Chapter 46 Victory: an illusion of "nothing comes easy"

When Ma Sui returned to the front line, he was in a very uncomfortable mood. Because the imperial court only gave him food for the last month according to the military order he had made on his own initiative.If Li Huaiguang could not be pacified within this deadline, not only would he himself have to plead guilty to the emperor, but the emperor would also have to compromise with Li Huaiguang.If so, then his Ma Sui's future will be completely ruined. Therefore, he must now race against time. At that time, the most stubborn stronghold of the officers and soldiers was the Changchun Palace (now east of Dali County, Shaanxi Province) guarded by General Xu Tingguang of He Zhongxiao. (Volume 232) The defense here is very strict. Hun Yu and Luo Yuanguang have been besieging it for more than half a year, but they have not been able to advance half a step. If they continue to attack, it may be protracted, let alone a month, and it may not be possible in half a year. Can hit it down.

It is not impossible to bypass the Changchun Palace and go straight to the river, but I am afraid that Xu Tingguang will steal the way. At that time, instead of a quick battle, he will fall into the danger of being attacked by the enemy. Therefore, the best way at present is to reach an agreement with Xu Tingguang, let him stand still, and then the officers and soldiers will bypass him and go straight to the river.Once Li Huaiguang is finished, Changchun Palace will surely fall without a fight. But, how can we reach an agreement with Xu Tingguang? Ma Sui decided to talk to him in person.

If you don't enter the tiger's den, how can you get a tiger cub! Afterwards, Ma Sui single-handedly came to the city of Changchun Palace and shouted to the city.Xu Tingguang had always respected Ma Sui, and immediately brought his generals to the top of the city to pay homage to Ma Sui. Ma Sui knew that Xu Tingguang was a loyal man, but he was forced to be caught between the court and Li Huaiguang. Although he rebelled with Li Huaiguang, he felt uncomfortable.Based on this, Ma Sui believed that he would be able to convince Xu Tingguang. In order to prove his judgment, Ma Sui sent out a test and shouted to the city: "I come from the imperial court, and I can represent the emperor with full authority, and you can accept orders from the west." When Xu Tingguang and others heard this, they immediately bowed to the west as the ceremony of meeting the emperor. .

When Ma Sui saw it, he knew it in his heart, and then shouted loudly: "Since the Anlu Mountain Rebellion, the Shuofang army has fought north and south and made contributions to the country. Misfortune? If you listen to my words today, not only will you avoid misfortune, but you will also gain wealth." Xu Tingguang and others remained silent. Ma Sui suddenly opened the front of his chest and shouted sharply: "Since you don't believe me, why don't you draw your arrows and shoot me!" Xu Tingguang's face was terrified, and some soldiers beside him were already kneeling on the ground, sobbing softly.Seeing this scene, Ma Sui realized that his goal had been achieved, and finally said: "This disaster is the responsibility of Li Huaiguang alone, and you are not guilty. What I want to tell you today is that I will lead my troops straight to the middle of the river. I hope you stick to the city and don't go out to fight."

Xu Tingguang understood. Ma Sui's plan is the best way to end this war as soon as possible, and it is also the best strategy to help Xu Tingguang get out of the dilemma.Xu Tingguang and the left and right soldiers looked at each other, and then shouted in unison: "No!" Li Huaiguang's doom thus came. On August 10th, Ma Sui, Hun Yu, Han Youhuan and other troops bypassed the Changchun Palace and arrived at Jiaolibao (now south of Heyang County, Shaanxi Province).That night, when Li Huaiguang learned that the army had arrived, he hurriedly ordered people to light the beacon fire, but the soldiers and horses stationed near the river never raised fire to respond.

Everyone knows what that means. The next day, Xu Tingguang knew that Li Huaiguang's defeat was imminent, so he made up his mind to surrender. His followers cheered loudly: "From now on, we will be the subjects of the Son of Heaven again!" On August 12, Ma Sui led all the troops to the west bank of the Yellow River, and there was great fear in the river.The soldiers in the city were already tired of this war, so they ran away in panic, and then rumors spread everywhere, saying: "The western city has surrendered!" A flag with the words "Taiping" written on it.

