Then there is the intensification of the resistance and struggle of the Huainan people against the Later Zhou. Long before the Zhou army entered Huainan, because the Southern Tang Dynasty forcibly exchanged tea and salt for the local people's chestnuts and silks, and built camps here, the local people's anti-government sentiment was very strong. So much so that after the Zhou army arrived, the local people responded in groups, and greeted each other with pot pulp, and the scene was still very touching. If it can be made into a documentary, it will be very meaningful to educate the next generation.

It's a pity that the overall quality of the Zhou army is really problematic, and after entering the country, they began to loot on a large scale. When Chai Rong was there, he could still control it to some extent, but after he left, these officers and soldiers were even more lawless, burning and looting all day long, and treating Li Min as a mustard. This time, the people of Huainan were greatly disappointed, so they had to "gather in the mountains, build forts and fortify themselves, operate agricultural tools as soldiers, and accumulate white paper as armor" in the vast battle world, and started a desperate struggle with the Zhou army.

At that time, there were many units of such local armed forces, large and small, and the weapons were not uniform, but because they were all dressed in paper armor, they were collectively called the "White Armor Army" by the people of the time.

Most of the sources of the White Armor Army were local people, and their combat effectiveness was not strong, but they were brave in battle, familiar with the terrain, and had the essentials of guerrilla warfare. Therefore, the Zhou army repeatedly sent troops to encircle and suppress, with little effect, and often was defeated by it, and was made very passive.

In addition, after all, the Southern Tang Dynasty is a big country in Jianghuai, although it has been repeatedly hit by the Zhou army, but it is also unwilling to sit still, so after Chai Rong returned to the Central Plains, the Southern Tang Emperor Li Jing launched a general mobilization of war in the country, regrouped an army of up to 50,000 troops, and still took the command of Li Jingda, the king of Qi, and crossed the river into Huainan again. to rescue Shouzhou.

In July, Li Jingda came to Haozhou with a large army. And garrison with this. Then he sent a detachment of soldiers and horses to rescue Shouzhou and set up camp in the Purple Mountain (ten miles northeast). Raise beacons with the defenders of the city, echoing each other from afar.

In this way, it caused great pressure on the Zhou army outside the city, and the newly appointed Zhou Huainan Jiedu envoy and Yanjiang recruited envoy Xiang Xun, deeply felt that the Zhou army was too scattered in the Huainan area, and was afraid that it would be broken by the Tang army one by one, so he hurriedly sent an envoy to Chai Rong to report the urgency, and asked to withdraw the army from Yangzhou first, and go to Shouzhou to join Li Chongjin's division.

At this time. It was when Empress Fu was seriously ill that Chai Rong couldn't get out of his body, so he had to agree to his request.

After receiving Chai Rong's will, Xiang Xun immediately raised troops from Yangzhou and moved closer to Shouzhou. After the news spread, the Zhou troops in various places in Huainan did not dare to stay in place, and gave up the captured prefectures and counties one after another, and hurriedly retreated to Shouzhou, and the scene was very chaotic for a while.

This was originally a good fighter for the Southern Tang Dynasty, but Li Jingda, who commanded the troops, had a cowardly mind. At this time, he was still afraid that if he killed and injured too many Zhou troops, it would deepen the hatred between the two countries, so he hurriedly ordered all Tang troops to guard their camps and not attack without authorization. so as not to provoke the Zhou army. This enabled the Zhou troops from all walks of life to calmly withdraw from all over Shouzhou, which also made the situation faced by the Southern Tang Dynasty in Shouzhou even more severe.

On July 21, Chai Rong's wife, Empress Fu, was unable to receive medical treatment due to illness. He died at the age of twenty-six. This incident made Chai Rong grief-stricken. But Chai Rong was not knocked down by this, but turned his grief into strength. In Daliang, he issued a decree to exempt the people of Huainan from paying taxes to the Southern Tang Dynasty and release the prisoners who were imprisoned. After these wills were issued, they won over the hearts of the people in Huainan.

