Chapter 47 Jianning died in vain, King Yong mutinied

For Tang Suzong Li Heng, the spring of the second year of Zhide can only be described in four words: sorrow and joy.The joy is that An Lushan finally died, and the sadness is that two important members of the Li Tang royal family also died in the spring of this year. One is Li Tan, the son of Li Heng, the king of Jianning. One is Li Heng's younger brother Yongwang Li Lin. Since the "Qibaoan incident", Li Mi and Li Tan have become Zhang Liangdi's thorns in the eyes and flesh.Of course, Li Tan was not unaware of this.Young people are prone to impulsiveness, and Li Tan's character is very strong, so he soon had the idea of ​​preemptive strikes.

One day, Li Tan said to Li Mi in private: "Mr. always thinks of me in everything. I can't repay you. I want to help you get rid of a great disaster." Li Mi was puzzled and asked him what the disaster was.Li Tan reported Zhang Liangdi's name.When Li Mi heard this, his expression changed drastically, and he said, "This is not what a son of man should say. Don't mention it again in the future, and don't do anything stupid on the spur of the moment." However, the young and vigorous Li Tan didn't listen to it at all. . While Li Tan was gearing up, Zhang Liangdi was also calmly setting him up.

After all, Jiang is still old and hot. Zhang Liangdi, who is well versed in power, not only did not confront Li Tan head-on, but instead helped him say "good things" in front of Suzong, suggesting that Suzong make Li Chu, the king of Guangping, the prince, and then put the commander of the world's military marshal Li Chu on the throne. The job was handed over to Li Tan. Obviously, this is a divorce plan, and it is an extremely insidious plan that kills three birds with one stone. No matter which dynasty or generation, the establishment of a crown prince is the most likely to provoke disputes among the princes. Zhang Liangdi urged Suzong to propose the establishment of a crown prince. The purpose was to create conflicts between King Guangping and King Jianning, and make them quarrel with each other.In addition, Zhang Liangdi knew that Suzong would definitely discuss with Li Mi about such a major event as the establishment of a crown prince.In this way, Li Mi was naturally drawn into the vortex of power struggle.From Zhang Liangdi's point of view, no matter whether Li Bitong agrees to this matter, his situation will be very embarrassing: if he agrees, Li Tan, the king of Jianning, will definitely be unhappy; if he disagrees, Li Chu, the king of Guangping, will definitely be unhappy.In short, Li Mi must offend one of them.

As expected by Zhang Liangdi, a few days later, Suzong really proposed to Li Mi the idea of ​​establishing a reserve.He said: "Quang Binh has been Marshal for some time, now I want Jian Ning to be fully responsible for countering the rebellion, and I am afraid that, as you said, because of Jian Ning's credit, it will affect Quang Binh's status as the heir, so it is not as good as now." Let Guangping be the crown prince, what do you think?" As soon as Li Bi heard it, he knew who was behind the scenes.He said calmly: "I have said many times that your majesty must deal with all major military and state affairs immediately, but it is best to leave the 'household affairs' such as the establishment of a prince to the Supreme Emperor. Otherwise, how will future generations distinguish your majesty's soul?" The original intention of Wu's accession to the throne? The person who made this suggestion must have wanted to use this to separate the minister and the king of Guangping. The minister asked to inform the king of Guangping the ins and outs of this matter. The minister believes that he may not be willing to be the heir apparent. "

Later, Li Mi told the matter to Li Chu, the king of Guangping, and explained the reasons for his objection, and at the same time revealed his difficulties.Li Chu is also very wise. He knew that being the crown prince at this time is definitely not a good thing, so he immediately went to see Suzong and said, "Your Majesty has not yet welcomed the emperor back, so how dare I be the heir apparent! My biggest wish now is to get married as soon as possible." To welcome the Emperor back, I have nothing else to ask for." Li Chu said these few words very beautifully and decently, and Suzong felt very relieved after hearing them.The matter of registering the crown prince is over.

