The ancients often lamented that accompanying the king is like accompanying the tiger. They all believed that accompanying the king was like accompanying the tiger, and that it was possible to kill at any time, and that the ancient emperors controlled the entire country, had the highest power, and even controlled the life and death of all people. In the ancient text "Tang Ju Does Not Fail in His Mission", it is mentioned: "The wrath of the Son of Heaven lays down millions of corpses and bleeds for thousands of miles." "The king is moody, even if you are the emperor's favorite, and you have the power to reach the peak of power for a while, you still need to be vigilant at all times, how high you stand, how painful it is to fall down." If you want to gain a firm foothold in the complex imperial court, the way of dealing with the world is very important, especially the "Elder of the Six Dynasties" Wang Jing, who is going to talk about today, how did he become the "tumbler" of the times?
Wang Jing was born in the last year of the Tang Dynasty, when the world was in chaos, wars were taking place all over the country, and the feudal towns everywhere wanted to become the kings of this chaotic world. During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Wang Jing had a very legendary experience, his life spanned Liang, Tang, Jin, Han, Zhou, and Great Song, and his political resume was even richer than that of Feng Dao, a political tumbler who had gone through four dynasties, and he was later crowned king in the Song Dynasty, receiving the highest honor that ancient ministers could get. Wang Jing's legendary experience is the product of five generations of chaotic times, and it is also a witness to the changes in China's history.
According to the historical records, Wang Jing's ancestral home is Laizhou, Shandong, and his family was just an ordinary farmer for generations. However, when he was young, Wang Jing "did not have a livelihood", and was busy fighting dogs and cocks all day long, riding horses and shooting arrows, and even blocking the road with his fellow villagers, becoming a notorious robber. From this point of view, Wang Jing was completely a "problem teenager" at that time, and the neighbors in the township were very afraid of him. Later, due to the need to recruit troops from various local forces, Wang Jing decided to join the army and joined the later Liang general Wang Tan. At that time, because Later Liang and Later Tang were always in contention for the Central Plains, the two often attacked each other, so Wang Jing also participated in many battles and made many military achievements, and his position was constantly promoted.
In 923, Emperor Zhuangzong of Later Tang destroyed Later Liang and entered kaifeng city, and Wang Jing also surrendered to Later Tang in line with the situation. Although Wang Jing was a demotionary general, he was still reused because the Central Plains were not stable at that time, and then gradually promoted to the position of The Duke of Daoyu. In the last year of the Later Tang Dynasty, Shi Jingyao, the Duke of Zhao, rebelled, and Wang Jing followed the general Zhang Jingda to besiege Shi Jingyao's stronghold of Taiyuan, shi Jingyao was unable to resist, so he asked the Khitan in the north for help, and also proposed to be willing to be "er emperor" and cede the conditions of Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures in exchange for Khitan help. The Khitans, who were dominating the north, had long begun to look at the Central Plains, and had always wanted to find an opportunity to join the Central Plains War, so they took this opportunity to send a large number of troops to support Shi Jingyao.
After receiving the help of the Khitans, Shi Jingyao's dilemma was naturally resolved, but Zhang Jingda's army was besieged and eventually cornered, Zhang Jingda was killed by his men, and Wang Jing led his troops to surrender to Shi Jingyao. Since Later Tang had not yet perished at that time, the Later Tang lord learned of this and directly executed Wang Jing's wife and children, but fortunately his two sons escaped by chance. In order to stabilize the internal situation, when Shi Jingyao established the Later Jin Dynasty, he directly granted Wang Jingxiang the post of Assassin of Zhou. In the early days of the later Jin Dynasty, the domestic situation was not stable, and the local jiedushi still had a lot of power, and the Tianxiong army jiedushi made Fan Yanguang directly declare anti-Jin, and then many of his subordinates also rebelled. Xiangzhou under Wang Jing's jurisdiction was subordinate to Fan Yanguang, but he did not follow the rebellion, but sided with Shi Jingyao.
