"Shi had met with Lord Lin Fenglin several times, and one of the discussions about history impressed Shi.

Regarding history, Lord Lin put forward two points that made Shi stare in his conversation. One was that, "History is a little girl who is dressed up by others. What she looks like is just because the winner wants her to be like that." The other was that "the development of history is inevitable and accidental. Among them, the choice of historical figures at that time sometimes determines the progress of history."

Shi had strongly refuted Lord Lin’s point of view at that time, but Lord Lin smiled but did not argue, but only gave two names: Wang Mang and Zhang Liang.

Afterwards, when Shi studied Wang Mang in history in depth, he found that Lord Lin's first view was fully confirmed. Wang Mang was actually an enterprising reformer. However, because the reform was too radical and violated the interests of many powerful people, he was defiled by some people in later generations as the biggest conspirator and hypocrite.

As for Zhang Liang, it is easier to understand. When Zhang Liang raised a large amount of money to recruit brave and brave men and used a large iron vertebra weighing 120 kilograms as a weapon to ambush Qin Shihuang in the Eastern Tour in Yu Bolangsha, if he had not accidentally hit the deputy chariot and hit the concubine's vehicle, but successfully hit Qin Shihuang, history would definitely not be what we see, and maybe we would not have been born!

Zhang Liang's example made Shi think of a typical example of personal influence on the historical process that was in front of him: Li Hongyi, the governor of Zhenning Army.

If he had chosen another path, Hou Zhou might not have appeared, at least it would not have appeared so soon..."

——The above is excerpted from "Book of Southern Tang? Miscellaneous Treatises" written by Shi Yan, a historian of the Southern Tang Dynasty

November 14th of the third year of Qianyou in the Later Han Dynasty (950 AD), for most people, it was just an ordinary winter day, but it was definitely not an easy day for those who were in the middle of the vortex of history, such as Li Hongyi, the governor of the Zhenning Army.

At noon, after seeing and sending away the special envoy who arrived from Tokyo at the Chanzhou Prime Minister's Office, Li Hongyi, the governor of Zhenning Army, rushed back to his mansion with a serious expression. He did not answer the wives and concubines who were greeted with a smile on their faces. He waved his hand and left everyone, and hid in the study alone.

What happened to the master who has always had a good temper? Everyone smiled and dispersed in disappointment.

At lunch, when a concubine who was most favored by Li Hongyi dared to knock on the door of the study, there was no sound for a long time. When she plucked up the courage to push open the door of the study, she found that there was no one in the study.

Just as the Li family was trying hard to find his Lord Li, Li Hongyi, dressed in casual clothes, was already sitting in the house of Guo Wei's mansion in Chanzhou. The person sitting with him was Wang Yin, the commander of the infantry guards who stayed in Chanzhou to protect his relatives.

Just now, Li Hongyi, who jumped into the mansion from the back wall of the mansion, was almost tied up by the guards. Fortunately, a guard leader had seen the governor before, so he immediately respectfully invited him to the study and quickly reported to Wang Yin.

After Wang Yin finished serving the tea, he bowed to Li Hongyi and said, "Entertainment Prime Minister Li, why don't he order the villain to come to the palace to meet him when he has something to do, but he enters the palace so mysteriously?"

Li Hongyi did not answer, took out a bright yellow edict from his arms and placed it gently on the desk.

Wang Yin rushed forward and opened it to see it. He immediately trembled all over and sat on the chair. After a while, Wang Yin suddenly woke up, stood up and bowed respectfully to Li Hongyi, and said, "The villain should thank the minister Li for his behalf on behalf of Guo Xiangming! Please inform the villain of the matter in detail."

Li Hongyi stared at the edict in Wang Yin's hand with empty eyes, and said bitterly: "Just just now, the envoy's official Meng Ye came from Tokyo (now Kaifeng, Henan). Now the emperor secretly ordered Li to kill all the relatives of Guo Envoy and General Wang. It seems that Guo Envoy was too powerful and shocked the master, and someone was going to take action!"

After Emperor Yin of Han ascended the throne, Guo Wei, who started his career as the deputy envoy of Privy Council, led his troops to pacify the rebellious troops of Li Shouzhen, the governor of Yongxing, Zhao Siwan, and the governor of Fengxiang, Wang Jingchong, and other rebellious troops. After that, he moved his troops to the north and defeated the Khitan. He was granted the title of Yedu (now Handan, Hebei) for his merits. He was the governor of Tianxiong Army and also the envoy of Privy Council. All prefectures and counties in Hebei obeyed Guo Wei's control, and his strength could attract the attention of the world.

Of course, Meng Ye also brought the emperor's oral order, because the Zhenning Army was stationed in Chanzhou (now Puyang, Henan), located on the north bank of the Yellow River, guarding the main ferry in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, and blocking the road to the south by the Tianxiong Army. If the Tianxiong Army had the intention to rebel, Li Hongyi must do his best to prevent the Tianxiong Army from north of the Yellow River.

Just now, facing the special envoy Meng Ye, Li Hongyi agreed.

