The death of Zhao Kuangyin, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, is a thousand-year-old mystery, there has always been a saying about the sound of candles and axes, and some people even linked his death with the palace scandal, in short, Zhao Kuangyin died unexpectedly, and died violently overnight. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

As an outstanding emperor of a generation, Zhao Kuangyin's death is really regrettable, so many righteous literati and good deeds have suspicions, rummaging through boxes and cabinets, quoting and excerpting sentences, chasing and beating hard, and they must find out a culprit before they give up; and as the biggest beneficiary of Zhao Kuangyin's death, Zhao Guangyi, that is, later Song Taizong, has undoubtedly become the object of people's suspicion and criticism.

Zhao Kuangyin was twelve years older than Zhao Guangyi, and they participated in the Chenqiao Mutiny together, and they were the most important founders of the Zhao and Song courts. Zhao Guangyi was sick, Zhao Kuangyin personally went to the bedside to serve, when burning wormwood and moxibustion, the elder brother was afraid of burning the younger brother, so he burned himself a few times first, and his siblings were affectionate, which was impressive.

Zhao Kuangyin often praised Zhao Guangyi to the close ministers around him and said: "My brother, when he was born, was different from ordinary people, take a closer look, he is majestic, and he will definitely be the son of peace in the future." ”

He even modestly said: "His good fortune is beyond my reach." ”

What made the emperor of the Song Dynasty happen? The number one man actually patted the second-in-command on the back? What made the world suspicious was that Zhao Kuangyin, who was at the height of the Spring and Autumn Period and had a clear ear and eyes, actually died violently overnight? Why did he say that he was a manly man and that he was gone?

The official records are very sloppy, and as for the cause of death, there is no mention at all. There are even more speculations in the market, some say that they died of excessive drinking, and some say that they died of illness due to the onset of abdominal swelling and sores, but in fact, the biggest suspect is the biggest beneficiary, Zhao Kuangyin's successor Zhao Guangyi.

The night before Zhao Kuangyin's death, the weather was extremely cold, he and Zhao Guangyi drank, and the two brothers drank until late at night. Zhao Guangyi, who should not have stayed in the inner court, stayed by the emperor's side, and that night Zhao Kuangyin let out an inexplicable shout, and there was a candle shadow axe.

In the second year after Zhao Kuangyin became emperor, his biological mother Empress Dowager Du was critically ill, and before his death, he ordered Zhao Kuangyin to be passed on to his younger brother Zhao Guangyi after he was 100 years old, and at the same time ordered Zhao Pu to be an oath in front of the bed, which was hidden in Jinkui, which is the famous "Jinkui Alliance" in history.

There are two reasons: Empress Dowager Du's most beloved son is Zhao Guangyi, and it is out of selfishness to let Zhao Guangyi inherit the throne from the younger brother; Empress Dowager Du realized that since the Five Dynasties, the emperors of the Central Plains have been in power for a short period of time, and the longest reign is only 10 years, and it is difficult to guarantee that Zhao Kuangyin will not follow in his footsteps, and in order to ensure the continuation of the Great Song Dynasty, to prevent the young son and widow from being bullied, and to let the young and powerful Zhao Guangyi inherit the throne, this is out of public interest.

Zhao Kuangyin is an understanding person and a kind person, so he agreed. At that time, the foundation of the Great Song Dynasty was not yet solid, the great cause of reunification had not yet been completed, and Zhao Kuangyin's son was still young, so he really needed an adult prince like Zhao Guangyi to strengthen his position. Therefore, Zhao Kuangyin obeyed the order, and appointed Zhao Guangyi as the Yin of Kaifeng Mansion a month after the death of Empress Dowager Du, and later named him the King of Jin.

Kaifeng Mansion Yin is an important official position in the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty, and is the highest governor of Kaifeng Mansion, where the national capital is located. Since the five dynasties, an unwritten tacit understanding has been formed, and where the royal family serves as the governor of Kaifeng, he has basically established his status as the prince. Zhao Guangyi took advantage of this special position to gather a large number of civil and military staff, and gradually formed his own forces.

In Zhao Kuangyin's later years, the regime was stable, his son was an adult, and he was shaken on the issue of succession to the throne, but considering that Zhao Guangyi's prestige was strong and his wings were already established, his son was not his younger brother's opponent, so he did not set up a prince, but passed the throne to Zhao Guangyi in accordance with the "Golden Kui Alliance".

Zhao Guangyi's deception is full of loopholes, when the Empress Dowager Du died, Zhao Kuangyin was only thirty-five years old, and his body was bad, Zhao Guangyi was just twenty-three years old, not much more mature than his brother's son. At that time, Zhao Kuangyin's second son Dezhao was eleven years old, and his fourth son Defang was also three years old.

The problem is that Zhao Kuangyin did not die immediately, and who knows what will happen in the future? He may be able to enjoy the country for 10 or 20 years, so why rush to arrange a successor? Even if Zhao Kuangyin dies in a few years, there will not be a situation in which the seven-year-old orphan of Zhou Chai Zongxun will be ruined. Empress Dowager Du is a person who understands, and it is impossible to make such a decision, besides, the Jinkui Pre-Alliance is five years after Zhao Guangyi ascended the throne, Zhao Pucai secretly played, this kind of donkey lips do not explain the horse's mouth, and it can only fool aliens.