Shi Jingyao admired Wang Jing's loyalty, so he promoted him to the position of envoy of the Yaozhou regiment, and then served as an envoy to the capital inspection and the regimental training envoy of The Prefecture. Rather than saying that Shi Jingyao admired Wang Jing's loyalty, it was rather to win people's hearts, and he was only worried that Wang Jing would follow the rebellion, so he chose to use his official position to win him over. After Shi Jingyao's death, the relationship between the Later Jin and the Khitan began to deteriorate, and the two sides directly broke out into war, during which they won and lost against each other, and Wang Jing was also promoted to serve as an envoy to guard Ma Jundu and zhizhou affairs because of his military merits. Then the Khitans used divisive tactics, and the Later Jin general Du Chongwei declared an anti-Jin, and the Khitan lord Yelü Deguang successfully entered kaifeng city and captured the Later Jin emperor Shi Chonggui, thus declaring the demise of the Later Jin.
After Yelü Deguang entered the Central Plains, he directly established the Great Liao, but it was only a short-lived country, and only five months after Kaifeng, Yelü Deguang withdrew from the city in ashes and died of illness in the middle of the way. Wang Jing saw the opportunity and led the old troops back to Jinzhou. At that time, when Yelü Deguang was proclaimed emperor in Kaifeng, Liu Zhiyuan, the Later Jin Dynasty King of Beiping, who remained in Taiyuan, established himself as emperor and established the country with the title of Han. After Yelü Deguang withdrew from Kaifeng, Liu Zhiyuan quickly occupied Kaifeng, and Wang Jing began to serve as an official in Han, serving as an envoy to Cangzhou and concurrently serving as Tongping Zhangshi. However, the Later Han Dynasty did not last long, and the separatist forces in various places were really powerful, and rebellions often occurred, and soon perished.
In 951, Later Zhou Taizu Guo Wei destroyed the Later Han Dynasty, and because Wang Jing and Guo Wei had a relatively good relationship, Wang Jing served as an official in Later Zhou and served as a servant. After Chai Rong ascended the throne, Wang Jing was made the Duke of Baoguo and concurrently served as Zhongshu Ling. Later Zhou can be said to be the most promising dynasty of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, but the two male lords were short-lived, and they were taken away by Zhao Kuangyin after three generations. At the beginning of Emperor Gong of Zhou's reign, Zhao Kuangyin launched the Chen Qiao Mutiny, and established the Northern Song Dynasty after huangpaojia. Wang Jing knew how to adapt to the times, so he became an official in the Northern Song Dynasty, and was also named the King of Taiyuan County, directly reaching the extreme of the honor of a human subject. Until 963, at the age of 75, Wang Jing died, and Song Taizu posthumously honored him as the King of Qi.
Why was Wang Jing able to become the "tumbler" of the times and survive the six dynasties? In addition to knowing how to conform to the general trend of history, he also knows how to protect himself. In the process of handling the relationship between kings and subjects, Wang Jing was always able to maintain "cleanliness and self-improvement". At the beginning of the Jin Dynasty after the establishment of Shi Jingyao, he once asked Wang Jing what reward he wanted, and Wang Jing replied: "The subject returned to the country, received grace and kindness, and sincerely wanted nothing." At first, Shi Jingyao was very dissatisfied with Wang Jing's answer, how could a person be a subject in a chaotic world, how could he have no desires and no needs, such a person was also the most worrying. Subsequently, Wang Jing said that he had a crush on an official prostitute when he was a soldier and wanted to marry her, and Shi Jingyao thought that Wang Jing still wanted something, so he let down his vigilance.
In the chaotic world of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, there is no absolute loyalty to the relationship between the monarch and the subject, the emperor is replaced like a marquee, and the relationship between the monarch and the subject is only a relationship of interest, which Wang Jing is also very clear, he knows how to protect himself very well.
Wang Jing's personality is also very humble, as long as there is an emissary of the imperial court, he will be very respectful, even if the other party's grade is not as good as his own, he will personally greet and send, the etiquette is also very thoughtful, in order to gain the trust of the monarch. Being rich but not proud is an important reason why Wang Jing can become a tumbler of the times. How could he not understand the intentions of the monarch's heart all his life, and at the same time he strictly guarded his duty as a courtier and never did anything that exceeded his authority.
So that later, although Ouyang Xiu, Sima Guang, and others were dissatisfied with Wang Jing's change of ownership many times, it was not good to directly criticize him, but instead criticized Feng Dao and others.