[Then play music, then dance]
Liang and Jin fought against each other along the river for more than ten years. Suddenly, the Later Tang Dynasty destroyed Liang in eight days, and their reputation was greatly shaken. Fengxiang and Li Maozhen were frightened to death, and the former Shu and Huainan were also frightened.
Before launching the "Left Hook" operation in the Later Tang Dynasty, he contacted Huainan and proposed a flanking attack from the north and the south. Xu Wen, the powerful official in Huainan, planned to raise troops to respond, but was stopped by his adviser Yan Keqiu. Now, Xu Wen is complaining that Yan Keqiu made a mistake, saying that the Later Tang Dynasty asked us to send troops to help, but we refused. What should we do now?
Yan Keqiu was calm and said with a smile: "Li Cunxu has just arrived in the Central Plains. He is so complacent and arrogant that there is nothing to worry about. I dare say that within a few years, there will be great turmoil within the Later Tang Dynasty. What we have to do is Numb him with lots of bribes and humility, wait and see what happens, and have a front-row seat to the show."
According to Yan Keqiu's arrangement, Huainan sent envoy Lu Ping to visit the Later Tang Dynasty. Lu Ping brought sincere greetings and a generous gift to Li Cunxu: two hundred taels of gold, three thousand taels of silver, one thousand two hundred pieces of brocade, five kilograms of dipterocarp, and one hundred pairs of dragon and phoenix silk shoes.
Before Lu Ping set off, Yan Keqiu handed him an answer manual, which listed hundreds of questions and corresponding standard answers. This was a question that Yan Keqiu speculated that Li Cunxu might ask. It corresponded to the diplomatic rhetoric that Yan Keqiu had carefully considered and carefully considered all night long.
Due to the rush of time, Yan Keqiu had no time to copy, so he only handed the draft to Lu Ping. The issues related to "Black Cloud City" and Chai Zaiyu were circled and emphasized, requiring special attention.
On the way, Lu Ping digested and absorbed this doctrine and memorized it like a stream. When Li Cunxu met Lu Ping, the first question he asked was indeed Huainan's elite ace "Black Cloud City", and the second question was about the famous general Chai Zaiyong. Lu Ping came well prepared and answered fluently without losing her national style. At the same time, she flattered Li Cunxu tactfully.
Li Cunxu was delighted with Long Yan and looked at Huainan's monarchs and ministers with admiration. He believed that Huainan was a place with outstanding people and a large number of talents and should not be taken lightly. Therefore, in the future, Li Cunxu's strategy of "first Shu and then Huai" was inseparable from this meeting.
After Lu Ping returned to Huainan, she truthfully reported what she saw in Later Tang Dynasty. The general idea was that Li Cunxu was proud, complacent and arrogant. He favored traitors and was suspicious of meritorious officials. His politics were dark and corrupt, and his tribesmen were alienated... as expected by Yan Keqiu. Xu Wen was temporarily relieved and admired Yan Keqiu even more for his ability to predict things.
Liu Yan of the Southern Han Dynasty, who proclaimed himself emperor in the Guangdong and Guangxi areas, was initially afraid of the power of the Later Tang Dynasty and sent an envoy He Ci to Beijing to congratulate Li Cunxu for overthrowing the Later Liang Dynasty. After He Ci came back, he also said that Li Cunxu was proud, arrogant, neglectful of political affairs, and had no ability to govern the country at all, so it was not a cause for concern. Liu Yan breathed a sigh of relief, and since then he has been able to sit back and relax and no longer send envoys to the Tang Dynasty.
Including Huainan and Southern Han, most of the envoys who visited the Later Tang Dynasty brought back a very similar set of rhetoric, that is, Li Cunxu was complacent, had no ambition to make progress, was dissolute and immoral, and had no ability to govern the country.
People's eyes are sharp. Everyone was eating melon in the front row, watching him build a tall building, watching him entertain guests and friends, and watching his building fall down.
It took Li Cunxu more than ten years to eliminate Houliang, but it only took three years to eliminate himself. But what he did in the last three years took up more than half of his life. The "Old History of the Five Dynasties" has a total of eight volumes in the "Benji of Zhuangzong", of which only about two and a half volumes are used to introduce his life before the age of 38, while five and a half volumes are used in the last three years of his life.
