History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 868 All Good Things Must Come to an End 4
1. The following are the diehards who tried to resist in the 2.0 version of "Release Military Power with a Cup of Wine".
2.1 Wu Xingde

Wu Xingde was from Hedong. Shi Jingtang discovered him from a vast crowd and made him jump from a poor and helpless woodcutter to a mid-level general of the imperial army (the commander of the Control Crane Army and the commander of the Ningguo Army).

When the Khitan destroyed the Jin Dynasty, he was captured by the Khitan and "pretended to ask the Khitan to serve him." He had no choice but to pretend to be a traitor. The Taijun was very stupid and naive, so she asked him to be responsible for transporting dozens of ships of spoils (weapons and armor) back to the Khitan homeland. On the way, he heard that Comrade Liu Zhiyuan had started an uprising in Hedong. Wu Xingde immediately gave an impassioned speech, inciting his subordinates to kill the Khitan military supervisor. Fortunately, what they transported was weapons and armor instead of food. Wu Xingde and others armed themselves on the spot, and then captured Heyang controlled by the Khitan. They used Heyang as a revolutionary base, absorbing and recruiting anti-Liao heroes from all directions. Dozens of ships of weapons and armor became Wu Xingde's strong capital for development and growth.

At the same time, Wu Xingde sent his younger brother Wu Xingyou to Hedong to report to Liu Zhiyuan on the progress of activities in the Heyang Anti-Liao Revolutionary Base, and expressed his firm support for the new generation of power system with Comrade Liu Zhiyuan as the core.

The new leader Liu Zhiyuan needed support from all parties the most. He was very happy with Wu Xingde's statement and immediately promoted Wu Xingde to Jiedushi. When Liu Zhiyuan went south to Bian, Wu Xingde led his troops to greet him at the border and escorted him to Beijing. With such performance, we can imagine Wu Xingde's status in the Later Han Dynasty.

The court of the Later Han Dynasty granted Wu Xingde the title of Tong Pingzhangshi and added the title of Shizhong. He successively served as the prefect of Zhending, the prefect of Henan, and the governor of Xijing. He also served as the Jiedushi of Zhenzhou and Xuzhou.

During the reign of Guo Wei of the Later Zhou Dynasty, Wu Xingde was given the title of Kaifu Yitong Sansi and the title of Duke of Qiao; during the reign of Chai Rong, he was also given the title of Zhongshu Ling; during the reign of Chai Zongxun, he was further granted the title of Duke of Song.

In the early Song Dynasty, he was promoted to the position of Zhongshu Ling, Kaifu Yitong Sansi, and was granted the title of Duke of Wei and moved to Anzhou.

In the 2.0 version of "Releasing Military Power with a Cup of Wine", after the good boy Wang Yanchao expressed his desire to retire, Wu Xingde was the first to clearly express his dissatisfaction and vigorously stated his great achievements. His original words were not recorded in historical records. In fact, his greatest highlight was that during the Jin and Han dynasties, he pretended to be a traitor and restored order in time. This was an indisputable national cause. No matter how the dynasties changed, he was a true national hero.

So Zhao Kuangyin replied calmly: "That was all a matter of the previous generation (this is a matter of a different generation)." Wu Xingde was unable to refute for a while.

In fact, apart from this achievement, Wu Xingde's military achievements were indeed unremarkable. During the "Three Expeditions to Huainan", Wu Xingde was the commander-in-chief of the front line of Haozhou (the commander of the Haozhou camp), and was ambushed by the famous Southern Tang general Guo Tingwei in Dingyuan County. As a result, he was defeated and fled, "only escaping with his life", as detailed in the previous article.

Wu Xingde fled to the rear and was demoted to General of the Right Guard (a position for retirement). Later, when Guo Tingwei surrendered to Chai Rong, Chai Rong used the Battle of Dingyuan to appease him, saying that there were many generals in Huainan, but only you could first break the Wokou floating bridge and then destroy our Dingyuan camp. This achievement was enough to repay Li Jing, and there was no need to be ashamed of surrendering.

