Chapter 26 Eight Kings, Xiaobo, rises up in Chuanzhong

After Zhao Pu's death, Zhao Jiong appointed several people as prime ministers, but he felt that none of them were suitable, so he finally appointed Lu Mengzheng. Lu Mengzheng, a native of Henan.His father's name is Guitu, and he once worked as a householder.Lu Meng was the son of the main wife Liu, and besides the main wife, Lu Guitu also had several concubines. If there were too many concubines, he could not live in harmony with the main wife Liu, and it developed to the point where Liu and Lu Mengzheng's mother and son were driven out of the house. .After Lu Mengzheng was kicked out of the house by his father, he had nowhere to hide and had to live on the street.He often went to the temple to eat food. After a long time, it was inevitable that he would be stared at by the monks in the temple.Meals in the temple are marked by ringing the bell. When the bell rang, the monks walked out of the meditation room and went to the kitchen to eat.Because the monks hated Lv Mengzheng very much, they thought about teasing Lv Mengzheng. During the meal that day, the monk who rang the bell deliberately did not ring the bell to say hello to each other, and the monks quietly went to the kitchen to eat. After the meal, the monk who rang the bell rang the bell again.

Just as Lu Meng heard the bell, he hurried to the kitchen to eat, and the monk in the kitchen was clearing away the dishes.A monk said teasingly: "Mr. Lu should come earlier for dinner! Now that the meal has been eaten, do you want to ask the masters to cook some more for you?" After that, he deliberately scolded a young monk "For us monks, our food and flowers are all donated by donors from the ten directions. It is not easy. You have to do something for me after eating white rice. Why are you sitting around here? Is it true that the monk's meal should be Give you free food?"

Lu Mengzheng knew that the monk was referring to Sang and scolding Huai, so he just sighed slightly and didn't argue with them, endured his hunger, and went to study by himself. "The bell after dinner" is the allusion of Lu Mengzheng when he was in despair. In the second year of Taiping Xingguo (977), Lu Mengzheng won the first Jinshi examination and was appointed as the general judge of Shengzhou. After Lv Mengzheng made his fortune, he did not repay his grievances with grievances. Instead, he generously rewarded the monks in the temple.Although his biological mother, Liu Shi, was kicked out by his biological father, she was determined not to remarry. Lu Mengzheng respectfully welcomed his parents to live with him, living in the same house and living in a different room, and took good care of him.After his parents passed away one after another, Lu Meng was entering the court to participate in politics.An official pointed to his back and said, "Can such a person participate in politics?"

Lu Mengzheng pretended not to hear and walked past calmly.The colleagues were very unconvinced, and wanted to ask the official's name, but Lu Mengzheng hurriedly stopped him: "No need, no need, if you know his name, you will never forget it for the rest of your life. It's better not to know." Seeing that Lu Mengzheng was so magnanimous, his colleagues admired him from the bottom of their hearts.After Lu Mengzheng became prime minister, he was upright and upright. One of his subordinates hid an ancient mirror in his home and wanted to give it to Lu Mengzheng, claiming that the mirror could illuminate two hundred miles.Lu Mengzheng said with a smile: "My face is only the size of a saucer, why should I look in a mirror two hundred miles away?" He firmly refused the gift from this subordinate.

Lv Mengzheng usually prepared a pocket bag, no matter how big or small the officials were, they would ask him about his talents and learning in detail when he came in, and put the records in the bag. recommend.Therefore, during the period when Lu Meng was the prime minister, the court selected officials based on their talents. Zhao Jiong often had the idea of ​​the Northern Expedition, and Lu Mengzheng remonstrated: "During the decades of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Liao Kingdom was conquered four times, and the people were miserable. The entire army of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty was wiped out, and Zhao Jiong of the Tang Dynasty attacked the city by himself, but it was ineffective. It can be seen that Governance is the most important thing, and internal affairs are cultivated, and internal affairs are cultivated, so that people from far away will come and return naturally, and it will be peaceful enough.”

