History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 356 Li Qi and Cui Xie

李琪
Li Qi was a prime minister during the reign of Zhu Youzhen of the Later Liang Dynasty, as mentioned in the previous article. Having served as an official for generations in the Tang Dynasty, Li Qi was quick-witted, outstanding in literary talent, and skilled in poetry and odes. When he was 13 years old, he was known by Prime Minister Wang Duo, who once suspected that this kid had hired a ghostwriter. One day, he summoned him alone and gave him a topic to write, "Ode to the Three Heroes of the Han Dynasty". Li Qi wrote it without hesitation, which shocked Wang Duo.

At the age of 15, Ding's mother died, and he worked very hard by burning chaff to serve as firewood.

When he was 18 years old, he visited the literary giant Li Jing with a volume of his works. After reading it, Li Jing took off his shoes to greet him.

During the reign of Zhu Youzhen, he was ordered to compile "The Veritable Records of Liang Taizu". Some of the stories about Zhu Wen that we know today were written by Li Qi.

However, Li Qi also had a small flaw, that is, he was a little free and easy, not particular about details, and had the style of a great poet or writer. Official document writing was also very different from poetry and songs. Official documents required strictness and did not allow "falling straight down three thousand feet". It was because of this casualness that Li Qi was later caught by his political enemies, who made a fuss out of nothing and removed him.

Another minor flaw is that although he has a free and easy personality, he is also mercenary and has not really gotten rid of vulgar tastes. He once abused his power and promoted one of his confidants from an acting probationary officer directly to a permanent official, that is, "changing the deputy to a governor". He was dismissed from his position as prime minister because of this, and was almost exiled to Hainan Island in Guangdong and Guangxi by Zhu Youzhen. Fortunately, he had bribed the "foreign relatives gang" before, and under the operation of the "foreign relatives gang", he was only punished to be the prince's guard.

Li Cunxu had heard of his great name for a long time and promoted him to be the Minister of Rites and the Minister of Personnel.

When Li Cunxu was about to be defeated (in the third year of Tongguang), he ordered all civil and military officials to offer advice and suggestions to overcome the difficulties. Comrade Li Qi, who is worthy of being a literary master and a poet, wrote thousands of words. Like many knowledgeable scholars, he talked about the first three empresses and five emperors, Pangu created the world, Nuwa repaired the sky and created humans... After talking about this and that for a long time, it was nothing more than four words - "live within your means".

The other ministers either despised his pedantry, laughed at his ostentation, or were jealous of his talent. Only the uneducated Li Cunxu was intimidated by his fancy moves and felt his power, and "regarded him deeply".

After Li Siyuan was enthroned and Dou Luge and Wei Shuo were demoted, Ren Yuan recommended Li Qi to be the prime minister, but An Zhonghui, Kong Xun and Zheng Jue strongly opposed it and nominated Cui Xie. In the end, Cui Xie won.

Why did An Zhonghui oppose Li Qi? There are two reasons. First, Li Qi was nominated by Ren Yuan. This point is very important. What you support is what I oppose. It is a brainless DISS. Second, Li Qi just provoked An Zhonghui.

Not long ago, a palace attendant named Ma Yan accidentally bumped into An Zhonghui's motorcade. An Zhonghui was very angry, "Don't you have eyes?" He actually beheaded Ma Yan on the spot and then reported to Li Siyuan.

Before him, there was a soldier named Sang Hongqian who beat up the guard of Xiangzhou Recorder; there was a junior officer of the Imperial Guard named An Qian who accidentally crashed into the prime minister's motorcade. The verdicts of these two cases were that Sang Hongqian was executed, while An Qian was only beaten with a few sticks.

According to the practice of "citing" in judicial procedures, Ma Yan should have only been beaten with a few sticks as a warning. However, An Zhonghui beheaded him on the spot, and beheaded him first and then reported to the police.

Li Qi, the Imperial Censor, thought that this matter was quite inappropriate, but he hesitated and did not dare to impeach him rashly. If he spoke out for justice, he would be afraid of An Zhonghui's tyranny; if he pretended to be deaf and dumb, he would be afraid of the scholars' verbal criticism.