Interestingly, his glory was only in the first three volumes. After overthrowing Liang Liang at the age of 38 and reaching the peak of his life, he started to indulge in uninhibited love and freedom in the next five volumes. The script of life is completely reversed. In the first part, the hero is a young hero, opening up new territories, and in the second part, he plays music and dances.
Li Cunxu was criticized the most for the following aspects: political darkness, excessive hunting, favoring eunuchs and court officials, suspicion and rejection of meritorious deeds, and neglect of personnel...
Some of these contents overlap, and there are also logical progressive relationships. For example, behaviors such as favoring eunuchs will inevitably exclude meritorious deeds. We will make a detailed analysis and summary below.
Due to political needs, Li Cunxu needed to completely deny the Later Liang Dynasty and create a public opinion tone for the revival of the Tang Dynasty, as mentioned above. This approach will inevitably go too far, and sometimes excessive force will be applied, such as the abolition of the law on back beams.
In the third year of Kaiping in the Later Liang Dynasty (909), he ordered six people including Xiao Qing (his grandfather Xiao Fang, an official in the Xuanzong Dynasty, and prime minister in the Yizong and Xizong dynasties) to take the lead in revising the "Format of Liang Ling Ling". Laws, orders, patterns, and styles are both different and related, forming a complete code system in feudal society. On the basis of absorbing and learning from the "Format of Legal Orders" of the Tang Dynasty, based on the actual development and needs of society, the Later Liang Dynasty kept pace with the times, eliminated the rough and selected the essentials. It took more than a year to complete the revision.
"Liang Ling Gong Ge" has a total of 103 volumes (30 volumes of Lings, 10 volumes of patterns, 20 volumes of styles, 13 volumes of catalogues, and 30 volumes of Lvshu). Subsequently, Zhu Wen issued an edict to promulgate it throughout the country.
After Li Cunxu overthrew the Later Liang Dynasty, everything became politicized. Instead of cherishing the precious legacy of the Later Liang Dynasty, he directly abolished it and ordered the restoration of the Tang Dynasty system. It is said that at that time, only Dingzhou had the "Format of Legal Orders" of the Tang Dynasty, so the local government of Dingzhou was ordered to send copies to the central government, and a total of 286 volumes were obtained. Lu Zhi, the Minister of the Ministry of Punishment, also presented 13 volumes of "Tongguang Xinglu Tonglei".
The Later Liang Dynasty kept pace with the times and reduced the 286 volumes to 103 volumes, while the Later Tang Dynasty "Duang" expanded it to 299 volumes. Reversing history.
"Liang Luling Formats" had been promulgated for more than ten years. Later Tang Dynasty brutally abolished it, but did not fill it with new ones in a timely and effective manner. As an explanation and guide for policies, the approach of the Central Committee of the Later Tang Dynasty was even more confusing: the empress dowager's "imperial order", the queen's "teaching order", and the emperor's "imperial edict" all went hand in hand, enjoying the same legal status and being extremely independent. High, there is no ventilation between them.
The three orders were all issued directly to local governments. Sometimes local governments would receive three "highest instructions" with completely opposite meanings at the same time. The red-headed documents were contradictory, making it impossible for local governments to take action. As a result, local governments simply refused to listen to anyone and silently implemented "local autonomy," and the central government's red-headed documents became useless paper.
In the end, this led to such a ridiculous and embarrassing phenomenon: the original order was not restored, the current one was invalidated, and the new one was not implemented. This was the source of political chaos in the central government of the Later Tang Dynasty.
Why did the situation of "three orders traveling together" occur? Who gave the queen so much power? This is about the woman behind the man, Li Cunxu’s Mrs. Liu.
First of all, it needs to be emphasized that Mrs. Liu is the wife of Li Cunxu. Li Keyong’s first wife is also surnamed Liu, and she also appears as "Liu" in the previous article. Therefore, it should be noted that the two Mrs. Liu of Li and his son are not the same. People, and the characters of the two Lius are very different. Whether it is the reputation at the time or the evaluation of later generations, there is a huge difference between the two. In order to distinguish, we call Li Cunxu's wife "Xiao Liu".
Xiao Liu embodies all the negative comments about women in traditional culture, and she lives up to the reputation of "beauties are a disaster." Even Mr. Ouyang Xiu, who cherished his words like gold, spared no effort in recording all her absurd behaviors in his "New History of the Five Dynasties". It can be said that the reason why Li Cunxu was able to die quickly within three years is inseparable from his little Liu family.
