Sun Quan was skeptical, he felt that Zhuge Liang, like Li Yan, was not at ease. Li Yan is an open robbery, and Zhuge Liang is a secret robbery. Li Yan wanted to make a contribution by invading Wu and overpowering Zhuge Liang, and Zhuge Liang hoped that Li Yan's invasion of Wu would fail, so as to maintain the balance in the court and hold the position.

He said that Wei Ba would not participate in the war, and Wei Ba would not participate in the war? Can he command Wei Ba? If he really believed this sentence and ignored Li Yan's Zuihou spies, which led to the outbreak of war, Zhuge Liang would not have any loss, but Wu Guo would have to pay a lot of price. Yes, with the current strength of the two sides, even if Wei Ba and Meng Da join forces, they are not sure of conquering Wuchang, and Zuihou is likely to lose both, or one side has the upper hand, but this will also consume a lot of money.

For Sun Quan, whose treasury was tight, the outbreak of this war may mean that the Jianghuai battlefield had to shrink its defensive line, and the losses were not small.

Sun Quan even suspected that Zhuge Liang just hoped that they would fight, so that he could get a chance to breathe, wait for his strength to recover, and then attack and annex the state, and then rush to march in front of the state of Wu to march to Jizhou, and Zuihou formed an absolute advantage over the state of Wu.

Sun Quan had no doubt that Zhuge Liang had the idea of dominating the world, and the alliance between them could only be a short-term alliance, and after the fall of the Wei State, they would inevitably continue to fight for the victory of Zuihou. He thinks so, and Zhuge Liang must think so too. This doomed the alliance between them not to be a pure alliance, and at the same time, they might as well intrigue and calculate each other.

Zhuge Liang can calculate him, and he can also calculate Zhuge Liang. I want to maintain my dignity. In the final analysis, it is still necessary to rely on one's own strength. While sending Zhuge Ke to Guanzhong to ask for advice, Sun Quan put forward a lot of requirements to Zhuge Liang, hoping that Zhuge Liang could provide more help, including the most important war horse. As soon as Sun Quan opened his mouth, he asked for 10,000 horses.

"Did Prime Minister Zhuge agree to my conditions?" Sun Quan asked unhurriedly.

"Prime Minister Zhuge has thought about it." Zhuge Ke said: "However, this year's harvest in Guanzhong is average, except for normal expenses, he can support our limited, and he can't take out the one million stone rice that the king asked." ”

"And how much can he give?"

"Two hundred thousand stones."

"Humph!" Sun Quan snorted dissatisfiedly, he only provided 200,000 stones if he asked for a million stones. He's also a little too stingy. At the beginning, he was going to fight Luoyang. Wei Ba provided him with 500,000 stone meters in one go. "And what about the war horse I want?"

"Ten thousand horses are in difficulty, and he can only provide five thousand."

Sun Quan didn't say anything, and his heart was a little more comfortable. He asked for 10,000 war horses, but he didn't expect Zhuge Liang to really give him 10,000 war horses. You can get 5,000 horses. He was satisfied.

"Where's the price?"

"Fifty gold for a high-grade war horse. Two hundred, thirty gold for medium war horses, and a thousand. Ten gold for ordinary war horses, four thousand. ”

Sun Quan nodded, this price is not expensive, and it can even be said that Zhuge Liang gave him a lot of discounts. It's just that he still feels a lot of burden. The most ordinary war horses are distributed to various generals, and they organize personal guard horses, and he doesn't have to pay for these money, but he has to pay for other war horses, a total of 40,000 gold, which is still an unbearable huge amount of money.

A total of 80,000 gold was handed over to Zhuge Liang, and Zhuge Liang's hands were much looser. From this point of view, Zhuge Liang would rather be defeated in Chengdu than gain a firm foothold in Guanzhong and refuse to let go, the purpose is very clear. Pinching the war horse resources in your hands is a stable source of wealth. What if Li Yan occupies Chengdu, and Yizhou's annual income can be tens of thousands of gold? At most, it is only the value of three or four thousand ordinary war horses. Moreover, he has more money, and he may not be able to buy war horses, and the weapon of war is firmly in Zhuge Liang's hands, so he doesn't dare to persecute Zhuge Liang too much.

"When will it be shipped to Wuchang?"

"Prime Minister Zhuge said that the sooner the better, once the negotiations break down and Li Yan declares war on Wu State, it will be difficult for him to do business with Wu State anymore."

Sun Quan nodded and sneered. Zhuge Liang really put his own interests first, and didn't want to confront Li Yan with a torn face. But in this way, it is really difficult to scrape together so much money in a short period of time. Zhuge Liang did this, probably with the intention of not letting him hesitate.

……

When Sun Quan was consulting his ministers and was busy preparing for war, the envoys of Shu Han rushed to Wuling and began contact with Sun Deng, the prince of Wu. As soon as the negotiations began, the three envoys of Shu Han showed completely different attitudes.

Dahonglu Du Qiong is a well-educated Confucian and attaches great importance to Taoism. He insisted that it was immoral for Wu to claim to Wei, and now to change to Shu Han to be a vassal is to abandon the dark and turn to the light, which is not only a strengthening of the Han-Wu alliance, but also a correction of Wu's past mistakes. Shu Han was able to accept Wu as a minister, of course, it was also a tolerant and generous person who was not to blame in the past, and Sun Quan should be grateful.

