76 years ago (806), Liu Pi, the deputy envoy of Xichuan, separatized Xishu, attacked and captured Li Kang, the governor of Dongchuan, and Gao Pian's grandfather Gao Chongwen followed the imperial edict to quell the rebellion. Liu Pi was defeated, so he sent Li Kang to Gao Chongwen as a sign of surrender and peace. Gao Chongwen actually beheaded Li Kang on the grounds that "the defeated army fell behind". After Liu Pi was pacified, Gao Chongwen was promoted to a noble rank and granted the title of Nanping County Prince. Emperor Xianzong of the Tang Dynasty carved a stone for Gao Chongwen at the foot of Lutou Mountain to commemorate his merits.
So Zhou Bao used the allusion of Gao Chongwen's killing of Li Kang as a story, saying that this is the glorious tradition of your Gao family, and deceived me. He stabbed me with a "click" at the Hongmen Banquet and sent my head to the court. He accused me of treason and then annexed me. My army and territory?
Don't let your dog scratch you in front of water thieves. They are all veteran Chinese doctors, so don’t give me folk prescriptions.
Gao Pian Lanxin was furious and sent a messenger to scold him from a distance, "How dare you spit on people and insult the court ministers!"
Zhou Bao wrote back, tit for tat, "You and I live across the river, and we are both governors. You are the minister, am I just a soldier? Why are you pretending to be a big-tailed wolf?"
After several rounds of verbal exchanges, the two officially fell out.
Zhou Bao actively deployed and deployed troops on the border to guard and defend Gao Pian's attack.
Gao Pian really wanted to annex Zhenhai, and the method was as Zhou Bao said, with a "click" of the knife at the Hongmen Banquet, cleanly, instead of mobilizing troops and annexing by force.
The real purpose of Huainan's army dispatching in full force was just to resolve the bad omen of "the army will be empty".
This transformation took more than three months. During this period, Xizong's edicts urging Gao Pian to send troops continued to come.
So Gao Pian came to Shu and said that Zhou Bao, the envoy of Zhenhai Jiedu, and Liu Hanhong, the observer of eastern Zhejiang, were plotting something wrong. The Huainan army did not dare to leave the town easily for fear that these two envoys would be detrimental to the court.
Liu Hanhong was the one who personally looted Jiangling in order to prevent Jiangling from being looted by thieves. After taking Jiangling to the "Three Lights", this king became addicted to plundering and led his troops to plunder Songzhou, Yanzhou, Shenzhou, Guangzhou and other places.
The imperial court issued an edict to send troops to conquer the area along the way. At that time, the grass bandit Huang Chao was about to cross to the north, Shatuo Li Keyong was causing trouble for the north, and Nanzhao was still entangled in every possible way over the marriage issue... Liu Hanhong's gang was a regular army transferred to the army. Although its scale was not as large as Huang Chao's grass army, its combat effectiveness was explosive. , of course there is no way for each Taoist party to seek peace.
So Liu Hanhong wisely stopped in time and asked for recruitment. The imperial court appointed Liu Hanhong as the governor of Suzhou.
Of course, a small prefecture-level city mayor couldn't satisfy Liu Hanhong's appetite, so he threatened the court and asked for promotion.
The imperial court had no choice but to continue appeasement and compromise, and appointed him as the observation envoy to eastern Zhejiang.
Gao Pian said that leaving a large number of troops to prevent Liu Hanhong from causing rebellion was justifiable. But his slander of Zhou Bao is too far-fetched.
It was precisely because Gao Pian's appearance was so ugly that Zhou Bao was involved, and the court understood that Gao Pian had no intention of going into trouble and confirmed his ambition to separatize Huainan.
As a result, the imperial court made books on paper, ascended and descended covertly, deprived Gao Pian of his military power, and deprived him of his official position as salt and iron transport envoy.
After losing his military power and financial resources, Gao Pian became angry and went to the court to criticize the government. He scolded the courtiers, the emperor, and his ancestors in a very rude way.
It has been rare since ancient times that a minister dared to insult the emperor in a letter, and it was not just a letter, but several letters in a row, scolding the emperor on the screen.
What is even more jaw-dropping is that the emperor actually took the trouble to reply one by one, refuting his offensive words word for word. Swear back.
We are all civilized people, why don't we allow me to talk back?
The two kings and ministers, you have something to say, and I have something to say when I am going away. They are facing each other, refusing to give in to each other, which is unprecedented in ancient times and modern times.
"Old Book of Tang" took the trouble to collect the wonderful contents in a large space, with thousands of words in it. If printed out on A4 paper, it would take up two and a half pages.
This is just an abridged version. It only excerpts part of the chat history. It is estimated that the full text should be almost as long as a novella.
"Zizhi Tongjian" is further abridged based on the abridged version of "Old Book of Tang", retaining only Gao Pian's rebellious remarks and the emperor's arguments.
In "New Book of Tang", it was completely deleted. It is only said that Gao Pian became angry because of shame and spoke rudely. The emperor was also angry and issued an edict to rebuke him. It can be regarded as leaving some thin noodles for both the monarch and the minister.
After the war of words, Gao Pian completely abandoned the veil of hypocrisy and openly ruled the roost. He no longer paid a penny of tribute to the court, let alone obeyed the court's orders.
Tang Xizong also completely gave up on Gao Pian, knowing that there would never be Huainan reinforcements in Chang'an.
Fengxiang mutiny, the threat to the west of Chang'an eased;
Zhaoyi mutiny, the threat to the east of Chang'an eased;
Wuning (Xuzhou) mutiny, Pinglu (Qingzhou) mutiny, reinforcements to the east of Chang'an were lifted;
Huainan (Gaopian) was separatist, and reinforcements from the south of Chang'an were lifted...
