History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 632: The Guest Takes Over the Host and Conquers Weizhou 3
Seeing that the revolutionary flame was about to go out, Li Gu secretly found Feng Dao, Li Song, He Ning and others, and suggested that they go to the front line to comfort and encourage the loyal and brave soldiers.

When the soldiers saw the highly respected Feng Dao and others coming to express their condolences, their spirits immediately soared, and they were resurrected on the spot with full health and full buffs. They finally stabilized their position and turned the occupation from being on the verge of collapse to being evenly matched.

Major historical events are often changed by a small incident or a small misunderstanding.

That evening, thousands of farmers suddenly emerged outside the city, carrying rakes, hoes and dung forks, and they were full of fighting spirit, rubbing their hands and eager to try.

As the sky gradually darkened, Yelu Malu climbed up to look out, and saw a dark mass of people stretching as far as the eye could see. There was a great deal of noise and bustle, and people were shouting excitedly, mixed with the sounds of weapons colliding. "Oh no! Reinforcements have arrived!" Yelu Malu did not dare to stay for a moment, and immediately fled the city with Liu Xi and Cui Yanxun, fleeing to Dingzhou in the north.

In fact, this is a beautiful misunderstanding.

When the mutiny broke out in Zhenzhou, the news spread to nearby villages. As the news spread, it became known how brave the Han people were and how badly the Khitan people were beaten. Zhenzhou was controlled by the Han people, and they began to massacre the Khitan people...

As a result, the peasants in Zhenzhou, who had been bullied by the Khitans, were very excited, thinking that this was a good opportunity for revenge, so they called their friends and rushed to Zhenzhou. The reason they came was not to participate in the battle against the Khitans, but to rob the Khitans of their property, women, etc., "rob money, rob food, rob women!"

Because the information they received was that the Khitans were now lambs to be slaughtered. Go quickly, or you will miss it if you go too late.

Thanks to the information asymmetry at that time, if they had mastered the real-time dynamics of Zhenzhou, they would not dare to come even if they were beaten to death.

Just like that, by chance, groups of farmers excitedly arrived outside Zhenzhou City.

If it was in broad daylight, Yelu Malu would not have been scared away. He was not afraid of even the Han soldiers, so how could he be afraid of a group of Han peasants?

But as fate would have it, they appeared in the evening. Yelu Malu could only hear their voices but could not identify them, which only added to his fear.

Feng Dao and his companions went around to appease the people and maintain order in the city. Everyone unanimously recommended Feng Dao to be the governor of Zhenzhou. Feng Dao firmly refused, saying that he was just a scholar who could only write memorials, and that you should recommend a military general to be the governor.

At that time, Li Rong had the greatest contribution, followed by He Fujin, but their official positions were not as high as Bai Zairong's, so everyone recommended Bai Zairong to be the regent.

After the discussion, a report was made to Liu Zhiyuan, stating that Zhenzhou was willing to return to the embrace of the motherland and requesting His Majesty to send reinforcements to Zhenzhou as soon as possible.

Liu Zhiyuan was overjoyed and hurriedly sent Li Yancong to lead the troops to garrison.

When Yang Gun and Yang An heard that Zhenzhou was liberated, they immediately led their troops to retreat northward; Li Yin led his troops to surrender directly on the battlefield and submitted to Liu Zhiyuan.

So far, the "Weizhou Showdown" in the initial scenario did not take place in Weizhou, but instead fought a whole circle around Weizhou. With Yelu Ma'an abandoning Zhenzhou, Weizhou became an isolated city without help, and Du Chongwei's fate can be imagined.

Let's talk about Bai Zairong, who was temporarily in charge of Zhenzhou affairs. To describe Bai Zairong in an elegant way, he would be called a "thief who stole the country". When the uprising broke out, he was timid and cowardly, but when the uprising succeeded, he took the fruits of victory for himself.

