After Li Siyuan proclaimed himself emperor, this army even regarded itself as the "unit with meritorious service in founding the country". Without "Ming Zong entering Wei", how could there be "Ming Zong entering Luo"?
Zhao Zaili even sent an invitation to Li Siyuan, asking him to visit Weizhou, revisit his old place, and reminisce about the past together.
Li Siyuan also immediately wanted to disintegrate and divide the army and appointed Zhao Zaili as the governor of Huazhou Yicheng Army, but failed. Then Huangfuhui and other key members were promoted openly and covertly, and the leader of this unit was gradually stripped away.
Now, Li Siyuan sent prince Li Congrong and general Fan Yanguang to further divide this army that had lost its backbone. While appointing Wu Zhen to replace Fang Zhiwen to garrison the Lutai Army, he also ordered 3,500 Weizhou Yajun to garrison the Lutai Army and transfer them away from their old nest in Weizhou.
However, the imperial court did not issue any weapons or armor to these 3,500 people. They only used bamboo poles to carry flags as the logo of each department, and then they went north with bare hands and no armor to resist the Khitans. Everyone was dejected and panicked, suspecting that the imperial court was trying to lure the tiger away from the mountain first, and then behead everyone...
Halfway through the journey, they suddenly heard that Meng Zhixiang of Xichuan had killed the supervisor Li Yan (detailed below), which made the morale of the army even more turbulent. It was rumored that Meng Zhixiang had separatized Shu and rebelled. The imperial court was afraid that Weizhou Yajun would cause trouble again in response to Xichuan to avoid "Ming Zong" "Enter Wei" happened again, so they were tricked into being killed by the Lutai Army...
At this time, the imperial court replaced the commander-in-chief of the Lutai Army from Fang Zhiwen to Wu Zhen. With this change, rumors spread even more.
Fang Zhiwen was also quite dissatisfied with this personnel transfer, so he used rumors to instigate a mutiny and formed a conspiracy with the commander of Wei Boya's army, the mid-level general Long Hao, to have a banquet at Hongmen and cooperate with the inside and outside.
After Wu Zhen arrived at Lutai Army, Fang Zhiwen did not hand over the seal immediately. Instead, he arranged a reception banquet to welcome Comrade Wu Zhen.
During the banquet, the generals were gambling and making a lot of noise. Fang Zhiwen took advantage of the chaos and secretly left, passing the code to Wei Boya's army. Long Hao then led Wei Boya's army to riot and killed Wu Zhen on the spot.
Seeing that the situation was not good, the cavalry commander An Shentong ran away, seized a boat, and successfully escaped to the west bank. He then summoned his cavalry troops and ordered the entire army to enter a state of combat readiness. No one was allowed to act rashly without his own orders.
When Fang Zhiwen saw An Shentong escaping, he regretted it. Without the support of the cavalry, the mutiny would definitely fail! So he also wanted to flee to the west bank so as to distance himself from Long Hao's Wei Boya Army.
Wei Boyajun rushed forward and hugged Fang Zhiwen's horse's head, "Commander, if you don't want to be our leader, where are you going?"
Fang Zhiwen, the traitor, took off his wits and lied to them: "The cavalry are all in Hexi. If we don't control them, how can we achieve great things with infantry alone? I will conquer them right now."
Wei Boyajun is stupid and naive.
Fang Zhiwen picked up the reins, galloped into the boat, and successfully crossed to the west bank. After landing, Fang Zhiwen pretended to be innocent, joined forces with An Shentong, and turned back to counterattack Wei Boya's army.
Long Hao led the rebel army southward with the intention of returning to Weizhou. Fang Zhiwen and An Shentong followed closely with their cavalry.
The entire army was made up of infantrymen without any weapons or armor. Under the threat of the cavalry, they all turned pale with fright and did not dare to stop for a moment. They rushed all night with torches and accidentally broke into the swamp. The rebels were tortured by fear, exhaustion and hunger all night.
When the sun rose the next day, they were even more desperate to find that Fang Zhiwen and An Shentong had quietly completed the siege of them last night. When the first ray of sunshine shone down in the morning, An Shentong issued an order. received the order for the general attack.
