Chapter 29 Zhida's "wealth" sparse: Wenzong's weakness

As soon as the imperial court declared war, the feudal vassals immediately had different reactions. Wuning Jiedu made Wang Zhixing the most active. He not only led an army of 30,000 to the battlefield, but also prepared five months of military rations.Of course, the reason why Wang Zhixing volunteered so much was not necessarily out of loyalty to the imperial court.First of all, Wuning is located in the Jianghuai River, and the interests of Hebei are not closely connected; secondly, Wang Zhixing probably wants to take advantage of the conflict between the imperial court and Hebei to expand his sphere of influence.

What is more surprising is that the three towns in Hebei, who have always worn the same pair of trousers, have adopted a very different stance on the issue of Henghai this time. Although Henghai is located in Hebei, compared with the three professional rebels Lu Long, Wei Bo, and Cheng De, they have much less experience in fighting the imperial court, and their own strength is also much smaller.Therefore, as soon as the imperial court issued the crusade order, Li Tongjie quickly sent a lot of treasures and beauties to the three bosses, hoping that they would help them. Facing Li Tongjie's bribery and asking for help, the three towns reacted in subtle ways.

The first to respond was Li Zaiyi, Lulong Jiedu envoy.When Li Tongjie's nephew came to see him with a gift, Li Zaiyi tied him up without even thinking about it, and then presented him and his belongings to the court. The reason why Li Zaiyi was eager to draw a clear line with Henghai was naturally not out of loyalty, but out of guilt. As a Jiedu envoy who came to power by mutiny, Li Zaiyi knew very well that the legitimacy of his position was actually much weaker than that of Li Tongjie.At least the family is still the successor of the father and son, but he is usurping the throne and seizing power.Now, the imperial court actually sent him, the usurper, to fight the hereditary one, apparently to give him a chance to show his loyalty and shape the image of a loyal minister.No matter what Li Zaiyi thought in his heart, at least on the surface, it was necessary for him to use this opportunity to cleanse himself, in order to strengthen the legitimacy of his power and consolidate the status of Jiedushi.

In addition, the former Jiedu envoy Zhu Yansi who was killed by him is a descendant of Zhu Tao. Although Zhu's family has been exterminated by him, after all, several generations have served as Jiedu envoys, and there are many fans among Lu Long's soldiers. If Li Zaiyi can't Taking advantage of this opportunity to gain the trust and support of the imperial court, it is hard to say whether he will be able to secure the position of Jiedushi in the future.Therefore, no matter from which angle he looked at it, he had to take a tough stance towards Henghai. Compared with Li Zaiyi, who has a clear attitude, Wei Boshi's position is quite ambiguous.

Because Shi Xiancheng was caught between Henghai and the court—on the one hand, he was related to Li Tongjie’s father, Li Quan. Now that Li Tongjie was in trouble, it seemed unreasonable not to help him; In order to crusade against Li Tongjie's camp, it seemed to express his trust in him and to test him. Shi Xiancheng was quite embarrassed, so he had no choice but to adopt a strategy of sitting on the fence. While secretly subsidizing food and grass for Li Tongjie, he hurriedly sent people into the court to find out the bottom line of the court. The envoy of Wei Bo first called on the elder Pei Du.As we all know, since the time of Emperor Xianzong, Pei Du has been the core figure in the court's handling of the affairs of the feudal town, so finding out his views on Wei Bo is equivalent to finding out the court's trump card.

The envoy of Wei Bo was overjoyed that Pei Du trusted Shi Xiancheng so much that he repeatedly stated that he believed that Shi Xiancheng had no second thoughts about the imperial court. There is a saying that a wise man will make a mistake if he worries about it. This time, Pei Du completely misjudged Shi Xiancheng. However, there are still discerning people.When Wei Bo's envoy rushed to Zhongshu Province again to meet Wei Chuhou, Zhongshu's servant, he had a bad nose here. Wei Chuhou gave the envoy a sidelong glance, and said slowly: "I heard that Mr. Pei tried his best to protect your commander-in-chief in front of the emperor, and said that he was willing to use the lives of the whole family to guarantee your commander-in-chief. Unfortunately, I, Wei Someone has a different opinion from Mr. Pei. I just want to keep my eyes open to see the actual actions of your commander-in-chief. Go back and tell Mr. Shi that no matter what he did, the imperial court has its own rules and regulations. Rewards should be rewarded and punishments should be punished. Punishment is absolutely unambiguous!"

