Late Tang

Luoyang, Ziwei Palace.

"My lord, this old thief Tian is hijacking the emperor, deceiving the emperor and treason!" The one-eyed dragon Li Keyong jumped up from the couch, and shouted excitedly at Yang Fuguang, the king of Hongnong County, the military supervisor of the capital of the world: "Hey, look! This damned old thief Tian, ​​look what he has done? Not only did he hijack the emperor, but he also set fire to Chengdu, and switched the commanders of the twelve towns, so that Wang Duo was left behind in the northern capital, Taiyuan Yin, and Hedong Jiedu envoy. Zheng Tian served as the garrison of the Eastern Capital, the defensive envoys of Henan Yin and Dongdu Jidu, Zheng Congyu served as the garrison of Xijing, Fengxiang Yin, and the envoy of the Fengxiang Army Jiedu. These three are scholars and scribes. It is simply unreasonable to entrust such an important place to them. Just playing the qin indiscriminately. Anyway, Old Bandit Tian is a false edict, and we refuse to accept it."

Originally, Yang Fuguang had promised Li Keyong that their brothers would play him as the governor of Hedong in front of the emperor.But seeing that the meat was on his lips, now such a thing happened suddenly, Tian Lingzi unexpectedly rushed out and snatched the emperor to Guangdu, and Li Keyong didn't care if he robbed the emperor.But his mother, Old Dog Tian, ​​also issued an edict to change the commander of the Twelfth Town. His name was nowhere to be found on the list.His mother, Zhu A Sanlao, also has a Zhaoyi Jiedu envoy, but Li Keyong has no name on it.This is absolutely intolerable.

The governor of Hezhong Town, Wang Chongrong, was also very dissatisfied with this appointment. He managed two mutinies and two repeated surrenders to Huang Chao and Tang Ting to stabilize his position. Hezhong Town has two big salt ponds, a place that has always been rich, so Isn't it bullshit to let him give up Li Quanzhong's damn Hebei guy and let him go to Tongzhou?There is a salt pond in Hezhong Town, and the land is also large.But what about [***]?Originally, there were only Tonghua and Tongguan, but now that Huazhou was lost, there was only one Tongzhou left, and Huang Chao's emaciated camel was bigger than a horse. If he went to Tongzhou now, wouldn't he have to fight Huang Chao desperately?

Li Changyan had just taken the position of Fengxiang Jiejun, and he was unwilling to leave either.The same goes for other towns. Although there are some small feudal towns with only one or two prefectures who are willing to change to larger feudal towns, others are unwilling to trade large ones for small ones.

Yang Fuguang half-closed his eyes and seemed to be asleep, but in fact he was also extremely angry at this moment.Tian Lingzi's sudden attack really caught them by surprise.No one would have thought that Tian Laogou would have such an idea.One wrong step now, one wrong step at a time.Tian Lingzi left Chengdu with the emperor and arrived in Guangdu.Although Yang Fugong also secretly accumulated a lot of strength in Chengdu, he lost the trump card of the emperor, and lost the upper hand, and he was immediately restrained everywhere.In addition, Tian Lingzi spread rumors everywhere, saying that he set fire to Chang'an and wanted to hijack the emperor for rebellion, which made him very embarrassed now.Although he was not wiped out by Tian Lingzi in one fell swoop based on his usual preparations, he was also extremely embarrassed and could no longer gain a foothold in Chengdu. Now he has evacuated Chengdu with more than ten thousand troops and headed all the way to Guanzhong.

For the Yang brothers, they have lost the emperor and are already in an extremely disadvantageous situation.

Yanjing is preparing to welcome the New Year in the Forbidden City.

When the pregnant Gongsun Lan rushed to the palace in a hurry but staggeringly, and reported the news of the Chengdu Palace Change to Li Jing, Li Jing was just because of the densely packed financial budget report for the second year of Zhonghe from Auditor Li Rang. The numbers look drowsy.

"What? Tell me again?" Li Jing's eyes lit up suddenly, and he became excited like a dragon waking up: "Great, it's great, look, these eggless eunuchs are really Well done."

"Convene the Political Affairs Hall meeting immediately!" Li Jing said excitedly.

It has been a year and a half since the Battle of Daibei. Qin Fan has kept his defenses for the past year and a half, as if he had fallen asleep. lively.For more than a year, Li Jing was really very low-key, and never said a single unnecessary word.

