History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 100 Death of Gao Pian
The mob of soldiers rushed forward, pulling and tugging, and dragged Gao Pian, who was standing high up, down. During this process, someone beat Gao Pian.

"You have betrayed the emperor's grace and brought disaster upon the people of Huainan. Your crime is simply heinous! How dare you scold us?" A group of young and strong men surrounded and beat up a 70-year-old man.

Gao Pian neither defended himself nor begged for mercy.

In the last moment of his life, he showed his aristocratic spirit and gentlemanly temperament to the fullest. He knew that Qin Yan was a loser and a scoundrel, and he had nothing to say to him, and the scum in front of him was not worth mentioning. Arguing with such people was the greatest insult to himself.

Gao Pian said nothing, but tremblingly straightened his clothes, then raised his noble head and stretched his neck, as if to say "let's do it."

As expected, the bandits chopped off his head.

Gao Pian is dead.

Sooner or later, you will pay for what you have done. 12 years ago, Gao Pian massacred the Chengdu "Death Squad". A dying woman cursed Gao Pian, saying that he would not die a good death in the future, and would be ruined and humiliated.

Half a year ago, Zhou Bao encountered a mutiny, Gao Pian sent him a bag of rice flour, and mocked him. Zhou Bao cursed him, saying that you have a living treasure Lu Yongzhi by your side, cherish him, your end will definitely be worse than mine.

Both curses came true today.

Gao Pian's life is a story of two completely opposite plots. The first was brilliant, fighting against the Dangxiang Qiang, recovering Annan, defeating Nanzhao twice, guarding Chengdu, severely inflicting heavy losses on Huang Chao... and being named the Prince of Bohai.

The Annan people revered him as the "Gao King" and built a shrine for him, an unprecedented and unparalleled honor.

Poems as proof:

"In ancient times, it was the barbarians who were difficult to convert.

Who in Jiaozhi can miss me?
In the history of the Ten Thousand Generations of Holy Cults,
It is said that a shrine was built in the cave alone. "

Gao Pian was also an excellent poet. Most of his poems were frontier poems, which were magnificent, sonorous and powerful, worthy of being written by a famous general. However, there were also some graceful works about love and romance. His styles were varied and he mastered them all perfectly. Therefore, Gao Pian was included in the "Biographies of Talented Men in the Tang Dynasty".

The Complete Tang Poems contains a volume of Gao Pian's poems, from which one poem is excerpted:
"I regret that I have no strategy for pacifying the enemy, and I am ashamed to ascend the altar to pay homage to the generals.

Holding the golden axe is cold, and wearing the iron armor is chilly.

It is easy to receive support from the Lord, but it is difficult to repay His kindness.

The three frontiers are still not at peace, how dare I resign?"

——"My Feelings: Regret for Lack of Strategy to Pacify the Enemy"

Now, looking back at this poem, it is such a bitter irony.

Gao Pian, who was born in a famous family, was both civil and military, and had made great achievements, lost his integrity in his later years, plotted to establish his own regime, played with the enemy and did not move forward, nurtured the enemy for his own benefit, and watched the two capitals fall. Later historians believed that Gao Pian was mainly responsible for Huang Chao's invasion of Chang'an and Emperor Xizong's escape to Shu.

The Old Book of Tang states:

"Gao Pian plays with bandits, Lu Xie protects traitors.

A mistake in the holy judgment will lead to a rugged sword mountain."

At the same time, he also used eight words to highly summarize Gao Pian's later life and tragic end, "playing with bandits and worshipping monsters, which led to this disgrace."

However, the New Book of Tang directly listed Gao Pian in the "Biography of Traitors", nailing him to the pillar of shame in history forever.

[New Pattern] Gao Pian's entire family was almost wiped out. His sons, nephews, and other family members were slaughtered. The bodies of Gao Pian and his seven sons and daughters were thrown into the same large pit and buried hastily. It was a tragic scene.

