After discussing many important matters, Yang Wu was originally going to let everyone disband, but at this moment, Yan Keqiu and Luo Zhixiang glanced at each other, and stood up together and said: "King, since the Tang Dynasty was usurped by Zhu Wen, there is no orthodoxy in the world; Now the king has succeeded in the first battle, the Central Plains has been decided, and the pseudo-Liang has been destroyed; The king has this merit, and he should ascend the throne as the emperor in order to inherit the orthodoxy of the world. Please also ask the king to return to Jinling as soon as possible to worship the emperor and claim the emperor! ”

The generals couldn't help but be stunned for a moment when they heard this, and scolded angrily in their hearts: "I feel that you two have just arrived in Luoyang, and you are so impatient to persuade the king to be the emperor, even if you are in a hurry to make a contribution to persuasion, there is no need to be so eager, right?" ”

The generals who felt that they had been robbed of the opportunity by the two did not dare to hesitate, and stood up together and echoed: "What the two adults said is very true, and please ask the king to become the emperor as soon as possible, so as to inherit the orthodoxy of the world and reassure the hearts of all the people!" ”

Guo Chongtao said: "The king eliminated the pseudo-Liang in one fell swoop, avenged the blood and blood for the Tang Dynasty, and it is most suitable to ascend the throne and become the emperor." But why do you need to return to Jinling to ascend the throne? Luoyang is the eastern capital of the Tang Dynasty, and there are many people who have built the capital here, and this place is located in the heart of the Central Plains, which is convenient for commanding the army to conquer the Quartet. Therefore, the minister thought that the king only needed to be the emperor in Luoyang, and there was no need to return to Jinling. ”

How can that be? Jinling is the land of the great king Longxing, the former king is in the Shengzhou War to emerge, and then build a new city as the capital, has been more than ten years. I only know that the capital is Jinling, but I don't know that Luoyang is the capital! Yan Keqiu retorted on the spot.

Whether to move the capital to Luoyang was actually controversial long before the Northern Expedition.

Many people believe that Luoyang is located in the center of the world, and the surrounding terrain is suitable for defense, which is convenient for centering and controlling the Quartet; On the other hand, although Jinling is prosperous, after all, it is located in the south, far away from the Central Plains, and once there is a war in the Central Plains, it will be difficult for the troops stationed in the south to respond in time.

In addition, Luoyang itself has a long history as a capital, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the Northern Wei Dynasty, etc., all built their capitals here, and the Tang Dynasty also used this place as the eastern capital.

Although the history of Jinling as the capital is equally long, it still cannot be compared with Luoyang, and most of the dynasties that use Jinling as the capital are more southern, not regarded as orthodox dynasties, such as Sun Wu.

Therefore, at that time, many people advocated waiting for the Central Plains to be pacified, and then moving the capital to Luoyang.

Of course, there are those who advocate moving the capital, and naturally there are those who oppose it.

Jinling has been the capital of Wu for more than ten years, and many imperial magnates have already formed intricate power relationships here, and they are certainly reluctant to move the capital elsewhere.

In addition, some people have mentioned that it is difficult to guarantee the supply of money and grain output in Luoyang itself, which can be seen from the fact that a large amount of money and grain was transported from Jianghuai to Luoyang and Guanzhong every year during the Sui and Tang dynasties.

Once the capital is moved to Luoyang, in the future, it will definitely be necessary to continuously transport the money and grain from the south to the north through Cao Yun, which is not only time-consuming and laborious, but also has a lot of losses on the way.

However, Jinling is located in the land of grain production in the south of the Yangtze River, so there is no need to worry about the lack of money and grain here.

There were signs of quarrel between these two advocates before the Northern Expedition, but at that time, after all, the Central Plains had not been pacified, and it was not known whether the Northern Expedition would succeed, so the controversy at that time was limited to a few people.

And now Guo Chongtao, Yan Keqiu and others are arguing again over the issue of the capital, which makes Yang Wu feel big.

As for those generals, they were even more dumbfounded, didn't they just persuade the king to be the emperor, why were they arguing about moving the capital in the blink of an eye?

Fortunately, Guo Chongtao and the others soon came to their senses, and it was not the time to argue about those things, and persuading Yang Wu to become emperor as soon as possible was the most important thing at present.

Seeing that the ministers were persuading him to be the emperor again, Yang Wu shook his head and said: "Okay, you all understand your thoughts, but let's tell you the truth, it is not the time to be the emperor." ”

At this time, everyone present was basically his confidants, so he didn't have so many worries when he spoke, and he didn't pretend to say anything about looking for the Tang Dynasty clan to become the emperor, let alone pretend to refuse, but said his true thoughts.

"What does the king mean by this? At this time, our army destroyed Liang, and recovered Luoyang to avenge the Tang Dynasty. When will you not be the emperor now? The ministers were a little puzzled.

