History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 337 Mingzong Enters Wei
[Mingzong enters Wei]

At the imperial meeting, the civil and military officials unanimously recommended Li Siyuan to lead the army to suppress the rebellion. Li Cunxu had long been suspicious of Li Siyuan, as mentioned in the previous article. Li Cunxu would rather let Duan Ning lead the army than to send Li Siyuan, so Li Cunxu said: "I love Li Siyuan very much, I cannot do without him, and I want him to guard the capital..."

Everyone said in unison: "Today's situation, Li Siyuan is the only one who can do it!"

At that time, Li Siyuan was the governor of Chengde Army in Zhenzhou. He went to Beijing to meet the emperor in December last year, but Li Cunxu kept him and placed him under house arrest in Luoyang. During that time, Guo Chongtao even suggested that Li Cunxu kill Li Siyuan directly, but Li Cunxu refused.

Now everyone unanimously recommended Li Siyuan, but Li Cunxu kept shaking his head and refused. At the critical moment, a respected and honest old man came forward and said that now was a time of trouble and the battle in Heshuo should be fought as soon as possible to prevent changes over time. It would be best to let the capable Li Siyuan take charge. Otherwise, if they only relied on Yuan Xingqin and others, it would take who knows how long.

This old man is the "healing master" Zhang Quanyi.

He was right. The court could not afford to delay. The country was already very empty. The chain reaction of the Heshuo quagmire was unimaginable. After a painful ideological struggle, Li Cunxu finally agreed to let Li Siyuan take command.

On February 2, Li Cunxu ordered Li Siyuan to lead the royal army to fight against the rebels. The main component of this royal army was the Congmazhi. The key word is Congmazhi.

On March 3, Huo Yanwei finally put down the Xingzhou Rebellion, captured the rebel leader Zhao Tai and others alive, and then escorted Zhao Tai and others to Weizhou.

On March 3, Huo Yanwei arrived in Weizhou and set up camp in the northwest of the city. He dragged Zhao Tai and others to the foot of the city and let the Weizhou rebels watch, and then beheaded them in public. Huo Yanwei's original intention was to intimidate the Weizhou rebels, but he didn't know that their act of beheading the rebel prisoners further strengthened the Weizhou rebels' determination to fight to the end and never surrender.

On March 3, Li Siyuan arrived in Weizhou and set up camp in the southwest of the city, forming a pincer attack with Huo Yanwei's troops.

After a short rest of two days, on March 3, Li Siyuan ordered a general attack the next morning (8th). However, on the night of the 9th, the troops led by Li Siyuan mutinied, led by Ma Zhi sergeant Zhang Pobai (a good name), who burned the barracks and killed the commander.

The next day (March 3), at dawn, Zhang Pobai's rebel army had approached Li Siyuan's central military tent. Li Siyuan led his personal guards to resist, but unexpectedly the rebel army gathered more and more. Li Siyuan was surprised to find that except for a few trusted followers around him, almost all the troops he brought stood on the side of the rebel army.

Li Siyuan was furious and shouted: "What do you want to do? Are you going to rebel?"

The representative of the rebel army replied: "General, please calm down. We just want you to judge for us. We have followed the emperor for more than ten years, fought in hundreds of battles, and finally won the world. Even if we have no merit, we have worked hard, right? But the emperor has crossed the river and shattered the bridge. Not only did he not reward us, he also suspected us and kept killing people to establish his authority. The comrades in Beizhou just missed their hometown and went home often, but the emperor insisted on killing them all and vowed to bury them all alive!
Recently, our comrades Wang Wen and others were just making noises, but the emperor decided that they were plotting a rebellion, and even wanted to kill all our officers and soldiers from the Mazhi after pacifying Weizhou (Guo Congqian instigated)... Is there any justice? You said we were rebelling, no, we really didn't want to rebel, we were just afraid of death, afraid of being wronged and tragically killed for no reason. We discussed it and came up with this plan, you can listen to it -

——Let’s unite with Zhao Zaili in the city, first repel the other rebellion troops, and then negotiate with the emperor. We will draw the Yellow River as the boundary, he will be the emperor in the south of the Yellow River, and you will be the emperor in the north of the Yellow River. We firmly support you…”

Li Siyuan wept and tried to persuade him for a long time, but the purpose of changing the army was to inform him, not to discuss it with him.

Li Siyuan was helpless and backed off, saying, "If that's the case, then you go your way and I'll go mine. You can ally with whoever you want, and rebel if you want. I don't care. As for me, I will return to the capital and wait for the emperor's decision. Let's not get in each other's way."

"Clang clang"... the rebels' swords were unsheathed, dazzling and frightening. The rebels surrounded Li Siyuan, handed the swords to him, and said viciously: "We recognize you as the commander, but we don't recognize the swords in our hands!"

