The first prince of Song Dynasty

Chapter 23 The turmoil in Qinzhou
Zhao Xu had a very comfortable life at this stage. He had a hot fight with Gao Guiying. He usually went to the front office to report to the front office, and his life was not bad.

He was instructing the guard Liu Qinhu to practice the muscles and bones. Liu Qinhu's light work is good, but his close combat ability is not good.

It just so happened that Zhao Xu got a lonely book in his previous life, and it was about split muscles and bones.

But no matter how much he practiced, he couldn't succeed.

Seeing that Liu Qinhu's melee combat ability is not strong, he wanted to give it a try, but he didn't expect that this guy would be able to do it after practicing.

This made Zhao Xu quite jealous. Although he couldn't practice, he could guide Liu Qinhu to practice.

With thousands of Chinese martial arts accumulations, the theory is good, I saw him explaining here, and Liu Qinhu practicing quickly on the other side.

I saw Liu Qinhu's hands twisting, twisting, and twisting one by one towards a puppet in front of him, aiming at the acupuncture points on the puppet and hitting them continuously.

Even Zhao Xu had to admire the accuracy of identifying the acupoints. It seemed that this guy was born to eat this bowl of rice.

After the founding of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Xu set up a special organization called Shadow, which was responsible for espionage and interrogation. The leader of this organization was Liu Qinhu.

At that time, he was so consummate that his hands were divided, his interrogation was unfavorable, and he was nicknamed "Yan Wang Liu."

As for that black-faced big man Dong Zhenhai, he was not idle at this time either.

Under Zhao Xu's orders, he was constantly using his body to hold the big tree, exercising his strength.

Later, his horizontal training of the Thirteen Taibao had reached the top level, and he was invulnerable all over his body, and later became the front commander of the imperial army.

This is all something for later, not to mention for the time being, when Zhao Xu was training them here, the court here could be lively.

All this is because a few common people came from other places, to be precise, representatives of the common people, came to Bianjing to pay respects to Emperor Chai Rong of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

Originally, the emperor would not have the time to meet such small people, but these representatives of the peasants were not ordinary representatives.

This is not to say how famous they are, or how handsome they are, but because they are farmers from other countries.

This other country is Houshu, which was established by Meng Zhixiang, with its capital in Chengdu.

The territory in its prime was about most of present-day Sichuan, southeastern Gansu, southern Shaanxi, and western Hubei.

Speaking of which, Meng Zhixiang is also a capable person. His name is Baoyin, and he is from the southwest of Xingtai, Hebei today. He was the founding emperor of Later Shu during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

Meng Zhixiang was originally the nephew and son-in-law of Li Keyong, the king of Jin. He was very popular with Li Cunxu in the Later Tang Dynasty.

Later, Li Cunxu was replaced by Li Keyong's adopted son Li Siyuan. After Li Siyuan succeeded Tang Mingzong, Meng Zhixiang, the governor of Sichuan, had the idea of ​​relying on Shu for independence.

Prepare to learn from Liu Bei's idea of ​​occupying the middle of Shu, cutting Shu and becoming king.He trained soldiers, expanded the force, added Yisheng, Dingyuan, Xiaorui, Yining, Feichao and other armies, and ordered Li Renhan, Zhao Tingyin, Zhang Ye and other cronies to lead them respectively.

The order of the later Tang Dynasty was ignored, and the court also had a way to deal with them. Who made him have money and someone, and Li Siyuan had no way.

Then Meng Zhixiang went too far, and later Meng Zhixiang wanted to annex Dongchuan.Later Tang finally launched an army crusade, but was defeated by Meng Zhixiang, and Dong Zhang, a general of Later Tang, was killed.

In 933, Meng Zhixiang annexed Dongchuan and occupied the land of Liangchuan.At the same time, he advanced to become the king of Shu.

In 934 AD, Meng Zhixiang proclaimed himself emperor in Chengdu, changed Yuan Mingde, and established Houshu.But this guy's fate was so poor that he had only been the emperor for six months before he died.

Then his third son, Meng Chang, succeeded to the throne, revered Meng Zhixiang as the great ancestor, and the temple name was Emperor Mingxiao, a sage of civil and martial arts.

In the first year of the Great Zhou Dynasty, that is, in February of 954 A.D., the command envoy of Zuo Kuang Sheng Ma Budu in Hou Shu and the envoy of Baoning Jiedu An Siqian arrogantly refused to obey the jurisdiction.

Going beyond his authority, he killed Zhang Ye, the minister of Houshu, and he was ineffective in fighting. He spoke rudely to Meng Chang, and was warned by Meng Chang.

But An Siqian didn't want to repent, but became more and more arrogant. At the same time, his three sons were domineering, bullying others and robbing women.

It caused public dissatisfaction and brought great disaster to the people.Meng Chang executed An Siqian and his three sons.

At the same time, Han Jixun, the Xiongwu Jiedu envoy, knew how to shake Qinzhou, but the taxes in Qinzhou and other places in Houshu were really heavy, and Han Jixun also imposed excessive taxes, which the people could not bear.

As a result, some Qinzhou people secretly fled to Bianjing, explaining the wishes of the Qinzhou people, and begging Chai Rong to recover Qinzhou and other places in the Central Plains.

Chai Rong originally believed that since ancient times, only the Central Plains was the orthodox dynasty, and the Great Zhou occupied the hinterland of the Central Plains.

At will, he thinks that he is the orthodox of the world, and he will definitely rule the world in time, which is also his long-cherished wish.

Later generations called Chai Rong "the first Mingjun of the Five Dynasties". There is also a reason for this. He is a Mingjun with a unified consciousness.

