In February of the fourth year of Kaiyun (947), Liu Zhiyuan proclaimed himself emperor in Taiyuan and established the Later Han Dynasty. At this time, the Central Plains region was under the ravages of Khitan rebellion. However, for Liu Zhiyuan, this is the perfect opportunity for him to dominate the world.
Liu Zhiyuan was ruthless, when Yelu Deguang entered Bian, and the Central Plains army and people rose up to resist Liao, he guarded Hedong, actively planned, expanded his strength, and took advantage of the chaos to claim the emperor in Taiyuan.
Liu Zhiyuan was born in an ordinary person, and through his own efforts, he became a close confidant of Shi Jingjiao, and rose to prominence in the Battle of Taiyuan. He won the trust of Shi Jingjiao and Yelu Deguang, and held the power of the army.
However, because he was ashamed to be on a par with Du Chongwei, he was angry and disobeyed, which led to his separation from Shi Jingjiao. Shi Jingjiao squeezed him out of the imperial court and appointed Du Chongwei as the commander of the forbidden army.
Liu Zhiyuan was deeply dissatisfied with this and had a different ambition. He was ruthless, and once killed the surrendered soldiers who Shi Jingjiao wanted to incorporate into the pro-army, and lured Tuhun Bai Chengfu and other troops, and later framed them for plotting against Tongliao and killed Bai Chengfu and his family.
When the Liao soldiers invaded the south, he sat and watched the success or failure, expanded the army and accumulated grain, and finally proclaimed himself emperor in Taiyuan and established the Later Han Dynasty. Although he successfully seized the throne, he still did not send a single soldier to pursue the Liao army, and he also stood by and watched the soldiers and civilians who fought in the bloody war and the people who were killed.
After organizing the new imperial court team, he took advantage of the situation and marched to Luoyang. coincided with the Shaanzhou Mutiny, the soldiers killed the Liao generals, and the above table was sincere, Liu Zhiyuan was able to control the choke point leading to Luoyang, and he was ecstatic.
In June of that summer, he successfully arrived in Luoyang, and without waiting to enter the palace, he sent his cronies to kill Li Congyi's mother and son. Li Congyi's mother, Wang Shufei, cried bitterly before she died: "What is the crime of my mother?
My son was established by the Khitan, and he didn't dare to fight for the country with others, why didn't he let my son go to the tomb of Mingzong every year during the cold food? Everyone who heard it was moved. Immediately after Liu Zhiyuan arrived in Bianliang, he issued an edict stating that those who hid in the valley or feared the law and those who killed the people would not be prosecuted if they gathered before June 30 to commit crimes.
At the same time, he also ordered the local ** to convey the news to these people, and those who were willing to serve in the army would be arranged according to their talents, and those who did not want to could return to agriculture.
However, if they reconvene within the prescribed time limit, they will not be forgiven, but will be severely arrested and severely punished according to the law. In addition, he issued an edict stating that anyone involved in the crime of theft, regardless of the amount of stolen goods, would be sentenced to death as long as it was verified to be true.
However, Liu Zhiyuan is not completely ungenerous, he is very generous to those civil and military generals who surrendered, and even to the extremely heinous thief Du Chongwei.
Before Yelu Deguang was about to flee north, he was sent back to various towns, and Du Chongwei returned to the Tianwei army. When Liu Zhiyuan entered Luo and Bian, he was reappointed as the envoy of the German army. Du Chongwei refused to accept the appointment and sent his subordinate Gao Xingzhou to crusade against Liu Zhiyuan.
Liu Zhiyuan personally led the army to go, and Du Chongwei asked the Liao general Ma Da for help, but Ma Da had been expelled by the military and civilians in Zhenzhou and could not be rescued. Du Chongwei ran out of food and had to surrender Kaicheng.
In this battle, Du Chongwei resisted stubbornly and killed and wounded many Han soldiers, and "Yecheng Shishu, six or seven out of ten died". Despite the heinous crime, Liu Zhiyuan still named him the Duke of Chu, gave him an idle position, and placed him in Bianjing, until Liu Zhiyuan was critically ill and ordered the execution of Du Chongwei's father and son.
For the feudal towns whose crimes were second to Du Chongwei, Liu Zhiyuan was even more tolerant and conniving. After Liu Zhiyuan became emperor, some of his former cronies, generals, and staff were in charge of key departments.
