History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 486: The Lion Roars 1
[Kill three birds with one stone]

Li Congke valued two people, Liu Yanlang and Xue Wenyu.

The "Ma Quanjie Incident" exposed the fatal weakness of Li Congke's regime. Liu Yanlang single-handedly hollowed out the internal affairs of Li Congke's court; Xue Wenyu triggered external troubles for Li Congke's court.

It was thanks to the unremitting efforts of these two people that Li Congke died after serving as emperor for less than three years, and his country was destroyed, and he was forced to burn himself to death.

When Li Congke ascended the throne, he was forced to release Shi Jingtang due to internal and external pressures. The monarch and his subjects were suspicious of each other, and they knew it all.

After Shi Jingtang returned to Taiyuan Prefecture in Hedong, he mainly did three tasks: setting up spies to collect intelligence; pretending to be sick and playing the victim to paralyze the court; and nurturing the enemy to strengthen his own power.

The first is the dense eyeliner.

His two sons Shi Chongying and Shi Chongyin served in the palace, as the commander of the imperial guards and the deputy envoy of the imperial city respectively, and were actually Shi Jingtang's spies. Shi Jingtang's most important spy was his mother-in-law, Empress Dowager Cao. Shi Jingtang bribed the left and right maids of Empress Dowager Cao to secretly spy on Li Congke's words and deeds.

Li Congke also often inquired about the outside world, and often talked all night with Li Zhuanmei, Li Song, Lu Qi, Xue Wenyu, Zhao Yanyi and others. Every time Li Congke contacted one more person, the chance of leaking secrets would increase. This was a mistake in Li Congke's intelligence work.

Generally speaking, a spy intelligence agency should be headed by one or several most trusted people, who are responsible for the collection, organization, and analysis of intelligence, forming a closed-loop intelligence system. Only in this way can the emperor obtain the required intelligence efficiently and secretly.

However, there is an insurmountable drawback to doing so, which is that if the head of the intelligence agency is not loyal enough, then the emperor will be undermined, which will be counterproductive.

Li Congke's regime was just beginning, and he did not have much time and energy to build such a professional intelligence team. He did not achieve significant results by doing it himself or by adopting a strategy of casting a wide net. For example, he was deceived by Liu Yanlang and did not know that Ma Quanjie was demoted instead of promoted after his meritorious service.

The bigger disadvantage is that it makes too much noise. Just like turning on a radio search in modern warfare, when Li Congke receives a radio signal, his information is also monitored by others.

When he stared at Shi Jingtang, Shi Jingtang was also staring at him.

With Shi Jingtang's powerful intelligence support, every move of Li Congke's court could not escape Shi Jingtang's eyes and ears. This made Shi Jingtang always in the initiative in the subsequent power grab.

Secondly, they claim to be sick and try to gain sympathy.

The reason why Shi Jingtang was able to return to Taiyuan safely was closely related to his excellent performance in Luoyang. Shi Jingtang cleverly took advantage of an illness, deliberately reduced his diet and rest, made himself skinny, and successfully deceived Li Congke.

After returning to Taiyuan, Li Congke kept sending people to express his condolences, which was actually surveillance. Shi Jingtang was very dedicated and kept telling his people around him that his health was failing. Especially when he was entertaining envoys from the central government, he always looked depressed and said that he could no longer perform the work of a military governor and was considering which son to inherit the family business.

However, the effect of this little trick is very weak unless he is really dead.

Third, it is to keep the enemy at bay for your own benefit.

This was the old trick used by all the generals stationed at the border. In addition to pretending to be sick, another major reason why Shi Jingtang was able to return to Taiyuan was that the northern part of the empire was being harassed by the Khitan. Zhao Dejun of Youzhou and Shi Jingtang of Hedong were the Great Wall of the Later Tang Empire and the only choice for the Later Tang to resist the Khitan.

Shi Jingtang and Zhao Dejun worked in tacit agreement, exaggerating the threat posed by the Khitans and using this as an excuse to constantly demand military pay, food and supplies from the imperial court, and also demanding that the imperial court send more imperial guards to assist in the defense. They wanted money, food, soldiers, power...

