Traditionally, court rivalries in the late Tang dynasty were understood in terms of civil officials versus military commanders but, in reality, the literati-bureaucrats hated each other as much as, if not more than, their martial colleagues. Hostilities were fierce between officials who were sons of prominent, upper-class families and those whom they considered upstarts: the ones who had progressed up the greasy pole by using their abilities and smarts. This rivalry culminated in the tragedy at Baima in 905, when the upstarts’ faction goaded (or perhaps they were used by) military strongman Zhu Wen, who, incidentally, hailed from a family of Confucian scholars, to slaughter more than 30 senior high-born officials and throw their bodies into the Yellow River.