History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 603: Young Emperor's Northern Hunt 2
They then continued their journey and after five or six days they arrived at Haibei Prefecture, where Yelu Bei's tomb was located. The Khitans asked Shi Yanxu to go and pay homage.

After walking for about another twenty days, we finally arrived at the final destination, Huanglongfu.

The peace lasted less than half a year. In June, the Khitan Empress Dowager Shulü ordered Shi Chonggui and others to move to Huaimi Prefecture, which was more than a thousand miles northwest of Huanglongfu.

When Shi Chonggui and others were ordered to go to Liaoyang, major changes occurred within the Khitan. Yelu Deguang died of illness, Yelu Ruan ascended the throne, and imprisoned Empress Dowager Shulü. This story will be described in detail later.

After Yelu Ruan ascended the throne, he ordered Shi Chonggui and others to stay in Liaoyang. Shi Chonggui sent an envoy to congratulate Yelu Ruan on his ascension to the throne. Yelu Ruan was very happy and showed great mercy, providing daily supplies for Shi Chonggui's family.

In April of the following year (948), Yelu Ruan came to Liaoyang, and Shi Chonggui and the empress dowager paid him a visit. Shi Chonggui was still wearing plain clothes, and Yelu Ruan could not bear it, so he asked him to change into ordinary clothes.

Shi Chonggui fell to the ground and cried bitterly, repenting for his past. Yelu Ruan ordered people to help him up, comforted him for a long time, and then set up a banquet and watched singing and dancing with him. All the Han surrendered generals, eunuchs, and actors present could not help but shed two lines of tears after seeing Shi Chonggui, and gave him clothes, medicine and other items.

I wonder whether Yelu Ruan prepared Han Chinese songs and dances for Shi Chonggui, whether he would ask him "Do you miss Jin?" and whether Shi Chonggui would answer "The music here does not make me miss Jin."

When Yelu Ruan left, he took away Shi Chonggui's fifteen eunuchs and fifteen actors, as well as the prince Shi Yanxu. Yelu Ruan's elder brother-in-law Chuonuoxili (also known as "Channu") took a fancy to Shi Chonggui's youngest daughter, so he asked Shi Chonggui for her. Shi Chonggui refused on the grounds that she was still young and not of marriageable age.

Chuonoxili asked Shi Chonggui for several of the singing and dancing girls around him, and Shi Chonggui had no choice but to give them up with reluctance.

However, Chuonuoxili still couldn't let go of Shi Chonggui's little daughter, so he complained to Yelu Ruan. Yelu Ruan was furious and said that Shi Chonggui was just a captive, and you are the uncle of the Liao Dynasty, this kid really doesn't know how to respect you! Then he brought people to Shi Chonggui's home, forcibly abducted the little daughter, and gave her to Chuonuoxili.

In August, Yelu Ruan returned from summer vacation. Empress Dowager Li personally visited her and asked for a few acres of land outside Haner City so that she and her son could cultivate and support themselves. Yelu Ruan agreed and let Shi Chonggui and his mother move to Jianzhou (now Chaoyang County, Liaoning Province), and gave them a few acres of land to support themselves and work hard.

On the way to Jianzhou, Concubine An (Shi Jingru's wife and Shi Chonggui's mother) had been blind before coming to the North. She was weak and sickly, and could not stand such hardships. She finally fell ill. On her deathbed, she said to Shi Chonggui: "Cremate me on the spot and scatter my ashes to the south. In this way, my soul will follow this energy back to the Central Plains."

However, the area around was entirely desert, with no grass or other fire-starting materials. So Shi Chonggui dismantled the car and took her ashes to Jianzhou.

From Liaoyang to Jianzhou, it was another 1,200 miles. After arriving in Jianzhou, the Jiedushi Zhao Yanhui (son of Zhao Siwen, brother of Zhao Yanzhao, and also not the same kind as Zhao Yanshou) treated the emperor in distress with great respect, vacated his own bedroom to entertain Shi Chonggui, and then waved his hand to allocate more than 5,000 hectares of land.