Now the people of Qinzhou came to Bianjing and asked Dazhou to recover Qinzhou. This means that the people of Qinzhou also believed that Dazhou was orthodox.

This made Chai Rong very happy, and ordered to reward the people of Qinzhou.After all, people all over the world say that Taizu Guo Wei took the country from Emperor Han Yin.

This is called injustice, and it makes Chai Rong feel uncomfortable. Even Guo Wei was brooding about it before he died.

That's why Chai Rong went to the south and north to fight, and he went to battle in person, in order to prove to the world that he was the destiny of the Great Zhou.

Now the people from Qinzhou made his eyes shine. This is an opportunity for this ambitious emperor.

Originally, he wanted to unify the world, but now he has an opportunity, but he did not decide this matter alone.

But he has decided that, no matter what, he must decide to attack Houshu, take back Qinzhou and other places, and greatly expand the territory of Dazhou.

Thinking about this year, he has vigorously rectified the forbidden army, eliminated the old and the weak, and at the same time restricted the power of Jiedushi, and his military strength has greatly increased.

Economically, he vigorously rewarded farming and weaving, reduced taxes, increased domestic strength, and filled the treasury.At the same time, he restricted Buddhism and took back the land of Buddhism.

Severe punishment will be given to the stubborn Buddhists, so that there will be more people and land for farming, and there will be more food.

At the same time, he also accepted a large amount of property from Buddhism, which was enough to withstand the national treasury, and he also had income for several years, as well as military expenses.

Over the past year, under Chai Rong's active governance, the country is safe and peaceful, and his prestige has reached its peak, which makes him very satisfied.

This is the best time to regain the original land of the Central Plains, no matter how difficult it is, he will do it.

So he summoned many ministers to discuss the feasibility of recovering Qinzhou and other places.

Of course, many generals want to go back to Qinzhou. On the one hand, they are loyal to Chai Rong, and on the other hand, it is because only the generals who fight can get credit and benefits.

Li Chongjin is even more of an old man, he must play forward, and his proposal has won the approval of many generals.

Zhao Kuangyin and his son didn't say anything, they watched the controversy quietly. The generals can be said to be the main battle and the main attack, but there are also some who don't advocate the use of troops.

That is, some civil servants headed by Li Gu and Fan Zhi did not advocate the use of troops against Shu.

His reason is simple:
"Since ancient times, the road to Shu has been difficult, and it is difficult to go to the blue sky. Qinzhou and other places have been occupied by Hou Shu for so many years, and they have already been integrated into Hou Shu. There is no need to take it back."

"Besides, defeating Qinzhou is tantamount to enmity with Hou Shu. Our relationship with neighboring countries is not good now. Once we start a war with Hou Shu, will the surrounding countries take the opportunity to attack us?"

"At the same time, the military expenditure of sending troops to the northwest will be huge, so it is recommended not to send troops, and it is not too late to send troops after a few years."

Fan Zhi's words made many people in the court deeply agree, and even some people who clamored to send troops nodded in agreement.

Seeing that the officials below disagreed, Chai Rong asked loudly:

"Does anyone else have a different opinion, please tell me." He said, looking in the direction where Zhao Kuangyin and his son were.

Chai Rong's meaning was obvious, it's time for you to come out, Zhao Kuangyin also understood, and was about to go out, but Zhao Xu stopped his father and stood up by himself.

Zhao Xu came out to worship and said:
"Your Majesty, I have something to say." Zhao Xu saluted respectfully.

Chai Rong glanced at Zhao Xu, and he liked Zhao Xu better. He was smart but also extremely brave.

The scene of him beheading Zhang Yuanhui at the beginning still remains in Chai Rong's mind, and he smiled slightly:
"So it's little Zhao Aiqing, Pingshen, what do you want to say?"

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

As he spoke, Zhao Xu shook from the ground.At the same time, he said:
"Before I express my opinion, I would like to tell a story."

Chai Rong was taken aback for a moment, remembering that this kid also told a story when he went on a personal expedition before, so he nodded.

Zhao Xu began to tell his story;

"In the past, because a landlord passed away, the family members were fighting for property, and the landlord's property and servants in other places were all taken over by others."

Zhao Xu bowed his head and spoke.

"Later, the landlord's son revived the family business. Where did the servants who were originally in that property escape from? I hope the new owner's family can send someone to take back those properties. Those former servants are waiting for the new owner to go?"

The people around seem to have understood, what is this guy going to say again, isn't this an analogy to this matter?

"Does Your Majesty know what this landlord's son did? He agreed to this servant's request and led all the guards to other places to receive the property."

At this time, Zhao Xu turned to Fan Zhi and the others: "At that time, the butler said, is it really worth it to waste manpower, material and financial resources for such a long distance?"

Fan Zhi and the others were thinking in their hearts, what are you looking at us doing.

"Can you guess what the head of the family said at the time? He said that what I care about is not those properties, but those people. People's hearts are the most important, and you must not lose them, otherwise my end will come. Who will work for me? Woolen cloth?"

Zhao Xu knelt down again:
"That's why I think it's the same in a country. Qinzhou's coming to the people is what the people want, and the people's hearts must not be lost. I think His Majesty not only wants to take back Qinzhou, but also Fengzhou, Chengzhou, and Jiezhou. These have been in the Central Plains since ancient times. If the land is not taken back, we will have nothing to say to our ancestors.”

Zhao Xu's voice echoed in the hall...

　I have something urgent to go out in the afternoon, I don’t know if I can come back in the afternoon, the second update, I will try to come back, thank you for your support
　　
　
(End of this chapter)