Huang Chao in Chang'an City can breathe again.
In Huang Chao's eyes, an extremely familiar scene seemed to be playing out again: the enemy did not hit him with last-ditch health, leaving him enough time to replenish his health and BUFF, and then make a comeback in one fell swoop.
It's a pity that this time the script was not written that way.
【Wang Duo returns】
After Gao Pian publicly fell out with the court, he was stripped of his title of commander-in-chief (capital commander). In fact, the commander-in-chief has been standing by in name only since Huang Chao crossed the Huaihe River. Someone in the court took over this position, and this person was Prime Minister Wang Duo.
Wang Duo and the grass thieves hated each other for a day, two places, and three rivers and four seas. Since entering Shu, he often cried bitterly in front of Emperor Xizong of the Tang Dynasty and made impassioned speeches, swearing that he was incompatible with the thieves and was willing to take command personally to defeat the thieves.
Especially after the quarrel between Gao Pian and Tang Xizong, Wang Duo felt even more regretful and repeatedly begged the emperor to lower the system and approve his petition.
At that time, Prime Minister Lu Xie was dead (living is also a disaster), Prime Minister Zheng Tian was expelled by a mutiny, and was in poor health. Gao Pian also clearly refused to send troops. Although there were many vassal towns loyal to the Tang Dynasty scattered around Chang'an, they were all of their own In order to fight, there is a lack of a unified commander-in-chief.
The commander-in-chief does not necessarily need to have outstanding military talents. He can only serve as a spiritual leader and play a coordinating and supervisory role. Therefore, the first necessary factor for "commander-in-chief" is high moral character and high respect.
Generally speaking, this character needs to come from a well-known family, "My father is so-and-so, my grandfather is so-and-so, my great-grandfather is so-and-so..." and he himself must have a gorgeous resume, "I have eaten chaff in the old society. , carried a gun in the War of Resistance Against Japan, suffered injuries in the War of Liberation, and crossed the river to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea..."
Only in this way can these feudal warlords be shaken and they can accept leadership calmly.
Wang Duo is naturally the best choice.
So Emperor Xizong of the Tang Dynasty lowered his authority and appointed Prime Minister Wang Duo as the commander-in-chief of suppressing bandits (all the troops and horses of all the camps around the capital were commanded).
Comrade Wang Duo takes command for the second time and vows to exterminate the thieves!
The hatred of the country and the family, and the killing of thieves, Comrade Wang Duo did it with all his heart.
Having learned the lesson from the last time, we have made careful research and judgment on the candidates to defeat the thieves, and no longer appoint Ma Su-like figures in name only. In line with a pragmatic attitude of seeking truth from facts, Wang Duo made bold personnel appointments and formed his own "grass-cutting team":
Deputy Commander-in-Chief: Cui Anqian.
This personnel transfer alone shows Wang Duo's boldness. Because Cui Anqian was suppressed because he offended Tian Lingzi. Wang Duo not only re-enabled him, but also promoted him directly to deputy commander-in-chief.
Looking at the think tank, it can be called the idol boy group of the time: Zheng Changtu, Zheng Wei, Wang Tuan, and Pei Zhi.
Zheng Changtu, the cousin of Zheng Congyi; Zheng Wei, the younger brother of Zheng Wei; Wang Tuan, the great-grandson of Wang Yu, the prime minister of the Suzong Dynasty; Pei Zhi, the nephew of Pei Tan, the prime minister of the Yizong Dynasty.
If we analyze it again, it is not difficult to see the boldness of Comrade Wang Duo. Zheng Congchen was under political attack and had not yet emerged from the haze of "Hedong Suspicion"; Zheng Tian was also the target of Tian Lingzi's attack; Pei Tan, a remnant of the "Niu Party" (promoted by Linghu Xu), was the father-in-law of the former prime minister Yang Shou. .
In short, most members of the think tank are more or less losers in various political struggles and are excluded from the core power circle.
In terms of the appointment of eunuchs to supervise the army, Wang Duo appointed Yang Fuguang as the eunuch in charge of the army.
At that time, the eunuch group within the imperial court was divided into two major factions, one was the "Tian faction" headed by Tian Lingzi, and the other was the "Yang faction" led by brothers Yang Fuguang and Yang Fugong. By reusing Yang Fuguang, Wang Duo offended Tian Lingzi again.
In addition, Wang Duo also used Zhou Qi, Wang Chongrong, Shi Pu, Zhuge Shuang, Wang Chucun, Li Xiaochang, Ximen Sigong, Tuoba Sigong...
It was also very bold, because Zhou Qi and Shi Pu killed the former Jiedushi envoys through the "Xuzhou Mutiny" and "Xuzhou Mutiny" respectively, and replaced them; Wang Chongrong rebelled first and then surrendered, replacing the former Jiedushi envoys. It’s half a mutiny; Zhuge Shuang is a “Xu thief” and has a history of surrendering to Huang Chao...
In order to defeat the grass thieves, Comrade Wang Duo adheres to the principle of uniting all forces that can be united. As long as you can point your guns at Huang Chao now, we will forget about it.
Wang Duo took command for the second time. From the list of members of his newly formed "Grass Cutting Group", we can see his determination and pragmatic attitude to eliminate the grass thieves. For this reason, he did not hesitate to deeply offend the popular eunuch Tian Lingzi.
His firm and pragmatic attitude determined that the war would end with the victory of Wang Shi; and his behavior of offending Tian Lingzi also paved the way for his tragic end.
