The problem that Liu Hong is thinking about now is that even if he finally wants to make Liu Wei the crown prince and ensure the legitimacy of his royal family, it will be up to him to decide.

He will never accept coercion, threats, or inducements, and he will never compromise on the issue of imperial power.

Power must be passed on in the hands of our old Liu family, and it is not your turn to be contaminated by the He family.

In short, in a word.

If I don't give it, you can't rob it, you can only be a tool man.

You can share the imperial power, but you don't want to dominate the imperial power, let alone hold the imperial power on your behalf.

What he himself faced back then must not be repeated.

Therefore, the power of any clan must not be allowed to continue to grow.

Once the power of the He family is huge and the foundation is solid, it will inevitably become a reliance on Liu Bian's ascendancy, and at that time, even if Liu Hong is unwilling, I am afraid that the final result will not be decided by Liu Hong.

Liu Hong is likely to be the same as Liu Bang, and this situation is unbearable for Liu Hong.

He can tolerate the succession of his son-in-law who he does not like, but he cannot tolerate that after his death, the real power is controlled by outsiders.

When he ascended the throne, he finally regained power from his former relatives, how could he watch his son follow his old path?

As soon as he thought of this, Liu Hong couldn't sit still, he stood up and walked around the room with an anxious face.

"If it really makes the He family powerful, they will definitely try their best to make the debate become the prince, in this case, once the debate becomes the prince, whether the surname Liu or the surname He is in the world is not necessarily, this kind of thing must not be tolerated, Ah Gong, we must do something."

"What does Your Majesty want to do?"

"We must weaken the He clan's military power and suppress the Yuan clan, and we must not let them succeed!"

Liu Hong's face was full of fierceness: "They want to seize the power of my Han family, it's too early!" I have the final say on who is the emperor, and the emperor must not be swayed by outsiders! He can be an emperor, but he must be a real emperor! ”

Zhang Rang was secretly happy in his heart, and said: "In this case, the best way is to set up a new army, a new army under the personal control of Your Majesty, with a certain number of new troops, you can show Your Majesty's power, and the He and Yuan clans will not be able to blatantly increase their power."

With the protection of the Son of Heaven's army, the power of the Son of Heaven can also be demonstrated, and in the future, His Majesty can pass this army to the new monarch, and the new monarch will continue to control it, and it will also be able to maintain the power of the Son of Heaven, right? ”

"That's a good idea."

Liu Hong nodded slowly, and then said worriedly: "Having said that, it takes a lot of money to recruit and train new troops, what should I do with this money?" ”

Zhang Rang secretly slandered Liu Hong's greed and stinginess.

It's all this time, and you're still worried about money?

You don't want the court to pay for you to train your own private army, do you?

My Majesty, when it comes to power, you still care about money?

"Your Majesty, if you want to train an army that is completely loyal to Your Majesty, it is impossible to expect the imperial court to pay for it, and if the imperial court contributes money, this army will be the imperial army, can Your Majesty accept it? If you want to reduce the power of the Ho clan, you must have an army that belongs entirely to Your Majesty. ”

Zhang Rang looked at Liu Hong.

Liu Hong hesitated for a moment.

"Do you want me to pay for the formation and training of the new army myself?"

"I'm afraid...... Yes. ”

"This ......"

Liu Hong looked embarrassed: "It costs a lot of money to train the new army, a few thousand people are not enough, and the cost of twenty or thirty thousand people is too great, if I bear it alone, it will be too ......."

This is not the time to consider whether to pay or not, my majesty!

When it comes to your power and heirs, you are reluctant to pay?

Zhang Rang hurriedly continued to persuade.

"Having said that, if you can assemble an army that is completely obedient to your majesty's orders, doesn't your majesty think that it is a very worthwhile thing?

At present, most of the military power in Luoyang is in the hands of He Jin, plus some of the military power in the hands of the Yuan family, it can be said that the situation is already quite bad, does Your Majesty want to be controlled by others? ”

Liu Hong thought about it and felt that what Zhang Rang said was also reasonable.