Yang Wei and Guo Wei served as the chief and deputy privy envoys respectively, Su Fengji and Su Yuqi were both Zhongshu Shilang Tongping Zhangshi, Wang Zhang served as the third envoy, and Shi Hongzhao was the commander of the guards and pro-army Ma Budu and Pingzhangshi.
Among this group of people, only Guo Wei is far-sighted, good at accepting talents, caring for the people, and making a difference. Everyone else is rude, ignorant, cruel and ruthless, but Su Fengji is good at observing words and feelings, good at flattery, and has a penchant for killing.
Liu Zhiyuan guarded Taiyuan, he was good at observing words and feelings, and hid the music in his sleeves. After becoming the prime minister, he liked to kill people even more, Liu Zhiyuan wanted to suppress the uprisings in various places, so he drafted an edict saying: "If there are thieves, their families and neighbors should be beheaded." ”
Su Yuqi did nothing, everything was done according to Su Fengji's intentions, and he breathed out with one nostril, just a piece of the pie. Shi Hongzhao is the most brutal executioner, he is an ignorant soldier from the army, and he has been promoted to the chief general of the pro-army since the dental school.
Liu Zhiyuan entered Luoyang and Bianzhou, and he acted as the vanguard, strictly managing the troops, and achieving that "wherever the soldiers went, they did not commit any crimes in autumn". After entering Bianzhou City, his hideous face became more and more revealed.
He "governed the forbidden army, guarded the capital, and carried out punishments without any scruples", and "regardless of the severity of the crime, as long as he said that he was guilty, he was sentenced to death, and he did not dare to appeal."
Wang Zhang's financial management only pursues huge profits, which is comparable to Kong Qian, a traitor who amassed wealth in the later Tang Dynasty. Before and after the founding of the Later Han Dynasty, the border situation was relatively relaxed. After the death of Yelu Deguang, Yelu Wu, the son of the king of Dongdan, wanted to establish himself as emperor in Hengzhou, led his henchmen back to the north, defeated the Empress Dowager Shulu, and imprisoned her.
When he was young, he lived in the mainland with his father for many years, "yearning for Chinese customs, using more Jin ministers, but indulging in wine and despising the chiefs, so the countrymen did not attach themselves, and the various ministries betrayed him many times, and he launched a war crusade, so for a few years, there was no time to invade the south."
The internal contradiction in the Liao Dynasty was the struggle between reform and conservatism, and for the hinterland, this was a good opportunity to resume production and accumulate strength. However, the Later Han regime missed this great opportunity.
After the death of Liu Zhiyuan, the ancestor of the Later Han Dynasty, the young Emperor Liu Chengyou ascended to the throne of God, and his advisers were all ignorant and reckless people. In order to appease the rebellious Fang Zhen, Liu Zhiyuan adopted measures such as co-optation and appeasement, and even posthumously named Yang Guangyuan, who colluded with the Liao Dynasty, as the king of Qi and erected a monument to commemorate it.
He exhausted his strength, but instead of achieving his subjective desires, he provoked more rebellions. Zhao Kuangzan is the son of Zhao Yanshou, although he was retained by the Later Han, but still not at ease, so the southern alliance with Hou Shu, raised troops to rebel.
Liu Zhiyuan sent an envoy to appease him, and Zhao Kuangzan left Chang'an to enter the court. However, the forbidden army led by Wang Jingchong was worried that Zhao's soldiers would take advantage of the chaos to escape, and wanted to let Wen Mian plan it. Military Academy Zhao Siwan took advantage of this to be cunning and abnormal, and deceived himself to gain favor.
After Liu Zhiyuan's death, Hou Yi also arrived in Bianjing from Fengxiang, and was appointed as the Zhongshu Order and Kaifeng Yin. The Han court recruited Zhao Kuangzan, and Zhao Sijuan launched a mutiny in Chang'an, and united with Fengxiang Jiedu to make Wang Jingchong raise the flag of rebellion.
In the Later Jin Dynasty, Li Shouzhen united the two towns to pass the Liao Dynasty, proclaimed himself King of Qin, and occupied Tongguan to rebel. At the same time, Du Chongwei was also appointed by Li Shouzhen and united with Hou Shu as reinforcements.
The news of the rebellion in the three towns spread throughout the capital, and the whole country was shocked. The imperial court sent troops to crusade, but because there was no commander-in-chief, the power was scattered, and the generals were timid and afraid of the enemy, and they were suspicious of each other, resulting in the failure of the army.