Even if there is indeed a so-called Golden Kuo Pre-Alliance, the core of this document is nothing more than providing a legal basis for brotherhood and brotherhood. To put it bluntly, my brother is dead, and my brother is doing it, but he can't give it to the cub. So one day when Zhao Guangyi dies, how will the aftermath be arranged, will the emperor's throne fall to his brother? Or will he return to Zhao Kuangyin's heirs?

In order to cut off the troubles, Zhao Guangyi did not hesitate to kill his closest relatives. Let's talk about Zhao Kuangyin's branch first, the fourth son of Taizu, Changteng Wang Dexiu, the second Yanyi Wang Dezhao, the second Shu Wang Delin, and the second Qin Kanghui Wang Defang. Dexiu and Delin both died early, which means that the biggest potential opponents are the older Dezhao and the younger Defang. Speaking of his brother, the only competitor is his younger brother Zhao Tingmei, the king of Qin.

Zhao Guangyi personally directed and forced his younger brother Zhao Tingmei and his nephews Zhao Dezhao and Zhao Defang to a dead end one by one. As a result, Zhao Tingmei was demoted to Fangzhou and died of depression at the age of 38; Zhao Dezhao was forced to commit suicide at the age of 30; and Zhao Defang, like his father, died of a violent illness at the age of 23.

The death of Zhao Kuangyin, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, can be called the first mystery case of the Great Song Dynasty, and it is also one of the unsolved cases of the millennium. For thousands of years, while accusing Zhao Guangyi, the biggest beneficiary of Song Taizong, of being suspicious, people have struggled to come up with empirical evidence, and it is difficult for people to refute Zhao Guangyi's Jinkui pre-alliance thrown by Zhao Guangyi, that is, the so-called Zhao Kuangyin's posthumous succession to Zhao Guangyi.

Empress Dowager Du established an oral will before her death, but the original content of this will was that Zhao Kuangyin passed on the second brother Zhao Guangyi after his death, and Zhao Guangyi passed on to the third brother Zhao Tingmei, and Zhao Tingmei then passed on to Zhao Kuangyin's son. In fact, Zhao Kuangyin said that the emperor did not canonize the crown prince for a long time, and judging from the precedents of the five dynasties, the heir to the throne had the experience of Prince Yin Jing before succeeding to the throne, and Zhao Guangyi served as the king of Jin as the governor of Kaifeng at that time. Zhao Kuangyin is a filial son, on the one hand, he is unwilling to disobey his mother's orders, but on the other hand, he is unwilling to pass the throne to Zhao Guangyi.

As the saying goes, when the decision is constantly reversed, Zhao Kuangyin is because of his continued hesitation, which makes Zhao Guangyi feel unprecedented pressure. So Zhao Guangyi started first, killed Zhao Kuangyin, and then cut off the third brother Zhao Tingmei and Zhao Kuangyin's two sons Zhao Dezhao and Zhao Defang, and then Zhao Guangyi moved out of the revised version of the Jinkui Pre-Alliance.

Zhao Guangyi's various behaviors can be described in one word, that is, there are five poisons, which are yin, ruthless, lewd, crazy, and hypocritical. The insidious Zhao Guangyi installed spies to spy on Taizu, and throughout the ages, it was not uncommon for emperors to send spies to lurk around the latter in order to spy on his subordinates, and the Ming Dynasty escalated this behavior to the system and took it to the extreme. But this is all top-down, and Zhao Guangyi's insidiousness is reflected in the bottom-up.

As a courtier, he has long placed the inner line next to Zhao Kuangyin, the son of heaven, and finally played a role at a critical moment, Zhao Kuangyin was drugged by Cheng Dexuan, who was proficient in medical skills, and Empress Song urgently ordered the eunuch Wang Jien to summon the prince Zhao Defang into the palace after learning that Taizu had died, but Wang Jien led Zhao Guangyi, the king of Jin, into the palace. In fact, Cheng Dexuan and Wang Jien are both Zhao Guangyi's people, and Zhao Guangyi's monitoring of the Son of Heaven from the bottom up undoubtedly proves his insidious side.

After the vicious Zhao Guangyi got rid of his nephew after he ascended the throne, if it were not for the special instructions of the Empress Dowager Du on her deathbed, the possibility of Zhao Kuangyin taking the initiative to choose Zhao Guangyi as the heir to the throne is very small. It can be said that Zhao Guangyi was able to succeed to the throne, and he should be grateful to his mother and his brother for his benevolence. If Empress Dowager Du did not have this will, if Zhao Kuangyin was ruthless and directly killed Zhao Guangyi, China's history since Song Taizong would have been completely rewritten.

But after Zhao Guangyi succeeded to the throne, as the biggest beneficiary, he disregarded his mother's life and killed the two sons of his third brother Zhao Tingmei and his brother Zhao Kuangyin in disguise one after another. In this process, Zhao Guangyi's vicious side was exposed.

