In the struggle against darkness, we sometimes lose ourselves; In the search for the abyss, the abyss will also look at us in reverse. Today, let's take a closer look at this tragic history, deeply analyze it, and reveal the eternal problems faced by human society.
In 756 AD, the national fortunes of the Tang Dynasty were at a low ebb. In this New Year, An Lushan, who had previously raised troops on the grounds of "rebellion by order", staged a special "New Year's gift" in Luoyang: he established himself as the "Emperor of Dayan".
Just seven days later, the important town of Changshan in Hebei Province was captured by the rebels, and a generation of famous ministers Yan Gaoqing was captured.
Then, Ge Shuhan was defeated in Lingbao, Tongguan was lost, Tang Xuanzong was forced to flee to Shu, encountered a mutiny in Ma Weiyi, and watched his concubine "die in front of the horse".
Soon after, the city of Chang'an also fell into the hands of the rebels. A year later, in the spring, the great poet Du Fu, who was captured by the rebels, witnessed the depression of Chang'an City, and wrote the famous sentence "The country is broken by mountains and rivers, and the city is deep in spring and grass", which profoundly depicts the tragic scene of the Tang Dynasty.
As early as when he established himself as emperor, he had already sent two large armies, all the way to the west to attack Tongguan, and all the way to the east to capture Suiyang.
The goal of Tongguan 1st Road is to directly capture the center of Datang, while Suiyang 1st Road is to control Caoyun and watch Jianghuai. Now, Tongguan and Chang'an have achieved success all the way, and Xuanzong and the crown prince have fled; If Suiyang in the east is also captured, then An Lushan's dream of unifying the world is about to come true.
However, although the rebels were invincible, the defenses of the Jianghuai region were very weak, and the soldiers were already exhausted. At this moment, an ordinary scholar suddenly emerged and began to resist An Lushan's invasion.
After An Lushan became emperor, he formulated two important strategic objectives: one was to attack Tongguan in the west, and the other was to attack Suiyang in the east. Both of these goals were important components of An Lushan's plan to expand his territory and sphere of influence.
In the war years, the country was in turmoil, and people of insight were worried about the country, but there were many ways to express themselves, some people wrote hard to express their feelings, and some people chose to act.
Zhang Xun, a talented and well-educated jinshi, gave up his pen and ink, picked up his sword, and threw himself into the battle to defend his family and country. He was born in the second year of Jinglong in the Tang Dynasty, has lofty ambitions and noble sentiments, is informal, likes to make friends with people of insight, and does not want to associate with vulgar people.
At the age of 33, he became a jinshi and later served as a county magistrate in Qinghe County. He was known for his ability, valued morality and integrity, and often poured all his wealth into helping those in need. He was an upright man, opposed flattery and corruption of the powerful, and refused to go to see the powerful ministers in order to seek office.
Zhang Xun showed his patriotic feelings and noble qualities with practical actions.
In the Anshi Rebellion in 755 AD, the 48-year-old Zhang Xun served as the commander of Zhenyuan County. In the face of the rebels who invaded the east, the Taishou of the county chose to surrender and forced Zhang Xun to become a long history to meet the rebels.
However, at this time, Zhang Xun "led the officials to cry the Xuanyuan Emperor's Temple, and then raised troops to fight the thieves", led a team of thousands of people, rushed towards the rebels who were several times his size, and began his journey of counterinsurgency.
When he and his team met another rebel army, Jia Ben, in Yongqiu, the two joined forces, adding up to a total of 2,000 men. However, the Yongqiu County Order Linghu Chao has "raised the county to attach thieves".
Zhang Xun and Jia Ben then seized Yongqiu, killed all the wives and children of Ling Hu Chao, made Hu Chao angry, and led more than 10,000 rebels to attack Yongqiu. Jia Ben died in battle, and everyone pushed Zhang Xun to take the lead and continued to fight against Ling Huchao.
Although Zhang Xun and Jia Ben's army was only 2,000 men, they managed to defeat the rebels of more than 10,000 people. This is just the beginning, and Zhang Xun's bravery and resourcefulness will continue to be displayed in the subsequent battles.
Faced with the repetition of Ling Fox Chao, the people in the city were panicked. Zhang Xun said to the generals: "The thief knows the truth in my city and despises me. But if we surprise and sneak attack, we will be able to frustrate its spirit. ”
So, Zhang Xun led the army to attack. The rebels thought that the people in the city would retreat to the defense, but they were in disarray after the surprise attack and had to retreat. The next day, the rebels besieged the city and launched an attack, Zhang Xun erected a wooden fence at the head of the city, and poured grease with artemisia grass bundles to ignite it, and the rebels did not dare to enter the city.
