In September of the second year of Tianyou (905), Yang Xingmi, the lord of Wu, sensed that his life was coming to an end, so he recalled his eldest son Yang Wu, intending to let him inherit the rule of the Jianghuai region. In the era of peace, this practice of passing from father to son is naturally unquestionable, but in that era of division and strife, Yang Xingmi is not sure whether his son can succeed to the throne smoothly.
Since arriving in Jianghuai, Yang Xingmi has spent almost his entire life fighting for the territory, neither having the opportunity to unify the internal establishment of the independent rule of the Yang family, nor lacking the time to properly train his son so that he can go smoothly.
Although Yang Xingmi became the king of Wu and controlled several places such as Yangzhou, most of the other prefectures and counties were controlled by local forces such as Liu Wei and Tao Ya. Despite the deterrence of pro-forces, in the turmoil of the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, these pro-armies could betray at any time, and no one could ensure loyalty.
Therefore, Yang Xingmi and his regime have always faced the dilemma of internal and external attacks. Yang Xingmi is located in the Jianghuai region, surrounded by strong enemies. In order to survive, several generals had to be sent to fight on multiple fronts. During the war, the power of the generals was unprecedentedly expanded, and their respective forces were inevitably formed, and small feudal towns within Yang Wu began to appear.
It can be said that what Yang Xingmi left to his son was a weak imperial court and a group of small feudal towns that could rebel at any time. When Yang Xingmi was alive, they could still obey the command, and once Yang Xingmi died, Yang Wu's prestige would naturally be difficult to suppress them, and the Wu Kingdom would inevitably fall apart.
Before Yang Xingmi's death, such signs had already appeared.
In October of the same year, Yang Wu arrived in Guangling. As Yang Xingmi's eldest son, Yang Wu inherited the throne naturally. However, Zhou Yin, the judge of Huainan Jiedu, who had been following Yang Xingmi for a long time, thought that the young Yang Wu was unconvincing, and suggested that the position of King Wu be handed over to Liu Wei, the deputy envoy of Huainan Jiedu, and return it to them when Yang Wu and the others matured.
There are common examples of struggles for power in history, but there have been no cases of relinquishing power and then returning. Liu Wei, the deputy envoy of Huainan Jiedu, lacked the prestige and ability of Yang Xingmi, and was not of the Yang family's bloodline, and Zhou Yin's proposal was tantamount to coercion, which was equivalent to rebellion in other dynasties.
However, Yang Xingmi did not care, and even the other generals did not express their position, which indicates that they held similar views even if they did not conspire with Zhou Yin. Coupled with Yang Xingmi's inaction, it is obvious that Yang Wu has moved towards a trend of alliance between feudal towns and towns, and there is even a situation of publicly promoting the leader of the alliance.
Although Liu Wei lacked ability and prestige, Zhou Yin and the others needed such a person with a weak reputation, so as to cancel the power of the Yang clan and at the same time develop freely under the weak lord. They are more inclined to act cautiously under the control of the Yang clan.
Didn't Yang Xingmi notice these signs? In fact, Yang Xingmi had already planned to weaken the feudal towns, and in his later years took the initiative to reconcile with the surrounding regimes, with the aim of concentrating on reducing the feudal domains. However, a sudden serious illness caused the plan to cut the feudal domain to fall through.
What's worse is that his descendants are still on the front line, unable to return in time to help, and he is fighting alone, making it even more difficult to leave loyal auxiliary ministers for his son. At the critical moment, the left and right teeth around him made Xu Wen and Zhang Hao stand up to support Yang Wu, but their motives were not entirely out of good intentions.
On the one hand, Xu and Zhang are not people in the Huaiyang circle, and they cannot integrate into its core, so they can only be attached to the Yang family. They supported Yang Wu mainly because they were worried that they would lose power after Liu Wei, the representative of the feudal town, took the throne. What's more, Yang Wu has a weak foundation and has become an ideal puppet.
Therefore, in the troubled times of the five generations, the so-called loyalty is difficult to sustain, but in this case, what choice does Yang Xingmi have? They can only be trusted temporarily.
On November 26, Yang Xingmi died, and Yang Wu, who was only 20 years old, ascended to the throne with the support of Xu and Zhang. But the two changed their faces immediately after Yang Xingmi's death, not only abusing their power, but also cultivating a large number of cronies, showing that they have always been for their own interests.
