"That means that no matter which side you join, you should be able to make a difference?" Although Zhang Yanhan himself also has such a judgment, he still wants to hear the opinion of his old father, who has been an official in Liang Guo for decades.

"Yes, at least my father thinks that if the two countries live in the south and the north in the future, and the two face each other, unless one of them has a major change, it should not be able to help the other in a short period of time." Zhang Shensi stroked his white beard and said in a deep voice.

Zhang Yanhan nodded, obviously agreeing with his father's judgment.

In the eyes of these people, the Liang State has basically lost the possibility of competing for the world, and can only decline day by day until the final destruction.

And if the Jin State can unify the north, its strength will inevitably increase significantly.

The army of the Jin State was already extremely strong, and it had the advantage of cavalry, coupled with the population wealth after the capture of the Central Plains, the strength of the Jin State would inevitably be above the Wu State at that time.

However, Wu also has its own advantages, first of all, geographical advantages.

The northerners were not familiar with the climate in the south, let alone water warfare, and it was obviously not so easy for the Jin State to go south to compete with the Wu State.

And Wu's northern expedition to the Central Plains was also extremely difficult.

The confrontation between Jin and Wu will obviously last for a long time.

In addition, the Shu State in Shu also has a strong strength, so it is very likely that the world in the future will be like the Three Kingdoms period, and the three kingdoms of Wu, Shu, and Jin will face each other.

Of course, if Zhang Yanhan wants to make a choice, he will also choose between Jin and Wu, and he will not rush to Shu, after all, Shu is much worse than the other two countries in terms of prestige and strength.

After pondering for a moment, he then asked, "Then which of the Wu and Jin kingdoms does my father think attaches more importance to scribes?" ”

"Of course it's Wu Guo!"

For this question, Zhang Shensi gave a positive answer without the slightest hesitation.

"Although Li Cunmiao, the king of the Jin Dynasty, claims to be the Tang Dynasty clan and claims to revive the Tang Dynasty, but this kind of talk is just used to coax children, how can it be taken seriously?"

"In the final analysis, Li Cunmiao is just a Shatuo barbarian, he only knows how to fight immediately, and how can he know how to govern the world?"

"So if it is compared to the reuse of scribes, Yang Wu, the king of Wu, must be stronger than Li Cunqiao, the king of Jin!"

Zhang Yanhan's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he finally made up his mind and no longer hesitated.

After he solemnly saluted his father, he said solemnly: "Thank you father for solving the child's doubts, the child already knows where to go!" ”

"Hmm!" Zhang Shensi smiled with relief: "It's good to have a decision, and then you have to do it!" For my father, I was not strict in governing the family, and I was busy with the war back then, so I neglected to teach your brothers. ”

"Now you also know the conduct of your brothers, one by one, they are stealing and playing tricks, idle, and doing all kinds of evil, I am afraid that my Zhang family will be buried in their hands in the future."

"So you are the only one who can inherit my Zhang family in the future!" Zhang Shensi sighed.

He didn't ask Zhang Yanhan about his final decision, but he already knew.

In fact, he originally hoped that his son would be able to choose the state of Wu, after all, compared to the state of Wu, which had already settled down internally, attached importance to civil governance, strengthened centralization, and was about to unify the south, the future of the Jin state was somewhat uncertain.

If it weren't for the fact that he was really old, maybe he would have to go south to Wu Guo.

He was silent for a moment, and then said: "After arriving in Wu Kingdom, there will be no problem in taking the Jinshi exam with your talents, the only thing you need to worry about is whether you can get into the top three." ”

"If you can't get into the top three, and you will only be awarded the eighth or even ninth rank in the end, don't be discouraged, you must obey the ......law," Zhang Shensi told softly.

"Remember your father's teachings!" Zhang Yanhan replied solemnly.

A few days later, Zhang Yanhan arranged everything and set off from Luoyang to Jinling, hoping to catch up with the college exams held in various states this year.

……

In Fufeng City, there is a depression.

Compared with prosperous cities such as Jinling and Luoyang, this is just a small city, which naturally looks a little shabby.

In addition, Li Maozhen, the king of Qi, has always emphasized force and neglected civil rule, and the local officials appointed under his command, from the history of assassination to the county orders in various places, are all military generals, so they naturally do a very poor job in the governance of the people.

At this time, the streets were not very spacious, and the soldiers of the brigade lined up in a not-so-neat queue, patrolling up and down the city.

Passing merchants were subjected to strict scrutiny, and the slightest suspicion would be unceremoniously taken away by the soldiers.

What follows is naturally endless torture for these businessmen.

Of course, if you can pay a large ransom, you can be released quickly.

