Chapter 31 4. Lame Wolf King

Hou Jing's name is Wanjing, the small character is Gouzi, he is from Jie, he is of the same family as Er Zhurong, he comes from Huaishuo Town, and he is a fellow villager with Gao Huan.He is short in stature, long at the top and short at the bottom, with an unremarkable appearance, wide forehead and high cheekbones, red and sparse hair, and he likes to look around with his head down. His voice is deep and hoarse. Cannibals should also be eaten by people." Although these are typical affiliation talks, judging from the characteristics of "looking around with head down and hoarse voice", the little Hou Jing's character must contain some kind of wolf element.Moreover, Hou Jingtian was born with a short right leg and was lame. People often say that a wolf with a lame leg is the king of wolves.Calling Hou Jing "the lame wolf king" is really appropriate.

Hou Jing's looks are unflattering, and horseback riding and archery are not his strong points, but he is quite resourceful.During the Six Towns Rebellion, he joined Er Zhurong's banner earlier than Gao Huan.Er Zhurong appreciated Hou Jing and asked him to be the vanguard to attack Ge Rong. He became famous in the first battle and was named Duke of Puyang County.Gao Huan replaced the power of Erzhu's family. Seeing that Erzhuzhao was ineffective, Hou Jing led his troops to vote for Gao Huan. When Er Zhurong was cast, Hou Jing was just a newcomer, he looked up to Er Zhurong, and Gao Huan was with him under Er Zhurong's subordinates, the two had dated again when they were young, and they knew each other well, so it was impossible for him to look up to Er Zhurong. Er Zhurong looked at Gao Huan with Er Zhurong's eyes.In addition, Hou Jing's service to Er Zhurong was more out of national identity, and he didn't have such feelings for Gao Huan.Even so, Hou Jing had to be impressed by Gao Huan's personal charm and talent.But Hou Jing only admired Gao Huan alone. He once said to Sima Ziru in private: "Wang is here, I dare not make any difference; Wang Wu, I can't work with Xianbei children!" "Xianbei children" refers to Gao Huan A contemptuous name for the crown prince Gao Cheng.Sima Ziru was so frightened that he hurriedly covered his mouth.

Gao Huan naturally knew Hou Jing's thoughts, but "a thousand soldiers are easy to get, but a general is hard to find". With Hou Jing around, Gao Huan has grown a strong arm.Therefore, Gao Huan has always entrusted Hou Jing with important tasks, appointing him as the Nandao Xingtai, with a crowd of 100,000, and authorizing Henan. Gao Huan was critically ill, so Gao Cheng deliberately wrote a letter to Hou Jingxiu in Gao Huan's name, calling him back to Jinyang. Hou Jing once said hello to Gao Huan: "I hold the army, and it is easy to be deceived by villains. Please add a small dot on the back of Gao Wang's letter." The mark is a private agreement between the two of them, and no third party will know.Hou Jing received Gao Cheng's letter and saw that there was no point on the back, knowing that it was not Gao Huan's order, so he refused to go to Jinyang.

Historians think this is a major negligence of Gao Huan, which is naive.Will Gao Huan, a traitor in his life, put his country in danger just to keep his word?Gao Cheng is not an idiot, if he wants to forge a letter, will he try to get a mark? In fact, Gao Huan has already noticed the signs of Hou Jing's rebellion.In the battle of Yubi, he ordered Hou Jing to attack the Western Wei Dynasty from the south road. Hou Jing stationed troops on the border for nearly two months. When Gao Huan was defeated, he immediately withdrew to Heyang.Therefore, Gao Huan and Gao Cheng didn't need to worry about the marks at all. They were true believers and false believers. They were just a gesture: if you come, you can solve the problem without harming a single soldier; excuses to attack you.The tacit understanding between the Gao family father and son can be proved by Gao Huan's account of the funeral.

