"Wait and see for a while?" Gao Jichang couldn't help but groan in his heart.

Judging from the current situation, the Wu army will not send troops north until it has thoroughly digested Dengzhou, Caizhou and other places, which is estimated to take about ten days; Judging from the strength of the defenders in Xuzhou City and the money and grain reserves, if it is attacked by the Wu army, it is no problem to hold on for a month.

This means that he still has a month and a half to wait and see the situation, and if it is within a month and a half, whether the Liang army wins or the Jin army crosses the river to the south, this may lead to a change in the whole situation.

"Okay, Ben Shuai will continue to wait and see for a while. After the order was issued, the various departments began to prepare for the defense of the city, and the money and food saved in the city should not be stingy anymore, and half of it was used to recruit and train the villagers. Ni Kefu, you are responsible for this matter, you must handle this matter well! Gao Jichang finally made up his mind.

"Please rest assured, the last general will do his best to handle this matter." Ni Kefu hurriedly replied, and then he hesitated a little and asked, "Jie Shuai, Xuzhou will fall into war soon, do you ladies and sons want to move in advance?" ”

Gao Jichang looked at him hesitantly, he is over sixty years old this year, which can be regarded as "longevity" in this era, many of his contemporaries have died, and only he is still alive.

Several of his sons are now adults, and even hold some small and small official positions in Xuzhou, but if you really want to talk about it, these sons don't have much ability, just with the help of their father's shadow, and their usual performance is not outstanding.

However, the situation is dangerous now, once Xuzhou is besieged, no one can say how the situation will develop in the future, and if the sons are left in Xuzhou City, it will be too dangerous.

Gao Jichang pondered for a while and said, "Let the eldest son take the family to Luoyang, and the others will stay in the city." ”

Ni Kefu nodded, he knew that the purpose of Gao Jichang's arrangement was nothing more than to spread the risk.

If the situation is not good in the future, he can surrender to Wu with his family members who remain in the city; It is difficult to say the future of surrendering Wu, so he sent his eldest son to Luoyang, which can be regarded as leaving a way back, so that his descendants will not be cut off.

In fact, such an arrangement is extremely common in such troubled times, even Ni Kefu's own sons are also arranged in this way.

……

"Father, the situation in the Liang Kingdom is obviously extremely dangerous, but that Zhu Youneng still has to rebel and compete for the throne, why should such a stupid father accept his surrender and kill him directly." Outside Xuzhou City, Yang Wu's second son Yang Yan asked with some doubts.

"Yes, the child has the same question." Another prince who went out with the army, Yang Yuyang, said with a raised face.

Faced with his son's doubts, Yang Wu explained with great interest: "Although Zhu Youneng's behavior is indeed very stupid, for the sake of an illusory throne, he has disrupted the situation in the Liang Kingdom; But his actions are beneficial to Lone; And since he surrendered, Lone had to accept it; If Lone did not accept his surrender and killed him, then the other Liang officials would be afraid and would raise troops against our army. ”

Yang Yan and the others were thoughtful, but Yang Wu continued with great meaning: "You brothers must also remember in the future that you must unite at all times, and you can't kill each other, that will only cheapen outsiders and benefit outsiders." ”

"The child remembers." The two brothers hurriedly replied.

Yang Wu nodded, looked at the two sons with burning eyes, and then asked: "Both of you have read a lot of books with the teacher, so the father is going to test you now, what else is there in history like Zhu Youneng?" Think about it for yourselves, think about it, and then tell the Father. ”

After more than ten days of trekking, the army led by Yang Wu finally arrived in Xuzhou; Along the way, Yang Wu dealt with the news from all over the world, and at the same time, he did not forget to teach his two sons.

Although the struggle for power between Yang Yu and the crown prince is still just a symptom, Yang Wu does not want this to become more and more intense, and there will even be any mutiny and rebellion in the future.

Now that there is an example of Zhu Youneng, Yang Wu has also taken the opportunity to teach his two sons.

……

At this time, Zhu Youneng, the king of Hui, who was called a "fool" by Yang Wu's father and son, was also rushing to Xuzhou with his cronies and others.

Compared with Gao Jichang's choice to continue to wait and see, Zhu Youneng, the king of Hui, who finally escaped back to Chenzhou, chose to surrender to Wu without the slightest hesitation.

Before the army was raised, he may still have the idea of competing for the throne, so some people with thousands of Chenzhou troops attacked Kaifeng.

