A heroic and ambitious emperor with great achievements
At the end of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, on the eve of the establishment of the Great Song Dynasty, a statesman was born, but he died young and failed to fulfill his ambitions: Chai Rong, the second emperor of the Later Zhou Dynasty.
Chai Rong was a native of Longgang, Xingzhou (order Xingtai, Hebei). He was born into a Family of manor owners in the first year of Longde (921). Chai Rong’s aunt was Guo Wei’s married wife. It is said that one day Chai Rong’s grandfather laughed more than one day, people asked him the reason, but he laughed but did not answer, after the wine is slow and swiftly told everyone, “God has ordered, Guo Lang should be the son of heaven”. This made the family laugh and cry. Because his aunt had no children, Chai Rong was adopted by his aunt since childhood, Guo Wei was very fond of this adopted son and treated him as his own.
Later, Guo Wei served in the military for a long Time, Chai Rong also followed his aunt to learn the 18 martial arts, especially good at riding and shooting, and proficient in books and history, and gradually developed military and political skills. In the fourth year of Kaiyun (947), Guo Wei helped Liu Zhiyuan, a town general of the Later Jin Dynasty, to establish the Later Han Dynasty, and was promoted to the post of deputy Privy Counsellor for his merits, becoming a general of the Later Han Dynasty.
In the winter of 950, Guo Wei rebelled and led his army southward from the north of the river, and captured Kaifeng the following year. Chai Rong was appointed as the envoy of Still Water (now Puyang, Henan) with the status of “imperial son”, and he was appointed as a waiter of Taiyuan County, which indicated that Chai Rong had a boundless future.
During the period of Chai Rong sitting in Stillwater, he led the military and people to expand the streets and build more houses, so that the appearance of Stillwater was new, and he also requested the exemption of taxes and the transfer of service to reduce the burden of the people, and his performance earned him a good reputation in the local. Later, Chai Rong was crowned King of Jin and became the head of the capital administration as Kaifeng Yin in Beijing, and by this time Chai Rong had matured as a politician.
The queen of Taizu Guo Wei was childless, and the concubine she married later gave birth to two sons who were also killed by Emperor Yin of Han. Therefore, in the first month of the first year of Xiande (954), Guo Wei died due to illness, and the throne naturally fell to Chai Rong, who was 34 years old at the time and was at the time of his wealth and vigor.
In February of the first year of Huande (954), shortly after his accession to the throne, Chai Rong went on a personal expedition and defeated the enemy at Gao Ping in one fell swoop, winning the first battle under his command after his accession. The Northern Han could no longer compete for the Central Plains.
After Chai Rong returned to the dynasty, he began to reorganize his army. First, for those who have meritorious combat are increased official reward, such as Zhao Kuangyin battle well, promoted to the commander of the army in front of the Palace point inspector. For the cowardly enemy fleeing the battle was punished. Secondly, the guard army was reorganized, eliminating the old, weak and timid, and recruiting the strongest men in the world, even mountain outlaws who had the courage to serve as the guard army, which not only increased the court’s strength, but also eliminated the crown thieves. In fact, at the beginning of Chai Rong’s reign, he had already set the ambitious goal of “to develop the world in ten years, to feed the people in ten years, and to bring peace in ten years. ” the grand goal and long-term vision.
A year later, Chai Rong personally led an attack on the Khitan, recovering the land occupied by the Khitan, where the Han people had lived for generations in the sixteen states of Yan Yun. The sixteen states of Yan Yun, namely Ying, Mo, You, Zhuo, Tan, Ji, Shun, Wei, Xin, Gui, Ru, Wu, Shuo, Yun, Ying, Huan, etc., distributed in the northwest of present-day Hebei Shan, were mostly ceded to the Khitan by the later Jin emperor Shi Jingxiu, and the sixteen states were in the hands of foreigners, leaving the gates of northern China’s North China Plain open and unguarded, and the Central Plains dynasty was thus threatened by the Khitan iron horsemen for a long time.
At this time, Khitan was in a period of national decline, and it was a good time for northern invasion. Since the Han people in the sixteen states had long been enslaved and humiliated by the Khitan aristocracy, they had long hoped for the arrival of the Chinese army, so Chai Rong’s army marched very well in the northern expedition. However, just as the army led by Chai Rong was advancing, he suddenly fell ill on May 2 and had to terminate his northern expedition. On June 18, Chai Rong died on his deathbed. He was only thirty-nine years old.
In the orthodox history books, it is recorded that Chai Rong died of a canker sore in his chest during the northern expedition, and it was this sore that took his young Life. However, the history books do not mention the reason why Zhou Shizong grew the sore. The sore was not an incurable disease, and the palace was filled with famous doctors from all over the world, so how could a single sore kill this true son of The Emperor?
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