The envoy rushed back to Weibo and relayed Wei Chuhou's words to Shi Xiancheng. Shi Xiancheng felt a cold sweat. He knew that Wei Chuhou was deeply trusted by the emperor, and his status and role in the current imperial court was no less than that of Pei Du.Therefore, if he continues to play the game of both ends of the first mouse, he may be buried with Li Tongjie. Realizing this, Shi Xiancheng had to stop funding Henghai, and sent troops to attack Li Tongjie a few months later. Among the three towns in Hebei, the only one who supports Henghai is Chengde's Wang Tingcou. Because Wang Tingcou was very dissatisfied with the court.

In this crusade against Li Tongjie, the imperial court assigned missions to both Lu Long and Wei Bo, but he was the only one who left out Chengde. Is this an unintentional mistake? Obviously not. This is because the court did not trust him. When Wang Tingou thinks of this, he gets angry—grandma, then Li Zaiyi and Shi Xiancheng came to power through mutiny just like Lao Tzu, so why should they carry the banner of the imperial court? I Wang Tingou should be left behind side? Of course, Wang Tingcou's support for Li Tongjie this time was not just out of the jealousy of being snubbed by the court.

More importantly - he felt a fear of being classified as a separate book by the court. Since the imperial court distrusted him the least among the three towns in Hebei, once Li Tongjie was dealt with, wouldn't it be him, Wang Ting, who had to deal with it next? !Out of such a sense of crisis, Wang Tingkou naturally wanted to form an ally with Li Tongjie to fight against the imperial court together. In the autumn of the first year of Taihe, after a balance of interests, the three towns in Hebei each chose their own camp, two for the court, and one for Henghai. This winter, the two sides started fighting.

Of course, Wenzong Li Ang at this time would not have thought that although the battle of Pingfan was won in the end, the court paid a heavy price for it. This war has been fought for nearly two years. In the winter of the first year, Wenzong lost Wu Chongyin, his most important anti-rebellion general. In the winter of the following year, he lost his most trusted confidant, Prime Minister Wei Chuhou. Of course, this pair of civil servants and generals did not die directly in the war, but died of illness, but it was obviously a big blow to Wen Zong Li Ang who had just ascended the throne.

