Chapter 11 9. Liu Kun's isolated city against Han soldiers

The rise of the Sixteen Kingdoms was largely due to the decline and suicide of the Jin Dynasty. As the Han regime, the Jin Dynasty was really lackluster at the time, but there were also many good generals in the Jin Dynasty. During the period of chaos in the north after the fall of Luoyang Up-and-coming Liu Kun is one of them.Since we want to talk about the heroes of the Sixteen Kingdoms period, I think Liu Kun should be one of them. We might as well look at the situation in the north after the fall of Luoyang from Liu Kun's perspective. Speaking of Liu Kun’s life experience is also very interesting. He is the descendant of Liu Sheng, King Jing of Zhongshan in the Western Han Dynasty (actually he is of the same clan as the ancestor of the Shu Han who emphasized his life experience all the time! Hehe, I don’t know how Liu Kun told people about his background), Both his grandfather and father were officials in the Wei and Jin dynasties. When he was young, he had outstanding literary talents and was good at poetry and fu. He was listed in the famous literati group "Twenty-Four Friends" together with his elder brother Liu Yu.

(Speaking of the "Twenty-Four Friends" of the Western Jin Dynasty, it is not too much to say that "there are a lot of talents and brilliant stars". Just mentioning the name of a beautiful man Pan An (real name Pan Yue) is enough to scare the world. Although the gentry class in the late Western Jin Dynasty tended to be more powerful and extravagant, it was also objectively due to the influence of the "Twenty-Four Friends" The existence thus promoted the development of literary forms in the Central Plains, and promoted the improvement of the level of literary theory. It is a pity that such "Wei and Jin romances" only got trampled on by iron hooves, and most of the "Twenty-Four Friends" did not end well in the chaotic world and disappeared. , only literary talent has survived to this day.)

A man is ordered in times of crisis.In the first year of Guangxi (306 A.D.), Liu Kun was appointed as the governor of Bingzhou. At that time, Bingzhou was already fragmented due to the raid by Liu Yuan of the Han Dynasty. It was very difficult to reach Jinyang (now Taiyuan, Shanxi) .Liu Kun recruited 500 soldiers in the Shangdang area, and arrived in Jinyang after a difficult battle. Due to the war in Bingzhou, the people in Jinyang at that time had flocked to Yecheng.The city of Jinyang was devastated, "the government temple was burned down, the ground was covered by zombies, and those who survived were starved and destitute, the forest was full of thorns, and the road was full of wolves", which can be described as horrible.At that time, Liu Kun led the crowd to cut down the thorns, buried the bones, and rebuilt the houses and cities.He personally led the soldiers to defend the city, and let the farmers wear armor and weapons to cultivate, and gradually established a new defense system in Jinyang City.Liu Kun learned that the various tribes of the Huns were not united, so he resorted to divisive tactics to make many small tribes surrender to him. It is said that this was one of the reasons why Liu Yuan moved his capital.

Liu Kun also has another brilliant trick, which is to use Hu to control Hu.He formed an alliance with the Xianbei Tuoba tribe (this is the ancestor of the Tuoba tribe who later Megatron the North and established the Northern Dynasty) in Daizhou (now north of Shanxi, south of Inner Mongolia) in the northern part of Bingzhou at that time. Once formed a pincer attack trend.Later, Tuoba Yilu, the leader of the Tuoba tribe, was defeated and believed that Liu Yuan could not be eliminated. Liu Kun's army formed a stalemate with Liu Yuan's army, and finally had to be confined in the Jinyang area.But in any case, when the Han army swept across the north, Liu Kun persisted in Jinyang with his tenacious strategy and kept a corner of Bingzhou. You must know that when the troops of most northern states and counties encountered the troops of Shi Le, Liu Yao and others Basically, it is a one-hit defeat, a complete defeat.

Despite the strength of the Han army, Liu Kun only valued one person among Liu Cong's subordinates, and that was Shi Le.Therefore, when he found Shi Le's mother and his lost nephew Shi Hu, he sent envoys to hand them over to Shi Le, and personally wrote a book praising Shi Le's use of troops, intending to persuade Shi Le to surrender to the Jin Dynasty. Shi Le is also a sensible person, so he naturally knew where he should go. He replied to Liu Kun: "There are different ways to achieve success, which is not known by the rotten Confucianism. The king should try his best to save the dynasty, and I will be hard-pressed to do it." The meaning is nothing more than that people Everyone has their own aspirations, or you take your Yangguan Road, and I will take my single-plank bridge.

