History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 1041 Wildfire can’t burn it all

At this critical moment when the civil unrest in Shu was almost out of control, the trusted eunuchs were harboring enemies and there was no one else in the court to send, Zhao Guangyi suddenly had an idea, "How could I forget about this young man!" Extraordinary things must be entrusted to extraordinary people.

Zhao Guangyi issued an edict, appointing Zhang Yong as governor of Yizhou, and allowed him to "act at his own convenience." Young man, take my imperial sword and let yourself go.

In September 994, Zhang Yong arrived in Chengdu. As the saying goes, a new official starts with three things, but Zhang Yong had already started one before he even took office, which was very typical of him.

On his way to take office, Zhang Yong discovered that the highway was filled with baggage convoys transporting food from Shaanxi to Shu. He then inquired about the number of troops stationed in the city and the food storage situation. He received a shocking reply: there were 30,000 troops in the city, but the food reserves were less than half a month's supply.

After further investigation, Zhang Yong found that there was still a lot of surplus grain in the people of Shu. If the grain could be obtained locally, it would save the court a lot of money. But it was impossible to forcibly collect grain, otherwise it would give birth to countless Wang Xiaobo, Li Shun, and Zhang Yu. Zhang Yong also found out that the price of salt in Shu was high, which was of course the result of the government's monopoly.

Therefore, Zhang Yong promulgated a reform measure: lowering the price of salt and allowing people to exchange grain for salt, so as to benefit the people and eliminate the "scissors gap", so that no middlemen could make a profit from the price difference.

The people of Shu welcomed the reduction in salt prices and exchanged their grain for official salt. Within half a month, Zhang Yong had collected hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain. The army and the people cheered, but the corrupt officials were depressed.

After a period of operation, Chengdu had enough military rations for two years, so Zhang Yong submitted a memorial to the court, requesting to stop transporting grain and fodder from Shaanxi.

When Zhao Guangyi received the memorial, he was overjoyed and immediately praised: "What can't this kid solve? With him in Xichuan, I can rest assured!"

After officially taking office, Zhang Yong unexpectedly had a conflict with Wang Jie'en. The reason was that Wang Jie'en wanted the government to allocate fodder for the army horses, but Zhang Yong refused to provide fodder and only converted it into cash.

Wang Jie'en was furious and threw the iron coins on the ground, "Can your horse eat iron?"

Zhang Yong retorted, "Your fodder was blown in by the wind? Fodder comes from the pasture, and now all the pastures outside the city are occupied by bandits. You have a large army but you are unwilling to go out to fight the bandits, so of course there is no fodder! Don't talk nonsense, if you want fodder, fight the bandits and get it. I have reported your actions in the city to the emperor truthfully."

After hearing the last sentence, Wang Jie'en's arrogance instantly disappeared and he didn't dare to say a word.

It happened that the deputy general Wei Shaoqin received an order from the court to go to war, so Wang Jie'en took advantage of the situation and began to dispatch troops to fight the bandits. Wei Shaoqin won victory after victory and recovered Shuzhou.

Wang Jie'en was the leader in fighting the bandits, and Shangguan Zheng was the second in command. Zhang Yong adopted the strategy of defeating them one by one. He first divided Shangguan Zheng, and then had a drink and talked with him privately, explaining to him the righteousness of the monarch and the country, and encouraged him to fight the bandits and make meritorious deeds to serve the emperor. When Shangguan Zheng led his troops to the battle, Zhang Yong would hold a grand farewell ceremony to encourage the soldiers to make meritorious deeds. It was under Zhang Yong's encouragement that Shangguan Zheng repeatedly made extraordinary achievements and recovered lost territory one after another. However, Zhang Yong was an airborne leader after all, and his relationship with the "indigenous" leader Wang Jie'en was actually very delicate. He had to give him a warning and make him afraid of himself, but at the same time, he couldn't make the relationship too stiff and affect the smooth progress of the work. In dealing with the relationship with Wang Jie'en, Zhang Yong was still very cautious.

