Six years ago, before Zhu Wen usurped the Tang Dynasty, Yelu Abaoji took the throne as the head of the Khitan, respected his mother Xiao as the empress dowager, and appointed his wife Xiao as the empress.

Soon, the northern prime minister Xiao Zhira, and the southern prime minister Yelu Oris led his ministers to the emperor of heaven, and the queen was called the queen of the earth; In this way, the prototype of the Khitan State was formally established.

However, at this time, the Khitan was still affected by the old system of the tribal era, and the position of its tribal leader could not be hereditary, and even if the old rules were followed, the leader had to be re-elected every three years; This kind of system is naturally unacceptable to Yelu Abaoji.

For Yelu Abaoji, what he aspired to build was a new kingdom similar to the Han Empire, rather than simply changing the title of Khan to Emperor.

Therefore, over the years, he has been trying to strengthen the authority of the emperor and increase the power of the emperor, and has achieved great results; In addition, he also continued to crusade against northern nomadic tribes such as Karasuma, Heichezi Murowei, and Xi Ren, or led troops south to the Yan Kingdom to raid and expand the strength of the Khitan Kingdom.

But his actions also violated the interests of the domestic aristocracy, so that various rebellions emerged one after another, that is, his own brothers rebelled, trying to force him to hand over power according to the old system and elect a new khan.

These rebellions were eventually suppressed by Yelu Abaoji, which made his authority stronger, and perhaps it would not be long before the Khitan State was formally established.

This is both good news and a great threat to Wu at the same time.

Because this emerging steppe empire will inevitably threaten the rear of the Jin State at all times, creating convenience for the Wu State to go on its Northern Expedition in the future; However, on the other hand, in the long run, the Khitans will eventually become the enemy of the Central Plains, and even this is a greater threat than the Jin State, and the Later Tang Dynasty in history will eventually be destroyed by the Khitans.

In later generations, the Northern Song Dynasty suffered from the invasion of the Khitan for a long time, and it lasted until the destruction of the country, but it failed to recover the sixteen states of Youyun.

Such a big threat, how could Yang Wu not notice it? It's just that this threat needs to be borne by the Jin Kingdom for the time being.

After bowing his head and muttering for a while, Yang Wu asserted: "The Yan State can no longer support it, it seems that the time for the Jin State to go south again is also fast, this time we will fight with the Liang State, no matter whether we can win or not, Gu will not go north again in the next few years, so as not to let the Jin State pick up the cheap." ”

"What the king said is very true, the next step is to eliminate Liu Yan in Lingnan first, and then wait for the opportunity to carry out the Northern Expedition." Zhu Jin nodded in agreement.

Yang Wu then asked, "Guo Senjun, General Zhu, do you two think it is necessary for Gu to have a decisive battle with the Liang army?" Or is it just to force the Liang army back? ”

Guo Chongtao and the others glanced at each other, with some surprise in their eyes, could it be that Yang Wu has not decided on the policy of using troops after sending troops for so long? This is a rare occurrence.

However, if they thought about it carefully, they could understand the reason for Yang Wu's hesitation.

To be honest, it doesn't seem necessary to have a decisive battle with the Liang army now, if the Liang state is weakened too hard, the Jin state will benefit in the future, and this is not in line with the policy of letting the Jin and Liang sides consume each other.

Second, now that Xuzhou has arrived, Yang Wu in other areas is not interested in it for the time being, and even if he is interested, Yang Wu does not plan to do it at this time.

After all, if there is only one Xuzhou, maybe the Liang State will not be desperate, but if it continues to press north, it is impossible to say that the Liang Army will really have to fight hard, and it will be the Jin State that will benefit at that time.

As for the third point, the strength of the Liang army is also very strong, and Niu Cunjie and Liu Jun are also famous generals of the Liang army, plus this time the Liang army did not have a problem with the coordination with the Shu army like last time, so if you rashly start a big war with it, even if you win in the end, you will pay a lot of price.

These points are the reasons why Yang Wu is hesitating at this time.

Guo Chongtao quickly figured out these reasons, so he immediately replied: "Great King, the minister thinks that it is enough to force the Liang army back at this time, and there is no need to have a decisive battle with the Liang army. ”

"Uh, what does General Zhu think?" Yang Wu was noncommittal, and then looked at Zhu Jin.

