[Guo Chongtao’s death 7 is inevitable]
1. After Guo Chongtao entered Shu, he accepted bribes openly, in a high-profile manner, and so much that he made Li Congqi, the eunuch around Li Jiji, jealous. Was Guo Chongtao corrupted?
Just like what Li Jiji said when he helped him to rescue him, Guo Chongtao also said the same thing at the beginning of the destruction of Liang Dynasty. The official bribery trend in the former Shu was even worse than that in the later Liang Dynasty. If you refuse their bribes, "you have nothing to fear"?
2. Tacitly approving Wang Zongbi to be the governor of Xichuan was Guo Chongtao's expedient and delaying strategy.
First of all, before leaving, Guo Chongtao personally recommended Meng Zhixiang to Li Cunxu as the candidate for the military envoy of Xichuan. How could he slap himself in the face now and recommend Wang Zongbi, the general to be surrendered?
Secondly, Guo Chongtao only verbally agreed to Wang Zongbi and did not "express" it.
Finally, after basically controlling the situation in Chengdu, Guo Chongtao found a reason to kill Wang Zongbi.
It can be seen from this that Guo Chongtao's agreement to Wang Zongbi to stay in Xichuan was completely taking advantage of Wang Zongbi, using his prestige and power to control and appease the situation in Chengdu. When this number one "Sichuan traitor" loses his value, he will be ruthlessly abandoned.
3. Staying in Shu and being supported to stay in Sichuan and Shu was also forced by the situation. Based on the actual situation, it was not appropriate for Guo Chongtao to immediately go to Luoyang.
We have emphasized many times that the expeditionary force of the Later Tang Dynasty to conquer Shu only had a total of 60,000 people, and what they had to face was an army that had been in business for 35 years, owned by father and son for two generations, and owned more than 200 states in 50 or 60 states. County, the former Shu Empire with hundreds of thousands of troops. Except for the "Battle of Three Springs", the former Shu did not put up any resistance, and a huge empire surrendered. Behind the seemingly miracle, there were immeasurable management costs.
In short, the Shu people were dissatisfied. "All my ministers are willing to fight to the death, so why does Your Majesty surrender first?"
Underneath the glorious appearance of being invincible, there are turbulent undercurrents. That's why Guo Chongtao used Wang Zongbi's reputation to suppress the ground.
Even so, there were still rebellions in the former Shu, and the entire Shu fell into chaos and out of control. If Guo Chongtao withdrew the main force of the Later Tang Expeditionary Force at this time, then the Shu would surely have all the heroes fighting for the throne, and all the achievements of the Later Tang would be wasted.
In order to safeguard his vested interests, Guo Chongtao acquiesced in staying in Shu to appease the surrendered generals of former Shu, and at the same time sent deputy generals Ren Wan, Zhang Jun and other troops to suppress rebellions in various places, so he could not immediately regroup.
In short, Guo Chongtao's seemingly disobedient and unruly behavior has a reasonable explanation behind it. I personally also believe in Guo Chongtao's innocence.
I believe it, but Li Cunxu doesn’t.
The reason for the disagreement between us is that we have different perspectives. As the saying goes, the butt determines the head. My perspective is that of the people who eat melons. They will complain about tragic heroes and argue about right and wrong. But Li Cunxu is sitting on the throne of the emperor, ruling the world from the perspective of From a bird's eye view, anyone who poses a challenge to his authority will be eliminated. He would rather kill three thousand by mistake than let one person slip through the net.
Duke Zhou was afraid of the day of rumors, but Wang Mang was humble and did not usurp the time. You were a loyal minister before, does that mean you will be a loyal minister in the future?
The eunuchs slandered Guo Chongtao in front of Li Cunxu all day long. Over time, Li Cunxu would more or less mutter. After the surrender of Qianshu, Li Cunxu sent eunuchs to Yansi to rush to Chengdu to urge Guo Chongtao's army to return to duty.
When the eunuch Xiang Yansi arrived in Chengdu, Guo Chongtao did not meet him from afar. Not only was there no welcome ceremony, but Guo Chongtao always had a condescending attitude during formal meetings, which made the eunuch Xiang Yansi extremely angry.
Later, Xiang Yansi met with Li Congxi, the eunuch who was overseeing the army. The eunuch burst into tears when he saw the eunuch. The two eunuchs had too much in common to talk about.
Xiang Yansi said: "Look at Guo Chongtao's arrogant appearance. The prince is young and cowardly, and cannot control Guo Chongtao at all. And Guo Chongtao is dictatorial and has no regard for the prince. I think the prince will be in the future. After becoming a full-time official, it will be difficult to suppress the person named Guo."
