The first prince of Song Dynasty

Chapter 46 The Tang Dynasty Begins

Since then, a lot of important information has been obtained from it, and this situation has continued until the founding of the Song Dynasty.

At the same time, the first-class hot pot in Taoxianglou is still loved by everyone, whether it is the princes and nobles or the common people.

Another time, after Chai Rong heard about this incident, he came here for a private visit and had hot pot, and he was full of praise.

Although there was no beer in this era, the alcohol content of baijiu was still not high, about the same as beer.

Although Zhao Xu can make money here, Zhao Xu mostly uses this place to collect news.

In addition, he also sold a large amount of spirits to Khitan. Most of the alcohol in this era is not high in alcohol, and it tastes like nothing.

For Khitan in a place of bitter cold, spirits were their favorite, so Zhao Xu distilled spirits and supplied them exclusively to Khitan.

Of course, not only Khitan, Northern Han and several other countries also sold his spirits.

Moreover, the price of this spirit is several times, even dozens of times, that of ordinary wine, but the supply is still in short supply.

This allowed Zhao Xu to quickly accumulate a lot of wealth and provide a lot of financial support for his future plans.

Zhao Xu didn't know that at this moment, Chai Rong was discussing with several important ministers about sending troops to the Jiangnan Tang Kingdom.

During the period when Zhao Xu was injured and recuperated at home, Chai Rong also came and told him to take good care of his injuries.

Chai Rong was very angry with Tang Guo, and dared to drag Da Zhou's hind legs when Da Zhou took back the four states of Qin and Feng.

Chai Rong was very annoyed that he still went around the waterway to collude with the Khitan in the north. In fact, the Tang State did not do this, and Chai Rong wanted to find an excuse to attack the Tang State in the south of the Yangtze River.

Previously, according to Wang Pu's "Strategy for Flattening the Frontier", the south was first flattened. Later, because the people in Qinzhou's former land petitioned to recover the lost land, Chai Rong temporarily attacked Houshu.

Recently, Zhao Kuangyin recounted Zhao Xu's benefits of taking the land of Huainan in the Southern Tang Dynasty. As a monarch who wants to rule the world, how could he not be tempted?
At this time, the emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty was Li Jing, the successor of the founding emperor Li Min of the Southern Tang Dynasty, but this Li Jing was not as good as his father.

Li Jing is kind, kind and weak by nature. She likes to write articles, and her lyrics are even better. If she is a literati, she will be even better.

This Li Jing often drank and had fun with ordinary literati, living a carefree and carefree life.

In addition to liking poetry, he also likes flattering words from others, that is, he likes other people's exclusive flattery.

So he promoted a large group of people who could only speak good words, and the Southern Tang Dynasty became increasingly chaotic and the country's power gradually declined.

Before that, the Southern Tang Dynasty had already wiped out the Min and Chu countries, and the country's land and strength had also greatly increased.

Therefore, Li Jing began to become more and more arrogant, and he was also high-spirited, and even had the idea of ​​annexing the world.

For this reason, when Hou Shu asked them for assistance in attacking Da Zhou, Li Jing agreed without thinking.

Li Jing sent envoys to Liao and Northern Han by sea, bypassing Hou Zhou, and discussed with them about jointly attacking Hou Zhou.

When Li Shouzhen and Murong Yanchao rebelled, Southern Tang sent troops to support them.

At that time, Hou Zhou had a lot of things to do, so he didn't bother with Nan Tang for the time being. Now that Hou Zhou and they have freed up their hands, Nan Tang has to repay the debt they owed.

As soon as Chai Rong wanted to attack Southern Tang, he immediately got everyone's support. After all, Southern Tang dared to offend Da Zhou when Da Zhou attacked Houshu, which is not bad.

The crowd in the court was full of enthusiasm, and no one objected, even Prime Minister Li Gu, who had previously opposed the Western Expedition, strongly supported it.

So there is no doubt that the army began to send to the Southern Tang Dynasty.On December [-]th of the second year of Xiande, Chai Rong ordered to attack Southern Tang.

Chai Rong appointed Prime Minister Li Gu as the deployment of the Huainan former army camp, and commanded the relevant matters of the army at this time.

At the same time, he was appointed as the magistrate of Luzhou and Shouzhou. Although these are still the lands of the Southern Tang Dynasty, Chai Rong was confident that he would be able to get them, so he was appointed magistrate in advance.

At the same time, Zhongwu Jiedu envoy Wang Yanchao was appointed as Li Gu's deputy general to assist Li Gu in the formation of troops.

In addition, he also dispatched [-] generals including Han Lingkun, the commander of the guard Ma Jundu, to lead the southern expedition of the forbidden army.

The smartest thing about Chai Rong is that while he was mainly attacking the Southern Tang Dynasty, he issued an edict to Wuyue Kingdom to send troops to help.

Wu Yue, a small country with few soldiers, had no choice but to send troops to attack the Southern Tang Dynasty together.

Of course, so far, neither Zhao Kuangyin nor Zhao Xu's father and son were appointed by Chai Rong to go on an expedition. Zhao Xu was injured, and Zhao Kuangyin was in command, so how could they leave so easily.

Zhao Xu was not worried about this. He believed that Zhou Shizong Chai Rong would reuse their father and son. When the war was not going well, it was time to show their talents.

In the Southern Tang Dynasty, it was still a scene of singing and dancing, or it could be said that there was an undercurrent surging, and they were still fighting for the crown prince.

When Li Jing came to the throne, he didn't want to be emperor, so he gave up the throne to his younger brother Li Jingsui.

But Li Jingsui was also unwilling to live or die. In fact, he was also pretending. He wanted to wait for everyone to give in. He didn't expect that Li Jing would stop giving in and he would sit on the throne.

