Liu Chongjing's case shook the government and the opposition in Wu and caused huge losses, but it also made Wu know the importance of secrecy.

So in the next few years, as long as it involves confidential news, most people will attach great importance to it, and they will no longer be as careless as before.

This time, the news that Huiwang Zhu Youneng secretly colluded with Wu Guo is obviously the most confidential news, and if it is revealed, it will even affect the great cause of the Northern Expedition.

So far, there are no more than ten people in the entire Wu Kingdom, and they are all the core ministers of the Wu Kingdom.

Li Chengding, as the general who directly implemented the plan to cooperate with Zhu Youneng's raid on the Liang army, naturally knew the importance of this news.

He hurriedly promised: "Don't worry, the king will definitely keep secrets." ”

After Li Chengding left, Yang Wu lowered his head and groaned.

"Although the time is now ripe for the Northern Expedition, the specific use of troops is still debatable. Although in order to confuse the Jin and Liang states as much as possible, before Li Chengding successfully raided the Liang army, the Northern Expeditionary Army could not be mobilized on a large scale, so as not to startle the snake; However, it is necessary to prepare in advance for the transportation and storage of grain and grass. ”

It is only April now, and according to his estimates, Li Cunmiao's move on Zhao Guo should be in July or August, which means that Wu Guo has about three months to make final preparations.

First of all, it is the work of stockpiling grain, grass, baggage, and various ordnance.

Although Wu has been preparing for the Northern Expedition in recent years, and has stockpiled a large number of materials in Xiangzhou, Xuzhou, and Shouzhou, the more materials in reserve for such a thing as a war, the better, so as not to be short of them.

Especially this Northern Expedition, if it goes well, it is very likely to swallow the entire Central Plains at once.

At that time, the continuous war will consume a lot of supplies; At the same time, because of the war, there may be a large number of refugees in the Central Plains, and these refugees Wu also need to try to pacify and retract them in order to stabilize the people's hearts as soon as possible.

In addition to the reserve of grain and grass, another thing that needs to be prepared in advance is the talent reserve.

It can be expected that once the Wu army launches a large-scale northern expedition, there will definitely be many officials who will take the initiative to surrender to Wu, and there will even be a situation where a large area of territory will surrender directly; These surrendered officials need to be properly resettled.

At this time, there were two options, the first was to resettle these surrendered officials to the south.

However, the turmoil caused by this was too great, after all, the territory of Liang was different from that of Ma Yin; Ma Yin's territory looks large, but in reality the number of officials needed is not much; And the number of prefectures and counties in Liang's territory is large, and the number of officials is even larger, so it is obviously difficult to arrange so many officials.

Therefore, there will inevitably be some officials who need to continue to be retained, but in this way, it may cause the local power to be too large, and there will be a situation in which the tail is too big to be lost.

Therefore, it was necessary for the state of Wu to install its own people in various places to ensure that the imperial court could exercise absolute control over those areas that surrendered; Rather than just getting a nominal possession.

Only in this way can we thoroughly digest these newly conquered territories and prevent the emergence of new separatist forces; Thus unifying the entire south of the Yellow River and concentrating on further northern expeditions against the Jin state.

"It seems that the time has come to bring the Cabinet together and discuss this matter." Yang Wu thought in his heart.

……

Weizhou, Yecheng.

When the state of Wu began to secretly deploy the Northern Expedition, the state of Jin in the north, Li Cunmiao was worried about the changes in the state of Zhao.

After defeating the Liang army and seizing the land of Hebei, Li Cunqiao quickly moved his seat to Yecheng, leaving Zhang Chengye to stay in Jinyang.

Needless to say, Yecheng's advantages over Jinyang are needless to say, on the one hand, the vicinity of Jinyang has been war-torn for a long time, and its economic foundation is naturally far from being comparable with Weizhou; On the other hand, Weizhou was also closer to the Yellow River, so that Li Cunqiao could command the Jin army to engage the Liang army at any time.

Therefore, the core strength of the Jin State has now been transferred to Weizhou, and the former Jinyang can only be regarded as a foundation now, and the remaining troops are not too many.

In fact, after the annexation of the entire Hebei of the Jin State, the military strength of the Jin State has been greatly improved compared with the beginning, and the total strength has reached nearly 300,000, especially the 35,000 cavalry, which is the most powerful army of the Jin Army, and it is the reliance of Li Cunqiao to dominate the world.

After eliminating Liu Shouguang at the beginning, Li Cunqiao captured the entire Hebei in the next few years, and led the army to defeat the Liang army many times; It was the Khitans who repeatedly invaded the Central Plains, and they were also defeated by the Jin army many times.

It can be said that now Li Cunmiao's prestige has risen to the extreme, even if Hu Liupo died in the battle of Zhou Dewei, it did not affect Li Cunmiao's prestige.

By this time, the strength of the Jin State had completely overwhelmed the Liang State and became the most powerful force in the north; And Li Cunmiao also began to feel complacent with the growing strength of the Jin State.

