【affair】
In the early days of Li Jing's administration, the "four evils and five ghosts" have begun to emerge. From this, we can predict his chaotic internal affairs. The detailed stories of party struggles will be detailed one by one in the following article. The international situation during Li Jing's period provided Southern Tang with external opportunities that could be exploited, referred to as "affair".
However, the ambitious and talented Li Jing successfully turned the opportunity into a crisis with the help of the "Five Ghosts and Four Evils".
1. Newbie tasks
When Li Jing took office, she faced her first external challenge. History is fair. Under this fair and friendly matching mechanism, Li Jing was given a novice village task - the thief Zhang Yuxian.
In July 942 AD, a strange thing happened in Boluo County, Xunzhou (now Boluo County, Guangdong Province) in the Southern Han Dynasty. It was said that a god came to the world, and people only heard his voice but could not see his form. Local people came to ask him for fortune telling. Obviously, this is someone who is pretending to be a ghost and defrauding money.
Zhang Yuxian, a temporary worker in the county government, firmly believed in this and became one of the devout believers.
At that time, civil uprisings broke out all over Xunzhou, but they lacked unified leadership and were in disarray. As a result, leaders from various ministries came one after another to ask for fortune-telling from the gods, to predict good and bad luck, and to predict the future. At this time, the gods told them that this Zhang Yuxian is your king!
Therefore, everyone unanimously supported Zhang Yuxian's proclaimed emperor, calling him the "Eight Kings of Zhongtian", and changed the name to "Yongle", and appointed hundreds of civil and military officials. Zhang Yuxian, a temporary worker in the county government, transformed into the "Yongle Emperor".
The originally loose bandits from all over the country immediately united closely around the rebel army with Comrade Zhang Yuxian as the core, and plundered the coastal areas of Guangdong. Soon, the bandits grew to tens of thousands, and the bandits uniformly wore red clothes and shouted: As the "Red Army Son".
However, Zhang Yuxian did not have any great talent or strategy, and he knew neither military nor politics. Although his followers were large in number, they were still in the realm of robbing families and homes. They were just a seemingly organized group of loose sand.
Soon, the rebel group in Boluo County shocked the government and the public. Emperor Liu Hongdu (son of Liu Yan) of the Southern Han Dynasty immediately mobilized troops and generals, and sent his brothers Liu Hongchang and Liu Honggao to lead the group to suppress it.
Unexpectedly, the two princes failed in their first battle and were surrounded by a ragtag rebel army and narrowly escaped being captured alive. As a result, the rebel army gained momentum and occupied most of the territory in the eastern part of Southern Han Dynasty.
Liu Hongchang, who returned from the defeated army, did a great thing: regicide.
In March 943 AD, Liu Hongchang launched a palace coup, killed Liu Hongdu, and then promoted Liu Hongxi to the throne. Regarding the story of the Southern Han Dynasty, there will also be a special topic in the following article, so I will briefly mention it here.
After the palace coup, the Southern Han Dynasty faced a political purge and everyone was in danger. This was a great opportunity for the rebel Zhang Yuxian and others to seize power.
However, Zhang Yuxian's victory in the first battle was purely a fluke. He did not have enough ambition, let alone sufficient strength. Soon, Zhang Yuxian's troops were defeated in Xunzhou. Later, Zhang Yuxian prayed to the gods again, asking for guidance.
The gods told him: If you capture Qianzhou, you will achieve great things.
Qianzhou was the territory of the Southern Tang Dynasty at that time. Under the guidance of the gods, Zhang Yuxian led his more than 100,000 tribesmen to the north and crossed the border into the Southern Tang Dynasty.
Jia Kuanghao, the commander of the Baisheng Army in Qianzhou, was caught off guard. He lost his city and territory, and was defeated steadily. Qianzhou City was forced into a state of emergency, with the city gates closed 24 hours a day, and an emergency letter was sent to the central government.
Zhang Yuxian praised the gods' miraculous calculations, so he built a palace in Baiyundong, established the Baiyundong revolutionary base, and then sent his men to plunder.
In October 943 AD, after receiving news of the emergency on the border, Li Jing sent Hongzhou general Yan En (also known as "Yan Si") to rescue Qianzhou, and appointed Bian Hao, a general in charge of the affairs, as the supervisor.
Bian Hao used Bai Changyu, a native of Qianzhou, as his think tank and achieved repeated victories.
Zhang Yuxian used his special skill-asking the gods. Maybe the god was out of the service area, or the cross-border signal was not good. In short, the god never gave Zhang Yuxian any instructions. Zhang Yuxian and others were greatly frightened, their military morale was unstable, and they were on the verge of collapse without attacking.
At this time, Bian Hao, under the guidance of Bai Changyu, climbed over the mountains and ridges, appeared elusively behind Zhang Yuxian's defense line, and launched an attack unexpectedly.
Zhang Yuxian immediately abandoned his men and fled for his life like a headless fly. He was captured alive by his men and then surrendered to the Southern Tang army.
Zhang Yuxian and his backbone Huang Boxiong, Cao Jingquan and others were taken to Shengzhou and beheaded in public display.