According to Sima Guang's Zizhi Tongjian, Yang Wu was weak and incompetent, indulged in immorality, and eventually angered Zhang Hao and Xu Wen, leading to his own death, and his defeat was completely self-inflicted.
If the young master wants to succeed to the throne, he must first establish his prestige.
In fact, Yang Wu is not as simple as it seems. In the face of difficulties, he does not want to be manipulated. In the early days of his ascension, he immediately appointed his own Xuanzhou team to form a new guard, which caused the dissatisfaction of the new Xuanzhou assassin Wang Maozhang.
Wang Maozhang was a famous general in the early days of Yang Wu, who defeated Zhu Wen's nephew Zhu Youning in Qingzhou, and even repelled Zhu Wen's pro-army, and even Zhu Wen praised his ability.
If Wang Maozhang rebelled directly, with Yang Wu's strength at that time, he would not be able to resist at all. But Yang Wu also had his own strategy, that is, to counter Wang Maozhang through checks and balances, and the person who counterbalanced him was Li Jian, the former commander of the Black Cloud Capital, who had gone on the expedition with him.
Li Jian is a veteran of Yang Xingmi and has a close relationship with Yang Xingmi. But because of this, despite his military exploits, his promotion was still slow, because Yang Xingmi urgently needed to be loyal to his descendants to deter the locality, and he did not easily send them out to fight. Therefore, until Yang Xingmi's death, Li Jian failed to become a state assassin.
And those generals who were not as successful as him had their own territory one by one, and he was naturally jealous.
Yang Wu's ability to make proper use of Li Jian had nothing to do with Yang Xingmi's arrangement, mainly because of Yang Wu's generosity, and directly appointed Li Jian as the training envoy of the Chuzhou regiment, which was a real military and political governor of a state in the late Tang Dynasty, and Chuzhou was a good place with a large population and abundant food, Li Jian was naturally grateful.
Wang Maozhang naturally knew Li Jian's combat effectiveness, especially his fear of Heiyundu.
Why are they so afraid of Black Cloud? Is Wei Bojun strong? Heiyun Duzheng and Wei Bojun's Tooth Soldier Silver Spear Festival said that although there were only 5,000 people, they were all elite, and their predecessor was Sun Ru's army.
Therefore, when Yang Wu introduced Li Jian and there was an internal mutiny, Wang Maozhang did not hesitate to give up Xuanzhou and defect to Qian Biao, the king of Wuyue, and the soldiers of Xuanzhou followed Yang Wu.
With Li Jian's support and Wang Maozhang's departure, Yang Wu temporarily stabilized his position. Subsequently, Zhou Yin was executed to establish his authority, and as for Liu Wei, who was supported, he was directly degraded by Yang Wu because of his incompetence and lack of prestige. Through these initiatives, Yang Wu initially established his authority.
But then, Yang Wu became impatient, and he should have steadily eliminated the forces of Xu and Zhang, but he took too radical measures. He failed to take advantage of the contradictions between Xu and Zhang to divide them, but instead united them. Unable to stabilize internally, he was eager to expand externally in order to gain authority.
In April of the fourth year of Tianyou (907), Zhu Wen, the king of Liang, abolished Tang and became independent, and Kaiyuan Kaiping, but Yang Wu continued to use the name of Tianyou. Zhu Wen was dissatisfied and ordered Ma Yin, who was stationed in Hunan, to attack, but Ma Yin's Chu State was weak and the people were tired, so he did not dare to act rashly, so he sent people to pretend to attack at will to deal with it.
This infuriated Yang Wu, who believed that this was a provocation by Ma Yin and immediately organized a large army to go on the expedition. The candidate for the expedition was none other than the Yang regime's descendant, Li Shenfu's regiment, to march westward.
Li Shenfu is Yang Xingmi's sons and daughters, extremely loyal to Yang Xingmi, and after his death, he handed over the army to his subordinate Liu Cun, and can be said to be one of the few trustworthy armies in Yang Wu.
However, Liu Cun's initial attack was unfavorable, and Yang Wu was anxious to gain wisdom and sent Chen Zhi to add reinforcements. Chen Zhixin was also Yang Xingmi's general and was extremely loyal to the Yang family, but the two combat forces that the Yang family relied on the most were easily transferred to the west by Yang Wu, and after a long period of attrition on the Yuezhou front, Yang Wu lost two important support forces at once.