In addition, Shi Jingtang also transported all his property in Luoyang and other places to Taiyuan through the method of ant moving, claiming that it was to subsidize military expenses and resist the Khitan.

Li Congke was in a very passive position. He knew that Shi Jingtang and Zhao Dejun were using Khitan as a pretext to increase their power and fight against the central government, but he had to support them with all his treasury. The two generals kept asking for supplies, which was like cutting off the firewood from under the fire and making things worse for Li Congke.

After Li Congke ascended the throne, in order to reward the soldiers, he first extorted the people and imposed taxes, and even collected taxes for the next five months in advance, which severely exploited the people and made them suffer. This was just the starting price.

In the year Li Congke ascended the throne (934), there was a severe drought throughout the country, most severely in Guanxi and Hezhong. A large number of starving people fled from Tong, Hua, Pu, and Jiang states.

The drought continued. Historical records show that in June of the following year (935), "(the capital) suffered a severe drought and extreme heat, and more than a hundred people died of heatstroke." More than a hundred people died of heatstroke in the capital alone, which shows how serious the drought was.

There was no rainfall from September to December, and at the end of the year, Li Congke had to go to Longmen Town to pray for rain and snow in person.

In April of the third year (936), there was a record of "bears entering the capital to hunt people". Bears were seen everywhere on the streets of the capital, which shows how depressed the country was.

The treasury was tight, and Li Congke's court was always plagued by financial problems. In such a predicament, Shi Jingtang and Zhao Dejun did not listen to the urging of the court to allocate food and wages, and Li Congke could only tighten his belt and do his best to meet them.

In June, Shi Jingtang reported that the troops were short of food and fodder, and his general An Zhongrong requested to go to the neighboring Zhenwu Army to get a free meal.

Li Congke: Approved.

Shi Jingtang then made another request: Please allow me to directly withhold the rent, taxes and tributes from Huaizhou and Mengzhou, so that the courier doesn’t have to deliver them to Luoyang first and then transport them here, thus saving the shipping cost.

Li Congke: Okay.

Shi Jingtang said again: It is not enough, keep giving money and food, the Khitan troops are coming!

Li Congke: …

War is a money-eating beast, and Shi Jingtang is a bottomless pit. What to do? Li Congke's think tank came up with a "clever plan" - policy funding.

To put it simply, it means giving Hedong's money and grain to Hedong.

The specific operation steps were to allow Shi Jingtang to borrow grain from the people of Hedong. It was called borrowing, but in fact it was forced collection and extortion. The court, through administrative orders, allowed Shi Jingtang to openly rob the people under his rule. Robbery was not against the law, so he could do it himself. The premise was: rob the people of Hedong under your own rule.

At the same time, there was a second order: an imperial decree was issued: ordering the Chengde Army in Zhenzhou to provide 50,000 pieces of silk to Shi Jingtang in Hedong as military pay for the Hedong army; requisitioning 1,500 ox carts and corresponding civilians from Zhenzhou and Jizhou under the jurisdiction of the Chengde Army to serve as transportation; and an imperial decree was issued to order the Weizhou Weizhou Army to provide food and supplies.

The Chengde Army of Zhenzhou and the Weizhou Weibo Army were sandwiched between Shi Jingtang of Hedong and Zhao Dejun of Youzhou. Drawing materials from these areas was in line with the principle of proximity, and it could also stir up the relationship between Zhenzhou, Weizhou, Hedong and Youzhou, causing conflicts of interest and destroying their potential alliance possibilities. Even if the four towns formed an alliance, their money, food and materials would be transferred from one hand to the other, so as not to weaken the strength of the central army.

In Li Congke's opinion, this is a brilliant move that kills three birds with one stone.

This brilliant plan brought great hardship to the common people in Hebei Province. First they were exploited by the new emperor, then they suffered from floods and droughts, and now they had to squeeze the military supplies and food wages.

(End of this chapter)