History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 645 Huainan Test
Under Liu Ci's calm command and Li Tao's desperate counterattack, more than 700 enemy soldiers were killed and the enemy general Wang Jixun was seriously injured. Wang Jixun fled back to the city under the protection of the remaining soldiers.

Wang Jixun was a famous general who was skilled in using iron whip, iron spear and iron hammer, and was nicknamed "Wang Santie".

After Guo Wei returned to the front line, Liu Ci went to see him and apologized.

Guo Wei helped him up, gave him a generous reward, and comforted him, saying, "I have always been worried that the thieves will do something desperate. If you hadn't risked your life to fight, I'm afraid the thieves would have succeeded. The thieves only know this little trick."

After rewarding Liu Ci handsomely, Guo Wei ordered one of his favorite generals, Li Shen, to be dragged out and executed in front of the army, beheading him in public.

It turned out that before Li Shouzhen sneaked into the camp and robbed the stronghold, he sent people to nearby villages to sell wine. It was said to be selling, but it was actually giving it away for free. As a result, the patrol soldiers of the Later Han Dynasty were greedy for small profits and drank heavily, and they were drunk. This was one of the reasons why more than a thousand death squads were able to successfully approach the Later Han camp.

Guo Wei then rectified military discipline and ordered that no one was allowed to drink unless it was a formal reward celebration banquet! As a result, when Guo Wei was inspecting, he found that Li Shen actually did not obey the prohibition order and drank two sips of wine early in the morning. Guo Wei was furious. The more he loved his general, the better he was to warn others.

In order to unite all the forces that could be united, Li Shouzhen not only sought help from Hou Shu, Huainan, and Khitan, but also from Li Yiyin of Xiazhou.

The Dangxiang people entrenched in Xiazhou had already established an actual separatist regime after the "Battle of Xiazhou" during the reign of Emperor Mingzong. They took advantage of the turmoil in the Central Plains and often profited from it.

After receiving Li Shouzhen's request for help, Li Yiyin immediately sent troops south to station at the borders of Yanzhou and Danzhou, ready to take action.

The Zhangwu Army of Yanzhou and the Dingnan Army of Xiazhou were adjacent to each other and had been in constant friction for a long time. At this time, Li Yiyin deployed his troops on the border, showing off his military power and pretending to annex the Zhangwu Army of Yanzhou.

Yanzhou Jiedushi Gao Yunquan immediately submitted a memorial to the court, pointing out that Li Yiyin was secretly colluding with the rebels and had ulterior motives; but Li Yiyin also submitted a memorial to make excuses and make specious arguments.

The court of the Later Han Dynasty certainly understood Li Yiyin's sinister intentions, but the court was powerless to make an enemy, so it issued an edict to appease and mediate the conflict between the two sides. Li Yiyin took the opportunity to blackmail the court, and Liu Chengyou had no choice but to issue an edict to assign Jingzhou (now Mizhi County, Shaanxi Province) to Xiazhou Dingnan Army, and the court ceded land to Li Yiyin.

Li Yiyin succeeded in blackmailing the emperor and wrote a letter of thanks.

The Later Han court used Jingzhou in exchange for Li Yiyin of Xiazhou's neutral attitude during the rebellion of the three towns.

Just as the Xiazhou Dingnan Army in the northwest was stabilized, the Huainan forces in the southeast began to make their presence felt.

The rebels in the northwest of the empire (Fengxiang Wang Jingchong and Chang'an Zhao Siwan) colluded with Hou Shu, while the rebels in the southeast of the empire colluded with Huainan nearby.

According to the records of the "Ten Kingdoms Spring and Autumn Annals", the envoys Zhu Yuan and Li Ping sent by Li Shouzhen successfully arrived in Huainan, and fully recorded the memorial Li Shouzhen wrote to Li Jing. In the memorial, Li Shouzhen claimed to be a descendant of the Tang Dynasty and almost copied the speech template of "Uncle Liu" in the late Han Dynasty, which was roughly as follows:

"The Tang Dynasty was in decline, powerful officials were in power, and the country was usurped by traitors. As a member of the royal family, I was powerless to do anything. I watched all this happen with my own eyes. I was deeply saddened and always wanted to support the Tang Dynasty. When the Central Plains was in turmoil, I devoted myself to the revolutionary cause. I started as a soldier, fought in many battles, and established meritorious services, hoping that one day I could restore the foundation of my ancestors...

