After the Ma Weipo Change, the forty-five-year-old Tang Suzong succeeded to the throne in Lingwu, but at this time, Li Heng, whether in name or strength, was not enough to intimidate the Quartet, and the problems he had to solve were far more than the Anshi Rebellion.
First of all, if Tang Xuanzong, the father who went to Shudi, did not agree, then the Tang Dynasty, which was already in danger, would really become a few small courts. You must know that Tang Xuanzong had a total of more than 30 princes, and at that time, Yongwang Li Lian was ready to seize Jiangdong at any time with heavy troops in his hands, but if Li Longji did not recognize the legitimacy of Suzong at all, the whole world would be a chaotic situation after the death of Chongzhen at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
Secondly, after the defeat of Tongguan, the main army of the Tang Dynasty suffered heavy losses, Feng Changqing and Gao Xianzhi were killed by Xuanzong, and Ge Shuhan was also defeated and killed. Now Tang Suzong can only count on the Shuofang army that is quelling the rebellion in Hebei. But at this time, Guo Ziyi, the commander of the Shuofang Army, was far less famous than Ge Shuhan, An Lushan and others, whether Guo Ziyi could fight An Lushan and Shi Siming, and whether he could become another An Lushan when he was outside the army, these were all questions that Tang Suzong could not rest assured.
Fortunately, God still favored the Tang Dynasty, and Tang Xuanzong, who was far away in Shu, recognized the legitimacy of Tang Suzong, and sent Fang Xuan and other courtiers to enrich Suzong's manpower. Guo Ziyi, who was invincible in Hebei, did not hesitate to lead the army back to show his loyalty in the expansion of the results of the battle and the new monarch's order. Originally, the Lingwu Dynasty with three or two big cats and small cats was finally on the right track, and it had a bit of a real dynasty atmosphere.
But next, Tang Suzong, who has just taken office, will face a life-and-death decision, whether he should first attack the bottom of Hebei to control the scale of the rebellion, or should first recover Chang'an Luoyang to strengthen his own prestige.
Now it seems that later generations of course think that they should choose the strategy of Li Mi, the white-clothed prime minister, to trap the main force of An Lushan with the two capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang, and then sweep Hebei with a thunderous force to take Fanyang, so that those Fan Yang soldiers in the two capitals are also bound to be in turmoil, which will definitely be more beneficial to pacify the entire Anshi Rebellion.
However, in many cases, the issues that decision-makers have to consider are more complicated, according to the above plan, the power of the Shuofang army will only be greater than the original Fan Yang army, and will there be a Guo Li Rebellion after the Anshi Rebellion? In addition, the families of these senior officials of the DPRK and China are basically still in Liangjing, if they don't rescue Chang'an, will these people continue to support themselves?
Tang Suzong had been walking on thin ice for the past forty-five years, and finally had a sense of security in control of his life and death, and it was impossible for him to give this sense of security back to anyone at this time.
It is also this mentality that made Tang Suzong still desperate to recover the two capitals even after seeing the defeat of Fang Xuan and Chen Taoxian in the battle and the defeat of Guo Ziyi in the battle of Qingqu, and even took the initiative to invite Hui to plunder Chang'an, pressing all the chips for the battle of Xiangji Temple.
It is recorded in the Zizhi Tongjian that "on the day of Kecheng, the land and Shishu returned to the Tang Dynasty, and the gold silk and children were returned to the Tang Dynasty."
In the end, under the maneuvering of Li Jiao, the king of Guangping, the original looting of Chang'an was changed to looting Luoyang, and Hui Hui burned and looted in Luoyang, and it ended in three days.
Tang Suzong successfully recovered the two capitals and finally sat on the throne, and at the same time, he and Hui Hui also alleviated some of the external troubles. Standing in his position, he not only kept the Tang Dynasty but also kept his throne, and there was no problem with his decision-making.
Tang Suzong lived a trembling life all his life, and finally fell a year before the Anshi Rebellion was pacified, and the evaluation of Suzong by later generations was mostly mediocre. However, in the absence of an omniscient perspective, it was not easy to smoothly transition the Tang Dynasty into the hands of Daizong Li Yu in the troubled times.
Since the era of Suzong, the Tang Dynasty has suffered from the two terminal diseases of eunuchs ** and the pattern of feudal towns, and it has also opened a precedent for Princess Yizhen and Hui Hui, but at least it has left the opportunity for future generations to save the ancestral inheritance, and there have been more than 100 years after the Tang Dynasty.
Finally, a digression, although the suspicion of Qin Qiong in the public war, but the situation faced by Tang Suzong at that time was indeed not better than that of Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, everyone focused on the Anshi Rebellion, but ignored the attack of the Hui in the north and Tubo in the west at that time, this kind of external and internal troubles are the same as the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.