History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 1034: You Are Cruel (Part )

【Shu Nihen】

There is no doubt that Taizu and Taizong were generous and kind to the conquered areas, but it is also undeniable that the Song Dynasty existed political discrimination and economic exploitation against these areas from top to bottom, such as the treatment of Sichuan and Shu.

Taizu destroyed Hou Shu and moved a large amount of wealth to the interior. At that time, the state was in a tight budget, so it was understandable to suck blood from Shu. However, after tasting the sweetness, the Song Dynasty court could not stop. It was fun to suck blood for a while, and it was fun to suck blood all the time. The Song Dynasty launched a sustainable fishing campaign against Sichuan and Shu.

For example, they set up the "Bo Ma Wu" and engaged in monopoly operations. At first, it was cloth, and then tea and grain. They monopolized these necessities of life, bought low and sold high, and blatantly used the scissors difference to exploit the people. The government colluded with local tyrants and wealthy people to squeeze the poor people's bones. Finally, the officials forced the people to rebel, and civil unrest broke out in the Sichuan region.

In the fourth year of Chunhua (993), Sichuan suffered a severe drought, which caused a great famine and became the fuse of the uprising. In February, Wang Xiaobo, a gangster in Qingcheng County, Chengdu, raised his arms and called for a rebellion.

Before Wang Xiaobo rebelled against his mother, there were already many heroes in Shu who rebelled against his mother. The reason why Wang Xiaobo was able to come from behind and win was that compared with other leaders of the uprising, Wang Xiaobo's strategy was better.

First of all, he shouted out a loud slogan, "I am sick of the inequality of the rich and the poor, and now I will make it equal for you." The mainstream view of later generations generally believes that Wang Xiaobo was the first person in Chinese history to shout out the battle slogan of "equalizing the rich and the poor." For example, although Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi also had similar slogans of "equalization," they only stayed at the level of taxes and labor service. This view is a matter of opinion. In short, Wang Xiaobo clearly recognized the real problems of social polarization and sharp class contradictions, and proposed solutions to social pain points, which is also quite forward-looking and practical.

Secondly, Wang Xiaobo not only shouted out appealing slogans, but also put them into practice. At the beginning of the uprising, he used Qi Yuanzhen, the magistrate of Pengshan County, as a sacrifice.

Qi Yuanzhen is a typical example of a small official with huge corruption. When the imperial court sent an imperial commissioner to investigate the work in Shu, Qi Yuanzhen hid the stolen money, whitewashed his achievements, and actively bribed. When the imperial commissioner reported back, he reported many corrupt officials, but only praised Qi Yuanzhen as an honest and good official. Emperor Taizong Zhao Guangyi even issued an imperial edict to praise him. Like many officials who were dismissed, he was awarded various honors before he was dismissed.

In Sichuan, a place where the emperor is far away, Qi Yuanzhen became more confident and fearless with the emperor's commendation edict. He became more aggressive and caused public outrage.

Wang Xiaobo led the crowd to kill the corrupt official Qi Yuanzhen, cut open his stomach and filled it with coins as a mockery and humiliation, and then distributed all his stolen money to the poor, truly killing the corrupt to help the people. It was a great job.

This operation won him numerous fans, and heroes from all walks of life joined Wang Xiaobo's camp and elected him as the leader. The scattered civil uprising forces in Shu were quickly integrated, and the local prefectures and counties were unable to suppress them, so they could only report to the court and call in the heavenly soldiers and generals.

By the end of the year (December 993), a fierce battle broke out between Zhang Qi, the inspector of Xichuan, and Wang Xiaobo's bandit army in Jiangyuan County. During the battle, Zhang Qi bent his bow and shot Wang Xiaobo in the head (Qi shot Xiaobo in the forehead). Wang Xiaobo was indeed a hardcore ruthless man. Even with an arrow in the head, he struggled forward and killed Zhang Qi. It was Xiahou Dun who possessed him.

The commander of the government army was killed and they retreated immediately. Wang Xiaobo also died of his wounds, and the people elected Wang Xiaobo's brother-in-law Li Shun as the new leader, so that the cause of the rebellion against his mother would have someone to carry on.

Soon, the rebel army captured all the counties around Chengdu, and in the first month of 994, they attacked Chengdu Prefecture and burned down the west gate. Due to the tenacious resistance of the defenders, they had to withdraw their troops temporarily. During a short period of rest, Li Shun sent people to conquer Hanzhou and Pengzhou, and then made a comeback. In one go, they captured Chengdu Prefecture. Wu Yuanzai, the governor of Chengdu Prefecture, and Fan Zhigu, the transport envoy, led the people to break through and escape to Zizhou, Dongchuan.

Chengdu Prefecture, a tough nut that even Nanzhao's 200,000 troops could not crack, was easily conquered by a group of "Heroes of Liangshan". The damage was not high but the insult was extremely strong.

