A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 962: The Emperor of Chang'an is in a state of chaos, the King of Jin is weak and the King of Liang is strong

March of the fourth year of Guanghua
Prime Minister Cui Yin, who had a close relationship with Zhu Wen, soon received a secret report and immediately contacted Sun Dezhao, the head of the imperial guard, to capture and kill Liu Jishou and others.

Finally, Li Ye, who had been imprisoned for several months, was able to see the light of day again and was welcomed back by Cui Yin.

In the same month, Li Ye changed the reign title to Tianfu and complied with Cui Yin's proposal to promote Zhu Wen to the King of Heyang for his contribution in rescuing the emperor.

After that, Cui Yin wanted to use Zhu Wen to kill the eunuchs.

In order to protect themselves, the eunuchs, led by the great eunuch and Privy Councilor Han Quanhui, contacted Fengxiang Li Maozhen, Huazhou Han Jian and others for external aid to fight against Zhu Quanzhong.

October of the first year of Tianfu
Cui Yin forged an imperial edict ordering Zhu Wen to lead his troops to the capital to defend the king.

Zhu Wen took the opportunity to lead 70,000 troops from Hezhong to capture Tongzhou and Huazhou, and approached the suburbs of Chang'an.

As for why Li Keyong did not move.

Since the first year of Guanghua, after Li Keyong returned to Taiyuan, he quickly gathered 50,000 troops to attack Liu Rengong who had betrayed him.

The two armies fought at Ansai. The Hedong army had been fighting outside for many years and had just made an expedition to the capital. Before they could rest in Taiyuan for a few days, they were pulled to the Ansai battlefield by Li Keyong.

The soldiers were homesick very much, and a large number of them deserted the camp every day, and the generals were unable to control them.

The army was in a state of uncertainty, and no matter how ambitious Li Keyong was, he was powerless to turn the tide.

Liu Rengong soon seized the opportunity and defeated him.

Although Li Keyong escaped back to Taiyuan, he was seriously injured.

At this time, Zhu Wen saw an opportunity and sent Ge Congzhou to attack Zhaoyi and Weizhou.

Hedong and Xuanwu had just been defeated and were unable to provide support. In addition, the Chengde army rebelled and attacked from behind.

Faced with attacks from all sides, the armies of Zhaoyi and Wei Bo were defeated one after another and lost the four states of Xiang, Xing, Meng and Ci one after another.

At the end of the year, Li Keyong finally breathed a sigh of relief and sent Zhou Dewei to Qingshankou.

However, just after leaving the mountain pass, he was attacked by Ge Congzhou at Zhanggong Bridge and was defeated.

In the winter of the same year, Xue Zhiqin, the defender of Luzhou, died. His deputy general Li Hanzhi took over Luzhou and rebelled to join Zhu Wen.

Without the help of the Zhaoyi Army, Weizhou Baijian could only barely hold on to the two cities of Weizhou and Chanzhou with the help of Kang Huaiying sent by Xuanwu.

In the second year of Guanghua, the Hedong Army suffered repeated defeats and lost the eastern gate of Taihang Mountain.

Zhu Wen sent Shi Shucong to join forces with Wang Rong of Hede Army, and together they defeated the Chengtian Army, broke through Liaozhou, invaded Taiyuan Prefecture, and arrived at Yuci.

Leping County, where the Bai family of Songxi lived, was located between Chengtian Army and Yuci and became an enemy-occupied area.

The entire clan had to move to Baiyuan in Taihang Mountains for refuge.

Fortunately, Zhu Wen, Wang Rong and others were concerned that Bai Yi of Xuanwu and Bai Jian of Weizhou might be desperate, so when they saw that they had not captured any important figures of the Bai family, they simply looted the deserted Songxi Manor and left without setting fire to it.

In the summer of the same year, Zhou Dewei of Hedong defeated Zhu Cong in Dongwo. In the autumn, Li Sizhao of Hedong once again took over Ze and Lu states.

In the third year of Guanghua, Li Keyong personally resisted the main forces of Zhu Wen, Liu Rengong and Wang Rong in Taiyuan.

Li Sizhao was sent out of Zelu to open up the situation for the Hedong army.

In the spring, Li Sizhao defeated the Zhongwu Army in Shahe, recaptured Mingzhou, and reconnected with the Wei Bo Army.

In summer, Zhu Wen personally led his troops, crossed the Yellow River from Luoyang to the north, and surrounded Li Sizhao's troops.

Li Sizhao was defeated and fled, but fortunately Bai Jian led the Wei Bo troops to rescue him, and he was able to escape back to Qingshankou.

In autumn, Li Sizhao sent troops again and captured Huaizhou.

It was precisely because Hedong and Weizhou were defeated by Zhu Wen, who joined forces with Youzhou and Chengde, that Zhu Wen was able to swagger across the Yellow River from Hezhong to the west and enter Guanzhong.

October 23, the first year of Tianfu
Zhu Wen's troops approached the outskirts of Chang'an.

Han Quanhui and others kidnapped Li Ye and took him to Fengxiang to seek refuge with Li Maozhen.

Seeing the emperor fleeing westward, Zhu Wen immediately led the cavalry in pursuit.

When they chased to the city of Fengxiang, Zhu Wen sat upright on his warhorse and loudly rebuked Han Quanhui, demanding that he bring back the saint.

However, Han Quanhui produced a forged imperial edict, citing the emperor's order, ordering Zhu Wen to return to the town.

