Wei Xiaokuan (509 – December 580), a native of Jingzhao Duling and the son of Wei Xu of Wuwei Taishou, was an outstanding military and strategist of the Northern, Western, and Northern Zhou dynasties during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. He was highly skilled in martial arts and brilliant in intelligence, and in his lifetime he fought in the south and the north, and his military achievements were outstanding, and he worshiped the Great Sikong and shangzhu guo, and was enfeoffed as the Duke of Yun.
Wei Xiaokuan and the Northern Qi general Huo Luguang were equally famous, and the two were also the biggest opponents, but the Seventy-two Generals of the Wumiao Temple were still ranked before Huo Luguang. Although Wei Xiaokuan was once defeated at the hands of Huo Luguang, Wei Xiaokuan knew the truth of the Shangbing plot, and if he could not fight, he used a counter-plot to get him, and as a result, the lord Gao Wei self-destructed the Great Wall and really killed Huo Luguang, and wei Xiaokuan was no longer invincible.
Wei Xiaokuan was an upright man who understood change and was good at reading the history of the Scriptures. When he was twenty years old, he encountered Xiao Baoyu launching a rebellion in Guanzhong, so he went to the capital Luoyang and asked the imperial court to let him go to quell the rebellion as the vanguard of the army, and the imperial court admired his behavior and appointed him as a unified army (this is the advantage of having a backstage). Wei Xiaokuan marched west with his army, and every time he fought, he had military merits, and after the war, he was appointed as Dr. Guozi and acted as the Taishou of Huayin County. It just so happened that Yang Kan, the governor of Zhenshoutongguan, saw Wei Xiaokuan's ability and gave his daughter to Wei Xiaokuan as his wife.
Wei Xiaokuan, the god of war of the Three Dynasties
During the Northern Wei Dynasty (531-537 AD), Wei Xiaokuan made many military achievements under Yuwen Tai and rose all the way to the great general, Southern Yanzhou Assassin History. Over the years, in addition to marching and fighting, Wei Xiaokuan gradually established a huge spy organization, and he used heavy money to bribe many people from enemy countries to act as spies. Whenever there was anything that needed to be done by these spies, they were willing to serve Wei Xiaokuan. Therefore, Wei Xiaokuan guarded the border, and he could learn about the enemy's major actions, troop dispatch plans, and changes in the DPRK and China in a timely manner. (Thinking so far ahead, I knew the importance of spy organizations so early on.)
In 537, the Eastern Wei generals Duan Chen and Yao Jie once again captured Yiyang and sent Yangzhou to assassinate Shi Niu Daoheng to agitate the people on the Western Wei border, and Wei Xiaokuan was deeply worried about this. So he sent spies to obtain Niu Daoheng's handwriting, and asked people to imitate and forge a letter from Niu Daoheng to Wei Xiaokuan, which mentioned that Niu Daoheng had the will to submit, and then pretended to burn the letter, and then asked the spy to send the letter to Duan Chen's military camp. (Is it very familiar, many later generations of yanyi followed this routine) After Duan Chen got this letter, he really began to suspect Niu Daoheng. Wei Xiaokuan knew that the enemy generals had been separated and contained each other, so he sent out a surprise attack, captured Duan Chen and Niu Daoheng and others in one fell swoop, and settled the area around Kunshan and Shuichi.
The Eastern Wei and Western Wei dynasties of the Southern and Northern Dynasties
In the twelfth year of the reign (546), Wei Xiaokuan was transferred to the post of Assassin of Hezhou Prefecture, leading the army to guard Yubi and concurrently managing the important affairs of Nanfen Prefecture. Because of the merits of the Hu people in the Pingding Mountains, he was again promoted to the title of Governor of Dadu. This year, Wei Xiaokuan ushered in the biggest crisis in his life, and it was also the most wonderful and high-light offensive and defensive battle.
In October (546), Gao Huan, the wise and divine warrior, led an army of 100,000 to besiege Yubi, a major western route. At this time, the national strength of Eastern Wei was strong and Western Wei was weak, and in the City of Yubi guarded by Wei Xiaokuan, there were only a few thousand soldiers, and they could only hold the city to death. Gao Huan's 100,000-strong army attacked the city day and night, and Wei Xiaokuan also actively commanded the defense to fight.
