At the age of 23, Cao Bin was given the opportunity to lead for the first time in his life. As a result, he was stupid.
At that time, Zhao Kuangyin was deeply favored by Emperor Chai Rong of the Later Zhou Dynasty and was appointed as the inspector of the palace. This position, the head of the Janissaries, shows that Zhao Kuangyin is Chai Rong's most trusted military general and the "big red man" around the emperor.
To be able to build a relationship with such a red person, for ordinary officials, it is equivalent to adding officials to the knighthood and playing a package ticket. Moreover, Zhao Kuangyin was born with pride and righteousness, good wine, and from time to time there were officials around him who came to the door to send wine and send prayer posts, asking Lord Zhao to give him a clear path.
But all this, Cao Bin saw in his eyes, but there was no actual action.
Once, Zhao Kuangyin was addicted to alcohol, and he found two small soldiers to manage Cao Bin, an offering officer in charge of tea and liquor monitoring, to beg for wine. Who knows, Cao Bin is a set of official words against the two little soldiers, claiming that this wine is official wine, Lord Zhao is hungry, and I Cao Bin can privately pay for it and invite him to drink. But want to walk the back door at me? Sorry, no way.
The two small soldiers had to go back to report to their Lord Zhao, saying that the young Lord Cao did not know how to lift.
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Within a few years, the good wine lord Zhao added his yellow robe and became the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty.
Everyone thought to themselves, Xiao Cao was afraid that he would suffer.
Indeed, when the identity was just changed, Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin was also grumpy, why did Cao Bin not give himself face in the first place? If you want a few sips of wine just to drink a happy drink, you will not steal wine to sell, illegal crimes, is it difficult for Cao Bin to be very unhappy with himself in private?
Zhao Kuangyin approached Cao Bin to inquire.
Unexpectedly, the other party opened his mouth and said: "The subject is a relative of the Zhou Chamber, reinstated the internal post, Jing Gong guarded the position, I am afraid that I have been obtained, and I dare to have a friendship in vain?" ”
Old Zhao listened, ho! This boy is actually a piece of "wood", but he is a very good person, knows how to hold the official and keep the integrity on the way, and has a sense of justice.
After the misunderstanding was eliminated, Zhao Kuangyin made Cao Bin a guest envoy, assisting his close general Wang Quanbin and adding bricks and tiles to the entrepreneurship of the Great Song Kaiji.
In fact, Cao Bin's stupidity has not been a day or two.
As he himself said, he was related to the Former Zhou Dynasty Royal Family. His aunt Zhang Shi was Zhang Guifei of Guo Wei, the Taizu of later Zhou. Although the world that Guo Wei fought down was taken over by his righteous son and nephew Chai Rong, Cao Bin was also "broken bones and tendons", even if he was not a concubine, he was not sure that after the Later Zhou unified the world, he could also be a great hero in terms of merit and reward.
However, this imperial relative of the Later Zhou Dynasty showed a different side from other officials during the reign of his "big brother", Zhou Shizong Chai Rong.
Seeing that Cao Bin was principled in his work, Emperor Chai Rong of Zhou Shizong decided to appoint him as the new envoy of the Zhou Dynasty, responsible for sending envoys to Wu Yueguo on behalf of the Emperor.
▲ Portrait of Chai Rong of the Later Zhou Dynasty, Source: Network.
Wu Yueguo is located in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, with a wealth of people, and although its comprehensive strength is not comparable to that of later Zhou, it is stronger than its economy. For Cao Bin's visit, Wu Yueguo attached great importance to it, and not only sent a lineup of high-ranking officials to receive him, but also prepared various rare specialties to comfort Lord Cao's hard work.
Unexpectedly, this little Lord Cao was not bothered about this diplomatic etiquette reception. For the generous gifts prepared by Wu Yueguo, he did not look at them, and refused to accept them all, which caused Wu Yueguo to be quite embarrassed for a while.
In the end, the Wu Yueguo people, who were worried that they had not been in place, could only compromise on Cao Bin's return journey, catch up with the convoy, and sincerely offer gifts, so that after the envoy returned to China, he could say a few words for Wu Yueguo by Zhou Shizong's side.
In this case, if you continue to be selfless, it seems that people will not be able to go down the stairs. Cao Bin could only accept this batch of generous gifts in the name of keeping Wu Yueguo's gifts in place of Zhou Shizong. After returning to the court, he immediately handed over all the generous gifts given by Wu Yueguo to Yousi, indicating that he had not accepted any money.
