The carriage of the Tang Empire has been running for more than two hundred years, and in 873 AD, the Tang Dynasty had just sent away a poor and extravagant Tang Yizong, and ushered in the youngest emperor of the empire, Li Yan, a twelve-year-old teenager, Tang Yizong. He threw Chaozheng to a playmate named Tian Lingzi, who was the father-in-law who managed the stable in the palace, and to put it ugly, it was a groom, and this groom drove the carriage of the Tang Empire and rushed towards the cliff...
Tang Played polo
If you don't solve the problem, the problem will solve you. The young emperor only knew how to have fun, the groom only knew how to play with power, and the officials who wanted to do something serious were suppressed to death, and the imperial court was miasma. Several emperors in a row are not contentious, you can imagine what the people are like, natural disasters and man-made disasters continue, states and counties do not dare to report to them, the people are displaced, and there is no hope of survival.
In 874, a man named Wang Xianzhi stepped forward, he was the boss of a smuggling salt gang and was a martial artist. The world is not good, a group of big masters are not happy to go on, what else dare not do? He raised an army at Changyuan (Changyuan City, Henan), and issued a letter denouncing the Tang Dynasty's filthy officials and heavy tax policies, declaring himself the "Great General of Heavenly Compensation" and announcing that he would overthrow corrupt officials and corrupt officials and distribute the land and property under the world equally, which was a very attractive call.
Wang Xianzhi quickly pulled up a team of several thousand people and began to march to his hometown. Wang Xianzhi's hometown was in Puzhou (濮州, in modern Yuncheng County, Shandong), and in June of the following year, the rebel army captured Puzhou and Caozhou, and the number of people who joined the group was endless, and soon the rebel army grew to tens of thousands. The imperial court panicked and ordered Tianping Jiedu to make Xue Chong's troops suppress it, and the Tianping army repeatedly attacked Puzhou, but was defeated by Wang Xianzhi.
After Wang Xianzhi made a name for himself in his hometown, many rebel teams in the local area came with teams to join the gang, one of which was quite special, and the team of several thousand people was not small, and the boss was called Huang Chao. Coincidentally, Huang Chao used to sell salt, and unlike Wang Xianzhi, Huang Chao had more ink in his stomach. Since Huang Chao joined the army, the rebel army was unstoppable and captured more than a dozen states.
This time, the imperial court finally found that things were not good and must be taken seriously. In December, Emperor Xianzong of Tang appointed Song Wei as the "Envoy of Grass Thieves in the Camp of the Various Provinces", and also transferred him 3,000 Janissaries and 500 heavy cavalry, and ordered all the generals in all the towns in Henan to obey Song Wei's command, and Song Wei gathered a large army to come to the city of Yizhou (沂州, in modern Linyi, Shandong).
This time it was a hard idea, Wang Xianzhi did not hit hard, he chose to give up Shandong, to the direction of Henan, the record is considerable, less than ten days to fight down 8 counties. The imperial court immediately dispatched troops from all over the place to resist, and placed heavy troops around the eastern capital Luoyang to prevent the rebels from entering Chang'an. Unable to do so, Wang Xianzhi became more and more courageous in the war, and took down the city of Ruzhou, and the officials and landlords in Luoyang City fled the city one after another.
In the face of the heavy encirclement and suppression of the imperial court, Wang Xianzhi adopted the tactical idea of avoiding the real and fighting on the fly, and successively conquered many prefectures and counties, and the rebel army also grew to 300,000 people. The imperial court was at a loss, and at this time, Shi Pei, the assassin of Puzhou, said that he could lure the leader of the rebel army into surrender. The imperial court adopted this good suggestion, and under Pei Wei's movements, the emperor named Wang Xianzhi as "Zuo Shen Cejun's ya and inspector of imperial history", Wang Xianzhi was shaken, and he wanted to be this official.
Huang Chao knew about this matter, ran to fight with Wang Xianzhi, and scolded: "What did you say at the beginning?" We have worked together to lay the foundation and live a good life with our brothers, but now you are going to go to the court alone to become an official, are you worthy of these many brothers who follow you?" After the matter became big, the generals also knew about it, and all of them opposed Wang Xianzhi's surrender to the imperial court, and when Wang Xianzhi saw this situation, he reluctantly drove away the imperial court's envoys.
After this incident, Huang Chao also learned about the other side of Wang Xianzhi, and he asked the soldiers to fight in two ways, in fact, he also had his own plan in mind. After that, Huang Chao led his troops to Jiangnan, while Wang Xianzhi attacked westward. Sure enough, Wang Xianzhi did not have a dead heart, and he wrote a surrender letter and quietly ordered several of his henchmen to send to chang'an important officials.
Unfortunately, in the middle of the road, he was stopped by Song Wei, who had scared away Wang Xianzhi's army, so he looked down on Wang Xianzhi, and after he saw the surrender letter, he did not let Wang Xianzhi do as he wished, directly killed several of his henchmen, and reported to the imperial court that he had defeated Wang Xianzhi's army and killed several generals. Not to mention, this lie about the military situation actually gave the imperial court the confidence to suppress Wang Xianzhi's rebel army, and the imperial court subsequently dispatched several emissaries to send troops together.
Wang Xianzhi was furious when he knew this, and led his army to attack again, in 878 AD, Wang Xianzhi was surrounded by the superior forces of the imperial court in Huangmei, Hubei Province, and after a fierce battle, 50,000 rebels were heroically killed, and Wang Xianzhi was killed when he broke through. The remnants, led by Shang Rang, went south to defect to Huangchao, and since then, the rebel army has finally united closely around Huangchao, showing strong combat effectiveness, and the sword is directed at the decaying Tang Dynasty.
Wang Xianzhi, a god-like name, did not create a divine word. His slogan of "equalization" gave hope to the toiling masses, all vying to follow him and fighting heroically for a good goal. But he could not stand the test in the face of victory, gave up halfway, and had the idea that small wealth is peace. When the decadent Tang Dynasty threw a dirty official hat at him, he lost the courage to fight and forgot his original intention.
References: Zizhi Tongjian, New Book of Tang
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