To the west of the state, on the wide, black-slush official road, there were large carts and baggage carts covered with oilcloth with straw and hay, and huge flatbed trucks carrying ladders and parts of siege vehicles, staggering and creaking forward, and snow flakes were flying in the sky.

The 200,000 Tang troops marched eastward in the mud and in the snow, accompanied by shouts and curses, mixed with the crackling of leather whips and the creaking of axles, with a tremendous momentum, like the tide of the sea, stretching for dozens of miles. Sometimes a troop of cavalry rushed into the flow of people, and the soldiers kept shouting and cursing, and the horses stood up and kept neighing, and a cart full of grain and grass would roll down the slope, and the people in the cart would roll down the slope with them.

A group of cavalry surrounded by an officer flew past the line like a lightning speed, galloping straight towards the Chinese army, the horses' hooves were flying, the snow was splashing, the sergeants on both sides could not dodge, and more people were scolding, although they were also Tang troops, but they did not have a blue ribbon on their right arm, that is, they were local ragtag troops.

The rude shouting and scolding followed all the way, and immediately the officer's face became more and more gloomy, although he was wearing a military uniform, he was born as a civilian official, this person was Xiangzhou Thorn Shi Laiyao, originally the Donggong Shanzan doctor, Tianbao took refuge in the eleventh year of Qingwang Li Cong was ascended from the mountain to the south of Jingxiang, he also responded to Li Longji's call to recruit more than 20,000 soldiers, and Nanyang Thorn Shilu, Huaixi Tian Shengong, Huainan Helan Jinming together into a horn shape.

After Cui Qianyou's failure to attack Chang'an and the great changes in the Chang'an Dynasty, Lai Yao was worried in his heart, he was a close confidant of King Qing, and the purge of King Qing had not yet involved local states and counties, but Lai Yao had already taken precautions, and the person in power was Li Qing. is the number one sworn enemy of King Qing Li Cong, and he will not let himself go sooner or later.

On the other hand, the imperial court had already spread the news that after the rebellion was put down, the armies in the hands of all the princes must be disbanded, and the peasants should return to the fields and the merchants to the city. The stragglers returned to the field, but Lai Yao and Tian Shengong resolutely refused to give up their own army, while Helan Jinming had an ambiguous attitude. has always refused to take a stand.

After receiving Li Qing's order to fight Xiangzhou, although everyone did not dare to resist the order, they were unwilling to do their best to help, except for the more than 10,000 people in the hands of General Lu. The rest of them all kept a hand. Most of them only brought part of the army to help in the war, and they came to Yao to be trusted by everyone. Let's listen to Li Qing's tone.

After Lingbao collected 100,000 Hedong troops, Li Qing reorganized them in Luoyang. Nearly 50,000 of them were repatriated to their hometowns. All the others were scattered and incorporated into the Anxi Army, and after the reorganization was completed. He immediately sent another 30,000 troops into Hedong, together with Xin Yun's original 20,000 troops, a total of about 50,000 troops, to prevent An Qingxu from taking the opportunity to take Hedong, and Li Qing himself personally led an army of 200,000 to Zhengzhou.

In the middle of the team, about 5,000 ironclad cavalry independently formed a phalanx, all Arab horses, black Mingguang armor, short bows on the shoulders, horizontal knives on the waist, long lances in hand, strong physique, cold eyes, this is Li Qing's direct personal guard, all the cavalry are carefully selected from the 200,000 army, mainly from the Anxi army.

Li Qing was at the back of the team at this time, dozens of banners were waving behind him, and he was also wearing a black and shiny iron armor, wearing a golden helmet on his head, shining in the sun, looking particularly dazzling.

At this time, he saw a group of cavalry galloping from a distance, stopped a thousand steps away from him, and then a personal soldier stepped forward to report: "General, Xiangzhou Assassin Shi Laijiao asks to see you!" ”

"Ask him to come up and talk!"