This move made Zhou Shizong Chai Rong cry and laugh, and he could only force Cao Bin to accept Wu Yueguo's gift.
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Although Zhao Kuangyin inherited the imperial inheritance of Zhou Shizong Chai Rong as a "usurper", the two had no different views on the situation under the heavens. That is: end the strife and unify the world!
As early as the beginning of Zhou Shizong Chai Rong's ascension to the throne, he made a "thirty-year plan" for himself, the Later Zhou regime, and even the whole world. Among them, the first stage is to spend ten years to pacify the world and unify China. However, God did not fulfill people's wishes, and in the journey of rapid rise in the following week, Chai Rong was unpaid and died young.
Later Zhou's Jiangshan reached Chai Rong's 7-year-old son. The Lord was suspicious, and Zhao Kuangyin became the one who picked the fruit.
After the establishment of the Great Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin did not stop on the road of the unification war for a moment.
▲ Portrait of Zhao Kuangyin, Song Taizu, source: network.
The great turmoil in China's history eventually had a unified ending. In the big environment of heaven, place, and people, Da Song has seen this ending beckoning.
Zhao Kuangyin's first round of conquest began--attacking Hou Shu.
At that time, the Later Shu in the divided regime probably occupied what is now Sichuan Province, southern Shaanxi Province, southeastern Gansu Province, and western Hubei. Since the Tang Dynasty, Shudi, with its wealth in the "Kingdom of Heavenly Palace", has become the first choice for emperors to take refuge. The defeat of Hou Shu meant that it could provide excellent logistical support for the Song army that was plotting against the world.
In the second year of Qiande (964), Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, ordered Wang Quanbin to be deployed for the Xichuan camp, and Cao Bin to be the capital governor, and the troops were divided into water and land, attacking Houshu from the east and north.
Because there was no war in the Later Shu region for more than thirty years, and the two monarchs were not "emperors" in the true sense, especially the Shu lord Meng Chang, during his reign, he not only paid attention to handling diplomatic relations with the neighboring regimes at that time, but also excelled in civil rule, making the cultural undertakings in Later Shu unprecedentedly prosperous. Therefore, the prestige of the Later Shu monarchs in the folk is still quite high. However, when the building was about to fall, Hou Shu had no good generals, and finally quickly perished at the hands of the Song Army, ending in a tragic end of "140,000 people were disarmed, let alone a man".
However, looking back at the entire campaign process of the Song Army, it is full of contradictions.
First of all, because the Later Shu regime did not resist, coupled with the economic wealth of the Shu land and the abundance of beautiful women, almost half of the Song army generals under the independent marshal Wang Quanbin entered the city, they were keen on "robbing grain, robbing wealth, and robbing color", and every time they attacked a city, they would have to feast for three days and oppress the people. Secondly, throughout the march, Wang Quanbin, as the commander-in-chief, always engaged in "one-word hall" and killed prisoners. Therefore, even if the Song army captured Houshu in a short period of time, it was extremely unpopular.
At this critical moment, Cao Bin, as the deputy commander of the supervision army and the water army, quickly and strictly ordered his subordinates not to enter the city to burn and loot, and every time they attacked a city, they arranged for soldiers to move the women and children in the city to a centralized location, and the Song army sent people to supervise and protect them. As soon as the battle was over, people were immediately sent to comfort the people, and at the same time, the residents of the city were organized to return home in an orderly manner and resume normal life.
▲ Portrait of Cao Bin, Source: Network.
In this way, after the end of the Pingshu Campaign, everyone was punished, and only Cao Bin was safe and sound.
For this Cao Bin, who did not steal or rob, and seriously managed his subordinates, "only books and clothes in the bridge", Song Taizu could be said to be extremely grateful, and immediately ordered him to be appointed as an envoy of the Southern Yuan of Xuanhui and an envoy of the Yicheng Army to show his merits.
Unexpectedly, Cao Bin was stupid again, claiming that all the soldiers who went out on the expedition this time were guilty, and only he was rewarded for his merits, I was afraid that it was not in accordance with the rules, and it would chill the hearts of the soldiers. He also said that throughout the march, he did not vigorously dissuade other friendly forces from stopping the misconduct in time and causing losses.
Therefore, under Cao Bin's repeated resignation, Zhao Kuangyin finally chose to lightly sentence a number of generals who conquered the west, and reserved the "seed" of being able to conquer good wars for the Great Song Dynasty.
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Just as the so-called "fools have foolish fortunes", after Cao Bin made fools many times, Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, became more and more dependent on him. Without him, only because Cao Bin's tolerance and friendliness can add points to the image of the Great Song Army.
