[Mingzong enters Wei]
At the imperial meeting, the civil and military ministers unanimously recommended Li Siyuan to take charge of the rebellion. Li Cunxu has been suspicious of Li Siyuan for a long time. It has been mentioned in the previous article and will not be repeated again. Li Cunxu would rather let people like Duan Ning take command than send Li Siyuan, so Li Cunxu said: "I cherish Li Siyuan very much. I can't live without him. I want him to stay in the capital of Wei..."
Everyone said in unison: "Today's momentum must be achieved by Li Siyuan!"
At that time, Li Siyuan was the military envoy of the Chengde Army in Zhenzhou. He went to Beijing to meet the emperor in the twelfth month of last year, but Li Cunxu stayed behind and was under house arrest in Luoyang. During this period, Guo Chongtao also suggested that Li Cunxu kill Li Siyuan directly, but Li Cunxu refused.
Now everyone unanimously recommended Li Siyuan, but Li Cunxu kept shaking his head and refused. At the critical moment, a respected and loyal old man came forward and said that these were troubled times and that the Heshuo War should be fought quickly. To prevent long-term changes, it was best to let the capable Li Siyuan take charge, otherwise only rely on people like Yuan Xingqin. Not sure how long it will be postponed.
This old man is none other than "Healing Master" Zhang Quanyi.
He was right, the court could not afford to delay, the country was already very empty, and the chain reaction of Heshuo's muddy situation was unimaginable. After a painful ideological struggle, Li Cunxu finally agreed to let Li Siyuan take command.
On February 27, Li Cunxu ordered Li Siyuan to lead the royal pro-army to attack the rebels. The main component of this pro-army was Cong Ma Zhi. Keywords, straight from the horse.
On March 1, Huo Yanwei finally put down the Xingzhou rebellion, captured the rebel leader Zhao Tai and others alive, and then escorted Zhao Tai and others to Weizhou.
On March 4, Huo Yanwei arrived in Weizhou and camped in the northwest of the city. He dragged Mrs. Zhao and others to the city, let the Weizhou rebels watch, and then beheaded them in public. Huo Yanwei's original intention was to intimidate the Weizhou rebels, but he did not know that their act of killing the rebel prisoners further strengthened the Weizhou rebels' determination to fight to the end and refuse to surrender.
On March 6, Li Siyuan arrived in Weizhou and set up camp in the southwest of the city, forming a quarrel with Huo Yanwei's troops.
After two days of short rest, on March 8, Li Siyuan ordered a general offensive to be launched in the early morning of tomorrow (9th). However, on the night of the 8th, the troops brought by Li Siyuan mutinied. Sergeant Zhang Pobai (good name) from Mazhi took the lead in the rebellion, burning the military camp and killing the commander.
At dawn the next day (March 9), Zhang Pobai's rebel army had approached Li Siyuan's Chinese army tent. Li Siyuan led his personal guards to resist. Unexpectedly, the rebel army gathered more and more. Li Siyuan was surprised to find that except for a few around him, Except for his close followers, almost all of the troops he brought were on the side of the rebel army.
Li Siyuan was furious and yelled: "What do you want to do? Do you want to rebel?"
The representative of the rebel army replied: "Commander, please calm down, we just want your comment - we have followed the emperor for more than ten years, fought hundreds of battles, and finally won the world. There is no credit but hard work, right? But the emperor crossed the river and demolished the bridge, not only He didn't give us rewards, he was still suspicious of us, and he kept killing people to establish his authority. The comrades in Beizhou just missed their hometown and often went home to visit, but the emperor insisted on killing them all and vowed to bury them all alive!
Recently, our comrade-in-arms Wang Wen and others were just making a lot of noise, and the emperor decided that they were planning to rebel. They actually wanted to kill all our officers and soldiers from Mazhi after pacifying Weizhou (incited by Guo Congqian)... Is there any justice? ? You say we are rebelling. No, we really don’t want to rebel. We are just afraid of death. We are afraid of dying unjustly and miserably. We discussed it and came up with such a plan. Come and listen to it——
——We will unite with Zhao Zaili in the city, first repel the other counter-rebellion troops, and then negotiate with the emperor. We will draw the Yellow River as the boundary. He will be the emperor south of the Yellow River, and you will be the emperor north of the Yellow River. We firmly support it. you……"
Li Siyuan burst into tears and tried to persuade him for a long time, but the intention of changing the army was to inform him, not to discuss with him. That's it.
Li Siyuan had no choice but to retreat: "In that case, you take your Yangguan Road, and I will cross my single-plank bridge. You can join forces with whomever you like, and rebel if you like. I don't care; as for me, I will return to the capital and wait for you. The emperor is humbled. Let’s not interfere with anyone else’s affairs.”
"Canglanglang"...the sword of the Changing Army was unsheathed, bright and blinding, and cold and frightening. The rebels surrounded Li Siyuan, handed the sword to Li Siyuan, and said viciously: "We recognize you as the commander-in-chief, but we don't recognize the sword in our hands!"
