History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 36: Wang and Huang Separate
[Wang Huang Family Separation]

"Brother Xianzhi, let me take a look at the imperial edict." Huang Chao's face was as gloomy as water, and he looked intimidating without even getting angry.

Wang Xianzhi was so happy that he didn't even notice that something was wrong with the atmosphere. He held the letter of appointment in both hands and carefully handed it to Huang Chao, "Be careful, don't give it to me..."

Huang Chao snatched the imperial edict, shook it in front of Wang Xianzhi's nose, and shouted angrily: "You got the official position, but what about me?"

"At the beginning, they all swore a great oath and dominated the world. Now you have taken an official position and sent him to the Left Army. Where can these 5,000 people go?" - "Zizhi Tongjian"

"You surrendered and got the position alone. What can you do with the five thousand men?" - "New Book of Tang·Biography of Huang Chao"

Many people in later generations have glorified Huang Chao based on this key statement, packaging him as a strong-willed and unswerving revolutionary.

Buddha and devil are separated by a single thought; heroes and bears are separated by just one sentence.

Some people have taken this sentence from the Zizhi Tongjian and, after a little embellishment, translated "At the beginning, we made a great oath together to rule the world" as "At the beginning, we made a great oath together to eradicate violence and protect the good, punish evil and promote good, enforce justice on behalf of heaven, and seek happiness for the people of the world..."

This guy is wearing a high hat and telling lies with his eyes wide open. You might as well just say that they want to fight for communism.

"Running rampant across the world" was their oath. Combined with Huang Chao's later performance, we can see that these four words do not need to be over-interpreted. Their true meaning is what they say: to rule one side and dominate the world. If we must interpret it further, it should be understood that Huang Chao thought he could compete with the Tang Dynasty or even replace it.

In short, no matter how much they whitewash themselves, Wang and Huang can never rise to the level of revolutionaries. At best, they are a large-scale organized criminal gang.

No matter whether it is "Zizhi Tongjian" or "New Book of Tang", no matter how much it is beautified, the second half of the sentence can never be avoided, and it is also the thorn in the side of all those who try to whitewash Wang Huang and others - "five thousand people". If you accept the court's amnesty and become an official, what should we do with our five thousand people?
In a nutshell, the spoils were not shared equally.

Wang Xianzhi betrayed the interests of his teammates, especially Huang Chao's interests, which caused Huang Chao's dissatisfaction.

"Let's...take a long-term view..." Wang Xianzhi finally woke up halfway from his ecstasy, and was suppressed by Huang Chao's aura to the point of suffocation.

"Discuss your mother's head!"

Huang Chao punched Wang Xianzhi in the face, and Wang Xianzhi fell to the ground with blood all over his face.

The personal soldiers around the two bosses also fought with each other, and the situation instantly got out of control and became a mess.

Afterwards, this group of "rebels" who "vowed to save the common people of the world" smashed, looted and burned in Qizhou City. The city was in flames and almost razed to the ground. Nearly half of the common people were massacred, and the other half were taken away and forced to join the Cao Army.

Pei Wei and the imperial eunuch took advantage of the chaos to escape, but Wang Liao, a prisoner with a special identity, was still detained.

The Cao army was divided into two: three thousand followed Wang Xianzhi, and two thousand followed Huang Chao.

This indirectly proves that the real main force of the Cao army is only these 5,000 people. The remaining "tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands" are really just a bunch of bandits. The two bosses were too lazy to divide them up when they split up. They just followed whoever they wanted. Anyway, these 5,000 people must be divided up carefully.

After the Wang and Huang families separated, Wang Xianzhi led his troops southward to invade Hubei; Huang Chao led his troops back to his hometown in Shandong.

Two peaches killed three warriors, and the Cao army was successfully disintegrated. However, a blessing in disguise.

Wang Xianzhi ravaged Hubei and successively captured Ezhou and Anzhou; Huang Chao first captured Yunzhou in Shandong and then Yizhou to avenge his previous humiliation. He was a man of sentiment. Afterwards, Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi's general Shang Rang (Shang Junchang's younger brother) met at Jixia Mountain and used Jixia Mountain as the bandit's base.

Soon after, the two bosses put aside their past grudges, joined forces and attacked together, and actually besieged the anti-bandit commander-in-chief Song Wei in Songzhou city.

The imperial court urgently dispatched General Zhang Zimian of the Left Guard of the Central Imperial Army to lead his troops to rush to Songzhou to repel the Cao army that was besieging the city and save Songzhou from danger.

Wang Xianzhi led his troops to capture Suizhou and captured the governor alive. Li Fu, the governor of Shannan East Road, sent his son to lead troops to reinforce, but unexpectedly, the eldest son of Li Fu died heroically for his country.

When the government troops counterattacked again, Wang Xianzhi turned to attack Fuzhou and Yingzhou, and retreated calmly, hiding his merits and fame.

Huang Chao, who was sentimental, once again ravaged Qizhou, the place where he broke up with Wang Xianzhi and made him sad. However, he was a little unlucky and was chased and intercepted by Zeng Yuanyu, the deputy commander-in-chief of the bandit suppression. He suffered heavy casualties. Fortunately, Huang Chao and his important followers managed to escape.

