Ze Rong
| Ze Rong | |
|---|---|
| Warlord | |
| Born | (Unknown) |
| Died | 195 |
| Names | |
| Traditional Chinese | 笮融 |
| Simplified Chinese | 笮融 |
| Pinyin | Zé Róng |
| Wade–Giles | Tse Jung |
Ze Rong (died 195) was originally a general and active occultist serving under the warlord Tao Qian in the late Eastern Han dynasty. When the Yan Province warlord Cao Cao attacked Tao, Ze left his post and traveled south, killing local officers and plundering the cities along the way, and finally established himself a minor warlord of Yuzhang.
Ze Rong was a native of Danyang, and became a leader of a Buddhist sect in his early life. He began his career under the Xu Province warlord, Tao Qian, when he led his cult to join forces with the latter, for whom he served as a logistic officer, and was tasked to oversee the transportation of materials for Guangling (廣陵), Xiapi (下邳), and Pengcheng (彭城). However, he and his followers attacked Tao's troops, and seized the supplies for personal usage. Since then, he entered into a semi-independence and monopolized the logistics affiliated with the 3 commandaries. He then constructed a large Buddhist temple in Xiapi, which had a capacity of 3000 people, and recruited followers around the area. Furthermore, he had bronze and gold melted to build luxurious Buddha statues, food and wine prepared for fellow occultists, and several tens li of cotton to cover the road. The budget for the commandaries totaling thousands of million was all consumed by Ze. Nevertheless, more than 5,000 households and numerous monks and nuns moved into the city, and pledged allegiance to Ze. Therefore, Tao never severed ties with Ze, because he valued Ze's influence and his powerful cult.
Tao thought his tolerance would earn Ze's loyalty; however, when Cao Cao attacked Xu Province, Ze immediately led his followers numbering tens of thousand on an exodus away from the city. When he arrived the city of Guangling, the Grand Administrator, Zhao Yu (趙昱), welcomed him and treated him with respect. When Ze noticed the city had stored up abundant materials under good governance of Zhao, he invited the latter to a banquet, and had the drunk Zhao Yu murdered. Then, he ordered his troops to plunder the city, leaving nothing for the citizens. After he seized all valuables from Gangling, he went to Moling (present day Nanjing), the local official there, Xue Li, also welcomed Ze warmly like Zhao did. Ze wanted to take advantage of Xue, but was worried that Xue's powerful ally, Liu Yao of the east, would interfere.
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