History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 21 The Second "Nanzhao War"

[Hezhou Massacre]

One hundred and thirty people including Shi Mou, the Hezhou defense official, jointly wrote a letter to the emperor to file a complaint, revealing a horrific tragedy to the world: the Hezhou Massacre.

At that time, the bandit army was still looting in Wujiang County. Two intelligence officers reported the bandit army's movements to Hezhou Governor Cui Yong. Cui Yong actually accused the two of spreading rumors and spreading panic, and put them in jail. He sent someone to inquire again, and found that the bandit Xu was ten miles away from the state and would soon be at the gates of the city.

Cui Yong then announced the surrender of the entire city, drank with the leader of the rebel army on the Drum Tower, and made a verbal contract: people in the city can be killed at will, property can be taken at will, women can be robbed at will; just don't take over the territory.

Cui Yong ordered the soldiers to disarm, hand over their weapons, and let Xu Ze deal with them. An officer named Shi Qiong hesitated a little when taking off his armor, and was a step slower, so Cui Yong handed him over to Xu Ze, who chopped off his head on the spot.

More than 800 disarmed soldiers were tied up with their hands behind their backs and then massacred.

The Xu bandits massacred a total of more than a thousand people in Hezhou.

Cui Yong, the governor of Hezhou, committed an unpardonable crime.

Emperor Yizong of Tang issued an order that Shi Qiong and the families and descendants of the deceased soldiers should be treated well; Cui Yong was sentenced to death, and his descendants were exiled to Kangzhou as prisoners, and all other relatives in the family who were officials were demoted and exiled.

When the Xu bandits were wreaking havoc, there were also many loyal ministers and capable generals.

Du Yan was specially praised in the imperial edict of Emperor Yizong of Tang Dynasty, "for saving the isolated fortress, he was soon given special reward"; Xin Dan was not mentioned in the imperial edict or the decree, because Xin Dan's work was a temporary appointment by Du Yan and had not yet been recognized by the court. Xin Dan's heroic deeds were only known after Du Yan reported the truth to the court.

We can say two more things about Du Yan:

His great-grandfather was Du Xiwang, who made great contributions in pacifying Tubo; his grandfather was Du You, prime minister during the reign of Emperor Dezong, and was given the title of Duke of Qi; his father was Du Shifang, Chief Censor; the prime minister Du Chong mentioned above was his brother, and Du Chong was also the son-in-law of the emperor, who married Princess Qi Yang (the eleventh daughter of Emperor Xianzong). It was because he married the princess that his father Du Shifang was so upright and upright that he voluntarily resigned from his official position.

Du Shifang had a younger brother named Du Congyu, who was the uncle of Du Chong and Du Tan. This uncle may not be very famous, but he had a son named Du Mu, who was the cousin of Du Chong and Du Tan.

As for Xin Dan, he was promoted to the governor of Lingnan West Road and died in office. The deeds of the old hero in his last few years will also be mentioned later.

Xin Dan was undoubtedly selected into the "Biographies of Loyalty and Righteousness" and became a model of loyal and righteous men in the late Tang Dynasty.

In addition to being awarded an official title and a generous reward, the Shatuo chieftain Zhuye Chixin also received a special honor: he was given the national surname and a given name. From then on, Zhuye Chixin had a nice and pleasant name, Li Guochang.

Although the Pang Xun Rebellion in Xuzhou lasted only less than a year and a half, it was of great significance. It laid the foundation for the later "Huang Chao Uprising". Therefore, when summarizing the reasons for the demise of the Tang Dynasty, the "New Book of Tang" said "The Tang Dynasty was destroyed by Huang Chao, and the disaster originated in Guilin."

Guilin's troubles were caused by Nanzhao's troubles, and were closely related to Nanzhao. It was because Nanzhao invaded Annan that Xu soldiers entered Guilin to guard the border.

After Pang Xun's rebellion was put down, the imperial court received another extremely urgent military intelligence: Nanzhao had invaded the border.

The second "Nanzhao War" broke out.

[The Second "Nanzhao War"]

Shilong sat firmly on the throne, but he did not give up his desire for the territory of the Tang Dynasty. This time, he chose Chengdu as his target of attack.

At this time, only three years had passed since the end of the Annan War.

The person who quickly brought about this war was Li Shiwang, a high-ranking official of the Tang Empire.

