On the eighth day of the first month of the third year of Zhou Xiande (956), Chai Rong led the guards and pro-army to command, Li Chongjin was made to return to the Dejie degree, Zhang Yongde was commanded by the army in front of the palace, and Zhao Kuangyin and other generals were in front of the palace, and the army was killed in Shouzhou with a mighty army. But at this time, a new situation appeared, that is, the reinforcements sent by the Southern Tang Dynasty court had been one step ahead and approached Shouzhou.

Although the Southern Tang Dynasty was the lord and the secret minister at this time, the national strength was still very strong. After Li Jing learned that the Zhou army had invaded the border, he appointed the general Liu Yanzhen to deploy the camp capital in the north, and Huangfuhui was the envoy of Fenghua (ruled in Jiangzhou) Jiedu, and Yao Feng was the commander of the Changzhou regiment, leading a total of 40,000 troops, divided into two ways to rescue Shouzhou. On the day when Chai Rong led the army to the expedition, the main force of the Southern Tang Dynasty reinforcements led by Liu Yanzhen had arrived in Laiyuan Town (now southwest of Shou County, Anhui, located on the east bank of the Huai River), and then transferred to hundreds of giant warships and killed Shouzhou in a mighty manner.

This situation surprised Li Gu, the commander of the former army of the Later Zhou Dynasty, because the place of Laiyuan Town was very close to the pontoon bridge built by the Zhou army in Zhengyang, and if Liu Yanzhen sent a group of troops and horses to attack the pontoon bridge, the pontoon bridge would inevitably be lost.

Li Gu was born in a literati and was very timid, and immediately summoned the generals after hearing the news: "Liu Yanzhen will definitely send troops to seize the pontoon bridge with reinforcements, if the pontoon bridge is destroyed by them, the back road of our army will be cut off by them." We are all northerners, do we still have to fight a water war with them? Hurry up and withdraw your troops. ”

After speaking, he did not discuss with the generals, directly ordered the withdrawal of the army, retreated to the Zhengyang pontoon bridge along the dry road, and immediately sent someone to Chai Rong to explain the matter.

Two days later, Chai Rong met the messenger who came back to report in Yuzhen. Only then did he know that Li Gu had withdrawn his troops from Shouzhou, and he was immediately disappointed. Because the reason Li Gu said is actually not valid. Even if the pontoon bridge is recaptured by the Tang army, it can still be rebuilt. There was no problem of the back road being cut off at all, so after receiving the report, Chai Rong hurriedly sent an envoy to the front line to order Li Gu not to withdraw the army. But at this time, Li Gu had already led his troops to withdraw to Zhengyang, and Chai Rong's will was meaningless.

On the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, Chai Rong arrived at Chenzhou (now Huaiyang County, Henan Province) with a large army, and he expected that since Li Gu had withdrawn his troops from Shouzhou, there would inevitably be pursuers behind him, so he immediately sent Li Chongjin to lead his army to rush straight to the Huai River. Go and join Li Gu. At this time, Liu Yanzhen of the Southern Tang Dynasty had entered Shouzhou City by water, and when he heard that Li Gu had destroyed the camp and withdrawn his army, he was immediately overjoyed, and he refused to even eat breakfast, so he immediately changed to a land route and then chased after him.

As mentioned earlier, Li Jing has no knowledge of people, and is surrounded by heavy straw rice buckets, and this Liu Yanzhen is no exception. Liu Yanzhen was born in a wealthy family in Shouzhou. I don't have any talent, but I'm good at collecting money. By accumulating money, he bribed the power of the dynasty to be promoted, and then he collected money after he was promoted, and then he went to bribe after he collected money. This creates a virtuous circle. And finally became a big official, and served as a festival envoy in many feudal towns, at this time it was already the Shenwu unified army of the Southern Tang Dynasty (the fifth and sixth armies of the forbidden army). He was a powerful man, but he had no military talent of his own.