Zhao Jiong followed Lu Mengzheng's advice.Therefore, during Lu Mengzheng's prime ministership, the imperial court did not send troops to make expeditions. Anyone who is an emperor wants to be a generation of sages, and Zhao Jiong is the same. He often asks his close ministers, how do I compare with Tang Taizong?Li Fang is a person who is good at admonishing. Although he knew in his heart that Zhao Jiong was far behind Tang Taizong, he couldn't say it directly, so he casually recited Bai Juyi's "Dance of Seven Virtues": Three thousand resentful women were released from the palace, and four hundred death row prisoners returned to prison.

The two lines of poems contain two stories: the first line says that after Li Shimin became the emperor, he dismissed three thousand court ladies and gave them money from Sichuan, so that they could go back to the people to choose a spouse and get married. This is Li Shimin's virtuous policy; Several death row inmates who were imprisoned in prison asked to be released to go home to help their families with farm work during the busy farming season, and then returned to receive the death penalty after the double robbing was over.In any dynasty, no one dared to agree to such a request. Li Shimin actually agreed, and he did not send anyone to supervise him. After the prisoners returned home, they had a high possibility of escaping. Actually, one by one, all of them automatically returned to the cell to accept the death sentence.Such cases are unique.Afterwards, Li Shimin pardoned the four hundred death row prisoners.

Zhao Jiong heard Li Fang's sarcasm, and quickly got up and replied: "I am not as good as him, I am not as good as him, Qing's words have alerted me!" Kou Zhun is also an outspoken person who speaks out and dares to speak out. When the court discusses matters, he knows everything and says everything.Zhao Jiong once said approvingly: "I got Kou Zhun, just like Tang Taizong got Wei Zheng!" Generally speaking, the officials of the imperial government's central organization are fairly open-minded, but the situation outside Bianliang City may not be so optimistic.

Take the officials in central Shu as an example, where the sky is high and the emperor is far away, the situation is quite different from that in the capital.After the Taizu destroyed Shu, the original treasury money of Xishu was transported to Bianliang.The officials who stayed to govern Shu, in order to ask for credit and rewards from the imperial court, spared no expense of the people's power, in addition to the regular tax, wantonly imposed additional taxes, levied as many miscellaneous taxes as a cow's hair, the people were destitute, and complained a lot. Qi Yuanzhen, magistrate of Qingcheng County in Western Shu, is even a greedy guy. He tried his best to set up taxes and fees, and searched for the people's fat and anointment.

In February of the fourth year of Chunhua (993), in a place called Wangsunting in the jurisdiction of Qingcheng County, a tea farmer named Wang Xiaobo followed the people's will and called a group of oppressed and suffering poor people to rise up. My folks and elders! We have suffered enough, should we continue to endure it? Look at this society, the poor are poor, the rich are rich, it is very uneven! Who gave us these sufferings? That’s it. A class of corrupt officials. Once you are an official, you will benefit one party. Look at that dog official Qi Yuanzhen. He has messed up Qingcheng's politics. Let's not talk about him. We have emptied all of our property and put it into private pockets. We don’t care about him, anyway, it’s the money of the emperor’s old son; Underneath, in the cold wind and rain, the money earned by hard work and hard work was stolen in different ways. It’s Ge Laozi’s. This is forcing us to die! Can we live this day? Fellow folks Ah! Reverse it! Kill that dog officer Qi Yuanzhen."

