When the news of Jing Xiang's suicide came, Yang Wu sighed a little.

For this confidant of Zhu Wen, Yang Wu still attaches great importance to it, and feels that this person's talent can be regarded as a first-class person in the world, but unfortunately he still failed to serve Wu Guo in the end.

Since Jing Xiang was already dead, no matter how much Yang Wu valued this person, he had to order his house to be raided and his family exiled overseas.

After all, this person is Zhu Wen's confidant, and Yang Wu can't do anything like a tyrant to open Zhu Wen's coffin and corpse, so he can only use Jing Xiang instead; If Jing Xiang was willing to serve Wu Guo, maybe Yang Wu would pardon his crimes, but now that Jing Xiang is dead, then he can only severely punish his family to show his crimes.

In addition to Jing Xiang who chose to commit suicide, there was another person who also chose to commit suicide, that is, Wang Yanzhang who stayed in Caozhou.

When Yang Wu led the army westward, he did not take Wang Yanzhang with him, but left him in Caozhou.

Originally, Yang Wu planned to wait until after the fall of the Liang State to try to persuade him to surrender, but who knew that what he got now was the news that Wang Yanzhang had killed himself.

"The leopard dies and leaves its skin, and the man dies and leaves his name."

Perhaps this is the reason why Wang Yanzhang would rather die than serve Wu in the end, Yang Wu sighed deeply about this, and ordered Wang Yanzhang to be posthumously presented as a prince and buried in a thick manner.

After Jing Xiang hanged himself, as he expected, although Li Zhen went to see Yang Wu, he did not get Yang Wu's forgiveness.

For Yang Wu, the whole state of Wu has held high the banner of reviving the Tang Dynasty for more than ten years, regarded the Tang Dynasty as orthodoxy, and refused to recognize the legitimate status of the Liang State.

Now that the Liang State has fallen, Zhu Youwen committed suicide, and most of the other Liang clans have also died, except for Zhu Youneng, who had already surrendered to the Wu State, the others were also arrested and liquidated by Yang Wu.

In addition to the liquidation of Liang Guozong, those "rebellious ministers and thieves" who had followed Zhu Wen's side to act as tigers also had to be liquidated, firstly, Yang Wu had to show that his revenge for the Tang Dynasty was not an empty word through the liquidation of these people, and secondly, he also had to liquidate these people, confiscate their property, and use it to reward meritorious soldiers.

And Li Zhen, as Zhu Wen's confidant and adviser, his talent cannot make Yang Wu look sideways, but his crimes must be reckoned.

At the beginning, Zhu Wen usurped the throne and established himself, Li Zhen basically participated in it, and he was the mastermind of important events such as the killing of Tang Zhaozong and the change of the White Horse Temple.

So when Li Zhen took the initiative to come to the court, Yang Wu ordered him to be arrested, and immediately raided his house, all his family property was confiscated, and Li Zhen and his people were exterminated.

In addition to Li Zhen, Zhao Hu, Zhang Xiyi, Zhang Hanrong, Zhu Qi and many other people who were famous for their greed and lawlessness and stealing authority in Zhu Youwen's era were also ordered by Yang Wu to raid their homes and exterminate their clans.

and some officials such as Zhao Yan were sentenced to confiscate their family property and their families were exiled overseas; A large number of officials, including Zheng Yu, Xiao Qing, and Liu Yue, were also sentenced to exile, but Yang Wu allowed them to atone for their crimes with money; Officials who are relatively honest and upright, such as Ren Zan and Liu Guangsu, are either retained in their original positions or appointed after being demoted......

After this arrangement, the civil officials who surrendered to the Liang State have basically been disposed of.

However, it is relatively easy to deal with these civilian officials who have no military powers, but it is much more troublesome to deal with those military generals.

Not to mention that there are still many areas in Guanzhong and Hebei that have not yet been occupied by the Wu army, and the assassins and jiedu envoys in those areas are still in a wait-and-see state, even those surrendered troops who have surrendered to Wu are also an unstable factor.

Before the Northern Expedition of Wu, the total strength of Liang was nearly 200,000 people, and the Liang army that was really wiped out during the Northern Expedition of Wu was less than 50,000, and most of the others surrendered to Wu.

If such a large number of troops are not properly handled in a timely manner, it is very likely that they will become a source of new turmoil.

Don't look at many of these surrendered troops have already laid down their weapons and become prisoners, but as long as they exist, they are a force to be reckoned with, especially now that the movements of the Jin army are unknown, it is even more necessary to be vigilant.

Otherwise, if the Jin army crosses the river and launches an attack, and these troops attack in the rear, the situation will become more complicated and dangerous.

For the time being, some of these surrendered armies have been transformed into chamber armies to maintain the localities, and some have been incorporated into the Rebel Army, but many more have retained their original formations or accumulated in large-scale prisoner camps.

