Yang Sichang was dumbfounded, and the meaning of Liu Cheng's words was very clear: he was not afraid of fighting in the east, but he was afraid of any leaks in the court, which cut to the heart of the Ming army. www.biquge.info Yang Sichang has always been known for knowing soldiers in the late Ming Dynasty, and naturally knows that what Liu Cheng said is not a pretext, from Salhu to Huang Taiji breaking the border, every defeat of the Ming army can be attributed to the party struggle above the court, which the monarchs and ministers of the late Ming Dynasty also knew, but whether it was Emperor Chongzhen or the first auxiliary minister, whether it was an official or a governor, whether it was in the court or in the opposition, there was no way to solve this problem. Each of them is paranoid that the truth is on their side, and the error happens to their opponents, and they refuse to back down half a step, and finally roll together into the dustbin of history.

"General Liu!" Yang Sichang tried his best to make his voice softer: "Some things are difficult to return, and they can't be done in a day or two. You and I are both courtiers of the Ming Dynasty, and if you eat the Ming Dynasty's money, you have to be loyal to the Ming Dynasty and the court, and crusade against the thieves! These things you are worried about, I will naturally enlighten the Son of Heaven, General Liu, you don't need to worry too much! ”

"Supervisor, the way of the art of war, if it is not profitable, it must not be used, and it is not dangerous and not fighting. How can you hope for luck? Liu's tens of thousands of elite soldiers are the hard work of Ling Zun and me for many years, if you rashly seek war, once the battle situation is unfavorable, not only Liaodong is in danger, but even the northwest is out of control! “

Liu Cheng's words touched Yang Sichang's heartstrings, and the mask on his face that had never been removed was finally broken, revealing the tiredness and depression below: "Then you say, how can you be willing to send troops?" ”

"It's almost enough for adults to sit in the position of Zhang Taiyue (Zhang Juzheng, called Taiyue)!"

"What?" For the first time, Yang Sichang's face showed panic: "How is this possible?" Lord Yingguo, it is the peak of Spring and Autumn Period, how can I, how can I-" As he spoke, Yang Sichang's arm accidentally swept the teacup to the ground, and it was instantly shattered. It is no wonder that Yang Sichang will be so flustered, Zhang Juzheng can be said to be the only true prime minister in the three hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, who served as the secretary of the Guozijian (similar to the principal of the Central Party School), Yuwang Zhu Zaiyuan (that is, Ming Muzong) The attendant and the reader, soon after the death of Mu Zong, Zhang Juzheng united with the Empress Dowager Li and the master of ceremonies and the master of ceremonies Feng Bao defeated the political enemy Gao Gong and became the first assistant of the cabinet. At that time, the Son of Heaven was young, Zhang Juzheng and the Empress Dowager Li, the master of ceremonies Bingbi Feng Bao befriended, and got the trust and support of the two, with the identity of the emperor, Zhang Juzheng was actually the first person above the court before the Wanli Emperor came of age, and carried out a series of reforms, reversing the decline of the empire, but this also allowed him to grasp too much power, which caused the resentment of the Wanli Emperor who grew up, and laid the root of his later suffering. Yang Sichang naturally knew that Zhang Juzheng's huge power was based on several conditions that could not be replicated, which he would never be able to do.

"My lord, the first thing to do in order to pacify the Eastern Prisoners is to rectify military affairs, eliminate the old army, and clean up the military cantonments, how many people will be offended by these alone? In addition, it has been more than 20 years since the rebellion in the east, and now except for a small part of Liaoxi, Mongolia and Korea are also his subject states. If you want to be completely pacified, how can it take five or ten years, right? But over the years, have you seen any overseer who has been in office for more than five years? When the new overseer takes office, in order to show that he is better than his predecessor, he must have overturned everything his predecessor did and started all over again. ”

"And what do you say should be?"

"According to the last general, the superintendent will let Lord Lu Boqi Lu do a good job, my lord, you will stay in Beijing to preside over the government, and leave the matter of using soldiers to fight to the last general." Liu Cheng grinned greatly: "To tell you the truth, after Ling Zun's incident, I can understand a truth: whether it is a Tartar or a thief, it is not difficult to deal with, what is difficult to deal with is those adults and gentlemen in the court, who knows when a cold arrow will be shot in the back?" I'm also a trick, let the burden be borne by you, adult, and grab a light one myself. ”

Yang Sichang heard Liu Cheng mention his father Yang He, and couldn't help but sigh secretly, he naturally knew that Yang He's inside story of the failure of Shaanxi's appeasement policy was by no means so simple, although Liu Cheng's words were a bit forbidden, but after all, the two of them got along in private, and what they said was the truth, which can also be explained from another aspect that the other party did not treat himself as an outsider. He thought for a while, and said in a low voice: "General Liu, what you said is too big, you have to think about it in the long run, and you must not let a third party know about it, otherwise it will cause death!" ”

"The last general understands!"

