Logically speaking, both Wu and Jin are Zhu Wen's great enemies, and these two sides not only have strong strength, but also have their own advantages. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

However, at present, compared to the Wu State, which has become a climate, the newly revived Jin State seems to be easier to suppress.

Therefore, many people advocated that not only should Chu not be saved, but should try to reach a real reconciliation with Wu to avoid fighting on two fronts, and concentrate forces against Jin first.

However, although there are many people who agree with this view, it is fundamentally difficult to achieve: Yang Wu has always been under the banner of crusading against Zhu Wen and reviving the Tang Dynasty, will he agree to make peace with Liang?

Not only that, last time Yang Wu and Zhu Wen reconciled, Zhu Wen agreed to many conditions for Yang Wu, but later broke the contract immediately after hearing that Yang Xingmi died of illness.

With the lesson of the last time, it is even more hopeless to reconcile with Yang Wu.

After discussing and discussing, everyone finally reached a consensus: since it is difficult to achieve peace, and the two sides still have to continue to be enemies, then they can only rescue Chu.

"Send an order to Yang Shihou, ordering him to lead 50,000 troops, and together with Gao Jichang, the envoy of Jingnan Jiedu, send troops to rescue Ma Yin, the king of Chu!" Zhu Wen finally ordered.

After the next dynasty, the ministers have left one after another, but only Jing Xiang stayed.

"Is there anything Mr. Jing has to say to me?" Although Zhu Wen has become the emperor, he is still very polite to Jing Xiang, an old minister.

"Your Majesty, when the ministers mentioned making peace with Yang Wu before, the ministers thought about it carefully, and it seems that it is not without opportunity to make peace with Yang Wu! Your Majesty might as well send someone to try one or two, and maybe a peace treaty can really be reached!" ”

"What? Are you saying that Yang Wu is still willing to negotiate peace with me? What did you think of? Zhu Wen was stunned for a moment and asked in disbelief.

"Your Majesty, in the opinion of the ministers, it may be difficult to reach a real peace agreement with Yang Wu, but if you only reach a certain tacit understanding with Yang Wu, this should be possible!"

"Reach a certain tacit understanding? Are you saying that although I and Yang Wu did not negotiate peace on the surface, in fact they both sides withdrew? Zhu Wen frowned and asked, "This is naturally a way, but why do you have this judgment?" ”

"The reason why the minister judged this way was because the minister felt that Yang Wu's primary goal now was to unify the south; Before the unification of the south, Yang Wu did not intend to start a life-and-death war with our country, which can be seen from the fact that he only sent Li Chengsi to lead a small number of troops to attack Yingzhou some time ago, but did not further take advantage of the fire to loot. ”

"He is now bent on unifying the South, and for the North, his goal should be to maintain the current situation and prevent either side from becoming too strong. Now that our country's momentum is not as good as before, and it has encountered challenges from various enemies such as Li Cunqiao and Li Maozhen, in this case, if His Majesty sends someone to reach a tacit understanding with Yang Wu, and the two sides will not interfere with each other, I think he will agree. Jing Xiang analyzed.

Zhu Wen couldn't help frowning, what Jing Xiang said has a certain truth, now Yang Wu wants to unify the south, and Zhu Wen wants to settle the challenge of the north first and avoid fighting on two fronts; If the two sides can reach a tacit understanding and not interfere with each other, it will be beneficial to both sides.

Especially for Zhu Wen, dealing with Li Cunmiao's challenge is a bit of a headache for him, if Yang Wu still starts the Northern Expedition from time to time, then even if Zhu Wen has three heads and six arms, he is afraid that it will be difficult to block the enemy troops besieging from all directions.

"There is some truth in what you said, but in this way, wouldn't I have to give up Ma Yin, the king of Chu? And when Yang Wu really unifies the south, his strength will definitely be further improved at that time, and when he goes on a northern expedition, it will be even more difficult for me to resist! ”

Jing Xiang smiled bitterly: "Even if the king wants to delay the pace of Yang Wu's unification of the south, how long can he delay?" This time Yang Wu only raised 80,000 troops to crusade against the king of Chu, I heard that after he established the state of Wu, the number of troops increased further, I am afraid that the next time he crusades against Ma Yin, the number of troops dispatched will not be more than 80,000, plus he can still contact Li Cunqiao to send troops to contain our army, can His Majesty still stop him from destroying Ma Yin at that time? ”

Zhu Wen couldn't help but be silent for a while when he heard this, Li Cunmiao's strength was gradually recovering, saying that he would not suppress it, but he was afraid that it would not be long before he would be able to continue to send troops to challenge the Liang army.

And Yang Wu didn't even need to deliberately contact Li Cunmiao, as long as he waited for Li Cunmiao to attack Liang State in a big way, he could rest assured that he would send troops to attack Chu.

Therefore, it is not a long-term solution to rescue Ma Yin, it is better to reach a reconciliation with Yang Wu and concentrate forces to deal with Li Cunqing's challenge first; If Li Cunmiao can be suppressed again before Yang Wu unifies the south, then Liang still has the strength to deal with all forces.

Thinking of this, Zhu Wen couldn't help but feel a little moved.

"Mr. Jing, since you think it is possible to reach a settlement with Yang Wu, why didn't you bring it up in the court meeting before?"

"Your Majesty, this time let Yang Shihou save Ma Yin, not only is it necessary, but also to do a good job, let Yang Wu understand that if His Majesty is bent on keeping Ma Yin, he will run into trouble if he wants to unify the south, and only then will he be willing to reach a reconciliation with His Majesty!" Jing Xiang explained.