After conquering many southern regimes, the Southern Tang, which had been living on the southeast coast, soon entered Zhao Kuangyin's sight.
Compared with Later Shu, the Southern Tang Was more powerful. In its heyday, according to historical records, the population of the Southern Tang Dynasty, which occupied the southeast coast, reached more than 5 million. If it is said that the conquest of Houshu was to provide the basic food security for the Great Song Dynasty, then the capture of the Southern Tang Dynasty would bring a richer economic foundation to the newly established Great Song Dynasty. Therefore, zhao Kuangyin attached great importance to this battle.
In order to avoid the smashing and burning incident during the last destruction of Hou Shu, this time attacking the Southern Tang, Zhao Kuangyin specially paired Cao Bin with the general Pan Mei in order to reduce the killing of the large army and calm the war as soon as possible.
Before the army set out, Zhao Kuangyin summoned two generals and asked them what they thought of attacking the Southern Tang.
Pan Mei, who always knew only how to kill the enemy on the battlefield, came up and talked about his specific tactical implementation steps for the attack on the Southern Tang, completely ignoring zhao Kuangyin's inexplicable unhappiness at this time.
▲ Song Dynasty general Pan Mei, source: stills.
And Cao Bin, this time seems to have become smarter. He first submitted to Zhao Kuangyin the opposition materials that he had time to submit in the future during the last war against Shu. Then, borrowing Wang Quanbin and Liu Ting to divide the troops into two ways, but only setting up a problem of capital supervision (supervising the army), he expressed to Zhao Kuangyin the big problem of unclear powers and responsibilities of the generals on the expedition.
Song Taizu, who was "awakened by Cao Bin's words", immediately granted Cao Bin the supreme command to attack the Southern Tang, and asked Cao Bin what other unfulfilled military wishes he had.
Cao Bin then said that he was ready to take a civilian official named Tian Qinzuo to the battlefield, hoping that the emperor would agree.
At this time, Pan Mei, who stood on the side and did not get the title of manager, was stupid. Because Tian Qinzuo was a well-known "villain" in the official field of the early Song Dynasty, history records that he was "cunning in nature, especially did not like Confucianism, good and insulted, and many people were evil." If such a big Buddha were to follow the march, wouldn't he be looking for death?
Cao Bin later told Pan Mei his reasons.
If Cao Bin and others are not good at fighting in this battle, then as a military participant, Tian Qinzuo also has an unshirkable responsibility; if he is victorious, Tian Qinzuo can of course follow up with some credit. But for the military generals who went on expeditions, not only could they reduce the frequency of Tian Qinzuo's small reports, but they could also use him to build a sense of trust between the military generals and the emperor.
For Cao Bin's deployment, Pan Mei was convinced.
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In the seventh year of Kaibao (974), the army that conquered the Southern Tang Dynasty began as scheduled.
Li Yu, the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, also began to make preparations with both hands. Although the wealthy situation that li father and son had operated for many years in the Southern Tang Dynasty at this time after experiencing the Jinling fire was swept away, in order to preserve the peaceful corner of the country, Li Yu was still willing to make a final attempt.
Before the arrival of the Song army's iron hooves, he had repeatedly sent envoys as courtiers to submit the state certificate, gold and silver treasures to Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, hoping that the other side could suspend the offensive and give the Southern Tang monarchs a way to live.
Zhao Kuangyin refused on the grounds that "lying on the side of the bed, it is better to allow others to snore".
Therefore, Li Yu could only use diplomatic means to try to win over the Wuyue regime that occupied the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, thinking of hugging the group for warmth and guarding the southeastern Jiangshan.
Qian Hongli, the ruler of Wuyue, did not quite understand the truth of "cold lips and dead teeth". Between Li Yu's bitter pleading and Zhao Kuangyin's promise of glory and wealth, Wu Yueguo chose the latter.
After receiving assurances from Wu Yueguo, Cao Bin led the Song army to quickly break through the Southern Tang defense line set up by the Southern Tang on the south bank of the Yangtze River (present-day Anhui) and enter the Southern Tang capital Jinling City.
As the commander of the front line, it is reasonable that after the emperor had an absolute opinion of attack, he should quickly order the whole army to attack, attack Jiangning Province, capture Li Hou lord, and clean up the battlefield. But Cao Bin, who has always been in a good position, fell ill at this critical juncture.
