The situation in the north and the Central Plains was turbulent, but in the south, the situation in Wu has remained calm.

However, secretly, the government and the opposition of Wu State were making final preparations for the Northern Expedition.

At the beginning of May, Li Chengding, who had just returned from overseas, was appointed as the governor of the Youzhen National Army, while Zhu Qianyou, the former governor of the Youzhen National Army, was transferred back to Jinling.

In addition, the 3,000-strong cavalry originally stationed in Xuzhou also began to move towards Suzhou to prepare for the next surprise attack.

According to the final decision of the Privy Council, as soon as the Jin army began to use troops against Zhang Wenli, the Northern Expedition would begin immediately.

This Northern Expedition will mobilize a total of more than 200,000 troops, divided into three routes, and will last for three stages.

The first stage was to lead the Suzhou garrison led by Li Chengding to raid the main force of the Liang army on the southern front and try to capture Songzhou and Bozhou.

After the Jin army sent troops to Zhao, Zhu Youneng, the king of Hui on the Chenzhou side, would immediately raise troops to attack Kaifeng.

In this process, Zhu Youneng will be told that once he raises an army, if he succeeds in capturing Kaifeng, the Wu side will immediately recognize his throne; If he fails, the Wu army will also immediately send troops to the rescue, and the soldiers will eventually support him to ascend to the throne.

After all, for Zhu Youneng, if possible, of course he hopes to rely on his own strength to ascend to the throne, and only after defeat will he completely rely on Wu State.

However, in the eyes of Yang Wu and others, the possibility of Zhu You's success in capturing Kaifeng was almost none, and his only task was to attract the attention of the Liang army and mobilize the Liang army to facilitate the Wu army's surprise attack.

30,000 forbidden troops, 3,000 cavalry, this is the strength that Wu used to raid the Liang army this time, as for how to use the troops, this is not something that can be decided now.

After Li Chengding's action was launched, the Northern Expedition automatically entered the second stage, that is, when the troops were dispatched from three directions to capture the Central Plains.

According to the plan, this Northern Expedition will send out four route soldiers.

First of all, in the direction of Xiangzhou, with Zhou Ben as the commander and supplemented by firewood, about 60,000 troops were mobilized, and the main task was to advance north from Xiangzhou and capture the four prefectures of Deng, Mi, Xu and Ru.

The second road was Li Jian of Shouzhou, who led an army of 30,000 troops from Shouzhou, responsible for capturing Caizhou, Yingzhou and Chenzhou, and converging with Zhou Ben in the direction of Xiangzhou.

The third road is in the direction of Xuzhou and Suzhou.

After Li Chengding sent troops, Zhu Qianyou and Mi Zhicheng on the Jinling side would also immediately send troops to Suzhou and Xuzhou, and Yang Wu would also personally lead the troops to Xuzhou, plus Liu Xin and Wang Yanyan's troops who were stationed here before, as well as Yang Wu's Yulin Army, cavalry, and naval forces, the final investment in the Xuzhou direction will be as many as about 150,000 troops.

And this 150,000-strong army will be divided into two parts, the first part is the army led by Li Chengding.

After the raid on the Liang army, regardless of whether the operation went smoothly or not, his next task was to contain the Liang army in the Songzhou area and prevent the Liang army from moving south near the Yellow River on the northern route.

Of course, this task is the most important and the most difficult, so Yang Wu can't just give him 30,000 forbidden troops and 3,000 cavalry to undertake such an important task, but will make further troop deployment according to the actual situation.

As for the remaining troops, they will naturally be used to attack in the direction of Yanzhou and Yunzhou, and sweep all over Shandong.

The Liang army in this direction was relatively small, but the cities were numerous, and many areas were extremely important, and they had to be captured quickly.

After Shandong is conquered, the flank of the Northern Expedition will be safe, and the next thing is to wave the division to the west, concentrate the three-way army to attack Kaifeng, and even attack Luoyang, which is also the third stage of the Northern Expedition.

Of course, the plan is just a plan after all, and it is unknown whether it will encounter difficulties in its implementation, and what the Jin army will react to.

However, the Wu side has already begun to prepare according to this plan for the use of troops, and Liu Xin, Zhou Ben, Li Jian and other governors have all received the news at this time and have begun to raise their vigilance; As for the lower-level generals, for the sake of secrecy, they have not received any news for the time being.

Not only these generals, but even those officials in the court of Wu State, except for the high-ranking members of the cabinet, other officials did not know anything about this matter.

Even in order to keep it as secret as possible, many things that were originally done by low-level officials are now handled by cabinet ministers themselves, after all, the lessons of Liu Chongjing's case were so heavy that no one wants such a thing to happen again.

Therefore, when Wu began to prepare for the Northern Expedition internally, in the eyes of many people outside, Wu still remained calm, and no one in the government and the opposition realized that the Northern Expedition was about to begin.

On the contrary, the news that King Wu Yang Wu is going to choose the crown princess for the crown prince has become the focus of discussion.

"Brother Crown Prince is going to marry the Crown Princess? I don't know which woman my father is going to choose as a wife for the prince's brother? In the prince's east palace, a young man in a brocade robe asked his brother with a smile.

This young man is not very old, and now he is only ten years old, but his face looks quite heroic, according to Mrs. Shi, the Queen Mother, it is very similar to Yang Wu, the king of Wu.

This young man is Yang Yan, the second prince of Yang Wu, and his mother is He Yiyi.

Because He Yiyi has a simple temperament and is good friends with Queen Zhou Mengjie, Yang Yan has a very close relationship with the prince, and often goes to the prince's east palace to find his brother.

On the side, his prince brother smiled bitterly and said, "What my father meant, how could Lone know." But I think it should be a marriage with a certain family in Jinling City. ”

It is obvious to marry with the old lords, after all, if a dynasty wants to remain stable, it has to rely on these old lords.

And Yang Jiong was originally not close to Xun Lao, but was close to those ministers, which made many Wenchen really support him, but it also led to some Xun Jiu's alienation from him.

For Yang Jiong, he is not unaware of the benefits of being friendly with Xun Lao, but his temperament may be born close to literary affairs, and he is not very interested in martial arts.

In this situation, Yang Wu, Zhou Mengjie and others naturally saw the problem, so they intended to make up for it and set him up with a family affair to win over Xun Lao, which became the best choice.

Of course, the question of which daughter will be chosen has to be considered.

"You don't have to ask about your brother's marriage, let's talk about your situation. I heard that my father is going to send you to study martial arts recently, and he is also going to arrange two companions for you, but is there such a thing? Yang Jiong didn't want to talk more about his family, so he asked instead.

"Well, that's the case, I heard that my father plans to train us like a few uncles." Yang Yan nodded and replied.

Yang Yan's uncles, Yang Longyan, Yang Meng, Yang Pu, Yang Xun, and Yang Che, are now adults, and they all studied in martial arts at the beginning.

Even Yang Longyan and Yang Meng personally led the army to take charge of some small military operations, such as the conquest of Southwest Yi and the like, and made some contributions, and now Yang Meng is also canonized as the king of Linchuan County.

In addition to Yang Pu, who was named the king of Changshan County, Yang Xun and Yang Che are currently only named county princes.

Now, the strength of the Yang family clan has finally achieved something, and it is no longer supported by Yang Wu alone.

For the cultivation of many princes, it seems that sending them to martial arts learning has become a fixed process, and the crown prince Yang Jiong has also been there for a while, and now it is Yang Yan's turn.

However, what interested Yang Jiong was the matter itself, but the two companions that Yang Wu personally arranged for Yang Yan this time, Lin Renzhao and Bian Hao.