So, Li Qi thought of a safe way, thinking that he was smooth and worldly-wise: he asked Prime Minister Ren Yuan to greet An Zhonghui first, "Brother, I'm sorry, I'm a censor, it's not appropriate for me not to say a few words... I will report you tomorrow, just for the sake of courtesy, please don't take it personally, please cooperate, I'm sorry for the rudeness, thank you for your cooperation!"

This move was exactly what An Zhonghui wanted, just to let you know who is the boss in the court! The next day, Li Qi criticized An Zhonghui seriously. After An Zhonghui's appeal, the court finally dealt with it as follows - an imperial edict was issued to severely reprimand Ma Yan for his blindness and rebellious behavior against the imperial officials, calling on the whole country to learn from it!

An Zhonghui glanced at all the civil and military officials with pride and ferocity. All of them lowered their heads and remained silent, not daring to look him in the eye.

Li Qi slightly offended An Zhonghui by impeaching him for killing Ma Yan, and thus witnessed the immense power contained in An Zhonghui.

Afterwards, Li Qi resigned on the grounds of old age and frailty. If you can't afford to offend him, you can afford to avoid him.

Once you are a "Ren Yuan follower", you will be a "Ren Yuan follower" for the rest of your life. Li Qi also has no safe zone.

When the imperial court suppressed the rebellion of Wangdu of Dingzhou, Li Qi included a sentence in his congratulatory memorial: "Defeated the evil party of Khitan, destroyed the rebellious city of Zhending". Li Qi obviously got the geography wrong. Zhending is in Zhenzhou, the county where the Zhenzhou government office is located, not Dingzhou. Moreover, "the rebellious city of Zhending" is obviously a map cannon, which immediately angered Li Siyuan. He immediately issued an imperial edict: "Khitan is the evil party, Zhending is not a rebellious city. Li Qi will be fined one month's salary!"

Not long after, the founding hero Huo Yanwei passed away. Li Qi was ordered to write the "Huo Yanwei Shendao Stele". When briefly describing Huo Yanwei's resume, he did not add the word "fake" before the official position of the Later Liang Dynasty. His political opponents escalated the matter into an issue of political stance and Li Qi was determined to expose the truth.

If someone holds a magnifying glass and nitpicks at a person, taking his words out of context, they will always find some inappropriate remarks in his words, which will then be blown out of proportion and all kinds of accusations will be made against him. This kind of life is extremely painful.

Not long after, Li Qi died of illness at the age of 60.

崔协
Cui Xie was born into a prominent family, the Qinghe Cui family. His father was Cui Yanrong, who was very close to Cui Rao. When Cui Yanrong was the magistrate of Wannian County, Cui Rao came to pay him a visit and accidentally saw a bribe letter on the table. Cui Rao finally saw his true colors and the two parted ways from then on.

Later, Cui Yanrong entered the central government and was appointed as the Langzhong of Sixun, while Cui Luo was promoted to the position of Shangshu Zuocheng. Cui Yanrong went to pay a visit to him, but Cui Luo refused to meet him and even exposed Cui Yanrong's dark history. The prime minister learned about it and demoted Cui Yanrong from the court and sent him to be the governor of Chuzhou. He eventually died in office as the governor of Chuzhou and never got a promotion in his life.

Cui Yanrong hated Cui Luo so much that he warned his descendants before his death: "My family, from generation to generation, all of you, must remember Cui Luo's great vengeance!"

As the son of Cui Yanrong, Cui Xie remembered this feud. During the Later Liang Dynasty, Cui Xie was promoted to the position of Assistant Minister of the Ministry of War. One day, he met Cui Jujian, the son of Cui Ruo, the Secretary of the Central Secretariat, in the office. Regardless of the occasion and status, he cursed Cui Jujian. Cui Jujian, who was in the society, also cursed back. Both of them were demoted.

Not long after, Cui Xie was appointed as the Minister of Personnel again. After Li Cunxu founded the country, he appointed him as the Chief Censor.

(End of this chapter)