What kind of flag is this? Lower the flag. The final victory turned out to be achieved without any effort, which made Ma Sui and others quite overjoyed. At the same time, Li Huaiguang, who had always been lucky and lingering, finally fell into complete despair.The only thing he can do now is to throw a piece of white silk onto the beam, tie a knot, and stick his head in... On the day Li Huaiguang hanged himself, the eldest son Li Cui, who had always opposed him to launch a rebellion, killed his two younger brothers with his own hands, and then committed suicide.Niu Mingjun, a general in Hezhong, beheaded Li Huaiguang and led his troops to surrender.

Ma Sui entered Hezhong City without bloodshed. Twenty-seven days have passed since he left Beijing.In other words, as long as three days later, his troops will run out of food.At this time, there were still more than 16,000 defenders in Hezhong City. If they resisted desperately, not only would Ma Sui not win so quickly, but he would also be forced to retreat due to lack of food and pay. If so, the outcome of this war would be completely different. In this sense, although Ma Sui's final military operation to occupy the river was a complete victory without bloodshed, it was also an out-and-out narrow victory.

After Ma Sui entered the river, he beheaded all seven people, including general Yan Yan, who had followed Li Huaiguang's rebellion wholeheartedly, and ignored the rest of the soldiers. So far, the chaos in the river has been declared settled. Before Li Huaiguang's defeat, that is, in June of this year, Zhu Tao of Youzhou died of a disease in panic. His general Liu Teng took over the military and political power with the support of his troops; Pang was the Jiedu envoy of Youzhou and Lulong; in September, Liu Pang fell ill and died of illness, and Emperor Dezong immediately issued an edict to appoint Liu Ji, the son of Liu Pang, to act as the Jiedu envoy.In other words, almost at the same time that Hezhong was pacified, Hebei, the hardest-hit area of ​​the rebellion, finally subsided.

Next, the last enemy Dezong's court had to deal with was Li Xilie, who claimed to be Emperor Chu.In fact, as the rebellions of all parties were put down one after another, Li Xiyeol, who was impoverished and alone, clearly had a premonition of his own destiny. At the end of this year, the Sifang tributes (qianbo) that made Emperor Dezong Li Shi's eyes pierced finally entered Beijing one after another, and the imperial finances that were on the verge of collapse finally passed the dangerous period.However, there is still an extreme shortage of food, and Dezong Li Shi still has to wait eagerly for the rice in the Jianghuai River.

