The remnant sun is like blood, the Tang Dynasty is like a dream, and the legendary "Yuanhe Zhongxing" is more like a dream within a dream, a beautiful dream within a dream, nothing more.

However, is it really all there is to it?

What is a dream?

The dream is a wisp of smoke, although it curls Tingting, but it is intermittent; Dreams are a petal of heart fragrance, although the fragrance is dense, but it is difficult to find traces; Dream is a spring breeze, although the face is not cold, but it is weak; A dream is a shooting star, although it is brilliant, but it is fleeting; Dream is a high mountain, although the scenery is infinite, but it is steep and abnormal; Dream is a fairy cave on the vast sea, although the fairy aura is pervasive, but there is no way to find it; A dream is a claw on the snow, although the imprint is like it, but the sound is not clear; A dream is a rainbow in a clear blue sky, and although it is colorful, it can only appear after the wind and rain.

If there is a dream, there are people who chase it.

Although it is ethereal, although the road ahead is long, although the road is long and obstructive, it still can't stop the dreamers from chasing their dreams, because dreams are the most beautiful emotions of human beings.

"I want to dream of Wu Yue, fly to the mirror lake and moon in one night", Li Bai in the dream can climb the Tiantai Mountain of "pulling out the five mountains and covering the red city" overnight; "In a spring dream on the pillow, travel thousands of miles in the south of the Yangtze River", Cen Shen in the dream can travel all the beautiful rivers and mountains in the south of the Yangtze River in a moment of spring dream; "The waves of the land and sea are gradually coming, and a return to the dream is worth a thousand gold", although he is thousands of miles away from home, the wanderer who is alone can still return to his amiable and lovely hometown in his dream; "Poor and uncertain riverside bones, like a person in a spring boudoir dream", the lover has passed away, but in the dream of the wife, the husband is still the husband who is affectionate and soft-spoken; Si people are gone, but in Du Fu's dream, Li Bai is still the Li Bai who "writes storms and rains, and poems become weeping ghosts and gods"; "I don't know that I am a guest in my dream, and I am greedy for joy for a while", although the old country is dead, but in Li Yu's dream, the old country is still the old country that gives him infinite comfort and greedy joy; "Lying down at night listening to the wind and rain, the iron horse and the glacier come to a dream", in the twilight of the martyrs, what Lu You never forgets is still "Wang Shi set the Central Plains Day in the north, and the family sacrifice did not forget to tell Nai Weng"!

"The road is long, I will go up and down and seek", thousands of years ago, Qu Yuan's battle declaration became the common will of many dreamers. For the beautiful dream in their hearts, they can "never regret the gradual widening of their belts", they can "go up and fall into the Yellow Spring", they can "go to the Yellow Spring despite the poverty", they can "go to me despite tens of millions of people", and they can die without regrets. In fact, it is these dreamers, and it is these dreamers who know that they cannot do it, that constitute the backbone of the Chinese nation and make the Chinese nation stand proudly in the world!

Compared with specific dreamers, "Yuanhe Zhongxing" is a bigger dream, a grander and a greater dream, because it is the dream of the entire era and the common ideal of the entire Chinese nation in that era. In order to realize the great rejuvenation of the Tang Empire, countless people with lofty ideals and heroes, under the leadership of the Tang Emperor Li Chun, contributed their enthusiasm and wisdom, and even their lives: for the sake of "Yuanhe Zhongxing", Du Huangshang tried his best to disagree with the public; For the sake of "Yuan and Zhongxing", Li Jifu died; For the sake of "Yuan and Zhongxing", Wu Yuanheng splashed blood in five steps; For the sake of "Yuan and Zhongxing", Pei Du personally risked Yashi; For the sake of "Yuan and Zhongxing", Cui Qun worked hard to support the crisis; For the sake of "Yuan and Zhongxing", Tian Hongzheng abandoned the dark and turned to the light; For the sake of "Yuan and Zhongxing", Tian Bu fought bloodily; For the sake of "Yuanhe Zhongxing", Li Yu and his thousands of soldiers braved the wind and snow and ran long distances; For the sake of "Yuan and Zhongxing", Li Guangyan went into battle shirtless; For the sake of "Yuan and Zhongxing", Han Yu made a blunt admonition; For the sake of "Yuan and Zhongxing", Liu Yuxi abandoned his previous suspicions; For the sake of "Yuanhe Zhongxing", hundreds of thousands of soldiers threw their heads and spilled their blood......