Li Qing pulled the horse out of the queue, and after a while, Lai Yao came to him, he jumped off the horse, gave Li Qing a deep salute, and almost bowed to the ground, "The army of Xiangguo is coming, Lai Yao welcomes the late, I hope to forgive my sins!" ”

Li Qing hurriedly turned over and dismounted, held Lai Yao's arm to straighten him, patted him on the shoulder and said with a smile: "Come to Lord to guard Xiangzhou, so that An Lushan's army can not go south, there is a great contribution to Sheji, I have ordered the Ministry of Officials and the Ministry of War to draw up a draft, and after the chaos is quelled, the seven princes will be sealed, Xiangzhou Lai Yao ranks fifth, and Nanyang Lu ranks sixth, congratulations!" ”

Li Qing's words were so unexpected that he couldn't believe his ears and was named the Duke of the Kingdom, which is a title only available to the founding heroes! He began to stutter as he spoke, "Xiangguo, how dare you be in a high position, you dare to accept it, please consider it!" ”

Li Qing shook his head and said: "I know in my heart whether there is merit or not, it doesn't have to be a siege to kill the enemy to be called meritorious service, if you don't become a barrier for An Lushan to go south, once An Lushan takes Huaixi and Jiangnan, I will take a break from the Tang Dynasty!" Therefore, it is well deserved to come to the adult for the country. ”

Lai Yao was both happy and ashamed in his heart, he thought of the army again, and his heart was nervous, so he asked tentatively: "I heard that the imperial court requires the soldiers to be disarmed and returned to the field after quelling the rebellion, I am willing to hand over the army in my hand to Xiangguo and let Xiangguo arrange it!" ”

"Give me the army, where can I afford it!" Li Qing looked up to the sky and laughed loudly, the laughter became smaller, and he immediately waved his hand and said: "Before the official documents of the Ministry of War come down, don't speculate, it's easy to take things out of context, and you only know one but don't know the other." ”

Speaking of this, Li Qing pondered for a while and said: "Since you ask about this matter, I might as well reveal it to you first, after quelling the chaos, it is necessary to disarm some soldiers and return to agriculture to do agricultural work, but not all, otherwise how can we maintain internal peace, the plan of the imperial court is to plan to set up 30 regimental training envoys throughout the country, and the history of the Shangzhou Assassin concurrently serves as the regimental training envoy, take your Xiangzhou as an example, prepare to set up Xiangzhou regimental training, set up 10,000 soldiers, and the money and food will be borne by the local government, responsible for maintaining local security in Xiangzhou, Suizhou, Jingzhou, Guizhou, Xiazhou and other places, The Lord is the history of Xiangzhou Thorn, and he will also be the first Xiangzhou regiment training envoy, and similarly, Lord Nanyang Lulu will also be the history of Dengzhou regimental training, but the strength of the army is 8,000, and the size of the regiment training history is different, and the military strength will be inconsistent. ”

Li Qingdi's words made Lai Yao completely relieved, although the regimental training envoy's strength and power cannot be compared with the Jiedu envoy, but it is also regarded as a local prince, it seems that this is Li Qing's reform of the government soldiers, the regimental training envoy and the assassin history are tied up, in order to solve the source of money and food, and at the same time let the civil officials serve as the regimental training envoy to prevent the emergence of the second An Lushan. In this way, the combat strength of the local army and the ground will be greatly weakened, which just makes his Anxi army a monopoly, which can be described as killing several birds with one stone, and he is really shrewd in his calculations, but his own

Retained, this is also a blessing in misfortune, although I don't know the term, but there will be no change.

Xia Guan wanted to dare to ask one more question. Huaixi Tian Shengong and Huainan Helan Jinming, I don't know how Xiangguo is going to arrange? ”

Li Qing smiled lightly and said: "Everyone knows the right and wrong in their hearts, and the adults know it." Others don't ask too much. ”

"Yes! The lesson of Xiangguo, the humble duty will be remembered in mind! ”.

In a big mansion in Zhengzhou near the east gate, Lai Yao, Tian Shengong, Helan Jinming, Ji Guangchen, and Li Huan, the assassin of Xuzhou who had just arrived, gathered together. Discuss the news that Lai Yao found out from Li Qing. The team practice made this new thing make them all confused.

What they are concerned about is how to keep the benefits obtained in the An Lushan rebellion, otherwise what is the difference between them and those who have shrunk their heads in the rebellion. Titles are one thing, but more important is whether the control of the territory gained in the war can be sustained.

Except for Laiyao. Everyone else was worried. Don't know what your own ending will be? There was silence in the room, and everyone was thinking about their own thoughts.

"Could it be that there is fraud in this?"

It was Li Huan who was shocked. He is also a Tang clan, but the blood relationship is slightly remote, but there is no difference between the hatred of Li Qingdi and the general clan, there is prejudice, every word Li Qing says seems to be bloody, he believes that Li Qingzhao's real intention to attack Xiangzhou is to eat them, so he is reluctant to set off, but he is worried that he will miss any benefits, so after observing for a long time, he found that Li Qing did not treat the others well, this is belated, Xuzhou is the closest to Zhengzhou, and he is the last to arrive.