Li Mi easily resolved Zhang Liangdi's shady tricks, not only avoiding a potential calamity between brothers, but also did not arouse the dissatisfaction and resentment of King Guangping at all.In front of this resourceful Li Mi, Zhang Liangdi really felt a little helpless. However, she will never stop there. Because, she is not fighting alone.Since Suzong Lingwu came to the throne, Suzong's confidant eunuch Li Fuguo formed a political alliance with her.Zhang Liangdi believed that with her and Li Fuguo's influence on Suzong, it was absolutely impossible to be defeated by Li Mi.

Li Fuguo, originally named Li Jingzhong, was ugly and poor. He was purged and sent to the palace since he was a child, and he has been raising horses in the palace stables.Because he was proficient in literature and ink at the beginning, and he was relatively intelligent, he later became Gao Lishi's servant and was promoted to "book in the stable".In the middle period of Tianbao, Li Fuguo, who was nearly fifty years old, entered the East Palace and became the personal attendant of Prince Li Heng. When Xuanzong fled Chang'an, Li Fuguo also fled with the prince.During the Maweiyi Rebellion, Li Fuguo was the liaison between Chen Xuanli and the prince, and he was also one of the participants in the rebellion.Afterwards, together with King Guangping and King Jianning, he planned the "Father's Shelter", which successfully prompted the Prince and Xuanzong to divide their troops and went north to Shuofang.After arriving in Lingwu, Li Fuguo tried his best to persuade Suzong to ascend the throne, thus making a contribution to supporting him.

After Suzong came to the throne, he immediately promoted Li Fuguo as the prince's family order and Marshal's Marshal's Marching Sima, and regarded him as his confidant. ).It was from this time that Li Fuguo began to gradually grasp the power of imperial confinement, and eventually became a powerful eunuch in the Suzong Dynasty. Li Fuguo did not eat meat and fish all his life, he was a vegetarian for a long time, and he often held a string of rosary beads in his hand, so everyone regarded him as a good man and a believer.But in fact, the more keen people are to use Buddhism to decorate their appearance, the more likely they are hiding a lot of ulterior things in their hearts.In other words, Li Fuguo is actually "respectful and reticent on the outside, but cunning on the inside".

After Emperor Suzong came to the throne, Zhang Liangdi became more and more favored, and she might ascend to the throne of empress at any time.Seeing her gaining power, Li Fuguo, who was kind-hearted and treacherous, took the initiative to get close to her, "attaching her to her, and being with her." (Volume 219) Li Fuguo and Zhang Liangdi colluded with each other, which naturally aroused the disgust of Jianning Wang Li Tan.Therefore, every time this young man who hated evil and was full of blood and blood met Suzong, he would scold the two for their hypocrisy and insidiousness, with great evil in their hearts, and said that they colluded internally and externally in an attempt to harm the emperor's heir.

As we all know, apart from Li Mi, Li Fuguo and Zhang Liangdi are Suzong's most trusted people, so Li Tan's wanton attack on them in front of Suzong will not play any role, but will only expose his willfulness and impulsiveness And naive, which caused suzong's resentment. Impulse is the devil.Li Mi once warned Li Tan. However, his warning failed to prevent Li Tan from being captured by the demon of impulsiveness in his heart. This led to the tragedy of Li Tan. Zhang Liangdi and Li Fuguo were already in the same boat as Li Tanshi, and now they are being personally attacked by him every day, so they are naturally furious, so they whispered in Suzong's ear day and night, saying: "King Jianning hates that His Majesty does not give him a marshal. Attempt to murder King Quang Binh."

