Chapter 850: Two Extreme Faces — Southern Han

Lingnan, the Han Kingdom, Xingwang Prefecture.

This Xingwang Prefecture was none other than Guangzhou.

It was called Xingwang Prefecture because, by the custom of the time, only a national capital was ordinarily termed a prefecture; someone like Zhang Zhao, who set up prefectures all across the realm, was in fact acting in defiance of convention.

In later histories, one matter has actually been overlooked: the importance of the Southern Han regime.

To be sure, in our country's long history, Southern Han was rather unremarkable, and because it was a eunuch dynasty it earned endless ridicule through the ages.

But for Lingnan, for Guangdong and Guangxi, Southern Han was a very, very important dynasty.

For if one asks when the Central Plains court truly brought Lingnan fully under its rule, so that the people of Lingnan were genuinely bathed in royal civilization and came to regard themselves, culturally and psychologically, as no different from the people of the Central Plains, that was in fact only firmly established under Southern Han.

Before that, the first time a Central Plains court brought Lingnan under its rule was when the First Emperor sent Ren Xiao at the head of five hundred thousand men south to conquer the Baiyue.

These five hundred thousand were not all soldiers; they also included large numbers of craftsmen and conscripted live-in sons-in-law, merchants, and the like.

There is also the view, of course, that the army itself numbered only a little over a hundred thousand, and that the figure of five hundred thousand referred to the Central Plains settlers Ren Xiao requested from the First Emperor after he had secured a foothold.

But however one puts it, Ren Xiao's conquest of the Baiyue was not a purely military operation; it was more like a migration to strengthen the frontier, except that no one expected the Qin Empire to collapse so quickly.

After the Qin fell, Ren Xiao, the commander of the Baiyue expedition, was deeply shaken and soon died in despondency.

But his successor, Zhao Tuo, that old fellow from Zhending in Hebei, was somewhat less straightforward.

This is not to say Zhao Tuo was guilty of any great crime, but compared with the later Zhending men of pure and loyal heart such as Zhao Zilong and Huangfu Yu, Zhao Tuo clearly had far more schemes in mind, and his intentions were not so pure.

This old Hebei fellow befriended the Li, Lao, and other peoples of Lingnan, sealed the passes and cut the roads, and what he had in mind was no longer the state, but how to shut the gates and make himself King of Nanyue.

Objectively speaking, Zhao Tuo and his descendants played an enormous role in developing Lingnan.

The First Emperor had unified the realm and ended the centuries of division of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods only twenty or thirty years before, so Zhao Tuo's attempt, following the old idea of Xia rulers over Yi subjects, to carve out Lingnan, rule the various Baiyue peoples, and serve as a vassal of a Central Plains dynasty was hardly to be condemned.

But had the Han dynasty not later produced an emperor of great talent and bold vision, Emperor Wu, who was determined to sweep the four quarters, whether Lingnan would have belonged to a Central Plains dynasty is truly hard to say.

Even so, even Emperor Wu, facing enormous pressure from the Xiongnu in the north, though he destroyed the Nanyue kingdom, still had to rely on the local Han, Li, Lao, and other peoples to rule Lingnan.

The Han court's influence in Lingnan was also mostly concentrated in the Pearl River Delta region; apart from a few prefectures and departments, it was very difficult to control.

And it was not until the early years of the Southern Chen that a Central Plains dynasty truly began gradually to exercise real control over Lingnan.

The founding emperor of Southern Chen, Chen Baxian, rose to power in Lingnan. Before marching north to destroy Hou Jing, Chen Baxian had already put down the rebellion in Jiaozhi in Lingnan, and then foiled Yuan Jingzhong's revolt in Guangzhou.

In these battles, Lady Xian, who was of Li (Zhuang) origin, was moved by Chen Baxian's character and ability, chose to follow him and remain loyal to the court, and rendered no small assistance to Chen Baxian in campaigning against the disloyal in Lingnan.

Chen Baxian also greatly valued Lady Xian and her husband Feng Bao, and before marching north to suppress Hou Jing's rebellion, he entrusted to the couple the weighty task of uniting the Li, Lao, and other peoples.

Not long after, Feng Bao died of illness, and Lady Xian alone took up the great work of stabilizing Lingnan and uniting the Li and Lao tribes in loyalty to the state.

Lady Xian lived through the Chen and Sui dynasties, and did not choose, as Zhao Tuo had, to try to make the Feng family carve out Lingnan for itself; instead she always regarded Lingnan as an indispensable part of the state.

This so moved even Emperor Wen of Sui, far away in Chang'an, that he confidently granted Lady Xian the right to open the office of the Lady of Qiao, that is, the power to establish a hegemonic headquarters.

