Section 6 dìdū Bloody Night

In the official historical records of the Zichuan family, there are only a few lines of the record of the bloody night of dìdū:

"On the night of March 26, 779 in the imperial calendar, Yang Minghua, the former president of the family, launched a rebellion in Dìdū. The deputy commander of the Far Eastern Army was ordered by the commander-in-chief Zichuan to enter the city to quell the rebellion.

At midnight, snow was falling. Yang Minghua was defeated. At dawn, 30,000 heads fell to the ground. A number of accidental injuries. ”

※※※

Tang Chuan, a young historian of the Zichuan family, describes the process of the bloody night in more detail:

"At about half past ten o'clock in the night, Sterling, the deputy commander of the Praetorian Guard, launched an attack on Yang Minghua's guards.

Yang Minghua could not resist Jīng Rui's Praetorian Guard, and frequently asked for reinforcements from the Zčng Yāng Army and the military police, but there was no response. In the end, he sent his henchman Luo Minghai's chief of staff to take over the zhōngyāng army.

Ten minutes later, the gates of the city opened automatically. The Red-clothed Banner of Dilin drove 50,000 soldiers from the Far East into the city, and the shouts of killing shook the whole city.

After learning that Di Lin had entered the city, Yang Minghua and his troops were overjoyed and demoralized, but it only lasted for a minute - the Far Eastern Army began to slash Yang Minghua's guards with golden swords.

Yang Minghua's troops collapsed on all fronts.

After all the guards were annihilated and fled, Yang Minghua himself fought to the last moment, scolding: "The Dilin dog thief must not die well!", which provoked the soldiers of the Far Eastern Army who originally wanted to capture him alive and cut him into corpses, which brought great trouble to Di Lin - he could not prove to the chief that the puddle of flesh and blood was Yang Minghua, the uncrowned king who had ruled the powerful Zichuan family for six years!

After learning of Yang Minghua's death, Deputy Commander Stirling sighed: "The Dìdū Rebellion is finally over, and we can start peace." After saying that, the deserters who went out of the city to chase Yang Minghua - in fact, he said this too early!

Later, we have to marvel at the accident of history: if Sterling, who was strict in governing the army, or Zichuan Xiu, who was gentle in his army, had been in charge of purging the "remnants of the traitorous party" in Dìdū that night, many tragedies would not have happened...... Even the catastrophe that later shook the foundation of the entire family, the "Sanjie Rebellion", also laid the root cause on this night.

But we have to be in awe of the inevitability of history: Stirling must command the Praetorian Guards to go out of the city to pursue the remnants of Yang Minghua's army, and Zichuan Xiu can only "sit" in the base camp of the Zōngyāng army to deter the pro-Yang Minghua army from making a move—so the task of clearing out the "remnants of the rebellious party" in Dìdū City that night can only be carried out by Dìdū!"

Tang Chuan's record only goes to this point - when he was about to write in detail about what the "tragedy" was, he was "invited" by the family's military police from his home to the Inspectorate's office to "drink coffee" in the middle of the night - and he never wrote anything about the bloody night of dìdū after his return.

※※※

The hooves of horses roared throughout the city, and a proclamation in a Far Eastern accent sounded everywhere: "Yang Minghua rebelled, launched a rebellion, and has been executed!"

"All traitors, all killed!"

"Any inhabitant who dares to resist the Far Eastern Righteous Division, kill!"

"Any resident who dares to harbor traitors, kill!"

"Any resident who dares to disobey orders and refuse to open the door to be searched is guilty of the same crime as rebellion, and killed!"

Yang Minghua's entire family (including domestic servants), a total of 271 people, were all executed. Headless corpses lay out on the long snow-capped street, and the white snow turned red. ”

Xiao Long, the inspector general who had already resigned and did not intervene in the fighting, and who did indeed restrain his subordinates who did not participate in Yang Minghua's rebellion that night, was dragged out of his home by the soldiers of the Far Eastern Army, and killed his parents, wife, and son, a total of 35 relatives in front of him (his daughter committed suicide by biting her tongue, because the soldiers of the Far Eastern Army tried to force her), and finally dragged Xiao Long on a horse for ten miles before he could breathe, and the soldiers became impatient and trampled him alive with the hooves of the horses.

Li Ya, the deputy commander of the Zhi Ministry, and his subordinates were ordered by the Command Office (now it seems to be the order of the rebel Yang Minghua) to carry out a curfew mission, and as soon as Di Lin's troops entered the city, they immediately abandoned their weapons and surrendered - and then they were massacred en masse by the headquarters of the Zhi Bu Shao. Di Lin's reaction when he learned the news was to frown, and then instructed his subordinates: "Since I have already killed Li Ya's family, someone in the province will seek revenge on me in the future." ”

Yang Minghua's secretary, the 51 members of the family of the Red Banner Benlin Road were locked in their own homes, and the Far Eastern Army just set fire to the house and burned it down -- they were already tired of killing.

.........

Later, many people believed that all the dead in the "dìdū bloody night" were due to Di Lin's orders, which really wronged Di Lin -- he actually ordered the killing of less than 100 officials and their families close to Yang Minghua's side, at most more than 5,000 people, but the number of dead and wounded that night reached 30,000 -- this is actually not difficult to explain, the soldiers of the Far Eastern Army have already killed red eyes, and when they see a family with rich money and beautiful women, they shout: "This is a secret base for the traitor!" The door was immediately broken down, followed by the screams of men and the screams of women......

In the massacre that night, the most wronged was the tragedy at Luo Minghai's house: Di Lin, who did not know the truth, sent the Far Eastern Army to arrest Yang Minghua's "number one cronie" Luo Minghai, and the soldiers could not find him at Luo Minghai's house (after he ordered the city gate to be opened, he went to the governor's mansion to see Zichuan and Sanxing, and never returned home that night), so he left - before leaving, he beheaded 21 members of Luo Minghai's family, poured gasoline on his house, and threw a torch over - causing a blood feud between Luo Minghai and Di Lin, that is, the "Sanjie Rebellion" The fuse...

More than 100 high-ranking family officials became the burial objects of Yang Minghua's ambitions, and the blood of 30,000 commoners became the "burial goods" of the "burial goods"... No wonder Zi Chuanxiu sighed: "Yang Minghua is really a beautiful funeral - so many funerals!"

The whole city of Dìdū groaned and bled under the iron hooves of Dirin... Tang Chuan, who came back from the Supervision Department, couldn't help but secretly describe: "The snowflakes that fell in the middle of the night on the twenty-six rì showed a gorgeous crimson..."

※※※

At five o'clock in the morning, the deputy commander of the administrative department, Goshan, urgently asked to see the chief of Zichuan Sanxing, and asked to stop the atrocities of Di Lin - she was confronted by three rebels in the short distance from her home to the governor's mansion, the first time she snatched her purse, the second time she snatched her horse, and the third time the soldiers tried to rape her: fortunately, it was very close to the governor's mansion, and a team of Janissaries came out to save her.

(Later, when Shikawa Xiu heard about this, he said: "Even if the Far Eastern Army has not seen a woman for too long, it is unforgivable for this kind of thing to happen - their taste is so bad!")

The reaction of the commander-in-chief, Zichuan Sanxing, after meeting with Goshan, was: At 5:30 in the morning, an order was sent to Di Lin: appoint him as acting inspector general and further purge the "remnants" of Yang Minghua's rebellion in the zhōngyāng army!

;