Liu Renzhen has worked with him for many years. I know that he can only hold money and will not fight. hurriedly dissuaded him and said: "Lao Liu, before your army arrived, the enemy was scared away, isn't this because your signboard is big and famous!" I am clear about your military talents, and I can understand how you want to contribute to the country. But this goal has been achieved! As the saying goes, 'the rabbit kicks the eagle when it is in a hurry, and the dog bites when it is not in a hurry', so why do you have to drive them to a dead end! ”

His words were also well-intentioned, but Liu Yanzhen was very flustered when he heard that Li Gu had withdrawn his troops, and he didn't have time to take away a large amount of grain and grass, so he had to burn it down, and he felt that he was done dealing with this kind of enemy

There was no problem at all, so he refused to accept Liu Renzhen's suggestion at all, and insisted on chasing it like chicken blood. Liu Rengan's repeated persuasion was ineffective, so he had to watch him go to his death with a large number of reinforcements. After Liu Yanzhen's army was pulled out, Liu Renzhen sighed helplessly and said: "Liu Yanzhen will lose this battle, hurry up and prepare for it!" ”

On the seventeenth day of the first month, Liu Yanzhen came to Zhengyang with a large army, intending to seize the pontoon bridge of the Zhou army. At this time, he had tens of thousands of troops in his hands, waving flags all the way, and the momentum was very huge. However, at this time, the Zhou guards commanded Li Chongjin to arrive in Zhengyang before him, and when he saw Liu Yanzhen leading his troops to attack, he lined up on the spot to fight with the Tang army.

This time, Liu Yanzhen was frightened again, the troops in his hands were not less than the Zhou army, but he did not dare to attack, but he hurriedly ordered the Tang army to line up the formation, and sprinkled the iron thistle in front of the formation, and pulled the iron rope on both sides, and hung a sharp blade on it to prevent the Zhou horse army from charging.

Li Chongjin is also one of the world's famous generals, and he can see at a glance that this is Liu Yanzhen's timidity, so he pointed to the enemy and laughed at his opponents: "Liu Yanzhen is arranged like this, don't you want to sing here!" "After that, he didn't wait for the enemy to open the gong, and immediately waved his army to cover the past. As a result, more than 10,000 Tang troops were killed in the first battle, Liu Yanzhen was killed on the spot, thousands of people under his general Xian Shilang were captured, and 300,000 pieces of equipment and armor were captured, winning a complete victory.

Because the Southern Tang Dynasty has been peaceful and prosperous for many years, there has been no major war in the local area for many years. Therefore, the defeat of the Tang army in the battle of Zhengyang caused a panic in the whole country, and the people in the Shouzhou area were so frightened that they fled into the city, and the aid that had not yet arrived made Huang Fuhui and Yao Feng, the prisoner of the aid capital, dare not go any further, and retreated to Qingliuguan (now northwest of Chuzhou City, Anhui Province), and the neighboring Chuzhou assassin Wang Shaoyan was even more frightened, and directly abandoned the city and fled.

On the second day, the news of Li Chongjin's defeat of the Tang army in Zhengyang reached Chai Rong. At this time, Chai Rong had already walked to Yongning Town (now southeast of Fuyang City, Anhui Province), after he heard the news, he still showed his demeanor as a generation of Ming monarchs, and was not overjoyed by the victory of this battle, but said to the people on the left and right very calmly: "I heard that when Li Gu withdrew his troops from Shouzhou, many of the people who fled to the city returned to the village. But since the Tang army was defeated this time, wouldn't these people have to flee back to the city again?

If we besiege the city for a long time, these people who have fled into the city will only starve to death, and I feel sorry for them, so I should send messengers to appease them first. to reduce the occurrence of these misfortunes. So he sent a large number of envoys to reach the outside of Shouzhou before the army. To pacify the local people and stabilize the local social environment. still played a role.