What follows is a massacre without any suspense. A small number of the rebel army successfully broke through and fled back to the camp on the east bank in embarrassment. However, An Shentong had already burned it to ashes. The rebel army was in a dilemma and collapsed instantly. In the end, less than 30% survived. The survivors fled. They entered the valley and then defected to Dingzhou. Soon after, the king of Dingzhou rebelled and surrendered to the enemy. These survivors of Wei Boya's army did not escape the fate of being killed.
General Fan Yanguang was still on the way. After hearing that there was a mutiny in the Lutai Army ahead, he immediately mobilized the main force of the Huazhou Yicheng Army to reinforce Weizhou.
Li Siyuan issued an edict: All the 3,500 Weizhou Yajun who launched a rebellion in Lutai Army should be executed!
The edict was sent to Weizhou City, and a brutal massacre began. More than 10,000 men, women, and children were driven to the lime kilns and all beheaded. The Yongji Canal once again turned into a river of blood.
Afterwards, in order to appease Fang Zhiwen, Li Siyuan gave him the title of prime minister (Tongping Zhangshi).
Fang Zhiwen, the initiator of planning and instigating the mutiny, was promoted to a higher rank; ordinary soldiers who participated in the riot were executed. Now that we understand Li Siyuan's situation, we can understand this contradictory expression of weakness and strength.
7. Bianzhou Xuanwu Army
In October of the second year of Tiancheng (927), Li Siyuan suddenly left the capital and traveled east to Bianzhou.
Under normal circumstances, the emperor could not leave the capital easily, unless there was something particularly important and related to the life and death of the empire, such as hunting (Li Cunxu) or having a private meeting with his lover (Wang Zongyan).
In addition to the seemingly high-sounding reasons of cherishing the people and not wanting to disturb the ground, the more important reason was the fear of disturbing the feudal princes.
For Li Siyuan's trip to Bianzhou, it should be "grain". Last year, Li Cunxu proposed heading east to Bianzhou because of the lack of food and grass in Luoyang, but he was dissuaded by the officials. After Li Siyuan came to power, he moved to Bianzhou, which was probably the same problem.
However, regarding this eastward tour, there are all kinds of rumors.
For example, there is a theory that Li Siyuan wanted to personally conquer and annex Huainan, so he moved the command center eastward. This statement is very reasonable. Zhuangzong took over Bashu and Mingzong took over Huainan, completing the great cause of unifying the Tang Empire;
There is also a theory that Li Siyuan was going to deal with a certain senior official in the East who intended to rebel.
These two theories are the most widely circulated. Zhu Shouyin, the governor of the Xuanwu Army in Bianzhou, was frightened by the second statement.
Because Zhu Shouyin was a genuine "Li Cunxu remnant" and one of Li Cunxu's important confidants. The loss of Desheng Jiacheng that year brought immeasurable losses to the Later Tang Dynasty. For this reason, Li Siyuan secretly reported to Li Cunxu and demanded that he be beheaded according to military law. Zhu Shouyin, however, Li Cunxu not only did not punish Zhu Shouyin, but also promoted him to a higher position. This caused Li Siyuan and a number of other meritorious generals to be extremely dissatisfied.
Later, Li Siyuan was jealous of Li Cunxu and was placed under house arrest in Luoyang. His life hung on a thread. It was Zhu Shouyin who was responsible for taking care of Li Siyuan's daily life around the clock (24-hour personal surveillance). During this period, Zhu Shouyin also tactfully blackmailed Li Siyuan and asked for bribes.
After Li Siyuan became emperor, he did not purge Zhu Shouyin, but let him sit in Bianzhou. Therefore, when I talked about Li Cunxu's suspicion and house arrest of Li Siyuan, I mentioned that the process of Li Siyuan's accession to the throne is also a historical mystery with many puzzling aspects. I firmly believe that this period of history has also been carefully whitewashed by future generations.
Now, Li Siyuan suddenly mobilized troops and gathered in Bianzhou. Zhu Shouyin was convinced that he was the senior official in the rumors. In fear, he called his staff to discuss a solution.
His staff told him that he would die anyway, so it would be better to go to the city to resist, which would give him a chance of survival. Zhu Shouyin believed this, so he closed the city gate tightly and prepared to fight to the death.