Among them, the main ones that still retain the establishment are Lu Siduo's troops who surrendered in Xuzhou, and there are even more Liang soldiers in the prisoner camp, such as nearly 50,000 Liang troops captured in Xiangling, 20,000 Liang troops captured in Ruzhou, etc., which have not been resettled at present.

How to properly solve the problem of these captives is a major problem that Yang Wu will face.

In addition, there is another hidden problem that has to be solved, that is, how to integrate the newly conquered territory of Liang and the territory of the original Wu State.

And this contains two aspects, one is the military aspect, and the other is the civil aspect.

In terms of civil affairs, there are many differences between the original local governance structure of Liang and Wu, and the specific national conditions of the two countries are very different, and even there are some differences in customs and habits.

The most important point is whether the people in the original territory of Wu will treat the people of the Central Plains with a conqueror mentality, if so, there is a high probability that there will be a gap between the two places.

In order to eliminate these barriers and make the two places completely integrated, Yang Wu needs to have enough courage and means.

As for the military aspect, the problems that Wu State is currently encountering are actually mainly focused on one point, that is, the estrangement between the generals of Liang and the original generals of Wu State, the Xiaoyi Army and the Wu Forbidden Army.

At the beginning, the main purpose of Yang Wu's establishment of the Xiaoyi Army was to absorb the Liang army as much as possible to fight for the Wu State, but today, with the demise of the Liang State, the existence of the Xiaoyi Army may become a new focus of contradictions, which will lead to a conflict between the Xiaoyi Army and the forbidden army.

The best way to do this is to abolish the Rebel Army and merge it into the Forbidden Army system.

Of course, there is no rush to solve these problems, and the most important thing at this time is to solve the forces that still have not surrendered in various parts of the Liang State, and to send envoys to announce the destruction of Liang to the Qi State, the Jin State, the Shu State, etc., and test their attitude.

On the third day of the second month, Yang Wu ordered Zhang Yanhan to be the governor of Henan, and all the captured Liang territories were assigned to Henan except Shandong.

On the fourth day of the second lunar month, Yang Wu ordered many of the demoted officials who remained in Luoyang to be retained or demoted to their respective places of service, and were not allowed to stay in Luoyang.

At the same time, in order to appease the people's hearts as much as possible, Yang Wu issued an edict announcing the exemption of taxes in Henan and Shandong this year, and half of the taxes for next year and later, so as to restore the vitality of the two places as soon as possible.

At the same time, Yang Wu ordered the local officials of the two provinces and prefectures to prepare household registration as soon as possible, and reformulate the tax burden according to the tax burden standard of Wu State, so as to reduce the burden on the people.

Liang has been in war for a long time, its economic strength is not comparable to Wu, coupled with the tight war situation, a large amount of taxes must be collected every year to ensure the state use, so the burden on the people is extremely heavy.

Now, after being incorporated into the State of Wu, the tax burden of the people in the original states of the Liang State has dropped significantly; If you add the tax exemption just announced by Yang Wu this year, and half of the tax will be exempted after next year, it can be said that the people everywhere can get great benefits, and this policy alone is enough to collect the hearts of the people everywhere.

Of course, it is not enough to formulate policies, but more importantly, to implement them.

If it can't be implemented, no matter how good the policy is, it won't work.

In order to prevent local officials from ignoring the edict and continuing to collect taxes on their own, or even continuing to collect taxes according to the original high standards, Yang Wu specially ordered the scholar Yang Tingshi to select honest and capable imperial historians from the Metropolitan Procuratorate to go to various places to supervise, and at the same time secretly asked Fan Yu to send people to keep an eye on this matter, and it was necessary to ensure that the policy was implemented.

On the fifth day of the second lunar month, there was finally good news that Huo Yanwei, who stayed in Ningling, and Dai Siyuan, who stayed in Kaifeng, each ordered to surrender after receiving the news that Liang Guo had died, and the two were ready to leave for Luoyang to meet Yang Wu.

In addition to the surrender of Huo Yanwei and Dai Siyuan, Shaanzhou, Yuzhou and other places also sent envoys to ask for surrender.

In addition to the good news, there was also some bad news, such as Huaizhou, which was located north of the Yellow River, took the initiative to throw itself into the arms of the Jin state after the fall of the Liang state, allowing the Jin state to extend its influence to the Hanoi region north of Luoyang.

In addition, there has been no news from all over Guanzhong, and it is obvious that those regions still intend to continue to wait and see, and it is even very likely that they will choose to surrender to the Jin State like Huaizhou, after all, the constitution of the Wu State is much more restrictive to local forces than the Jin State.

Of course, the most important point for Wu at the moment is to find out the attitude of the Jin State and their next plans.

