[Calm down the two feudal lords, bind the souls]
The Dingzhou Yiwu Army and the Zhenzhou Chengde Army are examples of good neighborliness and friendship. Although the two vassal towns are closely adjacent to each other, they do not suffer from conflicts, attacks, and annexations like other neighboring vassals. The two towns have maintained a close relationship for decades.
In addition to being closely connected geographically, the two vassal towns have many things in common. For example, they are both powerful vassals in Hebei. Their overall strength is not weak, but their presence is very low. They almost never launch aggressive wars. Several military conflicts were forced to involve themselves in self-defense and territory.
Another example is that the core leadership is very stable. Wang Rong has guarded Zhenzhou for 38 years, while Dingzhou has only changed twice in these decades (Wang Chucun - Wang Gao - Wang Chuzhi), and the political situation is stable.
Due to the stable political situation, the will of its leaders can be easily implemented and adhered to. The leaders of both parties have reached consensus on key issues such as geopolitics, so the two towns have been able to develop in peace and stability for a long time.
Their consensus has been analyzed in detail in the previous article, and it can be summed up as glorious isolation. They do not interfere in the internal affairs of other vassal towns, nor do they want others to interfere in their internal affairs.
Their military threats mainly come from three directions: the Hedong Group in the west, the Bianzhou Group in the south, and the Youzhou Group in the northeast. No matter which party is attacked, Zhenzhou and Dingzhou will unite and seek support from the other two parties. This is their tacit understanding and way of survival.
Nowadays, there is civil strife in Zhenzhou, and the Hedong Group launched a counter-insurgency war against Zhenzhou. As the Hedong army approached Zhenzhou, Dingzhou also exploded.
Wang Chu was frightened and believed that the two feudal lords, Ting and Ting, were closely related to each other. From a geopolitical point of view, no matter what, Dingzhou must make every effort to ensure the integrity and independence of Zhenzhou. If Zhenzhou is lost, Dingzhou will not be preserved! Therefore, Wang Chuzhi wrote to Li Cunxu to persuade him to make peace, saying that the king was fighting against the rear Liang and it was not appropriate to start a war in the rear. It was better to forgive Zhang Wenli.
Li Cunxu replied: "Zhang Wenli's murder of my lord is unpardonable, and he secretly seduced the Houliang army, which will also have a negative impact on your Dingzhou. I am also helping you." In a word, mind your own business!
Wang Chuzhi was even more frightened.
The two vassals of Jingping only expressed their submission to Hedong. Although they belonged to Hedong's sphere of influence, they enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. Li Cunxu was ambitious and had great ambitions. Taking over the Heshuo area was just a matter of time and method. Now, Zhang Wenli's rebellion provided Li Cunxu with an excuse to take back Zhenzhou. Zhenzhou is taken back, will Dingzhou be far behind?
After thinking hard and weighing again and again, Wang Chuzhi finally did something stupid: colluding with the Khitan and resisting Li Cunxu.
The envoy sent to Khitan was Wang Chuzhi's biological son, Wang Yu.
Wang Yu was Wang Chuzhi's concubine. He was not a direct descendant and had not been favored by Wang Chuzhi since he was a child. When Zhu Wen defeated Heshuo, Wang Chuzhi led his troops to resist under the orders of Wang Gao, the Jiedushi envoy at that time. After the defeat, he launched a mutiny and seized power to establish himself. His nephew Wang Gao was forced to flee to Hedong and attached himself to Li Keyong. It was Wang Yu who fled to Hedong with Wang Gao.
From this point, we can also see the subtle relationship between Wang Chuzhi and his son Wang Yu. Wang Yu would rather follow his cousins into exile than stay with his biological father.
After Wang Yu arrived in Hedong, Li Keyong married his daughter to him as a political investment, waiting for high returns in the future. Man's calculation is not as good as God's calculation. Li Keyong would not have thought that Wang Yu's investment not only lost all the principal, but also liquidated the position and required additional margin.
Now, Hedong Group has placed Wang Yu in Xinzhou, which borders Khitan. So Wang Chuzhi secretly contacted Wang Yu and asked him to lure the Khitan army southward to create pressure on Li Cunxu and ease Dingzhou's predicament. Wang Chuzhi promised him that after the incident was completed, he would come back to inherit the Dingzhou Yiwu Army.
My biological father is indeed my biological father, blood is thicker than water. Wang Yu was so happy that he defected to Hedong with his whole family, fled into the Khitan territory, and surrendered to Yelu Abaoji. He said that the Central Plains was both true and false, and said that the Central Plains was desirable. He also expressed his willingness to lead the way for the Khitan people and invade their home country southward.
Yelu Abaoji was overjoyed and immediately recognized Wang Yu as his adopted son.
Wang Chuzhi did not love his own son, but deeply loved an adopted son, Wang Du.
There is also a figure like Lu Yongzhi beside Wang Chuzhi, named Li Yingzhi, who is a well-known Taoist priest in the industry. One time, Wang Chuzhi fell seriously ill, and various major hospitals failed to treat him. He rushed to the doctor because of his illness, so he asked Li Yingzhi to use some unorthodox methods to cure the illness. It happened that Wang Chuzhi's condition recovered during the master's performance, so he believed that this was the curative effect of Li Yingzhi's spell, and thereafter regarded Li Yingzhi as a semi-immortal.
