Overlord!

Chapter 360 Send troops to Liaodong

The pacification of Liaodong has become the general trend, and it does not even depend on personal will.

Ever since the charming ancestor Qin Shihuang unified Liuhe, the idea of ​​great unification has been deeply imprinted into the bones of Zhu Xia.

There is actually a separatist force within the country's borders, which is something that no one can tolerate.

So in the winter of the eleventh year of Kaiyuan, more than two months after the autumn festival ceremony, Guanqiu Xing, the governor of western Liaoning and a famous scholar from Hedong, came to visit Youzhou.

His memorial said: "Liaodong is far away and has been in chaos for a long time. It is once again the key point of the northeastern counties and roads, and the people are mixed with barbarians, so there are many military difficulties. However, the Gongsun family has been strong for a long time, and he has different ambitions. The officials and people were pregnant with Qiang and Hu, and the soldiers were attached to Rou, who was used by thieves. Han Hao and Goguryeo initially tried to rebel against the chaos and mobilized left and right. Gongsun Kangnai sent 40,000 troops to attack the generals and the people, and captured tens of thousands of men and women, destroying them. Shape and hair.”

"He also set up tundaifang (the land of Gyeonggi Province and Chungcheong Province in North Korea) and used it to farm as much as possible. It has been flourishing for nearly thirty years. If we don't take it, it will be a danger to the country for a long time. I am even more afraid that from now on, Liaodong will The land no longer belongs to the state.”

"In the past, Gongsun Kang dared to disobey the king's orders and was not restrained. He relied on the danger and the benevolence of the court, so he dared to be domineering. Now Goguryeo is an enemy of Gongsun and a bandit. There is no strong support from outside. , there are barbarian bandits inside, and knowing the country well, and being able to travel by land, we have no choice but to be fearful."

"I ask you to send troops to attack it. We can conquer the Northeast in one battle, and then set up livestock and guard it. Then there will be no strong enemies of the imperial court in the Northeast."

Guanqiu Xing said many things, but there was only one thing that moved Sun Ce.

Liaodong has been isolated from the Central Plains for more than thirty years. If the Gongsun family is still allowed to separate itself from one side, in the long run, this place may no longer be owned by the country.

But once something goes wrong and the country's foundation is shaken, the gain outweighs the loss.

As long as the army marches over and clears out Liaodong and Goguryeo in one fell swoop, the rest will not be in danger.

Sun Ce did not want Liaodong to evolve into the Sixteen States of Yanyun, and he did not have much identification with the Central Plains, so that he could not take it back for hundreds of years.

Moreover, the punishments were extremely severe. One person was fined for one year, one was dismissed from office, and was sentenced to three years in prison. There was also one person, Fa Zheng, who was beheaded because he directly criticized Zhou Yu and had the possibility of exacerbating the factional dispute. , Ming canon punishment.

Therefore, more than two months after the court announced the turmoil, Sun Ce personally summoned Zhuge Liang, the war minister, in Chui Gong Hall.

Just like the Song Dynasty's clan, relatives, and Jiangnan nobles all had a clear opposition to this.

In the Han Dynasty, the Taiwei, as one of the three princes, needed to be checked and balanced, so he did not command the army. The army was commanded by generals such as chariot and cavalry generals and generals. As the three princes, the Taiwei's greatest authority was to control the promotion of military attaches.

Only Fa Zheng did not wait for Qiu Hou, and was immediately beheaded and executed to clarify the canonical punishment.

"If it is not pulled out, it will last for a long time, and the troops will be violent in the wild. However, the weather is unpredictable and the water is wet and impermanent. If our soldiers are connected under the city, there will be a high city and a deep pool, with nothing to do. If we retreat, we will have a blocked road and a road. It is muddy. The soldiers cannot be relieved outside, and the people are trapped inside; promoting cultivation does not relieve their hunger, and the diseased silkworms do not save them from the cold. A man is thirsty and then digs a well, and is hungry and then breeds. You can go far, but it is difficult to respond to the death."