Afterwards, the rebels held Li Siyuan, Huo Yanwei and others hostage, and walked towards Weizhou City with loud shouts and screams. Zhao Zaili, Huangfu Hui and others only allowed Li Siyuan, Huo Yanwei and other generals to enter the city, and refused to allow their troops to enter the city. Zhang Pobai certainly disagreed. If Li Siyuan agreed to join, he would have made an invaluable contribution, so he could not sit back and watch the credit for supporting him go to waste.

Huangfu Hui then led his troops to attack and killed Zhang Pobai.

Zhao Zaili then led the generals at all levels out of the city to welcome Li Siyuan. They knelt on both sides of the road and kowtowed, crying bitterly while begging for Li Siyuan's forgiveness. They respectfully invited Li Siyuan to sit in the first chair, saying, "Brother, we will follow you from now on."

He originally came here to quell the rebellion, but as soon as he arrived at the station, he became the leader of the rebels... How embarrassing it was for Li Siyuan.

As the rebels refused to allow foreign troops into the city, the troops led by Li Siyuan lost their command and had no idea how to advance or retreat, so they fled one after another. Only the 5,000 Zhenzhou soldiers led by Huo Yanwei remained unmoved.

Li Siyuan was surrounded and in danger, so surrendering to the rebels was just a temporary expedient. He said to the rebels: "If you want to accomplish great things, you must have enough troops. The royal army outside the city just now collapsed and scattered. I will go and gather them together." So Zhao Zaili let Li Siyuan and Huo Yanwei leave the city and gather the fleeing soldiers.

Before this, Yuan Xingqin led 10,000 men to station in the south of Weizhou. Li Siyuan sent seven generals, including Gao Xingzhou and Zhang Qianzhao, to Yuan Xingqin's camp one after another, telling him that he had deceived Zhao Zaili and his men, and asked Yuan Xingqin to lead his troops to join forces and then attack the rebels.

Yuan Xingqin was very skeptical about this. He was worried that Li Siyuan was going to annex his troops or force him to join the rebellion. So he detained Gao Xingzhou, Zhang Qianzhao and other envoys, did not respond to Li Siyuan, and then retreated a certain distance to continue to wait and see.

Now, Li Siyuan left the city with less than a hundred people, and without weapons and armor, temporarily stationed in Wei County to summon his old subordinates. After hearing the news, Huo Yanwei's five thousand Zhenzhou Chengde Army soldiers all defected to their old superior Li Siyuan (Li Siyuan is now the governor of Chengde Army). With these five thousand people to support the scene, Li Siyuan finally had some confidence. He said to the generals in tears: "I will return to the Zhenzhou headquarters tomorrow, present a memorial, explain everything here, and then wait for the emperor's decision."

Huo Yanwei and Li Siyuan's confidant An Zhonghui strongly opposed it, saying that Yuan Xingqin had failed in suppressing the rebellion before and had been defeated repeatedly. After the arrival of the Marshal, he refused your orders and now retreated without fighting. When he returns to Luoyang, he will definitely put all the blame on you, the Marshal. If you return to your town without permission and submit a petition to plead guilty, wouldn't it be "separatist town, blackmailing the central government"? Wouldn't it just confirm the accusation of the treacherous villain against you? You will be speechless at that time!

"What can I do?"

The two suggested that Li Siyuan return to Luoyang as soon as possible, meet Li Cunxu in person, and explain the whole process clearly.

Li Siyuan agreed, so he led 5,000 troops south and returned to Luoyang. When passing through Xiangzhou, he met Kang Fu, the imperial horse manager (horse shop envoy), and Kang Fu provided Li Siyuan with thousands of war horses, which made Li Siyuan's combat effectiveness a qualitative leap. In fact, this is a very critical node, but like many key details in history, it is hidden. The mainstream view is that it was Kang Fu's thousands of war horses that gave Li Siyuan the confidence to conquer the Central Plains.

In fact, from Li Siyuan's appointment to the coup to become emperor, this process is full of doubts and loopholes, no less than Zhu Yougui's patricide and Zhu Youzhen's ascension to the throne. I firmly believe that this period of history has been whitewashed, and we will do a simple analysis later. Here, let's take care of the story first.

Seeing that Li Siyuan had gathered a cavalry force of several thousand men and was moving towards Luoyang, Yuan Xingqin hurriedly retreated to Weizhou and reported to the court: "Li Siyuan has rebelled! He is now marching towards Luoyang. Please be prepared to fight!"

While Li Siyuan was heading towards Luoyang, he kept sending people to deliver memorials and defend himself, sending several groups of messengers every day. However, most of these messengers were intercepted by Yuan Xingqin. Li Siyuan's contact with the central government was basically interrupted.

When the news of Li Siyuan's rebellion came, Zhang Quanyi, the governor of the Zhongwu Army, the minister of the Chancellery, the Prince of Qi, and the "healing master" who was already bedridden, felt ashamed, sad, and frightened... He committed suicide (by starvation) in the capital Luoyang on March 3th. He was 15 years old.

(End of this chapter)