The videos I watched became popular in ancient times

Chapter 118 Portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang

"From a military perspective, during the Kaiyuan period of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, whether it was the Imperial Guards in the capital, the guards in border towns, or even the local army, they basically relied on recruiting soldiers to maintain their supply of troops."

"In the early days of the Tang Dynasty, there were many wars, and many military towns were set up. After the recruitment system was implemented, soldiers who guarded the border for a long time appeared. Over time, the phenomenon of generals specializing in troops was formed."

"The situation under the military system of the early Tang Dynasty that emphasized internal and external emphasis was broken, and the distribution of the army changed to a situation of internal emphasis and external emphasis."

"The Jiedu envoys in various places have very great power. They not only have the power to control the army, but also control the local civil affairs, finance, and tax revenue. They not only have land, but also people, soldiers, and financial revenue. They quickly developed into The local separatist forces with centrifugal force became an unstable factor under the rule of the Tang Dynasty."

"The strength of Jiedushi continued to expand, and the centrifugal force became stronger and stronger. This gradually deepened the contradiction between the central and local governments and became the most important factor in the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion in the last years of Tianbao."

Li Longji: The power of Jiedushi is too great and must be restricted.

After listening to the anchor's introduction, his most intuitive feeling was that the most important factor in the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion was that Jiedushi had too much power.

Land, people, soldiers, civil affairs, finance, taxation, so much power is concentrated on Jiedushi. It is no wonder that ambitions are getting stronger and stronger.

And he appointed An Lushan as the governor of the three towns, which gave him greater power and gave An Lushan the opportunity to grow bigger. This made An Lushan's ambitions expand, which ultimately caused a catastrophic blow to the Tang Dynasty.

The power struggle between An Lushan and Yang Guozhong mentioned before was secondary. The most fundamental reason was that Jiedushi had too much power.

If Jiedushi was not given the opportunity to become bigger, no matter how serious the conflict between An Lushan and Yang Guozhong was, it would not be possible to trigger the Anshi Rebellion.

The reason why Jiedushi had such great power was because he had no choice but to do so.

Their strategic focus of the Tang Dynasty was in Guanzhong, which was Chang'an.

Due to the continuous battles on the northeast and northwest borders, which exceeded the long-term support range of the imperial government's finances, in order to be able to defend the borders, power had to be delegated to Jiedushi.

Later, as time passed, the Jiedushi envoys in the border areas took the opportunity to blackmail the court to delegate more power to them.

So much so that later on, these Jiedushi envoys were like local emperors, creating a situation where the Jiedushi envoys could not lose their tail.

It is not that easy to influence the military governors in border areas now. If you are not careful, it can easily cause unrest.

However, in order to prevent the Tang Dynasty from falling into the Anshi Rebellion again, it was inevitable to weaken the power of the Jiedushi.

How to weaken the power of Jiedushi without causing unrest in the Tang Dynasty was a headache for him.

"The last point is to explain from the background of the rebels. There are many theories about An Lushan's life experience. The more recognized theory is that he has the blood of the Hu people."

"In the first year of Tianbao, An Lushan was appointed as the military governor of Pinglu, and gradually gained the favor of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty. Shi Siming also became a general and knew Pinglu's military affairs."

"Later, An Lushan was transferred to Fanyang Jiedushi by the Tang Dynasty, and concurrently served as Pinglu Jiedushi and Hedong Jiedushi. His ambitions gradually expanded."

"Anlushan raised tens of thousands of war horses and tens of thousands of troops, sent Hu merchants everywhere to do business, and received millions of money every year. The conditions for raising troops were more complete."

"He also asked his counselors to plan noblely and select trusted generals from the army to serve as the backbone of the rebellion and start the rebellion."

Li Longji: Are counselors noble? It seems that there is another fish that slipped through the net.

He couldn't help but snorted, and immediately ordered to send troops to catch people and catch all the fish that slipped through the net.

When the Anshi Rebellion broke out, it was certain that not only the two masterminds, An Lushan and Shi Siming, but also some rebel confidants would be arrested and executed.

"Okay, that's it for the explanation of the Anshi Rebellion. Next is our sales session." Su Chen clapped his hands and drew everyone's attention back from the Anshi Rebellion.

"Before selling the goods, the anchor would like to ask you a question. What should your descendants do if they want to know what you look like?"

Before selling Polaroids, Su Chen asked a question to interact with everyone and liven up the atmosphere.

Ying Zheng: This is not easy, just find a skilled painter.

Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty: I often paint for my employer. A portrait can be passed down forever for future generations to admire.

Wu Daozi of the Tang Dynasty: Although I have some attainments in landscape painting, I also have some experience in figure painting. I can look in the mirror and draw a picture for myself and leave it to future generations.

Wang Wei of the Tang Dynasty: I used to go to the palace to paint paintings for His Majesty the Emperor, and even His Majesty praised my vivid paintings.

Zhang Zeduan of the Northern Song Dynasty: This anchor has asked the right person. I am the history of painting at the Imperial Academy of Painting in the Song Dynasty. I am the best at painting. The portrait of His Majesty was painted by me!
  Zhu Yuanzhang: This is easy. Find a painter to draw our appearance, and then we will be remembered forever.

Su Chen saw several ancient painters he was familiar with appearing and couldn't help but nodded with satisfaction.

Gu Kaizhi, Wu Daozi, Wang Wei, and Zhang Zeduan were all famous painters in ancient times and deserved his respect.

However, ancient painting techniques were very different from modern ones, and he could not appreciate some of the paintings.

When it comes to landscape painting, the ancients focused on freehand brushwork, and he still likes it very much. Even a person like him, who doesn't know how to paint, can understand the artistic conception of landscape painting.

But when it came to figure paintings, he disagreed and couldn't appreciate them at all.

Figure paintings of historical celebrities often appeared in the Chinese textbooks he grew up in. At first, he thought the ancients looked so abstract.

Later, when he learned more about it, he understood why the ancient portraits were like this.

It turns out that when the ancients painted figures, their purpose was only to show the characteristics of the figure's posture, and did not pay attention to the size and proportion of the various parts of the figure, so it was painted like that.

"Your Majesty Hongwu, are you sure that if the painter painted your appearance, future generations will still recognize your true appearance?"

Zhu Yuanzhang: That's natural. The painter we hired has superb skills and the paintings are very lifelike. Of course our descendants will recognize our appearance.

Regarding Zhu Yuanzhang's confidence, Su Chen shook his head in amusement.

"Your Majesty Hongwu, let me show you an ancient figure painting. See if you can recognize it."

Su Chen then found an ancient portrait circulating on the Internet on the tablet, and then pointed the live broadcast lens at the tablet.

Zhu Yuanzhang: This man’s face is full of pockmarks, and the most important thing is that he has a shoehorn face. He looks really ugly and we can’t recognize him.

Su Chen silently gave Zhu Yuanzhang a thumbs up, and he was right.

"The person in this portrait is Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. It has been passed down to this day and is well known to our later generations."

Zhu Yuanzhang:? ? ?

(End of this chapter)