After Zhao Guangyi took Li Yu's wife and painted it into a beautiful painting, after the Southern Tang Dynasty was destroyed by the Song Dynasty, he was captured and escorted to Kaifeng with Li Yu's little wife, as well as Li Yu's little wife, who was known as the stunning and exquisite chess skills of Xiao Zhouhou. Zhao Guangyi coveted Xiao Zhouhou, and after seizing the throne, Zhao Guangyi forcibly hugged Xiao Zhouhou many times.

Every time Xiao Zhou went back, he cried and scolded, both angry at Zhao Guangyi and blamed Li Yu for her incompetence and death, which caused her to suffer bad luck repeatedly. In extreme pain and depression, Li Yu wrote famous songs such as "Wangjiangnan", "Midnight Song", and "Poppy Beauty". Throughout the ages, there have been many people who have occupied the wives of the fallen kings, but Zhao Guangyi's boldness lies in the fact that he also ordered people to draw a painting, which is "Xiling Xingxiao Zhou Hou Tu".

The arrogant Zhao Guangyi insisted on conquering Liao and suffered a fiasco, and Zhao Guangyi's madness, that is, great joy, had a lot to do with his character, and it was also related to his eagerness to compare Zhao Kuangyin's achievements by making meritorious contributions after succeeding to the throne in order to stabilize his own position. In fact, Zhao Guangyi is good at playing with power, and he has some achievements, but he is not satisfactory in military affairs.

After Zhao Guangyi succeeded to the throne, it took a lot of effort to destroy the Northern Han Dynasty, and for Zhao Guangyi, recovering the strategic Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures from the Liao State in one fell swoop was the best choice to show his talent. Therefore, after destroying the Northern Han Dynasty, Zhao Guangyi stubbornly insisted on waving his army to the east to attack Yanyun's hometown, regardless of the exhaustion of his soldiers. As a result, he suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of the Gaoliang River, almost lost his life, and finally fled in a donkey cart.

Since Zhou Shizong Chai Rong continued to attack Liao, the Central Plains regime changed its decline and gradually seized the initiative in the military confrontation with Liao. Even after the rebellion of Zhao Kuangyin and Chen Qiao, the relationship between Song and Liao was relatively peaceful, and Zhao Kuangyin even advocated accumulating strength and dealing with the Yanyun issue when the time was ripe.

However, Zhao Guangyi's great success angered the Liao State, worsened the security situation in the northern Xinjiang of the Northern Song Dynasty, and made the Northern Song Dynasty passive in the military confrontation between the two countries. It was not until after the alliance of the Yuanyuan that the passive situation of the Northern Song Dynasty changed, and also in the south, Zhao Guangyi also lost too many points. For more than 1,000 years from the unification of China by Qin Shi Huang to the Five Dynasties, the northern part of present-day Vietnam has been China's territory, and after Song Taizong succeeded to the throne, he failed to recover Vietnam many times, and finally had to confirm Vietnam's independent status due to the defeat at the Battle of Bai Teng River.

Zhao Guangyi was repeatedly defeated in the war with the Khitans, and in the battle of the Song-Liao Gaoliang River, there was a small episode, and Zhao Guangyi lost contact with him for a time in the war. The country cannot be without a monarch for a day, and some generals remembered that the Great Song Dynasty was established by Zhao Kuangyin, the Taizu, and plotted to support Zhao Dezhao, the second son of Zhao Kuangyin, who participated in the war, as the emperor. Who knew that Zhao Guangyi was not dead, and after returning to Beijing, Zhao Guangyi was angry and did not reward his soldiers for a long time. According to the custom, every time he goes on an expedition, regardless of victory or defeat, the Son of Heaven must reward the soldiers. From Zhao Dezhao's point of view, after returning to Beijing, he should remain absolutely silent to avoid suspicion.

However, the straightforward Zhao Dezhao took the initiative to find his emperor uncle and persuaded the latter to reward the soldiers. Zhao Guangyi was originally resentful about the support incident, but now when his nephew said this, he was furious and said: "It's not too late to reward you when you become the emperor." ”

Zhao Dezhao knew that his uncle doubted himself, and committed suicide after going back, proving his innocence with death, and after Zhao Guangyi knew, he hugged Zhao Dezhao's body and cried: "Silly children don't have to be like this." ”

However, a few days after Zhao Dezhao's death, Zhao Guangyi rewarded all the soldiers of the Northern Expedition. If Zhao Guangyi lives today, the Oscar award belongs to him.

Throughout Zhao Guangyi's life, it can be said that there are five poisons. In the era of autocracy, family affection and morality can be wantonly trampled on by the supreme ruler, and there are too many examples of fathers and sons killing each other in order to compete for power throughout the ages, it is undeniable that there must be a dark side in Zhao Kuangyin, but it is not as deep as Zhao Guangyi, and further suppresses martial arts, but these are based on his own interests.

The excessive suppression of military force and the support of literature led to the expansion and bloat of the bureaucracy of the central and local government agencies, and the excessive financial expenditure, which caused the Song Dynasty to suffer a series of defeats in wars with nomadic peoples such as the Khitan, Dangxiang, and Jurchen.