The sudden departure of his right-hand man made Wenzong very sad, and what happened next put him in a desperate situation. Since Wang Tingcouu blatantly supported Li Tongjie against the imperial court, Wenzong had to attack Wang Tingcouu at the same time in September of the second year of Taihe, fighting on two fronts between Henghai and Chengde. The further expansion of the scale of the war directly resulted in a sharp increase in military expenditures.Originally, Mu and Jing, who spent money like water, did not leave much wealth to Li Ang. Now, the war machine running at high speed is like an insatiable monster with a huge mouth, ruthlessly devouring Li Tang's people's fat and people's anointment and the stretched empire's wealth... Looking at the rapidly depleted treasury, Wen Zong Li Ang felt deeply helpless and sad. On April 19th in the third year of Taihe (829 AD), this protracted war finally came to an end.Li You, the newly appointed governor of Henghai, conquered Dezhou (now Shandong Ling County), an important town in Henghai; on the same day, Li Zaiyi, the governor of Lulong, captured the outer city of Cangzhou, the governor of Henghai. Seeing that the general situation was over, Li Tongjie had no choice but to surrender to the court, and was soon hacked to death by the court's comfort envoy. At the end of the month, Li Tongjie's head was sent to the capital, and Henghai declared peace. Wenzong Li Ang smiled weakly. Rather than saying it was a triumphant smile, it would be better to say it was a smile of near-exhaustion and rejoicing. If Li Tongjie persisted for another half a year, it would definitely not be him who collapsed first, but the court. Because the imperial court can no longer afford military expenses. Although winning was very thrilling, Wenzong finally won back the long-lost dignity for the court.So, he still felt a little relieved. However, Li Ang absolutely did not expect that shortly after Li Tongjie's defeat, another mutiny broke out in Wei Bo. It was this mutiny that destroyed the fruits of victory won by Wenzong's court through all kinds of hardships. After pacifying Henghai, Wenzong made a series of major administrative and personnel arrangements in order to completely eradicate future troubles.Shi Xiancheng was appointed as the governor of Weibo to be transferred to Hezhong (where the government is now in Yongji City, Shanxi), and Li Ting, the governor of Yicheng, was appointed as the governor of Weibo; at the same time, Xiangzhou (now Anyang City, Henan Province) and Weizhou ( Today's Weihui City, Henan Province) and Chanzhou (now southeast of Neihuang County, Henan Province) were set aside to set up another one, and another Jiedu envoy was appointed. Seeing that their feudal town was about to be dismembered by the imperial court, Wei Bo's arrogant soldiers all turned their attention to Shi Xiancheng, hoping that he could stand up at this critical moment and protect the interests of the feudal town and local soldiers. But the result disappointed them greatly. Since Shi Xiancheng turned to the court during the crusade against Henghai, of course he has to keep pace with the court now.Therefore, he not only willingly obeyed the imperial court's arrangement, but also removed all the gold, silver and satin from Wei Bo's treasury, preparing to take them all to the river.Unbearable, Wei Bo launched a mutiny at the end of June, killed Shi Xiancheng, and supported He Jintao as his heir.On the same day, Li Ting, an unsuspecting Jiedu envoy, arrived in Weizhou (Wei Bozhi Office, now Daming County, Hebei), preparing to take over Wei Bo.He Jintao took advantage of his unpreparedness to attack.Li Ting hastily responded to the battle, but the result was a disastrous defeat. More than half of the soldiers were killed or injured, and the rest fled. All the supplies, food and grass fell into the hands of He Jintao.Li Ting fled back to Huatai (Yicheng government office, now Huaxian County, Henan Province) in a hurry to escape with his own life. When the news came, Wenzong Li Ang was dumbfounded. The national treasury has long since bottomed out. If there is a war against Wei Bo, what will the imperial court use as food for the army? At this moment, Li Ang finally understood one thing: In this world, the most painful and helpless thing is not ambition and lack of talent, but - ambition and lack of wealth. At the beginning of August in the third year of Taihe, Wenzong was forced to appoint He Jintao as Wei Bo's Jiedu envoy, and returned the three states of Xiang, Wei, and Chan to Wei Bo.On August 25th, Emperor Wenzong issued an edict to pardon Chengde's Wang Tingcou and his followers, and restored all their titles. The vigorous battle of Pingfan ended in failure. It was a fatal blow to Li Ang, who had just ascended the throne, for the first contest with the feudal town to end like this.He felt that the Zhongxing ambition that had been burning in his chest for many years seemed to be extinguished at once, and turned into a cloud of green smoke that curled up and drifted away. From then on, Li Ang became depressed. Throughout his life, he never came out of the shadow of this failure. Even though he became rich later, the emperor, who was deeply impressed by his "aspirations and talents", did not regain his fighting spirit and courage in the early years in the affairs of the Pingfan. Instead, he became exactly like his father and brother-a complete compromiser. For a person who once had great ambitions, such a result is really full of tragedy.However, when we look at Wenzong Li Ang's fourteen-year imperial career, we find that compared with the series of failures he will encounter thereafter, the failure of the three-year battle of Taihe is really nothing. In other words, Li Ang's tragic life has only just begun.