"Zhang Yuxian's Rebellion" is a gift package given to Li Jing by history, and Li Jing effortlessly scored full marks. After the thief was defeated, he was rewarded based on his merits. The commander-in-chief Yan En was promoted to the governor of Haizhou, the supervisor Bian Hao was promoted to the title of Yuhou, the military commander of the Hongzhou camp, and the military governor of Qianzhou Jia Kuanghao was demoted to the position of Internet celebrity. Chizhou, the distribution center for relocation guests.
Bian Hao also entered the stage of history and entered the public eye. A few years later, it was this king who annexed Southern Chu.
The "Zhang Yuxian Rebellion" fueled Li Jing's confidence and ambition, and paved the way for his painful lessons in the future.
2. Transition animation
After Li Jing ascended the throne, he sent an envoy across the sea to Khitan.
Gongcheng Rong's ancestral home is Xiangzhou, Hebei Province. "Gongcheng" was originally an ancient title, the eighth level of the 20th grade. His ancestors were awarded the title of "Gongcheng", and later generations took this as their surname.
Huainan does not border Khitan, so if you take the land route, you must cross the Central Plains (Later Jin Dynasty). As early as Xu Zhigao's period, he made a request to the Later Jin Dynasty to borrow a road, but the Later Jin Dynasty flatly rejected it. Later Jin did not dare to offend the Khitan, so Khitan envoys could cross the border to Huainan with great arrogance, such as the Gaoba envoy mentioned above.
If the Huainan envoy wanted to visit Khitan, he had to go by sea from today's Jiangsu, bypass the Shandong Peninsula, and land in Liaoning. This road was extremely dangerous, with strong winds and high waves, and shipwrecks often occurred. Historical records say that from Zhejiang Fanhai to Shandong, the mortality rate was 50%, let alone bypassing Shandong and going to the farther Liaoning.
Therefore, after successfully arriving in Khitan by public transport, he was warmly welcomed and entertained by the Khitan people.
The next year, the public transport department sent a secret letter reporting on this diplomatic work.
And when we carefully read this work report and compare the events mentioned in it, we will get a reasonable inference, that is, the public transportation department not only sent this work report, but also sent many copies in the future. , because the time span of the things mentioned in the letter is quite large, and it even mentions the Khitan's "Vulcan Lake Change" (the incident occurred in September 951 AD).
Therefore, according to Lu You's "Book of the Southern Tang Dynasty", it is said that Gongcheng Rong visited Khitan in 951 AD.
However, according to the records of "Ten Kingdoms Spring and Autumn", Li Jing ordered the official to visit Li Jing at the beginning of his accession to the throne (943).
Maybe they visited once each in 943 and 951, it doesn't matter. The specific time and number of visits do not need to be studied in detail. Their impact on the historical process is the same.
According to the public transport report, they set out in June and took more than half a year to arrive at their destination. The Khitan people warmly welcomed them and welcomed them from afar. They were received with courtesy and courtesy. Although they only represented a small local separatist regime (Southern Tang), the Khitan Emperor treated them with the same standard as when he welcomed the suzerain state (Datang) (as in the old ceremony). The Khitan Emperor even toasted him personally. .
Among them, the details of the Khitan emperor's toast to him were recorded in detail: "I poured a jade bell of wine in my hand, sipped it myself first, and then persuaded the ministers to drink it. I drank it from dawn to sun." He drank for a whole day. After that, the Khitan emperor sent his trusted aides to express his condolences every day, and gave him a banquet every three days. His favor was extraordinary.
As mentioned before, the specific time and frequency do not need to be studied in detail. Because between 943 and 944 AD, the "Sin-Liao War" had just begun; and between 951 and 952 AD, it was the time when the conflict between the Khitan and the Later Zhou Dynasty broke out. In other words, no matter when Gongcheng Rong visited, it was the time when the Khitan urgently needed to form an alliance with the Southern Tang Dynasty.
Attacking the Central Plains from the north and the south was a common need of both the Khitan and the Southern Tang. In the south, only the Huainan forces (Southern Tang Dynasty) had the willingness and strength to be enemies of the Central Plains. Other forces, such as the Nanchu and Wuyue Kingdoms, had always surrendered to the Central Plains. Therefore, the Southern Tang Dynasty was the only force that the Khitan could rely on to contain the Central Plains in the south.
However, the "Huai-Liao Alliance" was loose and had different dreams. The Southern Tang Dynasty and the Khitan seemed to be in harmony with each other in attacking the Central Plains. It is in the best interest of the Southern Tang Dynasty to use the Khitan to contain the Central Plains so that the Southern Tang Dynasty can have the energy to unify Southern China. Therefore, what the Southern Tang wanted to see the most was that the Khitan and the Central Plains remained hostile and static. If a war broke out, it would be better for both sides to suffer losses. After the Southern Tang unified southern China, there would be a snipe and clam fight. , stew them in one spoonful.
Generally speaking, for a long time, the Khitan and the Southern Tang Dynasty maintained a certain tacit understanding, that is, they vowed to declare that the two parties were a long-term strategic partnership and an unbreakable alliance. If one party needed it, the other party would always provide it. All support except help.
This kind of relationship requires almost no effort to manage, and it does not require the ruler to possess any superb skills of coercion. In other words, this is a gift package for beginners that is easier than "Zhang Yuxian's Rebellion", and it comes with sub-questions, just like the transition animation.
However, Li Jing also regarded it as his great achievement, a huge achievement in diplomacy, and felt that he was a powerful political veteran.
