History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 755 Li Jing ascends the throne
【Li Jing ascends the throne】

There is a reason why Li Jing was not well-received. Later generations generally believed that compared with his other brothers, Li Jing was not outstanding, rather clumsy, and cowardly. Although he was average in ability, he was ambitious and eventually led the Southern Tang Dynasty into an abyss of no return. Mainstream historical views all agree that although the Southern Tang Dynasty was destroyed by his son Li Yu, Li Yu was "not the king who lost the country but the one who deserved the fate of losing the country", and the real king who lost the Southern Tang Dynasty was Li Jing.

I have no objection to saying that he is average in ability, but it is questionable to say that he is weak. The external character of a politician is often a manifestation of his inner strength. No one wants to be a grandson, but they just don't have the ability to be a grandfather. For example, the emperors of the Central Plains we talked about before, such as Li Siyuan, Shi Jingtang, Liu Zhiyuan, and Guo Wei, which one of them was a good person? But after they became emperors, they compromised and gave in everywhere.

Of course, there were also those who tried to stop a chariot with their arms, such as Li Conghou. What was the result? He was overthrown after three months in office.

Through the above simple analysis of Xu Zhigao's five sons, it can be seen that Li Jing could not have strong power. And this is indeed the case. Even though Xu Zhigao had clearly designated Li Jing as the successor when he was dying, after his death, there were still powerful officials who planned to forge the edict to prevent Li Jing from inheriting the throne.

Li Jing's situation was precarious. Internally, he lacked the unanimous support of civil and military officials; externally, he did not have his own armed forces and revolutionary bases. His weakness and cowardice were forced because he needed the support of all parties too much. He dared not offend anyone. Although he was nominally the king of a country, in reality he was like the grandson of all parties.

After Xu Zhigao's death, Li Jing blocked the news from the outside world and issued an edict in the name of Xu Zhigao, "ordering Prince of Qi Li Jing to act as regent and grant amnesty to the whole country."

At this time, some people in the court began to get restless, such as Sun Sheng.

Sun Sheng was originally an official in the Central Plains. Later, he was involved in a political struggle (one says "Zhu Shouyin's Rebellion Case", another says "Li Congrong's Rebellion Case"). He deceived the pursuers by lifting his clothes to rub mud and catching lice with his bare hands, and escaped to Huainan. He eventually came to Xu Zhigao, who highly valued him. After Xu Zhigao became emperor, he promoted him to the position of Zhongshu Sheren, Hanlin Bachelor, and Zhongshu Shilang.

When forcing Yang Pu to abdicate, Sun Sheng firmly supported Xu Zhigao, actively gave Xu Zhigao advice, participated in many shameful conspiracies, and won Xu Zhigao's trust.

There is no doubt that Sun Sheng was a founding hero of the Southern Tang Dynasty and a close confidant of Xu Zhigao. We can call him the "former emperor's party". He was not on good terms with Li Jing's direct confidants (temporarily called the "prince party", such as Feng Yansi, Chen Jue, etc.). Sun Sheng despised Feng Yansi and others and publicly ridiculed and insulted them, saying that they were "dog shit in jade bowls and gold cups".

Feng Yansi also jokingly counterattacked, asking Sun Sheng: "You said I'm not capable, then what ability do you have to be qualified for your current high position (Secretary of the Central Secretariat)?"

Sun Sheng replied, "I was originally just a poor scholar from Shandong who had never seen the world. I am not as talented as you in writing, talking and laughing, or flattering others. That is why you were sent to the side of the King of Qi (Li Jing). The Emperor wanted you to teach him literature and morality, not to become his drinking buddy and indulge in sensual pleasures! Although I have no talent, I know how to be loyal and righteous. Unlike you, you can only bring disaster to the country!"

The conflict between Sun Sheng and Feng Yansi is well known, and neither of them can stand the other.

If Li Jing succeeded to the throne smoothly, then Feng Yansi and others from the "Prince Party" would inevitably seize power, which was something Sun Sheng did not want to see, so he had an evil idea. He colluded with several ministers and forged an edict, which basically allowed Queen Song to rule the country, and then asked Li Yiye, a Hanlin scholar who was responsible for drafting the edict, to review and sign it.

Li Yiye was shocked and shouted that it was impossible. He said that the late emperor had repeatedly emphasized that the harem's interference in politics was the source of chaos. Didn't you see what happened to Mrs. Zhong? How could he break the rules and let the queen come to power? This must have been forged by a treacherous villain! Besides, the crown prince is not young anymore (Li Jing was 28 years old at the time), so why does he need his mother to rule behind the curtain? If you dare to say that this is a real will, I will eat it in front of all the civil and military officials!
Li Yiye was the great-grandson of Li Wei, the prime minister during the reign of Emperor Xizong of the Tang Dynasty.

After Li Jing ascended the throne smoothly, he was very grateful for Li Yiye's integrity and praised him personally: "The strong wind reveals the strong grass, which is exactly what I mean, my dear minister!"

Sun Sheng was not giving up yet, and went to Queen Song to persuade her to attend court and govern the country.

Queen Song was a reasonable person. She said that this was a lesson from Wu Zetian. How could she repeat the same mistake? She refused to agree. Queen Song agreed with Xu Zhigao's approach of suppressing the royal family. After Li Jing ascended the throne, he often came to pay his respects to her. Every time they chatted, they talked about family matters and never about current affairs.

