History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 124: Recapture Wei Bo
[Recapture Wei Bo]

On the first day of the Lunar New Year in the second year after Emperor Zhaozong ascended the throne, all civil and military officials presented Emperor Zhaozong with the title of Emperor Shengwen Ruide Guangwu Hongxiao.

Don't remember, it's all flattery.

Zhaozong was in high spirits and full of confidence. He changed the reign title to "Dashun" to bring good luck to his upcoming great achievements.

At that time, the "remnant of bandits" Qin Zongquan had just been beheaded, and Tian Yan's party had just been purged, and the empire showed signs of revival.

However, this was a case of "pump and dump" in history. The young and frivolous Zhaozong was severely exploited and almost lost everything.

The year of Dashun was an important turning point. After the low-level shock and accumulation of funds during "Li Yan's usurpation of the throne", the market resolutely plummeted off a cliff.

The major vassal states took advantage of this sideways fluctuation to complete their primitive accumulation, and they all untied their positions, fled with profits, and made a fortune. Only the gold medal fund manager, Zhaozong, was buried at the bottom of the valley and became a laughing stock of the world.

There is no need for us to sort out these profit-taking transactions one by one, because there are two Kanto bosses who almost dominate the overall situation, and the fierce battle between the two bosses also dominates the future direction of the historical context, which can almost be generalized.

These two big bosses from Guandong are Li Keyong and Zhu Wen.

Li Keyong, with the remaining strength of his ancestors for several generations, gradually gained a firm foothold in Taiyuan Prefecture in Hedong, and successfully smashed the joint encirclement and suppression operation by the central and local governments, consolidated and defended the Hedong forces, severely undermined the morale of the court, and forced the court to change the cabinet.

After a short rest, Li Keyong took advantage of the victory and continued to attack Helian Duo of Yunzhou. Helian Duo could not resist and fled to the Tuyuhun tribe, and then fled to Youzhou and took refuge with Li Kuangwei of Lulong.

Li Keyong cleared the threat from the north, successfully expanded the territory to the north, and began to threaten the towns in Hebei.

Not only Li Keyong but also his old friend Zhu Wen coveted Hebei.

If the towns in Hebei were the fat meat at Li Keyong's fingertips, then in Zhu Wen's eyes this piece of fat meat was a sharp blade hanging over his head.

For Zhu Wen, the towns in Hebei were both a defensive barrier for Li Keyong and a bridgehead for Li Keyong to move south. If the towns in Hebei surrendered to Hedong, Li Keyong could attack or defend and would have the initiative in the war. However, no matter whether Zhu Wen was marching east to Xuzhou or plundering Huainan in the south, he was always in danger of being attacked from both sides of Hebei.

Zhu Wen was not just worrying about the sharp blade hanging over his head.

Two years ago, Wei Bo mutinied, Luo Hongxin came to power, and was forced to make peace with Zhu Wen. Zhu Wen thought that he could use Wei Bo as a firewall and beachhead, and take the initiative in the future when competing with Li Keyong. However, the facts were quite the opposite.

When Li Keyong annexed Dongzhaoyi, Zhu Wen planned to use Wei Bo as a passage to rescue Dongzhaoyi, but Luo Hongxin of Wei Bo refused, which eventually led to Li Keyong's successful annexation of Dongzhaoyi. When Zhu Wen conquered Xuzhou and divided his troops into Huainan, Luo Hongxin of Wei Bo opened his territory to Li Keyong and allowed 500 Shatuo cavalry to rescue Xuzhou.

The two events before and after are enough to prove that Wei Bo Luo Hongxin was indecisive about Zhu Wen and sincere to Li Keyong. Therefore, the previous article said that the appearance of 500 Hedong reinforcements on the battlefield in Xuzhou was an extremely dangerous signal for Zhu Wen.

The attitude of the Wei Bo army towards Li Keyong and Zhu Wen was typical of the various towns in Hebei.

When Zhang Jun united the warlords of the world to attack Li Keyong, Zhu Wen, as the commander-in-chief of the Zhengdong Front Army, once again asked Wei Bo to borrow a road, borrow food, and requisition war horses. As expected, he was ruthlessly rejected by Luo Hongxin.

The Hebei vassals were not very interested in the affairs of the Central Plains. They did not want to interfere in the disputes in the Central Plains, and even less did they want to be annexed by the powerful vassals in the Central Plains. In a nutshell, their demand was to maintain the status quo and achieve glorious isolation.

Zhu Wen had no dealings with the Hebei vassal states, and had no grudges in the past or in the present; on the contrary, Li Keyong repeatedly intervened in Hebei affairs and interfered in the "internal affairs" of the Hebei region. Why did the Hebei warlords not distinguish between love and hate and were willing to be masochists?

Because maintaining the status quo and allowing Li Keyong and Zhu Wen to form a strategic balance is the basic premise for the prosperity and stability of the Hebei vassal states. They uncomplainingly favored their "enemy" Li Keyong for deep political considerations:
Now, Zhu Wen controlled the Heyang area and several important ferry crossings of the Yellow River. He also had the eastern capital Luoyang as a strategic depth. Therefore, it was easy for Zhu Wen to cross the Yellow River to the north to attack the Zhaoyi area and threaten Hedong. As for Li Keyong, the best option to attack Zhu Wen was to go through Wei Bo.