At the same time, the monarchs and ministers of the Southern Tang Dynasty, from top to bottom, had a deep twilight, did not want to forge ahead, and only wanted to hold their hometown, and did not dare to have the idea of defeating the enemy at all, so that they missed the opportunity many times. So it didn't take long for the Zhou army to stabilize the situation in Huainan again.

On August 7, the Southern Tang generals Lin Renzhao and Guo Tingyu led their naval forces to Xiacai (the Huai River crossing north of Shouzhou), wanting to enter Shouzhou from here for reinforcements. Zhang Yongde led his troops to block it, and Lin Renzhao took advantage of the large number of people to give the order to storm the attack, and first sent a small boat full of dry firewood, and set fire to the wind, intending to burn the pontoon bridge built by the Zhou army here.

This was supposed to be a good way, but he didn't expect God to bless him, and suddenly the wind reversed, and these small boats were blown back by the wind before they could get close to the pontoon bridge, and instead burned a lot of the Tang army's warships, so they had to temporarily retreat.

Zhang Yongde took advantage of this opportunity to magically build a thousand-foot-long iron chain, which was more than ten steps away from the pontoon bridge, across both banks, and cut off the Huai River, so that the fleet of the Southern Tang Dynasty could not pass.

The Southern Tang naval division could not reach Shouzhou, and the small forces on the ground were repeatedly defeated by the Zhou army. After the fourth year of Xiande (957), Shouzhou had been trapped in the surrounding area for nearly two years, and the city was even more embarrassed, food was scarce, and people were panicked, and there was a danger of breaking the city at any time.

Liu Renzhen repeatedly wrote to ask for help, and the imperial court had no choice but to forward his letter to Li Jingda, the king of Qi in Haozhou.

This put Li Jingda under a lot of pressure, and in desperation, he had to send a large army from the west of the Huai River to rescue Shouzhou, and also set up camp in the Purple Mountain.

After arriving at the Purple Mountain, he set up more than a dozen camps like a bead, communicated with the defenders of Shouzhou, echoed each other from afar, and built a corridor between the camp and the city, preparing to connect it all the way to the city, so as to transport grain to the city. The arrival of this army was supposed to improve the situation in Shouzhou. However, Li Jingda was cowardly and did not dare to attack the Zhou army, and the Yongdao built was destroyed by Li Chongjin and his army before it was completed, so it did not help the crisis in Shouzhou.

On the twentieth day of the first month of the fourth year of Zhou Xiande (957), Chai Rong sent a decree that he would personally visit Huainan in February of that year. After the news came out, there was a great chaos in Shouzhou City, and Liu Renzhen couldn't sit still anymore, and urgently asked Li Jingda to allow him to go out of the city to fight a decisive battle with the Zhou army before Chai Rong arrived. In fact, Liu Renzhen also knew very well in his heart that even if he went out of the city now, he might not be able to defeat the Zhou army, but this was a way out of the way, and it was much better than lying in the city and waiting for death.

However, Li Jingda was still the same, he refused to agree to Liu Renzhen's request to go out of the city for a decisive battle, nor did he think of a good way to break the enemy, after receiving Liu Renzhen's request for war, he just looked at it with empty eyes, shook his head with a numb expression, and sent the messenger sent by Liu Renzhen back.

After Liu Renzhen received Li Jingda's instructions, he knew that the major event was irreparable, and he was very depressed. Immediately became ill. It didn't take long for the news to get out. Both the military and the people in the city knew that defeat was assured. The scene became even more chaotic, and they began to flee one after another, and even Liu Renzhen's youngest son, Liu Chongji, joined the ranks of the escape. It's a pity that Liu Chongji was too young and didn't have the skills to escape, so he was caught by patrol soldiers as soon as he ran out of the city.

When Liu Renzhen heard about this, he felt ashamed and embarrassed, and he refused to even see his son's face, so he ordered him to be beheaded. Cutting off is cutting off at the waist, which is a very cruel punishment. The people on the left and right were taken aback when they heard this, and they had the heart to plead, but they were afraid of Liu Renzhen's majesty, so no one would speak, so they had to go to Zhou Tinggou, the prison envoy.

