From the dispatch of the Wu army in March to the surrender of Wang Yan in May, the whole process only took more than two months.

During this period, except for the fierce battle with the Wu army in Sanquan, the Shu army fled or surrendered immediately when it encountered the Wu army, and the losses of the Wu army during the whole war were extremely slight.

Even before the war, the large amount of grain and grass and baggage that the Wu army had stored was not used, and the captured enemy baggage alone was enough for the needs of the army.

After the occupation of Chengdu, the money, grain, ordnance and other materials seized from the Chengdu treasury are even more dumbfounded, it can be said that this time the battle to destroy Shu, the Wu army not only did not consume much grain, but made a lot of money.

Such a result was something that everyone didn't expect, and maybe Yang Wu had a little expectation before, but he wasn't sure if the former Shu of this time and space would be destroyed as easily as in the original history.

After Wang Yan surrendered, Zhang Wu, who was still resisting the Wu army in Kuizhou, also surrendered quickly, and let the Wu army on the South Road enter Kuizhou and other places, and the remaining local assassins and jiedu envoys who had not yet surrendered also surrendered quickly after getting the news of Wang Yan's surrender.

After that, Yang Jiong, Zhou Ben and others led the army into Chengdu, rewarding soldiers and appeasing people's hearts on the other.

The first point is, of course, to move the Wang Yan family to Luoyang, no matter how useless Wang Yan is, but after all, the Wang family father and son have ruled Shuzhong for many years and have a deep foundation, and it is obviously an unstable factor for the Wang Yan family to continue to stay in Luoyang.

In addition to the relocation of Wang Yan's family, some of the more influential families with the surname of Shuzhong will also be relocated to Luoyang in order to weaken the local power in Shuzhong as much as possible.

For those surrendered officials of Shu, Yang Jiong chose to continue to retain those with better reputation and ability, and as for those flattering people appointed by Wang Yan at the beginning, most of them were dismissed from office at this time.

However, in order to maintain stability as much as possible, Yang Jiong did not persecute these people too much, and still let them enjoy wealth; In this way, maybe these guys are still dissatisfied in their hearts, but they don't have military power, and there is nothing wrong with them.

Even if something goes wrong, with the abilities of these guys, it won't be too difficult to calm them.

As for the original army of Shu, Yang Jiong streamlined it according to the suggestions of Zhou Ben and others, and some of the elite soldiers were incorporated into the Wu army, and the remaining part was reorganized into the Xiang army to be responsible for public security in various places, and the other old and weak soldiers were reorganized into the Tuntian army according to the original treatment of the surrendered Liang army.

In the months that followed, Yang Jiong remained in Chengdu to take charge of stabilizing Shuzhong, and Yang Wu even gave him the power to appoint officials as appropriate.

Although Yang Jiong's age is not very old, he used to guard the rear for a long time, and he did not lack experience in governing the government.

With the passage of time, officials transferred from within the state of Wu began to take office in Shuzhong, and families with big surnames such as Wang Yan gradually moved to Luoyang, and the situation in Shu gradually stabilized.

In September, the crown prince Yang Jiong, the generals Zhou Ben, Liu Xin, Chai Zaiyong and others in Chengdu suddenly wrote to Yang Wu, requesting that troops be sent to attack Dachangheguo.

As soon as the song was played, the court was deeply shocked.

The Great Changhe Kingdom evolved from the Nanzhao Kingdom during the Tang Dynasty, and then will gradually evolve into the Dali Kingdom in later generations.

During this period, places such as Jiaozhi were naturally regarded as part of China, but Nanzhao, Dachanghe, and later Dali were regarded as foreign during this period.

In other words, sending troops to attack Cochin can be understood as a cause that has to be done to unify the world, but many people do not understand it rashly attacking a foreign country that has no grudges.

However, the reasons given by Yang Jiong and others are also sufficient, the first point is that the lord of the Great Changhe Kingdom dares to claim to be the emperor, which is obviously a move to challenge Yang Wu's authority.

Today's situation in the world has changed greatly compared with the original history, in the original history, there are many secession regimes called kings and even emperors, especially the situation in the south is even more chaotic, Chu State, Min State, Wu Yue State, etc., have established countries; And the Southern Wu and Southern Han were even more emperors.

However, the situation at this moment was very different, except for the three emperors of Wu State, Yang Wu of Wu, Shu Wang Yan, and Later Tang Li Cunxuan, the other forces of all parties have either been exterminated or obediently submitted to Wu State.

Now that the Shu State has been destroyed again, except for the Later Tang Dynasty, the Wu State has nominally unified the world.

Now that a great Changhe country who dares to be the emperor suddenly appears, Yang Jiong and others naturally can't let it go.