According to his plan, once he conquered the "Longxing" land of Kaifeng, then he would have the capital to compete with Zhu Youzhen for the throne, and at that time, because of the loss of Kaifeng, Luoyang and the eastern states were cut off, and the garrisons everywhere, especially the main force of the Liang army along the Yellow River, were likely to surrender to him in a panic.

Next, he will be able to expand his strength and plot against Luoyang.

However, the plan is good, but the reality is cruel.

At the beginning, his army was indeed "warmly welcomed", and the size of the army had expanded to tens of thousands of people before the army left Chenzhou for more than two hundred miles, and the situation of the Liang army fleeing along the way made Zhu Youneng full of confidence.

But after the army arrived in Kaifeng, what happened next made him feel the cruelty of war, and rebellion was not a joke.

In just three days, the rebels, who had previously claimed to be 100,000, were beaten to the point that they lost their armor and collapsed; If it weren't for the sudden northern expedition of the Wu army, I am afraid that Zhu Youneng might not be able to escape back to Chenzhou alive.

After returning to Chenzhou, he naturally understood that he had no second way to go except to surrender to Wu.

So when Yang Wu, the king of Wu, sent an envoy to Xuzhou to meet him, Zhu Youneng agreed without hesitation.

Not only that, but there was another "big man" who came with Zhu Youneng, who was the former Bozhou assassin Shi Wentao, who had been missing for many days.

It turned out that after Wen Tao was raided by the Wu army and the whole army was annihilated, he fled into the mountains with a few guards and started his old profession - bandits.

However, the current situation is not what it was back then, when Wen Tao was a bandit in the Guanzhong area, Guanzhong happened to be in chaos, giving the bandits room to survive.

But now, after the Wu army occupied Bozhou, in addition to further sending troops to attack Songzhou, it also sent troops to clear out nearby bandits and bandits; In addition, there were no mountains near Bozhou, so Wen Tao soon couldn't do it, so he had to find another way.

And the way out he chose was to take refuge in Zhu Youneng, who had just returned to Chenzhou.

In the face of this famous tomb robber Wen Tao, Zhu Youneng refused at first, but then Wen Tao promised that as long as he could help mediate and let him gain a foothold in Wu, he would give him a large amount of treasures.

"Don't worry, no matter what this king says, he is also Taizu's own nephew, and he was crowned King Hui by Emperor Taizu; Although the state of Wu is now powerful, if he wants to rule the vast area of the Central Plains and win the hearts of the military and people everywhere, King Wu will definitely not treat this king badly. When the time comes, this king will say some good things for you in front of King Wu, and you will take out some treasures to make friends with those powerful people in the Wu Dynasty, and you will have no problem with being rich and noble. Zhu Youneng confidently promised Wen Tao.

He didn't know that his importance in Yang Wu's heart was not as high as he thought; As for Wen Tao, he was already included in the must-kill list by Yang Wu.

Stealing and excavating the imperial tombs of the Tang Dynasty, not to mention this kind of thing from the perspective of protecting cultural relics in later generations, not to mention the current social customs and habits, not to mention that Wu is still under the banner of reviving the Tang Dynasty, Yang Wu's own position alone also determines that he cannot spare Wen Tao.

Who is Yang Wu? Although he is only the king of Wu now, he will inevitably be the emperor in the future.

As the so-called things hurt their kind, Yang Wu, the emperor, of course, will consciously protect the interests of their "imperial class", if Wen Tao steals the imperial tomb of the Tang Dynasty, he will not punish him, will he want his own imperial tomb in the future? Is there still a mausoleum for his father Yang Xingmi?

So no matter what, Wen Tao must be killed, otherwise it will not be enough to warn future generations.

……

"King, I just got the news that General Liu Xin has led his army to capture Huizhou, and Dong Zhang, the defender of Huizhou, led his army to break through and retreat to Caozhou." On the Xuzhou side, after sending his two sons down, Yang Wu began to inquire about the military situation.

"Liu Xin captured Huizhou so quickly?" Yang Wu was a little surprised, he didn't expect Liu Xin's attack to be so smooth this time.

Speaking of which, Yang Wu is also a little helpless about Liu Xin.

If it is judged by the ability to command troops, Liu Xin's ability is not weak, and he was originally a meritorious veteran who followed Yang Xingmi's entrepreneurship, and he has deep qualifications and high prestige in the Wu army; Among the many governors of Wu now, only Zhou Ben has higher qualifications than him.

has the ability, qualifications, prestige, and rich combat experience, plus he himself is not a cowardly person, it stands to reason that such a general should often win battles, but Liu Xin often goes wrong.

