History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 647: Persuading Fengxiang to Surrender
The fierce fighting lasted for nearly two months, until mid-July, when Guo Wei finally conquered the outer city. Li Shouzhen gathered the remaining troops and retreated to the inner city.

The generals demanded that they take the inner city in one fell swoop, but Guo Wei stopped them again, explaining that even a rabbit would bite when it was anxious, let alone an army! "Why rush to catch fish when the water is drying up?" Li Shouzhen was now a turtle in a jar, just like a fish in a pond that was about to dry up. Why should we rush?
Sure enough, a few days later, in despair, Li Shouzhen, along with his wife, son Li Chongxun and others, committed suicide by burning themselves to death.

Li Shouzhen's ancestral home was Heyang. When Shi Jingtang was stationed in Heyang, he recruited Li Shouzhen to serve under him. From then on, he became Shi Jingtang's direct confidant. When Ma Quanjie conquered Li Jinquan of Anzhou, Li Shouzhen was the military supervisor. During the Jin-Liao War, Li Shouzhen rushed to support Yunzhou and defeated Yelu Ma'ao. He was promoted to the governor of Yanzhou for his merits. Then he attacked Yang Guangyuan of Qingzhou and won a highlight moment. From then on, the records of Li Shouzhen were mostly negative.

After pacifying Yang Guangyuan, Li Shouzhen rewarded his soldiers with worthless junk such as spoiled tea and dyed wood. The soldiers were furious and wrapped the rewards in cloth, making them round like a human head. They called them "Shouzhen heads" and hung them on tree branches to vent their anger.

It is estimated that this should be a reward and appeasement to Yang Guangyuan's troops, because historical records have repeatedly mentioned that Li Shouzhen was very generous to his own troops and was deeply loved by the soldiers.

For example, when Du Chongwei led the Northern Expedition and Li Shouzhen was the military supervisor, the two colluded with each other and harassed the people along the way, just like the Japanese invaders entering the village, looting the people and using the money to reward their own troops. They also created various pretexts to collect exorbitant taxes, such as "armor hanging money" before sending troops and "armor removal money" after returning.

"The expenses for going in and out were often no less than 300,000 yuan, and as a result, the public and private sectors of Jin were in great trouble."

After Li Shouzhen and his wife set themselves on fire, the Central Army turned into firefighters, found Li Shouzhen's half-burnt body, beheaded him and sent his head to the capital.

Guo Wei entered the inner city and captured Li Shouzhen's other son, Li Chongyu, as well as a group of fake officials appointed by Li Shouzhen in the name of "Son of Heaven", including the fake prime minister, and of course the "national teacher" and the great guardian monk Zonglun. Guo Wei tied them up and took them to Bianzhou, where they were executed by slow slicing in the streets of the downtown area.

Li Shouzhen's brother-in-law Qiao Da was sentenced to death in February as a "member of Li Shouzhen's party". Qiao Da was also executed along with his brother Qiao Rong, the "Huitu Envoy" appointed by the Khitans.

Among Li Shouzhen's followers, only Zhao Xiuji was summoned to the central government and given an official position because he had urged Li Shouzhen not to rebel and therefore resigned from office and retired.

In addition, Zhu Yuan and Li Ping, who were sent to Huainan by Li Shouzhen, luckily escaped the disaster. After hearing that Li Shouzhen was defeated, Li Jing appointed Zhu Yuan as the Deputy Director of the Imperial Guard and Li Ping as the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Personnel.

Guo Wei seized a large number of top-secret letters, most of which were chat records between Li Shouzhen and central officials and local vassal states. Guo Wei originally wanted to pack up these evidences of treason and hand them over to the court, so as to catch all these rebellious and counter-revolutionary elements in one fell swoop.
Wang Pu, the National Library and Archives Manager (Secretary Lang), hurriedly dissuaded him. Do you know the story of Cao Cao burning Yuan Shao's chat records after the Battle of Guandu? Nowadays, the Central Plains has been in chaos for a long time and the political situation is turbulent. It is common to make a fuss about the situation. Don't make a fuss or exaggerate it, otherwise everyone will be in danger and it will inevitably cause more trouble.

Guo Wei suddenly realized what was going on, so he called everyone together and burned all of Li Shouzhen's documents and files on the spot. Before Li Shouzhen burned himself in the river, Zhao Siwan in Chang'an had already been pacified.

The person in charge of the Chang'an battlefield was Guo Congyi. Following Guo Wei's orders, Guo Congyi also adopted the strategy of containment as the main strategy and attack as the auxiliary strategy.

Chang'an is located east of Fengxiang and west of Hezhong, and Zhao Siwan's strength is the weakest among the three towns. Since the outbreak of the war, he has been hiding behind the two big bosses, so the war has been going on for more than half a year, and has always shown a "hot on both ends" situation.

As time went by, Zhao Siwan in Chang'an also faced the problem of food shortage. His solution to the problem was very pornographic, violent and
On the first day of the Lunar New Year this year (949), Comrade Liu Chengyou, Emperor of the Later Han Empire, delivered an enthusiastic, festive and cheerful New Year's message to the people of the whole country.

In it, Liu Chengyou first reviewed this troubled time, "The treacherous ministers took pleasure in the disaster and plotted against it, while the bandits took advantage of the disaster and waited for an opportunity";
He then gave a summary of the work he had done in the nearly one year since he ascended the throne: "In the west, the three rebels were crushed, their backs were stroked and their throats were strangled; in the north, the various barbarians were defeated, their arms were cut off and their backs were broken. Next, the Ba and Qiong tribes gathered together, and the Huai and Hai tribes were rampant. As soon as we heard the arrows of the swords clashing, we saw the mountains being destroyed and the banks being flooded. The enemy's distress was relieved, and master and apprentice were safe."

In short, the rebellion of the three towns in the west has been basically controlled, and the court has taken the initiative; "defeat the various tribes in the north" refers to the confrontation with the Khitan, which will be presented later, and the Later Han Dynasty also took advantage; and then ridiculed the Later Shu and Huainan. In short, the meaning of this passage is that the road is tortuous, the future is bright, and I am very awesome.

Then, as usual, he announced a general amnesty and everyone celebrated. Then the tone of the article changed:
"Li Shouzhen of Hefu, Wang Jingchong of Fengxiang, Zhao Siwan of Yongxing (Chang'an), etc., have never had any enmity with the country, but due to occasional suspicion and fear, they rebelled": You three have no grudges against our dynasty in the past or recently, it's just because of a little misunderstanding that you scared yourselves and became confused for a while, it doesn't matter.

"But their lives are my children..." But this will cause suffering to the common people!

"If you can surrender to me, I will treat you as before, protect you from beginning to end, and enjoy your wealth and honor..." Even if you abuse me a thousand times, I will treat you as my first love.

This is also an old tactic for suppressing rebellions, persuading the rebels to surrender.

Zhao Siwan was very hesitant and planned to escape to Hou Shu by digging a tunnel, but he was not completely sure; he wanted to lay down his arms and surrender, but was afraid of following the same fate as Fan Yanguang, Yang Guangyuan and Du Chongwei.

(End of this chapter)