Li Chengding, as the most noble Duke of Wei in Wu today, and one of the several governors in the Wu army today, holds heavy troops, and is naturally the top veteran of Wu State.

Although he didn't want to get involved in the competition for the crown prince, he couldn't help it, his status was too prominent, and he couldn't hide even if he wanted to.

The crown prince Yang Jiong is better, after all, he has a general relationship with the old people, mainly developing his influence on the side of Wenchen, although he is also respectful to the old man, but he did not deliberately try to win him over.

But the third prince Yang Yu is different, he is far inferior to his eldest brother in terms of identity and power, so he naturally needs to work hard in other aspects, so Li Chengding has become the target of his focus.

Last time when he was in China, Yang Yu was still saying that he wanted to worship him as a teacher and asked him to teach him the ability to lead soldiers to fight, but Li Chengding finally shirked it with his busy military affairs, and this time he was afraid that he would be entangled again when he returned to China.

At this time, when he saw the merchant ships of the Xu family, he suddenly smiled bitterly in his heart: "The princes of the king are getting older, and they are only afraid that there will be chaos in the future." ”

When Yang Wu ascended the throne, there was basically no struggle for power, as the eldest son, the other younger brothers were still young, so he naturally became the heir without dispute.

But now Yang Wu's sons obviously don't have such good things, even if Yang Wu established the prince early, but he can't stand everyone wanting to get support.

If Yang Jiong is really good enough to make everyone have nothing to say, or if Yang Wu is now old and urgently needs to determine the heir, then others will not and dare not have any thoughts of competing for the position of the crown prince.

But it is obvious that there are many people in the DPRK who are dissatisfied with Yang Jiong, and even Yang Wu himself seems to be not very satisfied with him.

In addition, Yang Wu is still young now, and the crown prince does not know how many years it will take to ascend to the throne, which provides everyone with enough time to win the throne.

The second prince Yang Yan is quite low-key, his mother He Yiyi was originally simple, and she was good friends with the queen, and the relationship between Yang Yan and the prince was also extremely close; Of course, as the elder brother, he usually has the same friendly attitude towards the third brother Yang Yu, and he is currently a neutral person and has not participated in the competition for the position.

Li Chengding was thinking about these things in his heart, and chatted with Sima Fu at the same time.

Soon, the distant land was looming over the horizon.

"It should be possible to dock when it gets dark." Sima Fu quickly made a judgment.

Sure enough, it was only that evening that they arrived at the shore and boarded the pier.

This is Suzhou, which is still some distance from Jinling.

After resting for the night in an inn outside the city, early the next morning, the group went to Jinling on horseback instead, and it took more than a day to arrive.

"General Li, the king has an order, let the general enter the palace immediately for the banquet, and the eldest princess of Shou'an is already waiting in the palace." As soon as he arrived at the gate of the city, an official from the Ministry of Rites came to greet him.

The eldest princess of Shou'an is Yang Wu's sister and Li Chengding's wife.

After Li Chengding heard this, he immediately understood that this must be Yang Wu preparing to hold a banquet in the palace to entertain his family.

"Okay, I'm tired." He nodded in response.

The official then said to Sima Fu and the others: "The other of you must be very tired after a long journey all the way, so the lower official will not bother, and you can go back to rest separately." ”

"Hmm." Sima Fu nodded and looked at Li Chengding with some envy.

But this is also normal, who makes the relationship between Li Chengding and Yang Wu close? Naturally, as soon as he returned to Jinling, he was directly summoned to the palace.

Li Chengding hurriedly went to the palace, naturally accompanied by people along the way, and soon came to the harem, and met Yang Wu and others in Kunning Palace.

"Minister Li Chengding visited the king and the queen."

"No courtesy." Yang Wu's gentle voice sounded, stepped forward to hold Li Chengding up, and then looked carefully for a while.

"I haven't seen each other for two years, but my brother-in-law seems to be more and more calm and magnanimous." Yang Wu laughed.

"The king has become more majestic than before!" Li Chengding also laughed.

Over the years, the relationship between the two has become more intimate, even if Li Chengding has been away for two years this time, it has not made them rusty.

In Li Chengding's view, after Yang Wu has entered middle age, the beard under his chin has grown, and he has been in a prestigious position all year round, and his majesty is indeed stronger than at the beginning, which makes people feel awe.

At this time, Zhou Mengjie on the side said with a smile: "Since my brother-in-law has arrived, let's start the banquet." If there is something to do, wait until after eating. ”

"Okay." Li Chengding hurriedly agreed.

This banquet is a family banquet, except for Yang Wu and Zhou Mengjie, that is, Li Chengding and Princess Shou'an, the atmosphere of the whole banquet seems to be more casual, except for Yang Wu and Li Chengding who drank a little wine, Zhou Mengjie and Princess Shou'an only ate a little bit.

After the banquet, Zhou Mengjie and the two consciously went to the side to chat, while Yang Wu took Li Chengding to the imperial study.

"How is the combat power of the Japanese people? Is it hard to fight with them? After sitting down again, Yang Wu asked first.

"Wa people? How to say, their soldiers fought very bravely, and many of them were not afraid of death, which was not even worse than the most elite soldiers of our army. Li Chengding commented.