I don’t know whether it was because Deputy Commander-in-Chief Zeng Yuanyu was really unable to do the job, or because he was taught by Commander-in-Chief Song Wei, that Huang Chao escaped from under their noses once again.

Huang Chao, who had fled, did not give up, just like before. Instead, he was like a wildfire that could not be extinguished or weeds that could not be burned. Huang Chao made a comeback and captured Kuangcheng, and then Puzhou.

Kuangcheng, located in the southwest of Changyuan County, was the "best place" for the Cao army, where the first shot of the revolution was fired. Puzhou was also the first city conquered by the Cao army.

Huang Chao was truly a man of sentiment, but in the near future, he would also be defeated by sentiment.

Important towns such as Yunzhou, Yizhou, Qizhou, and Ruzhou were repeatedly captured. This also reflects the tactical characteristics of the Cao army from the side, which is a strategy very close to guerrilla warfare.

To this day, many people still praise Wang Huangcao’s army’s tactics as “guerrilla warfare,” which is a misunderstanding of “guerrilla warfare.”

"When the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy camps, we harass; when the enemy is tired, we attack; when the enemy retreats, we pursue" is the "sixteen-character guideline" for guerrilla warfare summed up by the great leader, and it has become an internationally accepted model.

Not all "enemy advances, we retreat" tactics can be called guerrilla warfare.

Guerrilla warfare is an important strategic guiding ideology, which uses space to trade time, and does not care about the gains and losses of a city or a place, but aims to annihilate the enemy's vitality and accumulate small victories into a big one. "Guerrilla" is its appearance, while "attack" is its soul.

Most peasant uprisings were just superficial and good at moving around (this is also an important reason why they are often mistaken for "guerrilla warfare"), but they failed to understand the essence of guerrilla warfare. This is also one of the reasons why uprisings usually start well but end badly.

After the defeat in Yizhou, Wang and Huang knew that their skills were far from enough to fight against the government troops. "The enemy advances, we retreat" was a completely helpless move forced out of them, rather than a proactive strategy to repel the enemy.

The name "Grass Army" is not because they are all made up of common people. Being grass roots, their lives are as worthless as grass, and calling them "grass" does not mean to belittle their ambitions.

"Grass Army" is what Wang Xianzhi called himself at the beginning of his uprising. It also fits their image metaphor of "wildfires cannot burn them all, spring breezes blow them back to life" and they cannot be eradicated and will grow again after being cut.

The Qizhou amnesty to a certain extent disintegrated the Cao Army and weakened its power; at the same time, through this contact, it also accurately touched the lifeblood of the Cao Army - their infinite desire for high positions and generous salaries, their infinite expectation for peaceful amnesty... In short, it was the lack of a thorough and firm revolutionary belief.

That’s easy, we’ll prescribe the right medicine.

Yang Fuguang, the eunuch who was stationed in Dengzhou, extended an olive branch to Wang Xianzhi. "Before, it was Huang Chao who hindered us and ruined our plans. Now, how about you two go your separate ways? Let's talk."
Faced with the court's sugar-coated bullets, Wang Xianzhi once again showed his true colors and revealed his servility. He gladly accepted the court's amnesty and could not wait to send out a "surrender delegation". The head of the delegation was Shang Junchang, his most trusted henchman and the second-in-command of his direct troops. He also selected several other important leaders to show his sincerity.

Shang Junchang, a native of Changyuan County, was the leader of the salt gang and a close friend of Wang Xianzhi. At first, when Wang Xianzhi's goods were confiscated by the government, he hid in Shang Junchang's home in Changyuan County to avoid the limelight.

The delegation was led by the second-in-command Shang Junchang himself, which shows how eager Wang Xianzhi was to surrender and seek an official position, and how sincere he was in negotiating peace.

On the way, they were greeted by government troops. The "envoys negotiating surrender" were very moved. They did not expect the government troops to be so courteous and to come to welcome them from afar, and to be escorted by a well-organized guard.

Fully armed guards escorted them all the way to Chang'an.

Aren’t you going to Dengzhou? Why are you here in Chang’an?

The person who picked them up at the station was the commander-in-chief of the bandit suppression team - Song Wei.

Song Wei tied up Shang Junchang and others and escorted them to Chang'an, reporting that they were prisoners captured alive in the battle with Cao's army in Yingzhou.

Yang Fuguang hurriedly submitted an explanation, saying that Wang Xianzhi, Shang Junchang and others had all surrendered, and that Shang Junchang and other leaders were deceived and intercepted by Song Wei on the way, and were not captured by Song Wei in front of the battlefield.

The imperial court sent people to investigate the truth, but they could not find out anything.

Since the truth cannot be found out, then escort Shang Junchang and others to Gou Jiling and behead them.

Beheading at Goujiling is the final insult to the death row inmate. If it were Qianlongyuan, Zhanlongya, Fuhupo, Yingchoujian... Goujiling, you are so cruel.

Thirty years ago (844), Yang Bian, who led the Taiyuan Rebellion, and his followers were sent to Goujiling and beheaded. Now, Shang Junchang and other veterans of the Changyuan Rebellion have also received this honor.

However, this "Dengzhou surrender case" is far from being that simple. A few words in the history books conceal a dark and dirty truth.

(End of this chapter)