History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 283 The End of Later Liang
【The End of Houliang】

Before the fall of the Later Liang Dynasty, Xuzhou presented a rare animal, a green-haired turtle. Zhu Youzhen liked it very much and ordered people to build a house for it in the palace to keep it, and named it "Turtle Hall". People privately discussed that "Turtle Hall" was a homonym of "Return to Tang", which was unlucky.

Zhu Youzhen once went to the market to buy pearls. After he had bought the right number, he casually said to his attendants, "The number of pearls is enough." The attendants secretly thought that "the number of pearls is enough" was pronounced as "the number of pearls is enough", which meant that Zhu's luck had come to an end and was very unlucky.

After Zhu Youzhen ascended the throne, he changed his name to "Zhu Zhen". When the Later Liang Dynasty fell, some people made up a story and said that "Zhen" can be interpreted as "11th (king), October 18th (true)". 11th means that he suffered misfortune in the eleventh year of his reign. 18th is nine, and October 18th is October 9th, the day when his country was destroyed and he died.

Even in official history, there are countless such statements. The rulers always take advantage of people's superstitious belief in the connection between heaven and man to find a public opinion basis for their future legitimate rule, and warn people that the demise of the previous dynasty and the elimination of the old and the welcoming of the new is heaven's will.

After the change of power, Li Cunxu planned to dig up Zhu Wen's tomb, open the coffin and burn the body to vent his anger.

"Healing Master" Zhang Quanyi submitted a petition to dissuade the emperor, saying that although Zhu Wen was an enemy of the empire, he was already dead and the dead were the greatest. Moreover, his family had been exterminated and he had received the punishment he deserved. Please do not open the coffin and burn the body to show the world your majesty's magnanimity, kindness and grace.

Li Cunxu thought it made sense, so he simply ordered the ground of Zhu Wen's tomb to be leveled and all the nearby trees to be cut down to destroy the Zhu family's feng shui.

In official history, there is an outrageous record that in July of the first year of Qianhua (911), Zhu Wen went to Zhang Quanyi's home in Luoyang to escape the summer heat. During this period, Zhu Wen had sex with all the female members of Zhang Quanyi's family. Zhang Quanyi's son Zhang Jizuo could not bear this great humiliation and planned to kill Zhu Wen, but was stopped by Zhang Quanyi, who said that if Zhu Wen had not come to rescue us when we were surrounded by Li Hanzhi in Heyang, our family would have died long ago. Zhu Wen had given our family a new life and we should never forget this kindness. Zhang Jizuo gave up.

The New History of the Five Dynasties and the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government made such claims with certainty and evidence, and many historical books also adopted this statement and used it as evidence of Zhu Wen's debauchery and immorality.

In addition, it is said that Zhu Wen occupied his son's daughter-in-law, and his sons and adopted sons, in order to win favor, even vied with each other to send their wives to Zhu Wen to sleep with him... In short, the Later Liang Palace was portrayed as vulgar, filthy and unbearable to look at!
Demonizing Zhu Wen and his Later Liang regime was a political necessity of the Later Tang regime.

From a public perspective, Li Cunxu regarded himself as the successor of the Li Tang Dynasty, so naturally he was irreconcilable with the thief Zhu who usurped the Tang Dynasty; from a private perspective, the Li and Zhu families had been enemies for generations and were sworn enemies.

Was Zhu Wen really so lascivious and filthy? Not necessarily.

Zhu Wen had only five concubines, which was considered anti-vulgar in the circle of ancient Chinese emperors. He also had a very deep relationship with Zhang Hui (Zhu Youzhen's biological mother). Zhang Hui unfortunately passed away before Zhu Wen became emperor. After Zhu Wen became emperor, he posthumously named her "Xianfei". During his five-year reign, he did not appoint another empress, so Zhu Wen did not have an empress when he was alive. After Zhu Youzhen ascended the throne, he posthumously named his mother Zhang Hui "Empress Dowager Yuanzhen".

Furthermore, Zhu Wen was already seriously ill in 911. At that time, the "Battle of Baixiang" had just ended. As mentioned above, Zhu Wen had already been "unwell", "very ashamed", and "very ill". After experiencing the disastrous defeats in the Battle of Luzhou and the Battle of Baixiang, Zhu Wen's anger and depression caused his condition to deteriorate sharply, so that he could not even sit in a sedan chair carried by four people and had to stay in the middle of the journey to recuperate. The previous article also mentioned what the words "unwell" and so on in the history books meant.

To be honest, in this physical condition, even if Zhu Wen wanted to do that, he didn't have the strength. He also raped all the women in the family... It's unbelievable.

Don't forget that Zhu Wen died in July 912. Although he was assassinated, he was on the verge of death at that time and wanted to ask Zhu Youwen to come back to the throne, so Zhu Yougui couldn't wait to seize power in advance.

If Zhu Wen really did that kind of thing, now that the Later Tang Dynasty has destroyed the Liang Dynasty and Li Cunxu is eager to take revenge on the Zhu family, isn't this the best time for Zhang Quanyi to take revenge?