However, he thought for a long time in the study and finally made a decision that influenced the historical process: to inform Guo Wei through Wang Yin. In other words, in this choice of team that concerns Zhenning Army and his own future development, he chose Guo Wei, who was powerful and generals, rather than the little emperor in Tokyo.

"Master Li, where is Meng Ye now?" Wang Yin asked anxiously.

"I have already rushed to Yedu! In order to reassure Li, Meng Ye once said that he had also received a secret order to give important generals in the Yedu army, and would wipe out the envoys Guo and the Tianxiong army's military supervisor in one fell swoop, and Wang Jun, the envoy of Xuanhui." Li Hongyi told everything Meng Ye said.

"Liu Chengyou, a yellow-toothed child, is so cruel!" Wang Yin was so angry that his steel teeth were almost ground, and he said angrily that the name of Emperor Yin of the Later Han was 20 years old this year. In the eyes of their old ministers, he was just a child with a bad breast!

"Outside the dynasty, there were Yang Bin, Shi Hongzhao and Su Fengji, who were chaotic and chaotic, and there were treacherous eunuchs such as Li Ye, who were shameless in trouble. Li could not bear the humiliation of loyal and good ministers for nothing. After receiving the secret edict, he thought a lot and decided to tell the king!" Li Hongyi stood up and bowed and said.

Wang Yin bowed deeply again to express his gratitude, raised his head and said, "On behalf of Envoy Guo, Xiangming, thanked Envoy Li for his kindness, please borrow the edict!"

"Guo Envoy?" Li Hongyi asked softly.

Wang Yin nodded and said hatefully: "He is unkind, don't blame me for being unrighteous! I can only blame him for seeking death!"

Li Hongyi clasped his fists and looked at the edict placed on the desk, but turned around and left.

Soon, Wang Yin led more than ten guards to drive out of Chanzhou City and headed straight for Yedu.

An hour and a half later, Wang Yin saw Guo Wei discussing the matter and took out an edict to testify. Then, Guo Wei, who was shocked, urgently summoned Wei Renpu, Li Gu, Wang Pu, Fan Zhi and other confidant staff to the study to discuss secretly.

Half an hour later, all the personal guards of the Guo Mansion were dispatched to block the city gates and searching the whole city. They soon caught the envoy's official Meng Ye and his party and learned that they had met secretly before: Guo Chongwei, the commander of the Yedu Cavalry Army, and Cao Wei, the commander of the infantry army.

Before Guo Wei went to find these two people, they had already come to ask for a meeting.

Guo Chongwei and Cao Wei immediately knelt down on the ground as soon as Cao Wei entered the door, telling the whole story of Meng Ye's meeting. Guo Chongwei even drew his sword and placed it on his neck, shouting: "If Guo envoys don't believe that villains are not willing to do anything, the villains will commit suicide immediately to show their will!" Guo Wei, who was very happy, helped the two of them up with their own hands and let them participate in the emergency military discussions that all the generals participated.

Generals gathered in the lobby. Guo Wei raised an unopened edict and shouted loudly: "Now, I have issued a secret edict saying that there are generals in our Tianxiong army who secretly communicated with the Khitan and wanted to rebel against the Han Dynasty. He ordered Guo to kill the generals in the army immediately. Although Guo was full of great grace, the generals and Guo shared their lives and deaths. Guo really did not believe that there would be brothers who would treason the country. Please tell Guo what to do?"

It was true that people were sitting at home, and disaster came from heaven! The generals were suddenly in an uproar and cursed, saying that this edict was extremely absurd.

A tall and burly young man turned out from the crowd and knelt down on the ground. It was Guo Wei's nephew Chai Rong who was adopted by Guo Wei as his adopted son, also known as Guo Rong.

Chai Rong kowtowed repeatedly and said loudly: "The current master is a slut, and he believes in treacherous words, so he is inseparable from black and white, and his loyalty and treacherous are inverted. We have been fighting hard on the battlefield for many years, and we are all loyal, but we have suffered such injustice. This is a strange injustice in the world! Please give us a clever look at the Marshal!"

Guo Wei nodded and asked Chai Rong to get up. Chai Rong kowtowed again, still kneeling on the ground and shouted:

"Marcedes-Master, the dynasty is in chaos and the country is no longer a country. The Marshal is an important official of the country and has outstanding achievements. It is like the sun and the moon passing through the sky. Who knows it? At this time of crisis, the Marshal should raise troops to carry out affairs, eliminate evil and delusion, clear the king's side, turn the tide and the country in danger. We are willing to follow the Marshal to the death!"

When the generals in the hall heard Chai Rong say this, they all knelt down and shouted: "Clean the emperor and correct the court. We are willing to follow the marshal to the death!"

Guo Wei pondered for a long time and finally nodded gently to show that he would agree to what he wanted.

On November 15, the 50,000 Tianxiong Army began to set off in a whole team, and the Tianxiong cavalry galloped across Hebei were the first to advance south.

The wheel of history finally rolled forward along its trajectory.
Chapter completed!