After Zhou Tinggou heard about it, he hurriedly ran over to plead and said: "The child is not sensible, it is enough for the general to beat him, why kill him!" ”

Mr. Liu was bedridden at the time. Hearing this, he just sighed and said, "The country has reached this point, and as the commander of a city, I can't even restrain my own son. Who else are you going to restrain yourself? After saying that, he turned his face away and refused to say anything more.

Zhou Tinggou knew Liu Renzhen's personality and knew that it was useless to talk more, so he had to go to Liu Renzhen's wife to cry and plead for mercy. But Mrs. Liu also said: "It's not that I don't love this little son, but the Liu family is full of loyalty." There can be no loss in the name, if you let him go. In the future, what face will we have as a couple to say goodbye to all soldiers? After saying that, he urged people to be punished, and everyone present wept bitterly.

On 17 February, Chai Rong led his army from Daliang and marched towards Huainan. Chai Rong went to Huainan this time, and the preparations were still very sufficient, because when he first went to Huainan, he found a problem, that is, although the overall combat effectiveness of the Zhou army was far stronger than that of the Tang army, it was still far from the Southern Tang Dynasty in terms of naval division.

Therefore, during his return to Beijing, he set up a shipyard on Bianshui in the western suburbs of Daliang, built hundreds of warships, and ordered soldiers who surrendered from the Southern Tang Dynasty to help train the naval army of the Later Zhou. After a few months, Hou Zhou's water army had formed a scale.

On this expedition, Chai Rong appointed Wang Huan, the general of Houshu, as the general of the Right Xiaowei, and asked him to lead this naval army to enter the water from the Min River and drive into the Huai River along the Yingshui, so that the advantage of the Southern Tang Dynasty in the naval army no longer exists.

On the evening of March 2, Chai Rong crossed the Huai River and arrived at the foot of Shouzhou City. Surprisingly, Chai Rong did not untie the saddle armor, and refused to stay in Shouzhou City for the next moment, so he rushed to the Purple Mountain with the army that night, and arrived before the Southern Tang camp in the early morning of the next day, and immediately ordered the general Zhao Kuangyin to lead his troops to storm the Purple Mountain camp in the Southern Tang Dynasty.

Zhao Kuangyin had just been promoted to the commander of the army in front of the palace not long ago, and his heart was at the highest time, so he immediately rushed up with his headquarters after receiving the order, pulled out two villages in a row, beheaded more than 3,000 people, and completely destroyed the unfinished road built by Li Jingda, and won a great victory, until the evening, he triumphantly led the troops back to the camp.

On the evening of March 4, Shu Yuan, a general of the Southern Tang Dynasty, surrendered to the Zhou army with more than 10,000 people. Early the next morning, Chai Rong went to the former enemy again, and commanded his troops to launch a fierce attack on the Purple Mountain camp in the Southern Tang Dynasty, killing as many as 10,000 Tang troops on the same day, and capturing the Southern Tang generals Bian Hao, Xu Wenzhi, Yang Shouzhong and others.

The remnants of the Southern Tang Dynasty fled eastward along the Huai River, Chai Rong sent the generals to chase after them with cavalry, and pursued them all day, and the battle was completely over in the evening, and the Southern Tang Dynasty was killed, captured, surrendered, and drowned in a total of more than 40,000 people, and there were thousands of famous generals and colonels captured, hundreds of warships, and the lost weapons, armor, grain and grass were innumerable, and almost the entire army was wiped out.

Early in the morning of March 6, Liu Renzhen learned the news of the disastrous defeat of the reinforcements in the city, and stood for a long time, and then fell to the ground. At this point, there is no suspense about the fate of Shouzhou.

On March 13, Chai Rong sent a letter to Liu Renzhen, and clearly pointed out in the letter that surrender will protect you and your wealth, and stubborn resistance will only lead to destruction.

But at this time, Liu Renzhen was already too sick to wake up, and after seeing the letter, Zhou Tinggou, the envoy of the supervising army, summoned his subordinates to discuss, and wrote a letter asking for surrender in the name of Liu Renzhen and presented it to Chai Rong, and sent someone to send it to the camp of the Zhou army. In this way, the two-year-long offensive and defensive battle of Shouzhou was over.

