The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms were a period of political division that occurred after the fall of the Tang Dynasty in China, taking the five dynasties of later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou that appeared in the northern Central Plains, and more than a dozen countries established by Shudi, Jiangnan, Lingnan, and Hedong in the south as a general term.
The so-called chaotic hero, in the chaotic world of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, there is indeed a hero, just like a bright pearl in the darkness, this person is wise and heroic, heroic, and strives to govern, compared with TangZong Hanwu, he is not much inferior to Tang Zong Hanwu, he is the emperor Chai Rong of the last dynasty of the five dynasties.
Chai Rong was the nephew of Guo Wei, the founding emperor of the Later Zhou Dynasty, and was later adopted by Guo Wei as an adopted son, and the history books describe him as "handsome in appearance, good at riding and shooting, slightly through the history of Huang Lao, sexually heavy and taciturn", Chai Rong was in the early days because of his family road in Jiangling, he was bumpy and displaced, and he was deeply touched by the social and people's feelings.
In 954, Later Zhou Taizu Guo Wei fell seriously ill and passed the throne to his adopted son Chai Rong on his deathbed, thus beginning his short and brilliant career as an emperor.
Stabilize state politics
After Chai Rong ascended the throne, he was ambitious, ambitious, and determined to unify the world, so he first settled the internal affairs. Within the state, he straightened out the administration of officials, severely punished corruption and bribery, and achieved marked results; he was particularly good at soliciting advice, paying attention to the selection of qualified personnel, personally correcting the shortcomings in scientific expeditions, and making people make the best use of them; in addition, he also vigorously built water conservancy projects, reclaimed wasteland, set up land grants, and made positive changes in the areas of water transportation and minting money, vigorously promoting the development of agricultural commerce, and promoting the country's economic construction and production restoration.
Rectify military affairs
Later Zhou had narrowly won the Battle of Gaoping with the Northern Han and Khitan armies, and Chai Rong reflected deeply after the war and clearly understood that there were problems in the Later Zhou army that the generals did not carry out orders and the soldiers' combat effectiveness was weak, so he began to reorganize the army. He put forward the guiding principle that "the soldiers are not in the crowd", selected elite personnel to join the army, expelled the weak from the barracks, and recruited the world's strong men and women to select the strong, which not only saved expenses, but more importantly, made the soldiers and pawns of the Later Zhou Army elite and greatly enhanced their combat effectiveness.
Expand your territory
After Chai Rong ascended the throne, he was bent on realizing the dream of a unified empire, so he marched south to the north, plotted horses and whips, and personally conquered all sides with the respect of the emperor, fearless. He personally led the army five times, each time personally, fighting in the front line, he basically solved the situation of nearly 200 years since the Middle tang Dynasty, laying the foundation for ending the most chaotic era in Chinese history.
Battle of Gaoping
In 954, Guo Wei died and Chai Rong ascended the throne, and the Northern Han lord Liu Chongwenxun believed that Zhou Tianzi was newly established and his foundation was unstable, so he united with the Khitan army of nearly 100,000 to invade Later Zhou. Chai Rong personally marched north to meet the enemy after receiving the report, which was the most dangerous battle in his life, when the Zhou army was at a disadvantage and almost collapsed, Chai Rong personally risked the arrow stone to supervise the battle, which greatly encouraged the morale of the army, and soon the war situation turned into safety, and the coalition army collapsed. The victory in this battle stabilized the situation and was of great significance.
Western Expedition to Houshu
In 955, Chai Rong led an army to destroy Later Shu and recover the four prefectures of Qin, Cheng, Jie, and Feng in Later Shu.
Three Expeditions to the Southern Tang Dynasty
Chai Rong led three expeditions to the southern Tang in 955, 957, and 958, respectively, and all of them were invincible, collecting the sixty counties of the fourteen prefectures of Jianghuai in the Southern Tang.
Northern Expedition khitans
In 959, Chai Rong personally led the armies north, straight into the territory of the Liao State, all the way into the territory of nobody, facing the strong enemy Khitan who had been occupying the East Asian continent for half a century, he had nothing to fear, for more than a month, Yingzhou, Mozhou, Ningzhou, Yizhou, Waqiaoguan, Yijinguan, And Sikouguan, straight to Gu'an County, all the way to the wind. Seeing that the city of Youzhou (Beijing) was about to be recaptured, Chai Rong suddenly fell ill and had to return to the dynasty.
A month later, Chai Rong died, Chinese New Year's Eve nine years old.
In just five and a half years, the emperor fought all over China's southeast, southwest, and northwest, and he never compromised, never yielded, never feared, and only knew how to move forward and charge forward. This kind of merit and efficiency is really rare in the history of Chinese emperors, he laid the foundation for the unification of the world in the Song Dynasty, and it is no exaggeration to say that Zhao Kuangyin was on chai rong's foundation, taking Chai Rong's belongings and laying the foundation for himself in the Song Dynasty.
It is a pity that he died young, otherwise with Chai Rong's combat effectiveness and efficiency, the establishment of a new unified dynasty is only a matter of time, and the grandeur and territory will not be worse than that of the Han and Tang Dynasties. However, all this was finally made for others, and half a year after Chai Rong's death, Zhao Kuangyin launched a mutiny and snatched his country from the hands of the orphans and widows he left behind, and the great deeds he created and his dynasty could only survive under the glory of the Great Song Dynasty for three hundred years.