It was a pity that the bad guys came too suddenly. They wanted to extinguish my revolutionary enthusiasm and approached the city. Although I braved the arrows and stones, led the loyal and righteous people to resist tenaciously, and was ready to sacrifice my life and blood for the Li Tang royal family...

But I suddenly heard that there is another outstanding figure in our Li Tang royal family, that is, Your Majesty! You dominate Jianghuai, dominate Jiangzuo, suppress violence and quell chaos, and save the country. You have the demeanor of a king. You are the only one to support the Tang Dynasty and inherit the foundation of the Tang Dynasty!
We are both relatives of the Tang Dynasty. If you don't save me, who will? If I am not loyal to you, who should I be loyal to? Please send troops to help us immediately. We can work together inside and outside. In this way, you will have the style of the Five Lords and be as good as Lord Huanwen. If you really accomplish your great cause, then...right."

"The Five Hegemons" refers to the five hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period: Duke Huan of Qi, Duke Wen of Jin, Duke Xiang of Song, King Zhuang of Chu, and Duke Mu of Qin. They also have a more well-known collective name - the Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period; "The Lords of Huan and Wen" is the joint name for Duke Huan of Qi and Duke Wen of Jin, and is also a reference to the Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period.

The sentence in the original text is "...he sent a small army to provide assistance in the east, so that the spirit of the Five Lords was no less than that of Lord Huan and Lord Wen." This is just a common intertextual rhetorical device in classical Chinese, so I won't explain it in detail.

One more thing to say is that classical Chinese often uses rhetoric devices such as exaggeration and intertextuality for the sake of structural beauty and artistic conception. Even in serious official history, we should not be pedantic and pretentious. For example, I quoted the records of "Old Five Dynasties History" and "Zizhi Tongjian" in the previous article, saying that Li Shouzhen was surrounded by Guo Wei, and the envoys he sent were intercepted and lost contact with the outside world... "Ten Kingdoms Spring and Autumn" immediately slapped me in the face. In fact, it is not a slap in the face, but "Old Five Dynasties History" and "Zizhi Tongjian" use exaggerated rhetoric devices, not a flaw or a mistake.

Li Shouzhen clearly pledged his loyalty to Li Jing of the Southern Tang and asked him to send troops to the north, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the Later Han and restoring the Tang Dynasty. Every word he said touched Li Jing's sore spot.

Li Jing consulted with his ministers, and they all agreed to march north to the Central Plains. So, Li Jing ordered Li Jinquan to lead the expedition north to the Central Plains and rescue Li Shouzhen in Hezhong!

Li Jinquan, the "Northern Camp Recruiting Envoy" of the Southern Tang Dynasty, was just like the "Mongolian Navy Commander" in the joke. When he received the imperial edict, he burst into tears and said, "I'm finally promoted!"

However, the area between Southern Tang and Hezhong spanned almost the entire Central Plains. Li Jing's rescue of Li Shouzhen was as unreliable as Mongolia sending its navy to the Persian Gulf to interfere in other countries' internal affairs.

The border between Southern Tang and Central Plains was almost entirely divided by the Huai River, except that at the easternmost point, after crossing Sishui, the border was moved, and the territory of Southern Tang included Haizhou, which is today's Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province. In other words, if the Southern Tang army went north from other places, it would have to force its way across the Huai River under the suppression of Central Plains firepower, but only on the eastern coast could it calmly cross the Huai River and directly threaten the Yellow River basin.

As expected, Li Jinquan led his army to use Haizhou as a springboard and directly entered the territory of the Later Han Dynasty, approaching Yizhou (now Linyi City, Shandong Province). Li Jinquan ordered his troops to have a full meal so that they could set off on their journey.

Just when he was halfway through his meal, a scout came running in with a report that the Later Han army consisted of only a few hundred men, who were gathering, and who were all old, weak, sick, disabled, and pregnant. He requested an attack!

Upon hearing this, Li Jinquan immediately put down his bowl and chopsticks and issued a military order on the spot: Anyone who dares to talk about going to war will be beheaded!
(End of this chapter)