Let Yang Yan and Yang Yu go with the army, this is a decision made by Yang Wu after consideration.

To be honest, Yang Wu was a little dissatisfied with the prince Yang Jiong, who had a too "biased" personality; However, the prince is still not very old now, and these defects can be slowly made up; Second, in other aspects, the prince's performance is not bad, so although he is a little dissatisfied in his heart, Yang Wu has not changed the identity of the prince at present.

Not only that, but he is now thinking about how to help the crown prince make up for his shortcomings and improve his power.

Therefore, this time it is a rare opportunity for him to stay in Jinling to guard the rear, as long as he behaves well, he will naturally be recognized by the whole court.

As for Yang Yan and Yang Yu, they are currently considered alternatives, and Yang Wu also wants to cultivate them well, so that they can go through more things, and if something goes wrong with the prince in the future, he will not panic.

Of course, in addition to cultivating the two, another purpose of bringing the two of them with him was to let Yang Jiong do things freely in Jinling, so as not to fight for power between them and cause trouble.

After arranging the matter of staying in Jinling, Yang Wu did not do anything for the next period of time, he went to the court on time all day long, retreated on time, and the court was stable, and there was no sign of the imminent Northern Expedition.

In the city of Fengxiang, the palace of the king of Qi.

"Will Zhu Youzhen, the lord of Liang, actually send someone to ask for peace with Gu?" Li Maozhen put down the paperwork in his hand and said to his eldest son Li Congyi with some surprise.

"Summation? Does the father mean that Zhu Youzhen took the initiative to sue for peace? That's weird. Li Congyi was also full of surprise.

At this time, it was already the end of June, and the envoy sent by Liang had not yet arrived in Fengxiang, but Zhu Youzhen had already sent someone to write his meaning on white silk in advance, and Pegasus sent it over.

Liang and Qi have also been old enemies for many years, and since Zhu Wen crusaded against Li Maozhen and took Tang Zhaozong from him, the feud between the two families has never been bridged.

Although King Qi's power is far inferior to Zhu Wen, Li Maozhen was born as a martial artist after all, and he is unruly, even if he knows that he can't defeat Liang State, Li Maozhen still sent troops to fight against Zhu Wen again and again, and never thought about discussing peace with Zhu Wen.

However, the Liang State has always regarded itself as orthodox in the Central Plains, and has always regarded Li Maozhen's local forces as local rebellions, and the strength of the Liang State is far stronger than that of the Qi State, so it is even more impossible to take the initiative to send people to negotiate peace with Li Maozhen.

Therefore, although there has been very little war between the two families in recent years, there is no formal peace, let alone sending envoys to make friends with each other.

And now, Zhu Youzhen actually sent an envoy to negotiate peace, which really surprised Li Maozhen and others.

Li Maozhen, the king of Qi, as a figure of the same era as Zhu Wen, Yang Xingmi, Li Keyong, Wang Jian, etc., when everyone else died one after another, he was still healthy and energetic.

It's a pity that the state of Qi is like that of Liang, and it is currently in a situation where the rivers are declining.

When Li Maozhen's power was at its peak, he fought head-on with Zhu Wen for more than a year, and then he was forced to hand over Tang Zhaozong and surrender to Zhu Wen; However, after Zhu Wen's army retreated, Li Maozhen soon made a comeback, reoccupied a large area of Guanzhong, and constantly troubled Zhu Wen.

It's a pity that Liu Zhijun, the general guarding the pass in Liang Guozhen at that time, was too fierce, and defeated Li Maozhen's army many times with less, and blocked the Qi army to the west of Chang'an.

Later, although Liu Zhijun surrendered to Qi State, allowing Li Maozhen to get a general out of thin air, there was not much territory in Qi State at that time, so there was no extra territory to settle Liu Zhijun; In addition, Li Maozhen did not trust Liu Zhijun very much, so Liu Zhijun surrendered to Shu after staying in Qi for a few years.

As a result, when Wang Jian died later, he was worried that Liu Zhijun was too brave and Wang Yan was difficult to control, so he ordered Liu Zhijun to be executed before he died.

In any case, after Liu Zhijun switched to Qi, Li Maozhen's strength was greatly expanded, but as the situation in the Central Plains and Hebei changed, the power of the Jin State gradually rose, and the situation in the Liang State gradually declined, Li Maozhen gave up the plan to expand eastward, which inevitably clashed with the Shu State.

It happened that Wang Jian also had plans to expand to Guanzhong at that time, so the war between the two broke out again.

When the struggle for hegemony between the Jin and Liang kingdoms in the north intensified, the war between the Shu and Qi kingdoms was also extremely fierce.

However, the relatively weak Qi State has always fallen behind, and finally the Shu State successively seized Qinzhou and other large territories, and its power declined, and now only the land of Qizhou remains, and the situation is not much better than that of the Liang State.

The only thing that relieved Li Maozhen was that with the death of Wang Jian and the coming to power of Wang Yan, the pressure from the southern Shu Kingdom had been greatly eased in the past two years.

"Father, Liang Lord Zhu Youzhen sent an envoy and suddenly sent a messenger to make friends, will there be any fraud in this?" Li Congyi frowned and asked.

