History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 362 Worried
[overwhelmed]

Li Siyuan had a very difficult life. With only a few thousand troops under his direct control, he overthrew the son of the founder of the Hedong Group and changed the world as an adopted son. He had no soldiers and no money, and he had to clean up the mess left by Li Cunxu. However, in just one or two years, he put the group on the right track, completed the transfer of supreme power relatively smoothly, and ushered in a short period of peace and prosperity.

While he was pushing forward various reform measures, the domestic and international environment was not stable. Previous legacy issues gradually surfaced, rebellions broke out everywhere, and while he was trying to suppress one problem, another one arose.

Li Siyuan could only deal with the situation as it came. This was a severe test for a 60-year-old man, both physically and mentally. Because of this, Li Siyuan died in the capital Luoyang seven and a half years after he became emperor due to ineffective medical treatment.

The domestic and international situation at the beginning of his reign really made Li Siyuan anxious:

1. Xiangzhou Shannan East Road

Liu Xun, the governor of Shannan East Road in Xiangzhou, was originally the captain of the cavalry of Li Keyong. During the period of Li Cunxu, he was promoted from governor to governor of Xiangzhou. When the news of the "Xingjiaomen Rebellion" came, Liu Xun took advantage of the opportunity that the capital had no leader and the world was in chaos to massacre the entire family of Hu Zhuang, the deputy governor, and falsely accused Hu Zhuang of treason in order to avenge personal grudges. Those who heard about it felt wronged.

After Li Siyuan proclaimed himself emperor, he first suspended Liu Xun's work and asked his trusted confidant An Zhonghui to serve as the governor of Xiangzhou remotely. An Zhonghui believed that Shannan East Road was an important city of the empire and someone must be in charge in person, not remotely, so he refused to accept the position.

Therefore, Li Siyuan restored Liu Xun to his post, let him return to Xiangzhou, and restored his original name "Liu Xun" (previously given the name Li Shaogong by Li Cunxu).

Liu Xun took advantage of the chaos to exterminate the Hu Zhuang clan, which was one of the disturbances during the period when Li Siyuan ascended the throne. This Hu Zhuang clan whose entire family was executed is also worth mentioning:
Hu Zhuang was the grandson of Hu Zeng, a great Tang Dynasty poet. Hu Zeng failed the imperial examinations many times during the reign of Emperor Yizong. In a fit of anger, he wrote the famous poem "Failing the Imperial Examination": "New laurels bloom every year in Shanglin, and ordinary people are not allowed to pick even one branch." Later, he became a "Beijing Drifter" and lived in Chang'an. He repeated his studies for many years and finally passed the imperial examination.

During the internal strife of the "Baoyan Party", Wei Baoheng expelled Lu Yan from the court and sent him to be the governor of Xichuan. Lu Yan summoned Hu Zeng to be his chief secretary. Later, when Gao Pian was stationed in Xichuan, Hu Zeng became Gao Pian's chief secretary. During the "Huang Chao Rebellion", Hu Zeng followed Gao Pian to Jingnan. It is said that when he realized that Gao Pian had a rebellious heart, he left without saying goodbye and lived in his hometown until the end of his life.

Hu Zeng wrote 150 quatrains, which were compiled into the famous Poems on History. The Complete Tang Poems recorded one volume of his poems, and Hu Zeng was also selected into the Biography of Tang Talents.

In the previous article, Wang Zongyan was dissolute and immoral, and the eunuch Song Guangpu advised him against it with a poem called "Gusu Terrace", "I didn't realize the moon was rising over the Qiantang River, sending the Yue soldiers westward all night", the author of this poem is Hu Zeng.

However, his grandson, Comrade Hu Zhuang, was really good at pretending. His knowledge was quite average, not to mention compared with his grandfather Hu Zeng, even compared with ordinary people. However, in the late Tang Dynasty, when birth and family background were important, the saying "descendant of Liu Sheng, King Jing of Zhongshan" was popular, so Hu Zhuang pretended to be a grandson everywhere by claiming to be "grandson of Hu Zeng".

When Yang Shihou was in charge of Weizhou, the deputy governor was called Li Siye, who was an old friend of Hu Zhuang. So Hu Zhuang went to pay a visit to him and got a small job as the magistrate of Guixiang County by relying on his connections and backdoors. Zhu Youzhen's division of Weizhou triggered a mutiny by the Weizhou Yinqiang Xiejie Army. The young general Zhang Yanju surrendered Weizhou to Li Cunxu. During the mutiny, Li Siye was killed. When the tree fell, the monkeys scattered. Hu Zhuang, who relied on Li Siye's connections, was gloriously laid off.

