History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 336: Numerous
[As numerous as cattle hair]

1. Wang Wen's Mutiny (February 2)
When Li Cunxu was confronting Hou Liang in Desheng Jiacheng, he recruited warriors to go out of the city to challenge. An actor he liked very much suddenly volunteered to fight. This actor not only had superb acting skills, but was also brave and invincible. He was simply like Jackie Chan, Wu Jing and Donnie Yen. Li Cunxu therefore doted on him even more.

He was Guo Congqian, also known by his stage name Guo Mengao. Li Cunxu selected elite warriors from various armies to form his own personal guard (Cong Ma Zhi), and appointed four commanders (Cong Ma Zhi Zhizhi), one of whom was Guo Congqian.

Previously, Guo Chongtao was very powerful in the government, and Guo Congqian treated Guo Chongtao as his uncle because they had the same surname. He also recognized Li Cunyi as his godfather. Now, Guo Chongtao and Li Cunyi were killed one after another, and Guo Congqian was terrified. It is said (probably from the eunuchs, I guess) that Guo Congqian rewarded his subordinates with his own money, cried bitterly, and protested for Guo Chongtao and Li Cunyi.

On the evening of February 926, 2, Wang Wen and five other cavalry soldiers plotted a mutiny. The plot was uncovered in time and they were captured alive and beheaded. The matter would have ended like this, but Li Cunxu joked to Guo Congqian, "You have been a licker for Guo Chongtao and Li Cunyi before, and now you are instigating Wang Wen to rebel. What do you want to do?"

The emperor's words are golden and cannot be joked about, let alone such a dangerous joke.

Guo Congqian was terrified. After returning (if Li Cunxu was not joking, how could he let him come back), he gathered his trusted men and said to them: "The emperor is suspicious of us because of Wang Wen. He said that after the Weizhou mutiny is quelled, we will all be buried alive. You should go home quickly and find all the valuables, sell them, buy some good wine and food, and enjoy your last dinner. There is no need to make long-term plans."

The soldiers were all terrified.

Although Wang Wen's mutiny failed, Li Cunxu's personal guards (from the Mazhi) were all in a panic, which became a major hidden danger.

2. Xingzhou Mutiny (February 2)
Xingzhou, now Xingtai City, Hebei Province, was formerly the headquarters of the Dongzhao Yijun. Later Tang changed the Dongzhao Yijun to the Anguo Army, while still using Xingzhou as its seat of government.

On February 926, 2, Zhao Tai led 13 soldiers in a mutiny, captured Xingzhou City, and proclaimed himself the commander of the Anguo Army.

Li Cunxu ordered Huo Yanwei to lead his troops to attack.

3. Cangzhou Mutiny (February 2)
On February 2, a military mutine occurred in Cangzhou. The low-ranking officer Wang Jingkan put down the mutiny and maintained order. He then proclaimed himself the regent of the Cangzhou Henghai Army (originally the Yichang Army, but the word "Chang" was changed because it was taboo).

4. Sui and Yin mutinies (end of February)

At the end of February, the Baosai Army of Yanzhou (now Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province) reported that a mutiny had occurred in Suizhou and Yinzhou under the rule of the Dingnan Army of Xiazhou, and the state cities were looted, and they requested support.

5. Qingzhou Mutiny (March 3)
Fu Xi, the military governor of Pinglu Army in Qingzhou, was ordered to lead his troops to attack and support the war in Weizhou. Halfway through the journey, he heard that a riot had broken out in Weizhou, so he turned back to his town. When he reached Zizhou (now Zibo City, Shandong Province), Yang Xiwang, the eunuch who stayed in Qingzhou to supervise the army, sent troops to meet the attack.

As mentioned earlier, Li Cunxu did not trust the provincial governors, so he relied heavily on eunuchs and sent them to various military towns to serve as military supervisors, restoring the old system of the Tang Dynasty. These military supervisors had greater power than in the Tang Dynasty, and they completely crushed the military governors of their towns, and even held the power of life and death over the military governors. As long as they suspected that the military governors had ulterior motives, they would execute them first and report later.

Now, Jiedushi Fu Xi was ordered to go to Weizhou for assistance, but he suddenly returned halfway. The eunuch Yang Xiwang, the military supervisor, without any investigation, insisted that Fu Xi was plotting a rebellion and sent troops to attack him.

Fu Xi was terrified and cried out that he was innocent, so he turned around again and continued to head for Weizhou as agreed.

The commander of Qingzhou, Wang Gongyan, took advantage of the chaos to kill the eunuch Yang Xiwang, and then took control of Qingzhou. The incident happened on March 926, 3.

