"Since my father is worried about the power of Wu, why didn't he send someone to Wu as an envoy in the name of celebrating the destruction of Liang, and he could also see the actual situation of Wu?" Li Congyi suggested.

"Send someone to envoy Wu Guo?" Li Maozhen was obviously interested.

"Yes, Wu used to live in the south, although there is news about Wu from time to time, but after all, it is hearsay, how can it be done if you don't actually send someone to see it? At the very least, it is necessary to find out how strong the strength of the Wu State is, how many troops there are, what are the reserves of money and food, whether the monarch is virtuous, whether the generals are brave and good at fighting, and so on. Once we have figured this out, we know what to do with them. ”

Li Congyi's suggestion made Li Maozhen feel a little surprised: his son has always loved literary affairs, he is not interested in military affairs, and he has no outstanding opinions, so he doesn't want to come up with a good idea at this time.

Although Wu occupied the south of the Yellow River, no one had actual contact with it about its strength.

At the beginning, although Wu was overwhelmed along the way against the southern feudal towns, those forces in the south were originally inferior to the northern feudal towns, at least Li Maozhen was confident that he could defeat them if he changed himself.

And this time against the Liang State, the Wu army is also like a bamboo, but I have to say that Wu's "momentum is like a bamboo" is based on the fact that the strength of the Liang State has been greatly weakened by the Jin State, and it is just a fisherman in "the river mussels compete with each other, and the fisherman profits", which is not enough to explain the strength of the Wu army.

In addition, Jin Guo's attitude is not yet clear, maybe he doesn't need to be too anxious? Li Maozhen thought in her heart.

"Then who do you think can be used as an envoy to the state of Wu?" Li Maozhen asked slowly.

King Qi is heavy on military generals and light on civil rule, if you want to find one or two generals under your command, it is an easy matter; But it is not easy to find a suitable candidate to envoy to other countries, those who fight only know how to fight and kill, and it is likely that something bad will happen to the envoy of Wu; And if the civil officials are allowed to go, there are no civil officials under the command of King Qi.

Li Congyi said: "If my father allows it, the child is willing to send an envoy to Wu for my father!" ”

"You?" Li Maozhen's heart moved slightly, he was worried that Li Congyi didn't care about state affairs, worried that there would be no successor to Qi in the future, and now that Li Congyi was willing to serve as an envoy, of course he would not object; And letting his eldest son go as an envoy can also show his sincerity.

"It's okay if you send an envoy to Wu, but after you arrive in Wu, remember to try to make friends with Wu, show your father's friendship with Wu, and at the same time secretly observe the situation and strength of Wu, and find out their attitude towards us. Can you do these things well? ”

"Father rest assured, the child is not a three-year-old child, this can still be done. And if the father is not at ease, he can let Judge Qi go with the child, and there will be no problem with him by his side. Li Congyi replied.

Qi Judge Qi Xingzhi is Li Maozhen's staff, although his official position is not high, his ability is still good, with him, Li Maozhen can rest assured.

After determining that Li Congyi would send an envoy to Wu, Li Maozhen also made up his mind to first find out the truth of Wu, and at the same time determine Wu's attitude towards Qi, as well as Wu's next relationship with Jin.

Even if you bow down to the state of Wu, what can you do? It's a big deal to persuade King Wu to ascend the throne and claim the emperor.

At that time, with his status and qualifications, Yang Wu will also crown him as the king no matter what he says; I believe that as long as Yang Wu is not stupid, he will not attack him when the threat of the Jin Kingdom is still there and he has already submitted to the table.

He is now old, and he really doesn't have the ambition he had back then, as long as he can keep the current territory of Qi Kingdom, as for whether it is a shame to give in to Yang Wu, a "junior", it is not something he has to consider.

……

Different from Li Maozhen's hesitation, as far away as Xiazhou's Dingyan Jiedu envoy and Lingzhou's Shuofang Jiedu envoy, and even more west of Liangzhou and other places, these local forces did not hesitate much after learning the news of Wu's annihilation of Liang, and decided to change their ways, and turned to Wu to pay tribute, hoping to get Wu's canonization.

These local forces have been separating the frontiers for hundreds of years or more, and have long been accustomed to nominally serving the Central Plains regime in exchange for "legitimate" domination over the interior; Whether it was the original Datang or the next Houliang, their attitude was the same; Now that Wu Guo has changed, it is no exception.

