"If I give it to him, he will give it to him; if he takes it without telling him, he will be a thief!"
King Huai was so angry that he slapped the end of his pen on the jade paperweight. King Huai had been fond of dancing with spears and sticks since he was a child, and was very strong. With this slap, a fine Hu pen broke into two pieces with a "snap" sound.
Wang Boqian, Gu Fan, Wei Chujun and others all remained silent.
Regardless of old grudges, Xu Huai took action to capture Zheng Huaizhong, Zheng Cong and his son, removing the last and biggest obstacle for King Huai to ascend the throne. It was impossible for the new emperor to ascend the throne without giving him a reward.
Even if it is to buy more time to solve other internal and external troubles, even if Xu Huai and everyone in Chushan are stabilized first, Wang Boqian, Gu Fan, and Wei Chujun also know that King Huai may eventually agree to establish a new alliance on the basis of Rucai's two states and Nanyang Mansion.
The South Jingxi Road was resettled and Xu Huai was appointed as the envoy or appeasement envoy of South Jingxi Road.
The problem is, they can give it, but Chushan can't ask for it.
But now Chushan has not only reached out to ask for it, it can even be said to have reached out to grab it, and even reached out to grab more than they planned to give.
Looking at the deployment of Chushan's troops and horses, their tentacles have been stretched out towards Xiangyang and Jingzhou. How can they not be furious?
"Thief Xu has a heart that can be punished, but the minister failed to see through his ambition and allowed him to lead troops to suppress the bandits in the lake, so that thief Xu had to rely on the Privy Council's conscription order to hide his crime. This is really the incompetence of the minister. Please, Your Majesty
Punish him!" Wang Boqian stood up and asked King Huai to punish him for his negligence.
Although King Huai has not yet formally ascended the throne, Wang Boqian and others have already called him "Your Majesty" in private.
"Yes, yes, I can't blame you for this," King Huai said with some frustration, "I know what you want to say. At this juncture, there is no need to beat around the bush."
Wang Boqian's words were very clear. No matter how confident they were about how ambitious and unruly the people in Chushan were, the fact that the mobilization order from Chushan to cooperate with the two lakes to attack the Dongjing bandit army was issued by the Privy Council was an undeniable fact.
The Dongjing bandit army claims to have millions of troops and has been invading Jing Lake for several years but has not been eradicated. Chushan has made many arrangements in terms of blocking waterways and providing logistical supplies. Who can blame them for their faults?
Of course, the most critical thing is at this juncture. Even if Chushan is determined to become a vassal town, what can they do?
The three imperial armies of the Imperial Envoy Division, their commanders Zhang Xin, Deng Gui, Liu Yan and many of their commanders are all involved to some extent with Chushan. It is still unclear whether they have any secret relationship with Chushan.
A deeper collusion, at least at the moment, cannot be trusted.
After Zheng Huaizhong, Zheng Cong and his son were captured, everyone in the Huaidong Army was in danger. The 60,000 elite troops deployed in Huaiyin and other cities along the lower reaches of the Huaihe River were restless. If they were not handled properly, a catastrophe might occur at any time, and it would be difficult for Jiang and Huaihe to protect themselves.
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In addition to these two points, Chushan, as one of the five major camps, has a tendency to be stronger than Lingran's other four major camps. The direct troops they actually control may not be as strong as Chushan, and
It is difficult to say that the Western Qin and Dongchuan camps led by Gao Junyang and Gu Jiqian did not have the ambition to take advantage of the opportunity to expand their power.
How could now be a good opportunity to punish thieves and seek rebellion?
Although King Huai was angry, he also knew the principle of caution and patience, and he needed to take care of Chushan slowly.
Apart from anything else, Chushan still needs to be in Rucai to resist the powerful enemies of Jingxi and Heluo.
"Thief Xu moves with the order of conscription, but it is difficult to take back his orders suddenly," Wei Chujun said, "From the perspective of a humble minister, there are two urgent tasks, which need to be carried out urgently..."
"Tell me about it." King Huai signaled Wei Chujun to continue.
Wei Chujun said: "First, your majesty should try your best to recruit the Huaidong army generals to avoid fighting. If the recruitment is successful, in addition to integrating the Jianghuai and Huaihe Rivers, Huainan can gain tens of thousands of new elites, and the Huaidong army generals can also be mobilized as soon as possible.
The states on the North Road of Jinghu are in charge of state troops in case Chushan is disloyal. Secondly, your majesty should do everything possible to appease the Dongjing bandit army. If the recruitment is successful, Chushan will have no excuse to stay in Jingxiang.
, Secondly, your majesty will have hundreds of thousands of elites for your own use, which will naturally curb Chushan's ambitions and force him to withdraw from Jingxiang..."
In the eyes of many people in the world, the root cause of the disasters in the previous vassal towns was caused by the idea of "the emperor, the soldiers and horses | the strong will do it". However, regardless of the idea of lords, kings and ministers, they have to admit that this is very reasonable.
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In the eyes of King Huai, Wei Chujun and others, the disobedience of the people in Chushan was obvious, but now they were forced by the situation and could not break up immediately. Even when resisting the west of Beijing, the enemies of Heluo still needed to rely on Chushan. Then
What they can do is to contain Chushan from all aspects.
