Cui Ning - Death

Death

By 783, Emperor Dezong was waging a number of campaigns against several military governors to the east who were not following imperial orders—Zhu Ci's brother Zhu Tao, Wang Wujun, Tian Yue, and Li Na. He summoned soldiers from Jingyuan Circuit (涇原, headquartered in modern Pingliang, Gansu) to Chang'an, ready to send them to join the campaigns in the east. When the Jingyuan soldiers arrived at Chang'an, however, they were displeased at the lack of imperial awards, and they mutinied, forcing Emperor Dezong to flee to Fengtian (奉天, in modern Xianyang, Shaanxi). The Jingyuan soldiers then supported Zhu Ci as their leader, and while Zhu was initially pretending to be preparing to put down the mutiny and welcome Emperor Dezong back to Chang'an, it soon became clear that he was planning to take over as emperor. Meanwhile, when Emperor Dezong fled out of the city, few imperial officials knew the direction of his flight and therefore few followed him. Several days later, Cui Ning arrived at Fengtian, and initially, Emperor Dezong was pleased. However, Emperor Dezong's trusted chancellor Lu Qi soon received word that Cui had commented:

Our master, the emperor, is intelligent and decisive, and he follows good advice. But he has been led astray by Lu Qi such that he now is in this lamentable state.

Lu feared that Cui would accuse him of causing the calamity, and therefore secretly plotted with an official who had arrived at Fengitan with Cui, Wang Hong (王翃). He had Wang make a secret report to Emperor Dezong that on the way to Fengtian, Cui had frequently stopped to defecate or urinate and appeared to be waiting for Zhu Ci's soldiers. Meanwhile, Zhu, who had declared himself emperor of a new state of Qin, in order to try to create suspicion in Emperor Dezong's minds, also publicly announced that he was making Cui and Liu Hun chancellors. Lu and Wang also forced Cui's secretary Kang Dan (康湛) into forging a letter from Cui to Zhu, offering to betray Fengtian to him. Lu, presenting the forgery to Emperor Dezong, thus falsely accused Cui of treason. Emperor Dezong believed Lu's accusations. He summoned Cui to his presence under the guise of giving him the mission of comforting the Yangtze-Huai River region, and once Cui arrived, had imperial soldiers strangle Cui to death. When Emperor Dezong commissioned the imperial scholar Lu Zhi to issue an edict declaring Cui's guilt, Lu Zhi requested that Lu Qi give him the letter from Cui to Zhu—and Lu Qi then claimed that the letter had been lost. Further, many people were then proclaiming Cui's innocence. As a result, Emperor Dezong, who was initially set to make Cui's family members slaves and confiscate his assets, did neither. In 796, Cui's former subordinate Han Tan (韓潭), then a military governor himself, offered to give up an honorary title he had in exchange to be posthumously declared innocent. Emperor Dezong agreed, and also returned Cui's body to his family for proper reburial.