After discussing with Li Wenhao for a few days, Gongsun Jian finally made a decision. In view of the particularity of the four southwestern provinces, it is enough to only ask for submission, and the implementation of the new policy can be carried out slowly and slowly. However, the tax that should be collected cannot be less, otherwise there will be no substantial benefits to the nominal four mansions, and Gongsun Jian will definitely not do this kind of thing.

In addition, the appointment of officials from the four prefectures will remain as they are for the time being, and Gongsun Jian will send people to inspect them before making a decision. As for the governor of Jeju Prefecture, Gongsun Jian, he generously gave it to the Li family, and asked the Li family to send outstanding disciples of the clan to study in Linshui County, and after passing the examination, they would arrange official positions on Gongsun Jian's territory.

Such an agreement is tantamount to a win-win situation, and Gongsun Jian's territory has expanded, and his income has also increased. And when Gongsun Jian did not have enough manpower, he temporarily maintained his rule over the four southwestern provinces. And those big families also have a time to prepare for transformation, since they have decided to take refuge in Gongsun Jian, it is very clear that the new deal will be implemented sooner or later, so they may as well prepare in advance before this, slowly sell the family's acres of land, and transform into business or other industries.

After sending Li Wenhao and others away, Gongsun Jian also specially sent Shi Fangheng over, and entrusted him with an important task to temporarily replace himself in the future to deal with all the affairs of the four southwestern prefectures. And Cao Liang was also left in Hezhou Mansion and became the governor of the four prefectures of Xizhou and the prefect of Hezhou Prefecture.

After dealing with these things, Gongsun Jian's army still marched towards the four southwestern prefectures according to the original plan, making a gesture of preparing to attack and occupy, but in fact, the people in the team had already been quietly replaced, supplemented by the logistics team led by Cao Gang, plus some summoned strong men to pretend. Gongsun Jian took the third and fourth divisions of Tian Kuo and Ding Feng to sneak back to the three northwestern provinces by small roads in batches, and was arranged in the mountains between Dingxi County and Zhenyuanguan.

By the time Gongsun Jian quietly slipped back to Linshui County, the news of going to the capital had already arrived. Relying on the relationship between the public family and those nobles, as well as the manpower that Gongsun Jian had already arranged and bought in the capital, plus some of Qian Hong's old forces in the palace, a palace coup was successfully implemented. Qian Zhuo, who had only ascended the throne for more than a year, was ruthlessly ousted from power.

As the old saying goes, the most ruthless emperor is the family. Obviously, Qian Zhuo's heart and ability are still far from his father Qian Hong. He didn't kill Qian Hong when he came to power, but the first thing Qian Hong did after coming to power was to announce his accidental death. The poor emperor is still young, so he, the retired emperor, has to come back to take charge of the government for the sake of the Zhou country.

Of course, it is not good for the Emperor Taishang to be the emperor again, but it is no problem to be the regent of the Linchao Dynasty. And the emperor and grandson were not angry, and he followed his father a few days after he ascended the throne. But the country can't be without a king for a day, so after the left and right selection, the seventh prince, the youngest son of the queen, King Lu, was sent to the throne, but Qian Hong still served as the regent and superintendent of the country as the emperor.

The next thing was much simpler, Qian Zhuo's original people were quickly cleaned up, and Chen Cheng was in power again, but he changed from the position of the left prime minister who had been hard to get before to the right prime minister, and Gong Mohan, who was under house arrest, came back to serve as the left prime minister. There are also many people in the noble family who have returned to the court. Obviously, this was the condition they had negotiated with Qian Hong at the beginning.

The eldest prince Qian Yan was transferred back to Shangjing from the Northern Army to serve as the governor of the forbidden army and was responsible for the security of the entire Shangjing City. The 50,000 horses, including the garrison and the forbidden army of Shangjing, were all under his jurisdiction.

The most surprising thing is that Qian Hong gave Gongsun Jian a reward, although everyone had already guessed that Gongsun Jian might get some benefits from it, but no one expected it to be so heavy.

