A Cup of Alcohol Dismissed Generals' Power of Forces
There were countless cases in the ancient times that over-drinking led to miss good chances, sometimes even lose some emperors' and kings' powers. “A Cup of Alcohol Dismissed Generals' Power” is a very famous one.
This story tells us that, founder of Song Dynasty, Emperor Zhao Kuang-yi, had always been worrying his followers to imitate what he had done since he started coup d'SYMBOL 233 \f "Arial"tat at Cheng Qiao and seized the power immediately, having an idea to dismiss some generals' power of controlling their forces. In 961 A.D, he arranged a banquet, inviting Shi Shou-xin, Wang Sheng- qi, both of whom were generals of empirical guards and other generals to attend it, during the drinking, he advised them to pile up more property, houses and land then leave them to their younger generations, and enjoy their rest life by watching dancing and singing and indulging in beauties. After hearing the Emperor's words, all the generals resigned their power of controlling forces. In 969 A.D, he invited Wang Yan- chao, commander of military district to have a feast, during which, he forced Wang Yan-chao to hand in his power. What Emperor Zhao Kuangyi did was copied and used repeatedly by following rulers, the purpose of his doings was to guard against coup. But it resulted in the fact that soldiers didn't know the commander and the commander didn't know soldiers, the persons with power to order armies knew nothing about commanding armies and battling, and those who were able to command armies and master battling had no power to order armies, which greatly weakened the fighting force of Song Dynasty's armies although it was effective in prohibition of coup d'SYMBOL 233 \f "Arial"tat. As a result, Song Dynasty's armies were defeated again and again in a series of wars against those of Liao, Jin and West Xia Powers.