Zhaoyi Jiedu made Chang Si stationed in Tongguan, and Yongxing Army Jiedu made Bai Wenke stationed in Tongzhou, both of them were afraid of Li Shouzhen and did not dare to march into the river. Fengxiang Jiedu made Zhao Hui stationed in Tongyang and held an army, but he was also reluctant to march into Fengxiang Town.
Yongxing Jiedu made Guo Congyi and Wang Jun, the capital supervisor of the camp in the river, approach Chang'an, and could have easily conquered Chang'an, but the two were on the same footing and rubbed against each other, forming a protracted passive situation in which the teachers and elders were useless.
The Later Han court had no choice but to appoint the privy envoy Guo Wei as the envoy to comfort and appease the western army, and to conquer the western army. Before Guo Wei arrived at the army, he humbly won the hearts of the people, determined that "the thief captures the king first", and used the main force to attack Li Shouzhen, who has the highest prestige and strongest troops.
Li Shouzhen has been in the forbidden army for a long time and has a lot of prestige, thinking that as soon as the forbidden army arrives in the city, as long as he says a few words, the forbidden army will defect. However, the truth is the opposite of what he imagined.
In order to prevent the rebels from fleeing westward, Guo Wei personally led the tooth soldiers to block the Shu soldiers, but the Shu soldiers retreated without a fight, and the rebels lost their support and fell into isolation. In order to strictly enforce military discipline, Guo Wei beheaded Li Xian, a loving general who was forbidden to drink, and removed Chang Si, who could not fight.
In the summer of the second year of Qianyou (949), the river was conquered, and Li Shouzhen died. Zhao Siwan was in Chang'an, the situation was critical, and he was executed after surrendering. At the end of the year, Fengxiang was conquered, Wang Jingchong died, the three rebellions were put down, Guo Wei did not take credit for himself and attributed the credit to the generals and Fang Zhen, and carried out extensive promotion and rewards for them, won universal praise inside and outside the government and the opposition, and greatly increased his prestige.
With the pacification of the Fangzhen rebellion, the Later Han court eliminated external pressures, and internal struggles and gladiatorial battles became more intense.
The Later Han Dynasty tried to strengthen the centralization of power by cutting the feudal domain, and in the third year of Qianyou, on the occasion of the towns entering Beijing to congratulate them, they were transferred out of the town, so as to weaken the power of Fangzhen. However, due to the abuse of power, bribery, and abuse of rewards and punishments, it has led to bad consequences.
For example, Wang Rao, the queen of Baoda, had secretly communicated with Li Shouzhen, and should have been severely punished according to law, but he bribed Shi Hongzhao and escaped punishment by relying on his invocation, and was promoted to the envoy of the first festival.
As the queen of the town, he was promoted to the marshal of the town without merit, which shocked both the government and the opposition. In this way, the reduction of feudal domains not only did not receive practical results, but reduced the prestige of the Later Han court.
Although the reduction of the feudal domain did not achieve the expected effect, Fangzhen's power was weakened, and no one dared to carry out large-scale military operations in the short term. At this time, the internal competition between the DPRK intensified, from the development of the tilt to the killing of important ministers by the Hidden Emperor group, and staged a series of farces and dramas, which eventually led to the fall of the Later Han Dynasty.
Liu Zhiyuan's ministers Guo Wei, Yang Wei, Shi Hongzhao, and Su Fengji were each their masters, and they could not be reconciled. Yang Wei was born into a small official, and although he was a nobleman, he discriminated against the literati, believing that the governance of the country should only focus on wealth and military strength, and that articles and etiquette were not important.
Shi Hongzhao said bluntly: "To maintain the imperial court and a stable society, what is the use of only a spear and a sword, a brush and an abacus?" Wang Zhang was also born as a small official, and only knew how to manage money, believing that without a brush and abacus, it was impossible to raise military salaries and finances, but he also despised the literati who were more knowledgeable.
What other way can such a group of vulgar, ignorant, arrogant and greedy people govern the country? After Yang Wei became the prime minister, he deprived Su Fengji and Su Yuqi of their powers, and the relationship between the two sides deteriorated day by day, and even quarreled at the banquet, and Shi Hongzhao even used a knife.
This struggle is not a struggle between the generals or a dispute between civil and military officials, but a manifestation of the struggle between the monarch and the prime minister, the court and Fang Zhen. Yang Wei and Wang Zhang were both uneducated and unskilled officials, and they were contaminated with the arrogant and bad habits of the feudal town, they favored Fang Zhen and relied on martial artists, and Yang Wei was even more arbitrary and arbitrary, and did not know the general situation; Although Su Fengji was born as a scholar, he didn't know anything about governing the country and the country, and what he was good at was flattery and ***
Therefore, the struggle between the two sides can hardly be said to be a contradiction between progress and backwardness.