The war in the Northeast has been hidden in the quagmire. Last year, Li Jing had to recall the Linwei Army and Guo Chongtao Army on the northern grassland of Yinshan Mountain. In the autumn, he recalled the Navy Army and started a comprehensive shrinking strategy.

From last year to this year, the period of more than one year has been the most difficult year for Qin Jun in recent years.There is good news outside, but the Qin army is caught in a food crisis inside.Everyone has had a bad year, relying on shrinking clothes to live on a diet, while tightening their belts to save as much as possible, and at the same time, they have to squeeze out a lot of food and supplies to send thousands of miles outside the customs. Bohai Sea.

The Battle of Bohai has now completely become a protracted confrontation. Both sides are fighting and fighting for consumption. It depends on who can't hold it first.The determination of Khitan, Heishui, Shiwei and other tribes to join forces is much stronger than Li Jing expected.Perhaps it was because of the failure of going south, and being burned and destroyed by the two legions of Lin Wei and Guo Chongtao all the way deep into the grassland, which seriously injured the Khitan's vitality, but it strengthened their determination to win the Bohai War to regain the city.This time, the tribal army took out their capital and relied on the occupied half of the Bohai Sea to carry out comprehensive plunder to support the operation.

The Bohai Navy was also weaker than the Qin Army expected. In this war, the Bohai State was completely reduced to a supporting role, and the Qin Army shouldered most of the burden against the enemy.

Now that the battle is fought, there is no up or down, even if Li Jing wants to retreat, it is impossible to retreat.Now it depends on who can persevere until the end. Whoever persists to the end will be able to swallow Bohai. In the end, they can rely on attracting the fresh flesh and blood of Bohai to replenish and restore their strength and become the true overlord of the Northeast.For this goal, Li Jing had to adjust his strategic plan, implement the strategy of fighting in the north and defending in the south, and continued to fight the Hu people outside the pass until he won.In the pass, the book is fully implemented, and the time is delayed as much as possible to restore vitality.

Over the past year, seeing Huang Chao's half-dead appearance, and occasionally being able to cheat his body, he made two bouts, which firmly attracted the targets of Zhuzhen. Li Jing had secretly enjoyed himself many times.No one even knew that Huang Chao had lied to his corpse many times, but in fact, Qin Jun had silently helped them secretly, and provided them with a lot of valuable information selflessly.Originally, Li Jing still pinned her hopes on Huang Chao, hoping that he could delay it for another year or a half.Who would have thought that Tian Lingzi, an old eunuch, would actually do such a ridiculous thing at this time.

At this time, Tian Lingzi robbed the emperor and openly fought with the Yang brothers, which really made people infinitely happy.

Half an hour later, all the important ministers who participated in the political affairs hall gathered in the political affairs hall to discuss matters.

"Everyone, great news. Brothers Tian Lingzi and Yang Fugong started fighting. The eunuch Tian hijacked the emperor and left Chengdu for Guangdu. Yang Fugong was finally forced to flee Chengdu and go to Guanzhong. Today, Tian Lingzi is in Guangdu, There are hundreds of thousands of shence troops in Baidu, Jiannan Dongchuan, Jiannan Xichuan, and Shannan Xidao. They have land and soldiers in their hands. Yang Fugong has arrived in Fengxiang Town, and Yang Fuguang is in Luoyang. The battle between the three eunuchs has begun. We have It's a good show." Gai Yu, the right envoy of the Staff Council, already knew the news, and said loudly with a smile on his face as soon as he came in.

Li Jing nodded, "It is precisely because of this that I called you here. Now the eunuchs are fighting each other. , what kind of changes will happen to the situation next, and what kind of impact will it have on our Qin Fan? What kind of attitude do we need to maintain in this battle? What kind of strategic plans do we need to make? adjustment? Let’s discuss it together.”

This is indeed a major event related to the Qin army. Any development of the matter will affect the Qin army.

Jing Xiang, the left envoy of the staff, stroked his beard. As an important minister in charge of the strategic direction of the Qin army, his opinion in this regard is extremely important.He thought for a while, and slowly said: "Someone thought that Tian Lingzi had a small territory and weak military force, and he must be the one who lost in the end when he fought with the Yang brothers. However, Tian Lingzi held the emperor in his hand, so he could use the emperor to command the princes, Although today's orders from the Son of Heaven are useless, the Yellow Nest is still alive, and Yang Fugong has no advantage to gain. Now that Yang Fugong has escaped from Sanchuan, then someone thinks that there will be no fight between Tian Lingzi and the Yang brothers for the time being. They have It is very likely that they will join forces to deal with Huang Chao first, and after dividing up the money and food in the land occupied by Huang Chao, they will finally settle with Tian Lingzi and take back the emperor."