Because on the matter of whether to attack Liaodong, people from different factions and positions are completely different among the officials.

Even if it is defeated, it will be difficult to get any help.

So after thinking about it for a few days, Sun Ce made this memorial public to the court.

Zhou Yu also personally wrote a letter admonishing Liaodong:

Maybe just by simply talking about it, ordinary people won't have any impression at all.

The Song Dynasty abolished the three-gong system, so there was no post of Taiwei.

The bitter cold land in Liaodong did not have much impact on the gains and losses of the Central Plains.

The Shanggong Bureau was independent of the outer dynasty and thus formed its own faction. Moreover, because of the second prince, it was not harmonious with the prince's faction.

Right Prime Minister Zhang Zhao personally imprisoned the prisoners in front of the Zhuque Gate of Zhaoming Palace.

The impact of this incident on the court was even greater than that of the Autumn Festival.

The clan members and relatives of the Song Dynasty paid more attention to the Song Dynasty's own country, and were unwilling to do such things that would shake the country's foundation.

Sure enough, one stone stirred up a thousand waves, and the officials in the court were in an uproar.

Their attitude is also easy to understand.

"I am lying against the blocking country in Liaodong, and the situation is solid, and I am leading the Liaohai Sea. Today, the light army is attacking from a distance, and the division is exhausted and surrendered. It has its own preparations. It is said that one waits for work with ease and quells hunger with fullness. I observe this , sincerely it is not easy to attack. If the country attacks and must conquer, slaughtering the city of Xiangping and hanging Gongsun's head to obtain the land will not be enough to repay China's expenses; capturing its people will not be enough to make up for the losses of the three armies: this is what I have gained It’s better to be mourned.”

Countless people from the prince's family appealed to the emperor for mercy, but they could not change the emperor's will.

Because of party disputes, the emperor punished three ministers this year, two of whom belonged to the prince's line and one to the second prince's line.

After these two surrendered, other local farming forces were extremely weak. Not to mention shaking the foundation of the empire, even the local county soldiers could not defeat them. If the national power of the empire is 10000, then other local forces will count up to 0.5.

This is a war that will last forever. Now is the time when the empire is strong. If we don’t fight it now, will we wait until the empire declines and the enemy rises in the future?

Zhuge Liang followed the female official of Shang Gong Bureau, also worried.

This is the backbone, core, and mainstay of the Prince Family.

This became the highest-ranking official to be killed this year.

As a result, the emperor was angered by provoking a party dispute and personally ordered his death. Zhang Zhao, a senior official who favored the prince faction, personally executed the members of his faction.

This is also the thinking of many scholar-bureaucrats. If we can maintain the stability of the country in the Central Plains, why bother wading around in the mud?

But the main war faction is also very powerful, because the country is now very powerful, so it is natural to expand its territory and wipe out all powerful enemies and foreign invasions.

In the twelfth lunar month of the eleventh year of Kaiyuan, in the Zhaoming Palace of Jiankang City, the white snow was flying against the red walls of the palace's Zhu Pavilion. It was as beautiful as poetry and picturesque, and even more solemn and solemn.

The northeast is not like a grassland, its depth is very limited.

You must know that only a hundred criminals have been executed this year, and most of them have been repeatedly reviewed since the year before last, and will be executed after the autumn.

Walking among the red walls and black tiles, looking at the magnificent palace, a sense of majesty in the center of the empire comes to your face.

This made officials from both factions frightened and no longer dared to go beyond the boundaries of party struggle.

So Sun Ce was completely convinced. If he, the founder of the country, did not fight, he could not let the second emperor of the country do it. Like Yang Guang, he was so happy about his success that he lost his troops in the northeast.

It can be said that the powers of the General Selection Department of the Ministry of War are almost equivalent to those of the Taiwei of the Han Dynasty in the past.