On the 22nd day of the first month, Chai Rong arrived at the city of Shouzhou, set up camp north of the river, ordered all the departments to surround Shouzhou from all sides, and the next day issued a decree to gather hundreds of thousands of people from Song, Hao, Chen, Ying, Xu, Su, Xu, Cai and other prefectures, and cooperated with the army of the Later Zhou Dynasty to launch a crazy onslaught on the city of Shouzhou day and night.

At this time, the Zhou army had occupied an absolutely dominant position under the city of Shouzhou. But after all, Shouzhou has been a military town since ancient times. The city defense is very strong, and the defender in the city, Liu Renzhen, is a rare general, in the face of a strong enemy, he is fearless, he does not avoid arrows and stones every day, and he visits the city in person to organize the army and civilians to defend, so Chai Rong has nothing to do with him for a while. And at this time, in some states and counties near Shouzhou. There were still some Tang troops stationed there, which could pose a threat to the Zhou army at any time. Therefore, Chai Rong also felt that it was necessary to eradicate these Tang troops, which provided a stage for another hero in the world to fully show himself, this person was of course the future Taizu of the Northern Song Dynasty - Zhao Kuangyin. Zhao Kuangyin is a big man who can hang the top card in the history of the Five Dynasties or in Chinese history. But before he went to the Southern Tang Dynasty with Chai Rong this time, his name was not very loud.

Zhao Kuangyin had two flashes before, one in the Gaoping War. At that time, he rushed into the enemy line closely behind Chai Rong and fought hand-to-hand with the Han army. And with his superb martial arts, he left a deep impression on everyone present.

The other time was when Chai Rong sent troops to recover the four states of Qin, Jie, Cheng, and Feng, because at the beginning. Some difficulties were encountered, which caused some of the courtiers to waver.

At this time, Chai Rong assigned Zhao Kuangyin to go to the front line to conduct research to see if this battle could be fought. After Zhao Kuangyin went, after careful analysis and repeated demonstrations, he finally issued a feasibility report to Chai Rong, thinking that this battle would definitely be won.

Sure enough, it didn't take long for news of the victory to come from the front. But other than that, Zhao Kuangyin has nothing to show for it.

Zhao Kuangyin was the capital of the former army of the Later Zhou Palace at this time, and his official position was very high. This position is the third in command of the palace front army, and he is the one who gets rid of the chief and deputy commanders, and at this time, the main commander of the palace front army is Guo Wei's son-in-law Zhang Yongde, and the deputy commander is vacant, so Zhao Kuangyin is actually the second in command.

The reason why Zhao Kuangyin was able to rise to such a high position so easily was inseparable from Chai Rong's hard cultivation.

This reason has also been said before, Chai Rong has just come to power and urgently needs to have his own wings, and Zhao Kuangyin is the first young, the second is capable, and the third background is not complicated, which can fully meet his needs. It is precisely for this reason that Chai Rong promoted the middle-level general of Zhao Kuangyin's forbidden army to the top of the army in one fell swoop after the first battle of Gaoping.

However, although Chai Rong is seriously optimistic about Zhao Kuangyin's ability, Zhao Kuangyin has never led troops to fight alone after all, and he has never made outstanding military exploits for the country.

In the Battle of Gaoping, although Zhao Kuangyin performed outstandingly, it only proved that he was a brave general. After the battle of Shu, Zhao Kuangyin has been working behind the scenes, so this battle did not bring him much reputation.

This is still far from Chai Rong's requirements for him and Zhao Kuangyin's actual ability, so this time Chai Rong intends to send troops to clean up the Tang army outside Shouzhou City, which provides Zhao Kuangyin with a stage to fully show himself.

At this time, there were two Tang armies near Shouzhou that had to be removed, one was the Southern Tang Navy Division led by He Yanxi, the commander of the soldiers and horses, stationed in the Tushan camp 100 miles northeast of Shouzhou, with hundreds of warships and more than 20,000 soldiers and horses.

