History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 801 Full Score Composition
【Full score essay】

In April of the second year of Xian De (955), Chai Rong assigned two essay topics to the Hanlin scholars: "On the Difficulty of Being a King and the Difficulty of Being a Minister" and "Plans for Pacificating the Border".

"Plans for Pacificating the Border" is a regular essay topic. Many ambitious emperors like to ask this question. Some crown princes who are eager to ascend to the throne also like to ask this question, such as Li Congrong, the son of Li Siyuan.

Chai Rong explained: "Now that the Central Plains has just been settled, Wu, Shu, You, and Jin have not yet been pacified, and the message has not yet spread far and wide, I have ordered my close ministers to discuss strategies and guide the economic strategy. I will personally review it."

The scope of the exam is very clear, that is, our Central Plains is now strong and capable of launching a war, and our enemies are Huainan, Shu, Liao, and Northern Han, so who should we destroy first? Please express your opinions and write an argumentative essay. There is no limit to the number of words. I will be the examiner myself.

Finally, the article by Wang Pu, a doctor in the Ministry of Comparison, won full marks. Let’s enjoy it together:

"China's loss of Wu, Shu, You and Jin was all due to the loss of the Way. Now we must first look at the cause of the loss, and then we will know how to take it back."

——Let me start by stating the purpose and the topic. Water has a source, and trees have roots. If you want to know where it comes from, you must first understand how it disappears.

"The initial failures were all due to the king being ignorant, the ministers being treacherous, the soldiers being arrogant, the people being in distress, the treacherous party being rampant within, the warriors being violent outside, and the accumulation of small things leading to big things."

——Liang lost Wu, Tang gained Shu and lost it again, Jin lost You, Zhou lost Jin. The root cause of the loss of land in successive dynasties can be summed up in these 24 words summarized by Wang Pu, which is an accurate summary.

"If we want to obtain it now, we can do nothing better than to reverse what we did."

——Given the general direction, as long as the above 24 words are corrected, everything will naturally fall into place.

"To promote the virtuous and dismiss the unworthy is to recruit their talents; to be kind and honest is to win their hearts; to reward the meritorious and punish the guilty is to make the best use of their strength; to eliminate extravagance and save money is to enrich their finances; to impose light taxes at the right time is to enrich the people."

——Several specific measures.

"When all the talents have been gathered, the government has been well governed, the finances have been sufficient, and the scholars and the people have been loyal, then we can use them and achieve success!"

——According to the above method, after a few years, the politics will be enlightened, the country will be rich and the people will be strong, and the people will be united. At that time, Your Majesty will raise his arm and the great cause of unification will no longer be a dream. "When the people see that we have the momentum to conquer them, those who know their situation will be willing to be spies, and those who know their mountains and rivers will be willing to be guides. Once the people are united, the will of heaven will follow."

——As long as the start goes smoothly, the people of the enemy country will certainly compete to be the guide and help Your Majesty achieve unification.

"When attacking, one must first attack the easy ones."

——We should pick the weak ones. As mentioned in the previous article, the first battle must be fought beautifully to have a sufficient deterrent effect and make the enemy believe that we have the ability to unify, so that they will become the guide.

"The border between Tang and me is almost 2,000 miles, and its situation is easy to disturb..."

——Okay, from now on, I will no longer copy and translate one by one, because Wang Pu has already given the final answer: destroy Southern Tang first!

Wang Pu pointed out that the Huai River was the border between Southern Tang and Central Plains, and the border between the two countries was two thousand miles long, so we had to make full use of the strategy of making a feint to the east and attacking the west, and start from the place where the enemy's defenses were weak, "prepare for the east and disturb the west, prepare for the west and disturb the east", so that Southern Tang would be exhausted.

The Southern Tang's thousand-mile attack on a two-thousand-mile battle line would not only consume a huge amount of resources, but would also expose the strengths and weaknesses of the defense line. Next, we will avoid the strong and attack the weak, avoid the strong and attack the weak.

At that time, we should not mobilize a large army, but first use a small force to test, pretending to be harassing again, to lure the Southern Tang to send a large army to rescue, and then we will surround and attack the reinforcements and annihilate their living forces. In this way, the Southern Tang army will be seriously depleted, and we can take advantage of the opportunity to liberate their cities without sending a large army. After using this trick several times, all the land north of the Yangtze River will be liberated by our army.

After gaining Jiangbei, the people of Jiangbei can fully enjoy the grace of the Great Zhou Dynasty, feel that the ruler is wise and the ministers are honest, the taxes are lenient and the government is simple, the country is prosperous and the people are strong, which will then affect the Jiangnan region and make the people of Jiangnan tend to unify; after Jiangnan is pacified, Lingnan and Bashu can be pacified by a single order; when the south is pacified, the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun will surely submit and return to the embrace of the motherland on their own initiative.

If the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun refuse to return, then use force to make them return;
Only the Northern Han are like stones in a toilet, smelly and hard! They are not easily persuaded, do not eat good food, and "cannot be lured by kindness and trust". The Northern Han are "bandits destined to die". There is no need to waste words with them, just one word: fight them to death!
Of course, after the "Battle of Gaoping", the arrogance of the Northern Han has been effectively curbed. After being beaten, its attitude has improved a lot. The Northern Han has been seriously injured and should not cause us trouble in the short term. We can put it aside temporarily, and after the above-mentioned areas are pacified, we can strike back and unify them.

Wang Pu's "Plan for Pacificating the Border" is highly renowned in history, and later generations regard it as the Five Dynasties version of "Longzhong Strategy".

After reading it, Chai Rong "accepted it with pleasure", and it became the guiding ideology and military action program for Emperor Shizong to unify the world. From Emperor Shizong Chai Rong to the later Song Taizu and Song Taizong, they strictly implemented Wang Pu's strategic policy of "first the easy and then the difficult, first the south and then the north", and finally achieved basic unification.

(End of this chapter)