At one time, everyone thought that the dream had shone into reality: all towns were lurking, the rivers and mountains were unified, the spring of the Tang Empire was coming again, and every citizen of the Tang Empire would be bathed in the bright spring of the Tang Empire and live a happy life. However, at the most critical moment, "Yuanhe Zhongxing" came to an abrupt end, because Li Chun died, and his successor was Li Yu.

In fact, Li Chun's death is not terrible, as long as his successor has half of his courage and talent, the spring of the Tang Empire will not go far. It's a pity that in addition to killing his father and usurping the throne, in addition to the blood flowing in his body, Li Yu and his father are really not the slightest similar, not to mention one-half, Li Yu's courage and talent are not even one-tenth or one percent of his father's!

Speaking of which, the war that opened and closed during the Yuan and He years was actually just a prelude to the revival of the empire, in other words, it was just the first step of the Long March, and the road ahead was still very long, very, very long. However, his successor, Li Yu, the son of the Tang Dynasty, naively thought that his task was to sweep the tail. One of the ways to sweep the tail is the so-called "selling soldiers".

In February of the first year of Changqing, Prime Minister Xiao Li and Duan Wenchang jointly wrote a letter to offer the so-called Taiping policy, and they proposed to "ask the secret edict that there are military departments in the military towns of the world, and among the 100 people every year, only eight people can escape to death." The subtext of this sentence is that Chang'an ordered the feudal towns under the world to reduce their armies by 8 percent per year, and finally achieve the goal of weakening the feudal towns.

In fact, this is not a new measure, because, as early as the Yuanhe period, Bai Juyi once wrote an article called "Celin Preface", the main content of this article is the elaboration of the "sales of troops" policy. Xiao Li is Bai Juyi's good friend, and Duan Wenchang and Bai Juyi have a good personal relationship, so the so-called "selling troops" policy proposed by the two prime ministers is actually a sneak attack on Bai Juyi's creativity.

"This is not a good idea", back then, when Li Chun saw Bai Juyi's article, he easily made a judgment, and then threw it into the garbage heap and ignored it again. At the same time, Li Chun had an impression of Bai Juyi, a deep impression: Bai Juyi is a genius and an idiot; Writing poetry and essays, he is a genius, he is engaged in politics, he is an idiot!

Of course, Li Chun is a bit excessive, Bai Juyi's political talent is still there, but the most suitable official position for him should be a magistrate such as Assassin Shi, in Hangzhou, Bai Juyi's magistrate is doing a good job, very comfortable. Moreover, in Hangzhou, Bai Juyi also left countless legacies to nourish future generations, these legacies, in addition to intoxicating poems, there is also a long white causeway.

However, there is one sentence, Li Chun is not wrong, "selling soldiers" is really not a good idea. Although, as it sounds, this suggestion seems reasonable, but it is only reasonable in the abstract, reasonable in the book, reasonable on paper. Behind this proposal of "rationalization", there is a huge irrationality: where are the forcibly demobilized soldiers going? A pair of big hands that can only hold knives and guns, but can't hold hoes, how can they survive? From the resistance of the festival envoys, observation envoys, soldiers and horses envoys to ordinary soldiers, who will coordinate? Who will deter the tyrannical and domineering tooth army?

One question after another, like a mess, Chang'an, is there enough ability to unravel this mess?

Back then, Li Chun saw through the crux of the problem at a glance, so he laughed at Bai Juyi's proposal. It's a pity that his son can't see through it, so Li Yu's fart began to "sell the army", which was a big mistake, and it was cast and can no longer be recovered.

Chang'an's sale of troops was a mistake, a fundamental mistake, and therefore, it was not the only one, let alone the last. As a result, after a series of mistakes, the situation could no longer be cleaned up: Chengde rebelled, Lu Long rebelled, Wei Bo rebelled, Hebei became a pot of porridge again, and the instructions issued by Chang'an could no longer get out of Chang'an.

However, there seems to be no absolute in anything in the world, there is always an exception to everything, after all, there is still a pool of still water in Hebei, of course, it is just a pool, this rare still water is the horizontal sea.

In Hebei, where the waves are rolling and the waves are raging, the reason why Henghai can remain calm is only because of a policy implemented by Wu Chongyin, a policy that is different from Bai Juyi's "selling troops": "dividing troops".