The terrain of Sanchuan is complex, easy to defend but difficult to attack.With Huang Chao still behind, it is impossible for Zhuzhen to send troops to Guanzhong.What's more, although the Yang brothers now have the support of many feudal towns, there are still many feudal towns that have not stood with them.Especially Guanzhong, Shannan, and Jingxiang.

"Are we going to intervene in this?"

Cui Yunqing reminded Li Jing, "His Royal Highness, although we have stopped fighting in the south for a year and a half, we have continued to use troops in the northeast. In just one and a half years, it is far from the time to recover. According to today's In the current situation, we have to rest and recuperate for at least two years. This is still under the condition that we have maintained the current smooth situation in the Northeast War. If we rashly intervene in the Central Plains War now, I am afraid that it will attract the siege of the towns at that time, and it will be dangerous at that time. gone."

"Our army is not afraid of the siege of the towns!" Wang Pu said loudly.

"But we don't have the food, grass, and equipment to support the war together. The soldiers and horses have not moved, and the food and grass go first. Without food, what do we use to fight? If we don't have equipment, what do we use to fight against the enemy? Especially since we have gunpowder in stock, everyone only knows that firearms are very strong. , but I don’t know that the power of firearms is piled up with countless gunpowder. The last time we fought Baishuiluo, we used up a few years of reserves in one day. The conquests in the pass directly wiped out all our family assets , I haven’t regained my vitality yet, and I’m just blindly resorting to military action. I’m afraid that the people’s hearts will be unstable. Your Highness doesn’t want the soldiers to pay their salaries and the common people can’t eat, right?”

"Are we still going to endure it?"

"There's nothing wrong with being patient!"

"But it's really frustrating to be a turtle all the time. You can't fight even though you have great force." Wang Pu sighed.

Li Jing couldn't help sighing. Although the army is strong, logistics is a big limitation.After the Battle of Daibei last year, Li Jing had to shrink in an all-round way, and basically disbanded the united soldiers, township soldiers, militiamen, and civilian husbands and let them resume production.Even the few fleets of the navy and the marines of the navy have almost all become fishermen, hunting whales and fishing at sea all day long.The cavalry units also often leave the barracks and go camping and training in the mountains. In fact, they are hunting and solving part of the military ration problem by themselves.

Li Jing even sent people to Yang Xingmi in Huaixi and Qianyu in Hangzhou, as well as Fujian, Lingnan East, Lingnan West, Annan, Tianping, Yicheng, Xuanwu, North Korea, Dongying and other places to borrow grain.They also bought grain from those small countries in the southwest of Jiaozhou, and spent a lot of effort to transport the grain back.Some officials once proposed that food is only provided to officials and the army, and the rest of the people are left to figure out their own solutions, and they are even allowed to go out to eat.This proposal was heavily criticized by Li Jing. The biggest reason why Qin Jun has been able to develop and grow so fast is that there is no civil strife.And there is no civil strife, apart from Li Jing's checks and balances and preventive measures, the biggest reason is that many systems of the Qin Dynasty have indeed benefited the vast majority of people than before, from top to bottom, from officials to common people, That's why they will always support Li Jing.Especially when the life of the Qin Fan was in stark contrast to other feudal towns, this support was even greater.

It is precisely without the huge consumption of civil strife that Qin Fan can expand so rapidly.But if Li Jing really accepts the official's proposal to carry out that kind of blood transfusion-style development, sacrifice the interests of the vast majority of the people to carry out high-handed rule and maintain military strength, this strength will not last long.

The more that is the case, the faster it will fall.No building with a weak foundation can last long.Military strength must rely on political stability, which is the core.

"It doesn't make me join the chaos in the west at this time, not to mention that we don't have the ability now, even if we have the ability, it's not suitable to mix in. If we really have that ability, we still have to solve the problem in Hebei first. De and Wei Bo are two thorns in the side. If they are not removed, our Hebei and Shandong channels will not be stable." Pei You said.

"Pei Shilang means that we don't care about the eunuchs' fights now, and take this opportunity to clear the snow in front of the door?" Gai Yu asked.

