self-confidence, and sense of mission that a savior of an empire should possess, he lacks only The same - the conditions of the times. He lacks the conditions of the times that allow him to show his talents. The right time, the right place, the harmony of people, Li Ye has none of them.He is like a lonely savior, surrounded by tens of thousands of empire terminators, rushing from left to right, fighting hard, but in the end he finds that he is just a single soldier.

A weary and desperate soldier. A single soldier with no applause. A lingering single soldier. A single soldier with no allies, no reinforcements, who eventually dies of exhaustion. Although Emperor Zhaozong Li Ye took over a mess from his incompetent father and brother, he did not show the slightest fear or doubt, but seemed smug.As soon as he took the throne, he couldn't wait to take the first step. This first step is to pack a person. This person is Tian Lingzi. There are many reasons why Zhaozong wanted to clean up Tian Lingzi.First of all, he was a powerful eunuch in the Xizong Dynasty.In Li Ye's view, Tian Lingzi was the chief culprit of Emperor Xizong's arrogance and extravagance, and the reason why the empire rebelled.Secondly, not long after Tian Lingzi was transferred to Xichuan Supervisory Army, Emperor Xizong issued an edict to exile him in Duanzhou (now Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province), but he refused to obey the edict relying on the umbrella of Xichuan Jiedu Envoy Chen Jingxuan.It can be seen from this that Tian Lingzi's problem is not only a problem of power eunuchs disrupting the government, but also a problem of colluding with powerful vassals inside and outside and despising the central government.Therefore, Zhaozong now uses him to operate, not only to maintain the court discipline, but also to kill one and scare the separatist warlords in the world.

In the end, perhaps it was also a reason that was inconvenient to explain clearly - Li Ye wanted to take revenge. It was a personal enmity, a private enmity that Li Ye would never forget. In the winter of the first year of Guangming, Huang Chao entered Chang'an, and the then longevity king Li Jie fled with Emperor Xizong in a hurry.Due to the haste of the incident, there were not enough horses prepared, so except for Xizong and Tian Lingzi, the other princes could only walk.At that time, King Shou was only fourteen years old. When he reached a valley, he could no longer walk, so he lay down on a stone to rest.Tian Lingzi stepped forward immediately and urged him to go on the road.King Shou said pitifully: "My foot hurts, can you give me a horse?" Tian Lingzi sneered: "This is a barren mountain, where can I get a horse?" on the king and drove him away.At that moment, Shou Wang Li Jie turned his head and took a deep look at Tian Lingzi, before limping on the road without saying a word.

From that moment on, Shou Wang Li Jie told himself that if one day he gained power, he would never let this eunuch go. Therefore, Zhaozong had very good reasons to deal with Tian Lingzi. Coincidentally, when Emperor Zhaozong was about to take action against Tian Lingzi, Wang Jian, the governor of Langzhou (now Langzhong City, Sichuan Province), who had fought with Chen Jingxuan for several years, went to the imperial court again, requesting that Chen Jingxuan be transferred from Xichuan.Emperor Zhaozong had a ready-made excuse to issue an imperial edict in June of the first year of Wende, ordering Prime Minister Wei Zhaodu to serve as the envoy of Xichuan Jiedu and Liangchuan envoy, and another person was sent to replace Tian Lingzi as Xichuan's supervisor. In the dynasty, he served as the commander of Zuolongwu.

It is conceivable that Tian Lingzi and Chen Jingxuan would certainly not obey the edict.After receiving the edict, they actively rearranged their armaments and prepared to go to war with the imperial court at any time. In December, Emperor Zhaozong ordered Wei Zhaodu to be the envoy of recruiting camps, Yang Shouliang, the Jiedu envoy of Shannan Xidao, as the deputy envoy, and set up the Yongping Army (Qiongzhou, now Qionglai City, Sichuan Province) in four prefectures that originally belonged to Xichuan. ), took Wang Jian as Jiedu envoy, and asked him to join Wei and Yang in crusade against Chen Jingxuan.