Guo Wei controlled the power of the imperial court and became the de facto leader. Emperor Yin of Han was young and frivolous, trusted Su Fengji, dissatisfied with the arrogance of Yang and Shi, and plotted to eradicate the two.
However, due to the ignorance and rash decision-making of young people, Yang, Shi and their families were killed, and Guo Wei's family was also hunted down. Guo Wei received the news, gathered his subordinates, and decided to go south to the side of the Qing monarch to clear his name.
Guo Wei ordered Guo Chong to be the vanguard, and personally led the army to the other side of the Yellow River. When the towns of Hebei heard the news, they responded one after another, and the momentum was greatly boosted for a while. Emperor Yin of the Han Dynasty conscripted all the towns in Henan, but all the towns did not move, and only Liu Zhiyuan and his maternal brother Murong Yanchao led their troops to support.
Guo Wei arrived in Huazhou, and Jiedu made Song Yanwu surrender to Kaicheng, and Guo Wei obtained the treasures of the state capital and rewarded them to the soldiers. The overseer Wang Jun publicly announced: "I have been instructed by my superiors to allow the soldiers to plunder the city for ten days after the capture of the capital. ”
Guo Wei's army approached Bianjing, and Emperor Yin of Han realized the seriousness of the situation, and hurriedly took out the treasures in the treasury and rewarded the forbidden soldiers with 20 taels each. After the forbidden army was rewarded, as soon as they left the city gates, they were no longer willing to fight.
The next day, Murong Yanchao took Emperor Yin out of battle, but as soon as the two sides fought, the armies abandoned and surrendered. In the evening, Emperor Yin of Han fled back to Bianjing, but the city had already surrendered and could not enter the city, and was finally killed by the rebels.
In the process of Guo Wei leading his army into Bianjing, some nobles and dignitaries were also killed and plundered. During his tenure, Bai Zairong was greedy and brutal, known as "Bai Mada", and his ** and execution made many people breathe a sigh of relief.
However, the people of the city are still the biggest victims. In the chaos, only Zhao Feng, the general of the Right Thousand Cow Guard, and an unknown boy guarded a street entrance, armed with bows and arrows, resisting the robbing rebels, shooting many people and saving Quanli.
Guo Wei's subordinate generals Guo Chong and Wang Yin saw that military discipline was chaotic and hurriedly reported to Guo Wei. Guo Wei immediately ordered the generals to prohibit looting, and the violators were beheaded on the spot. The army entered the city, hunted down Liu Bao and others, and Su Fengji committed suicide.
Guo Wei asked the Empress Dowager to listen to the government and set up Liu Zhiyuan's nephew Wu Ning Jiedu to make Liu Yun succeed to the throne. Before Liu Yun arrived in Bianjing, the town and Xing towns reported the Liao soldiers to the south. Guo Wei led the forbidden army north to resist.
When the army marched to Shanzhou, the soldiers mutinied, draped the yellow robe on Guo Wei, supported him as emperor, and turned back to Bianjing. Liu Yun was killed in Songzhou. In the first year of Guangshun, Guo Wei accepted the Zen concession of the Later Han Dynasty, that is, the emperor's throne, and the country name Zhou (known as the Later Zhou in history).
This is the fourth scene of the five generations of mutiny to support the emperor, and it is also an example of Zhao Kuangyin and Chen Qiao's mutiny and yellow robe. In fact, the southern invasion of the Liao soldiers is just a false information, the Later Han Dynasty became the shortest-lived dynasty in the history of our country, from the founding of the country to its demise, only 4 years before and after, the fundamental reason is that it followed the tyrannical rule of the Later Jin Dynasty, and exceeded, contrary to the requirements of the times and the people, and lost the hearts of the people.
At that time, although there were peasant uprisings in various localities, they did not have the conditions to develop into large-scale peasant uprisings that were sufficient to sweep away the filth and create a new situation, so this historical task could only be achieved through a coup d'état and reforms after the change of dynasty.
Liu Chong, the younger brother of Liu Zhiyuan, occupied Hedong, based in Taiyuan, claiming to be the legitimate heir of the Later Han Dynasty and using Han as the name of the country in an attempt to establish its legitimacy (referred to as the "Eastern Han" in the History of the New Five Dynasties, included in the Ten Kingdoms).