Li Huan saw that everyone's eyes were looking at him, so he cleared his throat and said: "Li Qing is ruthless, in order to achieve his goal, the first emperor abdicated because he forced the palace, and then monopolized the power, this person started with military power, how can he allow me to wait for him to sleep soundly, and now what kind of regimental training envoy is launched, can he really tolerate the existence of local princes?" So I thought that he was afraid that there was fraud in it, and I am afraid that things would not be so simple! ”

Li Huan said that, seeing that everyone was talking in a low voice, he couldn't help but feel a little proud, and when he rolled his eyes, he saw Lai Yao looking at him with contempt, Li Huan couldn't help but say angrily: "Come to make you, do you think I'm worrying about the sky?" ”

Lai Yao stood up and said: "If you are Li Guangbi, I believe in this, but unfortunately you are not, you really think too highly of yourself, your tens of thousands of people are probably not enough to stuff their teeth, as soon as the 20th National Army crosses, your Xuzhou and Chen Liu will be swept into powder, is it necessary for him to bother to spend his energy to plot against you?" ”

"You can't say anything!"

Ji Guangchen, the assassin of Xuzhou, stood up and shook his head and said: "Li Tingshi is right to be prepared for danger in peace, although each of us seems to have a small number of troops, but there are more than 100,000 people in total, Li Qing will not ignore us, I have been thinking, An Qingxu's army in Xiangzhou is only 60,000, plus 20,000 people in Weizhou Xue Songdi, a total of only 80,000, he does not need to be so vigorous and mobilize the army, and pour out the army in Guanzhong, I think there must be a deeper reason for this, but I don't dare to guess." ”

Seeing Ji Guangchen opposing him, he was really unhappy in his heart, and he asked in a long tone: "According to the meaning of Ji Assassin's history, is the regimental training envoy fake?" ”

"Definitely!" Ji Guangchen shook his head lightly and said: "The regimental training envoy may be true, I thought this was a fig leaf for Li Qing to take charge of the army with the right side, and the assassin history can lead the troops, why can't Xiangguo?" The question is, are we all here who should be in charge of the team training envoys? or his own henchmen, that's the most important thing. ”

"Ji Envoy Jun is very right, exactly what I think!"

Li Huan stepped forward, squinted at Lai Yao and said: "If we all unite and become a force, then he Li Qing will never dare to touch us easily, on the contrary, if everyone is like someone, who gains small profits and forgets the righteousness, then we will all die sooner or later!" ”

"Who do you say gets a small profit and forgets the righteousness!"

Lai Yao was furious, suddenly drew his sword in his hand, pointed at Li Huan's nose and shouted: "If you say it clearly, you will directly name it!" ”

"That's it! Don't make a fuss! Tian Shengong, who had been silent, stood up, he was the most powerful of these people, with more than 50,000 soldiers, controlling the five prefectures of Shen, Guang, Tang, Ying, and Shou in Huaixi.

Since Li Huan proposed this topic, he went on to say, "In fact, the so-called imperial court is also the court of his Li Qing, coercing the Son of Heaven and ordering the princes, there are very few forces that can compete with him, the Hedong Army led by Hedong Changsun Quanxu, as well as Li Guangbi, and then there are our forces in the two Huai and Huai areas, if we want not to be broken by him one by one, we must unite, twist into a rope, and elect our common leader, so as to protect our interests, everyone see, am I right?" ”

The first to express his stance was naturally Li Huan, who stood in the middle of the house and said loudly: "I agree with what General Tian said, we should all unite to deal with Li Qing!" ”

"I can't talk about dealing with it, I can only say it's a confrontation!" Ji Guangchen also expressed his opinion.

At this time, Helan Jinming, who was sitting in the corner of the house, raised his hand and said, "I also agree!" ”

In the end, only Lai Yao was left, and when he saw that everyone's eyes were looking at him, he smiled coldly and said, "This leader, shouldn't it be General Tian Mao Sui's self-recommendation!" ”

"Nope! Tian Moucai is a shallow learner, how can he take on this heavy responsibility! ”

Tian Shengong stood up and smiled and said: "I recommend one person, who is both highly respected and a descendant of the clan, and he will lead everyone, and the name is right, this person is the heir Li Ju." ”

The heir, Li Ju, now lives in Yingzhou, and has been living by looking at Tian Shengong's face.