The reason for such tension in the city is that King Qi and Shu have fallen out again recently.

Wang Jian used a plan to recall his married daughter back to Chengdu and no longer send her back, which made Li Maozhen feel as if he had been greatly humiliated, so he quickly sent troops to surround the Xingyuan Mansion of Shu.

Wang Jian originally intended to start a war with Li Maozhen, but now that Li Maozhen took the initiative, he was naturally overjoyed.

At the beginning of March, Wang Jian ordered Wang Zongkan, the prince and young master Wang Zonghe, and Shannan Jiedu to make Tang Dao attack as three envoys, with Wang Zongshao, the general of Zuojin Wuwei, as Wang Zongkan's deputy general, leading a total of 120,000 infantry cavalry troops to crusade against Li Maozhen.

When the news came, it naturally caused the country of Qi to shake, and the situation suddenly became tense.

Of course, for Chang Mengxi, who was studying hard, the importance of these news was not as important as the news that Li Cunqing, the king of Jin, was going to open the imperial examination.

As the saying goes, there is something to do, and there is an effect at the bottom.

Li Maozhen is not a scholar, but a warrior, so it also makes the atmosphere of the entire Qi country become biased towards martial arts, and the common people are more expensive to ride horses and gallop than to read and study.

But Chang Mengxi is a special case, he likes to read and work on words since he was a child, but he has no interest in those things that fight and kill.

This made him seem a little out of place in the martial environment of the Qi country.

Therefore, although he has great ambitions and is talented and learned, it is difficult to be reused in Qi country.

This time, the news that the Jin king Li Cunmiao ordered the opening of the imperial examination came, but it made him see another way out: leave the country of Qi and go to another country to try.

Like Zhang Yanhan, although he heard the news of the opening of the imperial examination in the Jin State, he did not make up his mind to go to the Jin State to participate in the imperial examination, but hesitated between the Jin State and the Wu State.

Of course, unlike Zhang Yanhan, Chang Mengxi didn't have anyone to give him advice, so all decisions had to be made by himself.

Chang Mengxi didn't hesitate for too long, he looked at the soldiers coming and going on the street outside the window, sighed at the troubled times when the martial arts were in power, and finally made up his mind.

"That's it, although the King of Jin heard that he is very wise, but after all, he is a Shatuo barbarian, who only knows how to conquer by force, and it is difficult to understand the importance of civil rule. Although the imperial examination was opened, I am afraid that it is difficult to pay attention to it. ”

"So I'd better go south to Wu Kingdom!"

……

In addition to Zhang Yanhan and Chang Mengxi, in the north, because Li Cunqiao suddenly ordered the opening of the imperial examination, it attracted many people of insight to start thinking about the way out in the future.

The Central Plains Liang State is already difficult to decline, and there is obviously no future for continuing to stay here.

Although there are still many other forces, those people of insight understand that the only ones in the world who are really worthy of serving are the Wu State and the Jin State.

In the end, although many scholars began to rush to Jinyang, preparing to participate in the imperial examination of the Jin State; But at the same time, many people began to go south to prepare to participate in the imperial examination of Wu.

This unexpected result was something that Li Cunqiao and Zhang Chengye never expected.

……

Outside the city of Tanzhou, the siege battle that lasted for more than half a year finally came to the final moment.

During this half year, Wu's army continued to divide its troops into two routes, one of which was responsible for capturing Tanzhou under the command of Liu Xin; The other way, under the command of Zhu Siqing, was responsible for blocking the reinforcements of Yao Yanzhang and Qin Yanhui.

Because there is a naval army to isolate the Xiang River, the difficulty of Zhu Siqing's task is relatively low, he only needs to lead 10,000 troops to garrison the riverside to prevent the Chu army from suddenly crossing the river.

With Zhu Siqing's reinforcements, Liu Xin was finally able to concentrate his forces to launch an attack on Tanzhou.

However, relying only on the less than 20,000 people in Liu Xin's hands, plus the 5,000 people brought by Zhu Siqing's troops, the strength of the Wu army besieging the city was only a little more than 20,000 people, which was not an advantage over the defenders.

Although Liu Xin was confident that the combat strength of the Wu army would be better than that of the Chu army, considering that the defenders of the Chu army also had 20,000 people after all, it was still a little difficult to attack the city with only more than 20,000 troops, so after several months of no progress in the siege, Liu Xin finally decided to ask Hou Yang Wu for support.

In January, 20,000 troops of Zuozhen Wu led by Chai Zaiyong rushed to Tanzhou and launched an attack with Liu Xin.

Since then, the siege of Tanzhou has begun to become smoother, and the situation of the defenders has become more and more serious day by day.