Just like Chang'an is subject to the feudal town, in fact, the seemingly high-flying feudal town is sometimes controlled by others, and these people who can influence the feudal town are the commanders and generals under the Jiedu envoy.

It is a shame to say that the feudal towns that support the army and respect themselves, but the Jiedu envoy cannot fully control their own army, and a considerable part of the military power has to be handed over to a few of their own henchmen, once the henchmen are no longer henchmen, it becomes another kind of henchmen, and the henchmen are troubled by the henchmen. If several commanders and generals are connected in private and collectively force the palace, the Jiedu envoys will also tremble, and they will have to accept the conditions they put forward. Back then, Huaixi Jiedu made Wu Yuanji half of the thief, found that this road was not easy to walk, and wanted to turn back, but he was unexpectedly coerced by his subordinates, so he had to grit his teeth and stick to a road to the black, and finally missed Qingqing's life. And the man who took his life, that is, his son-in-law, easily escaped death. Because, at the last moment, he used to betray his father-in-law and received a gold medal for avoiding death, and spent the rest of his life freely.

Of course, the commanders are not safe because of the power they have.

Generally speaking, before the Jiedu envoy leaves, most of them will attack those generals who have heavy troops, so as to ensure that their descendants can sit on the throne of the Jiedu envoy smoothly. In order to strengthen their position, the new envoys often attack those who have heavy armies. In order to protect themselves, the generals sometimes rise up to rebel, drive away or kill the new Jiedu envoy who has an unstable foothold, and then sit on it himself, turn around and deal with his former colleagues and allies.

This is how the feudal town became chaotic.

Wu Chongyin's policy of "dividing troops" is actually not a great innovation, because he effectively imitated the example, that is, the "Tui En Order" of the Western Han Dynasty, the specific method is: the feudal towns distribute a large part of their troops to the states under their jurisdiction, and each state then distributes its military power to the counties under its jurisdiction. In this way, the number of troops that Jiedu and his generals can directly control is limited, and there are not enough soldiers in their hands, whether you are a great hero or a great hero; Whether you're a hero reincarnated or an adversary reborn; Whether you are An Lushan or Shi Siming, you can't just rely on the strength of one state and one county to confront the 100,000 divine army of the imperial court. In this way, Chang'an can certainly "lift the land in the middle of the pass to the Quartet" and restore its due dignity and momentum, and the feudal town can also live its own small life peacefully and happily, which can be described as the best of both worlds, why not? Therefore, as soon as Li Chun saw Wu Chongyin's recital, he immediately jumped up happily and immediately issued an edict to implement Wu Chongyin's policy nationwide. It's a pity that the Yuanhe Palace Revolution has quietly come, when the cold spring of the fifteenth year of Yuanhe passed quietly, the dragon chair is no longer the emperor who opens and closes, wise and martial, and there are many things with him, such as the "division of troops" policy he vigorously promoted.

Whether it is Wu Chongyin or Li Chun, they can't see the "division of troops" policy blossoming in the world of the Tang Empire, although one of them is alive and the other is gone.

When the rebellion of the feudal towns became a wave, not only in Hebei, but also in the interior, the territory of the Tang Empire was artificially cut into small pieces, and Chang'an lost the good situation of "Yuan and Zhongxing", and also lost the last chance. More than 100 years later, the Tang Empire, which existed in name only, finally came to an end, and it was a feudal town whose real name was Zhu Wen and later given the name Zhu Quanzhong.

It's quite ironic, Tang Xuanzong's No. 1 loyal minister An Lushan later became a traitor, and the counterinsurgency hero named Li Zhongchen by Tang Dezong finally became a rebel, Zhu Quanzhong was not to be outdone, as if it was just to see the jokes of the Tang Empire, since you gave me the name "Zhu Quanzhong", I just did a little disloyal thing for you to see, of course, he did a bit big: not only poisoned the penultimate emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Zhaozong, but also forced the penultimate emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Ai Emperor Zen, He happily became the Son of Heaven and changed the name of the country to "Liang", and the Tang Empire collapsed.

However, although they are born in the last days, there are still people who are unwilling to fall and have dreams, and they are not one, two, but a group. They knew that the building was going to collapse, but they still worked hard to move forward and paid without regrets for the revival of the Tang Empire, whether it was blood or life, and wrote a chapter that can be sung and cried. Of course, this is already another story, a story called "The Birds Scatter and the Flowers Fall".

Please watch the second part of "Sunset Chang'an" "Birds Scatter and Fall Flowers".