Afterwards, the rebels took Li Siyuan, Huo Yanwei and others hostage and headed towards Weizhou City shouting.
Zhao Zaili, Huangfu Hui and others only allowed generals such as Li Siyuan and Huo Yanwei to enter the city, but refused to allow their troops to enter the city. Of course Zhang Pobai disagreed. If Li Siyuan agreed to join the group, he would have contributed a lot, so he couldn't just sit back and watch his support go to waste.
So Huangfu Hui sent his troops to cover up the attack and killed Zhang PoBei.
Zhao Zaili then led the generals at all levels out of the city to greet Li Siyuan. They knelt down and kowtowed on both sides of the road. While crying, he begged Li Siyuan for forgiveness and respectfully asked Li Siyuan to take the first place. "Brother, we will follow you from now on."
He was originally here to suppress the rebellion, but as soon as he arrived at the station, he became the leader of the rebels... This made Li Siyuan extremely embarrassed.
Because the rebels refused to allow foreign troops to enter the city, the soldiers and horses brought by Li Siyuan lost their command and lost control of their advance and retreat. They dispersed one after another. Only the five thousand Zhenzhou soldiers brought by Huo Yanwei remained undisturbed.
Li Siyuan was trapped in a tight siege and in danger, so surrendering to the rebels was only a temporary expedient for him. He said to the rebels: "If you want to accomplish great things, you must have enough troops. The king's troops outside the city just now collapsed. I will go and gather them up." So Zhao Zaili let Li Siyuan and Huo Yanwei out of the city. , gathering the fleeing soldiers.
Previously, Yuan Xingqin led 10,000 people to station in the south of Weizhou City. Li Siyuan sent seven generals, including Gao Xingzhou and Zhang Qianzhao, to Yuan Xingqin's camp one after another. They told him that he had deceived Zhao Zaili and the others, and asked Yuan Xingqin to lead his troops to join forces and then raid the rebels.
Yuan Xingqin was seriously skeptical about this. He was worried that Li Siyuan wanted to annex his own troops, or coerce him into conspiracy. So they detained Gao Xingzhou, Zhang Qianzhao and other envoys, did not make any response to Li Siyuan, and then retreated a certain distance and continued to wait and see.
Now, Li Siyuan left the city with less than a hundred people around him and no weapons or armor. He was temporarily stationed in Wei County to gather his old troops. After Huo Yanwei's five thousand Zhenzhou Chengde Army officers heard the news, they all defected to the account of his old commander Li Siyuan (Li Siyuan is now the Chengde Army Jiedushi). With these five thousand people supporting the scene, Li Siyuan finally had Some confidence. He cried to the generals and said: "I will return to the Zhenzhou headquarters tomorrow, submit a memorial, explain everything here, and then wait for the emperor's announcement."
Huo Yanwei and Li Siyuan's confidant An Zhongjie strongly opposed it, saying that Yuan Xingqin had failed to suppress the rebellion before and suffered repeated defeats. After the general arrived, he refused your order and now retreats without a fight. After he returns to Luoyang, , I will definitely put all the blame on you, the commander-in-chief. If you return to your hometown without permission and go to Shu to plead guilty, wouldn't you be "separating the important town and threatening the central government"? Doesn’t it just confirm the evil villain’s false accusation against you? When the time comes, you won’t be able to argue!
"What can I do?"
The two suggested that Li Siyuan quickly return to Luoyang, meet Li Cunxu in person, and explain clearly the cause and effect.
Li Siyuan agreed, so he took 5,000 direct troops southward and returned to Luoyang. When passing through Xiangzhou, he met Kang Fu, the horse manager (horse envoy), and Kang Fu provided Li Siyuan with thousands of horses, which made Li Siyuan's combat effectiveness a qualitative leap. In fact, this is a very critical node, but like many key details of history, it is hidden. The mainstream view is that it was Kangfu's thousands of horses that gave Li Siyuan the confidence to aspire to the Central Plains.
In fact, the process from Li Siyuan taking command to mutiny and proclaiming emperor was full of doubts and loopholes, no less than Zhu Yougui's father-killing and Zhu Youzhen's ascension to the throne. I firmly believe that this period of history has been whitewashed, and we will do a brief analysis later. Here, take care of the story first.
Seeing that Li Siyuan had gathered a cavalry force of several thousand people and moved towards Luoyang, Yuan Xingqin hurriedly retreated to Weizhou and reported to the court: "Li Siyuan has rebelled! He is marching to Luoyang now. Please be prepared to fight!"
While Li Siyuan was marching towards Luoyang, he constantly sent people to deliver memorials and defend himself. He sent several groups of messengers every day. However, most of these messengers were intercepted by Yuan Xingqin. Li Siyuan's communication with the central government was basically interrupted.
When news of Li Siyuan's rebellion came, the Zhongwu Army Jiedu Envoy, Shangshu Ling, Qi Wang, and "Healing Master" Zhang Quanyi, who were already bedridden, felt ashamed, sad, and afraid... and committed suicide in the capital Luoyang on March 15 (after a hunger strike) died) at the age of 75.