Later, after Li Jing came to the throne, he said that his elder brother and younger brother were the photos of the former emperor Li Sheng, so he issued an imperial edict to make Li Jingsui the emperor's younger brother.

Taidi, a type of crown prince, referred to as Taidi for short, the emperor's younger brother who is selected to inherit the throne will be the future heir.

Usually the place where the Taidi lives is also called the East Palace like the Prince, but the officials of the East Palace will be renamed accordingly, for example, the Prince Taifu is renamed Taidi Taifu, and the Prince Xima is renamed Taidi Xima.

It is said that the emperor did not appoint a prince but a younger brother, originally because he had no son or his son was still young, partly because the emperor had the intention of passing on his younger brother from the beginning.

This is also for the stability of his own family. Anyway, his own family is the emperor, and there are no outsiders.

But in history, there were very few or none of the emperor's younger brothers who could inherit the throne. Those who were registered as the crown prince at the beginning did not end well.

As the emperor had a son, or his own son gradually grew up, the competition for the throne became more intense.

Besides, Li Jing's son and Li Jing's younger brother were not even a few years apart, which made Li Jing's eldest son Li Hongji very dissatisfied.

Li Hongji is quiet and reticent, but he has extraordinary military talents. He has a high prestige in the army, and the army admires Li Hongji.

In the battle of destroying Chu State, Li Hongji contributed even more, because of his contribution, he was named the King of Yan.

In the court hall of the Southern Tang Dynasty, the ministers were reporting the latest news to their emperor Li Jing, and it was the emperor's younger brother Li Jingsui who spoke first.

"Report to the emperor, Zhou Jun is leading our army to invade Jiangbei."

Li Jing frowned upon hearing this:
"The court of Zhou? We and Dazhou have always been well watered but not river watered. Why did they invade Jiangbei?"

Li Jingsui played again:

"Yes, and Qian Chu from Wuyue also invaded our border."

"Why is there a war between the north and the south all of a sudden, and Qian Chu has such courage?" Li Jing actually asked these questions at this time, the key is how to deal with it.

At this time, his eldest son, Li Hongji, who was appointed King of Yan, expressed his opinion:
"Father, I think this is the Zhou court's flanking policy, intended to divert our army's attention." In fact, this Li Hongji still has a certain vision.

He hit the key point all of a sudden, and now everyone in the court also recalled that it was King Yan who was the most powerful.

Li Jing also nodded.

"Father, my son, please order to lead the troops to Jiangbei to resist Zhou's army. My son will definitely be able to stop Da Zhou and return triumphantly."

Seeing that his father also agreed with Li Hongji, he immediately sent troops to fight with his own views to make contributions.

But Li Jing is also worried about his son. Although he is brave, he is not familiar with the situation in Jiangbei:

"You're not familiar with Jiangbei, what if..." Several of Li Jing's sons died early, and now only the eldest son, the sixth son, and the seventh son remained, so he still cared about his sons very much.

"Your Majesty, since the King of Yan wants to make contributions to the imperial court, let the King of Yan lead the troops to defend Wu Yue, the Wu Yue army is easy to deal with."

The Southern Tang Dynasty is also coming to an end, and there are still internal struggles at this time.

Sure enough, Li Hongji was furious when he heard Li Jingsui's words;
"Uncle Huang, you said that Wu Yuejun is easy to deal with, are you looking down on me?"

"Yan Wang, you are too caring, I just..." Li Jingsui did not dare to show weakness.

"My brother suggested that Yao Feng and Huangfu Hui be sent to lead the Jiangbei army."

"Father and son..."

"Enough, Sun Sheng, what do you think?" Li Jing stopped the quarrel between his younger brother and son, and turned to ask his minister.

Sun Sheng, whose original name was Sun Feng, also known as Ji, was from Mizhou.He is Li Jing's favorite minister.

Sun Sheng was diligent and studious when he was young, and he was even better at composing poems. He had a good literary talent, but he had a slight stutter.

He was a Taoist priest when he was young, and he went to Wu in [-] AD, and waited until Li Sheng established the Tang Dynasty.

Li Sheng appointed him as Tongping Zhangshi, that is, prime minister.Li Sheng's son Li Jing still appointed him as prime minister after he came to the throne.

At this time, when Li Jing asked him, he immediately knelt down and said:

"Your Majesty, I agree with the emperor's younger brother's proposal and send Yao Feng and Huang Fuhui to march to the north of the Yangtze River. King Yan led his troops to defend against Wu Yue's army."

In fact, this Sun Sheng is a member of Li Hongji's faction. He said this with his own intentions, precisely to let Li Hongji make meritorious deeds without putting him in danger.

Another prime minister, Feng Yansi, also nodded in agreement.

So Li Jing ordered:

"Huangfuhui and Yao Feng are the commanders-in-chief of Jiangbei, Feng Yanlu and He Yanxi are the capital supervisors, and Hongji leads the army to defeat Wuyue. That's it."

Li Jing's imperial decree is only a general idea, and many people's original positions still need specific arrangements.

Specifically, Li Jing appointed Liu Yanzhen, the commander of Shenwu, as the deployment of the north camp, and led an army of [-] to garrison in Shouzhou;

At the same time, Fenghua Jiedu envoy and Tongping Zhangshi Huangfuhui were appointed as the aid envoy, and Changzhou regiment training envoy Yao Feng was appointed as the aid supervisor. The two led an army of [-] to Dingyuan.

In addition, Li Jing recalled Song Qiqiu, the governor of Zhennan, and discussed with him about the command of the army;
He also appointed Hanlin Chengzhi and Household Minister Yin Chongyi as Minister of the Ministry of Officials to manage the Privy Council.

The war is about to start.

(End of this chapter)