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Text: Yanyan
Edited by Yeon-yeon
Preface
In the group portraits of the heroes of the Water Margin, the relationship between Song Jiang and Chao Gai has always been the focus of attention. As the founder of Liangshanbo, Chao Gai had great prestige, but Song Jiang eventually became the ruler of Liangshan.
How did Song Jiang overhead the cover step by step? Surprisingly, before going to Liangshan, Song Jiang had already begun to carefully lay out and plan an amazing roadmap for his future.
What kind of wisdom and means made him gradually emerge in the shadow of Chao Gai? How did Song Jiang's every move quietly change the pattern of Liangshan?
First, the Song River lays out the rivers and lakes
Song Jiang was originally a small charge in Yuncheng County, and in addition to the meager money in his hands, there were also some "gray income" that was not very clean.
However, the greedy Song Jiang was not satisfied with this, he secretly made friends with many people in the rivers and lakes, greedy for those shameful wealth that was regarded as "black money". It was these behaviors that made him famous in the rivers and lakes, and he was respected as "Shandong Hubaoyi".
From this point, we can see that Song Jiang is shrewd enough and quite prescient in doing things. He understood that it would be difficult to support his family with that small amount of money, so he was planning for his future fortune from the beginning.
He unscrupulously befriended powerful people and charlatans in order to expand his network of contacts and lay the foundation for expanding his sphere of influence in the future.
This includes the heroes who fought side by side with him in the future, such as Wu Song, Lu Zhishen, Lin Chong and others. It can be said that Song Jiang had secretly planted the seeds of power before he set foot on Liangshanbo.
Second, Song Jiang went to Liangshan to be the second-in-command
After Song Jiang was arrested, he was sent to Jiangzhou, but he escaped on the way to be escorted and later joined Liangshanbo. Song Jiang was originally sent to the fence, but with his cunning ability, he soon sat in the big position of the second-in-command of Liangshanbo, which shows how clever he is in employing people.
The reason for this is that Song Jiang had made many friends in the process of fleeing, such as Xiao Li Guanghuarong, Bantam Tiger Wang Ying, Zhensanshan Huang Xin and others.
All of these people later joined Liangshanbo one after another. And after Song Jiang was assigned to the Jiangzhou prison camp, he made more friends from the underworld, such as Xunyang Jiang Sanba and others, these are his descendants.
Therefore, as soon as Song Jiang went to Liangshan, he had a considerable ticket warehouse foundation, but there were few henchmen left under Chao Gai, the owner of Liangshan at that time. Therefore, in the comparison of numbers and strength, Chao Gai had to hand over the responsibility of the second-in-command of the cottage to Song Jiang.
Here we can see that Song Jiang hit the nail on the head in employing people. From the very beginning, he deliberately cultivated his own lineage and laid down men and horses to make adequate preparations for the future seizure of power.
This is in stark contrast to Chao Gai's self-righteous narrow-mindedness. Chao Gai only valued those old subordinates who followed him at the beginning, and ignored the importance of expanding more new people and new powers. From this point, Chao Gai lost to Song Jiang.
3. Song Jiang's seizure of power was blocked
Seeing that Song Jiang's power was getting stronger and stronger, and the old people such as Lin Chong and Wu Yong, who had been incorporated at the beginning, also chose to be loyal to Song Jiang, Chao Gai naturally felt extremely worried and uneasy in his heart.
Finally, before the Battle of Zengtou broke out, Chao Gai decided to lead his army to conquer in person, in an attempt to reverse his plight of being repeatedly marginalized by Song Jiang.
After Song Jiang learned about this incident, he did not show an attitude of opposition, but instead made a strong support. He assigned heavy troops to Chao Gai, including Lin Chong, Hu Yanzhuo and others. It's just that Song Jiang stayed in Liangshanbo by himself and did not personally accompany him.
