Gao Huan, who was the governor of Jinzhou (now Linfen, Shanxi) at the time, was the most famous and smartest among them.
No, he should not be said to be smart, but he should be said to be the most ambitious and good at planning.
When Er Zhurong was still alive, he was still able to suppress Gao Huan. But once he died, no one could suppress Gao Huan. The remaining members of the Erzhu family are no match for Gao Huan.
In order to have his own army and his own territory, Gao Huan took advantage of the captives from the Six Towns.
After the hundreds of thousands of Liuzhen prisoners were dispersed and resettled by Er Zhurong, they could not stand the oppression of the Qihu people under Er Zhurong's command. They rebelled many times, but each time they ended in failure, so that only the remaining prisoners were killed. There are more than 100,000 people. (The prisoners in the six towns are exactly the same as the workers in today's society.)
These six-town prisoners are a hot potato for the Erzhu family. But for Gao Huan, it is the best help to realize his ambition. Being from the same six towns, Gao Huan was confident enough to conquer them and let them be used for his own purposes.
In order to obtain more than 100,000 captives from the six towns, the most important thing was to deceive the jurisdiction of these more than 100,000 captives from Er Zhuzhao, the actual controller of Bingzhou at the time.
This matter is not difficult for Gao Huan.
After Gao Huan joined Er Zhurong, he paid great attention to his relationship with other members of the Erzhu family, and Er Zhuzhao was the one he wanted to win over.
Years of management and wooing have given Er Zhuzhao extraordinary trust in Gao Huan. For Er Zhuzhao, Gao Huan is the most trustworthy person and a good brother.
Moreover, He Douling Bufan, the leader of Fei Yetou in Hexi Province, took advantage of Erzhu Zhao's southward march to Luoyang and when Bingzhou was empty, he sent troops to invade. The march was like a broken bamboo, and the troops were directed towards Jinyang.
When Er Zhu Zhao returned to the army from Luoyang for rescue, due to his pride and underestimation of the enemy, coupled with extreme fatigue caused by the rush, he was beaten by He Douling Bufan and lost consecutive battles, almost losing his life.
In times of crisis, it was Gao Huan who stepped forward, sent troops to rescue him, and defeated He Douling Bufan.
The life-saving grace deepened Er Zhuzhao's trust in Gao Huan, making Er Zhuzhao regard Gao Huan as his right-hand man.
It was Er Zhu Zhao's trust in him that gave Gao Huan the confidence to deceive more than 100,000 Liuzhen prisoners from Er Zhu Zhao. He carefully prepared a big show for Er Zhu Zhao.
One day, Er Zhu Zhao hosted a banquet for guests. Gao Huan attended the banquet with Liu Gui, He Bayun and other close confidants.
Hey, isn't He Bayun He Bayue's eldest brother? How come he became Gao Huan's trusted general?
In fact, all this is caused by vanity.
The two younger brothers, He Basheng and He Bayue, were doing better than the other and were already famous generals in the Northern Wei Dynasty. However, He Bayun was just a small governor of Yuzhou (now Yuxian County, Hebei Province), and there was a sense of jealousy. It came to him spontaneously.
People are like this. When your friends and brothers are doing worse than you, you will definitely pity them; when your friends and brothers are doing better than you, you will only be envious, jealous and hateful towards them. He Boyun That's the mentality.
Gao Huan was very keenly aware of this, so he tried his best to win over He Bayun, hoping to take He Bayun into his own hands.
As for He Bayun, he felt that Gao Huan was not an ordinary person and that his future was limitless. If he followed him, he might be able to overtake others in a corner and achieve greater achievements than his two younger brothers.
"The man is in love with the concubine," He Bayun surrendered to Gao Huan and began to work for Gao Huan.
The curtain opened and a good show was staged.
After three rounds of wine and five delicious dishes, under the ingenious hints of Liu Gui and other generals, Er Zhu Zhao very naturally thought of the more than 100,000 restless captives in the Six Towns, and couldn't help but sigh.
Gao Huan pretended not to know, and deliberately asked Er Zhu Zhao why he was worried?
Faced with this good brother, Er Zhuzhao naturally did not hide anything and expressed his worries about the prisoners in more than 100,000 towns.