Li Tan accused Zhang Liangdi and Li Fuguo of harming the emperor's heir, referring to King Guangping.Now, both parties in the conflict center on Li Chu, the eldest son of the emperor, and accuse each other. What should Suzong do?Who should he trust? Suzong finally believed in Zhang Liangdi and Li Fuguo, and resolutely issued an imperial edict ordering the death of Jianning King Li Tan. Li Tan died just like that.The third prince, who made great contributions in the process of Suzong's division of troops to the north and ascension to Lingwu, died unjustly under the slander of Zhang Liangdi and Li Fuguo. In fact, the reason why Suzong ordered Li Tan to die indiscriminately was not only because he believed the slander of Zhang and Li, but also because he himself had strong doubts about this son.Because Li Tan's personal quality and military ability are too outstanding, far stronger than his elder brother Li Chu, Suzong did not believe that Li Tan would be willing to live under Li Chu in his heart.The reason why he was eager to make Li Chu the crown prince was because he wanted to completely cut off Li Tan's thoughts and avoid a catastrophe of brothers fighting against each other.However, in view of the "abnormal" nature of his accession to the throne, he had to follow Li Mi's advice and temporarily give up the idea of ​​establishing a prince.In this way, the possibility of Li Tan seizing the heir always exists.For Li Heng, who has not yet completed the great cause of countering the rebellion, this is nothing more than an extremely dangerous time bomb. At this moment, the rebels are still occupying the two capitals and Hebei. If his backyard suddenly catches fire at this time, how can Li Heng's throne be secure?Therefore, when the conflict between Zhang Liangdi, Li Fuguo and Li Tan, the king of Jianning, developed to the point of being irreconcilable, and when Suzong felt that Li Tan was more and more suspected of coveting the reserve position, he could only hold "it is better to believe it. With an attitude of "you can't believe it's nothing", kill Li Tan painfully and get rid of this time bomb! Although he couldn't bear it, the coldness of being an emperor finally defeated the warmth of being a father.No way, this is politics. The death of King Jianning was an ominous signal, indicating that a fierce power struggle had already begun within Suzong's court at the beginning of the suppression of the rebellion.If it is said that the tragedy of Jianning King Li Tan only happened in the palace, and did not have much impact on the situation of the whole world at that time, then the subsequent rebellion of the soldiers and the severance of the territory is tantamount to the rebellion that happened just after Suzong. Sprinkling another handful of salt on the wounded wound also made the counter-insurgency situation at that time more complicated. The maker of this rebellion was Suzong's half brother-Yongwang Li Lin. Li Lin, Xuanzong's sixteenth son, was brought up by the elder Li Heng when he was young because his biological mother Guo Shunyi died early.Li Heng loves this young brother very much, and often hugs him to sleep at night. His feelings for him are not only brothers, but also like father and son.It is said that Li Lin is ugly and has squinted eyes, but because he was smart and eager to learn since he was a child, he was still very popular with Li Heng when he grew up.In March of the thirteenth year of Kaiyuan (725 A.D.), Li Lin and his brothers became king on the same day. Two years later, he was appointed governor of Jingzhou. There is no doubt that if there is no Anshi Rebellion, the sixteenth Yongwang Li Lin will be like this in his life.What his father, Emperor Xuanzong, could give him was a life of rich clothes and fine food, plus a few honorary titles in name only.He is doomed to be a pampered prince in Chang'an, and he has no chance to leave the town and become a high official in the frontier, let alone covet the ninth-fifth position.In other words, during the peaceful years, Yongwang Li Lin could only enjoy his share of glory and wealth honestly like all princes, and never dared to have any inappropriate thoughts about the throne. However, the Anshi Rebellion changed all that. When Xuanzong issued the edict "Ordering the kings to divide the world and all ways" during his exile in Bashu, the desire for power hidden in Yongwang Li Lin's heart was unstoppably aroused. In Xuanzong's imperial edict, Prince Li Heng, Yong Wang Li Lin, Sheng Wang Li Qi, and Feng Wang Li Gong were respectively granted the power to control several Taos by one person.Among them, Li Heng was the marshal of the world's soldiers and horses, and concurrently served as the governor of Shuofang, Hedong, Hebei, and Pinglu; The governor of the