History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 415 Diplomatic Crisis 2
An Zhonghui and Han Mei's wishful thinking was to create a diplomatic incident, anger Qian Liu, and make him complain about the court. Seeing that this farce was about to end, An Zhonghui was unwilling to accept it, so he made a desperate move.

After Han Mei came back, she immediately made a false accusation, saying that Qian Liu was a separatist and hegemonic ruler who had no regard for the imperial court. If the envoys of the Later Tang Dynasty flattered him, they would receive a large amount of rewards, otherwise they would have to face his cold butt. She also said that in order to please Qian Liu, Wu Zhaoyu actually performed the great ceremony of kneeling three times and kowtowed nine times to Qian Liu, and even pledged his loyalty to Qian Liu, and even revealed all the information about the imperial court to Qian Liu, just to get a little reward.

Qian Liu did give Wu Zhaoyu a large amount of rewards, but very little to Han Mei. This was because Han Mei bullied Wu Zhaoyu and Qian Liu couldn't stand it, so he treated Wu Zhaoyu well and Han Mei coldly.

Han Mei falsely accused Wu Zhaoyu of being a traitor who sold out state secrets, and portrayed herself as Su Wu who did not disgrace the country.

Li Siyuan was furious, so he ordered Wu Zhaoyu to commit suicide without further investigation. He also issued an edict to deprive Qian Liu of all his official positions and retire as a Grand Tutor. He also arrested all the officials including the envoys from Liangzhe in the Central Plains. Some people also said that Li Siyuan was unaware of this and that this series of orders were all "forged edicts" by An Zhonghui.

If you stay at home, disaster may come from the sky.

Qian Liu was shocked and hurriedly submitted a memorial to explain, and his son Qian Yuanguan and others also submitted memorials to defend themselves. However, these memorials were intercepted by An Zhonghui and fell into oblivion.

Although the imperial court did not send a single soldier to deprive Qian Liu of his title of governor and order him to retire, the power of this edict was far greater than that of thousands of troops. This meant that Qian Liu had lost his legitimate rule over the Liangzhe region, and the Liangzhe region was in danger of falling into civil war.

Of course, this approach was also extremely risky, because Qian Liu could take the opportunity to establish himself, or he could pay tribute to Huainan. The imperial edict of the Later Tang court was a loss of 800 to the enemy while hurting the enemy by 1,000.

Qian Liu had governed Liangzhe for more than 30 years, and his regime was extremely stable, with a strong mass base, and no civil strife broke out. Qian Liu could have been independent, but he was far-sighted and very pragmatic, and did not choose to proclaim himself emperor, but continued to appeal to the Later Tang court in a very pragmatic manner.

In the Liangzhe region, although he was only a king in name, he was actually no different from an emperor. There was no need for him to bear the political cost of rebellion for the nominal title of "emperor".

In the following year, chaos broke out within the Later Tang Dynasty, and An Zhonghui was killed. In February of the second year of Changxing (931), the Later Tang Dynasty sent envoys again to announce the restoration of all official positions and titles of Qian Liu, and explained that it was An Zhonghui who forged the imperial edict and blocked communications, and now he has been killed, hoping to restore the old friendship.

In the face of common interests, Li Siyuan and Qian Liu shook hands and made peace, returning to their former relationship.

The following year (932), Qian Liu was seriously ill. He summoned his ministers and said, "My time is coming to an end, but my sons are all ignorant and cowardly and can hardly accomplish anything great. Please recommend one another and see who can take over my position."

The generals wept and said, "Young Lord Qian Yuanguan is kind, filial, and has made great contributions. He is very famous. Who wouldn't want to support him?"

Qian Liu had previously stated that he would pass the throne to Qian Yuanguan, and this was also done through "democratic election". Now it is just a formality to pave the way for his son. Extras, please cooperate.

Qian Liu handed over the seal and other tokens of power to Qian Yuanguan, and said to him: "All the civil and military officials are willing to support you, you must be attentive!" Then he emphasized, "No matter how the dynasties in the Central Plains change, you must remember: respect the Central Plains!"

At the end of March, Qian Liu died of illness. He was 3 years old and left us too early. Upon hearing the bad news, the court of the Later Tang Dynasty suspended its meetings for seven days.