This was the only hegemonic headquarters in Chinese history led by a woman.

In later ages, the Zhuang, as the largest ethnic minority of the Republic, not only never caused any trouble, but in every dynasty were a trusted core the state could rely on in times of crisis, almost the same as the Han people; this was because Lady Xian set such a fine precedent.

It may be said that it was only after Lady Xian's lofty example that Lingnan gradually came under the state's control.

But the degree of this control, after Lady Xian's death, was still not very stable.

Although the Tang dynasty established dozens of prefectures and counties in Lingnan, most of them had few appointed officials and many native officials, and the territory it could fully control was still mainly in the Pearl River Delta area.

Thus by the chaotic world of the late Tang, Lingnan was extremely dangerous. Not only was Annan, where the Jinghai Army was located, in trouble; the entire Lingnan Circuit, including Guangzhou, was in trouble.

Moreover, Lingnan's problem was more serious than Annan's, because Annan at this time was hot and humid, the Red River Delta had not yet been fully developed, it was full of marshes, floods were frequent, and there were simply not many people.

Among these, the Han people who had migrated to Annan mostly lived on the plains and made their living by farming; they controlled a great deal of the means of production and held a leading position economically and politically.

The surrounding Baiyue barbarians mostly lived in the mountains; they barely even knew how to farm and basically had to rely on gathering and hunting to get by. To say nothing of armor, they did not even have many iron farm tools, and they simply could not contend with the Han people living on the plains.

Therefore the rebellion in Annan was entirely the work of Han people who had assimilated into the local area and local powerful families who had been sinicized since the two Han dynasties.

A rebellion of this composition was actually very easy to win back, and their local separatist rule was not very stable either.

But Lingnan was different. There the Li, Lao, and remnant Baiyue peoples far outnumbered the Han, and having long lived intermixed with the Han, they had made considerable progress in both farming and armaments compared with the Baiyue barbarians of Annan, so the Han of Lingnan could not firmly suppress them.

At the same time, Lingnan was still the great stronghold of the Baiyue, and from Qin to Tang, there was in fact a gene for division in it.

Moreover, by this time the Pearl River Delta was already very prosperous, unlike Annan, which simply could not stand on its own; relying on the prosperous Pearl River Delta, Lingnan was fully capable of supporting a state on a national scale.

Even thirty-five years earlier, before changing the dynastic name, the Southern Han founder Liu had first proclaimed himself Emperor of Great Yue.

This was an extremely dangerous signal.

Historically, the title Emperor of Great Yue was equivalent to a civilizational symbol opposed to the Han culture of the Central Plains, and could be seen as a southern Goguryeo.

In the original history, after the Song dynasty lost the Jinghai Army, successive kings of Vietnam picked up this title.

In the end they turned the character "Yue" into an even more independent cultural symbol, gradually developing it into a poisonous cultural thorn growing in the south.

And before Liu proclaimed himself Emperor of Great Yue, Lingnan was divided even more finely; Chaozhou, Shaozhou, Gaozhou, Guizhou (Guilin), Yongzhou (Nanning), Rongzhou, and others had all already presented a picture of separate rule by various peoples.

It may be said that compared with the Jinghai Army's rebellion, this separatist rule centered on the character "Yue," which was not a geopolitical rebellion but one carrying the signal of cultural rebellion, was more than ten thousand times more dangerous.

Fortunately, within an extremely short time, the brothers Liu Yin and Liu, using Guangzhou as their base and through more than twenty years of war, subdued one by one the separatist local strongmen of the Fan, Han, and other peoples, and brought Lingnan, including Guangdong and Guangxi, back under unified rule.

Although Liu had briefly called himself Emperor of Great Yue, he soon executed those who urged him to use Yue as his dynastic name, and changed the dynastic name to Han.

Han and Liu, these two almost inseparably bound words, even at the end of the Tang, were still a clear declaration of loyalty to the center and acknowledgment of great unity.

Liu's change from Emperor of Great Yue to Emperor of Great Han may seem to be merely a change of dynastic name, with the added intent of borrowing the influence of Han imperial clan kinship.

But in fact it fully demonstrated that this Lingnan dynasty was a separatist regime belonging to the great Han, not an outright rebel like the Jinghai Army of Annan.

And after gaining control of all Lingnan, the Southern Han founder Liu and his son, the middle emperor Liu Sheng, gradually eliminated the separatist Fan and Han local strongmen in various places and gathered power back into the Southern Han court.

They dispatched large numbers of appointed officials to the western part of the Lingnan Circuit, which the Tang had not truly controlled, that is, today's Guangxi.

They also ordered the powerful families of these places to send their sons to Xingwang Prefecture (Guangzhou) to study, thereby strengthening control.