The last words left by Gao Huan (see ) are worth pondering. "There is no one who knows a son like a father." Gao Huan was not confused when he was dying. From the expression on his face, he could see that Gao Cheng's worry lay in Hou Jing's heart disease.He saw through his son's worries, and also saw through Hou Jing's wolfish ambitions.More importantly, he has already made full preparations to ensure that Hou Jing is not enough to shake the Gao family's career.Murong Shaozong's pawn is really a wonderful arrangement. Why did Gao Huan never reuse Murong Shaozong, but was so convinced that he could handle Hou Jing?Here is a little-known little secret: Murong Shaozong was Hou Jing's master - Hou Jing basically learned the way of using soldiers from Murong Shaozong.In other words, Murong Shaozong is the person who understands Hou Jing's strengths and weaknesses best. (This is like Sun Wukong descending the demon on West Heaven Road. The last and most effective ultimate method is to move out the owner or master of the monster.) Gao Huan kept this little secret almost quietly until his deathbed, and then taught it to Gao Cheng, No wonder Hou Jinghui was only afraid of Gao Huan.Gao Huan's strategy, even if it can't be said to be rare in ancient and modern times, is absolutely inescapable if it excels. It's a pity that "if there is joy, He Shengtai", the sky wants Yu Wentai to be his nemesis...

Gao Huan died and Gao Cheng succeeded him.In order to avoid unnecessary consumption, he kept his funeral in secret and waited for the change in Henan in Jinyang.Sure enough, Hou Jing felt uneasy and raised the flag to rebel. Henan is located at the junction of Eastern Wei, Western Wei, and Southern Liang. Hou Jing attacked the city and defended the village, made many military exploits, and continued to expand his power.After 14 years of fighting, Hou Jing controlled the territory from Hangu Pass in the west, the sea in the east, the Yellow River in the north, and the Huai River in the south, accounting for about one-third of the territory of the Eastern Wei Dynasty.Most of Hou Jing's soldiers are Erzhu's remaining troops, who are powerful in combat and have always followed him.Holding a good deck of cards, why is Hou Jing willing to hand over his military power obediently and wait to die?

After raising his troops to rebel, Hou Jing realized that his strength and appeal were not as strong as he had imagined. The only one in Henan who took the initiative to respond was Sima Shiyun, the governor of Yingzhou.Hou Jing designed to trap Gao Yuancheng, the governor of Yuzhou, Li Mi, the governor of Xiangzhou (it has nothing to do with the one in Wagangzhai), Baoxian, the governor of Guangzhou, and others.Xing Zicai sent a message to the eastern states, reminding everyone to guard against Hou Jing, so that Hou Jing's conspiracy to control the whole of Henan could not succeed. (Xing Zicai's real name is Xing Xie. Later, he served as the Imperial College Jijiu in the Northern Qi Dynasty. Together with Wei Shou and Wen Zisheng, he was called the "Three Talents" of the Northern Qi Dynasty. His literary talents were first-class. From this incident, it can be seen that the scholar's strategy is not like a general who has been fighting for a long time under them.)

Hou Jing understood the truth that a single tree cannot support him, so he thought to himself, it is better to be next to a big tree to enjoy the shade.He leaned against two big trees at once: on the one hand, he announced his submission to the Western Wei Dynasty; on the other hand, he sent an envoy Ding He to Jiankang to submit a surrender form to Emperor Wu of Liang. On the night of the seventeenth day of the first month of this year (the second year of Datong in Liangzhong, AD 547), Emperor Wu of Liang dreamed that the prefects of the states in the Central Plains offered land to him and surrendered to him.Early the next morning, the excited Emperor Wu of Liang summoned his favorite minister Zhu Yi, described the scene in his dream in detail, and added a sentence at the end: "I rarely dream in my life, once I dream, it will come true."

Zhu Yi immediately said: "This is a sign of the unification of the universe." (Oh, this stinking mouth, it seems that he has calculated that Hou Jing will become the general of the universe.) When Emperor Wu of Liang dreamed, it was only four days before Hou Jing rebelled.With the communication conditions at that time, it was impossible for Emperor Wu of Liang to know that Hou Jing had turned his back anyway.He made this dream, which just shows that he has always had an urgent desire to regain the Central Plains.People are always like this, the more they want something, the harder it is to get, and the harder it is to get, the more they want to get it, over and over again, forming a knot in the heart.Emperor Liang Wu's long-standing backlog of desires could not be satisfied, so he believed that the Buddha would appear and his dreams would come true.