Fazheng was Cao Langzhong, the selected general of the Ministry of War. The Song Dynasty had already established a department (division) system. A Cao Langzhong was equivalent to one of the most powerful people in the Ministry of War.

Because the selection of generals by the Ministry of War, or the selection of doctors in the general department, is related to the promotion and assessment of military attachés all over the world. It is one of the most prominent and powerful official positions in the imperial court.

"I believe that the current tasks are to reduce the corvee, reduce taxes, and encourage farmers to make mulberry trees. Once the three are ready, then the ministers of Yi and Guan can use their skills; the generals of Sun and Wu can use their strength. If this is the case , then the foundation of peace can be established, and the song of "Kang Zai" can be heard while sitting. Now I don't care about the territory of the country, but work hard in the barbarian territory, stealing it because your Majesty will not take it."

There is no doubt that he is one of the most important members of the Prince's team.

The loss of such an important minister, and the direct execution of all the soldiers, Ming canon punishment.

The shock to the Prince family is beyond comparison. No one dares to think of partisanship now.

The emperor Sun Ce also took the opportunity to list the harm of party strife as the most serious harm and listed it as an ancestral precept.

He sent someone to carve a plaque and hung it in the Yangxin Hall of the Prince's East Palace. He also ordered that future generations should not demolish it from generation to generation. The princes of the East Palace in the past dynasties all studied in the Yangxin Hall and received education under this plaque.

Even if the Yangxin Hall is destroyed by fire in the future, the palace must be rebuilt and this plaque must be rebuilt.

This is Sun Ce's most personal experience. Regardless of history books or what later generations see, this is an extremely terrifying political trend.

Party strife destroyed two empires single-handedly.

The Tang Dynasty, the most powerful in the Central Plains, had already achieved a renaissance, basically ended the separatist rule of vassal towns, and destroyed the powerful enemy Tibet. However, the government eventually collapsed due to the Niu-Li party struggle.

Sun Ce witnessed the decline of the most powerful global empire in later generations due to the partisan strife between the Donkey and the Elephant.

A powerful empire that once destroyed countries like drinking water, a small country that cannot control and support internally, cannot even hold down a guerrilla armed force wearing slippers externally.

This is simply shocking.

A powerful empire, an empire with millions of troops, could not defeat a rebel army in Liting. Instead, it was provoked and attacked again and again by the other side.

What majesty does the empire have?

If righteousness and martial arts are vigorous, those who jump from the beam will be killed no matter how strong they are. This is the style of empire.

This sentence is already very familiar to all the kings and ministers of the Song Dynasty.

This is what Sun Ce said, and it is also the power of God that any dynasty in the Central Plains will practice.

Sometimes the Central Plains dynasty did not want to attack bitter and cold places like Liaodong, Toe, Southwest, Western Regions, and Mobei.

To attack a place like this, one has to march thousands of miles and cross two thousand miles of Gobi and desert.

For the court, there was no gain at all.

However, when the enemy raided the border, the imperial court would still send troops directly to turn the border war into a war of national annihilation.

Just like the small country in the south of Jiaozhou, if the bandits plundered the counties and killed the people.

No matter what, the imperial court sent troops to destroy the country and sent the king's head back to Kyoto.

He led his army to attack the country, and held his king accountable for his crimes before the imperial court. Needless to say, this is the dream of every general in the Central Plains.

Zhuge Liang has now been awarded the title of Marquis of Wuxiang, so he naturally has this ambition.

The Marquis of Wuxiang is not a Marquis of a township. Wuxiang is a county. The name of this county is Wuxiang and it belongs to Shangdang County.

The purpose of sealing Zhuge Liang here is to let him imitate the stories of the sages, sealing the wolf to live in Xu, and restraining Shi Yanran.

Among them, Le Shi Yanran's expectations were higher. After Dou Xian Le Shi Yanran, the Huns were divided into two, and the Northern Huns fled to the west. The Southern Xiongnu completely surrendered to the Han Dynasty.

