History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 245 Wang Maozhang's Expedition to Huai River

【Wang Maozhang's expedition to Huai River】

After Zhu Youzhen ascended the throne, he urgently needed to heal the political wounds of Later Liang and restore the empire to its former glory.

Within the imperial court, meritorious officials were rewarded for their contributions in restoring order.

The court first sent envoys to contact Zhu Youqian in Hezhong and comforted him. Zhu Youqian then returned to Houliang and changed to "Qianhua Three Years". However, Zhu Youqian forgot his loyalty when he saw the benefits and repeatedly switched between Houliang and Hedong. This is a later story.

At the beginning of Zhu Youzhen's accession to the throne, Marshal Yang Shihou presented him with a congratulatory gift: he led an army of 80,000 into the territory of Chengde Army and plundered, raped and looted along the way, and burned the outer city of Zhenzhou; then he approached Cangzhou, and the "fence-sitter" Zhang Wanjin, the governor of Cangzhou Shunhua Army, was so scared that he urgently submitted a petition, requesting that he be transferred to the south of the Yellow River.

Therefore, Yang Shihou recommended Zhang Wanjin as the governor of Pinglu Army in Qingzhou, and let Liu Shouqi, who had previously defected to the Later Liang, take charge of Cangzhou.

Although the Later Liang Dynasty failed to avenge its previous humiliation, Yang Shihou still caused great shock to the Heshuo area and saved a little face for the Later Liang Dynasty.

Zhu Youzhen appointed Gao Jichang of Jingnan as the Prince of Bohai to win him over. In addition to building cities, storing food and supplies, and recruiting surrenders and rebellions, Gao Jichang also built a large surface force of up to 500 warships, and secretly communicated with Huainan and Wang Jian of Former Shu. Later Liang had lost control of him. Although Gao Jichang still respected Later Liang as the orthodox on the surface, it had actually become a separatist regime in name only.

When the map is unfolded, the importance of the Jingnan region to the Later Liang regime is clear at a glance: the current Later Liang map is shaped like a gourd, with an overall shape of an "8". The upper circle is the main structure of the Later Liang regime, with Bianzhou as the core, extending east to the sea and west to Guanzhong; the lower circle is today's Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi, and Jiangxi; and where the two circles meet is the two lakes region.

The most important link in helping the Later Liang Dynasty to form an "8" shape was the Huainan forces entrenched in the Jianghuai area.

It was precisely because of the existence and hostility of the Huainan forces that the southeastern regions such as Liangzhe and Fujian could only enter the Shandong Peninsula by bypassing the East China Sea, or take a long detour through the two lakes region.

Although these southern vassal states were nominally vassal states of the Later Liang, they were actually independent separatist regimes. As we have analyzed in the previous article, they had almost no intersection with Zhu Wen. The only intersection was to unite to deal with the Huainan forces.

They recognized the Later Liang regime purely out of reality, to keep each other warm and get what they needed. The southern vassal states enjoyed a high degree of autonomy, which was also an important reason why the "Ten Kingdoms" were almost all in the south.

To summarize it simply: the central government of the Later Liang Dynasty only had actual control over the circle above the "8", and for the circle below, it could only maintain it in a very tenuous manner through the two lakes region.

There were two important vassal states in the two lakes region, Ma Yin of Tanzhou in the south and Gao Jichang of Jingnan in the north.

Although the southern vassal states only maintained a fragile superficial relationship with the central government, this was also an important part of the legitimacy of the Later Liang regime and the political cornerstone of the Later Liang regime.

Therefore, Gao Jichang of Jingnan not only strangled the Later Liang Empire by the neck, but also stepped on the lifeblood of the Later Liang Empire.

Faced with Gao Jichang's tyranny and disloyalty, the powerful Zhu Wen could only endure and condone him, and the weak Zhu Youzhen naturally could only appease and compromise.

Of course, if the Later Liang could flatten Huainan, then Jingnan would not be so important.

So Zhu Youzhen fulfilled his father's promise to Wang Maozhang and appointed him as the commander-in-chief of the Huai River expedition, leading an army of 10,000 to attack Luzhou and Shouzhou.

Huainan's powerful official Xu Wen and "pig-killing pioneer" Zhu Jin led their troops to resist. When the two armies met in the wild, Xu Wen had only 4,000 soldiers and horses, and could only retreat in the face of Wang Maozhang's 10,000-man army. Wang Maozhang seized the opportunity and launched an attack.

Seeing that the Huainan army was about to be driven into the canyon by the Houliang army, once entering the canyon, the Huainan army would be trampled and surrounded by the Houliang army. The Huainan soldiers were terrified and thought they were doomed.

At this time, Huainan general Chen Shao suddenly turned his horse's head, waved his spear, and shouted loudly: "The stage of luring the enemy deep into our territory is over, and now we should start counterattacking!" Then he turned around and rushed into the enemy camp.

