Whether in ancient Chinese history or world history, there have been many tyrants. However, tyrants can also be graded according to their degree of brutality. And the tyrants in Chinese history are often not the most brutal when they are known - Qin Shi Huang, for example, is also regarded as a tyrant, but compared to the real tyrant, Qin Shi Huang can be called merciful.
In terms of brutality, I personally feel that in ancient Chinese history, the brutality of Shi Hu, the Later Zhao monarch, even if it can't be ranked first, can at least enter the top five.
Shi Hu is Shi Le's nephew. After the Yongjia Rebellion, Shi Le pulled a team, and then took refuge in the former Zhao court, because Shi Le could fight well, so he was valued by the former Zhao court, and Shi Le's power was also expanded. However, after the decline of the former Zhao, Shi Le took the opportunity to rise up and used internal friction to establish his own regime, the Later Zhao. Under the blow of Hou Zhao, Former Zhao finally perished.
After the opening of Shi Le's Later Zhao court, Shi Le established Shi Hong as the crown prince and Shi Hu as the prince. However, Shi Hu was very unhappy with Shi Le's arrangement. Shi Hu thought that he followed Shi Le to fight the country and made great efforts, so after the opening of the Zhao court, he should at least be named Da Dan Yu, and his status was second only to the king and the prince, but Shi Le only made himself a captain, so Shi Hu felt that Shi Le was sorry for himself.
Of course, Shi Hu also knew that he couldn't fight Shi Le. But Shi Hu believes that there is one thing that he will definitely win: that is, age - although Shi Le is a generation of heroes, he is old after all, and as long as he survives Shi Le, Shi Le's descendants will not be his opponents at that time, and he can directly be the king.
Things are the same as Shi Hu calculated. After Shi Le's death, although Shi Hong inherited the throne of the Heavenly King, he was overthrown by Shi Hu not long after he ascended the throne, and then Shi Hu almost killed Shi Le's descendants.
After Shi Hu became the king of heaven, Hou Zhao fell into hell on earth almost overnight: of course, during Shi Le's reign, Hou Zhao's *** was also in a state of intensification, but compared with Shi Hu's era, it is undoubtedly incomparable.
Shi Hu first built a large number of buildings to build luxurious palaces for himself, and at the same time, he continued to levy military service: at that time, China was in such a situation: the Central Plains was ruled by the Later Zhao, Jiangdong was ruled by the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Gansu region was under the rule of the Qianliang, and the Bashu region was under the rule of the Cheng Han. There are also forces of Murong Xianbei in the Liao River Valley. Among these forces, except for the good relations between Cheng Han and Later Zhao, the others made Later Zhao unhappy - the Eastern Jin Dynasty regarded itself as orthodox and thought that Later Zhao was a chaotic minister and thief; Murong Xianbei said that the Eastern Jin Dynasty was orthodox (the implication was that the Later Zhao Dynasty was a pseudo-imperial court), and the former Liang said that he was a feudal town of the Western Jin Dynasty, although he did not recognize the Eastern Jin Dynasty, but he did not look down on the Later Zhao.
Therefore, Shi Hu decided to solve these problems by force: Shi Hu searched for wealth and recruited young and strong people throughout the country, in addition to building luxurious palaces, he also wanted to expand the military, and at the same time attacked the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Qianliang, and Murong Xianbei. Many ordinary people couldn't afford to pay the taxes, conscription, and military service of the Later Zhao court, some were killed by **, and some simply died.
Shi Hu is ambitious, and regardless of the people's strength, while looting the wealth of the people, he also continues to loot women from the people, and even many married women under the age of 20 were plundered to the harem by Shi Hu.
Historians have a conjecture about the Northern Qi Dynasty in later generations: it is believed that the Gao family of the Northern Qi Dynasty is brutal and unreasonable, which should be because the people of the Gao family are mentally ill. However, I personally feel that although the Gao family of Northern Qi is absurd, Gao Yang's brutality is compared with Shi Hu, and Gao Yang is undoubtedly not comparable to Shi Hu.
In fact, I also suspect that Shi Hu should also have a certain mental illness.
Shi Hu adopted a brutal ruling mode towards Hou Zhao, and also adopted a moody way of getting along with his crown prince Shi Di. After a long time, Shi Di had a bad worry: that is, Shi Hu was moody, would he also kill himself?
Shi Di is also an abnormal person. Sometimes Shi Di invited his subordinates to eat, and he would kill the good-looking palace maids, and then chop the meat, mix it with beef and mutton to make a dish, and eat it with the people under his hands. This detail is mentioned in other books, and Shi Di is often described as vicious, in fact, I personally think that this should also be because of mental illness, after all, even if normal people are brutal, but there is a difference between brutality and **. And mental illness is also hereditary. So I personally guess that Shi Di should have inherited Shi Hu's mental illness.
So under Shi Hu's high pressure, Shi Di had a brain-opening idea: Shi Hu overthrew Shi Hong as the king of heaven at the beginning, so he could also concoct it in the same way and overturn Shi Hu as the king himself.
So Shi Di planned to rebel and kill, but he didn't expect that the matter would be leaked. However, Shi Hu still has a preference for Shi Di, so he said that as long as Shi Di admits his mistakes, he will not be to blame in the past. I never thought that Shi Di would not take his Heavenly King Father seriously for this, which angered Shi Hu even more, so he seemed to order someone to execute Shi Di - even Shi Di's children (Shi Hu's grandson) were also executed.
After that, Shi Hu made Shi Xuan the crown prince, and his other son Shi Tao was the prince. In fact, it seems that I prefer Shi Tao more. And Shi Tao felt that Hou Zhao's status as the crown prince was unstable, and as long as he had Shi Hu's support, it was okay to replace Shi Xuan as the new prince. So Shi Tao began to constantly suppress Shi Xuan. Shi Xuan also adopted the most primitive and direct way of revenge for Shi Tao's suppression: that is, he directly sent someone to kill Shi Tao.
The fact that Shi Tao was killed by Shi Xuan's people was soon known to Shi Hu. So Shi Hu ordered someone to torture and kill Shi Xuan, and then killed several of Shi Xuan's sons - Shi Xuan's youngest son, that is, one of Shi Hu's grandsons, who was only five years old at the time. At that time, the child hoped that his grandfather would forgive him, but a minister told Shi Hu: If the child is pardoned, I am afraid that there will be hidden dangers in the future. So Shi Hu had no choice but to order his little grandson to be executed together - you know, although other tyrants are brutal, they really haven't heard of killing their own children and grandchildren as killing pigs and sheep.
A few years later, Shi Hu died. After Shi Hu's death, the situation in Later Zhao soon fell into a state of civil strife due to the lack of suppression by Shi Hu, a brutal but powerful king. Not long after, Hou Zhao disintegrated.
Later Zhao was one of the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Although the sense of existence of the Later Zhao is very weak in Chinese history, if compared to the degree of brutality, there are very few dynasties that can compare with the Later Zhao.