Li Cunxu was filled with hatred for his country and his family, and was about to vent his anger. No one in the court dared to stop him. Zhang Quanyi, as a high-ranking official of the Later Liang Dynasty, actually dared to stop him. What courage and broad-mindedness! I personally insist that Zhu Wen did not do that to Zhang Quanyi, and it is very likely that it was deliberately fabricated by later generations to throw dirty water on Zhu Wen.

The Hedong Group's comprehensive negation of the political work of the Later Liang Dynasty had been systematically carried out long ago. I will not discuss it in detail during the Li Keyong period. I will only select some of the most representative practices of Li Cunxu:

1. During the Battle of Baixiang, Li Cunxu issued a manifesto in which he described Zhu Wen's group as "the rebellious Dangshan mediocre servants, the nest of evil and the remaining evil..."

2. When Li Cunxu entered Bianzhou, Li Siyuan led the civil and military officials of the Later Liang Dynasty out of the city to greet him and meet him in front of the horse. The civil and military officials of the Later Liang Dynasty each stated that they had been subjects of the Tang Dynasty for generations, but unfortunately they were trapped in the false court. Today they finally witnessed the revival of the country, and their death left no trace.

Later Liang was a "pseudo-court" and a pseudo-regime; Li Cunxu's Later Tang was not a newly established dynasty, but a revival of the Tang Dynasty.

3. In the imperial edict that demoted Zheng Jue and 11 other high-ranking officials of the Later Liang Dynasty, the original text reads "The fake prime minister Zheng Jue and others, all of whom are members of this dynasty..."

The Later Liang regime was a fake regime, and the prime minister was of course a fake prime minister; but "this dynasty" is very vivid. As explained in the previous article, they were actually officials in the Tang Dynasty, so they were used as political vases by the Later Liang. However, Li Cunxu cleverly described their experience as officials in the Tang Dynasty as the "present dynasty" rather than the "previous dynasty", trying to convey to people the signal that the Tang Dynasty was reviving again. Yes, that's right, this dynasty is the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin's Tang Dynasty.

4. Duan Ning and others reported that Zhao Yan, the Zhang brothers and other "foreign relatives" were causing harm to the country and the people and should be killed. Li Cunxu then issued an edict to kill Jing Xiang, Li Zhen and the backbone of the "foreign relatives" and their entire family. The edict began: "I have destroyed the false court and quelled the national crisis..."

5. After the execution of the above-mentioned high-ranking officials of the Later Liang Dynasty, Li Cunxu issued an edict to grant amnesty to the whole country, saying: "Shaokang was the reason why he punished Youqiong by relying on the loyal to suppress the rebellious; Guangwu was the reason why he destroyed the Xinmang Dynasty by carrying on the legacy... I am the one who inherits the throne... and I hope to restore our dynasty... Zhu Wen was the one who plotted rebellion, Youzhen succeeded him, usurped the throne and killed two emperors, and destroyed the nine temples..."

The document begins with two famous stories: Houyi (Youqiong clan) usurped power, which is known in history as "Houyi replaced Xia"; Shaokang (great-great-grandson of Dayu and great-grandson of Xia Qi) restored the Xia Dynasty and greatly enhanced the national strength, which is known in history as "Shaokang Restoration"; Emperor Guangwu of Han, Liu Xiu, overthrew Wang Mang who usurped the throne, which is known in history as "Guangwu Restoration".

Li Cunxu compared himself to Shaokang and Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu, and compared the elimination of Later Liang to "Shaokang's Restoration" and "Guangwu's Restoration", which was the political tone of Later Tang.

Therefore, the total negation of Later Liang was a systematic political work of the Later Tang regime from beginning to end and from top to bottom.

Ouyang Xiu's New History of the Five Dynasties played a role in fueling the denial of the Later Liang Dynasty. The New History of the Five Dynasties concluded that the Later Liang Dynasty was "extremely evil".

Ouyang Xiu's reason for this evaluation is also very sufficient, "He started out as a bandit, and ended up overthrowing the Tang Dynasty, and his poisonous legacy spread throughout the world." This means that Zhu Wen, the founding monarch of the Later Liang Dynasty, was born as a bandit, and his deeds were to overthrow the Tang Dynasty, and his influence on later generations was that his poisonous legacy spread throughout the world.

It is an indisputable fact that he was born a bandit. But how many of the heroes at that time were not bandits? How many of them were clean?
As for the Zhu family, Ouyang Xiu summarized it bluntly: "It is so filthy that it is beyond description!" (The family affairs of the Liang family are what the "Book of Songs" calls "unspeakable").

With the systematic demonization political propaganda of the Later Tang Dynasty and the endorsement of the Song Dynasty's "New History of the Five Dynasties", the Later Liang Dynasty became the most criticized dynasty among the "Five Dynasties". Its founding monarch Zhu Wen also became a synonym for unjust and incompetent rulers and usurpers. For a long time, "Zhu Wen" was on par with King Zhou of Shang and King Jie of Xia.

(End of this chapter)