After the fall of the Tang Dynasty, China entered the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, in order to compete for territory, warlords fought among themselves for many years, and the people suffered terribly. In just 72 years, dozens of people have been called emperors. Among these emperors, there were only a few people with good reputations, and Guo Wei, the grandfather of the Later Zhou Dynasty, was one of them. Guo Wei was born into a family of eunuchs, and his father was a Shunzhou Assassin, a high-ranking and powerful person. It is said that Guo Wei was born in such a family, Guo Wei's childhood should be very happy, but when he was two years old, his father Guo Jian was killed by Liu Rengong by Youzhou Jiedushi.
In order to live, his mother took Guo Wei to Luzhou to join his aunt Han Shi, and soon after his mother died of excessive grief because she missed her husband, but Han Shi loved Guo Wei more and raised him. In 922, Ze Lu jiedu made Li Jitao recruit troops in Luzhou, and the 18-year-old Guo Wei joined the army and became a soldier at Li Jitao's side. Because of his bravery in battle, he was deeply loved by Li Jitao. But an incident occurred shortly after that nearly cost him his life.
Guo Wei loves to drink and likes to fight unevenly. There is a butcher surnamed Zhang in the town, who has a lot of strength and often bullies and dominates the market. Guo Wei was very unaccustomed to it, and on this day, Guo Wei, who had drunk some wine, came to Zhang Butcher, asked him to cut the meat, and then scolded him. Zhang Butcher also knew that Guo Wei was not easy to provoke, and at first he swallowed his anger, but in the end he couldn't bear it, so he ripped open his clothes and pointed at his stomach and said, "If you have the guts, you can stab here!" Guo Wei grabbed the knife and stabbed him in the stomach, resulting in Zhang Butcher's life whimpering.
Zhang Yi's scene is very similar to the Water Margin's Lu Ti who punched the town of Kansai, but Guo Wei was more fortunate than Lu Zhi, and Li Jitao just hit him and put an end to the matter. Later, Guo Wei followed Li Cunxun and Liu Zhiyuan successively, and became Liu Zhiyuan's confidant, making great contributions to the establishment of the Later Han Dynasty. Liu Zhiyuan declared himself empress dowager, rewarded Guo Wei heavily, and appointed him as the privy councillor and inspector. After Liu Zhiyuan's death, his son Liu Chengyou succeeded to the throne, and Li Shouzhen(李守贞), Yongxing Jiedu (永興節度) made Zhao Sixuan and Fengxiang Jiedu (凤翔節度) make Wang Jingchong's disobedience to Liu Chengyou and rebelled one after another, and Guo Wei sent troops to suppress them one by one.
After the rebellion was put down, Guo Wei was promoted to Privy Counsellor for meritorious service and seized the power of the whole country. When Liu Chengyou saw Guo Weigong gao zhen, he conspired with his cronies to prepare to get rid of him, but unexpectedly the matter was revealed, and Guo Wei took the opportunity to raise an army, attack Kaifeng, and establish HouZhou. At this time, Guo Wei was 47 years old, more than half a hundred years old. Because he suffered a lot when he was a child, Guo Wei knew that the people's life was not easy, so after becoming emperor, he worked hard to govern, took many measures to reduce the burden of the people, and his personal life was also very frugal. In addition, he did not like other emperors to store beautiful women, Guo Wei only married four wives in his lifetime, namely Chai, Yang, Zhang and Dong, coincidentally these four people were widows before marrying Guo Wei. Guo Wei was frugal throughout his life, and when he died, he repeatedly told Chai Rong to bury himself in a paper-clad tile coffin, and he was also the only emperor in Chinese history to be buried in a paper-clad tile coffin, so posterity called him a generation of Ming Jun.