Long before Li Keyong came, some soldiers with fast legs had already run back and reported the news to Mrs. Liu.
Mrs. Liu remained calm and ordered them all to be killed, strictly suppressed the news, and ordered her cronies to pack their bags and return to Taiyuan at dawn.
Not long after, Li Keyong returned to the camp safely. He was so angry that his liver and lungs exploded, and his teeth were shattered in his mouth. "Wow... you servant, you bastard Zhu San, you despicable villain who repays kindness with revenge, look at me." I'll kill you alive!" Now we must mobilize all our troops to annihilate Bianzhou City.
Mrs. Liu hurriedly stopped and explained the pros and cons for him.
"My husband was ordered to punish thieves, save the Central Plains from fire and water, and help Bianzhou from danger. But Bianzhou is ungrateful and holds a Hongmen Banquet to harm my husband. It is Bianzhou's fault. But if my husband launches a large-scale attack on Bianzhou, he has fallen into Bianzhou's scheme. . At that time, Zhu Wen counterattacked, accusing her husband of seeking thieves as a lie, annexation as a true act, and a false way of attacking Guo. Who can tell the right from wrong?"
After hearing this, Li Keyong regained his senses a little, but he was still furious, "Are you determined to swallow the loss of being mute?"
"Of course not. It is not advisable to stay in this land of right and wrong for a long time. We should return to the town quickly and report the Shangyuanyi Incident to the Emperor. Right and wrong will be decided by the Emperor."
There is a good wife at home and the husband does not do evil things.
Both Li Keyong and Zhu Wen had a virtuous wife, and the reason why they were able to dominate in the future was precisely because they were good at listening to the opinions of their virtuous wives.
Li Keyong suppressed his anger and set up camp. When passing by Xuzhou, Li Keyong asked Zhou Qi, the military commander of the Zhongwu Army, to borrow grain.
"The landlord doesn't have enough food left." Zhou Qian refused.
"Another white-eyed wolf!" Li Keyong had no choice but to scold his mother and left, passing through Puzhou and Shaanzhou, crossing the Yellow River, and returning to Hedong.
Zhu Wen sent a letter to Zhu Wen. In the letter, he said that he had no knowledge of the incident at Shangyuanyi. It was his general Yang Yanhong who secretly conspired with the imperial envoys. Now Yang Yanhong has been killed, and the relevant personnel have also been severely punished. I hope Xian Don't take it personally, blah blah blah.
Yang Yanhong died in the melee last night, so Zhu Wen let this dead man take all the blame.
Li Keyong cursed and tore up the letter.
Shangyuanyi is the eternal pain in Li Keyong's heart. This deep hatred lasted for decades. From then on, Li Keyong of Taiyuan and Zhu Wen of Bianzhou were inseparable from generation to generation.
Regarding the "Shangyuanyi Incident", the historical records are also very brief, but they all clearly point out that Zhu Wen planned the incident.
Really?
Many opinions believe that it was a Hongmen Banquet planned by Zhu Wen. This view seems to have become the mainstream view. However this is ridiculous.
Although the final result was the Hongmen Banquet, it ran counter to Zhu Wen's original intention. At the beginning of the banquet, Zhu Wen not only had no intention of assassinating Li Keyong, but instead tried hard to please Li Keyong. This banquet was originally a dinner for a political and military alliance.
When analyzing historical events, we must restore the historical background, rather than looking at it from a God’s perspective.
At that time, although Zhu Wen was among the vassal towns, his overall strength was very weak.
Militaryly, historical records clearly record that when he went to the town, he only had a few hundred troops, which was insufficient to maintain the security of the territory. He had to be ordered to rescue Chenzhou, even with the Xuzhou Zhongwu Army Zhou Wei and the Xuzhou Reformatory Army Shipu. Even if they unite, they cannot lift the siege of Chenzhou. When the remnants of Huang Chao went north, even their old nest in Bianzhou was almost lost.
Politically, Zhu Wen was almost helpless. He only relied on his cleverness to get into the lap of Wang Chongrong of Hezhong when recruiting people. Wang Chongrong also belonged to the Xinxing vassal town, so the two of them took what they needed and helped each other.
Geopolitically, things are even more precarious. Bianzhou is surrounded by powerful enemies, all of whom are eyeing the enemy and may annex the weak Bianzhou at any time; the biggest threat comes from the remnant of Huang Chao - Caizhou Fengguo Army Qin Zongquan. More on this below.
Zhu Wen of Bianzhou is like a little sheep hiding among wolves. He urgently needs to find strategic partners, look for organizations everywhere, and ask for shelter.
And Li Keyong is precisely one of Zhu Wen's few options. Although Li Keyong is not a good quarrel, the two people's spheres of influence are not adjacent, and there is no direct conflict of interest. There is a possibility of alliance between the two of them.
Facts have also proved that at the critical moment of Bianzhou's crisis, only Li Keyong was willing and able to send troops to rescue him.
