History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 148 Second Offense
When Li Keyong was ordered to go to the north to assist the king and resolve the crisis of "Three Garrisons Invading the Palace", Wang Jian of Xichuan also smelled an opportunity. He raised the banner of going north to assist the king and sent his adopted sons Wang Zongyao and Wang Zongkan to seize Li Maozhen's territory.

At the same time as Li Keyong captured Bingzhou, Wang Jian captured Lizhou and captured and killed the governor Li Jiyong (Li Maozhen's adopted son); Li Jiyong (Li Maozhen's adopted son) of Langzhou, Pengzhou, and Quzhou all surrendered.

When they were about to reach the front line to defend the king, Wang Jian used the excuse that the Dongchuan soldiers were looting the supplies of Xichuan and turned back to attack Dongchuan.

During the battle, Wang Jian's adopted son Wang Zongbi was captured alive by Dongchuan. Dongchuan's Gu Yanhui rebuked him for trespassing without reason, and Wang Zongbi replied that they were just serving different masters. Gu Yanhui then said that Wang Jian was being foolish, and as a general, why didn't you advise him and make more contributions to the friendship between the two Sichuans? Wang Zongbi was speechless, but asked to die.

At the beginning, Wang Jian wanted to seize Dongchuan with a Hongmen Banquet, but Wang Zongbi secretly leaked the secret to Gu Yanhui, which saved Gu Yanhui from the disaster. Gu Yanhui did not forget this favor and stopped making things difficult for Wang Zongbi. Instead of killing him, he adopted him as his son, kept him by his side, and renamed him "Gu Chen". As usual, we will use "Wang Zongbi" in the following text.

Wang Jian's intention was obvious. Under the pretext of "serving the king", he invaded Shannan in the north and Dongchuan in the east to expand his sphere of influence. The imperial court ordered the two Sichuan provinces to stop fighting. Wang Jian accepted the reconciliation edict on the surface and returned to Chengdu, but his main force continued to attack Dongchuan under his orders.

Under Wang Jian's fierce offensive, Tongzhou (Li Maozhen's territory) and Guozhou surrendered, Longzhou was conquered, and Wang Jian continued to encroach on the territory of Fengxiang Li Maozhen and Dongchuan Gu Yanhui.

At the same time, Wutai Jiedushi Wang Jianzhao surrendered to Wang Jian with his land, which was a windfall for Wang Jian.

The cause was that Cheng Li, the governor of Jingnan, was unwilling to be left out, so he went up the Yangtze River and took advantage of the chaos between the two Sichuan provinces to attack the Qiannan area. Wang Jianzhao, the governor of Wutai, was unable to resist, so he retreated to Fengdu (now Fengdu County, Chongqing).

Cheng Li sent a general named Xu Cun, who was invincible and pursued the enemy relentlessly, and successively conquered Yuzhou (belonging to Dongchuan) and Fuzhou (belonging to Wutai). However, Cheng Li appointed another general as the governor of Wutai, and only gave Xu Cun the position of governor of Wanzhou.

Cheng Li knew that his rewards and punishments were inappropriate, and was worried that Xu Cun might be dissatisfied, so he sent people to observe him secretly. The investigators sent back intelligence that Xu Cun ignored government affairs and only played football every day. Cheng Li sneered and said, "He is about to go on a long journey, let him practice his leg strength first." Then he sent troops to raid Xu Cun.

Xu Cun abandoned the city and fled, gathering the remaining soldiers and generals, lamenting that the world was so big that there was no place for him. So he surrendered to Wang Jian together with Wang Jianzhao who was trapped in Fengdu, and sought shelter from the regional boss, Wang Jian of Xichuan.

The reason why Xu Cun was not tolerated by Cheng Li was very simple, just because Xu Cun was both intelligent and brave. Cheng Li was jealous of his talent and suspicious of him. Now, Xu Cun had nowhere to go and turned to Wang Jian, but was also suspected by Wang Jian, who wanted to find an opportunity to kill him.

Wang Jian's adviser Gao Zhu advised: "The lord is trying to recruit heroes from all over the world to build a great cause of hegemony. Today Xu Cun came to surrender at the cost of his life. If you kill him, who will dare to surrender to you in the future?"

Wang Jian sent Xu Cun to serve under his adopted son Wang Zongwan, and secretly ordered Wang Zongwan to monitor Xu Cun's every move and kill him if he made any mistake.

Wang Zongwan secretly reported: "Xu Cun is loyal and brave, humble and cautious in his work, and a rare good general!"

Only then did Wang Jian completely give up the idea of ​​killing Xu Cun, and adopted him as his son, giving him the name: Wang Zongbo.

Wang Zongbo served under Wang Jian. Whenever there was danger, he would bravely charge forward. However, whenever there was a reward for merit, he would always claim to be ill and not go forward, giving the credit to others. This is how he was able to have a good end. And he never knew until his death that it was Wang Zongwan who saved his life.