In addition to this reason, the second reason given by Yang Jiong was that they had heard that Dachang and the country had the ambition to invade the Central Plains, so it was better to think that they should preemptively attack them.

In the past, the Nanzhao Kingdom took advantage of the decline of the Tang Dynasty and the chaos of the Central Plains gradually prospered, and often invaded the Central Plains.

Later, Zheng Maihei, the prime minister of the Nanzhao Kingdom, seized power and usurped the throne, established the Great Changhe Kingdom, and vainly proclaimed himself the emperor, and had great ambitions for the Central Plains.

After the current lord of the Great Chowa Kingdom, Zheng Inmin, became the heir, he put this ambition into action.

Eleven years ago, Da Changhe sent troops to attack Lizhou of Shu, and Wang Jian, the lord of Shu who was still alive at that time, led the troops to attack with Wang Zongfan, Wang Zongbo, Zhongshu Ling, and Wang Zongshou, the king of Jia.

The Shu army in Wang Jian's era is not the current Shu army, and their combat effectiveness is still very strong.

In this battle, the Shu army first defeated the enemy army at Pancang Mountain, beheaded its chief Zhao Shengzheng and others, and then defeated the enemy army in Shankou City, breaking through the enemy's thirteen camps.

Then, the Shu army continued to pursue, defeated Dachanghe's army at the Dadu River, captured and beheaded tens of thousands of enemy troops, Dachanghe's army scrambled to cross the river, and tens of thousands of people drowned.

After this defeat, Da Chang and the vitality of the country were greatly damaged, and they were relatively peaceful for many years afterward.

However, this time after the destruction of Shu by Wu, Zheng Renmin's ambition to invade the Central Plains was rekindled.

And the reason for all this is an unexpected figure.

It turned out that after Liu Chongjing, the son of Liu Wei, the founder of Wu, defected to Shu, he was knighted by Wang Yan, the lord of Shu who had just succeeded to the throne, and was rewarded with many rewards.

However, the interior of Shu was originally self-inflicted, and many of those natives were excluded, not to mention Liu Chongjing, an outsider, so it didn't take long for him to be transferred by Wang Yan to Lizhou to guard and stay away from the power center of Shu.

Now that the state of Shu is destroyed, the assassins and envoys from all over the country have surrendered to the state of Wu, Liu Chongjing saw that the big thing was not good, so he took people to flee to the country of Dachanghe overnight.

After arriving at Dali, the capital of Dachanghe, he strongly suggested to Zheng Renmin that he should take advantage of the fact that the Wu army had just captured Shuzhong and had an unstable foothold to send troops to attack, and he would definitely win in one fell swoop.

Not only that, Liu Chongjing has been in Shu for many years, and he also has some understanding of the situation in Shu, he explained the terrain, population, and situation of all parties in Shu to Zheng Renmin in detail, and added oil and vinegar to Zheng Renmin to describe how the Central Plains is rich, so as to arouse his ambitions.

Under Liu Chongjing's vigorous encouragement, Zheng Renmin really moved his mind and began to deploy troops.

This news was soon found out by the Wu side, so there was a letter from Yang Jiong and others this time.

After receiving the note, Yang Wu did not intend to agree at first, after all, the situation in the Central Plains had not yet been calmed, and the Later Tang Dynasty in the north was still eyeing the enemy, and was the mortal enemy of Wu.

It is a little unwise to let the great enemy not deal with it, but send troops to expedition to the southwestern barbarian country; Of course, Da Changhe has to deal with it, but it is best to put it after the world is unified.

This is just like the Ming Dynasty in later generations to unify the world first, and continuously send troops to the Northern Expedition, and wait until the Northern Yuan is disabled, and then send a large army to occupy Yunnan.

So when he first received the recital, Yang Wu didn't pay much attention to it; But later, Yan Keqiu said that Da Changhe was just a small barbarian country, so he dared to call himself the emperor, if he didn't send troops to fight, how could he show the majesty of Wu?

And since Zheng Renmin has already had the ambition to invade the Central Plains, he will not give up easily; If you don't take advantage of the fact that the army of Shu is still there, when the army withdraws from Shuzhong in the future, Zheng Renmin will definitely send troops to attack, and when the army rushes back and forth, it will be exhausted.

In the past, Wang Jian's victory in the first battle made Zheng Renmin maintain a stable score for more than ten years, and now if he can achieve another big victory, Zheng Renmin will definitely give up his ambitions completely.

In this way, the southwest can be completely stable, and the state of Wu can deal with the Later Tang Dynasty with peace of mind.