At the same time, the father and son Liu and Liu Sheng vigorously promoted culture in Lingnan, extending the most basic level of governance down to the bao level, with townships above the bao, and all officials appointed by the court.

At the same time, unlike other Five Dynasties states, where officials at the rank of County Magistrate and above were held by military officers, in Southern Han they were almost all held by civil officials.

The gentleness of civil officials compared with military men, to a great extent, soothed the feelings of the Li, Lao, and other peoples in the various prefectures and counties, and allowed civilizing influence to penetrate more deeply.

To be sure, the Southern Han founder Liu and the middle emperor Liu Sheng were both excessively cruel as men, especially in the matter of killing, where they showed little restraint and appeared more or less mentally abnormal.

But in the matter of winning the hearts of the Lingnan people and making them no different from the Central Plains, they rendered a great service.

It was precisely through the Southern Han's decades of putting down roots in Lingnan, extending the Central Plains' political institutions and cultural edification deep into the grassroots of Lingnan's townships and wards.

That by the time of the Northern Song, the Song court was able to follow established precedent in Lingnan, and ultimately made Lingnan an inseparable part of the nation.

Liu and his son Liu Sheng were utterly contemptible in their public and private virtue, but on this point, to say they deserve the highest credit is no exaggeration at all.

So in the whole of Chinese history, the Southern Han is of little consequence, but in the history of Lingnan's development, the Southern Han holds an extremely important place.

This was the first small dynasty to bring Lingnan's grassroots governance within the scope of the imperial court; it carried on from Lady Xian's initial governance of Lingnan, and laid a solid foundation for the Northern and Southern Song dynasties' governance of Lingnan.

Xingwang Prefecture, Tongming Hall of the Daming Palace.

This Tongming Hall was originally called Zhaoyang Hall, but Liu Sheng changed it to Tongming Hall to avoid the taboo on Zhang Zhao's name.

Though it was already deep into the night, dozens of candles as thick as a child's arm burned in Tongming Hall, illuminating the hall that should have been pitch-black as bright as day.

The one now on the throne was the Southern Han's third-generation emperor, Liu Sheng. He was the son of the Southern Han's founding emperor Liu, and had ascended the throne by ambushing and killing his elder brother, the Southern Han's short-lived Emperor Liu Bin.

And after he himself took the throne, fearing his brothers would follow his example, and also to overawe men's hearts with great terror, Liu Sheng was extremely vicious by nature, killing fifteen of his eighteen brothers.

His highest record was killing eight of his full brothers in a single day.

To be so vicious toward his closest kin makes him unique among emperors past and present — even more ruthless than Huhai.

But apart from his viciousness, Liu Sheng was quite accomplished in state affairs. During his reign he campaigned in all directions, successively defeating the Ma Chu, Southern Tang, and other states, expanding his territory to the Southern Han's greatest extent.

At the same time, Liu Sheng also vigorously opened the civil examinations to recruit talent and actively developed maritime trade.

As a ruler, his defining trait was a split personality.

In Tongming Hall, under the bright candlelight, Liu Sheng held a letter in each hand.

Seated on the floor below him were his trusted men: Left Vice Director of the Secretariat Zhong Yunzhang, Commander of the Personal Guard Wu Xun, Palace Attendant Commissioner Pan Chongche, and others.

Liu Sheng first tossed the letter in his right hand onto the low table before him and smiled contemptuously. "That fool Duan Sicong is doomed. He actually wrote to invite me to send troops to seize the Zhou state's Guilin Prefecture.

And he boasts shamelessly, saying the Zhou army has failed to take it after a long siege and has become an exhausted force, and that sooner or later it will be defeated by him.

That fool even wants to fight his way into Sichuan. Does he not know that the Zhou state can lose ten times without suffering any real damage, while his tiny Dali would be destroyed by a single defeat?"

Left Vice Director of the Secretariat Zhong Yunzhang inclined his body slightly, then nodded his head vigorously and said softly: "Indeed! The Zhou state has mobilized the whole nation, its purpose being to support Prince of Yan Murong Xinzhang's eastern campaign against Goryeo and Wa. The force attacking Dali is merely ten or twenty thousand elite troops.

But even so, they have taken Jianchang Prefecture and Wumeng City, and have in fact reached the very heart of Dali. Once they free up their hands, Dali is certain to be destroyed."

Palace Attendant Commissioner Pan Chongche also nodded. Although this man was a eunuch, he was a eunuch who could fight, with exceptional insight and skill in military matters. Do not compare him to the later Tong Guan — this man's ability was far above Tong Guan's.

Therefore, Pan Chongche tapped his fingers on the low table in the directions of due north and northeast, then said: "In truth, with the loss of Jianchang Prefecture and Wumeng City, Dali is already destroyed.

