Two months ago, Gao Jichang wrote a letter requesting to leave Yanzhou, but the book was vetoed by Jing Xiang and others when he was in the Chongzheng Yuan.

For Jing Xiang, the Central Plains, a place of right and wrong, will sooner or later fall to the Wu State or the Jin State, and the only way out for the Liang State is Guanzhong, and to hold Guanzhong, it is necessary to hold Yanzhou and other places north of Guanzhong.

With such an area that was extremely important to the future Liang Kingdom, how could Jing Xiang and the others hand it over to such an ambitious person as Gao Jichang?

It's a pity that although Jing Xiang is nominally the prime minister of Liang, the actual power is not in his hands.

Although he vetoed Gao Jichang's proposal, at the insistence of Zhang Hanjie and others, the chapter was finally presented to Zhu Youzhen.

However, at that time, it was a critical period to negotiate peace with Li Maozhen, so Zhu Youzhen only briefly read Gao Jichang's recital, and did not give any instructions.

Later, after a long time, he forgot about this matter, if Zhang Hanjie hadn't mentioned it again, he would have really forgotten.

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that Gao Jichang's request can be granted." At this time, in the face of Zhu Youzhen's question, Zhang Hanjie replied without thinking too much.

For him, it doesn't matter whether Gao Jichang is ambitious or not, who doesn't have ambition in this era?

Even he himself has ambitions, that is, he has always been trusted by the emperor and will always hold the power of the Liang State.

In Zhang Hanjie's view, Gao Jichang's ambition should be to be a powerful envoy.

As long as he doesn't rebel, doesn't plot chaos, and honestly guards the border for Liang Guozhen, what if he is given a festival envoy?

Of course, the most important point is the huge benefits that Gao Jichang promised him, if it weren't for this, Zhang Hanjie would not have worked so hard to help him speak.

On the side, Zhao Yan's situation was the same as him, and he had also received the benefits of Gao Jichang, so he naturally had to come out to help him speak at this time.

The minister seconded. Yanzhou is remote and sparsely populated; However, Xuzhou is located in the Central Plains and has a prosperous economy; Exchanging Xuzhou for Yanzhou was of great benefit to the imperial court. ”

Zhu Youzhen saw that the two henchmen advocated agreeing to Gao Jichang's request, and immediately frowned and remained silent.

At the beginning, Zhu Youzhen still wanted to stick to the Central Plains, and was not interested in the strategy of retreating to Guanzhong; If Gao Jichang had proposed at that time that he was willing to exchange Xuzhou for Yanzhou, Zhu Youzhen would definitely have happily agreed.

However, since the strategy of retreating to Guanzhong, Zhu Youzhen thought about it instead, although the Central Plains is prosperous, but with the current strength of the Liang State, it is indeed unable to fight against the Jin State and the Wu State at the same time, and the only way to retreat to Guanzhong is the best policy.

In this way, Yanzhou will play an important role in the future of Liang Guo, and naturally it cannot be handed over to Gao Jichang.

Zhu Youzhen frowned and was silent, and Zhang Hanjie and the others immediately understood his thoughts.

Zhao Yan opened his mouth to persuade: "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that although Gao Jichang is a little ambitious, his ability is still very good. Yanzhou is close to Hudi, the situation is complicated and chaotic, and it is necessary to have strong people to defend it. And Gao Jichang served as the envoy of Jingnan Festival for many years, guarding the border land, which was quite effective. Why didn't His Majesty let him go to guard Yanzhou? ”

At that time, Gao Jichang guarded Jiangling, although there was a period of time with Shu State, and there was a great tendency to break away from Liang State; However, in general, Gao Jichang still successfully played the role of a southern barrier of the Liang State.

After that, the responsibility for the fall of Jiangling cannot be all pressed on Gao Jichang's head, after all, the Wu State is powerful, and the more than 100,000 people of the combined forces of Liang and Shu have not been able to defeat it, which is also a helpless thing, and it cannot be denied Gao Jichang's merits in defending Jiangling.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youzhen's face was slightly better.

Zhang Hanjie continued: "Your Majesty, Gao Jichang has been working diligently in Xuzhou to prepare money and food for Your Majesty and provide sergeants. ”

Zhu Youzhen pondered for a moment, and then replied: "Well, since the two Aiqing have made it clear for him, then I am not an unkind person." However, I have one more request, if he can do it, then I will allow him to leave Yanzhou. ”

Zhang Hanjie was overjoyed in his heart, and hurriedly asked: "I don't know what else Your Majesty wants, the minister must tell Gao Jichang and let him do his best to do it for Your Majesty." ”

Zhu Youzhen said: "My request is not too high, this King Hui rebelled, ordered him to lead the army of Xuzhou to the battle, if the rebellion can be put down within a month, then I will agree to his request; If not, then the matter is abandoned. ”

"Yes, the minister must convey His Majesty's will to Gao Jichang in its original form." Zhang Hanjie hurriedly replied.

Quell the rebellion in a month? In Zhang Hanjie's view, this is not a difficult task.

King Hui's rabble dared to take the initiative to attack Kaifeng, and Zhang Hanjie believed that he would not need to use many troops to defeat him.