"Someone thinks this is an opportunity. The current commander in Chengde Town is only ten years old. How can such a commander fight against us? While Huang Chao is still struggling and the two eunuchs have already pinched each other, we just happened to destroy Chengde. town." Pei You nodded.

"Someone thinks it's not right. Chengde Town owns the territories of the five prefectures. It doesn't mean that it can be destroyed if it is destroyed, especially since it is located in the center of Hebei, it has a favorable geographical location. In addition, Weibo Town will definitely send troops to rescue, and even That ten-year-old baby also has an old man named One-Eyed Wolf, how could he sit idly by? Chengde Town is a hornet's nest, and everyone is watching. As long as we move, it will inevitably trigger a chain reaction, and the whole body will be affected. Not good, it’s just another battle to replace the North, and it may even turn into a protracted war. I firmly oppose stabbing this hornet’s nest at this time!” Gai Yu said in a deep voice.

Indeed, when the Qin army captured the land of Daibei to the north of Taiyuan, the next military goal of the Qin army was obvious to all passers-by. It could not be Taiyuan in Hedong, nor Luoyang in Henan, let alone It is Yangzhou in Huainan, so there is only one target left, Chengde in Hebei.

Under such an obvious situation, attacking Chengde may step into a big quagmire at any time.

Li Jing pinched her chin, rubbed her mustache like a steel needle, and fell into deep thought.As opponents were defeated one by one, Qin Jun's current surrounding situation did not improve, but became more and more insecure.Because after those weak opponents were annexed and eliminated, the rest of the Qin army's periphery are some very powerful towns. They may not be the opponents of the Qin army alone, but if they are really combined, they will far surpass the few before. Second-rate.

"Gu has a worry now. More and more information shows that Zheng Congzhen is very likely to hand over Hedong Town to Li Keyong. If Li Keyong occupies Hedong Town, it will be very unfavorable to us. That way , Li Keyong, Chengde, and Wei Bo joined together again to form an iron triangle to resist us. There will even be Wang Chongrong, Zhu Quanzhong, Li Quanzhong, etc. joining their alliance. The big waves wash away the sand, and the rest of our neighbors have already It's all tough stuff."

Hearing Li Jing's emotion, everyone felt the same.The Qin army came all the way west, annexing all the feudal towns in front like giant beasts.Now there is still any feudal town that can't see clearly that the goal of the Qin army is to seize the world, as long as it is unwilling to be annexed, it will become the enemy of the Qin army.The stronger the Qin army, the higher the possibility of these feudal towns joining forces to fight.

"Perhaps we can focus on the northeast battlefield?" Yu Cong said.

"what do you mean?"

"Someone's thinking is like this..." Yu Cong said slowly, Li Jing listened attentively, nodding from time to time, pinching his chin, thoughtful.

Three days later, in Zhenzhou, Chengde Town, an envoy of the Qin Army, guarded by a team of knights, rode his horse into the city with his chest up and his head upright, and came straight to Zhao Junwang's mansion.

"King Zhaojun invites the envoy from Youzhou to come in!"

Qin Fan's envoy was a military officer in his thirties, not of high rank, but a seventh-rank deputy lieutenant Yihui. He didn't follow him into the mansion, but reined in his horse, sat on the horse very arrogantly, and snorted coldly. He said in a voice: "No need, someone came here to read out an official document on the order of the Generalissimo of the World's Army and Horses and the King of Qin, and asked Wang Rong to come out and pick up the book."

Several Chengde guards glared angrily, holding onto the handle of the knife.The military officer was unafraid, and just sneered, "Oh, I almost forgot that Wang Rong is only a ten-year-old boy, maybe he is still breastfeeding at this time. If so, then I will read it directly here." , you will pass it on later.”

"The ultimatum is that Chengde Town is required to hand over the household registration album within three days, and the above form will be submitted to the imperial court. Otherwise, once the three days arrive, the King of Qin will personally lead an army of millions of tigers and wolves to break through Chengde Town and bring thousands of cannons. , Bomb the city of Shenzhou!" The military officer finished reading the ultimatum in an extremely arrogant tone, threw the ultimatum directly in front of the gate of Prince Zhao's mansion, turned around and left!

A long time after the hooves of the cavalry of the Qin Army went away, the gate of Prince Zhao's Mansion opened, and a young man with pink make-up and jade came out of the mansion. He bent down and picked up the ultimatum on the ground. After sweeping his eyes, he was stunned!

After reading it, please vote for your recommendation by the way, thank you! (To be continued.)