The Maojin knife from the late Jin Dynasty

Chapter 323 Marching into Luoyang

Liu Tai had been busy with spring plowing, so when the news of Sima Rui's death came, he was a bit shocked.

I really didn't expect that Sima Rui, who like me had completely changed his destiny with the Yongjia Rebellion, would actually die.

To be honest, although Liu Tai looked down on the Jin court and chose to join the Huns and the Han state rather than join the Jin court, he didn't have much ill will towards Sima Rui himself, Liu Tai.

Because when Shi Le went south, Sima Rui finally chose to use his few remaining troops to confront Shi Le. This performance was much better than that of a certain ninth girl who only knew how to flee south.

Then Sima Rui raised the banner of the Jin court again when the Jin emperor was hunting in the north and the capital was occupied, and rebuilt the Jin court south of the Yangtze River.

Although this is more or less due to the situation of chance, rather than relying on his sword and gun to fight for it.

But then I thought about it, first of all, if Sima Rui really had a prominent position and extraordinary abilities, he might have been involved in the Eight Kings Rebellion long ago, and how could it be difficult for Sima Rui to think of this collateral relative, so that Sima Rui could take advantage of going south.

During Sima Rui's journey south, the entire south was not necessarily more stable than the north, and was basically experiencing various civil strife.

The combination of king and horse, not to mention how big the tail is, at least at the beginning, Director Wang was responsible for appeasing the Jiangnan family, and Wang Dun was responsible for conquering the rebellion. At least the southern land was pacified and the integration of forces south of the Yangtze River was completed.

As for relying on Wang Dao, there is nothing that can be done. The Jiangnan region has been disliked by the imperial court since ancient times. Starting from Soochow, the Jin Dynasty even completed the unification. The areas south of the Yangtze River have also been encircled for themselves.

Not to mention Sima Rui, even the Sima family has little influence in Jiangnan.

Under such circumstances, only the Langya family had many connections with the Jiangdong nobles, and only the Langya Wang family could convince Jiangnan Haoqiang. As for the Sima family... On the day Sima Yi swore on Luoshui, the Sima family was not favored by others. The family approved it.

And the Sima family can only exchange benefits for other aristocratic families, and they gather because of benefits and disperse when all benefits are exhausted.

After all, Sima Rui did not conquer Jiangnan with iron and blood, but relied heavily on the Langya Wang family to capture Jiangnan. Naturally, he would be constrained by the Langya Wang family. This was almost inevitable, and no one could do anything to change it.

To be honest, Sima Rui also discovered this matter in the second half of his life and began to deal with the Langya Wang family.

But there was no way. If he had completely recovered the powerful Jiangdong power and relied on Tao Kan, he might be able to completely put down the Wangdun Rebellion. But the people he appointed could not put down the Wangdun Rebellion. Even his throne was a charity from Wang Dun. For him.

Then Sima Rui naturally has no future.

In the battlefield of power, the loser can only lose everything, and Sima Rui can only die in grief and anger.

And whether Sima Rui was still conscious when he died, he chose Director Wang, the representative of the Langya Wang family in the court, to be his orphan.

At least Wang Dun would not object to this suggestion, and Director Wang didn't know whether he had a long-term vision or a truly kind person, and chose to take over this task.

In fact, without the support of Director Wang, Sima Shao really can't hold on to his position now.

"For at least three years, there is no need to worry about the Jin Dynasty's Northern Expedition!"

After Liu Tai lamented, he immediately thought of the political impact of Sima Rui's death.

For Sima Shao, who had just ascended the throne, if he did not finish Wang Dun, there would be no need to think about the Northern Expedition.

For Wang Dun, with the death of Sima Rui and Sima Shao's succession, he would also instinctively want to integrate the resources of the Jin court, so that the Jin court would continue to fall into infighting.

As for the Northern Expedition, Wang Dun at least needs to consider whether if he fails in the Northern Expedition and even angers himself, he will be pushed back or Sima Shao will take advantage of the situation.

After all, he was familiar with Sima Rui. Wang and Ma Gongtianxia had been partners for so long, but he was completely unfamiliar with Sima Shao who had just come up, which caught Wang Dun a little off guard.

In any case, Sima Rui's death must have caused considerable turmoil within the Jin court.

"In this way, I can use this time to move the people and population towards Luoyang, and build Luoyang into an outpost to attack Longyou!"

In contrast, when Liu Tai heard about Sima Rui's death, he began to calmly allocate his resources and prepare to march west to Luoyang. It was considered the right time.

At this time, the envoy from Zhao, who had finally arrived at Jin, felt like crying.

Because he never expected that after he had climbed mountains and rivers, crossed rivers, and passed through the war zone, after arriving at the Jin court, he originally wanted to discuss with the Jin court whether to send troops together, but he had just Come, Sima Rui died.