Seeing that the time had come, Gao Huan made a suggestion to Er Zhuzhao: "Brother, if you are so worried, why not send a confidant to be the commander-in-chief of the more than 100,000 prisoners in the town? If there is any problem, just ask the commander-in-chief to hold him accountable. "
Upon hearing this, Er Zhuzhao immediately agreed to Gao Huan's suggestion, but he was in a dilemma about who to choose as the commander-in-chief?
At this time, He Bayun appeared.
He slammed the table, stood up, and said impassionedly: "Gao Huan is the only suitable commander-in-chief! First of all..."
Before He Bayun could finish his words, Gao Huan punched him, causing He Bayun's face to be covered with blood and a tooth to fall out. Then, he yelled loudly: "Who are you, He Bayun? When was it your turn to interrupt? When Tianzhu General Er Zhurong was alive, everyone was obedient. Now my brother Er Zhu Zhao is in charge. Yes, you disrespect him so much, and you still don’t treat him as your master.”
Er Zhu Zhao originally considered himself the heir of Er Zhu Rong, but Gao Huan's words today simply spoke to his heart and made his blood boil. He thought in his heart: Gao Huan, this good brother, is indeed the person he cares most about and trusts the most. If he doesn't hand over these more than 100,000 prisoners, who else can he hand them over to?
Er Zhuzhao was so excited that he gave Gao Huan the command of the more than 106 prisoners in the town on the spot.
In this way, Gao Huan successfully obtained the command of more than 100,000 captives in the town. Later, Gao Huan used his Huaishuo town background and Xianbei status as a Han Chinese, and successfully made more than 100,000 town captives serve him as the master.
Then, Gao Huan organized more than 100,000 captives from the Six Towns into an army capable of conquering and fighting. In the name of calming the hearts of the captives from the Six Towns and quelling rebellion, Gao Huan brought them to his carefully planned "Longxing Land"—— Jizhou, Hebei Province.
Gao Huan, who entered Jizhou, was like an eagle that broke free from its shackles and a fish that swam into the sea. With his superb emotional intelligence and generous conduct, he won over the Li family of Zhaojun, the Gao family of Bohai, and the Feng family of Bohai in a very short period of time. The strong support of the Han people established a firm foothold in Jizhou.
With the support of Jizhou aristocratic families, Gao Huan's power expanded rapidly. Under his command were counselors such as Gao Gan, Sun Teng, Feng Longzhi, and military generals such as Hu Lujin, Dou Tai, Gao Aocao. Clouds, fierce generals like rain, full of talents.
Within a few months, his power expanded so much that the Erzhu family was frightened.
I didn’t say anything, do it! Erzhu Shilong, who was in power in Luoyang, asked Emperor Yuan Gong to issue an edict to confer Gao Huan the title of King of Bohai and recruit Gao Huan to the court, intending to reduce his military power through overt promotion and covert surrender.
With Gao Huan's shrewdness, how could he not see such childish political tactics? He established Prince Yuanlang of An Ding as the new emperor, and officially broke up with the Erzhu family and rebelled.
The explosive news that Gao Huan had launched a rebellion quickly spread throughout the northern land, and the entire north was excited about it.
The Erju family's attitudes toward this matter are as diverse as their relationships with each other. Erzhu Shilong was very panicked; Erzhu Zhongyuan, Erzhu Dulu and others were indifferent, thinking that Gao Huan's men and horses could achieve great things; while Erzhu Zhao, who had always regarded himself as Gao Huan's good brother, was extremely angry, and he trusted him the most The person actually betrayed him, which made him lose his temper.
Er Zhuzhao, who became angry and embarrassed, immediately led the army and attacked Gao Huan menacingly. At the same time, under the coordination of Erzhu Shilong, Erzhu Zhongyuan and Erzhu Dulu also led their troops to the north with the cavalry general He Basheng, the hussar general Husichun and others. They attacked from both sides with Erzhu Zhao and jointly attacked Gao Huan.
Faced with the severe situation of the Erzhu family being attacked from both sides, Gao Huan, who was once the "confidant and beloved general" of the Erzhu family, remained calm and confident. Gao Huan is well aware that the Erzhu family is full of internal contradictions, and with just one counter-intuitive move, the Erzhu family's fierce offensive can be turned into nothing.
