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Chapter 282 General of the Universe

He also had a particularly crazy hobby - raising cranes. Duke Yi of Wei even gave the cranes official titles, such as general and marshal, and gave them corresponding treatment.

Moreover, the cranes were picked up by special carriages when they went out. Duke Yi of Wei was definitely an "excellent animal protectionist".

In order to raise cranes, he ordered heavy levies on the people, completely disregarding their food and clothing and livelihood, so that the people of Wei were living in dire straits and suffered terribly.

In 660 BC, the Di people from the north invaded the State of Wei, and Duke Yi of Wei prepared to send troops to resist. The people of Wei were already dissatisfied with Duke Yi's absurd behavior, and they complained: "You send cranes to fight! Those cranes have official titles, how can we fight?"

Before the war even started, many soldiers defected and fled. In this situation of disunity, Duke Yi of Wei personally led his troops to fight, but the Wei army was defeated and Duke Yi was killed by the Di people. His flesh was eaten by the enemy, leaving only his liver.

Soon, a minister of Wei State, Hong Yan, was on a diplomatic mission to a foreign country. He heard the news that Duke Yi of Wei was killed and hurried back to his country. He came to the battlefield and found the remains of Duke Yi of Wei under the guidance of the wounded soldiers. He found that only a skeleton and liver were left.

Hong Yeon was extremely sad. In order to prevent the king from dying without a complete body, he asked to use his stomach to place his liver for the king. He then committed suicide and asked his servants to bury him. This is the story of "Hong Yeon's Liver".

The story of Duke Yi of Wei is moving and makes people reflect: a monarch's debauchery and tyranny will not only harm himself, but also the entire country.

[The great general who killed all the noble families of the Southern Dynasties, Hou Jing's historical knowledge of the Northern and Southern Dynasties]

He is the only person in history who was called the "Great General of the Universe". With only 800 people, he swept across half of the Southern Dynasty, killed all the wealthy families in the south of the Yangtze River, and directly changed the course of history.

He was extremely capable and had fought against many famous generals, but he was also cruel and capricious, and ended up with a tragic end with no remains left. He was the gravedigger of the Southern Dynasty - Hou Jing.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there were two outstanding figures who stirred up the world with their own strength. One was Erzhu Rong, the hero of the Northern Wei Dynasty, who launched the Heyin Incident, and the other was Hou Jing, the great general who caused the Taiqing Incident.

They used butcher knives to "physically eliminate" the noble families of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, killing countless people, which was quite brutal. The butterfly effect it caused also directly changed the course of history, making the divided Northern and Southern Dynasties gradually move towards unification.

Hou Jing was born in Huaishuo Town, one of the six towns of the Northern Wei Dynasty. With the outbreak of the Six Towns Uprising in the late Northern Wei Dynasty, the north fell into chaos. Hou Jing initially joined the powerful hero Erzhu Rong at that time and gradually became a fierce general under his command.

Later, with the changes in the political situation in the Northern Wei Dynasty, Hou Jing first depended on Erzhu Zhao, but then switched to Gao Huan because Gao Huan defeated Erzhu Zhao, becoming an important figure in the political situation in the north at that time.

It is worth mentioning that although Hou Jing has always been regarded as a rebel and a traitor who brought disaster to the world in the evaluation of later historical books, in terms of military strength, he was one of the best generals at that time.

When Hou Jing followed Erzhu Rong, he served as a vanguard to suppress the Ge Rong uprising, which was said to have a million people. According to historical records, Erzhu Rong had only 7000 people at the time, and Hou Jing, as a vanguard, eventually defeated the enemy and became famous in one battle, which also shows his strong military ability.

After Hou Jing followed Gao Huan, he defeated Heba Sheng, Du Gu, Shen Ning and other generals in the northern battlefield, captured Luoyang, and had a brilliant record. Hou Jing had a set of skills in fighting: he was born with a long left leg and a short right leg, which was no different from ordinary people, but it was very obvious when he walked.

However, he was skilled in strategy, good at making changes, and had a cunning fighting style. He was cruel to his subordinates, but he kept his army in good order and distributed the looted treasures to his soldiers. Therefore, he was very popular with his subordinates and won more battles than he lost.

It has to be said that Hou Jing was very smart in this regard - instead of verbally saying that he would share the joys and sorrows with his employees, it would be better to directly motivate his employees with large sums of money.

After that, Hou Jing, who had made outstanding achievements, was entrusted with an important task by Gao Huan. He had 10 soldiers and ruled Henan, and was called the "King of Henan". However, Hou Jing had a fatal flaw: in terms of political ability, he was a typical selfish and lacking in strategy.

As a meritorious official, Hou Jing not only did not know how to build a good relationship with his successor, but also liked to talk nonsense. He not only looked down on Gao Cheng, the son of his leader Gao Huan, but also often sang the opposite tune and privately said: "Your Majesty is incapable of working with Xianbei children."

This means that my boss Gao Huan is gone, so I have to find another way out. In fact, Gao Huan also knew that Hou Jing had ill intentions, but due to his power, he could only be more cautious against him.

