History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 726: Horses Fighting for the Stable 3
Faced with Ma Xifan's absurd practices, there were also righteous censors in the court who spoke out and advised him frankly.

For example, Comrade Tuoba Heng, a founding hero. Tuoba Heng was not a Xianbei. His original surname was "Yuan", but he changed it to avoid taboos (Ma Yin's father Ma Yuanfeng). I just don't understand why he was so different. Tuoba Heng followed Ma Yin a long time ago, gave Ma Yin advice, and made great contributions to the establishment of Southern Chu.

When Ma Xifan established the government, he appointed Tuoba Heng, Liao Kuangtu and 18 other people as scholars of the Tiance Palace, among whom Tuoba Heng ranked first.

Seeing that Ma Xifan was so corrupt, Tuoba Heng could not help but write a petition to persuade him, saying that Your Highness had grown up in the deep palace since he was a child, and had not experienced the training of his fathers. He did not know the hard work of farming, nor the sound of war drums. He spent all day in the palace with carved beams and painted rafters, seeking pleasure, not striving for progress, indulging in wine and women, and living a life of luxury. Seeing that the national treasury was about to be squandered, you not only did not know how to restrain yourself, but instead imposed heavy taxes and sold official positions;
Now, we are surrounded by powerful enemies. Huainan is our sworn enemy; Southern Han also has ambitions to devour us; Jingnan is monitoring our every move day and night; and the barbarians in the west are also waiting for us to relax. As the saying goes, cold feet hurt the heart, and people's resentment hurts the country...

At the end of the memorial, Tuoba Heng pleaded with Ma Xifan to cancel excessive taxes and levies and stop large-scale construction projects, otherwise if something bad happened, they would be ridiculed by neighboring countries.

Ma Xifan was very angry after seeing this and did not respond.

Tuoba Heng simply went to Ma Xifan in person to talk to him face to face.

When Ma Xifan heard that it was him, he hurriedly ordered the guard: Don't let him in, I don't want to see him.

Tuoba Heng waited outside the door for a long time, but was still refused an audience. Finally, Tuoba Heng shook his head and sighed, and said to the guard: "The king is willful and doesn't listen to honest advice. I think the Ma family is about to face a disaster!"

After hearing this, Ma Xifan became even angrier and issued an order: I will never see him again in my life!
Ding Sijin, originally a general under Ma Yin, was very talented. He also wrote a memorial to persuade the king, saying that the previous king started from scratch as a small soldier, survived many dangers and hardships, and finally established this foundation, with thousands of miles of land and 100,000 soldiers. Today, the emperor is in trouble (referring to the Jin-Liao War). You should send troops to Jingxiang and go to Beijing to defend the king, which has become the hegemony of Duke Huan of Qi and Duke Wen of Jin! And what are you doing now? You are wasting state funds and spending money on civil engineering, and you are indulging in sensual pleasures!
Ma Xifan was furious and ordered the removal of Ding Sijin from all official positions and titles.

Ding Sijin also risked his life, staring at Ma Xifan fiercely with angry eyes (this was a capital crime at the time), and after a long while, he squeezed out a sentence from between his teeth, "This brat is incorrigible!"

After returning home, Ding Sijin was extremely lonely. He said to his family in grief and anger: "Confucius said, 'A gentleman hates to die without leaving a good name.' It means that a gentleman is most afraid of dying without leaving a good reputation. Now, the world is in chaos and I can't make any achievements. Am I greedy for these few shabby houses?"

His family tried to comfort him, but Ding Sijin had already closed his eyes and stopped talking, only tears silently flowed from his eyes. He missed the late king Ma Yin, and the days when they fought side by side and made great achievements. He didn't want to see the young master sink, and he didn't want to see the Ma family's foundation destroyed, but that day would soon come. He really couldn't bear to see it with his own eyes.

When the night was quiet, Ding Sijin committed suicide with infinite regret and unwillingness.

