【One stone, three birds】
Li Congke reused two people, Liu Yanlang and Xue Wenyu.
The "Ma Quanjie Incident" exposed the fatal weakness of Li Congke's regime. Liu Yanlang single-handedly hollowed out the interior of Li Congke's court; while Xue Wenyu triggered external aggression in Li Congke's court.
It was due to the unremitting efforts of these two people that Li Congke only became emperor for less than three years before his country was destroyed and he was forced to burn himself to death.
At the beginning of Li Congke's ascension to the throne, under the pressure of internal and external situations, he released Shi Jingtang and returned to the town. The monarch and his ministers were suspicious of each other and tacitly understood each other.
After Shi Jingtang returned to Taiyuan Prefecture in Hedong, he mainly did three tasks: setting up informants and collecting intelligence; claiming that he was ill and selling out his misfortune to paralyze the court; and cultivating the bandits' self-respect and strengthening their strength.
The first is to apply eyeliner densely.
His two sons, Shi Chongying and Shi Chongyin, served in the palace as generals of the Forbidden Army and deputy envoys of the Imperial City respectively. They were actually Shi Jingtang's spies. Shi Jingtang's most important spy was his mother-in-law, Empress Dowager Cao. Shi Jingtang bribed Empress Dowager Cao's maids to spy on Li Congke's words and deeds.
Li Congke also often inquired about outside news, and often talked with Li Zhuomei, Li Song, Lu Qi, Xue Wenyu, Zhao Yanyi and others all night long. Every more person Li Congke comes into contact with will increase the chance of leaking the secret. This was Li Congke's mistake in his intelligence work.
Generally speaking, a spy intelligence agency should be headed by one or a few of the most trusted people, who are responsible for the collection, sorting, and analysis of intelligence, forming a closed-loop intelligence system. Only in this way can the emperor obtain the required information efficiently and secretly.
However, this approach also has an insurmountable shortcoming, that is, once the head of the intelligence agency is not loyal enough, it will sideline the emperor, which is counterproductive.
When Li Congke's regime was first established, he did not have much time and energy to build such a professional intelligence team. He did it himself or adopted a strategy of casting a wide net, but he did not achieve significant results. For example, he was deceived by Liu Yanlang and did not know that after Ma Quanjie made meritorious service, he did not rise but fell down.
The bigger disadvantage is that it is too noisy. Just like the radio search is turned on in modern warfare, when Li Congke received the radio signal, his message was also monitored by others.
When he stared at Shi Jingtang, Shi Jingtang was also staring at him.
With Shi Jingtang's powerful intelligence support, every move of Li Congke's court could not escape Shi Jingtang's eyes and ears. This allowed Shi Jingtang to always take the initiative in subsequent actions to seize power.
Secondly, it is to pretend to be ill and suffer.
The reason why Shi Jingtang was able to return to Taiyuan safely is inseparable from his actor-level performance in Luoyang. Shi Jingtang cleverly took advantage of an illness and deliberately reduced his diet and rest, making himself skinny and skinny, and successfully deceived Li Congke.
After returning to Taiyuan, Li Congke continued to send people to express condolences, which was actually surveillance. Shi Jingtang was very dedicated and always told those around him that his health was about to fail. Especially when entertaining the central government's condolence envoys, he always looked depressed and said that he could no longer perform his duties as a military envoy and was considering letting him go. Which son will inherit the family business?
However, the effect of this little trick is very weak, unless he is really dead.
Third, it is to cultivate the bandits’ self-respect.
This is the old routine of all town generals. Shi Jingtang was able to return to Taiyuan. In addition to pretending to be ill, another main reason was that the northern part of the empire was being harassed by the Khitan. Zhao Dejun of Youzhou and Shi Jingtang of Hedong were the Great Wall of the Later Tang Empire and the best candidates for the Later Tang to resist the Khitan.
Shi Jingtang and Zhao Dejun had a tacit understanding and exaggerated the Khitan threat. They used this as a reason to constantly ask the court for military pay, food and supplies, and also asked the court to send more imperial troops to assist in defense. Want money, food, soldiers, power...