After fighting like this for nearly a month, Zhang Xun was on the defensive and waiting for an opportunity to attack. History, "Hundreds of battles of all sizes, soldiers with armor food, wrapped in sores and fights, (Linghu) tide was defeated, chased it, and won several times."
not only won the battle, but also almost caught Ling Fox Chao. Soon, "(Linghu) was furious, and he led the crowd to come." This time, Ling Huchao had a long memory and knew that although Zhang Xun had few soldiers, he was not easy to deal with.
So he changed his strategy, focusing on encirclement and supplemented by attack. The siege lasted for a long time, and the supplies in the city gradually ran out. Zhang Xun "The equipment and armor are all taken from the enemy, and he has not tried self-cultivation."
There was not enough food in the city, so he sent a surprise soldier to rob the grain ship of Linghu Chao, and took away what he could take away, and burned what he couldn't take away. When there were not enough arrows, he pierced more than a thousand scarecrows, put on black clothes, and hung them at the head of the city with ropes at night.
Ling Fox Chao ordered archery, ** only after a long time did he know that it was a scarecrow. Zhang Xun pulled the scarecrow up, "hundreds of thousands of arrows." Zhang Xun's ingenuity and excellent military strategy made his name a hero admired by later generations.
In "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the prototype of the story of the grass boat borrowing arrows is actually Zhang Xun using the grass man and the real person to borrow arrows, and at the same time skillfully deceived the rebels besieging the city.
However, Zhang Xun did not stop there, he also skillfully used the resources outside the city, demolished the houses outside the city, and replenished firewood. After Ling Huchao was played by Zhang Xun a few times, he became even more angry and decided to besiege Yongqiu.
Zhang Xun used a strategy to send Linghu Chao thirty horses and promised that the city would belong to him. After Ling Huchao was deceived, he questioned Zhang Xun again. Zhang Xun pretended to want to evacuate, but his soldiers did not agree, so Ling Huchao blew up and wanted to fight, but before the array was ready, thirty riders rushed out of the city, and they captured fourteen generals, beheaded more than a hundred people, and also seized equipment, cattle and horses.
After that, Ling Huchao and other rebel generals led their troops to attack many times, but they were all defeated by Zhang Xun, and the Battle of Yongqiu, which lasted for a year, finally ended in Zhang Xun's victory.
Although Zhang Xun played well in the Yongqiu defense battle, the situation of the surrounding Tang army was not ideal. As the war progressed, Zhang Xun made the decision to abandon Yongqiu and move to Suiyang (now Shangqiu, Henan), where he joined forces with Xu Yuan to fight against the rebels.
The Battle of Yongqiu made Zhang Xun famous, but the Battle of Suiyang made him a "god". On the fifth day of the first month of the first month of 757 AD, An Lushan had just been the emperor for a year before his son An Qingxu sent someone to assassinate him.
An Qingxu's prestige was far inferior to that of his father, and after he killed his father and ascended to the throne, he was eager to establish his prestige by winning on the battlefield. Just as Tang Suzong decided to regain the two capitals in order to consolidate his legitimacy.
For An Qingxu, persimmons are naturally soft pinching. The Jianghuai region, where the military was weak, became his target. Objectively, laying Suiyang, entering Jianghuai and Jiangdong, and consolidating the foundation were also strategies that An Qingxu had to adopt at that time.
Therefore, he sent his subordinate Yin Ziqi to lead the elite troops composed of Turks and others to join Yang Chaozong, a total of more than 100,000 people, and attack Suiyang in a mighty manner. In comparison, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan only had 6,000 people under them.
The Battle of Suiyang began.
The :* of "Blood Battle in Suiyang" depicts a brave story. Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan, two generals defending the city, bravely resisted the rebels' attack with their insignificant family background and extremely firm faith.
They inspired the soldiers to hold their ground, and even in the middle of the day, they did not flinch. Although they were outnumbered, they were not satisfied with mere defense, and they also took advantage of the rebels' unpreparedness to launch surprise attacks to gain a chance at victory.
Zhang Xun even came up with a unique strategy, he sharpened a bamboo arrow and shot it with a bow to find the enemy's leader, Yin Ziqi. When he found out which one of the people under the city was Yin Ziqi, he immediately ordered an arrow to be fired at him, which successfully hit Yin Ziqi in the left eye, causing the rebels to temporarily retreat.
However, the rebels did not give up, they besieged Suiyang again, and there was also a problem with the food ** in the city. The soldiers could only eat one spoonful of rice a day, and some even proposed to break through, but Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan believed that Suiyang was an important guarantee for Jiang and Huai, and giving up Suiyang meant that Jianghuai would die.