Yang Wu shook his head and said: "Not to mention anything else, just the various preparations for the title of emperor have not been done, and the next attitude of the Jin army is not clear, the hearts of the people in the Central Plains that have just been recovered cannot be called stable, there are so many uncertain factors, how can Lone be in a hurry to become the emperor at this time?" It's better to wait. ”

He glanced at the ministers, and then said meaningfully: "Besides, since Lone wants to inherit the orthodoxy of the world, where does this orthodox name come from?" You can't just rely on a few words from everyone present to prove that Lone is orthodox, right? ”

"This ......" The ministers listened to Yang Wu's words, and their enthusiasm for persuasion was suddenly paused, and they began to carefully ponder what Yang Wu said just now.

Among the problems mentioned by Yang Wu, such as the attitude of the Jin army is not clear, and the people's hearts in various parts of the Central Plains have not been completely subordinated, these are actually not key issues.

Even if the Jin army chooses to move south, this will not prevent Yang Wu from becoming emperor; And the problem that the people's hearts in various places have not been completely attached is not a problem, and the inheritance of the orthodox title after the emperor is called can better win the people's hearts.

As for what Yang Wu said, there are still many preparations for becoming the emperor that have not been done, which is also not the most critical.

Even if Yang Wu plans to ascend the throne and become emperor at this time, those things such as etiquette and other things can also be stepped up.

But the last point mentioned by Yang Wu is a question that has to be pondered, that is, the question of where the orthodox name comes from.

Although the Later Liang was not recognized by the Jin State, the Wu State, the Qi State, and the Shu State, Zhu Wen was "Chan Rang" from the Tang Dynasty after all, and this orthodox name still stands, plus the strength of the Liang State at that time was the strongest in the world, and it occupied the Central Plains region, so the Later Liang was generally regarded as the orthodox dynasty of this period, and the feudal towns in the remote areas all submitted to the Later Liang.

And what about the state of Wu? Although the state of Wu respects the Tang Dynasty as orthodox, the problem is that the Tang Dynasty has been in fact extinct for more than ten years, and there is not a single Tang emperor in the world, not even a puppet Tang emperor.

For the sake of their own interests and ambitions, all the feudal towns did not have a tacit understanding with each other to find the Tang Dynasty clan to establish themselves as emperors, so that in the past ten years, although the Tang Dynasty has been nominally respected as orthodox, it has no sense of existence at all.

Now that Wu has destroyed the Houliang, avenged the Tang Dynasty, and occupied the Central Plains, it is reasonable to say that he is the emperor, but it is a little troublesome to get the orthodox name from the Tang Dynasty, and he can't temporarily set up a puppet emperor now, right? In that case, the puppet emperor will always have to set up a year or two before he can "make a "Zen concession", which is not only slower, but also has the suspicion of adding to the snake.

But if you don't set up a puppet emperor, you have to find a way to get the orthodox name from somewhere else, which requires the ministers to use their brains.

Seeing that all the ministers were pondering, Yang Wu spoke: "Okay, don't think too much about the matter of being called the emperor now, let's do a good job of expanding the forbidden army and establishing the Tuntian army first." ”

"Yes, you understand." The generals hurriedly agreed.

……

In the next period of time, the governors of all armies were busy expanding the forbidden army, and at the same time, the firewood and reuse army of the western expedition continued to have good news.

As expected, the troops in various parts of Guanzhong had already been transferred by Zhu Youzhen, and there was widespread controversy in these areas about whether to surrender to Wu.

First, Wu's policies have always been very strict against local forces, which worries local officials who are accustomed to the Liang system; Second, after all, Guanzhong is far away from the Central Plains and close to the territory of Jin and Qi, so the forces in these areas naturally have the idea of surrendering to Jin or Qi.

However, these forces that opposed the surrender of Wu were of no use in the face of absolute strength.

King Qi is currently worried about the strong strength of Wu, so he naturally does not dare to send troops to confront the Wu army, and the Jin State has no intention of fighting Wu in Guanzhong for the time being, so when the Wu army led by Chai Zaiyong marched westward, the forces in various places suddenly fell in despair without reinforcements.

At the end of February, Shaanzhou and Yuzhou surrendered; At the beginning of March, the Tongguan soldiers fell into the hands of Wu without blood, and Huazhou and Tongzhou also surrendered to Wu's army two days later; In mid-March, Wu's army captured Chang'an; Subsequently, Gyeongju, Yeonju and other places also surrendered to Wu soon after.

By the end of March, the entire Guanzhong had completely fallen into the hands of the Wu State.

Of course, that's all for later.