"It's wrong! It's wrong!" The villagers were full of enthusiasm, "Ge Laozi, kill that son of a bitch Qi Yuanzhen." Wang Xiaobo went on to say that today's uprising did not intend to fight for the city and land, but to equalize the rich and the poor. Wang Xiaobo's slogan of "Equalizing the Rich and the Poor" was very appealing and received the response of the poor. Within a few days, a team of tens of thousands of people was assembled, and they were ready to attack Qingcheng County. The largest peasant uprising broke out in the early Song Dynasty. Wang Sunting was only tens of miles away from Qingcheng County, and the uprising team rushed to Qingcheng County, and the number of people continued to increase along the way.Qingcheng County was undefended, and there was not a single soldier. The rebel army led by Wang Xiaobo did not encounter any obstacles, and rushed into the county government directly.Coincidentally, Qi Yuanzhen, the magistrate of the county, was holding a meeting at the county government office, and all the officials, big and small, were taken care of by the team led by Wang Xiaobo, and no one was missed. It turned out that all the soldiers in Qingcheng were sent by Qi Yuanzhen to collect taxes in the countryside. In his mind, the people were always his subjects and objects of oppression, and they would never dare to make trouble. unimportant things.It was his self-confidence and contempt for the people that gave the rebels a chance. After the rebel army captured Qi Yuanzhen, without giving him a chance to argue, they dragged him into the courtyard, disemboweled him in public, dug out his heart, put money in his stomach, and laid his body outside the door to reveal his crimes. After the rebel army occupied Qingcheng County, they used Qingcheng as a base to divide their troops to attack Pengshan. When the people in Qingcheng and Pengshan learned that someone had risen to rebel, they responded one after another, and the rebel army grew stronger day by day. Zhang Ke, the patrol inspector of Xichuan Metropolis, dispatched troops to suppress it, and started a battle with Wang Xiaobo's rebel army in Jiangyuan. During the chaotic battle, Zhang Ke shot Wang Xiaobo's left eye with his bow.Enduring the severe pain, Wang Xiaobo took the lead and rushed to the officers and soldiers, killing all of Zhang Ke's officers and soldiers, and Zhang Ke died in the rebellion. Wang Xiaobo also died of severe injuries to his left eye. The people buried Wang Xiaobo, and elected Wang Xiaobo's brother-in-law Li Shun as the leader to lead the rebel army to continue fighting.Li Shun led this peasant uprising army to conquer Qiongzhou and Yongkang, with hundreds of thousands of followers.The storm of the uprising swept the entire Western Sichuan Plain and captured Chengdu, an important city in Western Sichuan.The "Great Shu" regime was established in Chengdu, and Li Shun became the king of the Great Shu, which shocked both Sichuan and Sichuan. News of troubles in Xishu soon spread to the capital. At this time, there were great changes in personnel affairs in the court. Li Hang, Jia Huangzhong, Li Fang, Wen Zhongshu and others were successively dismissed. Zhao Jiong panicked when he received the emergency memorial in Sichuan, and immediately held an imperial meeting to discuss how to deal with the troubles caused by the Sichuan people.He said to everyone worriedly: "There are a few thieves in Sichuan who made trouble and killed a few county magistrates. What should we do about this matter? Ladies and gentlemen, come up with an idea for me." After Zhao Changyan heard this, he felt something was wrong, and said, "Your Majesty, can you still be considered a grassroots thief if you can kill a few county magistrates? Yichen estimates that the mountain rain is about to come and the wind will fill the building!" Zhao Jiong seemed a little anxious when Zhao Changyan said the matter was so serious, and quickly asked all the ministers how to solve this matter. Some people suggested sending ministers to Sichuan to appease them, but Zhao Changyan strongly advocated sending troops to encircle and suppress them. He believed that the rebellion by small people in central Sichuan was a farce of clowns, but if the imperial court did not send troops to conquer, it would be difficult to show the might of God. If the thieves spread and become a serious problem, the situation will probably be even more difficult to deal with. Zhao Jiong felt that what he said was reasonable, that is, he ordered the eunuch Wang Ji'en to be the envoy to recruit peace in Liangchuan, leading 50,000 officers and soldiers to the west; Before Wang Jien's Western Expeditionary Army reached Xishu, Li Shun hurriedly dispatched Yang Guang to lead tens of thousands of people to attack Jianmen.Shangguanzheng, the supervisor of Jianmen, led hundreds of officers and soldiers to guard the city. Yang Guang led his troops to besiege. At a critical moment, Su Han, the supervisor of Sichuan, led troops to support Jianmen, and fought with Yang Guang under the city. When the