The illness came quickly, and Pan Mei, as a deputy commander, could only lead the generals to Cao Bin's tent to visit and listen to the commander's next combat instructions.
Who knows, Cao Bin did not have any arrangements for the next stage of military deployment, but only said to everyone, taking medicine does not work, if I want my illness to be better, I must also have more kindness from the generals. It is best for all the soldiers to be able to "kill a single person on the day of the city", so that my illness will be better immediately.
Before leaving, Cao Bin remembered the three words of "less slaughter" given by Zhao Kuangyin, so in addition to restraining the generals of the headquarters, he also ordered people to continue to shoot letters of persuasion into Jinling City, hoping to force Li Hou to open the door and surrender with a battle of attack on the heart.
In these letters, Cao Bin mentioned more than once that the situation of the Great Song attack on the Southern Tang was determined, and the Southern Tang monarchs did not need to lose the lives of the people of Jinling City at all, and they stubbornly resisted. If Kaesong surrenders now, we still have room for redemption.
After several rounds of cao bin's attack on the heart, the people in Jinling City were scattered. The important ministers appointed by Li Yu to be responsible for important military affairs, such as Emperor Fu Jixun, Chen Qiao, and Zhang Bo, all changed their original intentions. Arriving at such a field, Li Yu could only sigh: "The old neighbors of Jiangnan and Jiangbei have dreamed of a dream in the past thirty years." Subsequently, open the door and surrender.
▲ Li Yu, the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, source: stills.
It is not known whether it was sympathy for Li Yu's plight or out of the promotion of the benevolence of the Song army, Cao Bin, after accepting Li Yu's surrender, allowed him to return to his imperial city, cleaned up the finesse, and told him to take as much money as possible in case he needed to go north.
The Song generals were puzzled by Cao Bin's blatant release of the enemy regime's most important captives. Liang Yi, a partial general who accompanied Cao Bin on the expedition, said: "If the general is like this, is he not worried that after Li Yu returns to the palace, he will not be able to open his mind for a while and hang himself." In this way, we originally fought the Southern Tang Dynasty and made a great achievement. Once Li Yu died, the reward had to be halved, which was not worth it. ”
But Cao Bin said, you think, a person who claims to protect the inheritance of the ancestors and fights to the death against us, in the end, he actually prefers to be humiliated and surrendered, indicating that he himself does not want to die. Such a person, whose reputation has been ruined, is it still necessary to commit suicide?
Sure enough, after cleaning up everything, Li Yu, the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, followed Cao Bin's warship and left the "land" where he lived and ruled forever.
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No one can deny that Cao Bin is a man of great wisdom and foolishness, who is like a god. But to his death, he was just an "ordinary person" in the history of the Great Song Dynasty.
This may have something to do with the only defeat of his life.
Shortly after the defeat of the Southern Tang, Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, died mysteriously. Succeeding to the throne was Zhao Kuangyin's third brother, Zhao Guangyi the Prince of Jin, known historically as Emperor Taizong of Song.
▲ Song Taizong Zhao Guangyi, source: stills.
Under the political pressure of the Song Dynasty, the State of Wuyue, which was adjacent to the Southern Tang Dynasty, and the Northern Han Regime, which was located in the north, eventually failed to get rid of the fate of the fall of the country, and followed the Southern Tang and surrendered. The Song Dynasty basically completed the grand plan to unify the Central Plains.
However, in the north of the great Song Dynasty, there was also a great Khitan state composed of nomadic cultures, also known as the Liao Dynasty. Previously, the emperor of the Liao Dynasty especially liked to be the son of the leader of the various regimes in the Central Plains. The Khitan state's "child emperor", The Later Jin Dynasty Emperor Shi Jingyao, ceded the strategicAlly significant Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures to the Khitans, causing the Central Plains Dynasty to lose the northern barrier on which it had relied for hundreds of years to protect itself.
In order for the emerging Great Song to have a better space for strategic activities, the Song army, which was invincible in the Central Plains, became the absolute main force of the Northern Expedition of Emperor Taizong of Song to recover Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures.
In the third year of Yongxi (986), taking advantage of the death of Emperor Jingzong of Liao and the turmoil of the Liao Dynasty, Emperor Taizong of Song ordered that cao bin, Pan Mei, Yang Ye and other five generals should be divided into three routes to attack Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures in coordination.
Considering that Cao Bin had made outstanding contributions to the destruction of the two countries in the Great Song Unification War, and that Cao Bin was more loving than other generals, Song Taizong decided to attack the Khitan plan to retake Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, with Cao Bin as the main force, leading the Eastern Route Army to attack Youzhou (around present-day Beijing).