As Gao Cheng came to power, Hou Jing rebelled directly, but after his failure, he fled to Southern Liang and confronted Gao Cheng. Emperor Wu of Liang, Xiao Yan, wanted to use Hou Jing's power to fight northward, so he sent his nephew Xiao Yuanming to lead the army northward, but was defeated and captured.

For Emperor Wu of Liang, Xiao Yan, this made him very depressed - he did not get any benefits, but also lost his nephew. At this time, Gao Cheng proposed peace talks.

Hou Jing panicked and feared that he would become a victim of the peace talks, so he forged a letter in the name of Gao Cheng, proposing to exchange Xiao Yuanming for himself. Emperor Wu of Liang actually accepted it. Hou Jing was furious when he knew that he had been betrayed, so he decided to rebel and started the road to chaos in the Southern Dynasty.

Although Emperor Wu of Liang was a wise ruler, he became increasingly foolish in the later years of his reign, which led to political corruption and a weak national strength. Flies don't bite seamless eggs, and the sharp contradictions in the Liang Dynasty also prepared sufficient conditions for Hou Jing's rebellion.

Hou Jing took advantage of the various contradictions in the Liang Dynasty and abolished the Liang Dynasty's policy of exploiting the people, causing the people to join the rebellion. He also contacted Emperor Wu of Liang's adopted son Xiao Zhengde.

Afterwards, Hou Jing repeatedly asked Emperor Wu of Liang for money and weapons, but Emperor Wu of Liang never refused and always tolerated him, giving Hou Jing the conditions to do evil.

In 549 AD, Hou Jing started a rebellion in the name of "punishing the treacherous ministers around the emperor". At the beginning of the rebellion, Hou Jing issued strict orders, did not offend the people, and the rebels were well disciplined.

As they surrounded the Southern Liang capital Jiankang, in order to capture the city, Hou Jing issued an order: all slaves and servants in the Liang Dynasty would become good citizens if they surrendered. As a result, countless slaves in Jiankang escaped, which was the key to his success.

Hou Jing's army grew like a snowball, from 800 men when he entered Liang to 10 when he captured Jiankang, largely due to the large number of Liang Dynasty slaves and peasants joining in.

However, the rebels' discipline was temporary.

After Hou Jing occupied Jiankang, Emperor Wu of Liang starved to death. Hou Jing also manipulated the emperor and forced the beautiful Princess Liyang to marry him. He proclaimed himself "General of the Universe" and after monopolizing power, he allowed his troops to burn, kill, plunder and commit all kinds of atrocities.

He openly advocated massacre and declared to his generals: "After the city is taken, on the battlefield, there will be no one left in the world." Hou Jing raised the butcher knife and started the "physical elimination mode", killing the noble families of the Southern Dynasty in large numbers, and the Jiangzuo clan, which had been famous for a century, was reduced to ashes.

Historian Chen Yinke once pointed out: "The Hou Jing Rebellion at the end of the Liang Dynasty was a major outcome of the Yongjia Southern Migration." After hundreds of years of corruption, the Southern Dynasty aristocracy was finally wiped out.

Although this statement is somewhat exaggerated, it is an indisputable fact that the ruling aristocratic families in the Southern Dynasties suffered a fatal blow in the Hou Jing Rebellion.

Moreover, Hou Jing's destruction was all-encompassing. After Hou Jing's rebellion, the once prosperous Three Wu regions were left with no smoke for thousands of miles, few people, and the city was filled with bones, like autumn smoke.

Afterwards, Hou Jing proclaimed himself the emperor of the Han Dynasty and indulged himself in the emperor's desire. However, his brutal behavior made no one in Jiangdong, regardless of whether they were noble or poor, avoid him. Not long after, Hou Jing was defeated by the Southern Liang generals Chen Baxian and Wang Sengbian, and was killed by his subordinates when he tried to escape.

Wang Sengbian cut off his hands and gave them to Gao Cheng, and sent his head to Jiangling. His body was exposed on the streets of Jiankang. The local people dismembered his body, and even his wife Princess Liyang ate his flesh. Some people burned his bones into ashes and mixed them with wine to drink.

This also shows the hatred of the people at that time. Of Hou Jing's five sons, the eldest son was skinned and boiled to death by Gao Cheng, and the other four sons were castrated and executed. In the end, Hou Jing ended up with no remains and his descendants were slaughtered.

Looking back at Hou Jing's life, he was a defeated general who fled with 8000 soldiers and horses. How could he bring the Southern Liang Dynasty to the point of almost destroying it? Thinking carefully, this was entirely the fault of the Southern Liang Dynasty itself.

But fundamentally speaking, the Hou Jing Rebellion was actually a concentrated outbreak of social problems in the entire Southern Liang Dynasty, and the Hou Jing Rebellion was just one of the triggers.

Emperor Wu of Liang, Xiao Yan, should bear the primary responsibility for Hou Jing's Rebellion.

As for Hou Jing personally, he was actually a troublemaker with great conspiracy and courage. He took advantage of the opportunity to change the pattern of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, making the Western Wei and Northern Zhou the most powerful countries among the later Three Kingdoms, and laying a solid foundation for the Sui Dynasty to unify China.