At this time, Hou Jingpian declared his surrender, and attached a "big gift package": Yu, Guang, Ying, Jing, Xiang, Yan, Nanyan, Ji, Dongyu, Luo, Yang, Beijing, Beiyang ten three states. This big gift bag was obviously filled with water. After hearing what Xing Zicai said, the states in the east were not restrained by Hou Jing at all.But it doesn't matter, anyway, Hou Jing's purpose is to enlist reinforcements from Emperor Wu of Liang, so how much the gift package can be cashed in is out of consideration. After all, Emperor Wu of Liang was a figure fighting for the world, and he was full of doubts when he received such a generous gift package, and couldn't believe his eyes.He summoned the ministers to discuss countermeasures, and the servant of the minister shot Xie Ju and said: "In recent years, our dynasty has made peace with the state of Wei, and the border is peaceful. If we accept rebels from the state of Wei, we may provoke a war. I think it is impossible!" After the split of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Liang Guo regained Hanzhong.The Eastern Wei Dynasty was tired of coping with the attack of the Western Wei Dynasty, and adopted a favorable policy towards Liang Guo.After the death of Chen Qingzhi in the fifth year of Datong (AD 539), Liang Guo also had unscrupulous generals available, and the two families sent envoys to each other and became friendly neighbors.Xie Ju's meaning is very straightforward, it is not wise to suddenly destroy this friendly relationship now.

Emperor Liang Wu hesitated and said: "Our country is as complete as gold and silver. Is it appropriate to accept Hou Jing's land offering now? If there is trouble, it will be too late to regret!" It was very risky, but emotionally, it was difficult for him to resist the temptation of the big gift package. Zhu Yi on the side jumped out to shake his wits, and said: "Your Majesty is holy and admired by the north and the south. Now that Hou Jing divides the land of Wei State to surrender, it is a manifestation of God's will. If he refuses to accept it, who will be willing to join him in the future? His Majesty Wanwang Don't be suspicious any more." Zhu Yi deserved to be Emperor Liang Wu's number one favorite minister, and when he flattered him, Emperor Liang Wu was overjoyed, and immediately made a decision to accept Hou Jing, and he was named king of Henan and general, and he was in charge of the military forces in Henan and Hebei (even Gao Cheng The controlled Hebei is also under control, and the "ambition" of Emperor Wu of Liang was fully exposed).Liang Guo sent Sizhou Inspector Yang Yaren and others to lead an army of 30,000 to Xuanhu (now Runan, Henan), transporting grain, grass and weapons with the army, and passing through to meet Hou Jing. Not long after Liang Guo's reinforcements started from Jiankang, Hou Jing's side started fighting ahead of schedule.Gao Cheng sent Wuwei General Yuan Zhu and other generals to lead tens of thousands of soldiers and horses to attack Hou Jing day and night. The two armies met in the north of Yingzhou, and Yuan Zhu's army was defeated. After winning the first battle, Hou Jing's situation turned from bad to bad. Seeing that Yang Yaren's army hadn't arrived yet, he temporarily withdrew to Yingzhou.This retreat was taken advantage of by Gao Cheng, and the next offensive of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, led by Situ Hangui, followed one after another, and Hou Jing's main force was surrounded in Yingzhou, which was extremely embarrassing. (Hou Jing's rebellion, like himself, was congenitally "lame". Henan is the barrier of Yecheng. The Eastern Wei Dynasty cannot afford to lose, and it is determined to defend it; Hou Jing is arrogant, thinking that holding Henan can do whatever he wants, and the governors of various states Thinking of Gao Huan's old kindness, he couldn't agree with Hou Jing; Hou Jing was a genius in military affairs, but he was far less profound than Gao Cheng in politics, and winning battles on the battlefield would inevitably lead to political defeats. In the beginning, it was restrained everywhere and completely passive.) Hou Jing understood that it would be impossible not to bleed some blood. He gritted his teeth and asked Yuwentai of the Western Wei Dynasty for help, expressing his willingness to cut off the four states of Dongjing, Beijing, Jing, and Ying that bordered the Western Wei Dynasty (the area south of the west and south of Xuchang in Henan Province today) ).This is much more reliable than the big gift package from the Thirteen States, how will the Western Wei Dynasty respond?