Chapter 14 The Last Years of Li Longji

Since the Supreme Emperor Li Longji returned to the Xingqing Palace in Chang'an, he has been immersed in mourning and longing for Concubine Yang Guifei for quite some time. And the unfortunate old man.However, the deceased is dead, no matter how faithful the emotion is, no matter how long the mourning is, it will not be able to call back the lover who has been separated forever.When the peerless beauty of the past has long been turned into the rotting corpse under the loess of Maweiyi, when the lingering light of memories can only burn the lonely soul in vain, Li Longji can only tell himself - it is time to return to the real world .

Time is the cure for all spiritual pain.As time went by, the wound on Li Longji's heart healed naturally and gradually scabbed over.Later, he never wanted to touch it again.Although this man who has experienced all kinds of sorrows in the world is over seventy years old, his vitality is still vigorous and he is still full of endless enthusiasm for life.Therefore, in the days that followed, Li Longji sealed up that unbearable memory intentionally or unintentionally, and then opened his senses to the real world again, to the palace life with the fragrance of wine and melodious music... There is a magic in the pleasures of court, which gives you all you want, and makes you forget all you don't want, if only you will enjoy it.

For a moment, the pointer of life seemed to be dialed back to the ecstatic days of Tianbao. After returning to Chang'an in the past few years, there are still so many familiar people by Li Longji's side: the internal servant Gao Lishi, the general of Longwu Chen Xuanli, his daughter Princess Yuzhen, the palace maid Ru Xianyuan, the internal servant Wang Chengen, and those who are good at singing and dancing disciple of Liyuan.They blocked the turbulent world from outside the palace walls of Xingqing Palace, and jointly created a comfortable, comfortable, warm and peaceful old age for the Supreme Emperor.No matter how unrecognizable the past peaceful and prosperous age has become in the war, at least here, in this Xingqing Palace, Li Longji and the people around him can still have a self-entertaining, self-sufficient small paradise.Although this is not a paradise far away from the hustle and bustle, it is also a pure land on earth that has nothing to do with the world.

Xingqing Palace is Li Longji's Longxing place, which was expanded from his vassal mansion. Every brick, tile, plant and tree here is branded with all the life of Li Longji, witnessing the life of this generation of heroes. The splendor and vicissitudes experienced by the Lord in his life.So Li Longji loves it affectionately, and is very persistently attached to it, just like a baby is attached to its mother's breast, just like grass and trees are attached to the sunshine in spring.For Li Longji, there is no place in the world that can be compared with Xingqing Palace, and there is no place more suitable for placing his life and nourishing his soul than Xingqing Palace...

If Li Longji is a tree, then Xingqing Palace is his root. The reason why Li Longji loves Xingqing Palace is not only the historical memory carried by this place, but also its unique geographical location.Xingqing Palace is located outside the imperial city, in the city of Chang'an Waiguo City, and the southernmost Changqing Tower can directly overlook the bustling market crowd.Such a geographical location allows Li Longji to feel the fresh and lively atmosphere of the city at close range, and allows him to have the most direct and simple interaction and communication with the gentry and common people in Chang'an, thus enabling him to gain a real sense of existence.

Li Longji cherished this feeling very much. Because the most frightening thing for an old man is not getting old, but being forgotten. Especially for a prosperous emperor who was once rich in the world, the fear of being forgotten is definitely stronger than anyone else. Fortunately, the Xingqing Palace adjacent to the market is enough to prevent Li Longji from this fear. Whenever Li Longji's figure appeared on the Changqing Tower, the elders of Chang'an who passed by downstairs would take the initiative to stop, worship him, and shout long live.Whenever this happens, Li Longji will be as happy as a child who is praised, and a flower will bloom on his face immediately.Then he would hastily order the palace people to set up a banquet on the street downstairs in Changqing, and entertain those elders with exquisite palace wine and food.

It would be even better if some court officials passed by Changqing downstairs and saluted the Supreme Emperor.The Supreme Emperor would invite them upstairs and hold a banquet for them. During the banquet, Princess Yuzhen and Ru Xianyuan would often accompany them.There were quite a few officials who were invited to dinner by the Supreme Emperor, such as General Yubayashi Guo Yingyi, and officials from Jiannan Road who came to Beijing to perform affairs, etc. Li Longji felt enriched by interacting with all kinds of people, and the knowledge and information from all sides also increased the understanding of the outside world for the Taishanghuang who stayed at home.In short, Li Longji is generally satisfied with his retirement career.Although he lost his love, he learned to seal up his memory and strive to find new joys of life; although he lost the power of the emperor, he learned to adjust his mentality and live in a new way.