county (where the government is located in Jiangling County, Hubei Province today); and although King Sheng and King Feng had their own appointments, they did not actually take up their posts because of their young age.Therefore, Li Heng and Li Lin were the only ones who really got the power of the big officials in the frontier. Yongwang Li Lin has lived half his life, and this is the first time he has gained such great power. Like a balloon that was suddenly inflated, Li Lin immediately had a feeling of floating, a feeling of being above all living beings. It feels so good! After receiving Xuanzong's edict, Li Lin couldn't wait to leave Bashu and arrived in Jiangling in September of that year.Since all the property confiscated from the Jianghuai area was transferred through Jiangling at that time, the treasury of Jiangling accumulated a lot of wealth.After Li Lin took office, he immediately spent a lot of money, food, cloth and silk, and recruited tens of thousands of soldiers and horses.When the people around him saw this posture, they knew what King Yong was thinking.Afterwards, civil and military officials headed by counselor Xue Yu and King Yong's son Li Yu, the king of Xiangcheng, encouraged Li Lin to support himself and separate Jiangdong.They said that the world is in chaos today, "only the south is full of wealth", and King Yong "holds four soldiers and seals thousands of miles of territory", he should take this opportunity to occupy Jinling (now Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province), "keep Jiangbiao, just like the Eastern Jin Dynasty story". (Volume 219) Li Lin smiled. Just a few months ago, he was just an inconspicuous prince of the Li Tang royal family, but now, he is already a feudal official with tens of thousands of soldiers, and he is about to take half of the empire. In the bag, if he is lucky, he might be able to replace his brother Li Heng and become the emperor who rules the world and is rich all over the world! Li Lin smiled smugly. Yong Wang Li Lin's changes in Jiangling did not escape the eyes of Suzong Li Heng.At this time, Li Heng had received Xuanzong's imperial edict and became the emperor of the Tang Dynasty worthy of the name and reality. Of course, he could not tolerate Yongwang's attempt to ally with troops to cede the land.Suzong immediately issued an edict, ordering King Yong to "return to Shu", asking him to return to Chengdu immediately and stay obediently by the side of the Supreme Emperor. Of course Li Lin refused to obey the order and continued to mobilize horses and soldiers in Jiangling. Suzong felt bad, so he quickly appointed Gao Shi (a famous frontier poet in the Tang Dynasty) as Huainan Jiedu envoy to lead Guangling (now Yangzhou City, Jiangsu) and other twelve counties; Nan (now Runan County, Henan Province) and other five counties; ordered the two to cooperate with Jiangdong Jiedu envoy Wei Zhi to closely monitor Li Lin's movements and jointly destroy him if necessary. In December of the first year of Zhide, Yong Wang Li Lin led a boat division down the river, with a grand army.Li Xiyan, the prefect of Wujun (now Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province), felt that something was wrong, and immediately sent a letter asking him why he had led troops eastward without authorization.Li Xiyan's letter was written in the form of "flat ultimatum".The so-called equality means that there is no distinction between superiors and inferiors, and there is no particularity in titles, so Li Xiyan called Li Lin by his first name in the letter. When Li Lin saw the letter, he was furious, and immediately sent a letter back to Li Xiyan, to the effect that: I am a dignified prince, with a noble status and excellent etiquette. Now that you ignore the dignity, don't blame the widow for being rude! Li Lin led his troops to the east this time, making it clear that he wanted to attack Jinling and separatize Jiangdong, and Li Xiyan's "rude" letter of peace just gave Li Lin an excuse to raise troops. If you don't turn back at this time, when will you wait? ! Afterwards, Li Lin divided his troops into three groups, and ordered general Hun Weiming to lead the way to attack Wu County, general Ji Guangchen to lead the way to attack Guangling, and himself to lead the main force to attack Dangtu (now Dangtu County, Anhui). No one would expect that the beacon smoke lit by Anlu Mountain is still billowing in the north and the Central Plains, and has not yet subsided, but Yongwang Li Lin has ignited a new war in his backyard. Alarmed by the news of King Yong's rebellion, Li Xiyan, the prefect of Wujun, hurriedly dispatched his general Yuan Jingyao, together with Yan Jingzhi, the prefect of Danyang (now Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province), to