Northern Qi Shenwu Emperor Gao Huan
Gao Huan piled up tushan in the south of the city, hoping to suppress the defenders in the city from a commanding position. Wei Xiaokuan tied wooden pillars and raised city towers, higher than Tushan, and threw stones and arrows, so that the Eastern Wei army could not succeed. Gao Huan also ordered the army to dig tunnels from underground, hoping to dig through the city walls from underground to enter the city. Wei Xiaokuan dug a large chasm around the city, and as long as Gao Huan's soldiers entered from the end of the tunnel, they would fall back into the long ditch and wait to die; Wei Xiaokuan was still piled with firewood in the long ditch, and as long as there was a tunnel opening exposed, he would send people to fill the mouth of the cave with firewood and grass, and after lighting it, he would use his skin bag to blow wind into the tunnel, and the enemy troops in the cave were immediately burned and rotten. Gao Huan also ordered people to build siege vehicles to crash into the city, and the siege vehicles were indestructible. Wei Xiaokuan sewed countless large cloths into giant mantles, which shifted with the direction of the siege vehicle, because the large mantle was suspended in the air, the attack vehicle was hard and soft, and the power had been dissipated before the collision. The Eastern Wei soldiers tied pine sackcloth to a long pole and soaked it in oil to light it, hoping to burn the curtain and the city gate. Wei Xiaokuan then made a sharp blade and tied it to the long pole, cutting off the opponent's long pole with fire.
There was no way out, Gao Huan once again used the previous tunnel, propped up a large wooden pillar under the city wall, and then poured oil to burn it fiercely, the beams and pillars in the tunnel collapsed, and many sections of the city wall also collapsed. Wei Xiaokuan erected a large wooden fence at the site of the city collapse, and the Eastern Wei soldiers still could not attack it. Gao Huan could not attack for a long time, and finally sent people to threaten and induce him to surrender, but it was still in vain. Gao Huan attacked Yubi for more than fifty days, because the number of sick and dead people who died in battle was piled up, and the plague broke out, So Gao Huan could only suspend the siege and dig a pit to bury the body. Gao Huan racked his brains to attack the city, returned to the camp, and in a fit of anger, he was bedridden. One night a large star fell in the camp (the ancients believed that a meteorite was a falling star), and Gao Huan was terrified and withdrew his army that night. Wei Xiaokuan could not pursue because of the lack of a major general, and on the way back, he sent Xiao Zuo to Gao Huan's army to spread the news that Gao Huan was dead, and then killed Gao Huan half dead, and before long, emperor Gao Huan of the Shenwu Emperor died in shame and remorse.
Fierce siege battles
In this battle, more than 70,000 People died of illness in the Eastern Wei Army, and Gao Huan also died shortly thereafter, completely changing the situation of the east being strong and the west being weak, and laying the foundation for the future destruction of Northern Qi. Emperor Wen of Wei's Emperor Yuan Baoju was thus credited with sending Sun Shaoyuan and Zuo Cheng Wang Yue (左丞王悦) to comfort him, and promoted Wei Xiaokuan to the rank of Grand General of the Horse Riding, Kaifu Yi Tongsan Division, and Feudal Zhongjun Duke.
In the first year of the Reign of Emperor Xiaomin of the Northern Zhou Dynasty (557), Yuwen Juedai Western Wei was called emperor, with the state name Zhou, and the history was called Northern Zhou. In the second year of Wucheng (560), Yuwen Yong (宇文邕) assumed the throne as Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou. Emperor Wu of Zhou placed Wei Xiaokuan in Yubi prefecture with wei xiaokuan's merits in Yubi, and appointed Wei Xiaokuan as the assassin of Xunzhou.
Emperor Yuwen of the Northern Zhou Dynasty
In the sixth year of Tianhe (571), the archery governor Hu Luguang led the people to build the towns of Pinglong, Weibi, and Tongrong, and the thirteen schools of Shu. The Northern Zhou dynasty state Mu Baohan GongPu Tun wei and the pillar state Wei Xiaokuan led more than 10,000 infantry to attack Pinglong, and fought with Huo Luguang to the north of Fenshui, where Hu Luguang defeated the Zhou army and captured more than a thousand people.
In the seventh year of Tianhe (572), Wei Xiaokuan knew from spies that Northern Qi was full of internal contradictions, and in order to solve the problem of Huo Luguang, the pillar of Northern Qi's front line, he sent his special spy troops to Northern Qi's city to create rumors, and compiled them into children's songs: "Hundred liters fly to the sky, and the bright moon shines on Chang'an (hundred liters is a hu, bright moon is the word for Huo Luguang, and rumors allude to Huo Luguang's ambition to usurp the throne.") He also said, "The mountains do not push themselves to collapse, and the quercus trees do not support themselves." Zu Jue, who happened to be the prime minister of Northern Qi, had a personal vendetta with Huo Luguang, so he added oil and vinegar to report to Gao Wei, the son of Northern Qi. Gao Wei thought that Huo Luguang was going to rebel, and immediately ordered Huo Luguang to be killed. Wei Xiaokuan effortlessly eliminated a fierce enemy.