However, after defeating the rebels, the next thing is the most critical place, that is, how to conquer Chenzhou City.

No matter how incompetent King Hui's army is, after all, many of them are state soldiers from Chenzhou, and these are regular troops; In this era, the efficiency of siege is not high, if the attack on a city is successful, it may be defeated in a few days, but if it is not smooth, it may not be possible to beat it down for several months or even a year or two.

Therefore, if you want to quell King Hui's rebellion within a month, the most important thing is whether the siege process is smooth after that.

Of course, even if the next battle did not go well and the Liang army failed to quell the rebellion of King Hui within a month, it was Gao Jichang's problem, and it had nothing to do with him.

……

At the same time that the news of King Hui's rebellion reached Luoyang, it also reached Suzhou at the fastest speed.

In the camp of the Wu army in the west of Suzhou City, the atmosphere was a little tense at this time.

As the governor of the National Army in Youzhen, Li Chengding naturally sat on the main seat, and the commanders and commanders below sat solemnly in turn, quietly listening to a black-faced man reporting the news.

“…… Since the day before yesterday, the king of my family has gone very smoothly in the past two days, and the defenders everywhere have fled in spite of the wind; The county order of Taikang County directly surrendered to the king of my family. At present, the army of my king is staying in Yongqiu, and intends to continue to march to Kaifeng after a day's rest. ”

……

This black-faced man is one of the many "heroes and heroes" recruited by Huiwang Zhu Youneng, named Su Zhengchu, who is a strong man in Caizhou.

This person originally had some thin fields at home, and his life was quite comfortable, but he saw that if there was chaos today, the heroes rose together, so he thought that it was time to change the dynasty again; When he heard that King Hui was recruiting heroes in Chenzhou, he happily went to enlist, and now he is a guard officer under Zhu Youneng.

The reason why King Hui sent him to Suzhou this time was not to ask for reinforcements, but to ask Wu Jun not to do it for the time being.

It turned out that since Zhu Youneng raised his troops, the Liang army encountered along the way can indeed be said to be "fleeing from the wind", and no one dared to resist; In this case, Zhu Youneng's confidence was even more inflated, and he felt that relying on his own strength alone was enough to conquer Kaifeng.

If you can successfully capture Kaifeng without relying on the strength of Wu State, this will naturally be better, and when you deal with Wu State, you will have a lot of confidence, so Zhu Youneng sent Su Zhengchu to ask Wu Jun not to rush to do it first.

"He wants to take down Kaifeng on his own strength alone?" After sending Su Zhengchu down, Li Chengding couldn't help laughing: "It seems that Zhu Youneng is worried, if he asks our army to send troops to help, it will be difficult to repay this debt at that time." ”

"Haha, this is just a rebellion, and I don't know how far away it is from success, this Zhu Youneng is thinking about how to send his allies, and such characters also want to succeed, isn't it ridiculous?" Zhou Ye said with a smile.

Now, after the expansion of the army, the Wu army's forbidden army has increased from 20,000 to 30,000 people, and the corresponding two commanders have also expanded to the current three.

And Zhou Ye, as the eldest son of Zhou Ben, although he has been forced by Zhou Ben in the past few years, not letting him be promoted too quickly, but there is no way, the Wu army has been replaced too quickly in recent years, coupled with the expansion of the army, many of the previous commanders have now been promoted to commanders, and Zhou Ye is no exception.

Similar to Zhou Ye are Li Chan, Wang Yu, Li Jianxun, etc., who have now achieved the level of command; It can be said that the current Wu army is basically a young generation of generals picking the outline, and only a few generals are veterans of the Huainan period.

Of course, Yang Wu's original henchman Diao Yanneng has now served as the commander of the capital, and under Li Chengding, he commands a forbidden army of 10,000 people.

At this time, after listening to Zhou Ye's words, Diao Yanneng said with a smile: "According to the order given to us by the king, King Hui was originally regarded as an abandoned son to attract the attention of Liang Jun, and our main task is to hide and wait for the opportunity; Originally, I still needed to worry about how to discuss this matter with King Hui, but now it's good, we don't need to make any excuses at all, and King Hui himself sent the excuses. ”

"Yes, since King Hui took the initiative to ask us not to do it first, then let's just hide and wait and see what happens." The other generals nodded their heads.

Li Chengding stood up and said with a serious expression: "It's easy to wait and see, even if King Hui doesn't take the initiative, we can find an excuse; However, how to raid the Liang army is the focus of the problem. ”

Raiding the Liang army, although this was the established plan of the Wu army, was not so easy to implement.

First of all, it is a matter of time, the army on the Jinling side is about to set off, although the news will be blocked as much as possible along the way, but the movement of more than 100,000 troops in Jinling, it is difficult to conceal such a big movement for a long time, at most it will be delayed for six or seven days.

Therefore, if Li Chengding wants to raid the Liang army, he needs to complete the task within these six or seven days.

In addition to the problem of time, another problem is that although the Liang army is limited by strength, it is now focusing on the front line of Songzhou and Bozhou, and the defense in other places is relatively weak.

But it is precisely because of this that the Liang army near Songzhou is still very vigilant, and it is not easy to raid them.