Xiazhou is Li Renfu, the Dangxiang Qiang people have been entrenched here for hundreds of years, the foundation is very strong, although the fame can not be compared with the Qi King and other forces, but Xiazhou has a regular army of 10,000 or 20,000 people, and tens of thousands of Dangxiang clan soldiers are ready to serve it, it is also a powerful force, not much weaker than the current Qi King Li Maozhen.

The forces that can establish the Western Xia Kingdom in the later generations and stand side by side with the Song, Liao, and Jin will certainly not be weak.

And Han Zhu, the envoy of Shuofang Jiedu, is the son of Han Xun, the former envoy of Jiedu and the king of Yingchuan, and Han Xun succeeded him after his death three years ago.

It's a pity that compared to Han Xunlai, this new Jiedu envoy is too far behind in terms of both the means of controlling his generals and the ability to command the army to fight, and it is difficult to suppress the ambitions of all parties in this complicated border area, so the territory under his command is shrinking, and his authority is being challenged.

After receiving the news of Wu's annihilation of Liang, Han Zhu immediately decided to send an envoy to Wu, hoping to get the official canonization of Wu and use Wu's momentum to consolidate his position.

As for Liangzhou and other places further west, the forces there were more complex and wars more frequent, and the purpose of sending envoys to Wu was similar to that of Han Zhu.

Of course, because of the remoteness of the place, these local forces were much slower to get the news than Li Maozhen; Moreover, unlike Li Maozhen, the rulers of these forces did not forget to persuade Yang Wushang to ascend the throne as emperor after learning that Yang Wu, the king of Wu, was only king, not emperor, and did not forget to persuade Yang Wu to ascend the throne and become emperor in order to inherit the great unification of the world.

Of course, that's all for later.

In addition, after Ma Yin, who had been lonely in Chenzhou and Xuzhou in the south for many years, got the news that Wu had destroyed Liang, this hero who was the same year as Yang Xingmi also had to sigh again and again: Wu has this strength, King Wu has this means, and he was unjustly defeated back then.

After writing to Wu to surrender and surrender most of the territory in exchange for the land of the two states as reservations, Ma Yin was still wary of Wu at first, after all, no one knew whether Wu would abide by the agreement and ensure their safety, so it was normal for him to be wary.

However, with the passage of time, those founding veterans died of illness one after another, and Ma Yin's strength can be said to be declining; However, the Wu side seized large territories of Liang State one after another, and recovered Lingnan, and its strength has far exceeded the beginning, let alone Ma Yin.

So at that time, Ma Yin completely extinguished his defense, because it was useless to take precautions, so it was better to try to have a good relationship with Wu Guo.

Now that Wu has destroyed Liang, he has made a decision: regardless of his old age, he will go to the court to meet Yang Wu in person, and completely hand over the land of the two states in his hands to protect the family.

The reason why this decision was made, in addition to feeling that Wu Guo was powerful, another important reason was that he was deeply disappointed in his sons.

Ma Xisheng, Ma Xifan, etc., all of them have little ability, but they are ambitious, and from time to time they propose to Ma Yin to send troops to attack the southwest regions in order to expand their territory.

Now they are honestly staying in Chenzhou and Xuzhou, and they are still worried that Wu Guo will not like them, and they will send troops to destroy them in the future; If he expands to the outside world, he is afraid that the day his army will send troops will be when Wu's army is in the city.

What's more, these unconscious sons are not in harmony with each other, and they are more ruthless than the other in their struggle for power and profit, and on several occasions they even made trouble to the point of almost fighting each other.

Ma Yin is not old and confused now, and he can suppress these boys; But if one day he is gone, won't these sons make a fuss? I'm afraid that the whole family will have to bury them at that time.

Ma Yin, who knows the way to advance and retreat, will naturally not be so stupid, knowing that the general trend is inviolable, then it is best to obey the general trend, why force it and bring trouble on yourself?

……

Compared to these heroes who made their own choices about the destruction of the Liang by the Wu State, another powerful force on the other side of the separatist side did not react to this at all.

This person who behaved very calmly was Wang Yan, the lord of Shu.

Since succeeding to the throne, Wang Yan can be said to have been eating, drinking, and having fun all day long, and he doesn't care much about government affairs.

Monarchs like him often like to be close to villains and stay away from virtuous ministers, coupled with his father Wang Jian's wanton killing of heroes, talented people in the court have long been killed, and the current Shu court has long been a miasma, and the government is deserted.

In Wang Yan's view, what are the major changes in the Central Plains and what does Shu have to do? He just needs to strictly guard the gates of various places, close the door and enjoy himself.