A household servant escaped to Yang Xingmi's army outside the city and reported the incident inside the city.

Yang Xingmi ordered the entire army to wear mourning clothes and mourn for Gao Pian.

This was of course a political show, wearing mourning clothes, crying and offering sacrifices for Gao Pian was equivalent to declaring the legitimate succession to Huainan and emphasizing its own legal legitimacy, just like Liu Bei crying for Emperor Xian of Han.

Yang Xingmi cried for Gao Pian and inherited Huainan; Qian Liu cried for Zhou Bao and inherited Zhenhai; Zhu Wen cried for Wang Chongrong and inherited Hezhong... There were countless such political shows during the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties.

Interestingly, according to the New Book of Tang, Yang Xingmi only ordered the entire army to wear mourning clothes, while he himself was busy conquering cities and did not shed many tears. Instead, his comrade Lu Yongzhi was heartbroken and cried for three days (only Lu Yongzhi cried for three days in mourning clothes).

Is Lü Yongzhi a man who values ​​friendship and loyalty? Not necessarily. Lü Yongzhi's mourning for Gao Pian should be similar to Wei Baoheng's mourning for Emperor Yizong of Tang.

Qin Yan and Bi Shiduo killed Gao Pian, confirming their reputation as "traitors". They destroyed Gao Pian's body, but inherited his soul. They consulted the evil nun Wang Fengxian for advice on everything, and the severity of rewards and punishments were all calculated by this expert. Of course, there is no need to think too much about the consequences.

Lü Yongzhi's former subordinates secretly opened the city gates to welcome Yang Xingmi into the city, and the defenders were defeated without a fight. The city was about to fall.

At this critical moment, Qin Yan and Bi Shiduo did not give orders to respond, but sought instructions from experts and solicited the opinion of Wang Fengxian.

Wang Fengxian is indeed an expert. He counted with his fingers and said, "Run!"

Qin Yan and Bi Shiduo followed the guidance of the gods, went out of Kaihua Gate and escaped.

As a result, Yang Xingmi took over Yangzhou smoothly.

Yang Xingmi entered Yangzhou City and did three things:

First, behead Liang Zun.

The reason was that he could not be loyal to Gao Pian. To be fair, Liang Zun's death was somewhat unjust. First, he had been deprived of power by Lu Yongzhi a long time ago and was excluded; second, after Bi Shiduo and Qin Yan entered the city, Gao Pian was cowardly and afraid of trouble, had no intention of fighting, and compromised and gave in to the class enemy. Liang Zun should not be blamed for this.

After Liang Zun's death, another senior and loyal subordinate, Han Wen, committed suicide by jumping into a well out of fear of punishment.

Yang Xingmi stood on the moral high ground and cleared out Gao Pian's former subordinates in the name of clearing out traitors and avenging his master. From then on, no one could compete with him in the political arena of Huainan.

Yang Xingmi became Gao Pian's only "old subordinate" and the only legal heir to the Huainan region.

I give full marks to this wave of political purge.

The second thing was to promote Gao Pian’s grandson Gao Yu to be the deputy envoy and put him in charge of Gao Pian’s reburial.

Strangely, Gao Yu died suddenly for no apparent reason, so someone else was appointed to oversee the reburial arrangements.

The last thing was to distribute the military rations to the people in the city. After the war, only a few hundred families were left in Yangzhou, and they were all emaciated and looked like human beings.

After completing these three tasks, "claiming to be the heir" would be a natural thing.

In October of the third year of the Guangqi reign (887), Yang Xingmi entered Yangzhou and proclaimed himself the governor of Huainan. He submitted a memorial to the court, informing it of the situation in Huainan and requesting formal approval.

Before the imperial court's reply came, an urgent war report was delivered to Yang Xingmi's account: The traitor Qin Zongquan of Cai Dynasty sent his brother Qin Zongheng to lead an army of 10,000 to cross the Huai River and head straight for Yangzhou!
(End of this chapter)