They decided to sacrifice their concubines and child servants for military ration in order to motivate the soldiers to hold their ground. Throughout the siege, the inhabitants of Suiyang City also actively participated in the resistance, digging rat holes, catching birds, boiling armored crossbows for food, and even killing horses and cannibalism.
Although there were only 400 residents left in Suiyang City, they still held their ground until the city was broken, and they defended their homeland and country with their lives.
This story teaches us that even in extremely difficult circumstances, with strong faith and courage, people are able to pull off miracles. At the same time, it also makes us reflect on the brutality of war and the sacrifices people make in it.
The city was broken, and Zhang Xun, Xu Yuan and others were captured by the enemy. When the enemy general Yin Ziqi saw Zhang Xun, he asked, "I heard that you shouted so loudly in the battle that you were bleeding all over your face and your teeth were crushed, why is this?" ”
Zhang Xun replied firmly: "I just want to use my strength to swallow you traitors, but I can't do it." Yin Ziqi was furious when he heard this, and used a knife to pry open Zhang Xun's mouth, and found that there were really only three or four teeth left in him.
However, Zhang Xun still scolded Yin Ziqi angrily. Although Yin Ziqi was angry, he admired Zhang Xun's steadfastness and wanted to let him go. However, his right and left people persuaded him: "He is a man of morality, and he will never be used by us."
And he has the support of the masses, and we can't keep him. So, Yin Ziqi forced Zhang Xun to surrender again, but Zhang Xun was resolute and unyielding, and was finally killed. There were thirty-six people including Xu Yuan who died with him, and they were all willing to die unyieldingly.
Based on the Battle of Suiyang, a first-class work created reproduces the magnificent epic of this war through exquisite pictures and vivid storylines.
Suiyang was finally captured by the Anshi rebels, but it didn't make much sense. Because from the first month of 756, An Lushan Luoyang was proclaimed emperor, and in October 757, Suiyang City fell, nearly two years have passed.
During this time, Zhang Xun defended Suiyang, contained a large number of rebel forces, and preserved Jianghuai, so that the Tang army could make full use of Jianghuai's wealth to revive the country.
If Suiyang and Yongqiu were abandoned or lost prematurely, the rebels would be able to rely on Jianghuai's resources to increase their strength and financial resources, and their foundations would be stronger, making them more difficult to fight.
Therefore, traditional history books believe that although the Tang army ultimately failed in the Battle of Suiyang, it bought valuable time for the Tang Dynasty and avoided large-scale ** for the people of Jianghuai.
If it were not for the great gift from Tang Suzong and Shi Siming's rebellion, the Anshi Rebellion might have been called the "An Lushan Rebellion" and ended early. Although Zhang Xun's artificial behavior caused controversy, later generations spoke highly of him, such as Han Yu, Li Han and others called him "covering the Jianghuai, frustrating the thief's power, the world will not die, and his merits are also." ”
Five hundred years later, Wen Tianxiang used Zhang as an example in "Song of Righteousness" to inspire himself to resist the enemy without yielding. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, under the promotion of the government, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan were named gods, respected as "Shuangzhong Gong", and were sacrificed and worshiped by later generations.
The belief in Shuangzhonggong originated in the Central Plains and is still popular in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong. This tragic siege not only changed history, but also made Zhang Xun a hero for generations to come.
In the historical accounts of the Battle of Suiyang, the women, children, and elderly people who were used as food are often overlooked. Traditional historians believe that Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan took the initiative to eat people in order to protect the whole country, and ordered the defenders in the city to also eat people, "to 100,000" means to sacrifice 30,000 eaten old and weak people to protect millions of lives in the Jianghuai region from the rebels**, which is a price worth paying.
However, it was not until the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, when the value of people was re-valued, that we began to hear different voices. Among them, the views of the great thinker Wang Fuzhi are particularly eye-catching.
Zhang Xun, a loyal and righteous man, lived and died with the lonely city. If you can keep it, if you can't keep it, you can die in battle, and you can defend the city to a certain extent. After this degree, it will rebel against human ethics and go to the opposite of benevolence and righteousness. The reason why people are human beings is that the bottom line cannot be crossed, that is, they cannot be cannibalized.
No matter whether the city survives or dies, the life or death of the body cannot cross this bottom line. Benevolence and righteousness are congested, and leading beasts to eat people is the death of the world. Taking the lead in cannibalism is the work of animals, and for any purpose it cannot change the barbarism of this practice.
Although there is cannibalism as a last resort, civilization cannot be destroyed under this pretext. We should stick to the bottom line and guard the continuation of civilization.