History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 490: One Word Destroys a Nation 2
To be honest, Li Congke had never lost his temper this much, especially after becoming the emperor, and when he was still sober and not drunk...

The two were confused by the scolding, because the idea of ​​"marriage for peace" was proposed by Xue Wenyu to Li Congke, and the two knew nothing about it. So they could not understand what Li Congke said, such as "My daughter is young, and you are selling her to barbarians".

But they still accurately summed up the emperor's central idea, which was to oppose the alliance with Khitan. At the same time, the two also understood fear.

The two men were sweating profusely and knelt down and kowtowed in a hurry, stating that they were completely standing on the perspective of the Later Tang Dynasty and considering maximizing the interests of the Later Tang Dynasty. They had no intention of selling out their country and it was even more impossible for them to fight for interests for the barbarians. Please understand, Your Majesty!

Li Congke had no intention of listening to the two's explanation. His anger only grew, and he roared, cursed, and swore.

Lu Qi was so frightened that he almost had an asthma attack. He gasped for breath and kowtowed a little slowly.

Li Congke pointed at Lu Qi and cursed: "Lu Qi, you have always been arrogant and stubborn. It is clear that you do not regard me as the emperor!"

Lu Qi apologized and said, "We are stupid and dull, lacking in strategy. We are willing to obey the emperor's orders. What's the point of kowtowing more?"

Li Congke was tired of scolding them and his anger eased a little, so he graciously allowed them to stop kowtowing, gave each of them a glass of wine to calm their nerves, and then let them go home.

Later, Lü Qi was appointed as the Chief Censor. The Chief Censor's office was the Censorate, which was outside the palace and could not enter the palace, which meant that he was alienated by Li Congke.

Li Congke scolded and alienated Li Song and Lu Qi, sending a strong political signal to the outside world: anyone who advocated maintaining friendly relations with the Khitan was a traitor; anyone who advocated a tough attitude towards the Khitan was a loyal minister.

From then on, no one dared to mention the alliance with Khitan. The failure of the normalization of diplomatic relations between the Later Tang and Khitan provided objective conditions for Shi Jingtang, Zhao Dejun and others to collude with Khitan and rebel.

How chaotic was Li Congke's civil service group? Shi Zaide, the Minister of Rites, provided us with a reference.

In March of the second year of Qingtai (935), a memorial submitted by Shi Zai De shocked the court and the public. In this memorial, Shi Zai De launched a fierce attack on the current political situation, scolding almost all the civil and military officials in the court. The content was explosive:
"…Those who are called warriors are always busy with strategies. Although they are armed with weapons, they will abandon their armor when fighting and will leave the army when they are in trouble. Those who are called scholars have few skills and most of them have no conduct. When asked about strategies, they keep silent and ask others to write for them. It is said that they have set up people for nothing and waste the country's strength."

——The military generals knew how to run away when fighting, and defected when they couldn’t run away; the civil officials were uneducated and immoral, not to mention they had no strategy to stabilize the country, they even needed to find ghostwriters to write official documents. The court was simply a bunch of useless people who just wanted to eat for free.

Subsequently, Shi Zai De suggested conducting a comprehensive assessment and a major reshuffle to remove the useless personnel and promote the lower-level talents.

Prime Minister Lu Wenji and others were furious and instructed the censors Liu Tao and Yang Zhaojian to submit a memorial accusing Shi Zai De of his mistakes; the Secretariat also submitted a memorial to refute the accusation.

Shi Zai De challenged all the civil and military officials in the court. Although his words were rather fierce, Shi Zai De pointed out the current situation of Li Congke's group, saying that the top think tanks in the country were full of unqualified people. However, Li Congke actually withstood the pressure from all the civil and military officials in the court, supported Shi Zai De, and even used the story of Wei Zheng and Emperor Taizong of Tang as an analogy. He said that even if Shi Zai De used inappropriate words and exaggerated words, he should not be punished for his words. If I punish Shi Zai De today, who will dare to speak the truth in the future?
So he issued an imperial edict to criticize the censors Liu Tao, Yang Zhaojian and others, saying that Huangfu De, a small county magistrate in Shan County, had also submitted a memorial to criticize the current politics. His words were fierce, he abused and slandered, and he had no courtesy as a minister. He should be killed. However, Wei Zheng advised Emperor Taizong to pardon him. Comrade Wei Zheng said, "Even if what he said is wrong, we can just not accept it. Why do we have to kill him?" Whenever I read this history, I think Comrade Wei Zheng is great. But what about you? Faced with similar things, Liu Tao and others actually advised me to kill those who wrote letters to express their opinions. You are both censors in the court. Why is there such a big gap between you and Wei Zheng?

"After reading Wenzhen's words, I pardoned Zaide's sin."

Therefore, some materials praised Li Congke, saying that he was receptive to good advice, open-minded and learned from Wei Zheng and Emperor Taizong of Tang... Then how do we explain his criticism and alienation of Li Song and Lu Qi?

In fact, Li Congke's support for Shi Zai De was an attempt to "borrow someone else's strength" and use Shi Zai De to wage a relatively mild political struggle.

Li Congke usurped the throne, but he himself lacked sufficient confidence. He was most afraid of disapproval from the civil and military officials, just like he later yelled at Lu Qi when he got angry, "Don't take me lightly!"

Although the civil and military officials shouted "Long live Li Congke" on the surface, they never accepted Li Congke in their hearts. The vertical depth of Li Congke's group in the court was far from enough.

At this time, Shi Zai De suddenly appeared. He was not afraid of the powerful and was fully armed against the civil and military officials in the court. He was exactly the chess piece that Li Congke needed. Li Congke showed his respect to Emperor Taizong of Tang and personally endorsed Shi Zai De, fearing that Shi Zai De would be silenced. "Brother, go ahead!"

Many times, there are many words and many things that the big leaders want to do but are not convenient to do. At this time, someone is needed to stand up for the big leaders and help them speak and do things.

Therefore, Li Congke's "readiness to accept good" was just a character setting of the emperor, and it was just a facade.

In sharp contrast to Li Congke’s group is Shi Jingtang’s team in Hedong.

Li Congke repeatedly stated publicly that Shi Jingtang was his relative and comrade-in-arms, and that he trusted him very much. He said he trusted him, but his body was honest. He used Zhang Jingda and Liu Yanhao to drive a wedge into his heart, and used the "policy-based appropriation" strategy to kill three birds with one stone to cut off the source of the fire in Hedong. At the banquet, he spoke the truth after drinking, saying that he had determined that Shi Jingtang was going to rebel...

Shi Jingtang would not remain indifferent.

On this day, Shi Jingtang seemed to be chatting casually, and told his staff and guests an interesting story: "I had a very strange dream recently. I dreamed that when I was in Luoyang, I was riding side by side with the emperor one day, and suddenly passed by the old house where the emperor lived before he ascended the throne. The emperor was in high spirits and suddenly invited me to visit. I repeatedly declined, but it was really hard to refuse his kindness, so I turned my horse's head and entered the house. I rode my horse all the way to the door of the hall. I got off the horse, walked up the steps, entered the hall, and sat on the east side. At this time, I suddenly turned back. Guess what? Hey, the emperor had already galloped away. Haha, who among you can interpret dreams? Help me analyze what this dream means?"

None of the staff members present dared to retort, and everyone understood what Shi Jingtang meant.

Shi Jingtang pretended to have a dream and sent a strong signal to his subordinates: I am going to rebel, please help me make up some reliable excuses.

(End of this chapter)