Wang Chuzhi provided Li Yingzhi with a military position, and all military and political power was safely handed over to him. The generals of the army were quite disgusted with this, but no one dared to persuade the king to be honest.
Wang Chuzhi had no heirs in his early years, so Li Yingzhi dedicated one of his adopted sons, a boy whose real name was Liu Yunlang. Li Yingzhi said that this son had amazing bones and would be very rich in the future, so he adopted him as his adopted son. Now that you have no children, I am willing to dedicate this little lucky star to you to repay your kindness to me.
Therefore, Li Yingzhi adopted Liu Yunlang as his adopted son and renamed him Wangdu. Out of his trust in Li Yingzhi, Wang Chuzhi firmly believed that Wangdu would be extremely valuable in the future, and he protected and supported him in every possible way. First, a large-scale new army was carefully selected for him in the army, and a complete set of independent and complete official, command and other systems were set up to serve as the "Prince's" personal guard.
Starting a new one outside the existing military system is a taboo in the military. The generals believed that this would be a time bomb in Dingzhou, but the lord favored traitors and was obsessed with heresy, so no one dared to dissuade him.
Later, Li Kuangchou from Youzhou borrowed the opportunity to visit Dingzhou. Wang Chuzhi hid his soldiers closely to prepare for any eventuality. After Li Kuangchou passed through the border in an orderly manner, the soldiers launched a "soldier remonstrance" to capture and kill Li Yingzhi, and asked Wang Chuzhi to kill the capital to avoid future troubles. Rejected by Wang Chuzhi.
The Dingzhou soldiers were braver than the Huainan soldiers, and Wang Chuzhi was more sinister than Gao Pian.
On the second day of the military remonstrance, Wang Chuzhi held a meeting and made a profound self-examination. He denounced the monster Li Yingzhi for misleading the public with his evil words. He affirmed the soldiers' military remonstrance behavior and paid a large sum of money to reward the righteous warriors who participated in the military remonstration yesterday. The Dingzhou soldiers rejoiced and praised their lord for his wisdom and martial prowess.
However, this was Wang Chuzhi's trap. Wang Chuzhi secretly recorded the names of those who received the award. Over the next more than 20 years, Wang Chuzhi used various reasons to kill all the people on the list.
Using rewards based on merit as bait, defrauding the list, and then spending twenty years cleaning it up... Wang Chuzhi's insidiousness is simply terrifying.
Now, the adopted son Wang Du has been promoted by Wang Chuzhi to the deputy envoy of the Rebel Army. According to Wang Chuzhi's will, if nothing unexpected happens, the adopted son Wang Du will be his only legal heir.
Wang Yu's previous defection to Hedong was directly related to his father's preference for his adopted son Wang Du. Incidents of godson forcing away or forcing biological son to death were common in that period. For example, Zhu Wen's Zhu Yougong, Xu Wen's Xu Zhigao, and Li Siyuan's Li Congke.
Collusion with the Khitan also became a quarrel between Wang Yu and Wangdu for the Dingzhou family property.
After learning that Wang Chuzhi sent Wang Yu to collude with the Khitans, the capital was extremely anxious, fearing that Wang Yu would seize Dingzhou for himself with the support of the Khitans.
At that time, the officials of the Dingzhou Volunteer Army unanimously opposed Wang Chuzhi's collusion with the Khitan. After all, no one wanted to be a traitor. If they had the chance to choose, everyone would stand and make money.
As a result, the royal capital secretly incited the dissatisfaction of officials and plotted a mutiny with their trusted generals.
On this day, Wang Chuzhi and Zhang Wenli's envoys had a banquet in the east of the city, and returned to the headquarters in the evening. Wang Du led hundreds of troops to ambush near the official residence, kidnapped Wang Chuzhi, placed him under house arrest, and killed all of Wang Chuzhi's heirs and close confidants. Subsequently, Wang Du claimed that the Yiwu Army was staying behind and reported the cause and effect to Li Cunxu.
Li Cunxu immediately appointed Wangdu as the governor of the Dingzhou Yiwu Army, replacing Wang Chuzhi.
Houliang in the south has not yet been completely resolved. The traitor and traitor Wang Yu has seduced the Khitan to go south again. The situation in Hebei is not optimistic. Li Cunxu left generals Li Cunshen and Li Siyuan to guard Desheng Jiacheng, while he personally led the main force to attack Zhenzhou, hoping to capture Zhenzhou before it could join forces with the Khitan army.
Under the huge military pressure from the Hedong Army, Zhang Chujin sent his younger brother Zhang Chuqi to meet with Li Cunxu, saying that he had acknowledged his mistake and was willing to surrender and reconcile.
Li Cunxu decisively rejected Zhang Chujin's conditional surrender and sent all his elite forces to storm Zhenzhou City. Firstly, Zhang Chujin's surrender was just a delaying tactic, waiting for the arrival of Khitan reinforcements; secondly, as Wang Chuzhi had thought, Li Cunxu needed to find an opportunity to resolve the two vassals of Zhen and Ding once and for all.
Unable to support Zhang Chujin, he sent his confidant Han Zhengshi to break out with a thousand cavalry, and moved to Dingzhou for reinforcements, but was destroyed by the Hedong Army.