Since last year, there have been people in the Jin Kingdom who have been asking Li Cunmiao to be the emperor, although Li Cunmiao has some intentions in his heart, but he knows that the time is not yet ripe to be the emperor, so he rejected all those tables.

And this year, more and more people asked Li Cunqiao to be the emperor, and even Wang Yan, the lord of Shu who was far away in Shu, and Li Maozhen, the king of Qi in the secession of Guanzhong, sent envoys to persuade Li Cunqiao to become emperor.

Compared with the subordinate courtiers, the identities of Li Maozhen and Wang Yan are naturally different, one of them has been the emperor for many years, and the other is still under the banner of the Tang Dynasty, but he has also been the king for many years.

Now even these two people have begun to send people to persuade Li Cunqiao to become emperor, which can be called "what everyone wants".

Of course, among the remaining powerful forces today, in addition to Li Maozhen, the king of Qi, and Wang Yan, the lord of Shu, the remaining Zhu Youzhen of the Liang State is naturally impossible to give in to Li Cunqing; And Yang Wu, the king of Wu in the south, is even more unlikely to send someone to persuade Li Cunmiao to become emperor, which makes Li Cunmiao's so-called "public expectation" still a little worse.

Fortunately, for Li Cunqing, it doesn't matter whether Zhu Youzhen and Yang Wu oppose him as emperor, the most critical point is whether the people in the Jin Kingdom support him as emperor.

Among the many civil and military forces within the Jin Kingdom, the one who gave Li Cunmiao the most headache was Zhang Chengye, a meritorious veteran.

The importance of Zhang Chengye to the Jin State naturally does not need to be said, every time Li Cunqiao led the troops to go out, it was Zhang Chengye who sat in the rear to raise grain and grass for the army, it can be said that this person is equivalent to Xiao He of the Jin State.

If it weren't for his efforts in the rear, the Jin army's military operations would definitely not have gone so smoothly.

Therefore, this loyal old minister still makes Li Cunqiao extremely respectful.

It's a pity that Zhang Chengye is loyal to Li Cunqing, but what he values more in his heart is Datang.

It can even be said that the main reason why Zhang Chengye will work for Li Cunmiao's father and son is to revive the Tang Dynasty.

This seems to be an intractable task, but this is Zhang Chengye's obsession and the goal of his life.

For so many years after the fall of the Tang Dynasty, almost all of the military officials of the Jin State had accepted the canonization of Li Cunqing, and they had in fact established a monarchy-vassal relationship with Li Cunqing; Zhang Chengye is the only one, so far he has regarded himself as the official position canonized to him by the Tang Dynasty and the military envoy of Hedong, and has rejected all the official titles canonized by Li Cunqing.

From this point alone, it can be seen that Zhang Chengye is really loyal to the Tang Dynasty, and the main reason why he gave advice to Li Cunqiao is that he hopes that Li Cunqiao can revive the Tang Dynasty.

And now that Li Cunmiao wants to be the emperor, it is obvious that he will be fiercely opposed by Zhang Chengye.

And that's exactly what happened.

Since officials from all over the country have been persuading Li Cunmiao to become emperor, although Li Cunmiao has repeatedly refused, in fact, his heart has already moved.

So in February this year, Li Cunqiao ordered to send people to buy jade, ready to be used to carve jade seals, as a national treasure.

When Huangchao broke through Chang'an, there was a great chaos in Chang'an City, and there was a Weizhou monk who occasionally got the treasure of the Tang Dynasty, although it was not the famous jade seal, but it was also a jade seal carved in the early years of the Tang Dynasty, which was extremely precious and symbolized the orthodoxy of the Tang Dynasty.

Later, the monk died, and the treasure fell into the hands of his apprentice, Fax.

Now the fax heard that Li Cunmiao was sending someone to buy jade and prepare to carve a jade seal, so he should bring this treasure to Li Cunmiao's palace to offer the treasure.

This incident soon caused a shock from top to bottom of the Jin Kingdom, and many generals raised their glasses to celebrate, thinking that this was the destiny of heaven, and there were more voices of persuasion for a while.

However, after the news reached Jinyang, Zhang Chengye, who was in Jinyang, soon couldn't sit still.

He personally rushed to Weizhou to advise, hoping that Li Cunmiao would not be in a hurry to become the emperor, but wait until he first eliminated the Liang State and avenged the Tang Dynasty, and then eliminated the Wu State to the south and the Shu State to the west.

Li Cunmiao was unhappy and categorically rejected Zhang Chengye's advice; However, this incident completely broke Zhang Chengye's heart.

From then on, Zhang Chengye never consulted for Li Cunqiao until he finally died of illness.

Of course, for Li Cunqing, although he has lost Zhang Chengye's assistance, he can basically be regarded as full-fledged now; Not only can it be regarded as a soldier with sufficient food, but also a complete range of civil and military officials and a large number of talents, even if there is no Zhang Chengye, Li Cunmiao does not think there is any problem.