[The breakup of Qishu]
Fengxiang Li Maozhen and the former Shu king Jian were entrenched in the western part of the Later Liang Empire. These two people have been united for a long time to jointly resist the invasion of powerful feudal lords in Kanto and separatize Kansai and Sanchuan. This is inseparable from Wang Jian's political wisdom. He once publicly expressed his "diplomatic" policy towards Fengxiang: "Go in to defend, go out to serve as a guest." This means that Fengxiang should be used as a barrier between Shu and Guandong. buffer zone of power.
When Li Maozhen's Kansai Group was in decline, although Wang Jian took the opportunity to gain a lot of benefits, he would always provide Fengxiang with all necessary help to prevent it from being wiped out by the powerful Kanto vassal.
Especially after Zhu Wen established Houliang, Wang Jian directly sent troops to attack the northwest of Houliang together with Li Maozhen.
The relationship between Qishu and Qishu is very delicate, both strong and fragile. Its strength is inversely proportional to Li Maozhen's strength. If Li Maozhen is weak and weak, then the Qishu relationship will be strong. Once Li Maozhen becomes strong, the Qishu relationship will be fragile.
At the beginning of the founding of the Later Liang Dynasty, the "Battle of Luzhou" and the "Battle of Baixiang" broke out with the Hedong Group, and both ended in the disastrous defeat of Later Liang. During this period, Houliang general Liu Zhijun surrendered to Fengxiang Li Maozhen, and with the support of Li Maozhen and Wang Jian, he seized the territory in the northwest of Houliang and established the Zhangyi Army in Jingzhou.
There is no doubt that at that moment, Fengxiang and Li Maozhen were the biggest winners. They opened up new territories, absorbed talents, and greatly increased their strength.
As a result, the foundation of Qishu cooperation began to waver, and Wang Jian no longer needed to support Li Maozhen, so he had to adjust foreign relations and change Qishu relations from strategic partners to main enemies.
Li Maozhen obviously did not understand the relationship between Qishu and Shu thoroughly, and his political wisdom was far inferior to Wang Jian. In fact, Li Maozhen is just a watchdog of Wang Jian. Wang Jian's long-term material assistance can be regarded as the owner's feeding of the watchdog to ensure that it does not starve to death and can continue to guard the owner's home and home. Li Maozhen believed that Wang Jian bribed to please him out of fear.
When Li Maozhen's strength grew, he actually pushed further and made territorial demands to Wang Jian, asking Wang Jian to cede Bazhou and Jianzhou.
Wang Jian said miserably to the people around him: "I have supported Li Maozhen with materials, money and food, and I have done my best to support Li Maozhen. But to cede the land is to abandon my people. I would rather give him more gold and silver." Then he gave a lot of tea, raw silk, Cotton, silk and other materials.
Wang Jian's proactive display of weakness enabled Qian Shu to gain the moral high ground and also successfully aroused domestic hatred against Li Maozhen. In the former Shu, everyone from officials to common people, from the central government to the local governments, called Li Maozhen a white-eyed wolf who couldn't get enough to eat.
The breakdown of Qishu relations thus provided a basis for public opinion. The trigger that caused Qishu to completely fall out turned out to be a household matter.
During the honeymoon period in Qishu, Wang Jian's daughter Princess Puci married Li Maozhen's nephew and Qinzhou Tianxiong Army Jiedushi Li Jichong, using political marriage to consolidate the Qishu alliance.
Now, Princess Puci sent a handwritten letter back to her parents' family. The letter said that Li Jichong was proud, arrogant, and addicted to alcohol, making it difficult to live with her.
The couple had a bad relationship, and the daughter-in-law complained to her father-in-law.
His father-in-law, Wang Jian, falsely claimed that Princess Puci's mother had passed away and summoned Princess Puci to her parents' home for the funeral. After Princess Puci returned to Chengdu, Wang Jian detained her.
Li Maozhen was furious after hearing the news and thought that Wang Jian was simply bullying others, so he announced a break with Wang Jian and assembled a large army in the eastern area of Qianshu to prepare for a large-scale invasion of Qianshu.