Now the three acropolises in the south of Tanzhou have all fallen into the hands of the Wu army, although Xu Dexun tried his best to launch a counterattack and recapture these three acropolis, but he has never been able to succeed, but has lost a lot of troops.

After losing the protection of the three acropolis, the city of Tanzhou was completely exposed to the attack of the Wu army, and hundreds of Suzhou guns began to launch a fierce bombardment of the city, which greatly reduced the morale of the defenders.

By this time, anyone with a discerning eye could already see that the defenders could no longer hold on.

"General Chai, the enemy army is about to be unable to support it, and we must guard against Xu Dexun breaking through!" Looking at the continuous siege soldiers in front of him to climb the city wall, Liu Xin said to Chai Zaiyong who came to support with a relaxed expression.

"General Liu's rest assured that our army's naval army has blocked the river, and General Zhu's Zuo Tianwu army is also stationed on the riverside, even if Xu Dexun wants to break through, it will be difficult to succeed!"

"So Ben Jiang thinks that maybe Xu Dexun will retreat to the inner city next and continue to hold on!"

Although Chai Zaiyong's expression looked more relaxed, his heart was a little nervous, and his eyes were glued to the battle at the city wall.

He was originally just a general of Sun Rujun's army, and later for some reason he was appointed as the assassin of Gwangju, and he has never been famous; Later, without enough merit and qualifications, he was rejected by Yang Wuli and promoted all the way to the position of the current governor.

Therefore, while Chai Zaiyong is extremely grateful to Yang Wu in his heart, he also wants to make a contribution to prove himself.

This time, as the first leader of the army after serving as the governor, Chai Zaiyong naturally wanted to break through Tanzhou to get credit.

Just as the two of them were thinking about their own thoughts, Liu Renzhen, who was watching the battle from the sidelines, suddenly spoke: "Two generals, the city is obviously undefendable at this time, even if Xu Dexun retreats to the inner city, it will only be a lingering breath, and sooner or later it will be broken by our army; Therefore, if the students defend the city, then the students will definitely go out of the city to fight! ”

"Out of town to fight?" Chai used the two of them to slap it again, and then thoughtfully.

They didn't dare to underestimate the eleven-year-old boy in front of them, during this time, with Zhu Siqing's side basically not fighting, Liu Renzhen and the four of them naturally chose to go to Tanzhou City to watch the siege battle.

In the past few months, the knowledge of several people has been greatly improved, especially Liu Renzhen, who was originally an extremely intelligent person and extremely keen on military affairs, so he has made great progress, and by this time he has been able to express his own views on some issues, and has been valued by Liu Xin and others.

At this time, after listening to his sudden opinion, Liu Xin and the others pondered for a moment, and then ordered: "Send an order to Li Decheng and ask him to strengthen his vigilance to prevent the enemy from going out of the city to raid our army!" ”

As soon as the words fell, I saw the gate of Tanzhou suddenly open, and the defenders in the city rushed out under the command of a middle-aged general in black armor.

"Kill!"

"Rush!"

……

The Wu army that was besieging the city obviously didn't expect the Chu army to suddenly rush out and be caught off guard.

Fortunately, during this time, the defenders suffered heavy casualties, many of them were wounded, and they were all extremely tired, so their raid was only a little successful at first.

When the Wu army reacted and began to encircle and suppress them, they quickly fell behind and were besieged by the Wu army on all sides.

However, this Chu army may have known that it would be useless even if it withdrew to the city, so it did not retreat at this time, but continued to attack the Wu army under the leadership of the middle-aged general in black armor.

Looking at the Chu soldiers who were not afraid of death, Liu Xin couldn't help but sigh: "What a fierce general, he is so brave, the Chu army was able to defeat our army repeatedly in the past, and he is indeed a capable person!" Ben will be a little reluctant to kill this person! ”

"That person is Xu Dexun, who was just a small colonel in Sun Ru's army, and I don't want to become a general now!"

"Ben Jiang remembers that this person is a good reader, and he was still dedicated to literature back then, and I heard that under the command of the King of Chu, he also regarded himself as a civilian official, and he didn't want to be so brave on the battlefield now!"

On the side, Chai Zaiyong, who was also born in Sun Rujun and had a little friendship with Xu Dexun back then, sighed.

At this time, Yang Longyan spoke: "It turns out that this person is Xu Dexun, I heard that he has a high status under the command of the King of Chu, since this is the case, why don't the two generals try to capture this person alive?" ”

"That's right, if you can capture this person, I think Brother Wang will be even happier!" Yang Meng also spoke.

Liu Xin was immediately moved, and immediately ordered someone to go and give the order.