Being able to be "dismissed from court" after death was an extremely honorable thing in the feudal period, because not every minister could receive this honor.

Taking the Tang Dynasty as an example, generally speaking, it was civil and military officials above the third rank, and "casual officials" were no longer included. According to "Old Book of Tang", there were only about 60 people in the entire Tang Dynasty who enjoyed the qualification to withdraw from court, including famous officials such as Wei Zheng, Di Renjie, and Guo Ziyi.

Moreover, there are strict etiquette regulations on the length of time for which the court was suspended, which is generally one, two, three, five or seven days. The most common type of court was "three days", followed by "one day", which together accounted for 90% of the total. Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui, who are well-known to us, suspended the court for three days, while Wei Zheng suspended the court for five days. When Qian Liu died, Li Siyuan suspended the court for seven days for him, which was the highest honor, enough for him to brag about in the underworld.

The Taichang Liyuan was responsible for deliberating the ceremony of adjourning court. The "Ceremony of Adjourning Court" reflected the strictness of the feudal hierarchy. It also became a management tool for the emperor to commend those who were loyal to the emperor and patriotic.

The ritual system is a management tool, not a tool for expressing emotions. It cannot truly reflect the inner world of the monarch. For example, when Yang Shihou died, Zhu Youzhen stopped attending court for three days and was so grief-stricken that he secretly held a party and reveled all night.

Qian Liu fought in battles for a long time when he was young, and developed strict and almost abnormal military habits. For example, he was very alert and never dared to relax for a moment. He never took off his armor. Whenever he wanted to rest, he would rearrange his armor to always stay in combat mode.

In order to keep himself alert at all times, Qian Liu also invented a "warning pillow", which was a piece of round wood as a pillow with bells hanging on both sides of the pillow. In this way, as long as he tilted his head slightly, his head would slide off the pillow, triggering the copper bells and waking up.

Later, the story of him using the "alert pillow" became widely circulated among the people. As it was passed around, the story spread that Qian Liu never slept, and finally he was nicknamed "The Sleepless Dragon".

The legend of the "Never Sleeping Dragon" spread to the outside world. During the Later Jin Dynasty, Khitan envoys visited the Central Plains. During their visit, they asked Qian Liu about his recent situation with great curiosity, "Hey, is the 'Never Sleeping Dragon' still staying up all night?" They only knew that there was a "Never Sleeping Dragon", but they didn't know that the "Never Sleeping Dragon" had died many years ago.

Qian Liu's maids had a special job. They took turns every two hours and were on duty outside the door. As long as someone reported military intelligence, they would ring the bell to wake Qian Liu up so that he could handle military affairs at any time.

Whenever it was late at night and everyone was asleep, Qian Liu would wander around and randomly throw bullets outside the wall building to test the reaction of the night shift sentries.

During the "Xu-Xu Rebellion", Qian Liu climbed the city wall himself under the cover of night and encountered no obstruction. When he climbed up the wall, he saw the sentry on duty sleeping soundly while leaning against the warning drum. As a result, Qian Liu killed him on the spot.

There is a poem saying:

"The wind blew through the tattered curtains in the bedroom, and my pillow tilted until late at night.

We all know that the dragon does not sleep, and the copper balls will be heard from across the wall. "

The first sentence says that Qian Liu advocated frugality and was unwilling to replace the curtains on his bed even though they were torn.

Qian Liu's wife, Wu, was also very kind and frugal. It is said that when she wanted to go to Fengguo Temple to worship Buddha, Qian Liu prepared 100 pieces of silk for her as alms, but Wu refused.

Qian Liu and Wu had a deep relationship. Wu would return to her hometown in Lin'an every spring, while Qian Liu stayed in Hangzhou to handle official business. Once, Qian Liu missed Wu so much that he sent someone to deliver a love letter with only nine words on it:
"The flowers are blooming on the street, and you can return home slowly."

When Su Dongpo was working in Hangzhou, he admired Qian Liu so much that he wrote three poems titled "Flowers on the Road". The phrase "Flowers on the Road" has been passed down to this day. When you use "Flowers on the Road" to flirt or post on your Moments to show off your literary talent, don't forget that the copyright belongs to Comrade Qian Liu.

(End of this chapter)