In order to eliminate the Liang State, the Jin King Li Cunqiao has personally led the army to fight for more than ten years, and if you add the conquest between Li Keyong and the Liang army in the era, it will take longer.

It took such a long time and paid such a big price, and in the end, except for the land of Hebei, the Central Plains, the core of the Liang State, finally fell into the hands of the Wu State, and it is strange to say that Li Cunmiao can calmly accept this result.

Therefore, whether Li Cunmiao immediately led the army to cross the river and start a big war with Wu Guo regardless of Hebei, which had not yet been pacified, or chose to endure this breath for the time being, and then cross the river to the south after Hebei was pacified, this is not what Yang Wu could predict.

And the Wu side, now after destroying the Liang State, also urgently needs time to digest the territory that has just been defeated, eliminate the hidden dangers that may exist inside, reward the meritorious officials, completely seize the Guanzhong places that have not yet surrendered, and even prepare for the enthronement and emperor, etc., all of which will take time, and perhaps at least two or three months will not have time to intervene in the situation in Hebei.

Therefore, in the next period of time, Yang Wu first ordered all the soldiers to report the meritorious people, and the Ministry of War and the Privy Council verified and drew up a list of rewards as soon as possible.

This reward for meritorious officials must not be sloppy, not only to ensure fairness, but also to do it as soon as possible.

After all, the soldiers fought bravely to kill the enemy, and what they wanted was not a reward? Now that the Liang Kingdom has finally been destroyed, everyone is counting on getting a reward as soon as possible.

If Yang Wu was not in a hurry to reward them at this time, but instead drove them to use troops against the Jin State or all parts of Guanzhong, it would only disappoint the soldiers and lose their military morale.

In history, after Li Cunmiao destroyed Liang, a large number of rewards received from Liang were included in the palace, but the soldiers did not get much reward, which made Li Cunmiao's army disheartened, and within a few years, there were mutinies in various places one after another, and finally he himself was killed in the mutiny.

And Song Taizong Zhao Guangyi also made a big mistake in this regard, after he broke through Taiyuan and destroyed the Northern Han Dynasty, he did not reward the meritorious soldiers, regardless of the fatigue and strong opposition of the soldiers, and impatiently ordered the conquest of the sixteen states of Youyun on the way to retreat, and finally returned defeated.

Yang Wu has just won a big win at the moment, and he doesn't want to cause the same problem.

……

Weizhou, as Yang Wu expected, after learning the news that the Wu army had captured Luoyang, Li Cunqiao was indeed furious.

At the beginning, Yang Wu once sent an envoy to the Jin State to persuade the Jin State to give up attacking Zhenzhou and let them go south together to destroy the Liang State first, at that time Li Cunqiao was still dismissive of Yang Wu's "suggestion"; Later, when the results of the Battle of Xiangling came, and the Wu army won a complete victory with very slight losses, completely destroying the main force of the Liang army, Li Cunqiao felt that something was wrong.

At that time, he personally led 5,000 elite cavalry to defeat the Khitans and pursue the enemy army to Youzhou; After learning the news, Li Cunmiao led his army to gallop and arrived in Weizhou in only five days.

It's a pity that even if he returns to Weizhou, he can't intervene in the situation south of the Yellow River, after all, as long as the "hole" of Zhenzhou is not filled in for a day, he can't concentrate his troops to cross the river and go south.

Therefore, after arriving in Weizhou, Li Cunqiao sent people to urge Yan Bao to step up his attack on Zhenzhou, and on the other hand, he mobilized troops from all over the country, accumulated money and grain in Weizhou and other places, and began to prepare for the battle of crossing the river.

However, he still underestimated the speed of Wu's army to destroy Liang, and also overestimated the strength and morale of Liang.

When the Wu army bypassed Kaifeng and drove all the way straight into Luoyang, Li Cunqiao understood that Liang Guo would be finished.

At that time, Li Cunmiao once wanted to change his combat strategy, and directly sent troops to cross the river in Huazhou to attack the rear road of the Wu army and reduce the burden on the Liang State.

But the biggest problem with this plan is the back-end problem.

Wu is not better than Liang, when the Wu navy besieged Yunzhou, it had already shown amazing strength, those behemoth-like large warships, so that the Jin spies who had not seen much of the Wu army's warships were stunned after seeing it, and after going back, they strongly emphasized that the Wu army's naval army was strong, and it was difficult to be an enemy on the water.

The northerners are good at riding horses, and the southerners are good at boating, which has been the case since ancient times, and Li Cunqiao is very clear about this; Now that I have received the secret report from the spies, I dare not be negligent.

If the river is crossed directly in Huazhou, once the waterway of the Yellow River is cut off by the warships of the Wu army, the Jin army crossing the river will fall into a lonely battle.

This kind of extremely risky thing, even the adventurous Li Cunqiao can't make that determination.