In the spring of the second year of Zhenyuan (786 A.D.), Li Xilie, who was at the end of his battle, took several small-scale military operations against Xiangzhou and Zhengzhou, but they were all defeated by the local officials.Since then, Li Xilie has been devastated, and his troops have been weakened day by day. At the beginning of April, Li Xilie, who was depressed, was seriously ill again. His general Chen Xianqi bribed the doctor to poison Li Xilie's medicine and poisoned him to death.Subsequently, Chen Xianqi launched a mutiny, massacred Li Xilie's wife, son, brother and their families, and finally declared his submission to the imperial court. At the end of April, Emperor Dezong issued an edict to officially appoint Chen Xianqi as the governor of Huaixi (formerly known as Huaining). Although the Quartet rebellions were quelled one by one, Dezong Li Shi was not happy, because the soldiers of the Imperial Army can only drink gruel these days.Moreover, according to the reports of the officials in charge of the granary, in a few days they will not even have to drink porridge, only northwest wind. The officers and soldiers of the imperial army began to commotion.Some soldiers even ran to the street, threw away their helmets and headscarves, and yelled at passers-by: "The imperial court put us in the barracks but didn't distribute food. Isn't that treating us as criminals?" Seeing that the change of Master Jing was about to happen again under his nose, Dezong Li Shi was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot.Every time he went to court, his first sentence was to ask the officials: Has the rice from the Jianghuai River arrived? Unfortunately, what Li Shi heard was deathly silence every time. Just when Emperor Dezong waited until the flowers were about to wither, he finally received an urgent memorial sent by Li Mi from Shanzhou—the 30,000 dendrobium rice sent by Han Huang had arrived in Shanzhou, and it will arrive soon. Can be transferred to Beijing. At this moment, Li Shi was so excited that he almost cried.Holding the life-saving memorial, he couldn't help jumping up, ran into the East Palace staggeringly, and shouted at Prince Li Song: "The rice has arrived in Shanxi, my father and son will live!" (Volume 232) The nightmare is over. All the nightmares are finally over. Dezong Li Shi felt that until this moment, the meaning of "rebirth from the ashes" symbolized by the title of "Zhenyuan" began to be fulfilled. Yes, the rebellion among feudal vassals has been pacified, and the financial crisis has also passed. However, has the Tang Empire really been "reborn from the ashes"? To answer this question, perhaps the first question that needs to be asked is: Have the fundamental factors that triggered the rebellion among the vassals been eliminated? As if to provide evidence for this question, in July of the second year of Zhenyuan, Wu Shaocheng, the military envoy of Huaixi, launched another mutiny, killed Chen Xianqi, the mastermind who poisoned Li Xilie, seized the military power, and established himself as the heir.It is said that Wu Shaocheng was cunning and sinister by nature, but he was Li Xilie's most trusted general during his lifetime. The reason why he sent troops to kill Chen Xianqi was to avenge Li Xilie. Regardless of Wu Shaocheng's motives for the uprising, to the court, his behavior was actually a naked mutiny.This property is beyond doubt.However, in the face of Wu Shaocheng, who supported himself and supported himself, what countermeasures would the Dezong court adopt? Dezong Li Shi soon issued an edict, appointing the godly king Li Liang (the fourth son of Dezong) as the governor of Huaixi, and Wu Shaocheng as the queen of Huaixi. What does this edict mean? The meaning is obvious-Dezong compromised. The so-called appointment of the godly king Li Liang as the governor of Huaixi is actually just a fig leaf for the court.Because Li Liang didn't actually take office, he was only a "remote leader" in name.Since it is a distant leader, the military and political power in Huaixi is of course firmly in the hands of Wu Shaocheng. At this point, we finally discovered that—starting in May of the second year of Jianzhong (AD 781), the great rebellion among the vassal vassals caused by Emperor Dezong's operation on Chengde Li Weiyue, after five years of war and swept across the After most of the empire, instead of ending with the victory of the Li Tang court, it would be better to say that it ended hastily with the compromise and concession of Emperor Dezong Li Shi! We all still remember that there were two reasons for the outbreak of this great rebellion among the vassals: one was that the vassals had no imperial court and self-defeating, and the other was Dezong's determination to rejuvenate and aspire to cut down the vassals. But how did the rebellion end? It was precisely the imperial court's re-acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the feudal vassals' self-defeating and self-defeating, and it was precisely Dezong who gave up his Zhongxing ambition and tough stance that all this came to an end. What a wonderful irony in the manner in which this rebellion ended, in relation to its origin! We can imagine that if Tian Xu of Wei Bo assassinated Tian Yue and supported himself with his troops, if Zhu Tao of Youzhou died of illness and Liu Tong became self-reliant, if Chen Xianqi of Huaixi killed Li Xilie, and Wu Shaocheng killed Chen Xianqi, Dezong If they still refuse to recognize them like they rejected Li Weiyue back then, can the rebellion end here?Can the war end here? the answer is negative. Therefore, judging from the results of this war, we can draw the conclusion that the empire has won on the surface, but the imperial discipline, the dignity of the court that Dezong tried to maintain, and the image of a strong emperor he himself tried to establish , but lost one by one invisibly; on the other hand, those leaders of the feudal towns who rebelled were defeated and died, but the set of rules of the feudal vassals "supporting troops and cutting land, all self-defeating" has undoubtedly won The final victory! Of course, we will not deny that the emperors and ministers of Dezong's dynasty have made great efforts in this war against rebellion - such as Dezong Li Shi's sincere guilt, such as the counselor Li Mi and Lu Zhi's wisdom and strategy in judging the situation , as well as the fierce generals Li Sheng, Hun Yan, Ma Sui and others who sacrificed their lives and fought bloody battles, etc.; we will not deny that after the Anshi Rebellion and the Zhufan Rebellion were severely damaged, Dezong's compromise and retreat were after all The empire traded for a chance to recuperate and rebuild their homeland. However, we have to admit that Dezong's determination to cut down the vassals in the early years only resulted in the loss of life and devastation of the empire; the result of the Li Tang court's reckless fighting with the vassals was nothing more than bringing the empire back to the origin of the Daizong era .The root cause of the chaos in the feudal towns has not been eradicated, and the situation of the feudal vassals abolishing their establishments and self-defeating, supporting soldiers and disobeying orders has not been improved in the slightest.In other words, the Great Tang Empire at this time is still full of arrogant soldiers and powerful generals! Under such circumstances, people seem to have reason to suspect that the so-called "starting from chastity" and "no extreme prosperity" are just illusions.Unless the future Emperor Dezong Li Shi can regain the ambition and dream of rejuvenation when he took the throne, how can the subjects of the empire truly enjoy the long-lost peace?