reinforcements arrived, he led hundreds of his men and rushed out of the city, attacking inside and outside. Li Shun blamed Yang Guang's defeat for dampening the spirit of the rebel army, and in a rage, killed Yang Guang and the more than 300 soldiers who fled back.Li Shun's soldiers were all improvised peasants, they had not received formal training, and they didn't know what military law was. Seeing Li Shun killing so many people at once, they all felt that his methods were too cruel, and they felt a little bit of ruthlessness in their hearts. Dissatisfied, people's hearts gradually slackened. Li Shun didn't dare to go out of the sword gate again, so he led his troops to besiege Zizhou. Zhang Yong, the defender of Zizhou, learned of Wang Xiaobo's rebellion. He had already recruited soldiers, built city walls, dug trenches, prepared food, grass and weapons, and prepared to be attacked.A few days later, Li Shun indeed led 100,000 people to attack Zizhou.Zhang Yong led more than 3,000 troops to resist. Due to the strong city walls and wide and deep trenches, the stalemate lasted for more than two months, and it was still difficult for Li Shun to overcome the storm. Wang Jien led the troops to Jianmen. Hearing that Zizhou had been besieged for a long time, he immediately led his troops to reinforce Zizhou. Li Shun besieged Zizhou, unable to attack for a long time, and the soldiers were already tired. Seeing that the reinforcements had arrived, Li Shun had to retreat to Chengdu. Wang Jien drove straight in from Jianmen, broke through Mianzhou, Laoxi, Yanzhou, Bazhou, Pengzhou, and Jianzhou, and approached Chengdu, completely encircling Chengdu.Li Shun still had hundreds of thousands of people. He opened the city to fight several times, but they were all defeated by the officers and soldiers, so they had to flee into the city and defend to the death.Wang Jien commanded the army to set up ladders on all sides and attacked the city day and night. In the end, the officers and soldiers took the risk to climb the city wall. Li Shun led the rebel army to fight in the streets with the officers and soldiers, and was finally captured and killed due to exhaustion. More than 30,000 rebels died. It took half a year from when Wang Xiaobo raised the banner of rebellion to when Li Shun was captured. After Li Shun was captured, Zhang Yu, his subordinate, escaped from the city and collected the remnants of the army, hoping to make a comeback. Wang Jien defeated the rebel army and the news of the capture and killing of the leader of the rebel army Li Shun spread to Bianliang. Zhao Jiong was very happy. He wanted to reward Wang Jien heavily and asked Prime Minister Lu Meng to draw up a plan.Lu Meng is planning to confer on Wang Jien the post of Xuanhui envoy. What kind of official is Xuan Huishi?This official position was the official of the harem women in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, but in the late Tang Dynasty, it became an additional official of the court's important officials.Since the Five Dynasties, as long as military generals add this official, they will not be far from the privy envoy.In addition to the first three shifts in the general hall, it is also in charge of court meetings, suburban sacrifices, etc. Even the tribute of foreign envoys needs to be signed by the Xuanhui envoy before it can be stored in the treasury, which is very powerful.When Taizu Zhao Kuangyin was in power, he set a rule: eunuchs and the like can be allowed to participate in the military, but they cannot be allowed to be ministers in power.Obviously, granting Wang Jien the post of Xuanhui envoy violated the rules set by Taizu. Some people thought it was inappropriate to confer the post of envoy Xuanhui and raised objections. Zhao Jiong adopted this opinion and asked everyone to make another draft.Zhao Changyan, Su Yijian and others said that Wang Jien made meritorious service in pacifying the bandits, otherwise, it is not enough to be rewarded. Zhao Jiong believed that eunuchs were not allowed to interfere in politics. This was the ancestral system, and they had to be followed. However, Wang Jien did a great job in suppressing bandits, and he should be promoted in terms of meritorious deeds.So, he said to Zhang Ji and Qian Ruoshui, you are well-learned Confucians, think about it, besides Xuanhui envoy, what kind of official is suitable. Zhang Ji is a shrewd person. He figured out that Zhao Jiong meant to reward Wang Jien greatly, but he could not lose the reputation of being an eunuch for meddling in politics. He was quick-witted and said: "I think that Wang Jien's trip is not only for military exploits, but also for publicity. Wang Hua, you can appoint another Xuanzheng envoy to reward him for his work." Xuanzhengshi is just a false title, and several ministers have no objection.Therefore, Zhao Jiong issued an edict, lowering Chengdu Prefecture to Yizhou, and granting Wang Jien a political envoy. Wang Jien conquered Chengdu and was promoted to Xuanzheng envoy.He was originally an eunuch, and the number of subordinates he