When it comes to containing Chushan, there is no more direct and effective way than strengthening the central control.
Therefore, whether it was the Huaidong generals or the Dongjing rebels, Wei Chujun advocated that he should try his best to appease them and use them for his own purposes.
Recruiting the Huaidong Army generals not only allows the imperial court to gain tens of thousands of new elites in Huainan to stabilize the defense line and integrate the Jianghuai River and Huaihe River, but also transfer the Huaidong Army generals to defend the states along the Jinghu North Road. This is also a transfer. The Huaidong Army will be used to attack Chushan.
The resentment prevents Chushan from extending its tentacles to Yingsui, Ehuang and other places.
Recruiting the Jing thief army in Fudong, on the one hand, gives Chushan no excuse to stay in Jingxiang and not leave. On the other hand, it is also the most important. If the Jinghu South Road Construction Department can recruit hundreds of thousands of thief troops for use, they still need
Are you worried that Chushan doesn’t know how to restrain himself?
Of course, Ge Boyi and Wei Chujun had already contacted the Dongjing bandit army to negotiate recruitment. Wei Chujun hoped that the court could further relax the conditions for recruitment in order to facilitate this matter as soon as possible.
"Okay, I'll write a letter right now and take it to Duke Ge. You must get it done quickly!" King Huai felt that Wei Chujun's words made sense and said.
He had not officially ascended the throne at this time, so he could only use his power first under Ge Boyi. As long as he successfully recruited Sun Yanzhou and other thieves, they would be used by the court, and they could be ratified after he officially ascended the throne.
Wang Boqian and Gu Fan expected that many ministers in the court would stand up to strongly oppose the unrestricted recruitment of the traitor army that had invaded Jinghu for many years, but there was no way to take it into account at the moment. Thinking of this, they did not try to dissuade Huai.
The king acted cautiously, thinking that his majesty did not ask Zhou He, Hu Kai and others to come over for discussion, so he directly wrote to Ge Boyi to use his power. He probably expected to encounter opposition, right?
"In order to recruit the generals of Huaidong Army, it would be safer for Your Majesty to send ministers there..." Wei Chujun added.
After taking Zheng Huaizhong, Zheng Cong and his son into custody, they sent orders to Han Shiliang and Liu Yan through the Privy Council to send troops from Shouzhou and Yangzhou into the border area with Huaidong to maintain absolute military pressure.
Of course, Han Shiliang was also ordered to send envoys into Chuzhou to persuade the Huaidong Army to give up resistance and accept the imperial court's disposal.
The purpose was still to divide the Huaidong Army generals, but not to force all the Huaidong Army generals to rebel and defect to the barbarians, nor to annihilate tens of thousands of elites.
The recruitment of Huaidong generals has not progressed. On the one hand, it has not been carried out for a long time. On the other hand, King Huai wants to completely remove Zheng's direct descendants and generals from the Huaidong camp, or at least remove the generals.
In order to eliminate future troubles, Zheng Huaizhong, Zheng Cong and his son have been focusing on strengthening the control of the Shenwu Army in recent years. They all command envoys, and there are more than 20 military commanders above Du Yuhou, almost all of whom are children of the Zheng family or dozens of
A direct line general who followed the Zheng family through life and death.
Wei Chujun advocated the liquidation of the Huaidong camp. Except for the Zheng family, as long as other generals can stand up and identify Zheng Huaizhong, Zheng Cong and his son should be pardoned for their crimes. In addition to transferring some Huaidong army generals to serve in the states along Jinghu North Road,
Generals, or even some generals can remain in the Shenwu Army as generals, but all of them can be cleared out.
However, Wei Chujun did not want the strength of Han Shiliang's family to continue to expand. He advocated that the imperial court directly send the ministers of recruitment to Huaidong to take charge of the recruitment, which also seemed more sincere.
Gu Fan glanced at Wang Boqian and saw that he didn't respond. He stood up and asked for help: "Wei Chen is willing to go..."
Gu Fan and Wang Boqian were sons and daughters, but Emperor Jianji ascended the throne in Xiangyang. In order to avoid suspicion, he carefully kept a distance from the Huai Palace and his family. It was not until Emperor Jianji was critically ill that he entered the Huai Palace to show his service.
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Gu Fan would not compete with Wang Boqian for any performance at this time, but Wang Boqian had suffered great losses at the hands of the unruly generals and almost lost his life. He did not dare to go to Huaidong, so of course there was no need for him to be humble.
Gu Fan once served as the military envoy on the southwestern route of Beijing, dealt with generals, and commanded troops. Wang Boqian refused to go to Huaidong. If the King of Huai really wanted to find a trusted minister in the court to go to Huaidong, there was no one else but him.
There is no more suitable candidate - this is not something he can escape just because he is worried about danger.
Furthermore, Zheng Huaizhong, Zheng Cong and his son, and the Zheng family's children will all be liquidated. Even if other Huaidong Army generals accept recruitment, they will definitely feel fear; as ministers of recruitment, it is a good opportunity to attract people's hearts.
To be honest, instead of staying in the court to compete with Zhou He and others, Gu Fan preferred to establish the post of envoy on Huainan East Road. Of course, he would not reveal this intention at this time.
