History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 394: Silver Spear Bully Xu Zhixun
【Xu Zhixun, the Little Overlord with Silver Spear】

Xu Zhixun was Xu Wen's eldest son. Xu Wen regarded him as his successor and placed high hopes on him and entrusted him with important tasks. Especially when Xu Wen was stationed in Runzhou and Shengzhou, he had handed over the real power of the "central government" to Xu Zhixun, allowing him to accumulate experience and reputation and prepare for a smooth succession in the future. In terms of military affairs, Xu Wen even hired Zhu Jin, a first-class military strategist in Huainan, for his beloved son.

There were many first-class generals in Huainan, such as Liu Wei, Tao Ya, Li Jian, Liu Xin, etc. Why did Xu Wen choose Zhu Jin, who was a surrendered general? There are two main reasons:

First of all, from the perspective of loyalty, Zhu Jin, a "three-no product" with no foundation, no background, and no hope, would not pose a threat to Xu's monopoly. On the contrary, Xu Wen had to use him to balance the old ministers of the Yang family. Therefore, Zhu Jin was Xu Wen's natural lackey and was trustworthy in his rule.
Secondly, from the actual situation, veterans such as Liu Wei have been sent to local areas, while Xu Zhixun is at the Yangzhou headquarters. The effect of "correspondence courses" is not as good as face-to-face courses, so teachers should not "lead remotely" and honorary professors are meaningless.

Xu Wen asked Zhu Jin to be a tutor for his son, and Zhu Jin was flattered. Who doesn't know that Huainan is now the world of the Xu family? Xu Wen is the top leader of Huainan, and Xu Zhixun is the real "crown prince" of Huainan. Zhu Jin taught him carefully and unreservedly gave all his life's knowledge.

With unique educational resources, how is the academic level of "Prince" Xu Zhixun?

In February of the second year of Zhenming (916), two young generals of the "Imperial Guards" - Ma Qian and Li Qiu - rebelled, kidnapped Yang Wei, smashed the armory, looted weapons and armor, gathered the rebels, and claimed that they wanted to kill Xu Zhixun.

The time has come to test Xu Zhixun's academic performance, just a small test.

Faced with this sudden mutiny, Xu Zhixun reacted quickly and acted decisively - run!
Xu Wen not only left the military general Zhu Jin in Yangzhou, but also left his trusted strategist Yan Keqiu for his son. One was a civil official and the other was a military official to assist Xu Zhixun, with the intention of asking Keqiu for help if he had any questions about internal affairs, and asking Zhu Jin for help if he had any questions about external affairs.

At the critical moment, Yan Keqiu stopped Xu Zhixun and said, "Stop! Something has happened at the headquarters, the young master has abandoned the others and fled, where can the generals go?"

"Don't run? If he dies, will you be responsible?"

Yan Keqiu smiled and said, "It only takes a snap of the fingers to defeat the thief." After saying that, Yan Keqiu went straight into the bedroom, fell into a deep sleep, and even deliberately snored loudly. His snoring was like thunder, echoing throughout the military mansion (his snoring could be heard in other mansions).

When the soldiers heard such unbridled snoring, they calmed down instantly, no longer panicked, and began to organize the rebellion suppression work in an orderly manner.

The next day, Ma Qian and Li Qiu set up their troops outside the palace gate and showed off their might.

It happened that Zhu Jin was returning from Runzhou on the other side with his troops. Zhu Jin had been a soldier all his life and was very experienced. He was not flustered when faced with things. He just glanced at them and burst out laughing.

Ma Qian and Li Qiu, to put it bluntly, were the captains of the imperial palace security team. They had gathered a bunch of rabble. How could they set up a formation? In Zhu Jin's eyes, they were just a bunch of bronze scum.

Zhu Jin commanded calmly, and Ma Qian and Li Qiu were defeated at the first blow. How could a group of security guards put together a temporary team be a match for the elite field army? Zhu Jin easily captured Ma Qian, Li Qiu and others alive and beheaded them in public.

In the eyes of teacher Zhu Jin, this is a vivid practical lesson, but student Xu Zhixun regards it as a shame. Every time Zhu Jin analyzes a wrong question, Xu Zhixun becomes more disgusted with Zhu Jin.