Zhu Jin thought for a while, but replied: "Great King, the minister thinks that the current strength of the Liang State is still above the Jin State, although it is said that the strength of the Jin State will increase greatly after the elimination of the Yan State, but there is still some gap compared with the Liang State. Therefore, it is necessary to weaken the Liang army. ”

In addition, Zhu Youzhen has just succeeded to the throne not long ago, and he still has the idea of reviving the Central Plains in his heart. And even if the king is unwilling to fight a decisive battle with the Liang army this time, how does the king know that Zhu Youzhen has no idea of urging the Liang army to fight a decisive battle with us? ”

"This ......" Yang Wu and the others were a little surprised, but they also felt that what Zhu Jin said did make some sense.

Zhu Youzhen has just ascended the throne, but I am afraid that he may not be willing to accept the loss of Xuzhou, maybe he will urge the Liang army and the Wu army to have a decisive battle.

Just as Yang Wu and the others were discussing, the guards outside came to report and said, "King Qiqi, I just sent an urgent report from Suzhou, please take a look at it." With that, he handed in a piece of paperwork.

Yang Wu's heart suddenly chuckled, "Suzhou? Something can't be wrong, right? Could it be that Liu Cheng really went to raid Suzhou? ”

Guo Chongtao and the others also changed their faces, if something goes wrong in Suzhou, then even if they win Xuzhou this time, it will not be perfect.

Yang Wu hurriedly took the paperwork, opened it and looked at it, and then breathed a sigh of relief: "Fortunately, although something did go wrong in Suzhou, the loss was not big." He transferred the documents to Guo Chongtao and the others.

It turned out that Yang Wu really guessed that Liu Jun led the army to raid the Wu army, he came very fast, arrived in Suzhou last night, and learned through the reconnaissance that the Wu army camp was five miles north of Suzhou at this time.

So Liu Jun selected 500 elite dead soldiers in the army, launched a strong attack on the Wu army camp overnight, and he himself led the main army to follow.

Wu Jun really didn't expect the Liang army to suddenly kill, and it was in the dark, and he didn't know how many Liang troops were coming, so the soldiers of the Wu army suddenly panicked, and there was chaos in the camp.

This time, Yang Wu ordered Li Jian to lead the troops, and he brought a total of 13,000 people, of which 10,000 were the forbidden army of the Wu army, and the other 3,000 were the remnants of Caizhou under the command of Wang Yanyu, who had surrendered to Wu before.

When attacked, in addition to the 13,000 troops in the Wu army's camp, there were also 5,000 Suzhou troops, who were temporarily stationed with Li Jian to facilitate the next action.

However, what everyone didn't expect was that the first chaos to occur after the attack was the 5,000 Suzhou army, followed by the Wu army's forbidden army, and Wang Yanyan's 3,000 Caizhou remnants did not fall into chaos.

Not only that, Wang Yanyan also led his troops to go up at a critical time, blocking the attack of the Liang army, providing valuable time for Li Jian to rectify the army.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Li Jian quickly quelled the confusion of the army and began to launch a counterattack against the Liang army.

After all, Liu Cheng came to attack more than 300 miles of road, and even in order to ensure the suddenness of the attack, he deliberately ordered all his troops to speed up the march, and it only took four days to rush to Suzhou.

This was of course a great surprise to the Wu army, but it also made the Liang army exhausted, and after losing the advantage of the initial surprise attack, when the Wu army regained its composure, the Liang army retreated again and again.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Liu Yan hurriedly led the troops to the top in person, and ordered the army to retreat temporarily.

The next day, that is, after dawn this morning, Li Jian counted and found that his losses were not large, only more than 600 casualties, but the Liang army lost 1,000 people, and lost a lot of ordnance and armor and other materials.

"Well, this Wang Yanyan has made a great contribution this time and must be commended. Didn't Gu set up a righteous army in Xiangzhou last time? It just so happens that the strength of the Xiaoyi Army is still small and needs to be expanded, so this time let Wang Yanyan serve as the commander of the right guard of the Xiaoyi Army. Yang Wu made a decision immediately.

"Great King, since this person has been appointed as the commander of the right guard, the size of the Righteous Army will inevitably expand, and it can almost be formed alone. It's just that I don't know who should be the governor of this righteous army? Guo Chongtao asked.

"What? Who are your candidates? Yang Wu suddenly became interested.

Guo Chongtao said with a smile: "If the king has no suitable candidate, the minister can recommend one." When the king led the Northern Expedition for the first time and defeated the Liang army, didn't he capture a famous general of the Liang army? This famous general of the Liang army later surrendered to the king, but for the sake of his family, he has not come out to do things all these years, can the king forget this person? ”

"Kang Huaizhen?" Yang Wu's eyes lit up and blurted out.

At the beginning, Zhu Wen led an army of 200,000 troops to cross the Huai River in three ways to attack Huainan, of which Kang Huaizhen and Li Si'an were responsible for commanding the East Route Army.

