"There was another mutiny in Luoyang, and Zhu Youzhen ascended the throne?" In Jinling City, Yang Wu was overjoyed when he got the news, and his face was full of smiles.

When Fan met him, he was immediately puzzled: "King, this Zhu Youqi is not in the right position, so the situation in the Liang State has been turbulent, which is also conducive to our side taking the opportunity to attack him; Now that Zhu Youzhen has ascended the throne, this person will be able to get the unanimous support of the whole Liang country, but I am afraid that the civil strife in Liang will end soon. ”

"Why wasn't the king happy when Zhu Youqi mutinied, but he was so happy at this time?"

Yang Wu smiled slightly, and said in his mood: "These two are naturally different. Now the Liang state is weak, and the Jin state is strong; If the situation in Liang has been turbulent, this may not be a good thing for our country! ”

Fan Yu suddenly came to his senses, "What does the king mean is that he wants the Liang State to continue to consume the strength of the Jin Kingdom?" It's just that in this way, the resistance that our army will encounter in the future Northern Expedition will be much stronger, right? ”

Yang Wu waved his hand and did not discuss this issue, but changed the topic and said: "Liang Guo can't be too strong, but it can't be too weak, it's difficult to grasp the degree of this." But this Zhu Youzhen mutiny is a great opportunity for us, haven't you noticed? ”

Fan Yu asked a little dazedly: "Now that the situation in the Liang Kingdom is on the throne, it will gradually stabilize with Zhu Youzhen's ascension, we didn't have any opportunities before, where is the opportunity now?" ”

"And the last time Caizhou changed, there was that Wang Yanyan as an internal response, if the king was willing to send an army to attack at that time, he might be able to seize a lot of territory. But now ......"

Fan Yu obviously couldn't understand why Yang Wu's attitude was still so little interest last time, why he became so positive this time.

"Otherwise, this time, that time. At that time, the place where there was turmoil was Caizhou, even if it was captured, it would not be of much use, but Caizhou was isolated north of the Huai River, which was not conducive to defense, so it was better to leave it to Liang for the time being, and it would be easy to defeat it when the Northern Expedition was in the future! ”

Yang Wu doesn't value Caizhou, because at this time, he is no longer focusing on the gains and losses of one city and one place, but the overall situation of the whole world.

Now with the capture of Jingxiang by the State of Wu, for the State of Liang, whether it is the State of Wu in the south or the State of Jin in the north, they will be their important opponents.

However, relatively speaking, the threat of the Jin State at this time is still greater than that of the Wu State, after all, the roots of the Liang State are still in the area of Luoyang and Kaifeng, which is closer to the territory of the Jin State.

In this case, if Wu sent troops in large numbers for the sake of a mere Caizhou, it would inevitably attract the attention of the Liang army and force the main force of the Liang army to go south.

When the time comes, it will naturally be the Jin Kingdom that will be cheap, which will inevitably outweigh the losses.

It is precisely because of this that Yang Wu showed little interest in sending troops to Caizhou last time, and only let Li Jian lead the Shouzhou garrison to attack, and the mind is also to pick up the cheap and withdraw if there is none.

In this way, it will not really match the main force of the Liang army.

However, a mere Caizhou is not in Yang Wu's eyes, but what if it is not Caizhou that is in chaos, but Xuzhou, which is of great strategic significance?

"Fan Yu, today's Xuzhou Jiedu envoy Wang Yin was originally Zhu Youqi's confidant, and it was with Zhu Youqi's strong support that he successfully became the Xuzhou Jiedu envoy."

Now that Zhu Youzhen has been killed and Zhu Youzhen has ascended the throne, this person will definitely not tolerate Wang Yin, Zhu Youzhen's henchman, continuing to control such an important place as Xuzhou. If Zhu Youzhen replaces Wang Yin with someone else in the future, will Wang Yin obediently obey his orders at that time? Yang Wu asked with a smile.

Fan Yu was overjoyed and said: "Those Zhu Youzhen's cronies have all been purged by Zhu Youzhen, but only those assassins or jiedu envoys who hold great power in the local area have not been liquidated at this time. ”

However, if Zhu Youzhen sent someone to replace Wang Yin, this person would inevitably feel that Zhu Youzhen's purpose was to liquidate him. In this way, the only way for this person to survive is to take refuge in the king! ”

Yang Wu smiled and nodded: "Yes, so during this time, you can send someone to contact Wang Yin and tell him that if he is willing to serve Gu, Gu will naturally be indispensable for his benefits!" ”

This place in Xuzhou has been coveted by Yang Wu for a long time.

When Yang Wu was on his first Northern Expedition, he took advantage of the opportunity of defeating the Liang army, so he sent troops to Xuzhou and tried to attack the city.

However, the offensive ultimately failed to bear fruit.

And this time Zhu Youzhen's ascension to the throne made Yang Wu once again see the hope of winning Xuzhou.

Unlike Caizhou, Xuzhou, as a battleground for soldiers, has had extremely important strategic value since ancient times.

Especially in the Northern Expedition, it can be used as an important base for the Northern Expedition.

If troops are sent from here, they can sweep Shandong to the east, and they can go straight to the hinterland of the Central Plains of Henan to the west.