While the Song Dynasty was unified, the Southern Xiongnu were even more completely subdued and divided into five tribes by the imperial court.

This time, they were no longer able to cause trouble. The general who protected the Xiongnu, Zhonglang, strictly managed the five Xiongnu tribes, and the pastures and population were very restricted.

At its peak, the Southern Huns had a population of more than 100,000. Now after being divided into five tribes, the population has dropped to more than 80,000.

Although they are still located in Xihe County, Shangjun and other places in Bingzhou, their population has been overtaken by the Han people.

The land here is vast and sparsely populated, and the Song Dynasty did not move them out, but allowed them to continue grazing here.

Because the combined population of Hu and Han in these two counties may be less than 200,000.

Although the Huns grazed here, their range of activities was really small.

Sun Ce hoped to leave these more than 80,000 Xiongnu to the prince as a gift package, so that he could completely conquer them.

Just like Zhao State conquered the Loufan tribe.

There are still more than 80,000 Xiongnu people left. Maybe by the time of the prince's reign, there will only be 50,000 or 60,000 Xiongnu people left.

In the end, this nation will disappear completely in the long river of history just like in history. It will first become the ministers of the Song Dynasty and herd horses, and then gradually and completely integrate into the Han bloodline.

It’s just that the plans didn’t change as fast.

Before Zhuge Liang had time to attack the Xiongnu and Xianbei, he was forced to solve the problem of Liaodong first.

And this is also the reason why Zhuge Liang is so worried. If the court still cannot reach an agreement, it will be difficult for him to determine the outcome of this expedition.

After all, the Gongsun clan is now very powerful. Ever since they defeated Goguryeo and other foreign tribes and expanded their territory, they now have no less than 50,000 troops.

The Song Dynasty sent troops to Liaodong, which had to cross two thousand miles of swampland. It was not easy to conquer. Without strong logistics, it was simply not enough to support this war.

He actually had a very good personal relationship with Zhou Yu. Zhou Gongjin had an elegant demeanor, and getting along with him was like a spring breeze.

It's hard for anyone to feel bad about such a great man.

Regarding the conquest of Liaodong, the two of them had exchanged private messages before, each expressing their own opinions. Although their positions were different, they could be regarded as gentlemen uniting but differing.

Just because the two factions have different ambitions, confrontation is inevitable.

So after the white snow drifted into his neck, Zhuge Liang only felt a chill in his body, tightened his clothes, and asked Shang Gongju who was leading the way more cautiously: "Is Shang Gong Ling okay recently? Who is dealing with Shang Gongju recently? Matters?"

Of course, Zhuge Liang was not overstepping his bounds by asking this, but rather that Shanggong Ling had just given birth to a princess recently.

The emperor Longyan Dayue named the princess Princess Pingyang on the day she was born, and named her Sun Jingxun, with her maiden name being Child.

He also ordered that the world's agricultural tax be reduced by half, and that elderly people over sixty years old be given three pieces of cloth, five kilograms of meat, and ten stones of grain.

This is good news from the court released in October, and Zhuge Liang should also pay attention to the etiquette of his courtiers.

But the palace maid in front tensed up, as if she was afraid that the wall had ears, and she didn't want to talk about it at all. She said: "Shang Gong is in good health. I don't know anything about Shang Gong Bureau. The general should go and communicate with the emperor in person. .”

This reaction surprised Zhuge Liang even more.

The emperor had just given birth to a princess, and the emperor was so happy that he couldn't fake it. Shouldn't it be the time when Zhou Guiren is most favored?

But how do the maids of the Shang Palace Bureau react to Shang Gong Ling like this?

It seems that he is afraid of avoiding it.

What happened in this palace?

Is it possible that Shang Gongling, who has been in power for many years, finally no longer holds the power?

(End of this chapter)