The other was an infantry army sent by Li Jing to cooperate with the northern camp to deploy Liu Yanzhen to fight, led by the supporting envoy Huang Fuhui and the supporting capital supervisor Yao Feng, stationed at Qingliuguan, 300 miles southeast of Shouzhou. These two forces were at each other's throats with Liu Rengan's troops in Shouzhou City, and together they posed a threat to the Southern Expeditionary Army of Later Zhou.

On the 26th day of the first month of the third year of Zhou Xiande (956), Chai Rong ordered Zhao Kuangyin to lead 20,000 soldiers and horses to conquer the Tushan Southern Tang Water Division led by He Yanxi.

Tushan is located in Huaiyuan County, Anhui Province today, this place is very famous, in the early years Dayu once treated the water here, and because the work is too busy, has passed by the door many times without entering, set a good example for future generations.

Of course, Zhao Kuangyin went to Tushan this time to be busy with work, and his work pressure was even greater than that of Dayu back then, because this was the first time in his life that he led the army alone, so whether he could fully prove his ability and live up to the leader's entrustment to him and the people's delivery depends on the outcome of this battle.

Judging from the pre-war analysis of this battle, the strength of the two sides is about the same, the Zhou army is a little stronger, and the Tang army waits for work, and the victory or defeat accounts for five or five each, but the final result is the unexpected smooth victory of the Zhou army, which also fully shows Zhao Kuangyin's extraordinary war genius and Chai Rong's superhuman vision.

After Zhao Kuangyin arrived at Tushan, he did not rush to the Tang army camp with his troops like a novice, but ambushed the main force in advance at the mouth of the vortex (where the vortex River enters the Huai River in present-day Huaiyuan County), and he only brought a hundred cavalry to break into the camp.

Since the siege of Shouzhou by the Zhou army, He Yanxi, the commander of the Southern Tang Dynasty, began to guard day and night in the Tushan camp.

As a result, when he left the camp, he saw that there were only 100 Zhou troops coming, and he was immediately overjoyed, and immediately waved his army to cover the past.

Zhao Kuangyin was no match for him, so he turned around and ran, and He Yanxi chased after him with a large army. chased and chased into the ambush circle, and as soon as He Yanxi felt that something was wrong, the Zhou army had already killed all the fronts. In a hurry, the Tang army was killed and crushed, and fled all the way back, but when they returned to the camp, they messed up the formation again, and the Zhou army followed and broke in. In this way, the entire battalion of the Tang army collapsed, and more than 10,000 were killed by the Zhou army in the first battle, and more than 50 warships were captured, and He Yanxi was also killed by the Zhou army in the chaos.

In this battle, Zhao Kuangyin cleanly attacked the Tushan Water Division camp in the Southern Tang Dynasty, and fully proved his genius in military affairs with indisputable facts, which not only impressed the world, but also made Chai Rong very satisfied with his performance.

So when Zhao Kuangyin just went back to make a mission, Chai Rong immediately assigned him another arduous task, asking him to lead the army to attack three hundred miles away and kill the Southern Tang Emperor Fuhui Department entrenched in Qingliu Pass.

Huang Fuhui was a general who switched from the Central Plains to the Southern Tang Dynasty, and he was a very fierce scoundrel. In the Later Tang Dynasty, Huang Fuhui was only a junior colonel in Wei Bo's army, stationed in Beizhou (now Qinghe, Hebei), and his status was very low, but it did not prevent him from doing a major thing. This is when Li Cunqiao killed Guo Chongtao, Huang Fuhui immediately rebelled with others on the spot in order to quickly change his living situation.

First, he coerced a small colonel to be the leader, but the junior colonel refused to obey and was killed on the spot by Huang Fuhui. Then he found Zhao Zaili again, but Zhao Zaili didn't dare to agree, so Huang Fuhui threw the head of the little school over and said: "If you dare not obey, this is your fate." ”

Zhao Zaili had no choice but to be the leader, and later gave up the position of the leader to Li Siyuan, and finally succeeded in the rebellion and praised Li Siyuan as the emperor. (To be continued.) )