After discussing for a long time, everyone finally agreed that it was obviously difficult to continue to confront Wu State head-on, so the most important bargaining chip on the Chu side now was to make Wu State pay a heavy price, making them feel that the gains outweighed the losses.

Unfortunately, relying on these chips alone is obviously not enough, after all, unifying the world will inevitably come at a price.

Compared to the possible price to be paid for the Northern Expedition in the future, the price that would need to be paid to destroy the state of Wu would obviously be much smaller.

If Wu let Chu go because he didn't want to pay the price, would he also be unwilling to go on the Northern Expedition in the future because he didn't want to bear the price?

This is obviously impossible.

Therefore, after discussing for a long time, Zhang Ji, Gao Yu and others finally proposed that if they want to negotiate peace with Wu Guo, they may not be able to put forward too high requirements.

The best way is to offer to defend the southwest for Wu to prevent those barbarian tribes from invading Wu territory.

Perhaps, for the sake of this condition, plus the promise of some other conditions, there is still hope that the peace negotiation can be reached.

Of course, hope is just hope after all, and it is obviously not so easy to turn it into reality, at least Ma Yin needs to send a suitable peace envoy.

"The old minister is deeply trusted by the king, and has repeatedly entrusted the minister with major affairs, and now the country is in danger, and the minister is willing to send an envoy to Jinling to seek peace for our country!" Gao Yu stood up and took the initiative to ask.

Originally, among the people present, Ma Jia had the most intimate relationship with Wu Guo, after all, he had served in Huainan for many years, and sending him to envoy Wu Guo should be the best candidate; However, Ma Hao's problem is that he is too close to Wu Guo.

When the Chu State was still very strong, Ma Jia advocated peaceful coexistence with the Wu State; Later, the prestige of the state of Chu fell slightly, and he advocated the complete surrender of the state of Wu.

As for now, if he is used as an envoy, who can guarantee that he will not completely betray the state of Chu after he arrives in Jinling.

So Ma Yin saw that Gao Yu took the initiative to ask Ying, and even agreed to his request.

"As long as we can ensure that we can continue to maintain ourselves in Huizhou and Chenzhou, other conditions can be considered."

"As for the name, Lone is willing to take the initiative to give up the title of King of Chu and the title of Admiral Tiance, but in order to facilitate the command of the generals, I hope that King Wu can give him a knot to make the throne!"

"If King Wu proposes to ask for a proton, Lone can also agree to this, and Lone will send the eldest son to Jinling as a hostage!"

"If King Wu feels that there are still too many troops in Lone Hands, Lone can guarantee that the strength will be limited to 20,000 troops! And in the future, you can also send troops to help the Wu army fight! ”

"If the people of Wu feel that Jizhou and Chenzhou are too close to Hunan, Gu can continue to move westward to seize those barbarian territories!"

……

"In short, as long as I can let my brothers have a way out, I can consider any conditions!"

"If King Wu still doesn't agree, then Lone can only fight him to the death!

After choosing Gao Yu as the messenger, Ma Yin solemnly announced his conditions to him.

His courage is not insignificant, and he almost gave up everything just to find a way to survive.

Of course, he paid a lot for these conditions on the surface, but in reality they were not too much.

For example, abandoning the title of King Chu and the title of Admiral Tiance has reached the current situation, and he naturally will not still be entangled in this kind of issue.

He was originally just a temperance envoy, and now that he has returned to his original position, it is nothing.

Another example is to take the initiative to limit the number of troops, although he still has an army of 50,000, but it is relying on the entire Hunan to provide support.

After losing Hunan in the future, he will not be able to maintain so many troops just by relying on the barren and backward barbaric lands of Jizhou and Chenzhou, and 20,000 people is already the limit.

So it's better to be refreshing, take the initiative to bring it up, and show your sincerity.

As for handing over his eldest son as a proton, he didn't care about that.

Although there are not too many of his sons, there are more than a dozen, and even the loss of one is nothing.

Of course, if he really achieved so many conditions, then Ma Yin would indeed not be able to threaten the Wu State at that time, at most, it would just disturb the local order.

Under such conditions, the possibility of success in the negotiation is not small.

At this time, Zhang Ji suddenly asked: "King, if King Wu proposes to ask the King to go to Jinling to meet him in person, how should he answer?" ”

Ma Yin suddenly changed color when he heard this: "Do you think Lone is the king of Chu Huai?" This is absolutely impossible! ”

No wonder he is so excited, the current Chu State can be said to be completely supported by Ma Yin alone.

If there is no him, and his sons are unable to control the overall situation, when the time comes, the generals of the Chu State will have no leader, and the people will definitely be discouraged, and even if the Wu army is not to attack, the Chu people themselves will be in civil strife.

So Ma Yin would not agree to this one no matter what.

Gao Yu groaned: "If King Wu proposes this article, the minister will directly refuse on the grounds that the king is old and difficult to act from afar!" ”

Ma Yin's face was a little better.

But even so, there are still a lot of issues to be discussed.

"If King Wu gives me and other generals a knighthood, and proposes to transfer us to him as generals, how should I deal with it?"