defend against the enemy; . Because Yongwang had planned for a long time and his troops were very sharp, he defeated the official army who came to stop him in the first battle, and beheaded Yan Jingzhi, taking advantage of the victory to occupy Danyang.Seeing the strength of the rebel army, Yuan Jingyao and Li Chengqing did not dare to resist, so they both surrendered. As soon as the two armies joined the battle, the Tang general died and surrendered twice, and the Jianghuai area was suddenly terrified.Gao Shi, Lai Zhen, and Wei Zhi rushed to Anlu (now Anlu City, Hubei Province) to meet up and discuss how to suppress the rebellion.In view of the fact that Yongwang's army came well prepared, with sufficient soldiers and food, and high morale, Gao Shi and the other three decided to avoid the enemy's edge and not to fight the rebels head-on for the time being, but to adopt a two-pronged strategy: on the one hand, along the Yangtze River. On the north bank, there are a large number of suspicious soldiers to confuse the opponent; on the one hand, they actively adopt psychological warfare and strive to disintegrate the rebels from within. The plan has been decided, and Li Chengshi, the chief historian of Guangling, immediately sent his general Pei Mao to lead his troops to Guabuzhou (southeast of Liuhe County, Jiangsu Province today), "spreading the banner widely and shining in Jiangjin", putting on a posture of being ready. Immediately afterwards, Gao Shi gave full play to his expertise in poetry and prose, and wrote a "Book Before Huai Xian and the General's School", ordering the soldiers to distribute it everywhere, to be rational and emotional to the rebel officers and soldiers, and to lure At the same time, Wei Zhi (son of the former Prime Minister Wei Anshi), who was born in a wealthy family, also used his prestige in the ruling and opposition parties to secretly instigate rebellion against several senior generals of the rebel army, and played Suzong in advance to punish the rebel general Ji Guangchen. Xu Yi was a high-ranking official with a generous salary, and promised that if he did anything wrong, he would be awarded the post of Danyang prefect and imperial censor Zhongcheng. These tricks are quite useful. Facing the north shore army with flags flying, Yongwang Li Lin and his son Li Wei began to panic - in their view, the imperial army must have gathered heavy troops on the other side, and they had no idea how to fight the next battle . At the same time, in the face of the powerful propaganda offensive by the government and the army, the morale of the rebel army was inevitably shaken.Among them, Ji Guangchen was even more moved by the generous salary promised to him by the imperial court. The purpose of following Yongwang's rebellion was only for high officials and rich salary; now as long as he submits to the imperial court, all these things are at his fingertips. What reason does Ji Guangchen have to sacrifice his life for Yongwang? Ji Guangchen then secretly summoned the generals and said to them: "We have followed Yongwang here, and we have not seen any hope of success so far. We should go our separate ways as soon as possible before the battle is fought, otherwise we will not only die in battle. Hearing this, all the generals thought it made sense, and immediately went their separate ways: Ji Guangchen led his troops to Guangling, Hun Weiming led his troops to Jiangning, Feng Jikang led his troops to Baisha (now Yizheng City, Jiangsu Province) ... Tens of thousands of soldiers and horses fled in an instant, and most of them fled. King Yong was dumbfounded, and hurriedly sent a team of soldiers to chase after Ji Guangchen.The soldiers managed to catch up, but they heard Ji Guangchen say: "I don't want to fight you because I still feel grateful for the kindness of King Yongde. I just want to submit to the court; if you insist on forcing me, I can turn around and kill you at any time!" When the chasing soldiers went back to report, King Yong could only look up to the sky and sigh. Just when King Yong was at a loss, that night, the officers and soldiers in Jiangbei lit countless torches, ordering each soldier to "hold two torches", and the torches were reflected in the water, "one is two", the scene was truly spectacular; At the same time, some of the soldiers under King Yong's command who had been instigated by the government and the army responded with fire, so the momentum became even bigger.Looking around, it seems that there are thousands of troops crossing the river.Yongwang Li Lin was so frightened that he fled Danyang City overnight with his family and soldiers. Early the next morning, King Yong realized that he had been fooled when he saw that there were no officers and soldiers on the river.However, even