So when the news of Wu's destruction of Liang came, Wang Yan only said, "I know", and then summoned the ministers to discuss briefly.

As a result, all the ministers believed that Wu was under the control of the Jin State, and would not have any ambitions for Shu for the time being, and only needed to let the Shu army in the border areas strengthen their vigilance.

After getting this conclusion, Wang Yan was relieved and no longer paid attention to the matter.

……

Luoyang.

With the demise of the Liang State, the entire Central Plains has basically fallen into the hands of the Wu State, but there are still many territories in the old land of the Liang State that are still on the sidelines.

Especially in all parts of Guanzhong, there was no new news for so long after the fall of the Liang State, which made Yang Wu quickly lose patience.

In mid-February, Yang Wu inspected the army in Luoyang and ordered that meritorious soldiers be rewarded.

A lot of money and food obtained through the destruction of Liang were rewarded, and the expenses were really staggering.

However, for Yang Wu, although the cost was huge, and even the money and food obtained by the destruction of Liang were basically consumed, as long as the morale of the soldiers was high, it was all worth it.

In addition to rewards, it is natural for meritorious officials to be added to the knighthood.

However, among all the meritorious officials, except for the rewards of the middle and low-level officers, the rewards of the high-level generals are not much.

Many of the generals were happy about this, because they understood that Yang Wu had not forgotten their merits, but had waited until some time to reward them, and this time was likely to be the time when Yang Wu ascended the throne and became emperor.

Therefore, the people who have not received many rewards will wait patiently for the opportunity.

At the end of February, Yang Wu ordered Chai Zai, the governor of the military army in Youzhen, to lead 30,000 troops to the west, responsible for attacking all parts of Guanzhong and subduing these areas by force.

In terms of strength, there is no strong force in these areas, after all, the garrisons of the Guanzhong states have basically been transferred to Luoyang by Zhu Youzhen, and there are not many remaining troops, so it is enough to send 30,000 troops to go.

In the palace, in the Chongzheng Palace, where Zhu Youzhen used to discuss matters, Yang Wu convened several confidants and generals to hold a secret military meeting here, and the content of the military discussion was about how to eliminate the hidden dangers within the Wu army and completely merge the Xiaoyi army into the Wu State.

In addition to the governors of the forbidden army and the Xiao cavalry army, there was also Wang Yanyan, who, as the governor of the righteous army, had served in Wu for many years, so this matter naturally could not avoid him.

In addition, Guo Chongtao and Yan Keqiu and Luo Zhixiang, who had just arrived from Jinling to Yang Wu, were also able to attend the meeting.

When the news of Wu's annihilation of Liang reached Jinling, the military and civilians in the country cheered and their morale was greatly boosted, so Yang Jiong, the crown prince in charge of supervising the country, ordered Yan Keqiu and Luo Zhixiang to come to Luoyang to congratulate Yang Wu on behalf of the civil and military ministers of Jinling.

Of course, in addition to Daohe, another important purpose for the two to come to Luoyang was of course to discuss the matter of persuasion, Jinling Wenwu was worried that Yang Wu would be the emperor directly in Luoyang, which was obviously not in their interests, so they sent the two to persuade Yang Wu to return to Jinling and become emperor again, but it happened to meet this military discussion.

As for Wang Yanqiu, Kang Yanxiao and other generals who had just surrendered to Wu not long ago, and their status was also different from that of several governors, so they did not participate in this military discussion.

"The purpose of establishing the Xiaoyi Army must also be understood by you, but now that the Liang State has perished, there is no reason for the Xiaoyi Army to continue to exist. However, so many soldiers naturally can't directly disarm them and return to the field, and they must make proper arrangements. Yang Wu said.

"In addition to the righteous army, there are also those Liang army soldiers, and it is inevitable that they will not cause trouble if they stay in the camp all the time, and we must also find a suitable way to settle these soldiers."

Now that Wu and Liang are one, it is naturally unfeasible to use all the prisoners of the Liang army as coolies as they did at the beginning, and there are also hidden dangers in directly releasing all the prisoners.

The soldiers of this era often served for a long time, and there was no other source of income except military salary.

Therefore, the imperial courts of all dynasties rarely disbanded the army, just for fear of accidents.

As for the integration of all these troops into the Wu army, it is even more impossible, with the national strength of the Wu State to maintain the current army is barely possible, but if more troops are maintained, it will cause a heavy financial burden, and secondly, many of the Liang army are actually old and weak soldiers, if it is according to the standards of the Wu State, it is not suitable to be incorporated into the forbidden army.