The alliance between Shu and Liang was originally carried out in secret, and Wu did not find out at this time.

Therefore, according to the calculations of Guo Chongtao and others, if the Wu army attacked Jiangling, the enemy troops coming to help should not exceed 60,000, plus the strength of Gao Jichang in Jiangling City was about 20,000, a total of 80,000 enemy troops.

And with the strength of the forbidden army of the Wu State, there is no problem in defeating the other party with equal strength.

What's more, in addition to the forbidden army, Wu Guo also has a box army, and if necessary, the box army can be mobilized to go up.

Although the combat effectiveness of the Xiang Army is far inferior to that of the forbidden army, it can also play a role in some cases.

So in the end, Yang Wu decided to listen to the advice of Yan Keqiu and the others, and used Liu Xin as the envoy of Qianzhou to lead the army to crusade against Li Qiu; At the same time, he ordered to start hoarding grain and grass in Ezhou and Yuezhou to prepare for the next big war.

Of course, the biggest difference between the next big battle and the previous few years is that Yang Wu plans to personally lead the troops!

Since the fourth year of Tianyou, Yang Wu led the Huainan Army's second northern expedition, he has not personally led the troops, even the following year with 80,000 troops to attack Ma Yin, but also Wang Maozhang and Li Chengsi led the troops respectively.

In fact, the main purpose of the Second Northern Expedition was not for the Northern Expedition, the main purpose of that time was to take the opportunity to expand Yang Wu's prestige, but more of the purpose was for the layout of Jiangxi, luring Wei Quanqi to take the initiative to attack, and finally defeated the coalition army of Wei Quanwu through the Battle of Ivory Pond, which greatly advanced the time for Huainan to seize Jiangxi.

It is precisely because of this that the Northern Expedition did not go smoothly, not only lost a lot of troops, but also did not achieve any results.

In the more than four years since then, Yang Wu has been staying in Jinling City, and rarely even outside the palace.

As a king who aspires to rule the world, of course, he must be patient and safe, but in this era of great chaos in the world, if he is out of touch with the army for a long time, who can guarantee what will happen?

What's more, in the future Northern Expedition, he will inevitably personally lead the troops, and if he doesn't go into battle in person now, I'm afraid that he won't fight in the future after a long time.

So this time, he plans to personally lead the troops and conquer Gangneung!

After announcing their decision, the ministers looked different, but no one stood up against it.

After all, in their opinion, this conquest of Jiangling should be a sure thing, there will be no risk, and Yang Wu personally leading the troops can also increase his prestige; Second, Yang Wu, as a monarch, used 80,000 forbidden troops this time, and even a large number of Xiang troops to fight, such a large-scale war, if he let the generals command, I am afraid that Yang Wu himself will not be able to rest assured.

At his insistence, no one stood up against it.

However, Chen Yanqian frowned and asked: "The king wants to lead the troops in person, which is naturally no problem, but the king is outside, who should guard this Jinling?" ”

Yang Wu smiled and said: "Gu's younger brother, King Hailing, can stay and supervise the government, plus the assistance of the three college students and several other cabinet scholars, I believe there will be no problems!" ”

Chen Yanqian's brows furrowed even tighter, and he then asked, "What about the crown prince?" ”

The ministers listened to Chen Yanqian's question, and they also looked at Yang Wu one by one.

Yang Wu was stunned for a moment, and then understood everyone's worries.

The state of Wu has now set up a prince, but unfortunately the prince is young, now he is only six years old, and he obviously can't afford to be the prisoner of the country; However, Yang Wu's younger brother Yang Longyan is almost fifteen years old this year, plus he has been trained in the army, and he is assisted by many cabinet ministers, so it is not a big problem to serve as a supervisor of the country.

However, what the ministers were worried about was that when there was a prince, he would use his younger brother to supervise the country, where would this put the prince?

If you think a little further, will there be a possibility that Wu Guo will end up with a brother in the future? At least, if Yang Wu really let Yang Long play the prison country, even if Yang Longyan didn't have any ideas in his heart, it was difficult to guarantee that others wouldn't have any ideas.

So after being reminded by Chen Yanqian, Yang Wu understood that he had just thought about things a little simply.

Historically, the relationship between Song Taizu and Song Taizong was also very close, but what happened later, judging from all indications, the possibility that Song Taizu was killed by his younger brother is very high.

Although Yang Wu has a close relationship with his younger brother, he has no intention of passing on the throne to his younger brother, so it is necessary to cultivate Yang Longyan, but he must not be given any hope of inheriting Wu Guo, lest he have any ambitions, which will not be good for both of them at that time.

Thinking of this, Yang Wu spoke: "If Lone is to lead the troops to go out, Jinling will have the crown prince in charge of supervising the country, with Taifu, Huagai Hall University scholar Gao Mian, and Hailing King Yang Longyan as the deputy envoy of the state, plus the cabinet ministers to assist the prince in handling government affairs!" ”

Although Gao Mian is now recuperating most of his time in addition to teaching the crown prince, his title of Huagai Hall Scholar is still there, he is the actual first assistant scholar, and Chen Yanqian, a Dongge scholar, is just an acting first assistant scholar.