Li Congxi added with jealousy: "Who says it's not the case! Hey, you don't know. Guo Chongtao's son Guo Tinghui is even more powerful. He leads a large number of guards all day long, swaggers through the city, and drinks with the generals in the army and the local tyrants and evil gentry. Make fun, point out the country, inspire writing, and be awesome! What’s more terrible is——"
The two of them looked around like thieves, closed the doors and windows, lowered their voices and bit their ears and said: "This is Guo Tingjie, who ordered the generals of Shu to jointly petition and put pressure on the court to keep Guo Chongtao in Shu. Guess, he Why do you want to stay? Xiao Guo told his father Guo that the land of Shu is fertile, the people are rich, and the terrain is dangerous..."
Li Congxi shook his head and sighed, saying: "Now, all the surrendered generals in Shu are members of the Guo family. The prince's current situation is very dangerous. It is like temporarily living in the tiger's mouth. Once Guo attacks, we don't know what will happen." Where are you buried?"
The two eunuchs couldn't help crying while holding each other's hands when they got to the emotional point.
Finally, Li Congxi asked Xiang Yansi to report the prince's dangerous situation to Queen Xiao Liu and find a way to save the prince's life.
They are all foxes on the same mountain, so let’s not talk about Liaozhai. Xiang Yansi gave Li Congqi a look that said everything without saying anything, "Don't worry, you understand."
After returning to the capital, the eunuch went to Empress Liu to cry to Yansi, and described Li Jiji's dangerous situation in a more elaborate manner. In his words, it seemed that Guo Chongtao wanted to kill Li Jiji, and then separatize Shu and proclaim himself emperor.
Empress Liu quickly ran to Li Cunxu and cried, asking him to think of a way to save her son's life.
The surrendered generals from Shu jointly requested to retain Guo Chongtao, which had already touched Li Cunxu's red line. At that time, Li Cunxu was very unhappy. Now, after listening to Xiang Yansi's report to Xiang Yansi, who had just returned from an inspection in Shu, he became increasingly suspicious. , has Guo Chongtao really gone dark?
When reporting on his work, Xiang Yansi also seemingly unintentionally mentioned that Guo Chongtao had no "suburban welcome" and had an arrogant attitude. Although Xiang Yansi was a man who had been sentenced to death, an eunuch and a eunuch, he came here under the imperial edict and represented the imperial power. Beat a dog to see if it's its master, you Guo Chongtao clearly despise the emperor!
The main purpose of Li Cunxu's expedition to Shu was to plunder the wealth of the former Shu because it was rumored that the land of Shu was rich. However, when he checked the account books of the former Shu palace treasury, he found that the war profits were very few. He couldn't help but wonder: "Didn't you say that there are countless gold and silver treasures in Shu? Why is it so small?"
Now, Xiang Yansi, who has returned from Shu, has solved this mystery for him, "It is true that the former Shu was rich, but when it surrendered, all the gold and silver treasures fell into the hands of Guo Chongtao and his son. After the deal, there was only this little left... How much do you think they cheated? Guo Chongtao himself narrowed down 10,000 taels of gold, 400,000 taels of silver, one million taels of money, a thousand famous horses, and other property. The difference is almost the same; the amount of corruption and embezzlement committed by his son Guo Tingjie has not yet been calculated, and the amount of his other staff and cronies cannot be counted. Your Majesty, please take a look. In the end, only this little is left to be paid to you. ”
Li Cunxu's face changed drastically at that time, and Long Yan was furious. As we will soon mention later, Li Cunxu’s main purpose in conquering Shu was to make money and fill the huge financial deficit. So when he heard about Guo Chongtao's arrogance and domineering behavior, he just murmured as a suspect. But when he heard that Guo Chongtao touched his money bag, he was extremely angry.
At the same time, Meng Zhixiang came to Luoyang from Taipei. He went to Beijing to report on his work and accepted work transfers and work instructions from his leaders. When he left Luoyang and went to Zhenxichuan, Li Cunxu secretly gave him a secret mission: to kill Guo Chongtao. The reason was that Guo Chongtao had rebelled.
Meng Zhixiang was shocked, so he defended Guo Chongtao, saying that Guo Chongtao had made great contributions to the empire. He had just destroyed Liang and pacified Shu, so how could he suddenly rebel? There must be something fishy about this matter. Your Majesty, please don't worry. I will go to investigate secretly. If he really rebels, I will kill him. If he does not rebel, I will send him back and you can interview him personally. How about ?
Li Cunxu thought for a while and thought what Meng Zhixiang said made sense, so he agreed to this compromise.