"Good!" Yang Sichang squeezed out a smile: "General Liu, you are in a promising year, as long as you are loyal to the imperial court, the marquis is just an idle matter!" Speaking of this, he habitually stretched out his right hand to take the teacup, and wanted to serve the tea to the guests, but he grabbed it empty, and then remembered that the teacup had touched the ground before himself. Liu Cheng saw it in his eyes, couldn't help but smile secretly in his heart, and hurriedly got up to say goodbye. Yang Sichang got up and sent Liu Cheng to the door, and said a few words of encouragement before returning to the house. Yang Qing hurriedly followed in and asked in a low voice, "Young Master, General Liu must be very happy to know that you asked him to supervise the towns, right?" ”

"Hey!" Yang Sichang sighed and said, "I don't know if he's happy or not, I'm definitely not happy!" ”

Liu Cheng returned to the camp, and was laboriously removing the heavy armor under Wang Tongchun's waiting, when he heard someone outside announcing that Zhao Wende was coming, Liu Cheng frowned: "It's fast, I must have left the infantry team and rushed over." ”

"Please come in, Mr. Zhao!" Liu Cheng took off the heavy helmet and immediately felt a lot more comfortable on his neck: "Tongchun, you press my shoulder and neck, damn, this helmet is so heavy that it will almost crush my neck!" ”

Wang Tongchun responded, hurriedly put down the helmet, and massaged Liu Cheng. At this time, Zhao Wende came in and couldn't help but be stunned when he saw Liu Cheng's style.

Liu Cheng pointed to the chair next to him: "Mr. Zhao, you can do it yourself!" I just came back from Inspector Yang, hey, bargaining all over my body is harder than fighting! ”

"Where is Yang Sichang?" A strong curiosity immediately grabbed Zhao Wende, and his body leaned forward, his neck stretched out, like a duck.

"There is only one overseer in this Datong City, who else can there be? Oops, push harder, I can eat hard! The second half of his sentence was said to Wang Tongchun.

"What did the Overseer say? How did the adults respond? ”

"What else can I say? Isn't it for me to hurry up and send troops to Liaodong to pacify the eastern captives? Meritorious service? Seal the wife and the shadow? Liu Cheng twisted his neck and said with a wry smile: "This Yang Wenwan is the same old man over and over again, he is not tired of the people I listen to!" ”

"Hehehe!" When Zhao Wende heard this, he couldn't help laughing, he naturally knew the meaning of Liu Cheng's words: The highest reward that Daming can give Liu Cheng is only a marquis, and it is also the kind of empty marquis who only has a jue lu and no real seal, but as long as Liu Cheng does not die, his descendants will be Jinong of the Mongol Empire, and the fertile land of Shizhen will definitely be no problem. This kind of Hetao king, who has soldiers, food, and power under his command, is much more affordable than those empty marquis in the Jingshi. Yang Sichang wanted to lure Liu Cheng to fight Dongyu with such a little benefit all day long, no wonder he felt ridiculous.

"And how do you deal with the Overseer?"

"Kick the ball back, of course!" Liu Cheng smiled: "I said that the time is not ripe at the moment, when Lord Yang is in charge of the government and has the power like Zhang Taiyue, let's mention the matter of Liaodong!" ”

"Your Excellency, this trick is really damaging!" Zhao Wende's rare gaffe almost burst into tears: "Zhang Taiyue is Emperor Xianzong is young, and he is the emperor's teacher, and he can only have such great power because he can get the trust of the Queen Mother and Feng Bao, so he ended up with a broken family after his death, you might as well refuse directly." ”

"Not necessarily!" Liu Cheng smiled and motioned for Wang Tongchun to withdraw from the house: "It's really difficult to be Zhang Taiyue's kind, but it's not impossible, for example, it's okay to set up a military aircraft department." ”

"Military Aircraft Division? What is it? ”

"It's very simple, although my Ming minister's ministers are also regarded as prime ministers, they are actually not real prime ministers. Why? First of all, there is no celebrant close to the Son of Heaven, and unlike the Six Books of Shangshu, which has its own official office and its own set of people, it is far away from the Son of Heaven, so it cannot influence the Son of Heaven; Without subordinate officials, there is no way to supervise the implementation of policies, and he was beaten by officials twice in three days, do you say there is such an aggrieved prime minister? According to my meaning, I simply set up a new set of people around the Son of Heaven, which was specially set up for the military situation in Liaodong, and was close to the Son of Heaven, so you can directly ask the Son of Heaven for anything; If you have a set of people, you will be able to implement the policy vigorously and resolutely, and you will be able to stab it to the end. If Yang Sichang can sit in this position, I think it will be almost the same. ”