After listening to Yan Keqiu's advice, Yang Wu also had to admit that what he said made sense, and it was indeed better to crusade against Da Changhe now than to ignore it.

After making up his mind, Yang Wu finally replied to Yang Jiong and the others, agreeing that they would send troops against Zheng Renmin, and appoint Chai Zaiyong as the commander of the army.

After all, this time the use of troops is not as good as the battle of destroying Shu in terms of scale and influence on the overall situation of the world, coupled with the rampant miasma in the southwest and the remoteness of the place, Yang Wu naturally will not let veterans such as Zhou Ben and Liu Xin go into danger, and Chai Zaiyong is relatively young and stronger, so let him lead the troops.

In order to ensure the smooth operation of the war as much as possible, Yang Wu ordered to select someone who was more familiar with the situation in the southwest from among the surrendered Shu generals to serve as the deputy general of the army, and to give advice to Chai Zaiyong along the way.

In mid-October, after more than a month of preparation, Chai Zaiyong led an army of 30,000 to the south to conquer the Great Changhe State, and Zhang Wulai, a famous general of the Shu army who surrendered to Wu, served as his deputy general.

……

Outside Luoyang City, on the shooting range of the Ordnance Superintendent.

"Boom! Rumble! Rumble! ”

With a loud bang, as if a thunderbolt had been struck from the flat ground, the onlookers looked at the white smoke spewed out by the six strange iron pipes lined up in front of them, and they all felt shocked in their hearts, and hurriedly stepped forward to observe.

"Is this what Your Majesty is talking about artillery? Sure enough, the momentum is amazing, but I don't know how powerful it is? ”

Yes, it was the artillery that was in front of them.

Gunpowder weapons have long been used in the military in the Wu State, and the grenades thrown with Suzhou cannons are a great trump card of the Wu army, and they have achieved miraculous results on the battlefield many times.

As for artillery, a siege weapon, later generations knew its power and called it the god of war.

The appearance of artillery on the battlefield will inevitably bring revolutionary changes to the battlefield, such an important weapon, of course, Yang Wu will not forget, as early as many years ago he sent someone to try to cast.

However, it is a pity that the artillery casting technology at that time was immature, so that the artillery made had no advantages in terms of range, accuracy, and power compared with the mature Suzhou gun.

Even in terms of weight, the gun was very heavy, and it did not have much advantage over the Suzhou gun, which could be disassembled.

The only advantage worth mentioning may be that the artillery does not require much manpower to fire, but for the Wu army, there is no shortage of people to operate the Suzhou cannon.

In addition to not having much advantage over the Suzhou gun, the artillery at that time also had a fatal weakness, that is, it was easy to explode.

Yes, the early artillery was easy to explode, but I don't know if it was bad luck or why, several cannons that Wu Guo tried to cast in his early years were finally blown up on the experimental field, and many craftsmen who operated the artillery died as a result.

Because of this, the artillery gave people the impression of being unsafe, so that the generals in the army resisted, preferring to use the relatively bulky, but safer Suzhou gun, rather than use artillery.

After all, the power of the Suzhou artillery is not bad, and if the artillery is blown up on the battlefield, the blow to morale will be too great.

And for those craftsmen who operate artillery, this dangerous weapon is also a source of fear.

Therefore, although artillery has been cast by the craftsmen of Wu many years ago, it has not been put into actual combat.

However, in the past two years, with the gradual increase of investment by Yang Wu and the gradual maturity of casting technology, the cast artillery has finally solved many problems, compared with the Suzhou gun, it has obvious advantages, and the problem of easy explosion has also been solved.

Today, in order to dispel the doubts of the generals in the army about artillery and promote artillery in the army as soon as possible, Yang Wu personally took everyone to the shooting range to watch the artillery drill.

Six guns cast in bronze were lined up one after the other, and they were cast one after the other under the control of the soldiers.

Judging from the shocked expressions of the crowd, it is obvious that the results of this drill are good.

The soldiers lifted six targets in the distance for the generals to watch.

I saw that three of the six targets hit the bull's-eye, two more hit the edge, and only one missed the target.

At a distance of 200 paces, six targets can hit five, and this hit rate is far from being comparable to that of the Suzhou gun.

Although Yang Wu knew that this was a hit rate that the craftsmen could only achieve after many aiming tests in advance, and it would definitely not be possible to perform like this on the actual battlefield, he was still extremely satisfied with it.

Looking at the shocked crowd, Yang Wu asked with a smile on his face: "This wooden target is half an inch thick, but it was easily pierced by the iron bullets fired by the artillery, and its power can be imagined. As for safety, the talents have also seen it, and there has been no explosion. Do you have any doubts about this? ”