Gongsun Jian was crowned as the king of Zhou and the commander of the horses, and the governor of the seven mansions on the West Road. In other words, the court of the Zhou State not only recognized that the three prefectures in the northwest and the four prefectures in Xizhou all belonged to the rule of Gongsun Jian, but also crowned him as a prince. This kind of treatment has never been seen since the founding of the Zhou State except for the imperial family. At the beginning, Qian Zhuo was just crowning a county king in order to win over Xu Hu.

A good politician must be a person who can bend and stretch, and he also needs to have the ability to push the boat with the current. Qian Hong has done a good job at this point. not only gave Gongsun Jian an unimaginable reward, but also gave Gongsun Jian a task.

That is to defend against the invasion of the state of Wu.

In fact, even if he didn't make this request, Gongsun Jian would do it, after all, once the Wu State invaded, the first thing to suffer would be his own base in the three northwestern provinces. But Qian Hong's approach is obviously a signal to everyone, my Zhou Kingdom has not dispersed, don't look at Gongsun Jian occupying the place of the eleven mansions in the west, but he is still my Qian Hong's son-in-law and the king of Zhou of my Zhou Kingdom. There is an invasion by foreign enemies, and he must also consider the problem from the perspective of the Zhou State to resist.

Gongsun Jian, who received the order, couldn't help but admire, Qian Hong's trick was very slippery, and it was definitely not comparable to Qian Zhuo's waste. But fortunately, now he has a more formal and noble identity, and the noble family that has always supported him has won a seat in the court.

Wu's mistake was indecisiveness, and he had not launched a formal attack on Zhou until now. The other is that the strength is not good. Among all the Seven Kingdoms, Wu had the smallest geographical area and the weakest strength. Moreover, in addition to bordering the Zhou State, it also bordered the Northern Qi and Western Wei Dynasty. The reason why it has not been annexed for so many years is actually its unique way of survival. That is, Wu and all the surrounding countries have marriages.

The most remarkable thing is that the vision of the emperors of Wu is extremely accurate, but most of the daughters who have married in the past can finally become the queens of other countries as they wish. Therefore, it can be said that Wu Guo is the elder brother or eldest brother of all the surrounding countries.

is like the State of Zhou, although the former Emperor Yue, who is now the Emperor Qianhong, did not marry a woman from the State of Wu, but this does not prevent his own mother from being the princess of the State of Wu. As for Qian Zhuo, Wu Guo was not optimistic about him from the beginning. And among the generation of his peers, only the main room of the eldest prince Qian Yan is the princess of Wu Kingdom, and she is also the daughter of Sun Sheng, the king of Kui.

Many coincidences and jokes in the world are like this. At the beginning, Qian Yan led people to the northwest to resist Wu State, but in fact, he was his own father-in-law who resisted. However, although the two sides fought in Zhenyuan Pass, they did not suffer much damage in the end. And now Qian Yan is the forbidden army and garrison governor of the capital of the Zhou Kingdom, and he has the title of double king. It can be said that in terms of title and official position alone, in addition to the emperor in the palace and his seventh brother who was supported to ascend the throne, and the king of Chu who is now leading troops to resist the Southern Han State in the south, he is the fourth person in the Zhou State. In addition, Xu Hu, the governor of the Northern Army of the Zhou State, was his mentor. It can be said that in the entire Zhou Guodan, in terms of force, he can be called the first person.

This kind of investment skill is not something that everyone can do, but Wu Guo sees it this way. However, after listening to Feng Huaidao's analysis of these backgrounds, Gongsun Jian asked inexplicably, why didn't Emperor Wu marry a daughter to me?

"......" Feng Huaidao was also completely speechless. Think about the things you have done, you don't want the princess of the Zhou Kingdom, and in the end she was sent to the border to be a big soldier. Emperor Wu will marry his daughter to you if he is stupid. But then again, it seems that now I want to marry my daughter to you.