Zhu Wen nodded, and suddenly had a consideration in his heart.

Soon, Zhu Wen ordered that the number of troops allocated to Yang Shihou be increased from 50,000 to 80,000, plus Gao Jichang's army, the total strength will reach more than 100,000, and there should be no problem in relieving the siege for Ma Yin.

******

On the Hunan side, although Xu Dexun and Qin Yanhui successfully brought the army from Yuezhou back to Tanzhou, they suffered heavy losses along the way.

After arriving in Tanzhou, the soldiers were not only extremely tired, but also extremely demoralized.

On the side of the Wu army, after Wang Maozhang successfully defeated the 10,000 troops left by Yang Dingzhen, he estimated that it would be difficult to catch up with the Chu army, and the next thing he had to face was the choice of whether he should join forces with Li Chengsi to attack Tanzhou, or go back to attack Yuezhou.

"Governor Li, although Governor Li and your title and official position are at the same level now, but when it comes to prestige, I'm afraid you are still not as good as Governor Li!"

"If you choose to go to Tanzhou, I'm afraid that you will have to obey the command of Governor Li at that time. Even if Tanzhou was conquered, the first merit was the capital of Li Dadu; And if you lead the army to break through Yuezhou alone, isn't this merit yours alone? Facing Wang Maozhang's inquiry, Zhu Qianyou persuaded in a low voice.

There are naturally factions in the army, and Zhu Qianyou, as Wang Maozhang's confidant general, naturally wants to consider him.

In today's situation, there are not many troops left by the enemy army in Yuezhou, and with the strength in Wang Maozhang's hands, he can break through Yuezhou without Li Chengsi's help and get the first merit.

Wang Maozhang nodded again and again when he heard this, and he was also worried about this.

In addition, the task assigned to them by Yang Wu before the war was to let him attack Yuezhou and let Li Chengsi attack Tanzhou, but now he is just following Yang Wu's orders, and no one can say that he is competing for credit, regardless of the overall situation.

Immediately, Wang Maozhang couldn't wait for the news from Tanzhou, and led the army back to Yuezhou.

On the Tanzhou side, after learning that Wang Maozhang did not come to join him, but went back alone to attack Yuezhou, Li Chengsi just smiled disapprovingly, and continued to deploy military affairs.

Unlike Wang Maozhang, who is more anxious to get credit, although Li Chengsi is usually very low-key in the Wu army, this does not mean that he is a stupid person who does not know how to grab credit.

In his opinion, with Yang Wu's wisdom and understanding of military affairs, he would naturally know the performance of everyone in this war.

Wang Maozhang was anxious to break through Yuezhou, which was not wrong in itself, and in the case that Tanzhou did not know whether it could be breached, it was a safe choice to capture Yuezhou first to ensure the advantage of the entire battle situation.

However, Wang Maozhang's selfishness in making this decision is difficult to escape from Yang Wu's eyes.

Therefore, even if Wang Maozhang won the first credit, he was afraid that he would leave a bad impression in Yang Wu's heart.

And even if Li Chengsi did not have the credit of conquering a state alone, but he contained a large number of Chu troops, and made an important contribution to Wang Maozhang's capture of Yuezhou, Yang Wu will definitely not forget.

So there is no need for Li Chengsi to worry about Wang Maozhang's approach.

Of course, although without Wang Maozhang's help, Li Chengsi still wanted to try to attack the city, at least to make a trial.

On December 12, Wang Maozhang broke through Yuezhou in one fell swoop, captured more than 6,000 enemy troops, and captured Yuan Mei, the Yuezhou guard general of the Chu army.

On the 13th, Yang Shihou, the general of the Liang army, led an army of 80,000 to Jiangling, and joined the 20,000 army of Gao Jichang, the envoy of Jingnan Jiedu, and marched east from Jiangling, aiming directly at Ezhou.

Although there are more than 20,000 Xiang troops in Ezhou, these Xiang troops come from different states and counties, it is difficult to unify the command, and there is a lack of training, if it is used to resist the attack of a small number of Liang troops, there is no problem, but against the 100,000 Liang troops led by the famous general Yang Shihou, this is obviously not enough.

Therefore, after learning the news, Wang Maozhang did not dare to slack off, and immediately left part of his troops to guard Yuezhou, and hurriedly set off from Yuezhou to rescue Ezhou.

However, this time Wang Maozhang's actions were completely expected by Yang Shihou, and he set up an ambush in advance and defeated the Wu army at Puqi.

At a critical time, Zhu Siqing led his troops to fight and finally repelled the enemy's attack.

After this defeat, the morale of the Wu army was low, and the soldiers were war-weary after a long campaign, so Wang Maozhang was stationed in Puqi City to contain the actions of the Liang army, but he no longer fought with the Liang army.

Although Yang Shihou, who won the victory, had a large number of troops, it was difficult to break through the city in the face of the Wu army's insistence.

Therefore, Yang Shihou immediately left Gao Jichang to lead 50,000 troops to confront Wang Maozhang, and he personally went south to surround Yuezhou to rescue Ma Yin.

On the Tanzhou side, after Li Chengsi learned that Wang Maozhang was defeated and Yang Shihou was about to arrive, he immediately understood that it was impossible for him to take Tanzhou alone.

In late December, after a lot of looting, Li Chengsi withdrew his troops from Tanzhou and ordered Liu Xin to retreat to Jiangxi, while he himself went north to rescue Yuezhou.

At this point, this crusade against Ma Yin, the king of Chu, came to an end temporarily with the retreat of the Wu army.