In addition, Shi Jingtang also moved all his properties in Luoyang and other places to Taiyuan through ant moving, claiming that it was to subsidize the military and resist the Khitan.
Li Congke was very passive. He knew clearly that Shi Jingtang and Zhao Dejun were using the Khitan to increase their strength and fight against the central government, but he had to spend all his treasury to support them in materials and food.
The two frontline coaches kept asking for supplies, which for Li Congke was draining fuel from the bottom and making matters worse.
After Li Congke ascended the throne, in order to reward the sergeants, he first plundered the people and forcibly levied taxes. He also collected taxes for the next five months in advance, which severely exploited the people and left them in dire straits. Fishing from the bottom of the lake is just the starting price.
In the year when Li Congke ascended the throne (934), there was a severe drought in the world, which was most severe in the Guanxi and Hezhong areas. A large number of hungry people fled from Tong, Hua, Pu, Jiang and other prefectures;
The drought continued. According to historical records, in the second year (935), "there was a severe drought in the capital (June). The heat was so severe that more than 100 people died in Xuan." More than 100 people died of heatstroke in the capital alone, which shows the seriousness of this drought. serious.
From September to the twelfth lunar month, there is no precipitation. At the end of the year, Li Congke had to drive to Longmen Town to pray for rain and snow in person.
In April of the third year (936), there was actually a record of "bears entering the capital to hunt people." Bears appeared on the streets of the capital. This shows the extent of its depression.
The national treasury was tight, and Li Congke's court was always faced with financial problems. Under such a predicament, Shi Jingtang and Zhao Dejun still refused to urge the court to allocate food and salary, so Li Congke could only tighten his belt and do his best to satisfy them.
In June, Shi Jingtang reported that the troops were short of food and grass, so General An Chongrong requested to go to the neighboring domain to feed the Zhenwu Army.
Li Congke: accurate.
Shi Jingtang said again: Please allow me to directly withhold the taxes and tributes from Huaizhou and Mengzhou, so as to save the courier from sending it to Luoyang first and then transport it here, so as to save on freight.
Li Congke: Okay.
Shi Jingtang played again: It's not enough. Keep giving money and food. Khitan soldiers are coming!
Li Congke:......
War is a gold-eating beast, and Shi Jingtang is a bottomless pit. what to do? Li Congke's think tank came up with a "cool plan" - policy allocation.
To put it simply, give Hedong’s money and food to Hedong.
The specific operation steps were to allow Shi Jingtang to borrow grain from the people in Hedong. It is said that it is requisitioned, but in fact it is forced requisition and looting. The imperial court allowed Shi Jingtang to openly rob the people under his rule through administrative orders. Robbery was no longer illegal, so just do it yourself. The premise is: rob the people of Hedong under your own rule.
At the same time, there was a second order: the Zhenzhou Chengde Army was ordered to provide 50,000 pieces of silk to Shi Jingtang, Hedong, as payment for the Hedong Army; the Chengde Army was ordered to recruit 1,500 oxcarts from Zhenzhou and Jizhou, as well as corresponding civilians. , to serve as transportation capacity; Wei Bojun in Weizhou was ordered to provide food, grass and baggage.
Cheng Dejun in Zhenzhou and Wei Bojun in Weizhou are just sandwiched between Shi Jingtang in Hedong and Zhao Dejun in Youzhou. Allocating supplies from this area is not only based on the principle of proximity, but it can also stir up the relationship between Zhenzhou and Weizhou and Hedong and Youzhou. , causing them to have entangled interests and destroying their potential alliance possibilities. Even if the four towns formed an alliance, their money, food and materials would be left to the right and would not weaken the strength of the central army.
In Li Congke's view, this was a brilliant move that killed three birds with one stone.
This clever plan caused harm to the people in Hebei. They were first exploited by the new king, and then suffered floods and droughts. At this time, they had to squeeze out military supplies and wages.