Just when the army of Wu was ready to go, a letter from Gongsun Jian was thrown into Sun Sheng's camp. The content is very simple, only a few sentences, and the first sentence at the beginning is to ask Sun Sheng if he has an unmarried sister. The second sentence is that he is ready, as long as the soldiers of Wu dare to step on the boundary drawn by the two sides before, then none of them will want to go back alive. The third sentence is that from now on, the salt trade through Fenshui on the Linshui County side was interrupted, and his Gongsun Jian promised to cut off all salt trade from Zhou to Wu.

It is not that Wu does not have salt, but the production is not enough for domestic consumption, so most of it needs to be imported. This is also Wu Guo's natural shortcoming. However, without the Zhou State, there can be Northern Qi, and there can also be imports from the Northeast Lu State. It's just that the distance is a bit far, so the shipping cost will be relatively high.

Sun Sheng is not a dry eater, and now that he has gathered more than 80,000 people, if he is really scared back by a letter from your Gongsun Jian, what face is there. But from the bottom of his heart, Sun Sheng was really unwilling to directly confront Gongsun Jian. Especially when Qian Hong came out to take charge of the government of the Zhou State again, whether it was the Hanmen or the Xungui family, they all abandoned their previous suspicions and united, because they all knew that if the Zhou State was really gone, then their life would not be easy. Therefore, everyone united in such a situation as never before, and the purpose was to repel the attacks of the Northern Qi and Southern Han.

Zhenyuan Pass, Gongsun Jian and Sun Sheng sat together again, and this time unlike the previous two times, the two of them are now on an equal footing. In the past, Gongsun Jian was just a small county lieutenant of Linshui County, but now Gongsun Jian is the king of Zhou and the commander of the horse and the governor of the seven mansions on the West Road. Such an identity can be said to be even slightly higher than Sun Sheng, after all, although Sun Sheng is the younger brother of Emperor Wu, he is only the king of Kui and the former army general.

The purpose of this negotiation is that Gongsun Jian will not fight if he can, after all, he needs to continue to develop and consolidate his territory during this period. Therefore, the strategy he discussed with Feng Huaidao was to talk nonsense, so that the other party could not judge Gongsun Jian's true purpose.

Sun Sheng's conditions were simple, salt and steel, and other trades remained the same. However, the price of salt and steel must be reduced by 30%. Gongsun Jian smiled at this, and prepared to leave the table without saying anything.

"His Royal Highness the King of Zhou, are you really ready to start a war with my Wu Kingdom?" Sun Sheng aggressively opened his mouth to question Gongsun Jian. And Gongsun Jian shook his head vigorously. It took a long time for a sentence to come out.

"Brother Sun, could it be that your family really doesn't even have an unmarried sister? It's okay if it's not my own sister. ”

"You ......" Sun Sheng was stunned. To what extent are you thinking about my sister? The princess of Ningguo of Zhou has a marriage contract with you, is it possible for the princess of Wu to make you smaller?

Without waiting for Sun Sheng to reply, Gongsun Jian said with a hippie smile: "Brother Sun, we can be regarded as friends, but it is really not that good." But if we become a family, the situation will be different. As he spoke, Gongsun Jian paused, then dipped his finger in the tea cup in front of him and drew a picture on the table. Only then did he say slowly: "Brother Sun, please take a look." Nowadays, the most convenient route from the three prefectures in the northwest of China to Wu is Fenshui, but my Xiyan County is currently the poorest of the counties in the three prefectures. But it is also the closest to Wu on the west bank of Fenshui. If we open up this mountain range between us, then it will be the most direct road for my northwest three prefectures or for Wu State. ”

Sun Sheng carefully looked at the map drawn by Gongsun Jian, and couldn't help frowning slightly, he already knew this, but how difficult it was to open up a mountain range, at least 200,000 people were needed in terms of people, and the construction period was at least three years.

After thinking for a moment, Sun Sheng said lightly with some disdain: "His Royal Highness King Zhou, aren't you going to joke with Gu?" Besides, what good is it for my Wu country to repair this road? ”