The battle of Shouzhou, a dozen is two years, both sides have invested a lot of troops, the fight is still very hard, although in the end it was the Hou Zhou victory, but for them, even the attack on the eastern capital of the Southern Tang Dynasty Yangzhou did not take such a long time, so many soldiers were killed. The reason for this situation is inseparable from the stubborn resistance of Shouzhou guard Liu Renzhen.

However, Chai Rong not only did not blame Liu Renzhen at all, but praised him. On March 21, Zhou Tinggou and others sent people to carry Liu Renzhen out of the city on a stretcher to meet Chai Rong. At this time, Liu Renzhen was too sick to get up, and after seeing Chai Rong, his eyes were glazed, like a dead man, lying on the stretcher without saying a word. The people around him were terrified, but instead of blaming him, Chai Rong said kind words to him, rewarded him greatly, and then ordered someone to carry him back to the city on a stretcher to recuperate.

On March 24, Chai Rong officially appointed Liu Renzhen as the envoy of the Tianping Festival and the Zhongshu Order. Tianpingjun (ruled in Yunzhou) is a big town in the Central Plains, and the Zhongshu Order is the best among officials, which shows the importance attached to Liu Renzhen.

That's not all, Chai Rong praised Liu Renzhen in the words of the award: "Be loyal to what you do, and resist the festival without loss." How many people are comparable to the previous generation of famous ministers? I have rebelled, and there are many things", that is to say, he has conquered so many states and counties in the Southern Tang Dynasty these two times, and he can't follow a Liu Ren to support the precious. This is also a very high evaluation of people, but after Liu Renzhen heard it, he was ashamed and died of illness that night.

When the murderous report came, Chai Rong felt deeply regretful, so he had to posthumously crown Liu Renzhen as the king of Pengcheng County, send an envoy to pay tribute, and send his ministers to handle the funeral, and named his son Liu Chongzan as the assassin of Huaizhou, which is enough to give Liu Renzhen the glory.

Subsequently, Chai Rong ordered people to open all the treasury of Shouzhou, distribute food, and provide relief to the victims. On 29 March, Chai Rong led his army back north and arrived at Daliang on 12 April. In this way, his second personal expedition to the Southern Tang Dynasty also ended.

After Chai Rong returned to Beijing, the Southern Tang Dynasty began to organize a counteroffensive. In May of the fourth year of Xiande (957), Guo Tingyu, the defender of Haozhou in the Southern Tang Dynasty, led a fleet to destroy the vortex pontoon bridge built by the Zhou army, and then launched a surprise attack at Dingyuan (now Dingyuan County, Anhui Province), defeating the Wuxing De Department of the Later Zhou Wuning Jiedu stationed here. In this way, the situation in Huainan has been repeated.

On October 16, Chai Rong appointed Wang Pu as the eastern capital to stay behind, the prime minister of military affairs, followed by a large military parade, and the third personal expedition to the Southern Tang Dynasty. This time, Chai Rong set the target of the key attack on Haozhou.

The seat of Haozhou is located in the northeast of today's Fengyang, and Shouzhou, like Shouzhou, is also an important town set up in the Southern Tang Dynasty on the south bank of the Huai River.

On November 5, Chai Rong led his army to the outside of Haozhou. Since the loss of Shouzhou, Nantang has also paid great attention to the defense of Haozhou. In order to strengthen the defense here, a fortification was built on a shoal eighteen miles north of Haozhou City as the first line of defense against Hou Zhou.

This shoal is surrounded by Huai Shui, there are heavy troops in the middle, the Tang army guard Guo Tingyu thought he was foolproof, but he didn't expect that after Chai Rong arrived, he immediately sent the forbidden army general Kang Baoyi with hundreds of soldiers, riding camels through the water, and then ordered the general Zhao Kuangyin to lead the cavalry to follow, and conquered this shoal with a drum. (To be continued.) )