More than half a year later, Hedong Li Cunxu completely controlled the Hebei region, and the plan of Wang Tan, a general of the Later Liang Dynasty, to sneak attack Taiyuan was also thwarted. Therefore, Li Cunxu decided to strike while the iron was hot and pursue the victory. He sent envoys to Huainan to propose a plan of attacking from both the north and the south. Xu Wen readily agreed, so he appointed his son Xu Zhixun as the commander-in-chief of the Northern Expedition Army, and Zhu Jin as the deputy commander-in-chief, and crossed the Huai River to the north to respond to Hedong Li Cunxu.

Obviously, this "commander-in-chief" is just a bystander, and the person who is really in charge of command and dispatch is the deputy commander Zhu Jin. Just like Li Cunxu let his son Li Jiji lead the attack on Shu, and Guo Chongtao as his deputy. If he can destroy the Later Liang in one fell swoop and divide the Later Liang with Li Cunxu in Hedong, then this unprecedented achievement will become a huge political capital for his son Xu Zhixun to take over.

This is just Xu Wen's wishful thinking.

The Northern Expedition Army sent an edict to the prefectures and counties in the north of the Huai River, besieged Yingzhou, and planned to sweep across Songzhou, Bozhou, etc. The Later Liang sent Yuan Xiang to resist.

This was the very strange war mentioned above. After Yuan Xiangxian arrived in Yingzhou, the Huainan army retreated without a fight and retreated back to Huainan in one breath. The war was over. Only Yuan Xiangxian was left with a confused look on his face, "That's it?"

Running away is the only skill Xu Zhixun learned from Zhu Jin.

In addition to the cowardice and retreat of the commander Xu Zhixun, the Huainan Army's Northern Expedition was a blatant armed invasion of the Huaibei region, and it was taking advantage of the situation, which was unkind, unjust, unwarlike, and the officers and soldiers were unwilling to fight for it. Of course, these were all high-sounding and exaggerated excuses. The reason why the officers and soldiers were unwilling to fight for Xu Zhixun was actually that they were unwilling to fight for him.

As the young master who actually controls the Huainan Group, Xu Zhixun is no less inferior to the "second generation Wangs" such as Wang Zongyan, Yang Wo, Ma Xisheng, and Wang Yanhan - in terms of debauchery, cruelty and tyranny.

Xu Wen was sent to Runzhou, and Xu Zhixun was left in Yangzhou to assist Yang Wei, and he was also called "Changhua Xianggong". Leaving his son with "Emperor Xian of Han" allowed him to closely monitor the actions of the "Central Government" and to allow Xu Zhixun to train his own team and prepare for succession. In other words, this was an internship period for Xu Zhixun to take over Huainan.

However, Xu Zhixun failed to understand his father's good intentions. After Xu Wen left, no one could restrain Xu Zhixun, and Xu Zhixun completely let himself go, "abusing Wen's power and doing many illegal things."

Perhaps Xu Wen also gave some advice to his son, telling him to take advantage of this opportunity of "regency" to enhance his own reputation.

This sentence was too subtle, so subtle that it was enough for Xu Zhixun to misunderstand.

There are many ways to improve your reputation, such as working hard and achieving results that impress others; or being clear about rewards and punishments and showing favors to others.

The concept of "clear rewards and punishments" is worth elaborating on. It cannot be interpreted literally. Many team leaders take the words literally and interpret these four words as "formulate clear and detailed systems in advance, and then read from the book and apply them mechanically."

Take Gao Jichang as an example. He inspected the progress of the city defense project and found that there was a phenomenon of slacking off. So he followed the rules and regulations and publicly punished the project leader, Ni Kefu, the most respected and meritorious veteran in the team. Ni Kefu is not only one of the most important veterans in Gao Jichang's team, but also Gao Jichang's confidant and Gao Jichang's father-in-law. Gao Jichang's personality of being iron-faced and strict in law enforcement was built. However, the next step is the key point: he asked his daughter, Ni Kefu's daughter-in-law, to tell Ni Kefu privately that he was just doing it for the sake of his personality and had no choice but to do it, and he did not really want to humiliate him, and then rewarded him with 100 ingots of gold, asking him not to bear a grudge.

(End of this chapter)