Unlike his father, who was completely rude and martial arts, Li Congyi had an elegant face, liked literary affairs, and was especially interested in poetry and painting, which many people did not expect.

But correspondingly, perhaps it is because he is too interested in these literary affairs, so Li Congyi is not good at national affairs, and after learning that Zhu Youzhen will take the initiative to sue for peace, his first reaction is that Liang Guo is cheating.

Li Maozhen figured out the problem in a blink of an eye: "It's not like there is fraud, I think Zhu Youzhen is just worried about being attacked on all sides." The Jin State in the north is enough to give Zhu Youzhen a headache, and if the Wu State also launches the Northern Expedition, then the Liang State will be difficult to resist. In this case, he was naturally worried that Lone would take advantage of the fire to rob. ”

"I see." Only then did Li Congyi understand.

Li Maozhen said with some schadenfreude: "Thinking that Zhu Wen fought in the south and the north, all the princes in the world avoided his edge, how invincible Zhu Wen was at that time, but I didn't expect that there would be a day when he asked for the door." ”

At that time, Zhu Wen was indeed powerful, and none of the feudal towns could compare with it, that is, Li Maozhen was beaten and forced to surrender, and obediently handed over Tang Zhaozong, so that Zhu Wen could coerce the Son of Heaven to order the princes.

And now, in just twenty years, the situation in Liang has decayed to the current appearance, which really made Li Maozhen not expect.

Li Congyi didn't have as much emotion as his father, he asked directly: "Then does my father refuse to negotiate peace with him?" ”

"Refusal to make peace? No! Why should Lone refuse? Li Maozhen vetoed without thinking about it.

"This ......" Li Congyi was a little surprised: "Hasn't my father always taken the revival of the Tang Dynasty as his own responsibility?" Liang Guo's position is not right, but Zhu Wen usurped the throne, does his father want to give up the position of reviving the Tang Dynasty and negotiate peace with the puppet dynasty? ”

Li Maozhen smiled disapprovingly when she heard this: "Revive the Tang Dynasty? That's just a slogan. Look at Li Cunmiao, the king of Jin, and Yang Wu, the king of Wu, although they all have the slogan of reviving the Tang Dynasty, which of them doesn't want to be the emperor themselves? As for the restoration of Datang, it is even more of a joke. ”

Reviving the Tang Dynasty, this slogan may be believed by people like Li Congyi, but no one else believes.

After all, in the three hundred years since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, there are many children of the clan, although the princes of Tang Zhaozong have been killed by Zhu Wen, it is not difficult to find a clan of the Tang Dynasty.

However, whether it was the Jin State, the Qi State, or the Wu State in the south, although they shouted to restore the Tang Dynasty, none of them went to visit the Tang Dynasty and enshrined him as the emperor; From this point, it can be seen that Wu and Jin did not have the slightest idea of restoring the Tang Dynasty.

In addition, I heard that Li Cunmiao, the king of Jin, is now also sending people to buy jade and prepare to carve jade seals, which is the prelude to becoming emperor; Although Wu did not prepare for the title of emperor, Wu was founded and called king earlier, and changed the era name more than ten years ago, while the Jin State and the Qi State at least for now still retain the era name of Tang Tianyou.

"The so-called crusade against Zhu Wen and the restoration of the Tang Dynasty is just a slogan forced by the situation for my father, after all, the main enemy of the father at that time was Zhu Wen, so in order to win more support, it is natural to mention the revival of the Tang Dynasty." Li Maozhen is worthy of being a martial artist, with an upright personality, and he talks with his own son, so he is not shy about these words, and he will say anything he thinks directly.

Then, he laughed at himself a little and said, "It's a pity that no matter how good the slogan is, it's useless, and it's blind if my father's army can't defeat Zhu Wen." So you don't have to look at those things all day long, they are all imaginary, they are useless at all, only the real army is the most important. ”

"Yes, what the father taught is that the child understands." Li Congyi replied resignedly.

Li Maozhen knew from his look that he definitely didn't listen, but this was not the first time that Li Congyi had taught him to pay attention to the army.

Li Maozhen was helpless in her heart, and sighed after a while: "In fact, whether it is Shu or Liang, it is impossible to be lonely at present, and what Gu is most worried about at present is not the strength of Liang State, but the decline of Liang State's strength." ”

Li Congyi said a little strangely: "Worried about the decline of Liang Guo's strength? Didn't my father fight against Liang for many years? If the strength of the Liang State is strong, wouldn't it be that he will plot against my Guanzhong Land again? ”

"You're right, but that's when Liang Guo's strength is too strong; And the current situation is that the strength of the Liang State is too weak. The two great powers of Jin and Wu had already risen in the south and north respectively, and once the two of them made a move together, the destruction of the Liang State was almost inevitable, and at most some remnants of the forces fled to Guanzhong's side. ”

Li Maozhen explained: "And whether the Jin State captures the Central Plains or the Wu State captures the Central Plains, they will become the strongest forces in the world, and at that time, the balance between the worlds will be completely broken." I'm afraid that the country of Qi will not be able to sustain itself when the time comes. ”