"What do you mean by that, General?" Luo Ya asked with a surprised frown.

And Xiao Shilian and Pei Zilie, who originally looked like they had nothing to do with themselves and looked high, also looked at them with some curiosity at this time.

Li Xinchen stretched out his hand and pointed to the map: "Look at this, continue from Luzhou to the south is Nanzhong, although Nanzhong is mostly a wild and uncivilized place, but hundreds of years ago Shu Han once set up Jianning, Yunnan and other county governments, and Nanzhong once became the driving force to support Shu Han in the late years of Shu Han, but it is a pity that now the Zhou people have no time to take care of Bashu, let alone Nanzhong." ”

Luo Ya's face changed slightly, he already knew what Li Xinchen wanted to do.

The development of Nanzhong is not a simple matter, at the beginning, Shu Han was just the governor of the capital and changed several terms, and the ultimate goal was naturally to completely assimilate Nanzhong. Now Li Xinchen still lacks manpower and material resources here, but he took the initiative to develop Nanzhong again, in Luo Ya's opinion, there is a feeling of a snake swallowing an elephant, as for whether he will be strangled to death, then Luo Ya didn't count in his heart, because he never thought that Li Xinchen would finally set his sights on Nanzhong.

Li Xinchen said slowly: "The development of Nanzhong is just an idea, whether it can be done or not still needs to send someone to Nanzhong to investigate clearly, after all, Nanzhong has not had much contact with Bashu over the years, this task can be handed over to General Du, there are many tribes in the southern mountains of Ba County, closer to Nanzhong, should be more familiar with Nanzhong, right?" ”

Du Qi immediately nodded: "This is natural, many tribes have ties with the tribes in Nanzhong, and sometimes we will even trade with each other, and our subordinates will arrange it when they go back." ”

Li Xinchen nodded, Du Qi's attitude made him very satisfied, which showed that the Ba people not only took the initiative to integrate into Li Xinchen's system, but also wanted to play more roles in it, this kind of upward momentum is what Li Xinchen is happy to see.

In fact, Li Xinchen is not in a hurry to develop Nanzhong, but wants to leave a way back for himself.

Li Xinchen doesn't know how long he can last this kind of checks and balances, let alone whether he can maintain a relationship with the other side once he decides to tear his face with the other side, so Li Xinchen must expand his strength as soon as possible and leave himself more options.

At least in a short period of time, neither Nanchen nor Northern Zhou was something that Li Xinchen wanted to take the initiative to provoke, because once Li Xinchen made a rash move, it was very likely to attract the whole country on one side, and even rob the other side while the fire was burning - Li Xinchen never doubted Chen Xu's determination to deal with internal traitors, after all, the Huajiao Rebellion nine years ago was a good example, and he did not doubt whether the Northern Zhou court hated him so much that he gritted his teeth.

It's just that because Nan Chen and Northern Zhou are now deadlocked in too many places, no one will let go for a while and attack Li Xinchen first.

This piece of fat with thorns can either be swallowed by yourself, or no one wants to eat it in your mouth.

And around the entire Bashu, Li Xinchen in Jingzhou can't be beaten, first, Xiao Maha is here, Li Xinchen can't do it, and secondly, once he attacks Jingzhou, then it is equivalent to a full-scale war with Nanchen.

Hanzhong Li Xinchen can't be provoked for a while, here to communicate Guanzhong and Xiangyang, is the lifeline of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the Northern Zhou Dynasty will never allow the enemy's troops to arrive outside Chang'an City.

Therefore, no matter from which point of view, Nanzhong is Li Xinchen's only choice for the next expansion, although Nanzhong has always been notoriously poor mountains and bad waters, but Li Xinchen can only grit his teeth and go up, at this time he is equivalent to handing over this important task to Luo Ya.

As for whether Luo Ya can complete the task according to his own will, then Li Xinchen does not know, after all, Li Xinchen's top priority is not Nanzhong.

Xiao Shilian said in a deep voice: "Shizhong, there has been no movement in Hanzhong, are we going to send more spies?" ”

Xiao Shilian is mainly responsible for the defense of the Sword Pavilion, which is also considering that Nan Chen's main general in Jingzhou is Xiao Maha, and it is naturally not appropriate to let Xiao Shilian take the role, Xiao Shilian has no opinion on this, of course he knows what Li Xinchen wants to do, and he doesn't want to stand on the opposite side of Xiao Maha when that day really comes.

Xiao Shilian took the initiative to ask this question at this time, and naturally wanted to remind Li Xinchen that Li Xinchen's most important enemy now is still the Northern Zhou in the north, if he can focus on Hanzhong first, he may be able to take advantage of the opportunity to take down the entire Hanzhong when Wei Xiaokuan and Wei Chi are in Xiangyang now.

Bashu is self-contained, and if you want to struggle out of these mountains, you naturally have to occupy both sides of Bashu, that is, Hanzhong in the north and Jingzhou in the east, so that you can continue to attack Guanzhong in the north and Jiangnan in the east. Zhuge Liang at the beginning was obviously aware of this problem, so after Liu Bei took Bashu, he almost immediately commanded Liu Bei to attack Hanzhong against Cao Cao's troops.

Therefore, as the main general on the north side, Xiao Shilian naturally wanted to seize Hanzhong, and use this as an opportunity to establish a springboard for attacking Xiangyang or Guanzhong.

Of course, Li Xinchen knew what Xiao Shilian meant, but he knew that now was not the time to attack Hanzhong. Because Li Xinchen still needs a buffer zone with the core area of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, that is, the Guanzhong region, Hanzhong is obviously a good choice.

If Li Xinchen directly took down Hanzhong, the Northern Zhou would definitely not allow such a powerful enemy to appear behind the flanks, and Li Xinchen would inevitably become the priority target of the Northern Zhou at that time.

After pondering for a moment, Li Xinchen said in a low voice: "Don't use it for the time being, as long as you hold the line of Sword Pavilion, Jiameng Pass and Micang Mountain, even if the enemy has any small moves, it will not be able to escape our eyes, and the cottages and passes in the Zitong area will start to be repaired, but you must not make a big splash, and if you need manpower, report it to a certain as soon as possible." ”

And Li Xinchen then looked at Pei Zilie: "There shouldn't be any big moves on the imperial court side for the time being, but you can't relax, especially the matter of training the new army must be implemented as soon as possible, the workshop in the southern county is still there, and the blades and armor of the new army are provided by that workshop nearby." The population of Ba County is now the largest, especially with the Ba people coming down the mountain, there should be a lot of soldiers, and this matter should not be taken lightly. ”

"No!" Xiao Shilian and Pei Zilie responded at the same time.

Li Xinchen said this, which shows that everyone should not face war in a short time. Although these affairs are also busy, they are better than life and death. They've seen too much war in the past year, and it's time to catch their breath and stop.

Li Xinchen was about to breathe a sigh of relief, when a herald walked in quickly: "General Qiyu, a letter from Hezhou, the imperial envoys have arrived in Hezhou, tracing the river, and will arrive in Shu County in the near future!" ”

The originally relaxed atmosphere in the entire conference hall suddenly became solemn again.

The battlefield without gunpowder has been arranged, and now the opponent is about to arrive.