Of course, Sun Deng and others will not take these pedantic arguments seriously, and only scholars who are dead to study and do not ask about the world will say these absolutely correct, but absolutely useless nonsense. For such a person, you just treat him as if he doesn't exist, if you want to talk about the argument on the official face, Zhang Wen and Zhang Cheng around Sun Deng can deal with it, they start from the sage scriptures, and they can't stop talking about it, and there is a tendency to turn negotiations into scriptures and discussions.

However, the attitude of the two deputy envoys was not so easy to deal with.

Fei Yi didn't talk much from beginning to end, obviously not interested in this negotiation, but because of etiquette, he had to attend. However, his silence is not unexpressed, on the contrary, his failure to speak is a very worrying attitude. Because he had just been to Jiaozhou and asked to see Wei Ba, if Wei Ba gave him any promise, he would not say a word at the moment. Since he didn't speak, it was tantamount to saying that Zhuge Liang's promise to divide Wei Ba had been frustrated, and Fei Yi didn't get any support from Wei Ba at all.

This also proves from another aspect that Li Feng Weishenme will be arrogant. Arrogance requires strength, and his biggest reliance cannot be Meng Da, it can only be Wei Ba. Because he also just came back from Jiaozhou.

Li Feng was very high-profile in the negotiations, he said many times that the royal road was not not not levied, Shang Tang overthrew Xia Wei by force, and Shang Tang also overthrew Shang Wei by force, since the lord of the world can be overthrown by force, there is nothing to doubt about conscripting a rebel minister by force. If Wu can reform and return to the banner of the Han Dynasty, then of course everyone will be happy, if they are obsessed and have to maintain the title of King Wu who is not right and does not obey his words, then everyone in the world will spurn it, and the general will of course obey the people's hearts and raise troops to fight against it.

Li Feng said a lot, but in fact, the meaning is very simple: if you don't accept it, you will be beaten until you are convinced.

Compared with Du Qiong's quotations, Li Feng's rhetoric is almost full of loopholes, but this does not affect his deterrent. In the face of Li Feng's threat, Sun Deng and others fought on the basis of reason, and on the other hand, they reported to Sun Quan and asked him to prepare for war. Obviously, Li Yan will not give up until he achieves his goal, and a big war is inevitable.

After a day of fierce negotiations, Sun Deng brought Zhang Wen and the others into the inner room, and after summarizing the day's negotiations, they dispersed. Zhou Yi had just gone out and was called back by Sun Deng. Zhou Yi thought that there was something wrong with it, and was about to ask, but Sun Deng sighed: "Zhou Yin is gone." ”

Zhou Yi was stunned for a moment, and then felt that his scalp was numb. What does it mean that Zhou Yin is gone, did he escape, or was he killed? Sun Quan demoted Zhou Yin to Luling, because he was the Taishou of Luling, on the one hand, he could monitor Zhou Yin, and on the other hand, he could protect Zhou Yin. If Zhou Yin escaped, it would be better, he would be a dereliction of responsibility at most, if Zhou Yin died, Sun Quan would not bear this responsibility, but he Zhou Yi couldn't escape.

"Gone...... What is the meaning? ”

Sun Deng took out a letter from his sleeve cage and handed it to Zhou Yi. Zhou Yi took it a little nervously, looked at it again, and a layer of sweat appeared on his forehead. This letter was written by the crown princess Zhou, saying that Zhou Yin was besieged in Luling, and only one of the four subordinates with him escaped, and the report said that the person who came claimed to be Fei Yang and came to invite Zhou Yin to meet him on the order of Zhou Yi. At present, Zhou Yin's whereabouts are unknown, and I hope that Sun Deng can communicate with Zhou Yi and let Zhou Yin go. If Zhou Yin has anything to live with, she is willing to take it on behalf of her brother.

The crown princess said it very politely, but the killing machine was very heavy. This is already the hand of Zhou Doi, and he wants to ask Zhou Doi.

Where is there anyone in Zhou Yi, he only now knows that Zhou Yin is missing.

"His Royal Highness the Prince, I have been in Jiaozhou for the past few months, and both Sun Junhou and Zhang Huishu can testify."

"Yes, I know this, and I think the king also knows, the problem is that this doesn't mean that you can't order against Zhou Yin." Sun Deng sighed: "Don't worry, I believe in you, and the king will also believe in you, so I will leave this matter to you, you have to find out Zhou Yin intact, so as to prove your innocence and ......"

Sun Deng paused and said word by word: "The innocence of the king." ”

Zhou Yi held his breath and couldn't speak for a long time. He understood what it meant. If Zhou Yin died, it was true that he was the first person responsible, but the biggest suspect was Sun Quan, the king of Wu, and many people would suspect that Sun Quan ordered him to execute Zhou Yin, which might cause an overall counterattack from the Jianghuai system.

Recently, the strength of the Jiangdong family has skyrocketed, occupying more and more seats in the court, seriously infringing on the interests of the Jianghuai family. The Jianghuai family has long been displeased with the growing strength of the Jiangdong family, if the Zhou family is likely to be cleansed, then who else is safe? This can be regarded as a manifestation of Sun Quan's complete bowing to the Jiangdong family, and the Jianghuai family may fall apart because of this, and Sun Quan will be separated from him.

Therefore, it is not he Zhou Yi who faces the biggest crisis, but Sun Quan himself.

Zhou Yi bowed and bowed: "His Royal Highness the Prince, I will immediately rush back to Luling, and start to investigate the place, and I will definitely find out and give an explanation to the king and His Royal Highness the Prince." ”

Sun Deng sighed: "I hope so." ”

(To be continued......)