Therefore, Li Longji did not live in loss, depression and depression all day long like many emperors who were forced to abdicate in history. Instead, he found his position very wisely, and then enjoyed himself in this position. An old age. The sun rises and the moon sets, the cold comes and the summer goes.In a blink of an eye, it has been more than two years since Li Longji returned to Chang'an.He had thought that life could go on so calmly, but he never expected that this kind of comfortable and peaceful life would come to an abrupt end in July of the first year of Shangyuan. Because someone broke into his life and forced him out of Xingqing Palace.

Who has the guts to touch the Supreme Emperor? Who has such great power to "violently evict" the Supreme Emperor? This person is Li Fuguo, the eunuch in power. As we all know, Li Fuguo was one of the main heroes who supported Suzong's accession to the throne.After Suzong came to the throne, in order to repay Li Fuguo, he was awarded the important post of Sima of the Marshal's Mansion.Since this position is established in wartime and covers a variety of functions, Li Fuguo's scope of power is almost all-encompassing. All orders issued by Emperor Suzong to civil and military officials, as well as documents and memorials submitted to the imperial court from all over the country, all have to go through Li Fuguo. transit.In addition, Li Fuguo was in charge of the most important seals, talismans, etc. in the imperial court and the army, and even the morning and evening orders in the army had to be formulated and issued by Li Fuguo.

After returning to Chang'an, although various affairs of the imperial court were gradually standardized, Li Fuguo's power did not become smaller because of this, but became larger and larger, and was fixed by standardization.Suzong not only let him "exclusively control the forbidden soldiers", but also all edicts and orders must be signed and stamped by him before they can be implemented; Both the edict and the edict must go through Li Fuguo's "Guan Bai, Cheng Zhi", that is, transit. How much power is this? This is equivalent to letting him act as the emperor!