Most of the fallen eagles are overseers of Hu Luguang
In June of the seventh year of The Northern Zhou Dynasty (578), Emperor Wu of Zhou died and Emperor Xuan succeeded to the throne. In February of the first year of the Northern Zhou Dynasty (579), Wei Xiaokuan ascended the throne of Shangzhu Guo, serving as the military governor of Xu Yan and the fifteen towns of the eleven prefectures and Xuzhou. In September, Emperor Xuan appointed Wei Xiaokuan as the marshal of the march, and led the marching commanders Yu Wenliang and Liang Shiyan to attack Chen Guohuainan, and Wei Xiaokuan led his army to conquer Shouyang, Huangcheng, Guangling, Huozhou and other places along the way. Chen Jun could not resist, and could only move the people of the southern, northern Yan, jin three prefectures, and nine counties such as Xuyi, Shanyang, and Pingyang to Jiangnan to avoid its front. Wei Xiaokuan took advantage of the situation to go down to Chenzhou and Northern Xuzhou, and from then on, the land area north of the Yangtze River became the land of Northern Zhou.
Northern Zhou, Northern Qi, Chen
In March of the second year of the Northern Zhou Dynasty (580), the Zhou army returned to the division, and when it reached Yuzhou, Yuwen Liang plotted a rebellion and prepared to raid Wei Xiaokuan and annex his people. However, Wei Xiaokuan had spies everywhere, so the spies in Yuwen Liang's office reported to Wei Xiaokuan, and Wei Xiaokuan secretly set up an ambush to wait for Yu Wenliang to come and send people's heads, and soon Yu Wenliang was beheaded.
In May of the second year of the Northern Zhou Dynasty (580), Yuwen Yun, the Emperor Xuan of Northern Zhou, fell ill and died. Emperor Jing of Zhou, Yuwen Yan, was young, and Yang Jian, the chancellor of the left, was in charge of the dictatorship. Yang Jian, worried that Yuwen Tai's nephew Wei Chi was in a high position and had heavy troops, wanted to summon Wei Chi into the dynasty in the name of burying Emperor Xuan of Northern Zhou, and sent Wei Xiaokuan as the governor of Xiangzhou to replace Wei Chi. In June, Wei Chiyi feared that Yang Jian's dictatorship would be detrimental to Northern Zhou, so he openly raised an army against Yang Jian. (It turns out that Wei Chiyi was right, and Yang Jian did usurp Zhou Jiansui.
Emperor Yang Jian of Sui
In June of the second year of the elephant, at the request of Yang Jian, Wei Xiaokuan agreed to lead an army as a marshal against Wei Chiyi. In July, the army was stationed in Heyang. Yi Tong Xue Gongli and others appointed by Wei Chiyi besieged Huaizhou, and Wei Xiaokuan sent troops to defeat them and marched southeast of Yongcheng Bridge in Huai County. Huai County was in a fortress area, the walls were strong, and Wei Chiyi had already sent troops to guard it. The generals believed that the city was at stake and requested that Huai County be captured first. Wei Xiaokuan believed that although the city was small, it was strong, and the attack was in vain, and as long as the main force was defeated, the small city did not matter. So he led the army to garrison Wuzhi, and defeated the army of Wei Chiyi's son Wei Chi, who fled to Yecheng. Wei Chiyuan personally went to war, Wei Xiaokuan defeated him again, and Wei Chiyuan was cornered and forced to commit suicide. In October, the army returned to the capital in victory. Xiao Kuan died in November at the age of seventy-two (a month before his death, he also cleared the way for the Sui Emperor Yang to insist that the emperor was emperor, and it is no wonder that Wei Xiaokuan's sons were each called dukes in the Sui Dynasty). After Wei Xiaokuan's death, he was posthumously given the title of Taifu (太傅), the Military Commander of the Twelve Prefectures ,雍州牧, and the posthumous title of Xiang(襄).
Wei Xiaokuan
Sources from the Book of Zhou, the Book of Wei, the Book of Sui, the History of the North, the Zizhi Tongjian, and the Biography of the Seventeen Hundred Generals of the Seventeen Histories