Seeing that he had few soldiers with him, Zhu Wen was afraid of being detained by Li Maozhen, so he left quickly after saying some harsh words.

March of the second year of Tianfu
After Zhu Wen returned to Hezhong to command the siege of Taiyuan, he again besieged Fengxiang and defeated Li Maozhen several times. Li Zhouyi, the governor of Fufang who came to rescue Li Maozhen, was also intercepted and surrendered to Zhu Wen.

Fengxiang Town was under siege for a long time. The food in the city was exhausted and countless people died of starvation and freezing.

The first month of the third year of Tianfu
Seeing that the food in the city was running out, Li Maozhen had no choice but to kill Han Quanhui and twenty others and negotiate peace with Zhu Wen.

Zhu Wen "protected" Li Ye back to Chang'an.

At this point, Li Ye had completely become Zhu Wen's puppet, obeying his orders.

Soon, Zhu Wen killed more than 700 eunuchs including Diwu Kefan.

Li Ye issued an imperial decree appointing Zhu Wen as the Guardian Grand Marshal, concurrently the Minister of the Central Secretariat, the Military Governor of the Zhongwu Army and other armies, and the Deputy Marshal of the various troops, and promoted him to the title of King of Liang.

He was also given the honorary title of "Loyal and Upholding Righteousness" and five imperially composed poems, "Yangliu Ci".

The reason why Zhu Wen was able to enjoy the highest honor in Chang'an at this time without worrying about the war in Taiyuan was that

When Zhu Wen conquered Guanzhong, he also invaded Hedong at the same time.

Starting from the first year of Tianfu, the Liang army successively conquered Jinzhou, Jiangzhou, and Hezhong, and captured Wang Ke.

Zhu Wen's general Zhu Cong defeated Li Sizhao and captured Ze and Lu.

Soon the Liang army conquered Fen, Ci and Xi prefectures.

A large number of Liang troops poured into Taiyuan from the east, west and south and surrounded the city. For a time, people in the territory of Jin were in panic.

Li Keyong saw that the situation was hopeless and planned to flee to Yunzhou, and then he wanted to flee to the desert. While he was hesitating, a great epidemic struck and the Liang army had no choice but to retreat.

Zhou Dewei once again recaptured the three states of Fen, Ci and Xi in September of the second year of Tianfu.

After this retreat, Zhu Wen never made a comeback.

Because he suddenly occupied too many places, he had to stop and reorganize the army, sort out the relationships between various places, and reasonably arrange the defense chiefs in various places.

In addition, with Li Ye in his hands, he had to devote a lot of energy to resolving court disputes.

Just as Zhu Wen was racking his brains, planning how to get Li Ye to Luoyang.

Bianzhou, Xuanwu Army
Because of the disastrous defeat in Huainan, the strength of the Xuanwu Army was damaged, and it even lost a great general, Yuan Qing, causing instability in many newly annexed prefectures and counties.

In addition, Zhu Jin relied on Yang Xingmi and colluded with his old subordinates in Yun and Yan to cause trouble in the prefectures and counties. Bai Yi devoted most of his energy to quelling the rebellion.

During this period, Zhu Jin crossed the Huai River from time to time, plundered Haosi, and even penetrated into Xuzhou at one point, causing unrest in the southern part of the Xuanwu Army.

Fortunately, Li Kerang was no pushover. After Bai Yi transferred the cavalry to Suzhou, Zhu Jin's cavalry could no longer wreak havoc.

Once he was captured by the Xuanwu cavalry. Although both armies had 5,000 people, the battle was one-sided and Zhu Jin was chased and fled everywhere.

Relying on his superb martial arts, he finally escaped the pursuit and returned to Huainan.

Finally, after careful selection, only a few hundred cavalrymen escaped back to Huainan, and the rest were all left on the north bank of the Huai River.

The Xuanwu cavalry lost only a few hundred people.

Without Zhu Jin's external assistance, Bai Yi, with Bai Xingjian as the commander, led 10,000 people to encircle and suppress the rebels who were spreading in Mount Tai. It took three months and finally captured and killed the rebel leader An Chenhui.

The Xuanwu Army calmed down again.

However, the drastic changes in Hedong and Guanzhong outside made Bai Yi unable to remain indifferent.

So after Zhu Wen entered Chang'an, Youzhou and Chengde successively rebelled against Jin.

Bai Yi sent an envoy to Qingzhou to explain the pros and cons, allowing Wang Shifan to make up his mind.

Did they truly surrender, or did they maintain a semi-independent state long ago?

If it's the latter, don't blame Bianfu for sending troops.

In the end, Wang Shifan compromised. He accused Zhu Wen of deceiving the emperor and doing the same thing as Cao Cao, saying:
"We are the emperor's shield. When the emperor and father are in trouble, there is no one who fights hard. We all strengthen our army to defend ourselves. If the enemy does this, the emperor will lose his ancestral home. Whose fault is it? My success or failure today depends on it!"

Determined to go the same way as Bai Yi.

So Bai Yi appointed his confidant Bai Haoyuan to take charge of Pinglu, moved Wang Shifan's entire family to Bianzhou, and appointed him as the governor of Yicheng Army.

A large number of officials from provincial and county schools were sent to serve in the prefectures and counties of the Pinglu Army. Liu Fansheng, the chief officer of Xuzhou, was appointed as the governor of Qingzhou, cooperating with Bai Haoyuan, the governor of Pinglu, to govern the Shandong Peninsula.

(End of this chapter)