During the period of Heiyundu's westward expedition to Ma Chu, Yang Wu and Heiyundu had constant contradictions. Although Yang Xingmi reused Heiyundu, he did not fully trust its commander, and eventually replaced it with his own generals, such as Xu Wen and Lu Shizhou, which would undoubtedly weaken Heiyundu's combat effectiveness. In addition, due to Yang Wu's poor relationship with Xu Wen and Lü Shizhou, they were further marginalized during his reign.
In the conquest of Ma Chu, Yang Wu simply used the reputation of Heiyundu to scare Ma Yin. However, due to the fact that Lu Shizhou had a holiday with Yang Wu, coupled with Yang Wu's suspicion, Lu Shizhou directly took refuge in Ma Yin in anger, and Yang Wu's trust in Heiyundu has dropped significantly.
Now Yang Wu still has a reliable general at hand, that is, Qin Fei. Qin Fei was a loyal follower of Yang Xingmi, both civil and military, and was arranged by Yang Xingmi to sit in Shengzhou (present-day Nanjing), apparently hoping that he could assist Yang Wu.
But Yang Wu obviously did not take him seriously, and in the same year that Ma Chu was conquered, Zhong Chuan, who had seized Jiangxi, died of illness, and civil strife broke out between his parents and adopted sons, providing Yang Wu with an opportunity to take advantage of the fire to rob.
For Qin Fei, the conquest of Jiangxi seemed to be just a trip, but Yang Wu was still not at ease, and sent his guard in Guangling City to the Eastern Banyuan Army to experience, under the pressure of the army, Jiangxi Zhong quickly surrendered, which also doubled Yang Wu's territory.
In the name of territorial expansion, Yang Wu began to be arrogant, believing that he had surpassed his father Yang Xingmi. However, the three armies loyal to the Yang clan were all fighting outside, and the black clouds were not trustworthy, which completely deprived Yang Wu of the ability to control internally. However, Yang Wu was unaware of it, and instead indulged even more.
In addition to hunting, Yang Wu also loves to play ball. In order to be able to play at night, he spent a lot of money to make giant candles, which required more than one person to pick them up.
What's even more ridiculous is that in order to get a bigger playing field, he moved the last escort team out of the city to make room for himself to play, completely forgetting about Xu and Zhang around him.
In May of the fifth year of Tianyou (908), Xu and Zhang, who seized the opportunity, conspired to kill Yang Wu and carve up Yang Wu, and then surrendered to Later Liang. Yang Wu, who lost his confidant, was soon killed, and then other relatives of the Yang clan were also killed on a large scale, and the Yang family's forces, which had been in Jianghuai for many years, completely lost their real power.
Only a few years later, Xu Wen killed Zhang Hao again, completely controlled the military and political power, and finally his adopted son Xu Zhihe usurped Wu to establish the Southern Tang Dynasty, Xu Zhihe changed his name to Li Yu, it can be said that the Southern Tang Dynasty was established on the basis of Yang Wu.
To be honest, Yang Wu's first few steps were quite decent, and he quickly established his authority. But he forgot about the potential internal crisis, knowing that there was a potential threat around him, but he was confused by the ** of external expansion, and took the initiative to send his descendants to the battle, but he did not leave any defense around him, and finally died in the civil strife.
Yang Wu was actually the first monarch of the fifth generation of the Ten Kingdoms to lose his country. For the rulers of the five dynasties and ten kingdoms, the loss of the second generation of the Yang family is a lesson worth learning from, that is, you must first settle inside before you can go outside, but the heroes of the five generations have never really learned the lesson, and they are always taken by the glory of opening up the territory, ignoring the internal security, and constantly repeating these mistakes.
Yang Wu's lesson, the five generations of male masters have never really learned.
From Zhu Youzhen to Li Cunxuan, Liu Chengyou to Guo Wei, Chai Rong to Zhao Kuangyin, they all died due to civil strife. It was Song Taizong who really understood this.
The words left by Song Taizong in his later years show a profound insight: although the external danger is severe, there is always room for prevention, only the internal treachery is difficult, for the emperor, this is the biggest threat, and we should always be vigilant.
It is no accident that Song Taizong was able to have the last laugh.