managed in the palace was only a few dozen people. Although there was a lot of activity, it was just relying on the position of eunuch next to the emperor to order him around. He had never had such great power like now , commanding thousands of troops on his own, and suddenly having this honor, the villain will become successful.After conquering Chengdu, Wang Ji'en didn't think about making progress. He drank alcohol, played games, or traveled every day. Wuji, robbing money, raping women, doing whatever he wants, he forgot what he came to Sichuan for. Zhang Yu, Li Shun's former subordinate, saw that the officers and soldiers did not take advantage of the situation to encircle and suppress them, so he gathered up the remnants of the army and gathered strength. The team grew stronger and stronger than Li Shun's. . The news from Sichuan spread to Bianliang. Knowing that Wang Jien was unreliable, Zhao Jiong ordered Zhang Yong, the secretary of Tongzhi, to be the governor of Yizhou. Zhang Yong was ordered to rush to Yizhou day and night, convening a meeting with Shangguanzheng, Suhan and other generals in Shu, encouraging them to serve the court and wipe out Li Shun's remnants as soon as possible.When leaving the army for a farewell party, Zhang Yong gave a toast to the military academy one by one, and said weepingly: "You have received great kindness from the country. If you can wipe out the thieves during this trip, the imperial court will reward you. If you fail to leave the army and miss the opportunity to fight, I'm afraid it will be hard to come back alive." ;Even if you get away by chance, you must follow the military law, and you will never be lenient." Shangguanzheng and Su Han led the officers and soldiers to set off. After sending Shangguan Zheng and Su Han away, Zhang Yong went to the countryside to persuade the people to give birth with peace of mind and not to become thieves. What the common people need is a stable life. If someone hadn't forced them to a dead end, they would never have taken the risk.Therefore, Zhang Yong's call has been widely responded by the people. After investigation, Zhang Yong learned that there were more than 30,000 troops stationed in Yizhou City, and the food consumption was large, and the stored military food was only enough for half a month.There is a lack of salt in Sichuan, and the price of salt has always been very expensive, making the people miserable.However, Sichuan is a famous granary, and the common people have ample food reserves.Therefore, Zhang Yong sent people to the salt producing area to purchase a large amount of table salt, and exchanged the salt with the people for rice. In less than a month, he got more than 10,000 dendrobium of rice.The common people got the salt, the government got the food, and everyone got what they wanted. Zhang Yong was a smart man, and he did a smart thing that everyone was happy with. Zhang Yong also respected corporals, lenient prisons and light taxes, gradually gaining the approval of the people, and the situation in Yizhou soon stabilized. At the end of the fifth year of Chunhua (994), Zhao Jiong sent an imperial edict to change Yuan Zhidao again, and the next year was the first year of Zhidao (995).In the first month of the first month, Zhao Jiong issued an edict of guilt to the people in Shu because of the gradual pacification of the chaos in Shu. In the edict of guilt, he said: My appointment is not appropriate, and the reason for the candle is not clear. To those officials who are close to the people, they do not use harmony as a policy;To provoke my subjects to become thieves, to think that I have lost my virtue, is to be responsible, and I will always learn from the past, and there will be no mistakes. The people in central Shu heard that the emperor issued an imperial edict to blame themselves, and they felt a little comfort in their hearts. In addition, after Zhang Yong went to Yizhou as the chief executive, he was quite sympathetic to the people's feelings and improved their customs. They should be held accountable and persuade them to go home and farm. The common people in China are honest, as long as they can survive, even if they suffer some grievances, they will persist, and they will never go to war with a knife or stick.They rebelled, it was the government forcing the people to rebel, because those corrupt officials not only did not allow them to live a peaceful life, but also demanded their lives, which exceeded their bottom line of persistence. ?Now, such a good official came, who not only forgave their rebellion, but also persuaded them to farm. They had hope of survival again, so they each put down their guns and sticks, and went home to farm one after another. Soon thereafter, officers and soldiers led by Shangguanzheng and Su Han fought against Zhang Yu's remnants in Jiazhou. The officers and soldiers won and Zhang Yu was killed. Zhao Jiong ordered Wang Ji'en to return to the capital, and to stay there until the end. Shangguan was recruiting envoys for Liangchuan. Xishu has regained its former peace.