Li Deyu once wrote an article about cronies, and he also discussed cronies with literate admired and the two emperors. In his view, the villains in history colluded with each other to form a clique for personal gain and harm the country. Being with honest ministers is the same way to govern the country. Even if you get married, you are like-minded, not close friends.
He hated cronies and severely condemned them; Of course, in his view, he was not a clique at first, and he will never be a clique.
But history played a joke on him, and he was recognized as the leader of the "Li Party" in the historical event of "the dispute between Niu and Li".
The "Niu Li Party Struggle" began in Mu Zongchao and lasted for 40 years after Jing Zong, Wenzong, Wuzong and Xuanzong. The leader of "Niu Dang" is a monk and a scholar's son. On the stage of the late Tang Dynasty, the two parties were in power alternately, and the literati and Sect were mixed. "Li Party" flourished in Wuzong period, and "Niu Party" flourished in Xuanzong period. As soon as one party came to power, the other party was dismissed and released, and I went in and out of the court many times like this. Forty years of disputes have consumed too much energy of all clique members, including Li Deyu, and also consumed the last bit of luck in the Tang Dynasty.
Historians have always had different views on the essence of "Niu Li Party Struggle". Some people think that this is the opposition between the "new class" born in the imperial examination and the "old gentry since Wei and Jin Dynasties", some people think that this is the opposition between the main war faction and the main peace faction in dealing with buffer regions or diplomatic issues, some people think that this is the opposition between reformists and conservatives, and others think that this is just an unprincipled power struggle within the ruling class. What are you studying? There is no conclusion so far, and I am afraid it will be difficult to draw a conclusion in the future.
Niu Sengru is not only a political aristocrat, but also a literary celebrity. But what impressed him the most was the "leader of the Niu Party".
There are many examples of direct confrontation between Li Deyu and monks and nuns. Here is just one example.
During the reign of Emperor Wenzong, Niu Monks and Confucians were in the DPRK, and Li Deyu was released to give up our time. Xichuan borders on Nanzhao and Tubo, two ethnic minority regimes. Li Deyu trained elite troops and strengthened combat readiness, thus deterring the two regimes that once provoked wars. In 83 1 year, the envoy of Tubo Weizhou (now Lixian County, Sichuan Province) surrendered to the Tang Dynasty. Victoria was originally under the jurisdiction of the Tang Dynasty and was later occupied by Tubo. Being kind to well-informed and resourceful people can attract more minority leaders to surrender. However, when Li Deyu took this intention to court, Niu Monks and Confucians agreed with Tubo in advance, demanding that Li Deyu repatriate Tubo. In fact, the so-called peace treaty was violated when Tubo annexed Victoria. Li Deyu was forced to return Sima to Tubo, and Tubo immediately killed Sima at the border. This incident not only made Li Deyu feel lifelong regret, but also cast a shadow over the relationship between the Tang Dynasty and the surrounding ethnic groups.
When Li Deyu was in the reign of Wu Zongshi, after Zhao Yi Town was recovered, the decisive prime minister began to retaliate against Niu Monk and Ru. He advised Wuzong that when Niu Monk and Confucian were close friends, Liu Cong's protest did not stay in Beijing, which led him to return to Zhao Yi Town, which led to the subsequent disaster. Then, he sent people to Zhao Yi Town to look for letters between Liu Congjian and Niu Sengru. If they couldn't find it, they ordered people to testify that Liu had burned their letters after exhorting them. Things haven't finished yet, and someone came out to testify, saying that Niu Monk-ru sighed when he heard the news of Serina Liu's downfall. In this way, under the far-fetched evidence, Niu Monks and Confucians were demoted again and again, and they were demoted to Huizhou, Guangdong today.
To Li Deyu's surprise, shortly after Niu Monk and Ru was demoted, he was about to set foot on the road to the extreme south, where he went was much farther than Niu Monk and Ru.
As far away as Hainan, a generation of famous faces ended in sadness.
In 846 AD, Li Deyu resolutely banned the destruction of temples by Buddhas, and the dawn of the dynasty dawned. At the age of 33, Tang Wuzong came to the end of his life. During the six years of Tang Wuzong's reign, he almost never violated the arrangement of Prime Minister Li Deyu, but only on one thing, no matter how Li Deyu persuaded him, he turned a deaf ear, and that was to burn the elixir for immortality.
Tang Wuzong was not the first or the last emperor to die of swallowing the so-called elixir of life. His death is a laughingstock of little value in the history of China, but for Li Deyu, it means the end of his political life. However, although he was nearly sixty years old at that time, he probably didn't want to end it.
Perhaps, Li Deyu is not a man who is good at playing politics, otherwise he can still take his fate into his own hands. When Tang Wuzong died, he couldn't get close to the emperor at all, and the eunuch controlled everything. The eunuchs came out and announced that according to Wu Zong's will, Wu Zong's uncle acceded to the throne. This uncle is Tang Xuanzong.
In Tang Xuanzong's view, Li Deyu was a bully, and when Li Deyu was around, he felt creepy. So on the second day of leading the government, he just became the prime minister of Li Deyu, and then he was demoted all the way until he was demoted to Yazhou (now qiongshan district, Haikou City, Hainan Province) in Hainan two years later.
Li Deyu went south, and monks and nuns in the south just returned. For the "Niu Party" and "Li Party", this historical opportunity should be extraordinary. At that time, a person's gains and losses were sometimes unreasonable. On the way, Li Deyu wrote a poem: "The Ming Dynasty was a deserted road, so it is better to go upstairs and see the old customs."
We can almost hear Li Deyu's sigh when he went upstairs to see "Old Pass". A long sigh covered his life and the history of the late Tang Dynasty.
Although Li Deyu eventually died in Yazhou, he was remembered by people in Yazhou for generations and died a fair death.
In 849, Li Deyu died in Yazhou. Li Shangyin, his contemporaries, called him a "good man through the ages". In modern times, Liang Qichao placed him on an equal footing with Guan Zhong, Shang Yang, Zhuge Liang, Wang Anshi and Zhang Ping, calling him one of the six great politicians in ancient China. However, compared with the above five people, Li Deyu's name is silent after all. Is it because he pushed too hard on the issues of "rejuvenation in Huichang" and "party struggle in Niu Li"?