Bai Zairong was greedy and cruel, and he was suspicious of his subordinates, fearing that they would share the fruits of victory. Wang Rao, the commander of the imperial guards, was worried that his troops would be annexed by him, so he stationed himself in the East Gate Tower on the pretext of having a foot disease and demarcated a territory to defend himself. The Imperial Astronomical Supervisor Zhao Yanyi had a good personal relationship with both of them, so he stepped in to mediate, and finally there was no internal strife.

After Bai Zairong took control of Zhenzhou, the first thing he did was to send troops to surround the homes of Li Song and He Ning, because he thought that the two had been in the position of prime minister for a long time and must be very rich, so he planned to rob them. Li Song and He Ning were very sensible and immediately offered all their property in exchange for a chance to live.

After Bai Zairong got all their property, he was worried that the two would take revenge in the future, so he still planned to kill them. When Li Gu heard about it, he hurried to Bai Zairong and scolded him, "The country is in ruins, and the holy ruler (referring to Shi Chonggui) is in disgrace. You soldiers hold the military power, but you don't go to rescue. Today, we lost 3,000 people, just to drive away a barbarian general. Is this your own credit? You just drove away the barbarian chief, and you want to kill the prime minister. If the new emperor (Liu Zhiyuan) investigates the crime of killing the prime minister without authorization, will you be responsible for it?"

Bai Zairong then gave up the idea of ​​killing to silence the witness. Afterwards, he wanted to plunder the property of the people in Zhenzhou on the pretext of subsidizing military supplies, but Li Gu tried his best to dissuade him.

High-ranking officials cannot be killed, and ordinary people cannot be touched... Bai Zairong racked his brains and finally found a reasonable and legal way to make money. He arrested those who had worked for the Khitans, labeled them as "traitors", confiscated all their property, and stuffed the money into his own pocket.

Does working under the Khitans count as a "traitor"? If so, then Bai Zairong is one too.

Bai Zairong's greed and cruelty were no less than Yelu Malu's, so the people of Zhenzhou gave Bai Zairong a nickname - Bai Malu.

As Yelu Malu abandoned Zhenzhou, the reinforcements of Yang Gun and Yang An fled, and Li Yin surrendered, Liu Duo, who was fighting stubbornly in Xingzhou, knew that the situation was hopeless, so he announced his surrender and submitted to Liu Zhiyuan.

Xue Huairang, who was at the frontline in Mingzhou, wrote to Liu Duo, saying that he was ordered to pursue the Khitan and asked Liu Duo to cooperate. He then led the army from Mingzhou to Xingzhou.

Liu Duo opened the city gate and gave him a warm welcome. After Xue Huairang entered the city, he immediately killed Liu Duo and then reported to Liu Zhiyuan that he had conquered Xingzhou and killed Liu Duo.

Liu Zhiyuan knew the whole story, but did not pursue it and used Xue Huairang's statement as the official report.

Liu Zhiyuan issued an edict to formally appoint Bai Zairong as the commander of Chengde Army in Zhenzhou. It was not until a year later that the truth of the Zhenzhou uprising was revealed, so he appointed He Fujin as the defense envoy of Caozhou and Li Rong as the governor of Bozhou.

When the news of the rebellion of Du Chongwei in Weizhou reached Jingnan, Gao Conghui was extremely excited, so he dispatched thousands of naval forces to attack Xiangzhou, but was defeated by An Shenqi, the governor of Shannan East Road in Xiangzhou. Gao Conghui was not discouraged, so he regrouped his forces and turned to attack Yingzhou. This time he was even more humiliating and was defeated by the governor of Yingzhou.

The separatist regime, one of the "Ten Kingdoms", was small but complete, and it was still a "country" after all. The Jiedushi could not defeat it, and it could not even defeat a small local governor.

In anger, Gao Conghui announced the severance of diplomatic relations with the Later Han Dynasty, and then pledged loyalty to Huainan and Later Shu respectively.

Gao Laizi was the comedian during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The two generations of father and son provided countless humorous jokes for this cruel and dark era, making the entire history more three-dimensional and full, disgusting others, disgusting themselves, and helping future generations.

(End of this chapter)