Queen Song had a nephew named Song E, who served in the army. However, because of his status as a "royal relative", he was never promoted (because he was a royal relative, his official position was not very high).

Sun Sheng hit a wall on both ends and finally gave up.

Six days after Xu Zhigao's death, Li Jing announced the sad news of the previous emperor's death and announced the will, but he was not in a hurry to hold the coronation ceremony, because the situation in Southern Tang was turbulent, and it was not just about "the queen mother ruling the country". He needed to determine the true attitude of the civil and military officials in the court. If everyone opposed him, he would take the initiative to withdraw from the competition, at least he could save his life, after all, strong competitors - Li Jingsui and Li Jingda were still there. Moreover, he was not at ease with the "queen mother ruling the country" because the will was still tampered with. Although the clause of "the queen mother ruling the country" was not added, the clause of "allowing the people to freely buy and sell their children" was added.

Since Xu Zhigao became the prime minister of Southern Wu, he has issued an order to ban human trafficking and prohibit the sale of children as slaves or maids. For the people, this is a great thing. Some people may have doubts, saying that those people who are about to starve to death are willing to sell their children, so why should the government ban it?

One of the reasons is that if the people really sold their children because they could not survive and were forced to do so, then the government should first reflect on why the people were so poor. For example, if they encountered a natural disaster, the government should provide disaster relief, rather than asking the people to save themselves by selling their children.

The second reason is that in many cases, the people were "forced to do so voluntarily", such as in the popular "White-Haired Girl", where the landlords and local officials colluded with each other, deliberately put the people in desperate situations, and then forced the people to "voluntarily" sell their children. They took advantage of the situation under the guise of legality, making the people miserable.

The third reason is that the legalization of human trafficking will inevitably lead to illegal trafficking. Criminals disguise the children they have abducted or stolen as their own children and sell them legally. Using the concept of "money laundering", we can call this practice "laundering people".

Therefore, Xu Zhigao's order to ban human trafficking was really a great thing for the people of the world!

However, the "princelings" Feng Yansi and Feng Yanlu added "allowing the people to freely buy and sell their children" to the will, with the intention of buying a few young and beautiful concubines for themselves...

As soon as the edict was issued, Xiao Yan immediately protested, insisting that it was tampered with by Feng Yansi and others and was definitely not the late emperor's will.

Li Jing asked him the reason.

Xiao Yan recalled: "This is not the first time that the Feng brothers have brought up this matter. Feng Yanlu once suggested that the late emperor resume the human trafficking. The late emperor asked for my opinion on this matter. I said to the late emperor at that time, 'When your majesty was the prime minister of Wu, you issued an order to ban human trafficking, and the government paid to redeem the children of poor people and return them to their parents. The people of the world praised your majesty for this. Now that you are the emperor, you let this kind of thing revive. Do you think it is appropriate?' Then the late emperor planned to punish Feng Yanlu and asked for my opinion. I said that Feng Yanlu was just a fool and was not worthy of your majesty's punishment. So the late emperor sealed Feng Yanlu's memorial diagonally, wiped three lines with his imperial pen, and stored it in the archives. Your majesty can go to the archives to look for the memorial from that year."

Li Jing immediately ordered people to search the archives, and indeed found more than a thousand obliquely sealed memorials, all of which were scratched with a pen, indicating that the memorial had not been passed. Then, Feng Yanlu's memorial was found among them. The truth was revealed to the world: Feng Yansi, Feng Yanlu and others forged the will and tampered with the will of the late emperor!

However, Li Jing, who knew the truth, chose to turn a blind eye. Not only did he refuse to correct the edict on the grounds that "the edict has been issued and should not be modified", he also did not pursue the act of tampering with the edict by Feng Yansi and others.

As mentioned above, after Li Jing announced his succession, he was still not sure about his position. However, his chief of staff Feng Yansi kept urging him to get back to work, up to four times a day! Li Jing finally said impatiently: "Don't you have anything else to do? It's so annoying!"

The counter-revolutionary group led by Feng Yansi will be described in detail later. Please keep an impression of it here.

During this period, Li Jing behaved extremely modestly and reservedly, and even dared not address his ministers by name, no matter how humble their official positions were. In a word, he acted like a grandson everywhere.

Li Jianxun, a member of the "Previous Emperor's Party", advised him that His Majesty needed the help of upright gentlemen to preserve the legacy of the previous emperor.

This is what Li Jing is waiting for!
The "former emperor's party" and the "prince's party" fight overtly and covertly, which is a common problem in all periods of power transfer. Li Jing's dilemma is: if he relies on his direct line "prince's party", he will be sidelined by them. Although these people can barely be considered as his direct line, they have their own ulterior motives, such as tampering with the imperial edict; if he shows his favor for the "former emperor's party", it will inevitably trigger a new round of power struggle, and he will be the most dangerous person at the center of the vortex.

Li Jing needed the "Prince Party" to win, but he also needed a force (the Party of the Former Emperor) to check and balance them, even if it was just to let the "Party of the Former Emperor" be a political vase. At the same time, he had to ensure that he always hid behind the scenes and reaped the remnants or sacrificed pawns to save the chariot in time.

In the last years of Xu Zhigao's reign, the "Former Emperor's Party" had been severely marginalized, such as Song Qiuqiu and Li Jianxun.

(End of this chapter)