History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 706: A Leaf Falls into the Imperial Ditch with the Wind 1
Ye Qiao was upright and knowledgeable, and Wang Yanjun admired him very much, so he arranged him to be the "Friend of Prince Fu", where Prince Fu was Wang Jipeng, meaning the teacher of the prince Wang Jipeng, similar to the "Fu Wang Fu Fu" in the Tang Dynasty. Wang Yanjun explicitly told Wang Jipeng to treat him as a master. Since Wang Jipeng was the crown prince, Ye Qiao was also honored as "Guoweng", meaning the teacher of the prince and the emperor.

Ye Qiao was of course one of Wang Jipeng's few trusted followers. With his two younger brothers in charge of the military and his teacher in charge of the civil service, Wang Jipeng completed the power transition one month after he ascended the throne and secured his throne.

After securing his throne, Wang Jipeng's true nature was revealed. He also favored unorthodox practices, was greedy for money and lustful, and was suspicious of the families of meritorious officials... He carried forward the glorious tradition of Wang Yanjun and even went beyond it, and his fate was similar to Wang Yanjun's.

【Diplomacy with split personality】

At the beginning of his reign, Wang Jipeng sent envoys to pay tribute to the Later Tang in order to gain support from the great powers. Unfortunately, that was in November 935 AD, the second year of Qingtai in the Later Tang Dynasty.

The following year, the "Hedong War" broke out, the Khitan enthroned Shi Jingtang, and Li Congke was killed when his country was destroyed.

In the name of his younger brother Wang Jigong, Wang Jipeng pledged his loyalty to Shi Jingtang of the Later Jin Dynasty and requested to be enthroned.

In the third year, Xu Zhigao of Huainan proclaimed himself emperor and established a country. Wang Jipeng sent envoys to Huainan to congratulate Xu Zhigao on his ascension to the throne.

Wang Jipeng presented Shi Jingtang with generous gifts. Shi Jingtang, who was enthroned by the Khitan, also needed to be recognized by the princes of the world, so he gladly accepted the tribute from the Min Kingdom and enthroned Wang Jipeng as the King of Min. At the same time, he also did something bad and enthroned Wang Jigong as the Prince of Linhai.

After weighing the pros and cons, Wang Jipeng decided to reject the Later Jin's enthronement and sent an envoy to tell Shi Jingtang that he was sorry, but he was already the emperor and could no longer accept the king's enthronement.

When Lu Sun, the envoy of the Later Jin Dynasty, arrived in Fuzhou, Wang Jipeng avoided meeting him and ordered his younger brother Wang Jigong to receive him. He then arranged for Liu Yi, the secretary of the Central Secretariat, to be in charge of receiving Lu Sun. Lu Sun looked down on Liu Yi and spoke rudely to him. Wang Jipeng was furious and told Lu Sun to get out of here. He also sent Zheng Yuanbi, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Rites, to accompany Lu Sun to Bianzhou to help him scold Shi Jingtang. The details have been mentioned in the previous article.

Zheng Yuanbi was ordered to relay Wang Jipeng's words, which meant that the emperors of your Central Plains have been replaced so often, which is not normal. Your Shi Jingtang's throne was even more illegitimate, as he was a puppet of the Khitans. Our Wang family has been in Fujian for many years and has won the hearts of the people. Now we have also proclaimed ourselves emperors. If you are willing to interact with us in the future, we will give you face and treat you with "enemy country etiquette."

Shi Jingtang was furious and ordered the detention of Zheng Yuanbi, as mentioned above.

In short, Wang Jipeng first took the initiative to show goodwill to the Later Jin Dynasty, and then unilaterally tore up the treaty and severed diplomatic relations with the Later Jin Dynasty.

When it comes to the Huainan issue, Wang Jipeng also suffers from a split personality. On the one hand, he strives to build "Huai-Fujian friendship", and on the other hand, he loudly declares that he intends to destroy Huainan and Wuyue Kingdom...