The Qingzhou Rebellion was a microcosm of the sharp opposition and fierce conflict between local military supervisors and eunuchs. Since the Weizhou Rebellion, many places have seen the killing of military supervisors:
Luzhou Anyi Army (formerly Xizhao Yi Army, renamed to avoid Li Sizhao's taboo), the eunuch Yang Jiyuan, the supervisor of the army, plotted to assassinate the governor Kong Qing, but the plot was not kept secret and the news leaked, so Kong Qing ambushed and killed him;

The eunuch supervising the military in the Wuning Army in Xuzhou suspected that the Jiedushi Huo Yanwei was secretly colluding with the rebels, so he took control of the city, refused to allow Huo Yanwei to return, and temporarily appointed the alternate commander (Acting Governor) Chun Yuyan to mobilize his subordinates, kill the eunuch supervising the military, and take control of Xuzhou.

At this point, let's do a simple review to feel how busy Li Cunxu was and how panicked he was:
On January 1, Guo Chongtao was killed;
On January 1, Guo Chongtao's sons were killed;
On January 1, Li Cunyi was killed during the day, and Zhu Youqian's entire family was killed at night;
In early February, Beizhou mutinied;
On February 2, the Beizhou rebels took control of Weizhou; on February 6, Kang Yanxiao rebelled;
On February 2, the Xingzhou military mutinied;

On February 2, Wen, the Prince of Mazhi, launched a mutiny, but failed.

On February 2, a mutiny broke out in Cangzhou;

At the end of February, soldiers mutinied in Suizhou and Yinzhou;
On March 3, the Qingzhou Rebellion broke out;

In March, following Qingzhou, eunuchs who supervised the army were killed in Luzhou and Xuzhou respectively...

If it is made into an animated image or video, with explosion effects marking the places where the incidents occurred as the events progressed, I believe that the Later Tang Dynasty ushered in a grand fireworks display at the beginning of the fourth year of Tongguang (926). In fact, the most important mutiny is deliberately hidden above: on March 3, a mutiny occurred in the rebellion suppression troops under the Weizhou city, and the protagonist was Li Siyuan. We will talk about this separately later.

Looking at these dates, we can also explain a small foreshadowing in the previous article: In early January, Wang Zongyan and his entourage were ordered to come to Luoyang, but when they arrived in Chang'an (February 1), they were ordered to stay where they were and wait for further instructions. The answer is above, because the world was in chaos, Li Cunxu was really unable to deal with Wang Zongyan and his group of senior political prisoners, so he could only let them stop and wait to see how the situation developed.

On March 3, Li Cunxu ordered the execution of Wang Zongyan and his entourage on the spot because the situation was developing in a bad direction and Li Cunxu was worried that Wang Zongyan would take the opportunity to cause trouble, such as restoring the country.

After losing the first battle, Yuan Xingqin retreated to Chanzhou to rest and then gathered reinforcements from various places and launched another attack on Weizhou.

On February 2, Lieutenant General Yang Chongba led hundreds of death squads to successfully climb the city wall, but there was no follow-up troops, resulting in the death of Yang Chongba and all the others.

The rebels also saw the determination of the imperial court to suppress the rebellion. Since they would die anyway, they might as well resist to the end, perhaps there would be a glimmer of hope. Therefore, the rebels were in high spirits and would rather die than surrender.

Yuan Xingqin suffered repeated defeats and his morale was low. He could only keep petitioning the court to send more reinforcements.

Li Cunxu was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan. All the elite forces of the Later Tang Dynasty had followed Li Jiji to fight in Shu. Now Shu had been pacified and Li Jiji was on his way back. Li Cunxu could only keep sending eunuchs to urge Li Jiji to return day and night, the sooner the better.

At that time, Kang Yanxiao launched a mutiny in Shu, and Li Jiji's main force was attacking Kang Yanxiao and could not escape at all.

Yuan Xingqin, who was in charge of suppressing the rebellion in Weizhou, suffered repeated defeats, and Huo Yanwei, who was in charge of suppressing the rebellion in Xingzhou, also made no progress. The main force was stuck in Shu, and news of mutinies in various places spread to Luoyang like snowflakes... Li Cunxu was at a loss as to what to do, so he decided to lead the army in person to fight the Weizhou rebels.

When the news came that the emperor wanted to lead the army in person, civil and military officials and eunuchs tried to dissuade him, saying that the emperor should not leave the capital without permission.

Li Cunxu nodded and said, "I know that too, but I really don't have any generals to choose from!"

"How can you say there are no generals?" Everyone said in unison: "We have an old general who is capable of quelling the rebellion."

Li Cunxu glanced at the civil and military officials in the court. Finally, the name that Li Cunxu didn't want to hear the most was said by everyone, "Li Siyuan!"

(End of this chapter)