"If King Wu proposes that we need tribute every year, I wonder if the minister will agree? If so, how much is the appropriate annual tribute? ”

"If King Wu requisitions our army every year, I don't know if we have to agree!"

"If the king of Wu proposes to severely punish those generals who were enemies of Wu at the beginning, and even investigate the execution of those captured generals of Wu at the beginning, I don't know how to reply?"

……

One question after another, Ma Yin was exhausted to deal with, and after a reply, he was already exhausted.

There is no way, the distance between Jinling and here is too far, and I don't know how much time it will take to go back and forth, so many problems need to be dealt with in advance.

After more than three hours, these questions were roughly discussed, and by this time everyone was already hungry and panicked.

"High Judge, this time I went to Jinling to negotiate peace, and everything will be handed over to you, I hope you will have a smooth trip and give Gu a happy result!" In the end, Ma Yin said to Gao Yu with ardent anticipation.

"Please rest assured, the ministers will do their best to live up to their trust!" Gao Yu bowed and replied.

Listening to the title of "king" in his mouth, Ma Yin secretly smiled bitterly.

Gao Yu went to Jinling this time, if everything went well, he would be the "king" who wanted to come to an end, and Yang Wu would definitely not give him another prince.

As for the failure of the negotiation, not to mention, the fall of the Chu State will be within a few years, and he, the king of Chu, will not be able to do it for long.

After sending the ministers away, although Ma Yin felt hungry, he had no appetite at all at this time, and he was always thinking about whether the decision he made today was right or wrong.

……

In Jinling City, compared to Ma Yin's anxiety, Yang Wu's mood was naturally much better.

Although Liu Cun's sudden death surprised Yang Wu, to put it mildly, Liu Cun, a general who has been guarding other places all the year round, has no friendship with him at all.

So Liu Cun died, and Yang Wu sighed in his heart at most, and then began to arrange his future.

In contrast, the successful conquest of Tanzhou, the official war between Wang Jian and Li Maozhen, the succession of Liu Yan to his brother's position, and the fact that Lu Guangchou of Qianzhou had not died of illness were all more interesting to him than Liu Cun's sudden death.

Because the terrain of Shuzhong and Guanzhong is too far away from Jinling, the news of the war between Shu and Qi did not reach Jinling until two days ago.

This news seems to have little to do with Wu Guo, but in fact it has a lot to do with it.

Although the army of Qi is not as good as the elite of the Liang army, the Jin army, and the Wu army, the strength of the Qi army is still very strong because of the people's customs and martial arts.

Judging from the news obtained, this time the Shu army dispatched a total of 120,000 infantry cavalry, and after the army left Chengdu, it stretched for dozens of miles before and after, and the momentum was extremely huge.

However, in the eyes of Yang Wu, Li Chengsi and others, it is impossible for the Shu army to rely on this amount of strength to destroy the Qi State.

Although the Qi army will fall behind, it is not without the strength to resist, coupled with the addition of Liu Zhijun, a famous general, I am afraid that the strength of the Qi army is not as weak as Wang Jian thought.

At least it will take a year or two for the Shu army to achieve a clear victory; As for the complete elimination of the Qi country, it is not possible to do it with this amount of troops now.

"At least for a year or two, the Shu army can't afford to send troops to Jingxiang in a big way!" This is the final conclusion that the people of Wu State came to.

After coming to this conclusion, Yang Wu quickly made up his mind that in the past two years, taking advantage of the fact that the Shu army was being dragged by the Qi army, he quickly captured Jiangling and completely blocked the road for the Shu army to go east.

Of course, at present, the first task of Wu is still to strike at Ma Yin, the king of Chu, and completely seize Hunan.

This time the attack on Tanzhou, although in the end only eliminated the 20,000 defenders in the city, but did not deal much damage to the reinforcements of Yao Yanzhang and Qin Yanhui, but after all, the state of Chu is not a big country like the state of Wu, and the recovery ability is not strong.

In the previous two years of war, the Chu State had already suffered huge casualties, and now that they were defeated again, their strength was already extremely weakened.

And the Wu army still has many troops that have not been put into the battlefield.

Not to mention anything else, there are three armies stationed in Jinling alone that can be dispatched at any time.

In Yang Wu's view, there were originally two purposes for dealing with Ma Yin, one was naturally to seize Hunan, and the other was to train troops.

In the battle in the first half of the year, the main investment was Liu Cun's Zuo Zhenguo Army and Zhu Siqing's Zuo Tianwu Army, but the Zuo Zhenwu Army used by Chai Zai only joined in the final stage, and the soldiers were not tired, so they could continue to fight.

If Liu Cun and Zhu Siqing were allowed to return to rest and recuperate, and then Lu Shizhou's Youzhen Wu Army would be thrown into battle, they would be able to continue to attack other states in Hunan.

Of course, at this time, he didn't know that Ma Yin had sent an envoy to negotiate peace; I don't know that in order to negotiate peace, Ma Yin has decided to accept no matter how harsh the conditions are, including directly ceding the whole of Hunan!