If Li Keyong wanted to annex Hebei, Zhu Wen would never sit idly by, otherwise he would face the dangerous dilemma of being surrounded by Li Keyong on three sides.

In other words, even if the Hebei vassal states offended Zhu Wen, Zhu Wen would still help Hebei without hesitation for his own safety. Helping Hebei was helping himself. This was the political game theory of the Hebei vassal states. Survive between Qi and Chu.

Let's enlarge the scale of the map. In the east, Zhu Xuan of Yunzhou, Zhu Jin of Yanzhou, Shi Pu of Xuzhou, Sun Ru of Huainan, Yang Xingmi of Xuanzhou, etc., all the major vassal forces in the Central Plains are well aware of this. If one side attacks the other, the attacked side can always unite with the third party behind the attacker to save Zhao from Wei; it can also always find the fourth party behind itself to seek support, and the lips and teeth will be cold.

Once you understand this principle, the chaos of warlords' annexation at the end of the Tang Dynasty will become clear in an instant. All the seemingly chaotic wars between warlords, with enemies and friends changing, all follow this rule. This is the golden key to clarifying the chaos of warlords' annexation at the end of the Tang Dynasty.

When the news came that Luo Hongxin of Wei Bo had once again refused Zhu Wen's request to borrow his way, grain, and horses, Zhu Wen was not angry. Instead, he slammed the table and laughed, "Luo Hongxin, you took the bait!"

After Zhu Wen realized the threat posed by Luo Hongxin of Wei Bo, he planned a military operation against Wei Bo to eliminate this hidden danger, but he had no legitimate excuse.

At a time when the imperial court was encircling Li Keyong from all sides, Zhu Wen, under the planning of his adviser Jing Xiang, used the same old trick again and used a trap to enforce the law. Not only did he have to borrow the road from Wei Bo, but he also had to collect his food and supplies. In short, he had to make sure that these requests were something that Luo Hongxin could not agree to. Yes, Zhu Wen wanted Luo Hongxin to say "no".

As long as Luo Hongxin dared to say even a word of "no", it would be against the will of the court, and Zhu Wen could legitimately help the court eliminate the traitor.

In the twelfth month of that year, Zhu Wen mobilized a large army and assembled it in Huazhou. He then crossed the Yellow River and attacked Wei Bo.

Ding Hui and Ge Congzhou formed the vanguard column to clear obstacles in the north and open up the road to Weizhou, the headquarters of Weizhou; Pang Shigu and Huo Cun were responsible for clearing the strongholds in the west and ensuring the safety of the army's flanks; Zhu Wen personally led the core army to advance northward.

Within half a month, Zhu Wen won five battles in a row and advanced to Yongding Bridge. The gates of Weizhou were suddenly opened and there was no longer any strategic location to defend.

Luo Hongxin was horrified. People said that Li Keyong was invincible, and Zhu Wen was no ordinary man. He quickly sent envoys with a large amount of gold, silver and jewelry to ask for peace with Zhu Wen.

Zhu Wen readily agreed to the request for peace.

Luo Hongxin personally went to the Bian army camp to apologize, and Zhu Wen came out of the camp several miles away to meet him. The leaders of both sides had in-depth and friendly exchanges, exchanged greetings, and reached a consensus on key issues.

Faced with the betrayal of Luo Hongxin of Wei Bo, Comrade Zhu Wen personally led the army to convince him with reason. When Luo Hongxin apologized, Zhu Wen did not kill him, but took the initiative to cease fire, return the prisoners of war and land, and demonstrated to Luo Hongxin with practical actions the powerful military strength and broad mind of the Xuanwu Army of Bianzhou.

Luo Hongxin was so grateful that he said he would change his ways and proposed to become sworn brothers with Zhu Wen.

"No one is perfect. There is no greater virtue than to correct one's mistakes." Zhu Wen immediately set up an incense table. With the Yellow Heaven above and the Thick Earth below, Luo Hongxin and Zhu Wen were willing to become sworn brothers and swear an oath of blood.

Luo Hongxin was a few years older than Zhu Wen and was the sixth child in the family, so Zhu Wen treated him as his elder brother and called him "Sixth Brother."

Zhu Wen used both kindness and force to subdue Luo Hongxin of Wei Bo.

Zhu Wen was unable to swallow Weizhou before Xuzhou Shi Pu, Yanyun Er Zhu, and Huainan Sun Ru were resolved. The various towns in Hebei would not sit idly by and watch this happen, not to mention Hedong Li Keyong.

Therefore, Zhu Wen's military action against Wei Bo this time was obviously different from his attitude towards Yan, Yun, and Xu. His strategic goal was to make Luo Hong surrender to Bianzhou with conviction.

Zhu Wen kept his promise and withdrew his troops from Weizhou in a timely manner. On the surface, he did this to show his magnanimity to Luo Hongxin, but in fact, he did this to guard against Li Keyong in Hedong.

After the news of Li Keyong's attack on Helianduo in Yunzhou came, Zhu Wen dared to breathe a sigh of relief and transferred this powerful army from the Heyang area to the east to continue to complete his main mission - Xuzhou.

Thanks to "Inner Fluctuation Man" and "Book Friend 151023051918540" for their recommendation support!
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(End of this chapter)