From here, we can see that Song Jiang's decision to go out of the expedition is actually with a kind of expectation. He knew that if Chao Gai could capture Zengtou City, he would inevitably reverse his current decline, thus hindering Song Jiang's road to power again.
Therefore, Song Jiang let go and let Chao Gai personally recruit, which has his own calculations. Sure enough, during the battle, Chao Gai not only did not reverse his situation, but fell into a situation of being passively beaten... This is exactly what Song Jiang wants.
Fourth, Chao Gai died
When going to Zengtou City, Chao Gai's army encountered an unprecedented storm, and the banner was blown to the ground, and the battle was chaotic. This made the cautious Wu Yong judge that the will of heaven was no longer on Chao Gai's side. He immediately persuaded Chao Gai to abandon the expedition, but Chao Gai was already maliciously about to act, and he was determined to be ashamed.
At this critical juncture, a sake lees monk tricked Chao Gai into raiding the camp in Zengtou City at night, only to fall into a trap and the army was wiped out alive. Chao Gai personally went out on the horse, and he was not defeated by the master of Zengtou City, and he was finally killed.
This is also the last battle of Chao Gai, a hero who once had a proud record, to decline and collapse. From here, it is not difficult for us to see that Chao Gai's defeat and death are largely due to fate's retribution for him.
Because the most fundamental reason why he was overshadowed by Song Jiang step by step was his narrow-mindedness and self-containment. From now on, although Chao Gai is brave, he is an old bandit who only knows Yongfeng, and he can't match Song Jiang's ability to plan far and calculate.
Chao Gai is just a tough guy who fights alone, but Liang Shanbo still needs a real wise man and leader after all, and it must be Song Jiang.
In this way, Chao Gai was completely defeated in the battle of Zengtou City and died in Liangshan. And Song Jiang can finally justifiably ascend to the supreme throne of Liangshanbo and take over the entire Shuibo masses.
Fifth, Song Jiang succeeded in seizing power
Looking back at the entire process of Song Jiang's seizure of power, we can find that he exhausted all kinds of means and stratagems in order to achieve his goals. There are not only network layouts, but also military words, as well as the practice of passive slacking off and stumbling on the opponent's footsteps, and so on. It can be said that all these operations of Song Jiang can be called extremely clever.
On the other hand, the cover pales in comparison. He is just a simple military strongman, and he can't match Song Jiang's ability to plan far. In addition, Chao Gai did not want to forge ahead and rested on his laurels, which led to his gradual loss of voice and control, and finally he could only passively move towards the end of annihilation.
As the so-called strong generals have no weak soldiers under them. As the new coach of Liangshanbo, the first thing Song Jiang did was to reshuffle Liangshan's people. He let his descendants occupy important positions in the army, and sent some of Chao Gai's henchmen into the cold palace. At the same time, Song Jiang also skillfully controlled the economic power and propaganda power on the mountain in his own hands.
On the key points of military power, financial power, and even public opinion guidance, Song Jiang has almost achieved comprehensive control. Chao Gai, on the other hand, can only go to extinction step by step on the road of marginalization. So in this sense, Song Jiang's victory is also inevitable.
Because he has maintained a high degree of goal orientation and self-consciousness from beginning to end, every move can be regarded as a clear move. Chao Gai, on the other hand, was trapped by Song Jiang's tricks, and almost never thought about how to deal with and fight back, so he could only be slaughtered by others.
This distinction between superior and inferior undoubtedly put Chao Gai in a passive and inferior situation from the very beginning in this battle for power. So in the end, he could only be used as a foil and was written into a good story about Liangshan crowding out heroes.
epilogue
Throughout the whole process, we find that the key to Song Jiang's final victory on Liangshanbo is that he is good at calculation and good at calculating. On the contrary, Chao Gai made mistakes in decision-making everywhere and stuck to the old ways, causing him to lose his original dominance.
This tells us that in any field, force alone is not enough, but also corresponding wisdom. Only a skillful combination of force and wisdom can become a true leader and a winner.