In his later years, Li Longji gradually began to distrust his adopted son, the Four Towns Jiedushi Wang Zhongsi, believing that he might threaten his position. So not only did they dismiss Wang Zhongsi from his position, but they also forced him to death and replaced him with a Hu named An Lushan as the military governor. Li Longji never imagined that his behavior would ultimately trigger the An Lushan Rebellion.
Although An Lushan seemed harmless to humans and animals at the time, Li Longji was not at ease with him, mainly because the position of Jiedushi had too much power, and An Lushan had a good relationship with Li Linfu at that time. So, Li Longji successively promoted Yang Guozhong and Ge Shuhan to suppress Li Linfu and restrain An Lushan. Later, with the downfall of Li Linfu, An Lushan completely lost his foundation in the court. And the targets of suppression by Yang Guozhong and others have also shifted towards An Lushan.
An Lushan was already ambitious, but seeing that his position as a military governor was in jeopardy, he immediately rose up and launched a rebellion. The An Lushan Rebellion officially began. However, when Li Longji heard about the rebellion of An Lushan, he was initially shocked, but later became indifferent because he believed that An Lushan only had 150000 troops and would not pose a substantial threat to his rule.
At this moment, Feng Changqing had just won the battle and returned. Li Longji decided to send him to fight An Lushan, but did not send him a single soldier. Instead, he asked Feng Changqing to recruit troops himself. As a result, many soldiers were recruited, but they were defeated by An Lushan and even lost Luoyang. Li Longji saw that An Lushan was so powerful, but in order to clear his responsibility, he simply made Feng Changqing and Gao Xianzhi scapegoats and “clicked” on them all.
In this way, the Tang generals were all anxious, especially the Turkic Geshu Han who was later appointed. He knew that Feng Changqing was executed for taking the blame, while Gao Xianzhi was executed because he was from Goryeo. Due to An Lushan’s reasons, Li Longji no longer trusted minority leaders.
In addition, Ge Shuhan inherently had ambitions. After being employed, Li Longji handed over the military power of a 200000 strong army to him. Ge Shuhan felt that he had a heavy army in his hands, so he immediately began a struggle for power and profit, pointing the finger at his old boss – Yang Guozhong. He wrote to Li Longji, pointing out that the name of An Lushan’s rebellion was to kill Yang Guozhong, and if Yang Guozhong was killed, An Lushan would have nothing to say.
When Yang Guozhong saw that Ge Shuhan was going to kill him, he quickly sought help from Li Longji. Li Longji had no good solution, as the military power was in Ge Shuhan’s hands. He decided to form a force and let Yang Guozhong command it as a leverage to restrain Ge Shuhan. But Li Longji doesn’t have many people in his hands, only ten thousand people. After hearing this news, Ge Shuhan knew that Li Longji wanted to balance himself, so he decisively annexed these ten thousand people.
Upon seeing this situation, Li Longji ordered Ge Shuhan to leave Tongguan and attack An Lushan in order to weaken him. Ge Shuhan had no choice but to obey orders, but he had no intention of commanding battles because he knew that if he lost, he would be like Feng Changqing and Gao Xianzhi, and if he won, he would not receive any credit. In the end, Ge Shuhan suffered a great defeat, and Tongguan was also breached by An Lushan.
During his escape, Ge Shuhan was captured by the rebels and taken to the face of An Lushan. Ge and An have always been at odds, so Ge Shuhan knew that if he chose to die rather than surrender, he would definitely die a miserable death. So, as soon as he saw An Lushan, Ge Shuhan immediately knelt on the ground and begged for mercy, and An Lushan was very happy and spared Ge Shuhan’s life.
Later poets attributed the blame for the An Lushan Rebellion to Yang Guifei alone, but in fact, Li Longji was the initiator of the An Lushan Rebellion.