To train an army that belongs completely to oneself, the number cannot be small, the scale cannot be small, and the equipment and treatment must also be the best, so that this army must be strong and loyal, so as to enhance the power of the Son of Heaven and avoid losing the power to control the situation.

But it costs a lot of money......

Liu Hong hesitated repeatedly, but still couldn't make up his mind.

In the end, Zhang Rang talked about selling salt, telling Liu Hong how much money he made from selling salt, and the expected income in the future, and Liu Hong finally made up his mind to take part of the income from selling salt to raise troops and train a new army of 30,000 people.

After the initial plan was decided, Liu Hong still had a lot to do, such as who should be entrusted to recruit and train this army, who should be handed over to manage and lead, the composition of officers in this army, etc., and many things had to be busy.

And in this kind of thing, Liu Hong himself has no experience, and the ten permanent servants have no experience, so Liu Hong made a difficulty.

Recruiting new troops and forming an army must be done by competent people, not just a random person can do it, and there are relatively few real professionals, and most of the people Liu Hong can trust and appoint belong to eunuchs or eunuch groups, and there are even fewer such talents.

However, Liu Hong believes that as long as he is willing to explore, such talents will not be scarce.

It's just that the person he most wants to appoint to help him form the Xiyuan New Army is Liu Bei.

"Xuande has a literary and martial strategy, the horse can govern the army, the horse can be a herdsman, the formation of an army to train the army is also an expert, the Liangzhou army has won successive battles, it can be seen that Xuande can govern the army, if Xuande can be in Luoyang, I can sit back and relax...... Grandpa, I really want to recall Xuande back to Luoyang......"

Call Liu Bei back to Luoyang?

Zhang Rang suddenly remembered what Liu Bei had said to him in the corridor of the palace before.

"In the future, if you are in danger, I will save your life."

Such words rang in Zhang Rang's ears repeatedly, and he suddenly felt that if Liu Bei could come back, he should be able to have a lot more security, and not be as frightened as he is now.

If Liu Bei can do it, it will really be a good thing for them.

But Liu Bei is in Liangzhou, and the construction of Liangzhou is booming, at least for now, it is still unnecessary to let him come back.

A little later, when planning to form a new army, Liu Hong suddenly thought of something.

Liu Biao is his existing eldest son, if there is no accident, it must be Liu Biao who inherits his position, but it is difficult to say whether Liu Biao can hold the power of the Liu family and not be usurped by the He family.

He could accept Liu Wei as emperor, but he could not accept the outflow of imperial power, so Liu Hong decided that he had to prepare some weapons for Liu Wei to deal with the powerful deterrence from his mother's family.

At present, the two He brothers, a general and a Wei general, hold a considerable part of the military power in Luoyang, in addition, there is also the possible cooperation of the Yuan family, which is not something Liu Hong is willing to see.

Once Liu Wei ascended the throne, there was no power belonging to the Liu clan in Luoyang City, all of them were the power of the He clan and the Yuan clan, how could this work?

It is necessary to strengthen the strength of the Liu clan.

And among the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty, is there anyone who can be trusted and can be entrusted with great things?

There is one person.

He is a member of the Han family.

He was a native of the Han Dynasty.

His name is Liu Bei.

In Liu Hong's view, Liu Bei does not have a very deep background, but he has a little teacher-student relationship with Lu Zhi, and this teacher-student relationship is also placed under the identity of the Han clan, he attaches more importance to the identity of the Han clan, so he served the emperor very early and became the emperor's minions.

Judging from Liu Bei's actions all along, Liu Hong really can't draw any conclusions other than loyalty.

He can only believe that Liu Bei really hopes that Dahan's tomorrow will be better, and he is willing to pay a lot for it, and even his ability is still strong as Tianzi No. 1.

Such a Han clan member who is wholeheartedly striving for the future of the Han Dynasty, what reason is there not to reuse? Is there any reason not to trust?

Anyway, Liu Hong couldn't think of it.

If Liu Bei can be used as Liu Bei's help, and Liu Bei can assist and support Liu Bian's ascension, then for Liu Bian, isn't there a strong aid belonging to the Liu family?

(End of chapter)