Wang Jie'en sent more than 30 captives to Zhang Yong for him to deal with. Zhang Yong ordered them all to be released and returned to the countryside. Wang Jie'en was furious. He said, "We caught them with great difficulty, why do you just let them go?" Zhang Yong said, "Li Shun and others turned civilians into thieves. Why can't we turn thieves into civilians today?"

Wang Jie'en originally wanted to drag Zhang Yong into the water, but Zhang Yong ended up dividing the credit and fame equally, "Yong and the public converted the bandits into common people."

As mentioned above, Wang Jie'en had been allowing his subordinates to harass the people. His subordinates were fearless and had no regard for the law. Someone complained to Zhang Yong and asked him to stop it. Zhang Yong secretly warned his confidants: Tie them up and throw them into a dry well after catching them. Don't send them to me and don't let me know. His subordinates followed the plan.

Wang Jie'en could only suffer in silence. Soon, his soldiers no longer dared to commit crimes, and social security was greatly improved.

Zhang Yong kept his mission in mind, which was to suppress the rebels while guarding against internal thieves. After reporting Wang Jie'en's actions in detail, Zhang Yong secretly reported to Emperor Taizong, saying that Wang Jie'en had no way of managing his subordinates, which led to his subordinates being arrogant and difficult to control. After suppressing the rebels, there might be changes, so he specially asked the emperor to send some trusted generals to gradually take over the army.

Even if Wang Jie'en had no intention of separatist rebellion, what if one day these arrogant and powerful generals suddenly draped the dragon robe on Wang Jie'en, knelt on the ground and shouted "Long live the emperor"... Your Majesty, do you still remember the story of the "Chenqiao Mutiny" that you participated in?
Zhao Guangyi agreed with this, so he summoned Zhang Jian, a direct scholar of the Privy Council, and Feng Shougui, deputy envoy of the Xijing Workshop, to the back garden for tea and "taught them the strategy in person."

Zhang Jian proposed suggestions for rectification, saying that Shu had just been recovered and people's hearts were not yet stable. If the court suddenly parachuted in a group of generals to reorganize the organization and send them to garrison, it would probably stimulate their sensitive and fragile nerves and instead provoke a mutiny. It would be better for me to go and comfort them in the name of appeasement and rewards, and then wait for an opportunity to act.

Zhao Guangyi accepted Zhang Jian's suggestion, handed him some blank letters of appointment, and asked him to act according to the circumstances.

After Zhang Jian arrived in Chengdu, he and Zhang Yong sang the same tune, first transferring and repatriating the obedient troops and Wang Jie'en's direct confidants in batches, and at the same time urging Wang Jie'en to hunt down the remaining bandits so that he had no time to split up, and then gradually appeasing the disobedient troops with sugar-coated bullets. In this way, the hidden dangers were eliminated and Shu gradually calmed down.

Zhang Jian, his father is also an old acquaintance of ours. He is the famous "Zhang Daoju, the filial son of revenge" Zhang Cangying in Hebei. When Zhang Cangying was 17 years old, his family was killed by Sun Daoju, the gang leader. After escaping, Zhang Cangying found his enemy Sun Daoju in Youzhou and stabbed him with a knife, but he did not die. Zhao Dejun, the governor of Youzhou at the time, appreciated his revenge very much. Not only did he not punish him, but he recruited him into his army. Not long after, Zhang Cangying captured Sun Daoju alive in the Waqiaoguan area, and then locked him in a secret room, placed his parents' tablets and tributes, and executed Sun Daoju by slow slicing for three days, and then cut open his abdomen and dug out his heart to commemorate his family. Zhang Cangying's feat was unanimously recognized by the people and officials, and he was praised as "Zhang Daoju, the filial son of revenge". In the early Song Dynasty, he served as the envoy of Yingzhou Tuanlian.

Wang Jie'en was recalled to the capital. He felt that he was gradually falling out of favor with Taizong and that Taizong was about to leave us prematurely, so he conspired with his confidants to depose and enthrone the emperor. The guiding ideology was still the old routine of "enthroneing those kings who should not be enthroned". The conspiracy was ultimately thwarted by Lu Duan and others, and Wang Jie'en and his followers were eliminated one by one. There is no need to elaborate.

Thanks to my old friend “江湖刘白” for the monthly ticket support!



(End of this chapter)