Tuoba Heng and Ding Sijin were both heroes of the founding of the country, veteran revolutionaries who had followed Ma Yin to conquer the world, and respected old comrades. Ma Xifan did not dare to physically eliminate them, but he was not so polite to others.

Dai Yan, a famous cultural influencer and hermit in Southern Chu, called himself Xuanhuangziren. His ancestral home was Shengzhou (now Nanjing, Jiangsu Province). He fled to Xiangyin (now Xiangyin County, Hunan Province) to avoid the war in the late Tang Dynasty. Therefore, some historical materials (such as "Zizhi Tongjian") generally say that he is from Xiangyin. This gentleman is good at reciting poems and writing lyrics, especially good at satirical poems. In today's words, he is a qualified network troll and keyboard warrior. He witnessed the changes of the people of Hunan from prosperity to decline and saw that the people were living in dire straits, so he wrote a hundred poems satirizing current affairs with a big stroke of his pen, bound them into a book, and named it "Fisherman's Poems".

One day, Comrade Ma Xifan accidentally read the "Black Chu Bible" "Fisherman's Poems", and he couldn't help but get furious. He turned around and asked his attendants: "Who is Dai Yan?"

The people around him didn't know his true intention, whether he wanted to recruit talents regardless of their background or to retaliate, so they answered in a neutral way: "He is a poet with many fans, but he lives in poverty. Your Majesty, just give him a position as a military officer or a chief clerk."

After hearing what his attendants said, Ma Xifan suddenly understood and said, "Yes, yes, he should be given an official position. Since he wrote the poem "Fisherman", I will allow him to go fishing." He then ordered Dai Yan's family to be placed under house arrest in Bixiang Lake, and at the same time issued a secret order to the guarding officers and soldiers: no one is allowed to approach them (no public or private communication is allowed)!

In other words, Ma Xifan wanted to starve Dai Yan's family to death.

There are several different versions about Dai Yan's fate. One is that he starved to death in Bixiang Lake.
The second story says that when they were about to starve to death, Dai Yan called his wife and children to his side and said, "Let's escape separately. Whoever survives will survive." The couple had a son and a daughter. The old couple rolled the dice, and in the end the son ran away with his mother and the daughter ran away with Dai Yan. Then Dai Yan successfully escaped from Bixiang Lake with his daughter, and disappeared from then on under an assumed name.
There is also a third version, which is a sequel to the second version. It says that Dai Yan took his daughter all the way south, intending to seek refuge in Lingnan. When he fled to Yongzhou, he heard the good news that Ma Xifan had passed away.

Extravagance and indulgence in wine and sex are inseparable. These two hobbies will inevitably lead to fiscal deficits. The way to deal with fiscal deficits is to shift the oppression and let the people of the country pay for it. Upright officials will inevitably advise, but the "second generation" almost refuses to listen...

This is the general routine of "the second generation ruling the country". In the standard set meal of "the second generation ruling the country", there is also an indispensable last dish, which is suspicion of the old nobles and clans. Ma Xifan certainly did it.

The first person to be included in Ma Xifan’s cleanup list was Ma Xiwang.

Ma Xiwang is Ma Xisheng's half-brother, his mother is Yuan; Ma Xifan's biological mother is Chen. Ma Xisheng and Ma Xifan were born on the same day of the same month of the same year. However, Yuan was more favored than Chen, and the son was favored by the mother. Ma Xisheng, the second son of the concubine, successfully squeezed out the eldest son Ma Xizhen, and caused Ma Xizhen to die inexplicably.

When the ministers supported Ma Xisheng to become the emperor, his eldest son Ma Xizhen had already passed away, so they recommended Ma Xisheng to succeed to the throne according to the order of seniority. Ma Xisheng and Yuan accepted it calmly without any courtesy or politeness.

This made Ma Xifan, who was born on the same day, very unhappy.

(End of this chapter)