And in mid-March, when the news of the capture of Chang'an reached Luoyang, Yang Wu was inspecting the outskirts of Luoyang, accompanied by Yan Keqiu, Guo Chongtao, Zhou Ben and others, as well as Li Congwei, the envoy of King Qi, Ma Yin, who had just come to the court from the south in spite of his old age, Gao Jichang, who had surrendered to Wu not long ago, and Li Renfu, the envoy of the Dingyan Jiedu, and Han Zhu, the envoy of Shuofang Jiedu, and so on.

These days, the various armies selected the rebel army and the surrendered troops according to the standards of the forbidden army, and finally found that the soldiers who met the standards were even fewer than previously expected, and there were no 60,000 people at all, only a little more than 50,000.

Therefore, Yang Wu simply ordered to make a selection in the box army in the Central Plains states, and selected the strong soldiers and incorporated them into the forbidden army, which finally solved this problem.

As for the remaining surrendered troops, they were organized into the Tuntian Army and sent to Guanzhong, which had just been pacified, to conduct Tuntian.

At this time, Yang Wu and a group of people were inspecting ordinary farmers outside Luoyang City.

In this era, although Yang Wu has always been opposed to the formulation of "agriculture as the foundation and business as the end", he has to admit that in this era of underdeveloped productive forces, only stable agriculture can keep the country stable; If there is a problem with agricultural production, then the order of the country may be threatened.

To a certain extent, agriculture in this era is the foundation, and the importance of commerce is relatively weak.

As the earliest developed region in the whole of China, the level of agricultural production in the Central Plains region is of course nothing to say.

However, after a long period of war, a large number of strong men were incorporated into the army, and in order to supply the front army, the people of Liang suffered extremely heavy taxes, and many places saw the phenomenon of people fleeing and the land barren.

After Wu occupied these areas, he immediately ordered the resumption of production as soon as possible, pacifying the exiles and reducing the burden on the common people.

However, whether these policies have been implemented or not, and how effective they are, need to be examined in practice.

It's a pity that Yang Wu is not the same person he was now, no matter where he goes, he is hugging from front to back, coupled with the busy state affairs, it is impossible to really go to various places for field investigations, and can only conduct a simple investigation in Luoyang.

The results of this inspection still made him satisfied, at least from the situation in Luoyang, all kinds of tax reduction measures have been implemented, and the results achieved are not bad, those fields have been planted with wheat, etc., and the farmers have smiles on their faces.

Although the situation in Luoyang may not be representative of other places, Yang Wu is still satisfied with this result.

And Li Congwei, Gao Jichang, Ma Yin and others, who followed Yang Wu to investigate, expressed deep admiration for Yang Wu's behavior of "caring about agricultural affairs and loving the people like sons", and shouted one by one, "The ancient sage is nothing more than that", which made Yang Wu a little crying and laughing.

After returning from the suburbs, Yang Wu sent everyone away, and was about to go back to take a bath, but unexpectedly, at this moment, Yan Keqiu and the others returned with panicked faces.

"King, it's not good, something big happened, the Jin army suddenly crossed the river two days ago and launched a sneak attack, and Yunzhou was lost!"

"What? Isn't there 5,000 people garrisoned in Yunzhou? There is also a gap between Jishui and Jishui, how can it be said that if it is lost, it will be lost? Yang Wu was taken aback and hurriedly asked.

After the adjustment of the Wu army in the past few months, part of the army has returned to the south to rest in turn, and some have stayed in various parts of the north, and the 30,000 troops stationed in Shandong are mainly Liu Xin's army.

Among them, the garrison in Yunzhou was a 5,000-strong forbidden army led by Wang Chuancheng, the son of Wang Juan; As for the other troops, they were deployed in Yanzhou, Qizhou, Qingzhou and other places for defense.

According to the siege efficiency of this era, as long as there are no major problems in the deployment of 5,000 troops to defend a city like Yunzhou, and if there is plenty of money and food, it will be no problem to hold on for a few months.

For example, when the Wu army attacked Yunzhou, it took two months to break it.

And now, Wang Chuancheng led 5,000 forbidden troops to garrison Yunzhou, but was captured by the Jin army, and Wang Chuancheng must have been negligent without thinking about it.

After some inquiry, Yang Wu's guess was indeed correct.

It turned out that in the night two days ago, the heavy rain continued, and Wang Chuancheng was quite diligent at the beginning since he stayed in Yunzhou, and often went to inspect the situation of the city defense; But as time passed, the Jin army had not moved, and he relaxed his vigilance.

As a result, a large number of Jin troops took advantage of the rainy night to cross the river and sneak attack, and took the city in one fell swoop, but the specific situation of the enemy army is currently unknown.

"This Wang Chuancheng, Lone let him guard Yunzhou, this is the closest place to Yang Liu Ferry, is this how he guards the city?" Yang Wu was furious.