Yang Wu pulled Gao Mian out at this time, just so that he, the crown prince, could assist in balancing Yang Long's performance, so that basically the crown prince Yang Jiong would not have problems in supervising the country.

After listening to Yang Wu's arrangement, all the ministers bowed one after another: "The king is wise, and the ministers obey the order!" ”

Yang Wu thought for a moment, and then announced: "From tomorrow, the crown prince and the king of Hailing will observe the state affairs together to familiarize themselves with how to handle the daily affairs of the imperial court!" ”

Originally, Yang Jiong was only six years old now, and it was obviously too early to let him get in touch with national politics now.

However, even if he did not have the heavy responsibility of staying in Jinling this time, Yang Longyan would have to be responsible for part of the government affairs sooner or later.

Yang Wu didn't want his younger brother to develop in the direction of an army general, nor did he want him to go to the local area to defend one side, let alone raise him in captivity like a pig, so the only choice was to let him be a civilian official.

In this way, it is necessary to let him be exposed to government affairs from now on.

And once Yang Longyan is officially out to do things, then he must let his eldest son come out and show his face, so as not to cause gossip from others.

His decision was soon unanimously approved by the ministers.

After all, the people present can actually be said to support the prince, after all, the concept of the son inheriting his father's business is still deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, plus the prince Yang Jiong is the eldest son, and there is also the support of Zhou Ben, a meritorious old minister, behind him, so many advantages in the body, it can be said that as long as he is not too stupid, his future position should be extremely stable.

As for Yang Wu's other son, that is, He Yiyi's second son, who is now just one year old, was named Yang Yan, because he was still young, so he was not knighted.

In addition, Yang Wu's other concubine, Xu, also gave birth to a child some time ago, but it was not a son as he thought before, but a daughter.

When Xu was pregnant, because the imperial doctor said that she might be pregnant with a son, the overjoyed Xu inevitably had some thoughts, and even sometimes dared to be disrespectful to Queen Zhou Mengjie in secret.

But now that the result is that she gave birth to a daughter, this makes the Xu family angry.

However, Xu is a very scheming woman, although she was disrespectful to Zhou Mengjie before, but she was only doing so secretly, but there was no disrespect on the surface; And when she found out that she gave birth to a daughter, she went directly to Zhou Mengjie's bedroom to ask her for guilt.

Such a scheming woman, Yang Wu naturally disliked it after hearing about it, but for the sake of her giving birth to a daughter, she was crowned Zhaohua.

In addition, Xu's elder brother Xu Shan served as the envoy of Suzhou City, and he has been conscientious in the past few years, and has managed the Suzhou City Department in an orderly manner, so Yang Wu plans to wait for him to do it for a few more years in his current position, and he can be promoted to a state assassin in the future.

After dealing with government affairs, Yang Wu returned to the harem, and Zhou Mengjie greeted him.

"Wang, I heard that you are going to let Jiong'er get in touch with government affairs from tomorrow, is this a little too early?" Zhou Mengjie asked with some concern.

After all, she is the queen, what happens in the court, if it is an ordinary thing, it is just a matter, if it is related to the prince, naturally someone will tell her at the first time, which Yang Wu is not surprised.

"Six years old is not too early, and Lone doesn't expect him to have any opinions, just let him listen to them, and it doesn't matter how much he can understand." Yang Wu said disapprovingly.

He didn't tell Zhou Mengjieming what he thought, as long as he knew some of his brother's arrangements, there was no need to say it.

However, Zhou Mengjie thought about it, she frowned and asked: "Is the king worried that the second brother will have an impact on Jiong'er's status, so after arranging for the second brother to observe government affairs, let Jiong'er also listen to it?" ”

Yang Wuleng paused for a moment, and then simply said bluntly: "Yes, people's words are terrifying!" Lone also had to take precautions early, at least he couldn't make people think that Lone had plans to pass on the throne to his younger brother, let alone let his younger brother have this idea, otherwise it would be no good for him and Lonely! ”

Zhou Mengjie nodded in understanding.

Yang Longyan can be said to have grown up with her, and she treats him like her own brother on weekdays.

However, even Yang Wu has no plans to pass on the throne to his younger brother, and Zhou Mengjie is even less likely to have this plan.

Even, before this, she had some worries in her heart, for fear that Yang Wu would not think clearly about this issue and eventually cause discord between the brothers.

However, as the queen and the mother of the crown prince, it is not easy for her to say too much about this issue, otherwise it will not be good if she is misunderstood by Yang Wu.

Now that she saw that Yang Wu's thinking was very clear, she was naturally relieved.

"Since the king has no intention of passing on the throne to the second brother, how does the king plan to arrange him in the future?" Seeing that the conversation had already begun, Zhou Mengjie simply asked directly.