Li Shiwang first deceived the emperor, divided Sichuan, established the "Dingbian Army", and served as the first governor of the Dingbian Army. He then wanted to provoke a war between the two countries to earn military merits.

Li Shiwang quickly seized the opportunity. During the previous "Annan War", local officials of the Tang Dynasty had detained a Nanzhao envoy who was celebrating the winter.

The envoy sent by Nanzhao to celebrate the winter was of high rank, and was its chief prime minister Dong Cheng. Dong Cheng led a delegation of 19 people to visit Chang'an via Chengdu to ease the relationship between the two countries. Li Fu, the then governor of Xichuan, had an unpleasant experience with them.

This was because Nanzhao's Prime Minister Dong Cheng believed that Nanzhao had "established an independent country" and had equal diplomatic relations with the Tang Dynasty; while Li Fu insisted on using the etiquette of suzerainty and vassalage, stating that Nanzhao's "independence" was illegal and would not be recognized.

The two sides had a heated debate. Since this issue concerned the national system, no one was willing to give in easily.

Negotiations were fruitless.

Faced with the arrogance of the "Southern Independence" elements, Li Fu, the governor of Xichuan, was furious and said, "You are barbarians with no etiquette and no education. It is simply unreasonable!" Then he ordered the warriors to beat them half to death, put handcuffs and shackles on them, and put them in prison for an indefinite period of time.

“We convince people with reason.”

Not long after, Li Fu was transferred to another place. The new governor Liu Tong discovered that there were so many political prisoners in the prison, so he hurriedly reported to the court and asked for instructions from the central government.

The imperial court was shocked and quickly issued an edict to bring Dong Cheng and his entourage to Chang'an, reward them generously, comfort them, "convince them with reason", and then send them back to their country with respect.

After Dong Cheng returned to China, Shilong sent another "thank you delegation" to thank the Tang Dynasty for releasing Dong Cheng, in order to deepen the friendship between the two countries and eliminate misunderstandings between the two countries.

When the envoys of thanksgiving passed through the territory of Dingbian Army, Li Shiwang actually killed them all. "There is no misunderstanding. We just convince people with reason."

Ironically, the Xichuan soldiers, resentful of Li Shiwang's power sharing and hoping to kill with a borrowed knife through Nanzhao, also secretly instigated Nanzhao to invade their own country.

The Tang Dynasty was like standing on the border between the two countries, "Hit me, hit me."

Thus, the war broke out smoothly. Nanzhao mobilized its troops in October, entered the country in November, and captured Jiazhou (Leshan City, Sichuan Province) in December.

However, the instigator of this war, Li Shiwang, sensed the danger in advance and escaped before the war started and was transferred back to the capital. The court sent Dou Pang to replace him.

When mice and weasels live together, each nest is worse than the other.

Dou Pang was even more greedy and cruel than Li Shiwang. Li and Dou successively made the people of Xichuan angry and poor, which made the region empty and weak, creating perfect conditions for foreign invasion.

Jiazhou was of great importance, as it was located on the north bank of the Dadu River and was an important stronghold on the natural barrier of the Dadu River. Dou Pang hurriedly led a large army to fight for it.

At this time, Shilong sent envoys to request peace talks.

Dou Pang breathed a sigh of relief. No matter how much trouble they made, they were just trying to gain some advantage. It was just a trick of "forcing peace with war". What new tricks could they come up with? They just sent people to apologize to the Celestial Empire, pretending to be a grandson, and at the same time put forward conditions and beg for favors and rewards.

Dou Pang ordered a guard of honor to be deployed to let these barbarians see the power of the Celestial Empire.

Just as he was pacing in an official manner, with his back straight and preparing to scold the foreigners for their rudeness and disrespect in an official tone, the Nanzhao army suddenly launched thousands of boats, scrambling to cross the river.

It turned out that Nanzhao was playing a delaying tactic, stalling for time under the guise of "seeking peace" in order to buy precious time for the army to cross the river.

Dou Pang was in a state of panic. The arrogant aura he had just had was gone, and he saw the enemy troops rushing towards him like a tide. This was the most dangerous moment he had ever seen in his life, and he was immediately frightened to death. His first reaction was to commit suicide and die for his country.