Wang Jian seized the opportunity of "Three Towns Invading the Palace" to expand his territory to the north and east, and his power increased greatly. Just when he was concentrating on unifying the two Sichuan provinces in one fell swoop, the court suddenly issued an edict, ordering Wang Jian to be the commander of the Fengxiang West Front Army (Fengxiang West Front Camp Recruiting Envoy) to attack Li Maozhen.

It turned out that Li Maozhen had "invaded the palace with his troops" again.

【Second offense】

In order to balance the power among the vassal states, when the "Three Towns Invaded the Palace", Emperor Zhaozong took sides and allowed Li Maozhen and Han Jian to survive. Before Li Keyong returned to Hedong, the two actively paid tribute to the court with a humble and submissive attitude. After Li Keyong returned to Hedong, the two immediately returned to their original ways.

After Zhaozong returned to Chang'an, he still did not give up his efforts to revive the Tang Dynasty. His efforts were still the original formula, with the familiar taste: civil service group; armed forces.

Previously, Prime Minister Kong Wei was reinstated. However, Kong Wei was already in his twilight years. After repeated requests from Emperor Zhaozong, he reluctantly took up the position. He worked hard for three months and finally died of illness. Then Prime Minister Zhang Jun was reinstated. As a result, Li Keyong hated Zhang Jun because of the "encirclement and suppression of Hedong" incident, so he wrote a memorial to Emperor Zhaozong, "Zhang Jun is appointed prime minister in the morning, and the Hedong soldiers will arrive at the palace in the evening!" He threatened to invade the palace with troops, so Zhang Jun was demoted again.

Emperor Zhaozong was eager to recruit talented people, so he relaxed the conditions for selecting prime ministers. Anyone who passed the political review and had excellent academic performance could be prime minister. As a result, several good comrades were discovered:
No. 1 seed Sun Wei, reason for selection: academic genius, top scholar in the reign of Emperor Xizong.

Second seed Lu Qian, reason for selection:
1. His origin is that he is a descendant of Lu Zhi, a wise minister in the middle Tang Dynasty;

2. Loyalty: He followed Emperor Xizong to flee to Xingyuan twice;

3. He was quick-witted. Emperor Zhaozong once assigned Lu Jian an essay on a topic on the spot. Lu Jian was the first to hand in his paper and his writing style amazed Emperor Zhaozong.

No. 3 seed Zhu Pu, reason for selection: big liar.

Zhu Pu had two good friends, one was He Ying, a doctor in the Ministry of Water Resources, and the other was Xu Yanshi, a Taoist priest. Xu was favored by Emperor Zhaozong and strongly recommended Zhu Pu to him. He Ying also took the opportunity to promote him. So Emperor Zhaozong summoned Zhu Pu. Zhu Pu was a top student in the history department (selected for the three histories). When it came to governing the country and keeping the people safe, he was very knowledgeable and could talk about military affairs on paper. Emperor Zhaozong thought he had found a treasure and said to him, "Although I am not Emperor Taizong, I have found you like Wei Zheng!"

Zhu Pu was a doctor of the Imperial Academy, a professor at the National Academy for Nobles, and a fifth-rank official. But he dared to recommend himself and made a bold statement to Emperor Zhaozong, saying that if he could become the prime minister, he would only need to give him one more month, and he would return a peaceful and prosperous era.

It took one month to revive the Tang Dynasty.

One dare to say, the other dare to believe.

Zhaozong was extremely eager to seek talents, almost to the point of being desperate. He made exceptions one after another, including Zheng Heng and Zhu Pu. Whenever an imperial edict for the appointment of prime ministers was issued, it would always shock all the civil and military officials in the court.

Zheng Heng still had self-awareness and the virtue of yielding to others; however, Zhu Pu was arrogant and conceited, with great ambitions but little talent.

A newborn calf is not afraid of a tiger. It is not that it is not afraid of a tiger, but that it does not know what a tiger is. Zhu Pu's shocking statement and boastful words not only reflect his narrow and one-sided worldview, but also expose his low emotional intelligence. To elevate oneself is to belittle the people around him. To say that one can bring peace to the world in one month is to call all the civil and military officials in the court good-for-nothings.

Before Zhu Pu took up his job, he had already ridiculed all his colleagues and filled up his hatred. It is conceivable that his career path will be full of thorns and bumps. In the workplace, there are many Zhu Pu-like people who are often arrogant and pretentious, and regard their isolation and non-socialization as jealousy from others, making them even more unreasonable.

The results of these special recruitment and crash courses for prime ministers will be released soon. History will not make us wait too long.

Thanks to old friends "最爱一笑" and "纯正lsp" for their continued support!

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(End of this chapter)