There are always public intellectuals praising the "loveliness" of the Song Dynasty. Maybe the Song Dynasty was really lovely to intellectuals and scholars, but what about the working people? Ask the people of Sichuan, ask Liangshan Marsh, ask Fang La in Jiangnan...

After Li Shun entered Chengdu, he did something big - he changed the era name and proclaimed himself king. Li Shun called himself "King of Great Shu" and changed the era name to "Yingyun". His legal system was not as pure as Dong Chang's "Great Yue Luoping Kingdom" and Liu Shouguang's "Great Yan Kingdom". Undoubtedly, he was not among the "Ten Kingdoms".

Li Shun sent his troops to plunder everywhere, with their front reaching Jianmen Pass in the north and Wu Gorge in the south, with a very powerful force.

Zhao Guangyi was very angry during the Spring Festival holiday. He had just received a report that Li Jiqian of Xiazhou was besieging Lingzhou and other places, and the situation was critical. "The emperor was furious when he heard it, and was determined to fight against him." So he sent General Li Jilong to lead the attack on Xiazhou, and Yin Jilun as the military supervisor. Soon after, he received a report from Xichuan, so he sent his trusted eunuch Wang Jie'en to lead the attack. It should be noted that at this time, Zhao Guangyi only knew about the Sichuan uprising, and did not know that they had captured Chengdu Prefecture, let alone that these unruly people had changed the era name and established a country.

Song Qi, the Minister of Personnel, submitted a memorial to discuss border affairs. Song Qi was indeed a lively man. He had previously analyzed the current situation in Liao for Emperor Taizong, because he had served as an official in Liao. Song Qi had not only served as an official in Liao, but also served as a judge in Yanzhou, had dealings with the Dangxiang people in Xiazhou, and had served as an official in Xichuan, so he was familiar with Sichuan and Shu. Therefore, Song Qi discussed the methods of dealing with the rebels in Xiazhou and Xichuan respectively.

Song Qi pointed out that Lizhou is the throat of the two Sichuans. Deng Ai destroyed Shu from here during the Three Kingdoms period. In addition, Sanquan, Xixian, Xingzhou, Fengzhou, etc. must also be heavily guarded. As long as these strategic locations are controlled, Sichuan and Shu will be within reach.

Zhao Guangyi quickly handed the memorial to Li Jilian and Wang Jie'en respectively, asking them to act as they saw fit.

In February, Zhao Guangyi learned that Li Shun had captured Chengdu Prefecture and changed the era name to establish the country. Zhao Guangyi was deeply distressed and said that he had never thought that the Sichuan and Shu people would be so arrogant. He would destroy them! He then sent Lei Youzhong and Pei Zhuang as the transport envoys of the gorge road, Liu Xi and Zhou Wei as the transport envoys of the gorge road to Xichuan, and the general Wang Gao led his troops directly to Jianmen Pass, while Yin Yuan led his troops to take the gorge road, advancing by land and water. Both routes were commanded by the commander Wang Jie'en.

Li Shun sent thousands of people (some say 100,000) to attack Jianmen Pass. At that time, there were only a few hundred old, weak, sick, disabled and pregnant women at Jianmen Pass, and the situation was extremely unfavorable to the government troops. The military supervisor, Comrade Shangguan Zheng, was ready to die and gave an impassioned pre-war speech. The morale of the soldiers was high, and they vowed to die for their country and went out to fight.

It happened that Chengdu military supervisor Su Han broke out from the Chengdu direction and led his men to Jianmen Pass, so he immediately joined the battle and joined Shangguan Zheng's troops. Li Shun's bandit army did not know that this was a defeated army that had come by mistake, and thought that it was heavenly soldiers and generals sent by the court. They were immediately frightened and could not stop. Except for more than 300 people who fled back to Chengdu in a panic, the rest of the bandit army was wiped out.

More than 300 defeated soldiers poured into the city, which dealt a heavy blow to the morale of the rebel army. Li Shun was furious and tied them all up and beheaded them outside the city as a warning to all. After the Song court received the victory report from Jianmen Pass, it immediately promoted Shangguan Zheng to be the governor of Jianzhou and the commander of the Jianmen army, and promoted Su Han to be the governor of Zhaozhou.

There is no need to elaborate on the importance of Jianmen Pass to Sichuan and Shu. The Song Dynasty was very worried about the loss of Jianmen Pass, but Li Shun's attention to Jianmen Pass was obviously far from enough.

In April, Wang Jie'en first conquered Jianzhou, then Mianzhou, Langzhou, and Bazhou. The government troops won victory after victory, and the bandit forces were squeezed into Chengdu. Wang Jie'en conquered Chengdu in one go, defeated more than 4 bandits, killed , and captured the bandit leader Li Shun alive.