For example, when he was asked to attack Qianzhou, he attacked the city for several months, lost thousands of soldiers, and finally had to retreat to rest, or Yang Wu was strictly urged to return to the army to capture Qianzhou.

For example, three years ago, Wang Jian, the lord of Shu, died of illness, and Yang Wu ordered him to lead his army to attack Guizhou, but he encountered Liu Chongjing's rebellion, which led to the rout of the army and heavy losses.

There are many such examples, and if you really want to investigate the reasons, the reasons for these failures cannot be attributed to Liu Xin's command, but the question is, why is it him who has a problem every time, and not someone else?

So over time, even Yang Wu believed that some people were indeed unlucky, just like Li Si'an, the famous general of the Liang Army, who was capable but always lost the battle.

Of course, Liu Xin has not yet reached the point of Li Si'an, but now Yang Wu does not dare to have too much hope for Liu Xin, as long as he does not make any major mistakes, but he did not expect that this time he led his troops to attack Huizhou so smoothly.

Fan Yu said with a smile: "King, Huizhou was originally just a small city, so Dong Zhang was not taken seriously in the Liang army, and he was only allowed to lead a partial division, in the face of our army's large-scale attack, what else could he do but retreat to Caozhou?" ”

Yang Wu nodded and said with a smile: "Huizhou? Zhu Wen's old guy promoted his hometown to Huizhou, taking the meaning of his glorious hometown, but what does this have to do with my Wu country? After Songzhou was conquered, the establishment of Huizhou was directly canceled and reincorporated into Songzhou. ”

Huizhou was originally set up by Zhu Wen, because his hometown was in Dangshan, so he promoted the local area to Huizhou, and set up the Chongde Army in the south of the original Dangshan, the purpose of which was to glorify his hometown, just like Qian Hua set up the Yijin Army in his hometown.

Now that the state of Wu has occupied these areas, it is natural to cancel the establishment of Huizhou.

Not only Huizhou, but also Wu has abolished a lot of state-level institutions in the south in recent years to improve administrative efficiency.

There is no way, in the troubled times, all feudal towns have established many states and counties on their own, especially the brothers Liu Yin and Liu Yan in Lingnan like to set up new states the most, and there are dozens of states in Lingnan, in fact, each state is only the size of one or two counties.

After the Wu army captured Lingnan, it was natural that these newly established prefectures would have to be merged in large numbers to streamline their institutions.

"Your Majesty, General Liu Xin also sent someone to ask, what should he do next? Is it to transfer troops to join General Li Chengding and attack Songzhou together? Fan Yu asked with a smile.

Yang Wu shook his head and said, "No need, just leave the battle situation over there in Songzhou to Li Chengding; As for Liu Xin, let him immediately send troops north to attack Yanzhou. Also, where is Zuo Tengxiang's army now? ”

"Zuo Tengxiang's army has just arrived in Yongcheng, and it is still one hundred and fifty miles away from Songzhou, and it will take a few days to arrive."

Zuo Tengxiang's army is also an army led by Zhu Qianyou, with a strength of only 20,000 people, and he did not come to Xuzhou with Yang Wu at present, but drove directly from the direction of Suzhou to Songzhou to support Li Chengding, plus the 10,000 Xiaoyi army that had already gone to support Songzhou before, so that the army under Li Chengding's command reached more than 60,000 people, which was enough to contain the main force of the Liang army.

Therefore, Yang Wu's next plan was to quickly send troops to Yanzhou, conquer the whole of Shandong to the east, and push the defense line along the Yellow River.

There were not many defenders of the Liang army in various parts of Shandong, and their defenses were relatively weak, only the defenders of Yunzhou and Qizhou along the Yellow River were a little more, and the other states and regions were basically defenseless, so it should not be difficult to capture them.

By that time, I think that Zhou Ben had already captured Xuzhou, Ruzhou and other places, and then the armies of all roads could concentrate along the Songzhou line and begin to attack the core areas of the Liang State such as Kaifeng.

After thinking carefully about the whole plan, and finding that there was nothing beyond expectations, Yang Wu ordered: "Send an order to Mi Zhicheng and let him lead the army to march to Yizhou, assist General Liu Xin, and capture Qingzhou, Laizhou, Mizhou, Dengzhou and other places." ”

"Yes, the minister will go and prepare the military order." Guo Chongtao, the privy deputy envoy who accompanied Yang Wu on the expedition, hurriedly replied.

Now that Zhu Jin has been promoted to a privy envoy, he needs to stay in Jinling to be responsible for the overall situation, so only Guo Chongtao is with the army as a staff officer.