In the past, even when the imperial court's great army fought its way to Yangjumie City, Dali could still turn defeat into victory, precisely because the court could not firmly control the tribes of these two regions.

If they could be controlled, then there would be no need for a great army to approach Yangjumie City at all. Merely by continually raiding southward from these two regions, nibbling away bit by bit, they could keep Dali running itself ragged.

In my humble view, the one whose troops are worn out and weary is not the Zhou general Guo Rong at all, because Guo Rong has already won over most of the tribes in these two regions and can choose at his leisure whether to advance or to withdraw and rest.

Dali, by contrast, must continually shift its armies to the Wumeng Mountains and the banks of the Lu River, where supply is extremely difficult, in order to hold the natural defenses.

The whole nation's troops have been deployed out there for over a year. I fear the ones truly worn out and running themselves ragged are the Dali people."

But as he spoke, the people in the room fell into silence.

The situation was now clear: in all the world, only their Han state and Dali had not yet submitted.

All the rest — even a power like the Khitan, and even the steppe tribes and Goryeo and Wa east of the sea — had already been destroyed.

Now if Dali were to fall as well, the Han state would certainly be unable to survive alone. If Dali could hold on, there would still remain a sliver of faint hope with which to console themselves.

Liu Sheng naturally understood this situation as well. He was merely cruel by nature, and perhaps somewhat multi-personalitied, but he was no fool — on the contrary, he was extremely intelligent.

A bitter smile appeared for the first time on the face of this Southern Han emperor. He shook the letters in both hands forcefully.

"This is what our envoy in the Central Plains sent back. The Shaoming Son of Heaven has once again refused my marriage proposal — he will not even give me a daughter of the imperial clan."

As he spoke, Liu Sheng turned his back. The bleakness and despair on his face grew more pronounced. His tightly clenched fists cracked audibly, and he muttered softly under his breath.

"In order to marry a daughter of the Zhang family, I even executed my own empress. With such resolve, with such a mighty state, am I not even worthy of a daughter of the imperial clan?"

If Zhang Zhao had heard these words, he would certainly have cried out, "Good heavens!" — the thought processes of this lunatic were simply different from ordinary people's.

In Liu Sheng's view, personally executing his empress was a way of showing Zhang Zhao his firm determination to marry a daughter of the Zhang family. But in Zhang Zhao's view, it was pure perversion.

And Liu Sheng's perversion did not stop there. The most perverted part was that two years earlier, the thirty-year-old Liu Sheng had sought from Zhang Zhao the hand of Zhang Qinan — the ten-year-old eldest daughter of Zhang Zhao and Empress Cao Yanxi, the Emperor's second daughter, the Princess of Qi.

This nearly angered Cao Yanxi to death. She took it directly as Liu Sheng insulting and provoking her. Cao Yanxi, who rarely lost her temper, personally ordered that the chief and deputy envoys of the Southern Han marriage mission be beaten to death outside the Vermilion Bird Gate.

But after that, Liu Sheng still did not give up. This time, however, he had learned his lesson, and proposed that he only needed a daughter of the Zhang imperial clan, whom Zhang Zhao could enfeoff as a princess and send to Xingwang Prefecture to marry him.

He even hinted that as long as a Zhang princess came and his life was guaranteed, he would be willing to surrender his state, as Qian Yue had done.

To this, Zhang Zhao gave a cold snort and refused.

Setting everything else aside, the perverted act of that lunatic Liu Sheng taking all his nieces into his harem was enough to make Zhang Zhao absolutely refuse — he would not even agree to send a palace maid.

Besides, Zhang Zhaojiu (Ma Shacai) had been stationed in Guilin for four full years, enduring great hardship and rendering great service, all waiting for the achievement of destroying the Southern Han.

If Liu Sheng surrendered his state, that would be a small matter — the Southern Han was not hard to conquer anyway — but driving Zhang Zhaojiu to death with rage would be a serious matter.

However, the matter of taking his nieces was somewhat different from what Zhang Zhao imagined. Rather than saying Liu Sheng took his nieces into his harem, it would be more accurate to say he imprisoned all of them in the rear palace.

Of course! He had killed all his brothers. If he left behind nieces and married them off to some powerful local family, would they not spend every day scheming how to kill Liu Sheng?

Better to imprison them all in the rear palace, give them little food and little clothing, and slowly do them to death.

In the extremely awkward silence, only the candle flames flickered ceaselessly. No one knew what Liu Sheng was thinking.

Was it to stake everything alongside Dali? Or to lie down and wait for death? Or perhaps to surrender the state and secure his safety?

(End of Chapter)

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