To be fair, no matter how hateful Dou Pang was, his instinctive reaction at the moment of defeat was to commit suicide for his country rather than be captured and humiliated. This can be considered as a sign of backbone, which is a little better than kneeling on the ground, kowtowing and begging.

The generals around him saved Dou Pang who was about to hang himself, "General, the battle has just started, why are you in such a hurry? Let's fight first and see how things go."

The two armies fought fiercely for a day.

That night, Dou Pang's mind finally came to him. He abandoned the soldiers of the three armies and fled the battlefield alone under the cover of darkness.

The generals discussed and said, "We have fewer troops and the enemy has more. If we wait until dawn to start the decisive battle, our army will definitely suffer. It would be better for us to raid the enemy's camp at night and cause chaos. This way we can retreat safely and preserve the country's strength."

So the Tang army launched a counterattack at night, broke into the Nanzhao camp, and shot arrows everywhere. The Nanzhao army was indeed in chaos, not knowing the strength of the Tang army, and did not dare to counterattack rashly. The Tang army was able to retreat safely.

Although this part of the fresh troops was retained, Lizhou in the west and Yazhou in the northwest (now Ya'an City, Sichuan Province) were captured by Nanzhao. These two places were also on the north bank of the Dadu River. At this point, the natural barrier of the Dadu River no longer existed.

The remnants of the Tang Dynasty's defeated army burned, killed and looted everywhere, giving border residents a vivid "devils invading the village" education lesson in advance.

When the Nanzhao invaders entered the city, they found that the entire city had been looted. Fortunately, there was no large-scale, organized resistance, so the Nanzhao invaders moved forward unhindered towards their next target, Chengdu Prefecture.

Although Shilong was ambitious, he was not a man of great talent and strategy. He was a "barbarian without strategy" and did not take advantage of the victory to advance quickly. Instead, he was greedy for petty profits and engaged in looting, which seriously delayed the pace of the attack and gave the Tang Dynasty enough time to catch its breath.

When the people heard that Nanzhao was invading, they took refuge in Chengdu, which was so crowded that each person had only a straw mat to sit on. Drinking water also became a problem, and the people had to go to the Maha Pond (in the southeast corner of Chengdu) to collect mud, and after it settled, they could drink the clearer water on the top.

Xichuan Jiedushi Lu Dan made active arrangements and prepared for a tough battle. He also sent a deputy envoy to the Nanzhao camp to invite them to negotiate.

Nanzhao replied: "The speed of our advancement depends entirely on your sincerity. (Our behavior is only out of respect)" This was a sour, flowery, and veiled threat.

Nanzhao continued its advance and pushed forward to the northern border of Dingbian Army, which was very close to Chengdu.

Xichuan Jiedushi Lu Dan sent another deputy envoy to the Nanzhao camp to seek peace, but Nanzhao detained the envoy and did not make any response.

The situation was urgent, so Lu Dan quickly petitioned the court, requesting that an imperial envoy be sent to Nanzhao to seek peace and avoid war.

The imperial court sent Zhi Xian as the imperial envoy to negotiate peace.

Nanzhao still gave the Tang Dynasty some face, warmly entertained the imperial envoy and peace envoy Zhixiang, and temporarily stopped advancing. Chengdu got a precious respite and stepped up the repair of its defensive fortifications.

On the eleventh day of the first lunar month in the eleventh year of Xiantong (870), Nanzhao continued its advance and captured Shuangliu (Shuangliu County, Sichuan Province). It was already east of the Minjiang River. The city of Chengdu was exposed to the enemy and had almost no defenses.

Lu Dan sent another deputy envoy to the Nanzhao camp.

This time, the Nanzhao army handed the envoy a document and said, "After the reconciliation, this is the etiquette when our emperor meets your Jiedushi."

When the document was unfolded, the arrogance and rudeness were clearly written on the paper. They also sent people to carry colorful tents to the city of Chengdu, threatening to decorate the Shu King's Hall to welcome their emperor. Nanzhao's intention was very clear: it wanted the Tang Dynasty to cede Chengdu Prefecture and Xichuan.

Cession of territory was clearly beyond Lu Dan's authority.

Lu Dan was in a dilemma.

In fact, Nanzhao proposed such harsh conditions to convey an attitude to Lu Dan: "I don't intend to negotiate at all. Come on, you son of a bitch!"

The Nanzhao army was approaching the city. The defense of Chengdu was inevitable.

(End of this chapter)