In history, whether it was Liu Yu's Northern Expedition or Xu Da's Northern Expedition in later generations, troops were sent from the strategic place of Xuzhou.

If it was for the land of Caizhou, Yang Wu was naturally reluctant to confront the main force of the Liang army, so as not to lose both sides and let the Jin State pick up the bargain; But if it's for Xuzhou, even if it's another battle with the Liang army, why not?

Fan Yu understood what Yang Wu meant, and hurriedly nodded in response: "Don't worry, the king will definitely handle this matter well and live up to the king's trust." ”

After sending Fan Yu away, Yang Wu was still not at ease, and then ordered Zhou to send 20,000 troops north to Haozhou, so as to facilitate rapid action at that time; In addition, Zhu Siqing and Qin Pei, who were stationed in Jinling, also received orders and secretly began to prepare.

This time, Yang Wu made a big determination to capture Xuzhou in one fell swoop.

According to his expectations, the possibility of Wang Yin taking the initiative to surrender is still very great, if the Liang army is unwilling to let Xuzhou fall into the hands of Wu and sends a large army to crusade, then it is impossible to say that Yang Wu will personally lead the army to the expedition.

Of course, if you don't need to make a big move to capture Xuzhou, it will naturally be a better result.

And if Zhu Youzhen was afraid of the strength of Wu State, adopted a tacit attitude towards Wang Yin, and acquiesced in his secession of one side in Xuzhou, then Yang Wu did not need to send troops on a large scale for the time being, but could solve the problem of Lingnan first.

In addition, there is another big problem that needs to be solved this year, and that is the severe drought predicted by Qin Tianjian last year.

Although it is only March, there are some signs of a major drought in various places, and if the situation deteriorates further, I am afraid that this year not only Jianghuai and Zhejiang will suffer from drought, but even Jiangxi will be affected.

At that time, the drought will inevitably affect the poor harvest in various places, especially those ordinary people, if they do not handle it well, I am afraid that many disaster victims will appear.

If you add the possible battle of Xuzhou this year, the consumption of military food will inevitably be a lot; There are disasters inside, and there are soldiers outside, even Yang Wu has to prepare carefully for this kind of thing, otherwise a bad one may lead to civil strife.

In this regard, Yang Wu's response was mainly focused on two points, the first of which was naturally to find ways to obtain enough food from other areas to supplement the military, and at the same time to use it to help the possible victims.

The three regions of Zhejiang, Jianghuai, and Jiangxi were originally the essence of Wu State, with a relatively prosperous economy and a relatively developed agriculture, and if these three areas were affected by drought and the harvest was not good, it would inevitably affect the harvest of the whole country.

To make up for this crop gap, Yang Wu targeted two regions.

The first is the land of Jingxiang, which was just incorporated into the state of Wu last year, although it has just experienced a military rebellion, but after all, it is a very early development area, with a thick foundation and a deep foundation, which can make up for the losses of the two Zhejiang and other regions to a certain extent.

The other is overseas, or more specifically, that is, Champong, Siam and other areas, although the agriculture in those places is not as intensive as the Jiangnan region, but it is better because the land is fertile, the sun is abundant, and the local population is small, so there is a relatively surplus of food.

Therefore, since last year, Yang Wu has ordered Wu's merchant fleet to buy as much grain as possible from those areas, just to prepare for a possible drought this year; Even if the disaster is not severe, the purchased grain can be used as military rations.

After more than half a year of acquisition, the granaries in Jinling and Guangling are now basically full, which is the source of confidence for Yang Wuming to know that there may be a major drought this year, and he is also determined to seize Xuzhou.

In addition to trying to buy food, in order to deal with possible disaster victims, Yang Wu's second response is to use cash-for-work.

Although the degree of development in Jiangnan and other places has been very high, compared with the Ming and Qing dynasties in later generations, the gap is naturally very large, this gap is not only in the population, humanities, agriculture, industry and commerce, etc., but also in the infrastructure.

Therefore, Yang Wu planned to take the opportunity to build a number of farmland and water conservancy facilities in the south of the Yangtze River, or build more roads to connect relatively remote areas such as Wuzhou, Chuzhou, and Wenzhou.

This kind of cash-for-work method is naturally much stronger than simply giving relief to the victims, but the only problem is that the food consumption is greater.

After all, if you want to get those victims out to work, you must ensure that they have enough to eat before they have the strength to work, which will naturally consume more food; And if it is only for the victims, then it is only necessary to keep those victims from starving to death, and the food needs to be much less.

In fact, it is precisely because of the consumption of more food, coupled with the fact that the means of cash-for-work are not used well, and if there are people with intentions who secretly stir up trouble, there may be a situation similar to "Mo Dao Shiren has one eye, beating the Yellow River and the world is opposed".

Therefore, in the face of disasters, the imperial courts of previous dynasties generally only provided a small amount of food for disaster relief, and maintained that those people did not starve to death, lest those people have enough to eat and have the strength to rebel.

However, all this is not a problem for Wu State, after all, Wu State is still in the stage of prosperity, and the food reserves are sufficient, even if it is used to help the victims with work, there is no need to worry about the situation of rebellion.