He sent people to infiltrate Er Zhu Zhongyuan's army and spread the news everywhere that Er Zhu Zhao appeared to be angry and wanted to eat Gao Huan, but in fact, he had secretly joined forces with Gao Huan and wanted to take the opportunity to get rid of him. Er Zhu Zhongyuan et al.
The news quickly reached Er Zhu Zhongyuan's ears. It was well known to the world that Er Zhu Zhao and Gao Huan were as close as brothers. This made Er Zhu Zhongyuan naturally rather believe the news than believe it.
At the same time, Gao Huan sent people to Er Zhu Zhao's army to release the news: Er Zhu Shilong gave Er Zhu Zhongyuan a secret order to take the opportunity to get rid of Er Zhu Zhao.
Er Zhu Shilong has always been worried about Er Zhu Zhao. Er Zhu Zhao is very clear about this. Although the authenticity of this news is still open to question, Er Zhu Zhao feels that he has to guard against it.
Er Zhu Zhongyuan and Er Zhu Zhao began to doubt each other.
One day, Erzhu Zhongyuan sent He Basheng and Hu Sichun to invite Erzhu Zhao to discuss the conquest.
The suspicious Er Zhu Zhao led his cavalry to Er Zhu Zhongyuan's camp. When he saw that the camp was ready to be ready, sharpening knives for him, the more he looked at it, the more he realized something was wrong. He immediately got on his horse and ran away. Lost.
After learning that Er Zhu Zhao had run away, Er Zhu Zhongyuan immediately asked He Basheng and Hu Sichun to chase him. Unexpectedly, he was detained by the angry Er Zhu Zhao.
Er Zhu Zhao saw that his good brother Gao Huan had betrayed him, and his uncle Er Zhu Zhongyuan and others were plotting evil against him. He felt very disappointed, so he poured all his resentment on He Basheng. He was disloyal, capricious, and so on. All the words were spoken.
He Basheng took his time and counterattacked the dirty water Er Zhu Zhao threw at him one by one. Then he changed the subject and said to Er Zhu Zhao: He Basheng is a small person and insignificant. On the contrary, between the Er Zhu family, Disunity and intrigue are what he worries about most.
This sentence touched the pain in Er Zhuzhao's heart. The troubled Er Zhuzhao sighed and gradually regained his rationality. He understood that he should not vent his anger on He Basheng and Hu Sichun, so he put them both together. The person was let go.
He Basheng and Hu Sichun were detained, which frightened Erzhu Zhongyuan and Erzhu Dulu. They thought that Er Zhuzhao was indeed uneasy and well-intentioned. Fortunately, they were alert and sent He Basheng and Hu Sichun, so they went ahead of schedule. After discovering Er Zhuzhao's evil intentions, if they go by themselves, they will really die at the hands of Er Zhuzhao.
The two people were so shocked that they didn't care about anything and hurriedly led the army to retreat.
After Er Zhu Zhongyuan and Er Zhu Dulu fled without a fight, the situation became Er Zhu Zhao's challenge to Gao Huan, but Gao Huan hesitated at this time.
The Qihu cavalry under Er Zhuzhao were extremely powerful and had defeated the prisoners of the Six Towns under his command many times. Although after reorganization, the fighting strength of the prisoners in the six towns was not weak, but facing the Qihu cavalry, Gao Huan was still not sure of victory. More importantly, as the first battle after raising troops, there is no room for failure in this battle.
At the critical moment, young Duan Shao (Lou Zhaojun's nephew, one of the three famous generals of the Northern Qi Dynasty in the future) stood up and gave his uncle Gao Huan a shot in the arm. He said to Gao Huan: "The Erzhu family has brought trouble to the world. Killing the emperor, slaughtering the ministers, and abusing the people, we have already lost all our hearts and have been abandoned by the world. Now that the current and geographical advantages are on our side, the Erzhu family will definitely be defeated!"
After listening to Duan Shao's words, Gao Huan suddenly became enlightened, regained his confidence, and made up his mind to fight Er Zhu Zhao.
In 531 AD, the two sides fought in Guang'a (prefecture of Yinzhou, today's Longyao County, Hebei Province). The result can be imagined. The confident Gao Huan defeated Er Zhu Zhao and captured more than 5,000 people.
This battle is known in history as the "Battle of Guang'a".