Of course, this help isn't free. Without profit, Li Ke used professional mercenaries for thirty years to take people's money and eliminate disasters for them.
At that time, Li Keyong and Zhu Wen had no grudges in the past or recent times. The two still fought side by side on the battlefield and forged a profound revolutionary friendship.
Both emotionally and rationally, Zhu Wen had no reason to risk assassinating Li Keyong.
Assassinating Li Keyong would do Zhu Wen no good at all. It is Zhu Wen's most urgent wish to form a strategic partnership with them and form a political and military alliance.
From alliance to enmity, how did this completely opposite turning point happen?
In fact, there is no clear record of the detailed conversation at the banquet in the history books, but it is generally said that Li Keyong seriously offended Zhu Wen with his words, "Emperor Wu (Li Keyong) was drunk, playing with the prostitutes, and the Bian Commander Shake hands and tell the story of thieves for fun."
"Old History of the Five Dynasties" restores that scene for us. Li Keyong was in a drunken state, hugging him from left to right, and bragging to Zhu Wen.
This made Zhu Wen angry and decided to kill him?
If this is the case, then we can continue to analyze:
First of all, Li Keyong's deep-seated contempt for Zhu Wen seriously hurt Zhu Wen's self-esteem and shook the foundation of the "Shanxi-Bian Alliance".
In a strictly hierarchical feudal society, people were divided into three, six, and nine grades. Although the two were in the same vassal town, Li Keyong's family was the ruling class for generations, while Zhu Wen was the ruled class for generations. It's like we are all international students, they are Cambridge or Oxford, and you are Clayton University.
Equality is the basis for interpersonal communication and political alliance. If there is a tilt, the party in a high position has the initiative. For example, the Central Court of the Tang Dynasty crushed Li Keyong politically, so Li Keyong could be used by it and became a mercenary of the court.
Now that Li Keyong is crushing Zhu Wen, does Zhu Wen still want to take advantage of Li Keyong? Idiot's dream.
Therefore, when Li Keyong continued to reveal his sense of superiority in the upper class, Zhu Wen lost more than just his dignity.
Secondly, Li Keyong may have been teasing not an ordinary "prostitute" but Zhu Wen's wife Zhang Hui, which became the straw that broke the camel's back.
In the Tang Dynasty, the class of prostitutes was large and broadly divided into two types: public prostitutes and domestic prostitutes.
Public prostitutes are established by the government and are "state-owned assets" that can be used by officials at will. They can be subdivided into three types:
Palace prostitutes serve the emperor; official prostitutes serve officials; camp prostitutes serve soldiers.
Not long ago, when Zhu Wen was rescuing Chenzhou, he occupied Bozhou. In Bozhou, he went to Wushan with a camp prostitute. Later, the woman gave birth to a son for Zhu Wen. This child will be great in the future, as will be mentioned later.
At that time, there were frequent wars and large armies passing by. It was common practice to snatch men to serve as soldiers and women to serve as camp prostitutes. Not only adult men and women, but also minor boys and girls are also targets of robbery. Li Keyong's troops robbed a five-year-old girl, who later became the wife of Li Keyong's son Li Cunxu. It will also be mentioned later.
And Zhang Hui was obtained when Zhu Wen captured Tongzhou, so it is possible that some unpleasant gossip spread among the people.
In a drunken state, it is reasonable for Li Keyong to mistakenly regard Zhang Hui as a camp prostitute and a captive female slave.
Zhu Wen is an emotional man. Throughout his life, many major events are inseparable from emotions. Zhang Hui is his most beloved and respected wife. Zhang Hui unfortunately died before Zhu Wen became emperor. Zhu Wen did not canonize other concubines as queens throughout his life, and always reserved the position of "queen" for his deceased wife, which shows the deep relationship between the two.
Since the dream of cooperation was shattered, the verbal offense against Zhang Hui may have become Zhu Wen's direct motive for murder.
Looking at the process of this murder, it is not difficult to see that Zhu Wen did have the problem of insufficient preparation. Catching turtles in a urn, sneak attacks on more than 300 drunkards in the middle of the night, and allowing Li Keyong to escape with his whole body.
This also shows that Zhu Wen did not formulate a thorough murder plan at the beginning. The "Shangyuanyi Incident" was completely impromptu and hastily formed.
Many Zhuge Liang, from today's perspective and from God's perspective, insist that Zhu Wen was far-sighted and saw that Li Keyong was his strong opponent in the future to compete for the world, so he struck preemptively.
According to this theory, I can definitely say that Cao Cao did not kill Liu Bei during the "discussing heroes over wine" because he saw that Liu Bei would recruit Zhuge Liang in the future, and Zhuge Liang would give himself a way to survive on Huarong Road.
So was the "Shangyuanyi Incident" really the result of Zhu Wen's anger and his concubine?
