History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 196 Civil Unrest in Huainan
[Huainan Civil Rebellion]

People's hearts are broken and it's hard to lead the team.

Yang Xingmi was born as a bandit. He took advantage of the chaos to occupy Luzhou. He first drove out Qin Yan and Bi Shiduo, and then killed Sun Ru. He gradually took over the land of Huainan and became the overlord of Jianghuai. As his career became more and more prominent, some veterans gradually lost their will to fight and their revolutionary beliefs. They began to covet pleasure and even had evil intentions, such as three veteran generals - Tian Yu, An Renyi, and Zhu Yanshou.

Tian Yu and Yang Xingmi were from the same village. In the Tang Dynasty, four households were neighbors, five neighbors were a group, five groups were a village, and five villages were a township. The relationship between people from the same village was very close, within a hundred households. The two were childhood friends from the same village and became sworn brothers in their early years. Later, Yang Xingmi took the lead and Tian Yu served him wholeheartedly and assisted Yang Xingmi with all his strength. During Yang Xingmi's occupation of Luzhou, Tian Yu contributed the most.

Perhaps in our preconceived notions, Tian Yu should be considered a subordinate of Yang Xingmi. However, from Tian Yu's perspective, he should be considered Yang Xingmi's partner, company founder, and major shareholder. He could not say that he shared the same interests with Yang Xingmi, but at least he was the second in command of Yang Xingmi's group.

In fact, Yang Xingmi also took good care of him. Now Yang Xingmi Group holds a total of two towns - Huainan and Xuanzhou Ningguojun. The boss of the Xuanzhou subsidiary is Tian Yu. However, this cannot satisfy Tian Yu's inner desire. He is unwilling to be trampled under the feet of Yang Xingmi forever. Tian Yu repeatedly tried to challenge Yang Xingmi's authority and frantically tested the edge of death.

Yang Xingmi had long been aware of this, so he suppressed it everywhere, and the conflict between the two became increasingly intense.

In the second year of Tianfu (902), Tian Yu attacked Feng Hongduo, the governor of Shengzhou, with the intention of expanding his sphere of influence. When Feng Hongduo was desperate, Yang Xingmi took him in and appointed Li Shenfu as the governor of Shengzhou.

Tian Yu originally wanted to "take private jobs" and expand his power by annexing Feng Hongduo of Shengzhou, so as to gain more say in Yang Xingmi's group. However, Yang Xingmi brazenly took away the fruits of Tian Yu's victory.

This was the first public contest between Tian Yu and Yang Xingmi, and ended in Tian Yu's defeat.

In the same year, Qian Liu's generals Xu Wan and Xu Zaisi launched a rebellion, and Tian Yu led his army to assist the rebels of Xu Wan and Xu Zaisi and besieged Hangzhou. Tian Yu also wanted to strengthen his own power by annexing Hangzhou from Qian Liu.

However, Yang Xingmi ordered Tian Yu to withdraw his troops and secretly told the messenger that if Tian Yu did not obey his order, he would be killed on the spot. Tian Yu returned in anger. This was another open contest between the two, and it ended in Tian Yu's defeat.

Afterwards, Tian Yu went to Yangzhou in person and proposed to Yang Xingmi to cede land, asking to return Chizhou and Shezhou, which originally belonged to Ningguo Army of Xuanzhou, to Xuanzhou. Yang Xingmi flatly refused. This was the third public contest between the two, and Tian Yu was still the loser.

Tian Yu was furious and thought he had suffered a serious injustice. At the same time, Yang Xingmi's close ministers came to Tian Yu to ask for bribes and extort money, not taking this "founding father" seriously at all, which indirectly reflected the extent of Yang Xingmi's group's suppression of Tian Yu. What was even more incredible was that among these extortionists was a small jailer.

Tian Yu was furious and shouted, "How dare the jailer ask for a bribe from me? Did he know that I was going to be imprisoned in Yangzhou?"

When Tian Yu walked out of Yangzhou City, he couldn't help but raise his finger and point at the gate of Yangzhou City, swearing viciously through his teeth, "I will never come here again!"

Even Li Shenfu saw the signs of Tian Yu's rebellion and advised Yang Xingmi to strike first.

Yang Xingmi waved his hand and said that Tian Yu had made great contributions and there was no direct evidence of rebellion. If he was killed just because of suspicion, all his generals would be in danger and the loss would outweigh the gain.

In order to minimize the losses from the very likely rebellion in the future, Yang Xingmi was not indifferent. For example, as for the suppression measures mentioned earlier, although Tian Yu was appointed as the governor of Ningguo Army in Xuanzhou, Chizhou and Shezhou under the jurisdiction of Ningguo Army were never returned to Tian Yu; Tian Yu captured Shengzhou, and Yang Xingmi sent Li Shenfu to garrison it; Tian Yu wanted to annex Hangzhou to Qian Liu, but seeing that Hangzhou was about to fall (Sui Ke), Yang Xingmi urgently called a halt.