Li Fuguo sits in his official office at Yintaimen every day, adjudicating the affairs of the world grandly.No matter how big or small, it all depends on Li Fuguo's words.What Li Fuguo said was an imperial decree, an edict, and all levels of government, whether central or local, must implement it to the letter, and report to Emperor Suzong afterwards. In order to consolidate power, Li Fuguo also set up a secret police agency, raising dozens of hawks and dogs, who went to the private sector to investigate the privacy of civil and military officials and gentry people. The relevant departments filed the case for review.The function of this organization is almost equivalent to that of Dongchang and Jinyiwei in the Ming Dynasty, but on a smaller scale.It can be seen that China's secret service agencies have existed since ancient times and can be described as having a long history. Under Li Fuguo's ubiquitous power, all departments of the imperial court obeyed him, no matter what instructions he gave, no one dared to say no.Sometimes, when Yushitai or Dali Temple were reviewing repeat offenders, and the case was not yet closed, Li Fuguo simply wrote a note and referred the criminal to his Yintaimen office, and released him arbitrarily.Over time, the three divisions (Yushitai, Dali Temple, Ministry of Punishment) and the yamen at all levels of government and county have learned to act according to Li Fuguo's winks. No matter what case they receive, they will take the initiative to send the file directly to Li Fuguo's mansion.If Li Fuguo was interested, he would have the final say on whether to give a light sentence or a heavy sentence.Of course, Li Fuguo claimed that everything was ordered by the emperor, so no one dared to disobey it. Facing the powerful Li Fuguo, the ruling and opposition parties competed to flatter him. His colleagues (eunuchs) affectionately called him "Wulang". Li, respectfully called him "Five Fathers".If the dignified prime minister is in such awe of him, let alone ordinary officials. Seeing this, we will inevitably have a question: Suzong Li Heng is a dead man or a dou, how could he let an eunuch do whatever he wants?In fact, Li Heng is neither a dead person nor a dou. The reason why he gave Li Fuguo so much power is to use him to control the civil and military officials more powerfully, so as to consolidate his rule. We all know that as an emperor who ascended the throne abnormally, Li Heng's power legitimacy is inherently insufficient, which has always been his biggest pain and hidden worry.Even after recovering the two capitals, Li Heng was still worried about the instability of his power, so he needed someone he trusted enough to control the power of palace ban, and at the same time used various methods to restrict civil and military officials (such as setting up secret agencies).And Li Fuguo, as Li Heng's former member of the East Palace, has made great contributions in supporting him, and is also an eunuch himself, so of course he is the best candidate to perform the above tasks. In Suzong Li Heng's view, no matter how authoritarian this kind of person is, they are just slaves in the final analysis, and it is absolutely impossible to usurp the throne and become emperor, so it is the most reassuring. Of course, if Li Fuguo's power was overinflated, Suzong would not let it go. He would use other people's hands to beat Li Fuguo. In April of the second year of Qianyuan, Li Xian, who had just been promoted to prime minister, could not understand Li Fuguo's authoritarian and chaotic government, so he collected some evidence of his corruption and perversion of the law, and then sued Emperor Suzong, demanding severe punishment.At that time, Emperor Suzong also realized that Li Fuguo had gone too far, so he abolished the secret police agency and issued an edict, saying: "Because of the busy military and state affairs recently, sometimes I directly convey the secret police organization orally. However, from now on, this phenomenon must be put an end to. Unless it is officially issued by the Ministry of Education, it will not be implemented. The execution power of various affairs inside and outside the palace shall be returned to the relevant departments. Recently, some officers of the Imperial Army Disputes with officials in charge of some departments, or even litigation cases, will be adjudicated by formal departments such as Yushitai and Jingzhaofu in the future, and no individual is allowed to intervene. If there is any unfairness in the adjudication result, you can directly Report to me." There is no doubt that this is a very targeted edict.Even a fool can see that everything said in it is aimed at Li Fuguo. Li Fuguo responded immediately.He retreated into advance and threatened to resign from his position as the marching commander of the Marshal's Mansion (the rebellion had not yet been quelled at the time, so the wartime institution "Marshal's Mansion" was still retained).Li Fuguo knew very well that Suzong couldn't do without him at this stage, so "resigning" was the best way to threaten him. Sure enough, as soon as Li Fuguo proposed to resign, Suzong was in a hurry to comfort him and refused to approve anything. Suzong knew that if he did not make some kind of compensation to Li Fuguo, his loyalty to him would inevitably be greatly reduced.In order to appease Li Fuguo and let him continue to play the role of checking and balancing the officials, Suzong had to make an unkind decision-sacrificing Li Xian. Soon, Suzong took advantage of an ordinary case to accuse Li Xian of "associating with cronies", deposed him as prime minister, and demoted him as governor of Shuzhou. This is Suzong Liheng's imperial technique. Use Li Xian to beat Li Fuguo to prevent his power from expanding, and then go back and get rid of Li Xian after achieving his goal, so as to appease Li Fuguo.In today's popular language, this is called giving a candy after a slap; in the words of the ancients, this is called giving both grace and power. Although the Li Xian incident weakened Li Fuguo's power to a certain extent, his position in the court was not shaken in the slightest.Especially after Li Xian was dismissed and relegated, the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty showed great respect and obedience to Li Fuguo.Because Li Xian's fate tells people—to fight against Li Fuguo is to touch an egg with a stone, so why bother?However, no matter how powerful Li Fuguo is, there are still a few people who never take him seriously. That is Gao Lishi, Chen Xuanli and others beside the Supreme Emperor. Li Fuguo came from a humble background. In his early years, he was a Feilong child raised by Gao Lishi's horses. In addition, he was crooked and ugly, so he was always a failure. He didn't enter the East Palace to serve the prince until he was in his fifties.Although Li Fuguo has changed from shotgun to cannon now, and is not what he used to be, but in the eyes of Gao Lishi, he is just a nouveau riche after all, a villain who is arrogant when he succeeds.If you want Gao Lishi to flatter his stinky feet and flatter him, there is no way! What's more, in Gao Lishi's view, even if you, Li Fuguo, are really awesome now, but your master is Li Heng, and my master is the Supreme Emperor, I will not interfere with you, you follow your Yangguan way, I will follow me The single-plank bridge, why should I curry favor with you? Perhaps, Gao Lishi's view is right, Li Fuguo is indeed a villain, but Gao Lishi has forgotten an old saying - better to offend ten gentlemen than to offend a villain. It is precisely because Li Fuguo is a villain who must take revenge, that you have to praise his stinky feet and flatter him.Otherwise, he will definitely make your death ugly...