Qishu instantly turned from a close ally into a life-or-death enemy.
Wang Jian summoned all civil and military officials and mobilized: "Since Li Maozhen was besieged by Zhu Wen (the siege of Fengxiang), we have been helping him. Unexpectedly, he is ungrateful and repays kindness with hatred! Who of you will teach him a lesson for me?"
His adopted son Wang Zongkan volunteered to take command of the North Front Army (the Commander-in-Chief of the North Road Camp). He also ordered Wang Zongyou, Wang Zonghe, and Tang Daoxi to be commanders of the column and marched in three directions. Wang Zongshao was the deputy commander, leading 120,000 people to attack the enemy. Feng Xiang attacks.
Wang Zongkan and others set out from Chengdu, with flags flying, and the team stretched for hundreds of miles.
Li Maozhen's imbecility was clearly demonstrated at the beginning of the war. He first recruited Wen Tao, the leader of the famous tomb robber group in Guanzhong, and adopted him as his adopted son. He upgraded Huayuan to Yaozhou and Meiyuan to Dingzhou. The two states were the Yi Sheng Army, and Wen Tao was appointed as the Jiedu Envoy of the Yi Sheng Army. Together with Fengxiang and Jingnan, they attacked Chang'an and launched an attack on Houliang.
A war had just broken out with Qianshu, and the outcome was still undecided, but they divided their forces to provoke Hou Liang. Li Maozhen, did Liang Jingru give you the courage?
Compared with Li Maozhen's half-heartedness, Wang Jian attached great importance to this war. He ordered the prince Wang Zongyi to supervise the country as regent and go to the front line to lead the expedition in person.
Inspired by Wang Jian's personal expedition, the former Shu army had high morale and won many battles.
Wang Jian thought victory was in sight and returned to Chengdu.
The two sides then fought another battle in Qingniling. Fengxiang general Liu Zhijun regained the victory, defeated the former Shu army, and took advantage of the victory to surround Xingyuan Mansion. Tang Dao attacked and stationed in Xingyuan Mansion and resisted desperately. Wang Jian sent reinforcements in time to repel Fengxiang's army.
Wang Jian once again asked the prince Wang Zongyi to supervise the regency of the country and conduct military campaigns in person. Wang Zongbi defeated Liu Zhijun in Xiegu, and then broke through 16 camps in a row, capturing and killing more than 6,000 people. There are also good news in other areas.
Wang Jian personally went to Xingyuan to support him. The morale of the defenders was greatly boosted, and they cooperated internally and externally, and even defeated Fengxiang's 21 camps. Fengxiang's army relieved the siege and withdrew. Tang Dao attacked and set up an ambush in advance, causing heavy damage to the retreating Fengxiang army.
Liu Zhijun's talent was obvious to all, especially after defecting to Li Maozhen, he was highly regarded, which aroused the envy, jealousy and hatred of other generals in Fengxiang. Someone took advantage of this defeat to make slanderous remarks and frame Liu Zhijun. Li Maozhen believed the slander and took away Liu Zhijun's military power.
Li Jichong reminded Li Maozhen that Liu Zhijun came to join the army in a desperate situation, but was ostracized just because of one or two slanderous words, which chilled the hearts of the soldiers. Therefore, Li Maozhen killed the slanderer to appease Liu Zhijun. Li Jichong invited Liu Zhijun and his family to move to Qinzhou.
Li Jichong, who tried to protect Liu Zhijun, was the bastard husband whom Princess Puci described as "arrogant and addicted to alcohol, and drunkenness destroys virtuous people" and caused "people's mental disorder". What kind of person is Li Jichong? I personally think that maybe Princess Puci is just a card played by Wang Jian, a political card used to force Li Maozhen to fall out.
The first stage of the Battle of Qishu ended with the great victory of Shu. Li Maozhen would not admit defeat, and Wang Jian would not be satisfied with it.
This is an opportunity given to Wang Jian by God. Later Liang was caught in internal and external troubles and had no time to look westward. In the struggle between Qi and Shu, he favored the former Shu to check and balance Li Maozhen. However, Wang Jian once again stopped moving forward because a major civil strife also broke out within Qianshu.