At the beginning of Wang Xiaobo and Li Shun's rebellion, Zhang Yong, the governor of Zizhou, prepared for the rainy day and night by recruiting more than 4,000 soldiers and training them day and night to strengthen the army. He cut down trees to make poles, melted copper bells to make arrows, and made ropes to make defense equipment. He also transported gold and silk from Mianzhou to the city as military expenses and sent people to the court to ask for reinforcements. Before the enemy arrived, Zhang Yong had made full preparations for war.

Not long after, 200,000 bandit troops really headed straight for Zizhou.

Zhang Yong and the military supervisor Lu Bin climbed up the city wall to observe and found that the bandits outside the city were all old, weak, sick, disabled and pregnant, and they had no armor. They were simply moving military merits.

Lu Bin laughed and planned to go out of the city to fight.

Zhang Yong stopped it immediately, saying that this was obviously a ploy to lure the enemy, and that there would be elite ambushes behind it. Moreover, the morale of the officials and civilians in the city was shaken. Once our army lost the first battle, some would inevitably defect to the enemy. By then, the enemy army would join forces from inside and outside, and our city would be in danger!

Before he finished speaking, some of the defenders climbed up the watchtower and shouted outside, saying that they wanted to surrender. Zhang Yong immediately beheaded them in public to calm the troops.

The enemy army attacked the city day and night with ladders and battering rams, but Zhang Yong "fired machine guns, stones to smash them, and rockets to rain down", and both sides played according to the routine.

After the failure of the first phase of the all-out offensive, the rebel army moved into the second phase - a focused attack, concentrating all siege equipment in the northwest corner of the city, preparing to use this as a breakthrough point.

Zhang Yong not only knew military affairs, but also understood people's hearts. He said to his subordinates: "Hurry up and prepare for battle. I will go out of the east gate to attack the bandits!" Soon, 500 infantry and cavalry gathered at the east gate of the city.

There was a mountain outside the city, called Niutou Mountain, from which one could overlook part of the city. The rebel army had already sent people to observe the city's movements. The gathering of the defenders at the east gate was clearly visible to the rebel army. Moreover, the rebel army had received information from informants that Zhang Yong had personally ordered them to attack the rebels from the east gate. Therefore, the rebel army ambushed more than 10,000 of their most elite troops at the foot of Niutou Mountain, waiting for the defenders to come out from the east gate and give away their heads.

The charm of war lies in whether you can predict the enemy's prediction. Zhang Yong successfully predicted the enemy's prediction.

A good hunter always appears as his prey. While bluffing at the east gate of the city, Zhang Yong recruited a hundred death squads, secretly lowered down from the northwest corner of the city, and set fire to the enemy's siege equipment.

The bandit army launched several violent attacks in desperation, but in the absence of siege equipment, violent attacks were tantamount to suicide. As expected, after several rounds of violent attacks, the bandit army suffered heavy casualties and achieved no results.

A few days later, the sky suddenly changed, dark clouds covered the sun, day turned into night, and a strong north wind blew. The besieging enemy troops were overjoyed, so they took advantage of the wind to set fire and concentrated their forces to attack the north gate.

Zhang Yong and the military supervisor Lu Bin were armed with sharp weapons and rushed to the front line, facing arrows and stones, but they did not retreat. Chen Shiqing, the magistrate of Zizhou, was proficient in archery. According to records, he was responsible for guarding a city wall and shot and killed hundreds of people with his own hands.

The number of the defenders should be less than 10,000, while the enemy's number is as high as 200,000 (some say 100,000). In short, the difference in strength is huge. Although the enemy's army suffered repeated defeats, the power of the human wave tactic should not be underestimated. Over time, many soldiers were shaken and had the idea of ​​surrendering. They also tried to persuade Chen Shiqing to abandon the light and join the dark.

Chen Shiqing said with great righteousness, "I swear to die for my country!" Then he suggested that Zhang Yong send these weak-willed people away to call for reinforcements, as keeping them around would only cause trouble. Zhang Yong agreed.

After more than 80 days of siege, reinforcements led by Wang Jie'en arrived and the bandits fled. Lu Bin led his troops to pursue and kill them, captured people, defeated tens of thousands of bandits, lifted the siege of Langzhou, killed bandits, and recaptured Pengzhou.

Li Shun occupied Chengdu in the first month, changed the reign title and proclaimed himself king. He was defeated and captured in April, which took more than 4 days in total. Zhang Yong held Zizhou for more than 80 days, pinning down more than rebel troops and making great contributions to quelling the rebellion. Emperor Taizong Zhao Guangyi specially issued an imperial edict to commend him by name. From Zhang Yong onwards, everyone received a reward, which needs no detailed description.

(End of this chapter)