I wonder how Wu Xingde felt after hearing this conversation.

Therefore, the only thing that Wu Xingde can really brag about is the old events during the Jin and Han dynasties, which was in 947, 969 years ago (the second year of Kaibao, 22). Of course, Wu Xingde did have some merits, such as repairing the city wall of Luoyang, dredging the river between Bianzhou and Huainan, etc. In short, he did have some non-combat achievements. In addition, when he was the governor of Xijing, he handled a case that became a typical case in the history of criminal investigation and was passed down to later generations. This is the famous story - "Wu Xingde Identifies Salt":
At that time, private salt was strictly prohibited, and the local government stipulated that if anyone reported the private sale of more than one kilogram of salt, the informant would receive a generous reward from the government. Unexpectedly, this reward provision was exploited by some lawless elements.

One day, an old peasant woman was carrying two baskets of vegetables, preparing to go to the city to sell them. Outside Luoyang, she happened to meet a nun who was also buying vegetables. The nun chatted with the old woman while rummaging through the vegetables in the baskets. After searching for a long time, she said she couldn't find what she wanted, so she left. The old woman continued to go into the city with her baskets.

The gatekeeper carefully checked the old lady's goods and found a suspicious purse on the spot. He opened it and saw - Hey, old lady, how dare you smuggle salt? Come on, arrest her!
When she arrived at the government office, the old lady was speechless.

Wu Xingde, who was in charge of Xijing (Luoyang) at the time, participated in the trial of the case. He looked at the "hard evidence", which was an embroidered purse, beautifully made and emitting a faint fragrance. He then looked at the suspect - a rural old lady with ragged clothes, hunched body and wrinkled face. He couldn't help but frowned, thinking that the purse must not be hers, and that someone must have framed her! So he comforted the old lady, told her not to be afraid, to tell him in detail what happened, and to think carefully about whether there was anything suspicious.

The old lady finally recalled an abnormal situation, that is, the nun outside the city! She had been fine when she went to the city to sell vegetables before, but today she met the nun and a bag of salt appeared out of thin air.

Wu Xingde laughed out loud, just as he expected! He then ordered a search for the nun, and also ordered the arrest of the soldiers and officials guarding the gate. Wu Xingde was certain that they must be a gang.

The criminal was quickly arrested and brought to justice. Just as Wu Xingde had predicted, the nun secretly colluded with the officials at the city gate. The nun was responsible for finding victims outside the city. Relying on her identity as a monk as a cover, she secretly hid the "evidence" in the victim's luggage. She then immediately notified the city guards of the victim's information, who then checked the case on the spot and "caught the criminal red-handed". She then handed the case over to the government for a generous reward.

Wu Xingde beheaded the nun and the city gate officials involved in the case and released the innocent old lady. From then on, Luoyang officials no longer dared to act recklessly and order was maintained (people feared him like a god and his subordinates were in awe).

In "The Turtle Mirror for Judging Cases", the old lady (a woman from a civilian family) becomes a little kid (a village boy), and the rest of the story is basically the same. "The Turtle Mirror for Judging Cases" is a legal work compiled by Zheng Ke in the Southern Song Dynasty. It is the earliest existing collection of judicial cases in China and the culmination of investigation collections in the Song Dynasty. This case was included in it and given the title "Wu Xingde Bianyan". It was keenly captured by the people who set the nine-year compulsory education examination papers and appeared in the classical Chinese reading comprehension of Chinese examination papers across the country, and has since been widely circulated.

In "Releasing Military Power with a Cup of Wine" 2.0, Wu Xingde reluctantly and unwillingly handed over his military power and was forced to accept the old routine of promotion in name only and demotion in reality. He entered the court as the Prince's Tutor, retired in the third year of Taipingxingguo (978), and died the following year at the age of 72. He was posthumously awarded the title of Grand Tutor.

(End of this chapter)