Faced with the envoy's request for help, Li Maozhen not only flatly refused, but even disappeared from the envoy's face.

Of course, Li Maozhen does not intend to completely occupy the side of Wu, and he will not act rashly until Wu and Jin are completely separated, so as not to offend one of them; Therefore, his strategy was to refuse to meet with the envoys of the Jin State on the grounds that he was not in good health, and wanted to delay the time until the end of the Jin-Wu War.

Compared with Li Maozhen's decisiveness, Wang Yan, the lord of Shu who is far away in Shu, is much more sluggish.

When the news of Wu's annihilation of Liang reached Shuzhong, Wang Yan was worried about whether Wu would send troops into Shu after the strength of Wu State skyrocketed, but with the news of the battle between Jin and Wu, Wang Yan was immediately completely relieved.

"The Jin State is not easy to mess with, even a big country like the Liang State is not an opponent, once the Wu State and the Jin State are handed over, it will be difficult to distinguish the winner and the loser in more than ten years, and it is even more likely that the two sides will fight to lose both, maybe my Shu Kingdom will have a chance to profit by then!"

This is what Wang Yan said to the ministers of Shu when he got the news.

Of course, not everyone advocated sitting back and watching the Jin and Wu fight, and some generals of the main battle faction believed that the main force of the Wu army was heading north, and Jingxiang and other places were empty, and this was the opportunity to send troops to seize Jingxiang; If this opportunity is missed, Shu can only be trapped in Shuzhong.

It is a pity that today's Shu State has long been not the Shu State of Wang Jian's era, since Wang Jian's death, those founding ministers were either killed by Wang Jian, or died of illness in the next few years, or were excluded from the court by Wang Yan's jealousy.

Today's Shu court, from the Shu lord Wang Yan down, whether it is a civil servant or a military general, they are basically comfortable and idle, except for self-retreat, there is no enterprising heart; Therefore, the idea of taking the opportunity to attack Jing Xiang was rejected as soon as it was proposed.

……

In July, Wu's army captured Huaizhou, and then captured Gongcheng, Xinxiang and other counties to the east, and completely lifted the siege of Weizhou; Coupled with the Liyang and Weixian captured by the Eastern Route Army, so far, all the areas south of Xiangzhou and west of Lanzhou have been captured by Wu, and the Jin army not only completely lost the territory of Mengzhou, Huaizhou, and Weizhou, but also lost nearly 10,000 troops, in addition to the loss of reserves of ordnance and baggage.

Of course, the Wu army has not been able to continue to attack northward for the time being, after all, whether it is Shanzhou, Xiangzhou, Weizhou, etc., these areas are originally heavily defended, plus the 20,000 army led by Li Cunxian, it is obvious that it will not be able to make further breakthroughs by relying only on the Eastern Route Army and the Central Route Army.

Not only that, on the side of Yang Liu Nancheng, Wu Jun's siege plan was severely defeated.

One night at the end of July, Shi Jingjiao and Li Erren led a large army out of the city to launch a night attack, and more than 20 small camps built by the Wu army outside the city were between the three main camps and the city, and half of them were broken by the Jin army overnight.

Fortunately, the night attack of the Jin army was finally blocked by the Wu army, and the Jin army also paid heavy casualties in the process of breaking through these camps; After all, the main task of the Wu army during this period was to strengthen the defense of the camps, and after such a long period of construction, these camps had long been built to be extremely strong.

Not only that, but the defense of these camps was unilaterally aimed at the direction of the city, which meant that it was more difficult to attack the camps from the inside of the city, but it would be easier for the Wu army to attack these camps from the outside.

Therefore, after the Jin army succeeded, they also realized that they could not hold these fortifications, so they had to destroy the captured fortifications as much as possible before dawn, and then hurriedly retreated to the city.

This night attack by the Jin army also confirmed that Guo Chongtao and others' fears were justified, no one could maintain the highest vigilance for a long time, and there would always be a day when they relaxed; Only by allowing the various armies to take turns in battle, and allowing those soldiers who have long been exhausted to get a full rest, can the morale of the army be guaranteed.

And since the end of April, when the Wu army decided to take turns besieging the city, it has been exactly three months, and it is time to rotate.

Therefore, at the beginning of August, Yang Wu ordered Zhu Siqing's Zuo Wuxiang army to be transferred from Jinling to Dong'e, and at the same time ordered the troops remaining in Dong'e and Pingyin to rush to Yang Liu in batches to replace the previous army to besiege the city with 5,000 people; The withdrawn troops will first stay in Dong'e for a while, and when Zuo Wuxiang's army arrives, they will directly retreat to Jiangnan for rest.

However, although the army was rotated, Zhou Ben stayed behind and continued to be in charge of the siege.

In Dong'e City, the original county government was used as Yang Wu's temporary palace after a simple transformation.

Speaking of which, since he led the army to leave Jinling in August last year to launch the Northern Expedition, Yang Wu has not returned to Jinling for a year, and many people in the DPRK and the central government have already invited Yang Wu to return to Jinling.