(Many of Shi Le's ideas really make people suspect that he is a Jie tribe with an extremely humble background. I think a group of counselors under him, especially Zhang Bin, should have a considerable influence on him. Given Shi Le's aptitude and ability, he certainly does not Liu Cong will fight to the end, but it is impossible for him to submit to the Jin Dynasty, otherwise we will have one less hero to talk about.) By the sixth year of Yongjia (312 A.D.), the general situation at that time was that the Han Kingdom had already occupied a large area of ​​land in the lower reaches of the Yellow River.Shi Le first defeated Wang Zan's army in Yangxia (now Taikang County, Henan Province), and captured Wang Zan alive. Then, taking advantage of the increasingly arrogant and extravagant general Gou Xi, who refused to listen to his subordinates and went on his own way, he attacked Mengcheng where he was located. Captured it in one fell swoop.

After finishing off the two Jin generals, Shi Le began to swing the butcher knife at Wang Mi, the surrendered general of the Jin Dynasty who controlled Qingzhou. It turned out that Wang Mi was not a vegetarian either. He had secretly sent someone to call his general Cao Ni to lead troops to attack Shi Le in order to achieve his goal of defending Qingzhou and claiming the title of king. caught.Shi Le killed the envoy, intercepted the documents, and lightly concealed Wang Mi, but secretly he had the intention of getting rid of Wang Mi. Shi Le captured Gou Xi and named him Zuo Sima (Gou Xi and Wang Zan later tried to rebel and were eventually killed by Shi Le).Wang Mi was dissatisfied, so he wrote to him and said: "Shi Gong captured Gou Xi and made good use of him. It's really a coup! If Gou Xi and I were Shi Gong's right-hand men, what would the world care about?"

Shi Le showed the letter to Zhang Bin with a smile, and said: "This Wang Mi is in a high position but deliberately speaks humble. It seems that he has the same intentions for me in the beginning!" Zhang Bin replied: "Wang Mi has the heart to be king based on Qingzhou, and the general also intends to rely on Bingzhou to make things happen. The reason why he hasn't done anything yet is just that he hasn't found a convenient time. If the opportunity comes, Cao Ni The army came at the same time, and the two enemies formed wings, I'm afraid it will be difficult to deal with. The general might as well take advantage of Wang Mi's slight decline in power, and lure him to destroy him."

It just so happened that Wang Mi confronted Liu Rui, the Jin general, and asked Shi Le for help.Shi Le was also fighting against the Qihuo army (the refugee army) Chen Wu, hesitating whether to send aid, Zhang Bin immediately said: "Isn't the general worrying that there will be no chance to destroy Wang Mi? How can we miss the opportunity now? Chen Wu But little Zhuzi, what is there to worry about? Wang Mi is a great man, so let’s get it done.” Then Shi Le made up his mind and sent troops to attack Liu Rui, defeating the Jin army.Looking back, Shi Le took advantage of Wang Mi's unpreparedness and invited him to come to the banquet. While the wine was in full swing, Shi Le gave an order, and all the swords, axes and hands were used together.

The "Hongmen Banquet" was planned, and Shi Le ordered his subordinates to draft a memorial to "report" Wang Mi to Liu Cong for treason.When Liu Cong heard the news, he was furious. Although he knew that Shi Le was the one who eradicated dissidents, he was frightened by the strength of his military and did not dare to turn his face casually. "In essence, he was named General Zhendong and let him take charge of the military affairs of Youzhou and Bingzhou. From this small move, it can be seen that Shi Le already has the strength to stand up to the court of the Han Dynasty, and his actual control extends southward to the area north of the Yangtze River.At this time, the forces of the Jin Dynasty (excluding Liu Kun and other Jin generals in the occupied area) were mainly distributed in two areas, one was some dignified officials of the Jin Dynasty headed by the crown prince Sima Ye; It was under the influence of Langya King Sima Rui, who was assisted by Wang Dao of a famous family, and was in the Jianye area in the south of the Yangtze River at that time.Although Sima Ye in Guanzhong is the legal heir to the throne, his strength is weak at this time, and he has almost become a frightened bird.The one with a little strength is Sima Rui who is in the south of the Yangtze River. The south of the Yangtze River has not been invaded by the war, and the economic situation has developed relatively well. In addition, many northern gentry moved south due to the war. Director Wang also persuaded Sima Rui to recruit sages. If the situation changes, you can make a big difference.Shi Le, who had been coveting Jiangnan for a long time (he had long had the ambition to stand on the river, which can be seen when he captured Xiangyang earlier), thought that he should attack Jiangnan as early as possible.So, in February of this year, he stationed a large army in the Gebei area, built a large number of ships, and prepared to attack Jianye, the political and economic center of the south of the Yangtze River.