In addition, Yang Xingmi also actively disintegrated Tian Yu's faction. For example, Tian Yu had an outstanding general named Kang Ru, whose opinions often conflicted with Tian Yu's. After Yang Xingmi learned about this, he immediately promoted Kang Ru to the position of Luzhou governor. Promoting the subordinates of political enemies is a common way to divide and disintegrate political enemies. When Zhaozong eliminated Yang Fugong, he first promoted and won over Yang Fugong's adopted son Yang Shouli. Later, Yang Shouli really shined in the "anti-Yang movement".

Tian Yu was indeed tricked, believing that Kang Ru had betrayed him, and he actually killed Kang Ru and his entire family. When Kang Ru was dying, he calmly said: "If I die, Tian Yu will not live for many days." Kang Ru understood that he was a bait deliberately set by Yang Xingmi for Tian Yu. Tian Yu was brave and brave, but his political tactics were pathetic. Yang Xingmi succeeded in fishing, but he missed the right time.

At this time, it was the third year of Tianfu (903). Wang Shifan of Qingzhou on the Shandong Peninsula rebelled. Yang Xingmi sent Wang Maozhang to Qingzhou to contain Zhu Wen. On the Ezhou front, Yang Xingmi sent Li Shenfu to attack Ezhou.

On the Shandong Peninsula, Zhu Wen's nephew Zhu Youning was killed and his head was sent to Huainan; on the battlefield of Ezhou, Cheng Li of Jingnan was betrayed by his teammates and died in the destruction of his country. On both battlefields, Yang Xingmi successfully attracted Zhu Wen's anger.

Tian Yu seized this golden opportunity and announced on Weibo that he had left Huainan Society and established his own organization. In terms of leaving Yang Xingmi's group, Tian Yu also did some homework.

First, it is to create public opinion.

Tian Yu was the first to file a complaint, and he first accused Yang Xingmi of being a "disloyal person". Tian Yu wrote a letter to Yang Xingmi, saying that paying tribute to the court was the obligation of the vassal states, and as the governor of Huainan, you should pay the tribute on time and in full, so that I am willing to work for you.

Yang Xingmi smiled coldly and replied: Why are you pretending to be a grandson? All tributes from the southeast must be handed over to the court through Zhu Wen in Bianzhou. It is called tribute, but it is actually aiding the enemy.

To this day, there are still many materials that say that the reason why Tian Yu broke up with Yang Xingmi was because Tian Yu was loyal to the Tang Dynasty, while Yang Xingmi had the intention of separatism. This is an extremely irresponsible, inaccurate, perfunctory and fallacy! Those who say this not only know nothing about political tactics, but also have an inadequate grasp of historical materials.

The New Book of Tang has already made the final conclusion on Tian Yu's behavior: he used the tribute issue as an excuse to break away from Yang Xingmi, not because he was truly loyal to the Tang Dynasty (Tian Yu used military tribute to help him, which was his plan to blame and break up with Yang Xingmi, not because he was loyal to the Tang Dynasty).

Secondly, he was looking for "like-minded" revolutionary comrades. The best candidates were An Renyi and Zhu Yanshou.

An Renyi had been harboring two minds for a long time. When Qian Liu encountered the "Xuzhou-Xuzhou Rebellion", he sent Gu Quanwu to escort Qian Yuanlang to Yangzhou as a hostage to seek help. On the way, they had to pass through Runzhou where An Renyi was stationed. At that time, Qian Liu's group saw An Renyi's ill intentions, so they let Qian Yuanlang disguise himself as a servant. After being spotted by An Renyi, Gu Quanwu bribed the city gate official with a large sum of money and escaped overnight.

Now, after receiving Tian Yu's secret letter, the two hit it off and agreed to jointly launch a rebellion.

Li Shenfu, the governor of Shengzhou, was at the front line in Ezhou. Tian Yu took advantage of the opportunity to launch a surprise attack on Shengzhou and captured Li Shenfu's family. An Renyi raided the Dongtang naval base east of Yangzhou and burned all the Huainan warships.

Tian Yu sent two envoys, disguised as merchants, to Shouzhou to contact Zhu Yanshou, but they were discovered by Shang Gongnai. At first, the two refused to admit it, but Shang Gongnai beheaded one of them without saying a word. The other immediately confessed and handed over the secret letter written by Tian Yu to Zhu Yanshou. Shang Gongnai reported the secret letter to Yang Xingmi.

Finally, it is to seek support from external forces and "use foreign forces to gain power."

The best candidate is of course Zhu Wen.

Zhu Wen certainly knew the significance of Tian Yu, An Renyi, and Zhu Yanshou in the Huainan forces. These three people were to Yang Xingmi what Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun were to Liu Bei. Now that these three people had joined forces to rebel and actively invited the Bianzhou forces to intervene, it was really a godsend opportunity to destroy Huainan!
Zhu Wen immediately led his army to Suzhou and watched the fire from the other side of the river. Because Zhu Wen wanted to see if this was Yang Xingmi's trick to lure the enemy, and also to see how big a storm these three people could stir up, so as to find a suitable opportunity to enter the field and reap the rewards.

(End of this chapter)