After all, now the war in the north has entered a stalemate stage, especially Yang Liu's side, which has decided to focus on a long-term siege, and it is difficult to end the war in a short time.

As the monarch of the Wu Kingdom, if Yang Wu leaves the capital for a long time, it is difficult to guarantee that no accidents will occur; It is better to take advantage of the stalemate during this period of time to entrust the war to a general, and Yang Wu will return to Jinling to sit in the town; It's not too late to return when the tide of battle changes in the future.

Of course, in addition to the people who invited Yang Wu to return to Jinling, the voices of the court and the central government about moving the capital to Luoyang are increasing day by day, and even this trend has become more and more popular recently, even the crown prince Yang Jiong, who is the prison of the country, and Yang Longyan, who is now in the clan, are also involved.

Jinling, the ancient capital, has been the capital of Wu for more than ten years; It stands to reason that the Wu regime, which is dominated by Jianghuai people, should not think of moving the capital to Luoyang after getting used to the capital of Jinling; Those who advocate moving the capital should also be from the north, such as Guo Chongtao, Feng Dao, Zhang Yanhan and others.

However, the reality is that those old ministers who were born in Jianghuai, including Chen Yanqian, Yan Keqiu and other important ministers of the imperial court, have become more and more inclined to move the capital to Luoyang at this time; And these people were once staunch opponents of the plan to move the capital.

An important reason for such a change is that this battle between Jin and Wu made the ministers see a major flaw in using Jinling as the capital: that is, Jinling was too southern.

China's problems have always only appeared in the north, no matter which dynasty or generation, they need to have a headache in the north is the restlessness of the north; The Xiongnu in the Qin and Han dynasties, the Turks in the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Khitans, Jurchens, and Mongols in the Song and Song dynasties.

Even in the later era of the ocean, although the threat from the sea once became the mainstream, but to really say it, the threat from the sea is never deadly, the real deadly threat is still in the north, and the polar bear that is eyeing the tiger is never easy to mess with.

Therefore, for the state of Wu, if Jinling is still the capital, once a war breaks out in the north, it will be difficult for the army stationed in the south to respond in time, and only the army stationed in the north can really be relied on.

However, if a heavy army is stationed in the north, considering the need for internal and external balance, a large number of troops must also be stationed near Jinling to balance the army in the north.

At the same time, the army in the south is too far away from the north, and the phenomenon of lax military discipline is prone to occur after a long period of war.

The best way is to move the capital to Luoyang, so that only a small number of troops need to be stationed in the south in peacetime to ensure the stability of the south; Moreover, once there is a war in the north, the forbidden army stationed in Luoyang can also respond in time and will not be reduced to decoration.

It is Yang Wu who has now tended to move the capital to Luoyang.

First, as mentioned before, the main threat faced by Wu comes from the north, the current Jin State, the future Khitan, Dangxiang people, etc., these are visible threats, in addition, if Wu wants to restore the glory of the Tang Dynasty, it must also run the northwest, and even develop its power to the Western Regions.

If the capital is still built in Jinling, not to mention the movement of the army, even the news exchange is surprisingly slow, and the same news from the north to Jinling and Luoyang will take at least three more days, which is obviously extremely unfavorable to deal with the threat from the north.

The second is to strengthen the control of the army, after all, the threat comes from the north, and the main force of the army will inevitably be stationed in the north, if it is too far away, the control will naturally decline.

As for the third reason, it is considered out of the integration with the Liang State.

After all, in this era, the concept of region has long been ingrained, and even Yang Wu is difficult to completely dissolve.

Most of the people in the court of Wu today are southerners from Jianghuai, and only a few people from the north such as Guo Chongtao, Zhu Jin, Feng Dao, and Zhang Yanhan have been able to gain a foothold in Wu.

However, even these people, the reason why they were able to gain a foothold in the court was not only because of Yang Wu's appreciation of their talents, but also because they had integrated into the south through marriage and other means.

For example, Guo Chongtao, except for the eldest son, who had already married before coming to the south, the other four sons were all married to Jianghuai Xungui; Feng Dao, Zhang Yanhan and others are almost like this.

As a king who aspires to unify the world and create a new dynasty, Yang Wu knows that there can be no only voices of southerners in the Wu court, but must completely integrate all the talents from other regions in order to make Wu go further.

The move of the capital to Luoyang is undoubtedly a wonderful move for the integration of the north and the south, which can greatly accelerate the integration of the old land of Wu and Liang.

After all, in this era, although the center of gravity of China's economy has shifted to the south, the south at this time still cannot be compared with the north compared to the foundation; If you continue to set the capital of Jinling, no matter how you look at it, it will be a bit like a local separatist force on the side of peace, rather than an orthodox dynasty that aspires to unify the world.

With so many reasons, it is not difficult to understand why people of insight such as Chen Yanqian and Yan Keqiu changed their attitudes and tended to move the capital to Luoyang.

At the end of August, after consulting with Yan Keqiu and other important ministers, Yang Wu officially issued an order announcing his intention to move the capital.