"This, is this possible?" Zhao Wende was stunned by Liu Cheng's grand arguments, although there was no modern political theory in ancient China, but the truth that with a small number of people, the size of the system is still understood. To put it bluntly, what Liu Chengfang said was to concentrate power from the bloated outer court to the inner court to improve the efficiency of the operation of power. But the problem is that those people were still in the middle of the dynasty when they did this, and the ability of the Son of Heaven himself was enough to control the newly built institutions, but now it was the end of the empire. Especially from the mouth of a Xinjiang minister like Liu Cheng who holds a heavy army, it makes people feel weird to hear.

"If it's Emperor Xianzong, it's naturally impossible, but if it's today, it's six or seven points certain! He felt that he was the king of Yao Shun, a \ door \ heart \ thought to Zhongxing Daming, and hated the party struggle between the ministers of the DPRK and China, if someone told him that he could do this to pacify the Dongyu, Zhongxing Daming, he might really believe it"

"Then do you think that if you really do this, you will be able to ZTE?" I don't know if he was distracted, Zhao Wende missed the words "seeking peace with Dongyu".

"That's hard to say!" Liu Cheng smiled: "Whether it is a capable minister or a hero, it depends not only on who the courtier is, but also on who is on the throne, what was the situation at that time, if Cao Cao was born in the second emperor of Wenjing, he would definitely not force the queen and force the son of heaven; Why wasn't Sima Yi a pillar of the country when he was Emperor Wen and Emperor Ming? “

Zhao Wende nodded, obviously Chongzhen did not have the talent of Emperor Wenjing, and the Ming Dynasty at this time was not as good as Emperor Wei Wen and Emperor Wei Ming. Yang Sichang himself may not have the idea of usurping the throne subjectively, but Game of Thrones has its own rules, as long as Yang Sichang participates in this game, he can only act according to his own role, otherwise there is only a dead end.

"My lord, if this is the case, after the pacification of the Eastern Captives, everyone in the world will regard Yang Wenqiao as a hero who turned things around, so didn't you make a wedding dress for that guy with all your hard work?"

"Huh!" Liu Cheng showed a disdainful smile: "Jiansheng, your pattern is still a little shallow, what are these things?" Even if it is the throne of the great tomorrow, if he Yang Wenqiao wants it, it is not impossible for me to give it to him, as long as I repay his father's kindness. “

"What?" Zhao Wende was stunned by Liu Cheng's words. In fact, for some far-sighted intellectuals in the late Ming Dynasty, the demise of the Zhu Ming Dynasty was already an undoubted thing, and some intellectuals who were unwilling in the system began to look for a new way out for themselves, and Zhao Wende was one of them. In his opinion, Liu Cheng is brave and good at fighting, has a general strategy, and has strong reinforcements outside, once the world changes, he can lead his troops south, control the two provinces of Qin and Jin, and compete in the Central Plains. But listening to Liu Cheng's tone at this time, he looked like he was not interested in the artifact. He thought about it for a moment and asked in a low voice, "So, do you want to emulate He Liuhun's story?" ”

Liu Cheng smiled slightly, Zhao Wende said that He Liuhun was Gao Huan, the Shenwu Emperor of the Northern Qi Dynasty, this person was deep and full of scheming, and laid a solid foundation for the establishment of the Northern Qi Dynasty, but he did not usurp the throne, but established his own overlord in Jinyang at that time, and remotely controlled the central government in Luoyang. The reason why Gao Huan did this was because although he had a strong army based on the Xianbei people of the Six Towns, it was not strong enough to ascend the throne in terms of political and economic strength, and many of his subordinates did not support his claim to be emperor, and there was a powerful Western Wei regime to compete with him, so Gao Huan adopted such a compromise approach. Liu Cheng's situation is quite similar to Gao Huan, both of them are Saibei troops, with strong military strength, but there are deficiencies in political and economic strength, if Yang Sichang is supported to usurp the throne, if Yang Sichang fails, Liu Cheng can raise troops to rebel and become a hero of the revival of the Ming Dynasty; If Yang Sichang succeeds, in order to suppress the remnants of the Ming Dynasty, Yang Sichang must also rely more on Liu Cheng's strong army, and it will be much easier for Liu Cheng to overthrow Yang Sichang in the future than to overthrow the Zhu Ming Dynasty. In any case, Liu Chengdu is invincible. It is not difficult to see that as a strategist of the traditional military and political struggle, Zhao Wende is very good, but his pattern and vision limit him, making him unable to keep up with Liu Cheng's train of thought. (To be continued.) )