Yang Wu concentrated his forces against Kang Huaizhen, using the grenade that appeared on the battlefield for the first time as the lead, and broke through the Liang army camp overnight and captured Kang Huaizhen.

At that time, Yang Wu promised to keep Kang Huaizhen secret, in exchange for Kang Huaizhen's allegiance, to prevent Zhu Wen from doing something to Kang Huaizhen's family after learning the news.

And Kang Huaizhen did make a great contribution in the next siege of Suzhou, and pointed out the loopholes in Suzhou's city defense to Yang Wu.

However, in the following years, Kang Huaizhen has been very low-key, staying in the military academy all year round to teach those military cadets, and occasionally appearing in public.

This is all for the sake of Kang Huaizhen's family, after all, Liang Guo must have some fine work in Wu State, if the news is revealed, I am afraid that Kang Huaizhen's whole family will be wiped out.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that the Wu army has no shortage of leading generals for the time being, and the generals of various departments are gathered on LinkedIn, and there is no need to rely on Kang Huaizhen, a famous general who surrendered.

"Kang Huaizhen is very famous and has great prestige in the Liang army, if this person is the commander of the Yiyi army, this is indeed an excellent choice. But what about the person's family? Yang Wu's face was happy, but then he was puzzled.

"King please rest assured, Kang Huaizhen's family is in Xuzhou City, that is, he doesn't have to care about the safety of his family anymore." Guo Chongtao replied with a smile.

"Is that true?" Yang Wuxi said, looking at Fan Yu.

Fan Yu said helplessly: "It was the news that was sent last night, when the king had just fallen asleep, and the minister felt that this matter was not a big deal, so he didn't wake up the king, but only said it to Guo Senjun and others." ”

"Okay, if Kang Huaizhen comes forward, then you don't have to worry about it."

Before, Yang Wu was also worried about the candidate for the commander of the Yiyi Army, after all, whether it was Zhang Yi who surrendered in Xiangzhou or Wang Yanyu this time, their previous level was not high, and they did not have any appeal in the Liang State.

And there will definitely be disagreements between Zhang Yi and Wang Yanyan, no matter which one Yang Wu appoints as the leader, the other is unconvincing.

But if Kang Huaizhen stepped forward to take the lead, these problems would no longer exist.

After solving the problem of the commander of the Xiaoyi army, Yang Wu was obviously in a good mood, he waved his hand and ordered: "Send an order to Hou Zan and let him lead the cavalry to Suzhou to stabilize the situation first, and try to hold off the Liang army. ”

If he was hesitant to have a decisive battle with Liang Jun before, these problems do not exist now.

Liu Jun took the initiative to raid Suzhou, if Wu Jun didn't react at all, wouldn't he be underestimated by Liang Jun?

What's more, the Liang army is divided into two routes, as long as Liu Jun can be dragged down, whether it is Suzhou or Xuzhou Zhouben, the Wu army has a certain advantage.

Especially the advantage of Zhou Ben's side is even greater, at this time he should have learned the news of the Liang army's raid on Suzhou, then he will definitely launch an attack on Niu Cunjie, who stayed in Xiao County.

No matter which battlefield is victorious, the Wu army can achieve the goal of defeating the enemy army.

……

Outside the city of Suzhou, Liu Jun, the commander of the Liang army, was very depressed, although he claimed to be a hundred steps, but no matter how good the plan was, he must have enough strength to implement it.

In the last battle of Jiangling, because of the rapid collapse of the Shu army, the entire coalition army retreated, and the army had no heart to fight.

In that case, even if Sun Wu was resurrected, he was afraid that there would be no way to save the defeat; The only hope is that something unexpected will arise and let Liang Jun seize the opportunity to fight back.

It's a pity that such an opportunity did not appear, and in the end, Liang Jun was defeated and fled, so that Liu Jun's so-called step by step had no room to play.

After that, Liu Cheng and Kou Yanqing led the defeated army to flee all the way north, and in the middle he was ordered to assemble and rectify the rout, trying to block the offensive of the Liang army, but was defeated by the cavalry led by Hou Zan with a charge.

Later, guarding the city of Xiangzhou, he encountered Zhang Yi's betrayal again, and Xiangzhou fell into the hands of the Wu army with little effort.

In short, this year's war has not been smooth, which makes Liu Cheng feel very bad.

And this time the raid on Suzhou, the original plan went extremely smoothly, and the Liang army had already broken into the enemy camp, but unfortunately the Wu army still blocked their attack and drove them out at a critical time.

The soldiers of the Liang army are worried about their combat strength and low morale, and they are far less tenacious than the Wu army, which is Liu Jun's personal experience in this battle.