However, he was also a capable and ambitious but short-sighted political butcher, causing millions of corpses to float on the surface of the earth and thousands of miles of blood to flow among the people of the Southern Dynasty.

[The first person to dig graves in the Northern Wei Dynasty, read all the historical trivia about the first hero in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Northern Wei Dynasty]

He was the first hero of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, a military genius who saved the country, but also a cruel and merciless political butcher. He supported four emperors by himself and was the most dazzling star of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, but in the end he died and his clan was destroyed.

He is Erzhu Rong. When mentioning Erzhu Rong, some people may be unfamiliar with his name. The "Erzhu" here is actually his surname, and his given name is "Rong".

His ancestors had always lived in Erzhuchuan, so his descendants took the place of residence as their surname. Erzhu Rong was of the same clan as Shi Le of the Later Zhao during the Sixteen Kingdoms period, and also inherited the brutal character of the Jie people.

According to historical records, Erzhu Rong was handsome, fair-skinned, and had the physical features of a Caucasian man, and could be called a "fresh meat" at the time. However, his "harmless" appearance was in stark contrast to his brutal and cruel temperament.

Erzhu Rong in history can be described as a combination of Dong Zhuo and Cao Cao, a military genius and a political butcher. Under his command, he brought together many famous generals, such as Gao Huan, Yuwen Tai, Yang Zhong, Li Hu, etc.

These people either proclaimed themselves emperors or their descendants were posthumously crowned emperors, and all became key figures in changing history. At the same time, the Guanlong aristocratic group that controlled the Sui and Tang regimes also originated from the Erzhu Rong family. Therefore, Erzhu Rong can be called the most dazzling hero in the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

Erzhu Rong's ancestors were all tribal chieftains. After generations of accumulation, by the end of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the family had developed into a powerful family with cattle and horses everywhere.

It was the strong economic foundation provided by the family that allowed Erzhu Rong to become a hero who stirred up the Northern Wei Dynasty during the turbulent times.

As the internal contradictions of the Northern Wei Dynasty intensified, the Six Garrisons Uprising broke out, severely damaging the rule of the Northern Wei Dynasty. We often say that "times make heroes", and the turbulent situation is a disaster for ordinary people, but it is an opportunity for capable and ambitious people.

The Six Garrisons Uprising had a far-reaching impact, causing unrest in North China. Erzhu Rong took the opportunity to spend all his wealth and organized a cavalry force of several thousand men to suppress peasant uprisings in Shanxi.

After two or three years of fighting, he basically put out the flames of uprising in the northwest of Shanxi and became the most powerful local force loyal to the court north of the Yellow River.

At that time, Erzhu Rong's army was good at riding and shooting, and had capable generals such as Gao Huan and Heba Yue. Although the court was wary of Erzhu Rong, it had to appoint him as the Grand Commander to guard Jinyang and be in charge of Shanxi affairs.

As the most powerful foreign vassal general of the Northern Wei Dynasty at that time, the ambitious Erzhu Rong had been looking for opportunities to ascend to power.

Among them, a man named Heba Yue said to Erzhu Rong: "The emperor is weak and the queen mother is promiscuous. With your current power, you can find an excuse to march into Luoyang in the name of 'clearing the emperor's side', and then you can achieve hegemony."

Erzhu Rong was very impressed after hearing this. Heba Yue was the predecessor of Gao Huan, the founder of the Northern Qi Dynasty, who later became famous. Unexpectedly, Gao Huan's words came true.

Soon, Emperor Xiaoming of the Northern Wei Dynasty fell out with his biological mother, Empress Dowager Hu. In order to expel the treacherous ministers in the court and limit his mother's power, the inexperienced Emperor Xiaoming actually chose to introduce foreign generals to eliminate his mother's power.

The chosen foreign vassal general happened to be Erzhu Rong. This was undoubtedly a replica of Dong Zhuo's entry into the capital at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. However, "seeking the skin of a tiger" naturally did not end well.

Erzhu Rong was halfway through his journey when he was ordered to stop advancing. Afterwards, Empress Dowager Hu actually killed her own son, Emperor Xiaoming.

Under the pretext of revenge for Emperor Xiaoming, Erzhu Rong sent troops to capture Luoyang and drowned Empress Dowager Hu, the young emperor, ministers, princes and more than 2000 people into the Yellow River. This is known in history as the "Heyin Incident."

Erzhu Rong's move was intended to win over the officials and civilians of the Six Garrisons who were discriminated against by the nobles in Luoyang, and to take the opportunity to establish his authority. However, this move was undoubtedly a manifestation of political mediocrity.

He attempted to rely on cruel and bloody high-pressure rule to gain power, which naturally made him unpopular and at best a political butcher. At this time, Erzhu Rong undoubtedly wanted to be another Dong Zhuo, but he was more brutal and ambitious than Dong Zhuo.

He originally wanted to usurp the throne, but he missed the opportunity due to feudal superstition - divination showed that the time was not right. So he gave up and made Yuan Ziyou the emperor, namely Emperor Xiaozhuang, and married his daughter to Emperor Xiaozhuang as empress to keep him under surveillance.