Wang Jipeng once hung a sand gong in the courtyard as a target, held a bow and arrow in his hand, and said to everyone: "If I can hit the target with one shot, it means I can annex Jiangnan." Then he bent the bow, took aim, and shot.

Unfortunately, his strength could not support his accuracy, just as his ability could not support his ambition. The arrow drew a weak arc and crashed a few dozen steps away from him.

Wang Jipeng ordered someone to replace it with a bigger shaluo, and then hung it closer to him so that he could fire at his face. Then, with a whoosh, he hit the bull's eye accurately.

A master archer. The attendants on both sides clapped their hands and congratulated him, "This arrow will determine the fate of the world!"

Wang Jipeng was delighted and really summoned his troops, stationed them on the Huai-Fujian border, showing off his military might and eager to give it a try.

Faced with the military threat from the Min Kingdom, Huainan was not moved at all, just like when Türkiye solemnly and seriously made a military threat to its big brother, the Russian Chief of General Staff Gerasimov laughed like an emoticon.

Comrade Gerasimov Valery Vasilyevich, Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia, General, translated as Privy Envoy and Vice Minister of the Ministry of War, and Shangzhuguo. Comrade Gerasimov has made outstanding military achievements, is a serious person, is a professionally trained person, and generally does not laugh unless he can't help it.

The Huainan side had not made any preparations at all and cursed contemptuously: "This grandson is crazy!"

Huainan's contempt for Min was not without reason. Previously, Jianzhou local tyrant Wu Guang colluded with Huainan, and Xinzhou governor Jiang Yanhui sent troops without authorization, almost conquering Jianzhou, the second largest city of Min, forcing Min to almost use all its national strength to resist. Later, when Wuyue and Huainan invaded from the south, Min would be pressed to the ground again.

When later generations evaluated the Kingdom of Min, they said that although Wang Yanjun founded the country and proclaimed himself emperor, he was very self-aware. He knew that his country was small and remote, so he actively improved relations with its neighbors. During the eight years when he governed Min, the country was basically peaceful (he was always careful to serve his neighbors, so the country was relatively peaceful). However, the three years of Wang Jipeng's reign became a turning point for the Kingdom of Min. From his on, wars broke out frequently.

As for the causes of the war, one is the above-mentioned wavering foreign relations and erratic foreign policy; the second is the internal political purge, which we will present in detail later.

【Bone-sucking】

Wang Jipeng inherited all the shortcomings of Wang Yanjun in all aspects, and went a step further, with each generation being stronger than the previous one. Wang Yanjun used Xue Wenjie to levy heavy taxes, but the scale and time were limited, only half a year at most, but Wang Jipeng never forgot his original intention in squeezing the people's blood and sweat, and stayed with him all the time.

Wang Jipeng had the ambition to conquer the Yangtze and Huai Rivers. To support this grand dream, of course, he needed a powerful army that was invincible. So, Wang Jipeng spent a lot of money to buy five famous horses. That's right, they were not horses for the army, but his own mounts.

These five horses were given majestic and domineering names: Golden Saddle Messenger, Thousand-Mile General, Marquis Zhiyuan, Wuwa Lang (Wowawa, a place where magical horses are produced in legend, refers to the magical horses), and Duke Ji.

Wang Jipeng appointed Cai Shoumeng, the assistant minister of the Ministry of Personnel, to concurrently judge the three courts.

One day, Wang Jipeng summoned Cai Shoumeng and asked, "I heard that bribery always occurs when high-level officials are appointed or dismissed. Is this true?"

Cai Shoumeng was sweating profusely and quickly denied it, "Your Majesty, these are all unfounded rumors. We should get to the bottom of it..."

Wang Jipeng waved his hands quickly, "You misunderstood. What I meant was that selling official positions and titles is a good business, so why are you so timid? You are the Minister of Personnel, and I asked you to judge the three courts. Isn't my intention obvious? Be bolder and move faster!"

(End of this chapter)