After Li Cunxu took over Weizhou, Hu Zhuang, the "great-grandson of Hu", went to pay a visit and ask for an official position. However, Sikong Yan, who was helping Li Cunxu to manage Weizhou at that time, was reluctant to grant him an official position because Hu Zhuang had a bad reputation in Guixiang County and was corrupt and had bad behavior. Hu Zhuang was anxious, "Are you still being reasonable? There are so many corrupt officials in the world, why do you have to pick on me?"

When Li Cunxu was about to return to Taiyuan, Hu Zhuang went to "stop the carriage and complain about his wronged intentions". The old security guard forbad him to enter. Hu Zhuang forced his way through the checkpoint and went straight to Li Cunxu's office, shouting, "I am the grandson of Hu Zeng, a famous poet of the Tang Dynasty! Your Majesty has inherited the Tang Dynasty and is looking for the sons of Tang officials. I am him. Although I don't have any extraordinary talents, I am still quite capable compared to those ordinary people. But why am I not valued and suppressed and excluded? I might as well die here today!"

He made a big scene, cried, made a scene, and even hanged himself. Li Cunxu was shocked and thought, what the hell is this? So he comforted him, "I really didn't know before. If you have something to say, just say it. Why do you have to do this? You are looking for death... Come on, have some wine, eat something, and talk it over."

Li Cunxu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. After sending him away, he said to Guo Chongtao, "You can arrange something for him to do."

Guo Chongtao arranged a post for Hu Zhuang as an inspector of the post stations, which is equivalent to today's police; soon after, he was granted the post of Li Xing, a censor, with the same job responsibilities as the censor, but with a reduced salary; later, he was successively promoted to inspector of the Jiedushi and then to prosecutor of the Jiedushi.

Hu Zhuang also wanted to emulate his grandfather and become a great poet praised by the world, so he wrote poems wherever he went. However, his poetry level was only “haha”. Historical records show that he “learned calligraphy without a teacher, and wrote poems without being the author”. He also insisted on signing his official title at the end of his poems and emphasized that he was the grandson of Hu Zeng. Hu Zeng was completely disgraced by this grandson.

Everyone treated his poems as a joke, and some even laughed at him in person, but he didn't feel ashamed at all, he was really thick-skinned.

The only thing that made him feel ashamed was that his rank was too low. When he drank with his colleagues, they all had gold seals and purple ribbons, but he only had a silver seal and green ribbon. They all had epic purple equipment, but he only had small green equipment, which was embarrassing.

When Li Cunxu was passing through Weizhou on his way to Deshengjiacheng, he drank with his staff on the city wall. After the banquet, everyone left, except Hu Zhuang, who stayed at the table.

Li Cunxu glanced at him from the corner of his eye, "Why don't you leave?"

Hu Zhuang presented three poems, praising Li Cunxu's merits and flattering him in order to seek promotion.

Li Cunxu picked up an oversized wine glass and asked, "Can you do it?"

Hu Zhuang had a low alcohol tolerance and rarely drank at ordinary times, but he took the wine and drank it all. Li Cunxu immediately took off his purple robe and gave it to him. One glass of wine in exchange for a purple cloak.

After Li Cunxu became emperor, he promoted Hu Zhuang to Jieshizhong and summoned him to Luoyang. Not long after, drought and floods hit the court, and Li Cunxu was short of money and food, and could not even pay the salaries of civil servants. So Hu Zhuang took the initiative to request to be sent out as the deputy envoy of Xiangzhou Jiedushi to make a living in Xiangzhou.

From this, we can see that Hu Zhuang is not only ignorant, uncultured, and shameless, but also unwilling to endure hardship, greedy for comfort and enjoyment, extremely immoral, and always flaunts his family background and superiority by claiming to be the grandson of the great Tang Dynasty poet Hu Zeng. His superior, the Jiedushi Liu Xun, is a warrior who came from a commoner family, so conflicts between the two are inevitable.

Therefore, when Li Cunxu encountered the "Xingjiaomen Rebellion", Liu Xun directly massacred the entire Hu family.

(End of this chapter)