Qin Pei died of illness suddenly, but the position of governor he left behind needed to be inherited.

Although Wu is now vigorously cultivating new people, to a certain extent, those young generals are still a little lacking in terms of qualifications and prestige, as well as the ability to command troops, at least at present, there are no young generals who have made Yang Wu feel at ease.

So after much consideration, Yang Wu finally decided to appoint the veteran.

However, among the many veterans, it is not so easy to choose the most suitable one, and now with the death of many veterans one by one, they are still in good health and are not too old among the generals, mainly Li Decheng, Lu Shizao, Mi Zhicheng, Wang An and a few other generals.

Among them, Yang Wu is most optimistic about Li Decheng and Mi Zhicheng, but compared to Li Decheng, who has a too calm personality and has no characteristics in commanding the troops, it is Mi Zhicheng's performance in the last battle of Jiangling that makes Yang Wu's eyes shine.

In addition, it happened that Mi Zhicheng was originally the commander of Qin Pei's army, so in the end, Yang Wu decided to let him take over Qin Pei's position as governor.

Compared with Qin Pei's candidates for the position of governor, the candidates for the two important positions of the military department and the secretary department that Liu Wei and Tao Ya vacated before were not so easy to determine.

After all, in the appointment of those important positions in the DPRK and China, it is necessary to consider not only the actual ability of each person, but also the balance between various factions.

Among the three scholars of the six ministries and the cabinet, there are mainly those old ministers, or Yang Wu's cronies, and the officials who have taken the road of the imperial examination to enter the government have no foundation in the court at present, and it is obviously a period of time before they officially ascend to the court.

After all, even among the many jinshi in the first imperial examination, the highest level now is only to serve as a party assassin, not even as a governor, and it is obviously impossible to directly cross the level of governor and enter the center.

Continuing to appoint old ministers is Yang Wu's current decision, and it just so happens that he can continue to appease those old ministers and maintain internal unity.

In the end, Yang Wu decided to promote Li Yu, the governor of Jiangxi, to the secretary of the military department, because this person was also born as a military general, and he had personally led troops to fight, so he had a certain understanding of military affairs.

As for the position of the secretary of the ministry, Yang Wu finally decided to be promoted by Xu Wen, the governor of Fujian.

Xu Wen made Yang Wu deeply jealous at the beginning, and even because he couldn't find fault with him, Yang Wu had no choice but to transfer him out of Guangling by means of rising and descending secretly.

At that time, because Huainan had not yet implemented the separation of military and government, and Suzhou was an extremely prosperous city, Yang Wu transferred Xu Wen, who was not reused at that time, to serve as the assassin of Suzhou.

But now that ten years have passed in the blink of an eye, it is naturally impossible for Yang Wu to feel jealous of Xu Wen anymore.

Why was Xu Wen able to control the government? To put it bluntly, it is nothing more than because after Yang Xingmi's death, Yang Wu's prestige was not enough to convince the public, and Zhang Hao's target was erected in front, all the charges of killing the monarch were shirked to Zhang Hao, and Xu Wen played the trick of blackmailing the "Yang family" to order the "princes".

The assassins in various places are like princes, under the condition that Xu Wen guarantees their interests and continues to respect the Yang family, plus everyone does not want to have civil strife in Huainan, so as not to be taken advantage of by foreign enemies, and they do not want to be the first to come forward, so as not to be attacked by Xu Wen, and finally under the balance of forces of all parties, Xu Wen was able to control the power.

As for now, with Yang Wu's authority and the power structure of Wu now, a minister who is not in charge of military power, even if he is one of Yang Xingmi's "Thirty-six Heroes" back then, what is the use? If you want to control the power of Wu like in history, it is better to count on Yang Wu to directly pass the throne to him.

In the next period of time, the situation between Wu Jun and Liang Jun did not change, and even during this period, Yang Wu also took time to go back to Jinling, because Mrs. Shi suddenly fell ill, and he naturally wanted to visit as a son, and by the way, he dealt with some large and small affairs in the court.

By the time I returned to Suzhou again, it was already the end of March.

At this time, the war caused by the battle for Xuzhou also took a major turn.

At the beginning of April, Li Cunmiao, the king of Jin, heard that the armies of Wu and Liang had been holding each other in Xuzhou for nearly half a year, just after the Jin State eliminated the Yan State, Li Cunmiao, who had freed his hands, intended to go south again, so after resting for more than three months, Li Cunmiao decided to take this opportunity to send troops south to attack Liang.

The targets he chose were Xingzhou, Beizhou and other places that were still controlled by the Liang State, that is, those states that were close to the Zhao State.

After all, it is located in North China, and the terrain is extremely flat, which is conducive to the play of cavalry, and fighting here is obviously beneficial to the Jin State.

For a time, the garrisons of the Jin State were ordered to begin to assemble towards Zhenzhou, and the armies of the Zhao State and the Beiping State also began to assemble, apparently intending to go south with the Jin army.

Such a large-scale transfer quickly attracted the attention of all parties.