With more than 5,000 hectares of land, Shi Chonggui can finally support his entire family.

As soon as they settled down, the Khitan nobles, led by Chuonuoxili, came to Shi Chonggui's house to snatch women, including Shi Chonggui's favorite concubines Zhao and Nie. Shi Chonggui was "indignant", but he could do nothing. At the same time, Queen Mother Li fell ill. The Khitans did not even provide food, let alone medicine. The Queen Mother could only waste away her illness, and after half a year, she was finally incurable. The daughter of Li Siyuan, the wife of Shi Jingtang, and the Queen Mother of the Jin Dynasty could only lie in bed and wait for death.

She wept bitterly and looked up to the sky. Before she died, she used her last bit of strength to look south and cursed Du Chongwei and Li Shouzhen, "If there is no underworld after death, it's fine; but if there really is an underworld, I will definitely go to the King of Hell to sue you!" Then she said to Shi Chonggui, "After I die, no matter what, you must send my ashes to the Fanyang Buddhist Temple (located in Youzhou). It is in the Central Plains after all. Don't let me be a lonely ghost in a barbarian land!"

He died after he finished speaking.

Shi Chonggui, Empress Feng, palace maids, eunuchs and others, with their hair loose and barefoot, carried the coffin to the field given to them, cremated the empress dowager's body, and buried it together with Concubine An's ashes.

Empress Feng, during the move, planned to commit suicide by taking poison with Shi Chonggui. She sent people to help find the poison, but they never found it, so she did not die. Her final fate also became a mystery, and history books only said that her whereabouts were unknown.

By the end of the Qing Dynasty, according to Han people who came to the Central Plains from Khitan, Shi Chonggui, Empress Feng, and the princes were still alive and well.

How long did Shi Chonggui live in Khitan?

According to the Records of the Jin Dynasty's Conquest of the Barbarians written by Fan Zhi, Shi Chonggui lived in Jianzhou for 18 years until the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty. When the Later Jin Dynasty fell, Fan Zhi was a Hanlin scholar, and it was he who drafted the letter of surrender between Shi Chonggui and Empress Dowager Li. As an important witness to the fall of the Later Jin Dynasty, he knew some inside stories that others did not know.

The Old History of the Five Dynasties gave a fair evaluation of Shi Chonggui, saying that he was "average talent", which means that he was neither extremely smart nor mentally retarded, but just an average person. His ability was not outstanding, and he might have been able to make do as a Taiping emperor, but he was unlucky, "the successor of a career that was about to fall was not blessed by heaven", and he was unlucky, and he encountered natural disasters year after year. At this time, he turned against a powerful country and went to war. He was even more close to villains and alienated wise ministers, and did not listen to loyal advice and good strategies.

"If you indulge in extravagance and debauchery, you will feel as safe as Mount Tai; if you entrust your money to the wrong person, you will suffer humiliation in Pingyang." In the end, "the family will travel thousands of miles, and they will grow old and live in poverty and desolation."

Finally, the Old History of the Five Dynasties said sourly, "Since ancient times, no emperor who lost his country has been as ugly as Emperor (Shi Chonggui)." It said that Shi Chonggui was the most miserable emperor who lost his country since ancient times. It also added, "After thousands of years, how can he be ashamed? How sad." This is somewhat sarcastic and makes fun of others.

It is worth noting that the Old History of the Five Dynasties was written in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, so it says "no one is as miserable as the emperor". If it was written later, it would not say so. Because the two emperors Huizong and Qinzong in the late Northern Song Dynasty were even more miserable than Shi Chonggui.

There is an old saying among the people: Don't laugh at the lame and the blind before you reach 88. You also said that "a thousand years later", but it won't take a thousand years, but more than a hundred years later, people will laugh at your Song Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)