As soon as the campaign against Xichuan started, Emperor Zhaozong set his sights on another powerful official.Compared with Tian Lingzi, this person is now a greater threat to Emperor Zhaozong. He is Yang Fugong. Ever since supporting Emperor Zhaozong to ascend the throne, Yang Fugong has relied on his great achievements and has been invincible for the rest of his life.Not only did he single-handedly control the imperial army, he was good at government affairs, but he also adopted a large number of adoptive sons and sent them to various states and towns to serve as Jiedu envoys, governors, and army supervisors, thus creating a huge network with him as the core throughout the government and the public.In the eyes of these adoptive sons, of course there is only Yang Fugong, and there is no court at all.For example, Yang Shouzhen, the governor of Longjian (the governor of Longzhou, southeast of Pingwu County, Sichuan today), and Yang Shouzhong, the governor of Wuding (Yangzhou of the governorship, now Yangxian County of Shaanxi Province), never paid taxes to the central government, and He slandered and ridiculed the court at every turn.

If such powerful eunuchs were not eradicated, Zhaozong Li Ye's revival plan could only be reduced to a joke.Therefore, from the day he ascended the throne, all major policies of Emperor Zhaozong were basically decided upon in consultation with the prime ministers Kong Wei, Zhang Jun and others, trying to avoid Yang Fugong's intervention.The prime ministers also often used Xuanzong as an example to encourage Zhaozong to rectify the eunuchs. Yang Fugong was domineering and domineering, so naturally he didn't take Zhaozong seriously.All the officials went to court on foot, but he came to the palace in a sedan chair.One day at the court meeting, Emperor Zhaozong and Prime Minister Kong Wei had just talked about rebels in all directions, and Yang Fugong swaggered to the front of the hall in a sedan chair.Kong Wei deliberately raised his voice and said: "Your Majesty, there are people who are about to rebel, let alone the Quartet!" Zhaozong understood Kong Wei's intentions, so he pretended to be surprised and asked him what he was referring to.Kong Wei pointed to Yang Fugong and said, "He is just His Majesty's domestic slave, but he went to the palace in a sedan chair, and he raised so many strong men as adopted sons, or guarded soldiers, or served as feudal towns. What is it if he doesn't want to rebel?"

Yang Fugong didn't change his face: "Taking strong men as adopted sons, the purpose is to make them loyal to the emperor and defend the country, how can it be called rebellion?" Zhaozong smiled coldly, and took the words: "You want to defend the country, why don't you let them have the surname Li, but let them have the surname Yang?" Yang Fugong was speechless for a moment. Not long after this incident, one day, Emperor Zhaozong suddenly said to Yang Fugong, "Among your adopted sons, is there one named Yang Shouli? I want him to be a bodyguard." In order to prove that he raised these adopted sons to "defend the country", Yang Fugong led Yang Shouli into the palace without saying a word.

Anyway, he has plenty of adoptive sons, one more is not many, one less is not much. At this time, Yang Fugong didn't know that Zhaozong didn't just want a "guard".After Yang Shouli entered the palace, Emperor Zhaozong immediately named him Li Shunjie, and in less than a year, he was quickly promoted from an ordinary guard of the Imperial Army to Tianwu Dutou (commander of the First Division of the Imperial Army). He also served as Zhenhai Jiedushi, and soon he was granted the title of Tongping Zhangshi. Li Shunjie, who is on the rise, is naturally grateful to the emperor.

While flattered, he gradually understood the emperor's intentions. He knew that the emperor wanted him to deal with Yang Fugong. Li Shunjie is of course willing to play this role.The reason is very simple, Yang Fugong has so many adoptive sons, he is just one of the inconspicuous ones; but he is the only eunuch who is the emperor's confidant, if he joins hands with the emperor to eradicate Yang Fugong, then it will be Li Shunjie's turn to adopt his adopted son ? For this bright future, Li Shunjie devoted himself to Emperor Zhaozong.In the next few years, he used all his skills to fight openly and secretly with Yang Fugong, and provided Emperor Zhaozong with a lot of secret information about Yang Fugong. Zhaozong Li Ye looked at all this, and a smile could not help but appear on the corner of his mouth. The net has been cast. Li Ye said in his heart that once the time is right, I will wipe out the Yang Fugong Group without hesitation.