On August 8, the seventh year of Shaoxing (1137), the Southern Song army guarding Huaixi rebelled, and the commanders who were originally subordinate to Liu Guangshi's department, Li Qiong, Wang Shizhong, Jin Sai, etc., killed the supervising officer Lü Zhi and others, and led the whole army of more than 40,000 people and more than 100,000 people to surrender to the puppet regime established by the Jin people, which is known in history as the "Huaixi Mutiny".
There are many military coups in Chinese history, but it is rare for an entire army like the Huaixi military coup to surrender to the enemy, not to mention that it occurred in the entire political structure of the Song Dynasty to prevent military generals from seizing power. This is really unbelievable, how did the Huaixi military coup happen?
Let's start with the situation at the time. Before the Huaixi Military Revolution, there was a puppet regime established by the Jin people in the north of the Southern Song Dynasty, pseudo-Qi, and the emperor of the State of Qi was Liu Yu, an old minister of the Northern Song Dynasty. This Liu Yu was greedy and afraid of death, and killed the defenders during the Siege of the Jin Army and surrendered to the Jin people. Adhering to the concept of "Song people ruling the Song Dynasty", the Jin people supported Liu Yu to establish the State of Qi in the war zone between the Jin State and the Southern Song Dynasty, in order to achieve the purpose of internal friction of the Han people.
After Liu Yu ascended the throne, in order to show his loyalty, he spared no effort to attack the Southern Song Dynasty, hoping to completely destroy the Southern Song Dynasty. The Southern Song Dynasty established five major war zones along the river against the pseudo-Qi and Jin people, and Huaixi was one of the most important ones.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, in order to resist foreign enemies, the imperial court expanded the power of military generals. While this measure improved the combat effectiveness of the Southern Song Army, it also led to the problem of the commanders of the various armies supporting the self-respect of the troops and not listening to the dispatches. In the Battle of Huaixi, the Southern Song Army exposed many problems, especially Liu Guangshi's problems. Liu Guangshi was an old general of the Northern Song Dynasty, and he was very senior in the Southern Song Army, with more than 50,000 troops under his command. However, Liu Guangshi was greedy and lustful, neglected discipline to his subordinates, and recruited people of the three religions and nine streams, so that "there are many thieves under his command, and there is no discipline."
At that time, the Southern Song Dynasty was planning the Northern Expedition, so the chancellor Zhang Jun planned to punish Liu Guangshi to set an example, and he played an impeachment of Liu Guangshi: "Drunk and drunk, not sympathetic to state affairs, words to recover, spirits, begging for reprimands, in order to make an example of the general." (History of Song) Emperor Gaozong heeded Zhang Jun's advice and deposed Liu Guangshi as a young master and envoy to Wanshouguan, relieving him of his military powers.
After Liu Guangshi was deposed, the command of his 50,000 left guards became the most important issue. Logically, Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun had all had conflicts with Liu Guangshi, and Yue Fei, who had no suspicion with Liu Guangshi, seemed to be the most suitable candidate. However, Emperor Gaozong and Zhang Jun were reluctant to hand over the left guard to Yue Fei. Yue Fei was already in charge of the soldiers and horses of the Jinghu Theater of Operations, and he had the greatest military power, and if Liu Guangshi's army was handed over to him again, neither Emperor Gaozong nor any other courtiers would allow it.
Zhang Jun intended to let the imperial court directly control the left guard army, so he parachuted into the army department Shangshu Lü Zhi and used him as a supervisor. As for Liu Guangshi's original two generals, Wang De and Li Qiong, they were promoted to the positions of full commander and deputy commander respectively. However, this arrangement annoyed Li Qiong, who was originally on an equal footing with Wang Denai, but after Liu Guangshi left, he bowed down to Wang De, which made him resentful.
Li Qiong opposed Wang De everywhere in the army, and this matter was boiling in the army. It is reasonable to say that quickly transferring Li Qiong or pressing down is the best way to solve the problem, but the imperial court transferred Wang De away to avoid contradictions between the two.
However, after Wang De left, there was still a huge contradiction in the left guard army, that is, the contradiction between Lü Zhi and Li Qiong, who was also the military commander of the bingbu Shangshu and the supervising army, between the civilian subjects and the military generals. Liu Guangshi was transferred, which made the generals in the army very dissatisfied, they believed that this was a deliberate suppression of Liu Guangshi by civilian officials, so they were very hostile to Lü Zhi. Li Qiong was a fierce general in the army, and his prestige was great, and the generals in the army obeyed him and did not listen to Lü Zhi's dispatches.
Lü Zhi saw the situation and decided to directly replace Li Qiong and relieved him of his military powers. However, I don't know who passed on the news, and the whole military camp suddenly boiled over. Li Qiong heard that he would have nothing if he did not strike again, so he simply had a heart, killed Lü Zhi, and surrendered to Qi with his own concubine troops. Some of the rest of the army did not know the situation, some were wrapped up by Li Qiong and could not turn back, and finally 50,000 left guards, as many as 40,000 surrendered to the pseudo-Qi. Only the 8,000 people and scattered troops who originally belonged to Wang De's troops returned to the dynasty.
The "Huaixi Military Coup" dealt a huge blow to the Southern Song Dynasty. Before the Huaixi Military Revolution, the Southern Song Dynasty had already defeated the Pseudo-Qi many times, and the morale of the army was high, plus Yue Fei and other famous generals, whether it was Gaozong, Zhang Jun and others, were full of confidence in the Northern Expedition. In fact, there were also many problems with the Jin people at that time, coupled with the cruelty of the pseudo-Qi Liu Yu, the anger of the heavens, the Northern Expedition of the Southern Song Dynasty, or it could be successful, at least to recover the pseudo-Qi homeland is completely possible.
However, the Huaixi military coup gave the Southern Song Dynasty a head-on blow. Huaixi was at that time the Jianghuai stronghold of the Southern Song Dynasty's military front against the Jin and pseudo-Qi, and as a result, more than 40,000 people of the left guard army surrendered to the pseudo-Qi, and more than 100,000 people were encircled, and the entire Huaixi heavy land suddenly fell into a state of defense emptiness
Fortunately, the Jin and Pseudo-Qi did not take full advantage of this opportunity, because they were also busy fighting among themselves. Forty thousand Southern Song troops surrendered to Qi, but the Jin people were not very happy. For the Jin people, the pseudo-Qi is just a puppet that consumes the national strength of the Southern Song Dynasty, and they will never sit idly by while the pseudo-Qi sits on the throne.
In fact, Liu Yu was not completely loyal to the Jin people, and he also had his own ambitions. In the sixth year of Shaoxing, Liu Yu also requisitioned the people's husbands to attack the Song Dynasty without authorization. The Jin people did not have any assistance in this regard, and sitting and watching Liu Yu fail miserably showed the attitude of the Jin people.
In the year of the Huaixi military coup, the Jin people marched south and rushed to Kaifeng, directly deposing Liu Yu and destroying the pseudo-Qi. As for the 40,000 Huaixi army, the Jin people did not look at it at all, and in order to eliminate the troubles, they directly disbanded the 40,000 army.
Since the Jin did not seize the opportunity, the Southern Song Dynasty quickly rearranged the Huaixi heavy land, which reduced the losses of the Huaixi military coup by a lot. In the final analysis, the blow of the Huaixi Military Revolution to the Southern Song Dynasty was still huge, and the loss of troops in a war zone could not be borne by the Southern Song Dynasty. Moreover, this military coup also disrupted the Northern Expedition of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the efforts of countless people were burned to the ground.
Resources:
History of the Song Dynasty