Bian Hao (邊鎬), nickname Kangle (康樂), was a general of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period state Southern Tang.
Early in his career, he distinguished himself in campaigns against the agrarian army leader Zhang Yuxian and against Southern Tang's southeastern neighbor Min.
It is not known when Bian Hao was born, but it is known that he was from Sheng Prefecture (昇州, in modern Nanjing, Jiangsu, i.e., the later Southern Tang capital Jinling).
When he was born, his father dreamed of the Liu Song official Xie Lingyun coming to see him and offering to be his son.
)[2] Subsequently, Bian apparently became the discipline officer of the Southern Tang army stationed at Hong Prefecture (洪州, in modern Nanchang, Jiangxi).
In 944, with Southern Tang's southeastern neighbor Min deeply divided by a civil war (with the general Zhu Wenjin having assassinated the emperor Wang Xi and claimed the title of Emperor of Min himself at Min's traditional capital Fu Prefecture (福州, in modern Fuzhou, Fujian), and with Wang Xi's younger brother Wang Yanzheng having claimed the title of Emperor of Yin at Jian Prefecture (建州, in modern Nanping, Fujian), although after Zhu's subsequent assassination he reclaimed the title of Emperor of Min), the Southern Tang general Cha Wenhui (查文徽) advocated a campaign against Wang Yanzheng.
Ma Xi'e eventually prevailed, with Southern Tang support, and therefore, in 951, sent his secretary Liu Guangfu (劉光輔) to Jinling to submit tributes to Li Jing.
However, the people of Changsha were resentful of Ma Xi'e's rule, and therefore submitted a petition that Bian be put in command.
He subsequently also sent the officer Li Chengjian (李承戩) to Mount Heng to order Ma Xi'e to report to Jinling as well.
Two officers, Sun Lang (孫朗) and Cao Jin (曹進), thereafter entered a conspiracy to kill Bian and Wang, and then submit to Later Zhou.
Sun and Wang, realizing they could not defeat him, fled to Wuping's capital Lang Prefecture (朗州) and submitted to Liu Yan.
They revealed to Liu's general Wang Kui that the Southern Tang imperial administration itself was deeply flawed with corruption and improper policies and argued that Changsha could be easily taken.
Liu decided to launch an attack, and sent Wang, Zhou, and eight other generals, with Sun and Cao serving as their guides, quickly toward Changsha.
[5] In the aftermaths, Li stripped Bian of his commissions and exiled him to Rao Prefecture (饒州, in modern Shangrao).
Li Jingda's army subsequently headed for the vicinity of Shou Prefecture (壽州, in modern Lu'an, Anhui), which had been under Later Zhou siege from the start of the war, as it sat on the Later Zhou/Southern Tang border.
As another Later Zhou army, commanded by Guo himself, was set to arrive to renew the effort to capture the city, Shou's defender Liu Renshan proposed that Bian enter the city and defend it, while Liu himself make a preemptive attack against the Later Zhou army, but Li Jingda refused to grant approval.
[6] In winter 958, after a peace agreement had been entered between the two states (with Li Jing submitting to Guo as a vassal and ceding the land north of the Yangtze River to Later Zhou), Guo returned Bian, Xu, and Liu's army monitor Zhou Tinggou (周廷構) to Southern Tang.