Although it is a dynasty with one emperor and one courtier, the lineup of the previous dynasty is usually not completely eliminated even if many emperors do not continue to use it. The history encyclopedia editor brings relevant content to everyone. Interested friends, come and take a look.
But when it comes to vicious and cruel individuals, there are many in the history of human warfare. The seemingly brutal methods of “calling deer horses” and “drinking wine to release military power” are much softer than their brutality.
Some people go to war for their own positions, or for their own ambitions. Unlike these people, others have inspired their brutal nature on the battlefield. They are not good at using political means of communication and reconciliation, but instead adopt a one size fits all approach to deal with future problems.
During the 7-year turmoil of peasant uprisings in the late Tang Dynasty, a opportunist emerged, and he was Zhu Wen, the founder of Later Liang.
be vicious beyond measure
However, Zhu Wen did not have a good reputation in history. Although he ended the 300 year rule of the Tang Dynasty and opened the prelude to the Five Dynasties period, as the first emperor of the Five Dynasties, ‘Later Liang Taizu’, his character was not very good.
The first is debauchery and immorality. Zhu Wen’s original wife was named Zhang Hui, who was a wise and polite person. However, since her death, Zhu Wen has been acting like a wild beast breaking through a cage, wishing to take all the women in the world for himself.
Once, Zhu Wen visited the home of Minister Zhang Quanyi. At the banquet, Zhu Wen suddenly felt that drinking and eating alone was boring, so he asked the beautiful women in the mansion to come out and dance to cheer him up.
After the banquet ended, Zhu Wen did not leave, but stayed directly in the mansion and had all the women in Zhang Quanyi’s family come to serve him. Zhang Quanyi’s wives, concubines, daughters, and daughters in law were not spared, and Zhu Wen stayed in Zhang Quanyi’s mansion for more than ten days before leaving.
Zhu Wen is so good that he doesn’t even spare his daughter-in-law. What’s even more shocking is that Zhu Wen’s sons not only don’t feel ashamed, but also compete to offer their wives to win Zhu Wen’s favor and pass on the throne to themselves.
The second is killing. There is a record in the “History of the Old Five Dynasties” that during a battle, Zhu Wen killed more than 10000 enemy soldiers and captured 3000. That night, a strong wind suddenly rose and the dust covered the sky. He couldn’t open his eyes when he walked out of the camp.
Upon seeing this phenomenon, Zhu Wen believed that the heavens were blaming him for killing too few people, so he quickly ordered someone to kill all 3000 prisoners of war. In addition, Zhu Wen also stipulated that if a general dies on the battlefield, all of his subordinates must be executed.
In the end, Zhu Wen died at the hands of his own son, ending his cruel and absurd life. And how did such a debauched and immoral person like Dong Zhuo rise to fame?
Evil people achieve success
In the turbulent era of the Tang Dynasty, he successively changed factions and eventually became the most powerful figure in the Tang Dynasty. After eliminating Li Keyong, it was even more difficult for anyone in the court to compete with him, and there were even cases of “using the emperor to command the princes”
The posture.
After experiencing the devastation of the An Lushan Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty remained in a state of turmoil and turmoil, ultimately leading to its complete downfall. The concept of “feudal separatism” became an eternal nightmare for the Tang Dynasty.
Although there were two brief periods of revival during this period, for this century old empire that had lost its momentum, they were both fleeting like a ray of hope.
After Zhu Wen firmly held Luoyang in his hands, Li Keyong and a group of people formed an alliance against Zhu Wen. They sent Tang Zhaozong back to Chang’an, hoping to plunge Zhu Wen into the vortex of public opinion.
But when Tang Zhaozong returned to Chang’an, his life was not easy. Those eunuchs made him suffer a lot, and even wanted to make Tang Zhaozong step down, establish someone else as a ruler, and imprison him in the Shaoyang courtyard, putting shackles on him. They only sent him some food every day through a small hole in the wall.
Later, Zhu Wen eradicated the eunuchs around Tang Zhaozong one by one, making his life in Chang’an much easier. Tang Zhaozong was also deeply grateful for Zhu Wen’s rescue and greatly rewarded him, but he never thought that Zhu Wen was an ambitious wolf who had long been concerned about the kingdom in his hands.
The Disaster of Baima County
Zhu Wen was afraid that one day he would lose control over Tang Zhaozong, and ultimately killed the 38 year old Tang Zhaozong in the palace. In order to eradicate the root of the problem, Zhu Wen ordered Jiang Xuanhui to hold a banquet at Jiuqu Pool, with the aim of eliminating the nine sons of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang. Moreover, if there were nine princes in the court, it would inevitably become a stumbling block for Zhu Wen to achieve his ambition of proclaiming himself emperor.
Under the fear of Zhu Wen, the nine princes dared not refuse to go. They were all hanged by Jiang Xuanhui and their bodies were thrown into the pool. What was even more insane was that four months later, Zhu Wen, in the name of the emperor, summoned more than thirty high-ranking officials in Baima County, Huazhou and killed them all. Their bodies were thrown into the Yellow River, known as the “Disaster of Baima County” in history.
However, Jiang Xuanhui did not have a good ending and was executed by Zhu Wen. From then on, Zhu Wen firmly controlled the power of the court, and the “Disaster of White Horse Commandery” completely eliminated the last remaining forces of the Tang Dynasty. Emperor Ai of Tang was completely sidelined and became a puppet emperor.
At this time, no one could stop Zhu Wen from usurping the Tang Dynasty. Zhu Wen ended the centuries old Tang Empire in the form of this massacre, which was also a catastrophic disaster for the Chinese literati class at that time.
Although it played a driving role in the course of history, causing the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of intellectuals, it also led China into the great turmoil of the “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms”.
Summary:
As a ruler, we absolutely cannot adopt the employment policy of “having milk is like having a mother”. Although Tang Zhaozong faced a situation of dire straits, he should not give high importance to Zhu Wen, who was inherently “debauched and had no bottom line”, let alone allow such a person to hold power.
Everyone’s way of dealing with things is different, and their moral principles and bottom lines are also different. Various signs indicate that Zhu Wen is not of high level and has no bottom line in being a person. It seems that placing hope in such people has very bad consequences and is difficult to control.
The most secure approach is to steer things towards a direction that one can relatively control. Even if the situation is passive, there is still a possibility of turning things around if one temporarily preserves oneself.
But some people are destined to never be able to handle it themselves, so never let them seize the opportunity of the situation, otherwise it will not be as simple as making the situation lose stability, it is destined to be a defeat.