"Really? And what about the rest? Yang Wu nodded, and then asked.

"In other respects, one of the most prominent impressions is that I am rigid and do not know how to be flexible." Li Chengding laughed: "They are still far behind in the art of war, even the generals they call the 'god of war' are actually only a little bit of the surface of the art of war." ”

He recalled the battle with the Japanese army, when he was extremely cautious in setting up ambushes and making arrangements for all possible situations for fear that something would go wrong, but the final battle showed that he was too careful and those arrangements were completely useless.

The Japanese army only knew how to rush forward from the front, and only after too many people died did they understand that they needed to outflank it, but it was too late by then, and the Wu army easily defeated the Japanese army with a counterattack.

Yang Wu smiled and thought to himself: "The same is true of the Japanese people in later generations. ”

After chatting a few words on the topic of the Wa Kingdom, Yang Wu asked, "Do you know the reason why Gu asked you to return to China quickly this time?" ”

"I don't know, is there a change in the situation in the north?" Li Chengding's heart perked up, and he hurriedly asked.

"Yes, it is true that the situation in the north has changed, Wang Rong, the king of Zhao, was killed by his righteous son Wang Deming, and now the state of Zhao has fallen into the hands of Wang Deming." Yang Wu said with a solemn expression.

"Wang Deming? Is that the general who was originally named Zhang Wenli? Li Chengding said with some surprise.

"Yes, that's the man."

Zhang Wenli, who was originally Liu Rengong's general, later took refuge in Wang Rong, because he was good at welcoming and was loved by Wang Rong, he was accepted as a righteous son and renamed Wang Deming.

Later, every time the Zhao army went out with the Jin army, Wang Rong would let Wang Deming lead the army; For a long time, Zhao Jun was gradually controlled by Wang Deming.

And Wang Rong has been in power for a long time recently, and recently he has become obsessed with the affairs of monks, eating fasting and reciting Buddha all day long, absurd in government affairs, and gradually handed over the power to his son Wang Zhao.

Wang Deming has always been ambitious, and when he saw this situation, he secretly provoked and instigated Wang Rong's pro-army to rebel, killing Wang Rong's family overnight.

Only Wang Zhao's wife, Princess Puning, that is, Zhu Wen's daughter, survived and was used by Wang Deming to ask Liang to surrender.

This incident seemed to have little to do with the state of Wu, but in fact, both Yang Wu and other ministers in the DPRK and China quickly realized the huge impact of this incident on the situation in the north.

Soon after Wu unified the south, Yang Shihou, the king of Liang, fell ill and died.

After Zhu Youzhen learned the news, under the persuasion of Zhang Hanjie, Zhao Yan and others, he decided to divide Wei Bojiedu into two in order to weaken his strength.

However, Zhu Youzhen's actions were a bit hasty, especially when it touched the interests of Yang Shihou's generals, and as a result, led by the Silver Spear Festival established by Yang Shihou, Wei Bo's army quickly rebelled and surrendered directly to the Jin State.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Jin Kingdom, so Li Cunqiao quickly led his troops south in an attempt to seize the entire land of Hebei.

Zhu Youzhen quickly ordered the general Liu Cheng to lead an army of 60,000 to cross the river to resist the attack of the Jin army, and at the same time tried to recover Weibo and eliminate the rebels.

However, this battle was just like what happened in history, and in the end, the Liang army was defeated under the city of Weizhou, and the 60,000-strong army was wiped out, and only a few people such as Liu Cheng were able to flee for their lives.

Many prefectures and counties in Hebei also fell into the hands of the Jin State soon after.

After capturing Hebei, the Jin army then tried to cross the Yellow River and continue southward, but although the Liang army was greatly damaged in the battle of Weizhou, after all, the foundation was thick, and it was not so defeated like this.

They regrouped their army, with the general He Gui as the commander and Xie Yanzhang and other generals as the deputy commanders, and confronted the Jin army across the river in Yang Liu; The two armies have been holding each other for a long time, and no one can help anyone.

Although the Jin State has obtained the entire land of Hebei, its overall national strength is still not comparable to the Liang State, after all, although Hebei is rich, but the war has been going on for a long time, and the resources have long been exhausted, where can it be compared with the Liang State that occupies the Central Plains, especially this long-term confrontation and war of attrition, it is even more difficult to compete with the Liang army.

Therefore, after a long confrontation, Li Cunmiao felt that it was not possible to go on like this, so he took the risk of going deep alone, bypassing the heavily guarded area of the Liang army, and preparing to attack the rear of the Liang State directly.

However, his adventurous move ultimately failed, and the Liang army quickly retreated in pursuit, and finally the two sides fought a major battle at Huliupo.

At the beginning of this battle, the Liang army won a great victory, defeated the Jin army, and surrounded Li Cunmiao on a hillside, the situation was extremely critical for Li Cunqing, and even the general Zhou Dewei was killed on this day.

At a critical time, under the advice of Li Siyuan and other generals, Li Cunqiao concentrated all the cavalry to launch a fierce charge, and finally defeated the Liang army, which was the Battle of Huliupo that happened three years ago.