However, Cao Bin, who had been fighting in the south for a long time, was actually not the best candidate for the Northern Expedition to the Khitans.
Prior to the destruction of Hou Shu and Southern Tang, Cao Bin all fought in coordination with the water army deployed by Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty. Now, as soon as they arrived at the Saiwai grassland, the Eastern Route Army led by Cao Bin was instantly blinded.
When Empress Xiao of the Liao Dynasty, who was in power at the time, learned that the Song army was commanded by the famous general Cao Bin, she also formulated a policy of enticing the enemy to go deeper. Therefore, under the rapid attack of Cao Bin's Eastern Route Army, the Liao Dynasty's control over Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures gradually weakened, and the Song army's success on the battlefield flew back to the Great Song Palace like snowflakes. However, the war moved too fast, and an important problem was exposed: the front line was too long, and the grain and grass could not keep up.
Empress Xiao knew this. While Cao Bin was gaining momentum, Empress Xiao sent Khitan cavalry, who were good at long-distance raids, to rob the grain delivery team of the Eastern Route Army. Since then, the Eastern Route Army has fallen into a situation of no grain.
Seeing that his soldiers were about to starve to death, in order to prevent mutinies in the army, Cao Bin had to retreat in search of food.
Such a retreat also led to the impact on the mechanism of coordinated operations between the Chinese and Western armies.
After hearing the latest battle report from the front, Zhao Guangyi, the Emperor Taizong of Song, who was far away in Beijing, knew that Cao Bin had retired and ate, and immediately became anxious and issued a letter of instruction: "Is there an enemy in front, but the army is helping The Millet?" What a mistake. ”
In the end, Cao Bin's Eastern Route Army fought and retreated for grain and grass. Between hesitations, the Eastern, Central and Western Armies of the Song Dynasty's Northern Expedition were completely defeated. The Yongxi Northern Expedition also became another laughing stock of the Song Dynasty after the Battle of the Sorghum River.
After the war, Emperor Taizong of Song, Zhao Guangyiqiang, endured resentment and punished the relevant generals who participated in the Yongxi Northern Expedition. However, after Cao Bin, who had committed particularly serious crimes in this war, returned to the dynasty, he was only demoted and demoted, and did not suffer other blows.
However, for Cao Bin, who ruined his fame in world war I, the fiasco defeat at the Khitan was the resentment and grief that he had endured throughout his life. In that battle, the elite Song army that had followed him to the Central Plains and Within Wei Zhenyu were all exhausted. Even Yang Ye, who had always frightened the Khitans, was killed in the army. Even if Song Taizong did not blame him too much, Cao Bin's old face was difficult to stretch.
▲ Yang Ye, source: stills.
Until his death, Cao Bin was still racking his brains for the continuation of the Great Song Dynasty's military strength. Perhaps this is also a way for him to redeem himself.
In the second year of Emperor Zhenzong of Song 's xianping ( 999 ) , Cao Bin , who had been fighting horses for more than forty years , died. Before his death, Cao Bin recommended his two sons, Cao Wei and Cao Xuan, to Emperor Zhenzong of Song, calling them "capable of being generals".
Song Zhenzong asked the second son of the Cao family who was better.
Cao Bin said that Cao Wei was far better than Cao Xuan.
Knowing the son mo ruo father. After Cao Bin's death, Cao Wei gradually provoked the heavy responsibility of "generalizing the second generation" of the Great Song Dynasty.
In the process of the strong rise of another minority regime, western Xia, threatening the Northern Song Dynasty, cao Wei relied on the strict and fine style of the family to control the army, and successfully resisted the ambition of the three generations of western Xia leaders to expand eastward, making the proper preparation for the prosperity of Emperor Renzong of Song.
I don't know if Cao Wei's efforts will make Cao Bin under the Nine Springs get a little relief?
bibliography:
[Yuan] Detachment: History of the Song Dynasty, Zhonghua Bookstore, 1985
[Song] Li Tao: "Continued Zizhi TongjianChang", Zhonghua Bookstore, 2004
Tian Zhiguang, "Examination of the Implementation of the Policy of "Emperor Taizong of Song" in the "Will Be in the Middle": A Case Study of the Famous Battles of Song Liao and Song Xia", Military History Research, No. 2, 2011
Ren Ming, "A Brief Analysis of the Reasons for the Failure of the Northern Expedition of the Northern Song Dynasty Yongxi", Science Chinese, No. 5Z, 2016