The Huainan soldiers suddenly realized, "Oh - it turns out that we were pretending to be defeated to lure the enemy. We have an ambush and the enemy has fallen into our trap." So they were full of fighting spirit and followed Chen Shao to fight.

The pursuing troops of Later Liang also mistakenly thought that they had fallen into a trap to lure the enemy deep into their territory, and hurriedly withdrew their troops.

The Huainan army was saved from destruction. Xu Wen patted Chen Shao on the back, praised his wisdom and courage, and rewarded him with a large amount of gold and silver treasures. Chen Shao distributed all the treasures to his subordinates. Not long after, the Huainan reinforcements arrived, and the momentum was greatly boosted. They fought against the Later Liang army again and defeated it in one battle. Wang Maozhang personally led the cavalry to cover the rear and retreated with difficulty.

The battle took place in the twelfth month of the lunar calendar, when the Huai River entered its dry season and some places could be waded through on foot. When the Later Liang army arrived, they inserted wooden signs in all shallow water areas that could be waded through on foot as markers for use in retreat.

Huainan general Zhu Jing secretly tampered with the wooden signs, pulling them out and inserting them into the deep water...

The Later Liang army retreated to the Huai River and scrambled to wade across the river according to the instructions on the wooden signs. As a result, more than half of the troops were drowned.

The Huainan Army collected the bodies of the Later Liang soldiers and built a Jingguan on the banks of the Huai River.

The Huai River became a chasm that Zhu Wen's group could never cross. Zhu Wen could not cross it, and Zhu Youzhen could not cross it either.

Zhu Youzhen's expedition to the Huai River left only a few words in history, but it reflected the secretive political game within the Later Liang Dynasty.

The most intuitive thing is the scale of this military operation, which involved only 10,000 people. Compared with the large-scale operations of more than 100,000 people in Zhu Wen's era, Zhu Youzhen's action this time was simply too shabby.

Zhu Youzhen had his own difficulties.

First of all, Huainan is not the primary strategic target of the Later Liang at this stage, and it is not its core interest. The biggest threat to the Later Liang comes from the north, and the primary enemy is Li Cunxu in Hedong.

Secondly, the elite forces of the Later Liang were basically in the hands of Yang Shihou, and Zhu Youzhen could not mobilize them.

The relationship between Zhu Youzhen and Yang Shihou is very delicate. In Zhu Youzhen's heart, the biggest enemy of the Later Liang Empire is not Li Cunxu, but Yang Shihou! This can be verified in the near future.

Third, Zhu Youzhen's prestige in the Later Liang was very low. Not only Yang Shihou, but many people with real power were unwilling to accept his position. Zhu Youzhen's throne was not stable.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen was in urgent need of establishing his authority, cultivating his own team, and seizing power. On this basis, Wang Maozhang, a "three-no product" with no background, no foundation, and no real power, was naturally Zhu Youzhen's first target for influence and enlistment.

When a new monarch ascends the throne, it is a common practice to establish prestige, seize power, and cultivate troops through war. Why target Huainan? After all, Houliang and the Huainan Group have maintained a relatively peaceful state for quite a long time.

Because apart from Huainan, Zhu Youzhen really couldn't find a suitable opponent.

Later Liang had three enemies: the Hedong forces in the north, the Qishu forces in the west, and the Huainan forces in the south.

Attacking the north would strengthen Yang Shihou; attacking the west would strengthen Gao Jichang; only attacking the south could strengthen Zhu Youzhen. So Zhu Youzhen had to attack Huainan.

In fact, just as Zhu Youzhen launched military action against Huainan, a military action also broke out between Gao Jichang of Jingnan and Wang Jian of Former Shu. Gao Jichang challenged the control of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River with his huge fleet, but suffered a crushing defeat.

Someone suggested that Wang Jian take advantage of the Yangtze River flooding in summer and autumn to break the dam and flood Jiangling, so that Gao Jichang would be buried in the belly of fish. Hanlin scholar Mao Wenxi (who was almost tortured to death by Wang Zongyi in the "Prince Rebellion Case") hurriedly objected, saying that although Gao Jichang of Jiangling was a bastard, the people in his jurisdiction were innocent. How could Your Majesty punish the fault of one person and kill countless people in vain? So Wang Jian gave up the plan of creating a flood.

Using a limited force of 10,000 men to attack Huainan was a helpless move by Zhu Youzhen to consolidate his imperial power and a microcosm of the internal contradictions of the Later Liang Empire.

However, the failure of the expedition to Huai River extinguished Zhu Youzhen's fantasy and his imperial dignity fell to the bottom. As a result, the undercurrent finally turned into a huge wave.

Zhu Youzhen is about to face the biggest challenge since the founding of Later Liang.

(End of this chapter)