though the officers and soldiers had not yet crossed the river, King Yong knew he could not defend Danyang, so he had to gather the remaining troops in the city and flee south. Knowing that King Yong had escaped, Li Chengshi immediately ordered Zhao Kan to cross the river to pursue him.When King Yong fled to Xinfeng (now southeast of Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province) in a hurry, he saw that the officers and soldiers were chasing him closely, so he ordered his son Li Zhen to lead the rest of his troops to turn back and stop him.As soon as the two sides fought, Li Zhen was shot in the shoulder by an arrow from the officers and soldiers, fell off his horse, and was hacked to death with random knives. The rebels scattered in an uproar. So far, there is only one general Gao Xianqi and four personal soldiers left beside King Yong.They embraced Yongwang and continued to flee south, passing through Poyang and Yugan, trying to escape from Dayuling to Lingnan.In late February of the second year of Zhide, Jiangxi interviewer Huangfu sent troops to intercept him, captured Yongwang in Dayuling, killed him in the posthouse, and escorted his family to Chengdu, where he was sent by the Supreme Emperor. After learning the news of King Yong's defeat and death, Suzong naturally heaved a long sigh of relief.But on the surface, he still pretended to be "losing his beloved brother", not only did not praise Huangfu, but reprimanded him: "Since Huangfu captured my brother alive, why didn't he send him to Shu County and kill him without authorization?" ?!" Therefore, Huangfu's capture and killing of King Yong was not only useless, but guilty.Suzong immediately dismissed him from his official position and never hired him. Of course, for the death of King Yong, although Suzong acted full of grief, this does not mean that he would forgive those who followed King Yong to rebel. After the rebellion was put down, a large number of King Yong's henchmen headed by Xue Yu were killed, and one of the famous figures was almost beheaded. He is Li Bai. No one will deny that Li Bai's talent in literature and poetry is unmatched in the past and present, but we have to admit that he is a typical imbecile in politics.When the Anshi Rebellion broke out, Li Bai was living in seclusion in Mount Lu.After Yongwang Li Lin settled in Jiangling, he sent an invitation to him.Li Bai readily accepted and served as his staff.In Li Bai's view at that time, Yong Wang Li Lin was both the prince of Li Tang and the great official of the frontier. If he joined him, he would surely realize his ambition of making contributions, save the people of Li from fire and water, and save the country from peril! "Try borrowing the emperor's jade horsewhip, command the soldiers to sit at the Qiongyan feast. The south wind sweeps away the dust, and goes west to Chang'an to the edge of the sun." However, this is just a poet's wishful thinking political fantasy. When Yong Wang Li Lin led troops from Jiangling to the east, and his ambition to separatist Jiangdong was clearly revealed, but the simple Li Bai was still immersed in wonderful fantasies and couldn't extricate himself.It was not until King Yong was defeated and Li Bai was sentenced to death by Suzong's court that he woke up from his dream and regretted it too late.Fortunately, Guo Ziyi rescued him in many ways, and Li Bai was saved from death and exiled in Yelang (now Tongzi County, Guizhou). Although the Yongwang Mutiny turned up and down and did not cause a large-scale rebellion, it was enough to show that Suzong's power base was not stable. In addition, the previous Jianning King incident was more than enough to make Suzong Liheng have a strong sense of rebellion. sense of crisis. Perhaps, it was precisely because of this sense of crisis that Suzong Li Heng was eager to regain Chang'an, hoping to consolidate his power as the emperor with this great feat. In fact, not long after the death of King Jianning, that is, on February 10th of the second year of Zhide, Li Heng had already led all the civil and military officials to station in Fengxiang.This place is only more than 300 miles away from Chang'an, and all the wealth and wealth of the Jianghuai River are gathered here, so it is undoubtedly an ideal front enemy headquarters. On the same day, Guo Ziyi was ordered by Emperor Suzong to lead the Shuofang Army to set off from Luojiao (now Fuxian County, Shaanxi Province) to push into Hedong County (now Yongji City, Shanxi City), and at the same time sent another way to attack Fengyi County (now Dali County, Shaanxi Province).The two Tang armies and Fengxiang's Suzong court echoed each other from a distance, and thus formed a two-sided attack on Chang'an. The prelude to the Empire Strikes Back begins...