After the Liang side got the news that the Jin army was about to be dispatched, they were not calm.

In Kaifeng City, in the palace, Zhu Youzhen was like an ant on a hot pot, walking around.

"From last year to now, it has been half a year, and there has been no result in the first battle of Xuzhou, what is the use of continuing to delay like this? If the Jin army comes to attack on a large scale, will our army really have to prepare for a two-sided battle? Zhu Youzhen asked loudly.

The ministers were uneasy, and fine sweat broke out on their foreheads, but none of them stood up to answer.

Zhu Youzhen continued: "At the beginning, I advocated a quick battle and a quick end to the war in Xuzhou as soon as possible, and the Jin army in the province took advantage of the fire to rob, but you said that the Wu army was strong and could not be easily decisively decisive, and asked to hold on first and wait for change. Now that more than two months have passed, Wu Guo has not changed anything, but our Liang State can't hold on, is this what you are talking about sticking to and waiting for change? ”

Zhu Youzhen's face was gloomy and her expression was extremely dissatisfied.

Although he did not understand military affairs, let alone a wise and martial king, he also knew the consequences of being attacked on both sides.

Not to mention that Wu and Jin are both big countries that can compete with Liang alone, even if they are relatively weak countries like Qi and Shu, if they join forces to attack in both north and south directions at the same time, I am afraid that Liang will be difficult to resist.

Not to mention anything else, now the Wu army and the Liang army have been facing each other for more than half a year, and the war has not been able to make progress for a long time, but has consumed a lot of money and grain.

When the time comes, will it be impossible to expect the soldiers to go hungry to fight?

No matter how stupid Zhu Youzhen is, he doesn't dare to do this, the only way is to quickly end the war on one side, and then concentrate his forces to deal with the other side, so that there may still be a chance of victory.

And Yang Shihou, who was in the front, was extremely dissatisfied with the document some time ago, asking when the battle of Xuzhou would end.

This can't blame Yang Shihou for being anxious, after all, no matter how much Yang Shihou can fight, he is also a person, and it is impossible to defeat the powerful Jin army with a hungry army.

What's more, there are still 3,000 elite cavalry on the Xuzhou side, which was transferred from Wei Bo's side, if there was no cavalry to participate in the battle, Yang Shihou would have to face the dilemma of a complete lack of cavalry.

Whether it was the fact that there was no result on the Xuzhou side for a long time, or the increasingly approaching threat from the Jin side, Zhu Youzhen was forced to end the battle of Xuzhou as soon as possible, so as to concentrate troops and resources to deal with the threat of the Jin army.

At this time, Jing Xiang and the others had no position to stick to the previous delaying tactics, and they had no choice but to sit and watch Zhu Youzhen order someone to be sent to Xuzhou to supervise the decisive battle.

However, Zhang Hanjie and Zhao Yan were worried at this time, and instead advocated that they should not rush into battle with the Wu army, it was better to negotiate peace with the Wu army first, and then make plans after repelling the Jin army.

If he rashly fought with the Wu army and eventually led to a major defeat, although it is reasonable to infer that Wu would not send troops to the Northern Expedition now, so as not to let Li Cunqiao sit and reap the benefits.

But if there is a real chance, who knows if Yang Wu can resist the opportunity and not do it.

At that time, if the Wu army drove straight in, and the northern Jin State attacked again, the Liang State would really face the threat of the country.

After the persuasion of Zhang Hanjie and the others, Zhu Youzhen finally decided to take the whole army as the first task, and if there was no chance to break the enemy, he would try to withdraw the army first, and then make plans later.

"The golden mean." After listening to Zhu Youzhen's decision, Jing Xiang commented in his heart.

It's a pity that although he feels that Zhu Youzhen's final decision is just a golden mean to cure the symptoms rather than the root cause, even if he can relieve this crisis, it will be difficult to solve the next crisis, but for now, there is really no better way.

After all, at present, there is no third choice for either fighting or retreating with the Wu army.

If it is a war, once the army is defeated, the consequences are unimaginable; If they continue to hold each other, after the Jin army goes south, it may cause the collapse of the whole army, especially the northern war may be defeated, and then the Liang State will really be finished.

The Wu army may not have any plans to go north immediately, but if the Jin army has the opportunity to go south, Li Cunmiao will never let go of the opportunity; At that time, the Wu army saw that Liang Guo could no longer withstand it, and he was afraid that he would immediately go north to fight for territory.

In this way, there is a situation where the wall is falling down and everyone is pushing, and the seemingly powerful Liang State may be completely destroyed in a short period of time.

In contrast, the retreat of the whole army, although it is possible to be pursued by the enemy, is the most suitable option at the moment.

"Maybe we should try to make peace with Wu Guo?" Jing Xiang thought in his heart: "Now that the Yan Kingdom has perished, and the Jin Kingdom has no opponents in the north, I am afraid that it will invade the south every year, and we can't be attacked from both the north and the south every time, right?" Well, maybe you can persuade Your Majesty. ”