This made the envoy of Zhao feel so aggrieved. Did he come all the way to visit Sima Rui's grave? !

But whatever the Zhao envoy can do, he has come.

Even if the Jin court cannot carry out the Northern Expedition in a short period of time, I still have to show Zhao's willingness to form an alliance with the Jin court to fight against Liu Tai. After all, if we don't join forces, we will all be destroyed!

The envoy of the State of Zhao met Wang Dun smoothly. Just as Zhao wanted the Jin Dynasty to be cannon fodder to attract Liu Tai's attention, Wang Dunlai also needed the State of Zhao to be the cannon fodder to attract Liu Tai's attention.

Therefore, the intention of the two parties to form an alliance was almost reached very quickly.

But when it came to the specific method of joining forces, one said that the emperor of our family had just died and it was really difficult to send troops. The other said that our family fought 800 rounds with Liu Tai's main force under Luoyang City, but also suffered heavy losses and it was difficult to send troops for a while.

All in all, the general direction strategy of both parties has been reached very smoothly. The implementation of specific measures should be considered first.

In any case, the arrival of Zhao's envoy gave the Jin court some hope. After all, the Shu Han and Soochow's joint efforts had caused great obstacles to Wei. Now that such a situation has formed again, they naturally feel happy.

However, Sima Shao could not help but silently clenched his fists when the envoy from the State of Zhao came to the Jin court and did not go to see him. Instead, he went to see Wang Dun first. However, when Sima Shao faced Director Wang, he greeted him with a smile. All buried deep in my heart.

Sima Shao knew that if the Jin Dynasty wanted to fight Liu Tai, the first thing to do was to eradicate Wang Dun and let himself gain the rights of the Jin Dynasty.

Only in this way can Jin Ting be qualified to protect itself from Liu Tai's suppression.

Otherwise, Liu Tai will not attack Jin Ting now, but Liu Tai wants to attack Zhao first. When Zhao is destroyed, sooner or later it will be Jin Ting's turn.

Therefore, Sima Shao began to learn from Sima Rui's lesson and no longer restrained the aristocratic families, but showed relief to the aristocratic families in order to seek their support for his throne.

At the same time, he began to win over his tutor Wang Dao to prevent the powerful combination of Wang Dao and Wang Dun from completely controlling the Jin court.

Then he started looking for a suitable general to replace Wang Dun. After all, if he really had a showdown with Wang Dun in the future, it would ultimately depend on the strength of both sides, and a military battle would be inevitable.

Therefore, in addition to sorting out the imperial court, Sima Shao also needed to find armed forces outside that could help him. The refugees in Suibei were swept away by Liu Tai like an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves. To be honest, the only armed forces Sima Zhao could choose were local tycoons.

Tao Kan, who had revealed his status through many rescues and now avoided trouble, naturally became Sima Shao's first choice, and Sima Shao also began to look for opportunities to contact Tao Kan.

It can be said that compared to Sima Rui's recklessness, Sima Shao had a clear goal and worked step by step. He lay dormant when he should be dormant and pulled in when he should win over. As soon as Sima Shao took the emperor's position, he began to accumulate strength to eradicate Wang Dun.

Liu Tai did not know much about Sima Shao, the only emperor of the Sima clan, but the Zhao envoy went to Wang Dun and established contact with Wang Dun. Liu Tai still knew this.

There was no other way, so Liu Tai started a small business with Wang Dun, selling snowflake salt, dragon pattern porcelain, and especially tea. With the gradual increase in tea production over the past few years, there was already a little surplus that could be sold. Jin Ting.

As for the price, it is almost the same as the same amount of gold. There is no way. Although the production of tea is increasing year by year and is beginning to be put on the market, it is really only tea trees that can be grown on some hills. In the north, the production is indeed not high. .

Not to mention the need to preserve enough weight for Liu Tai, the Han Dynasty courtiers, and the army, and the amount that can be sold will naturally be sky-high.

Even if these teas are at a sky-high price, when they arrive in the south, especially for the young masters of aristocratic families who have become prosperous after eating Wu Shi Powder, and even for the Taoist priests who have escaped into Taoism, this fragrant and endless aftertaste of the drink makes them feel something. It's called tea.

In addition to these, Liu Tai is also vigorously purchasing various raw materials in the south, such as sugar cane and raw silk. Liu Tai even asked Zhang Song to start trying to purchase grain in the south.

It’s just that the price is much lower than that of products like sugar cane. The purpose is to make it look like you don’t make money growing food, but you make money growing sugar cane and producing economic products such as silk.

Of course, some people in the Jin court saw the danger behind this, but it was meaningless.

Because the Jin Dynasty is controlled by aristocratic families, each family has its own interests and demands, and it is impossible for them to compromise their own business profits for the sake of the Jin Dynasty.

As for Wang Dun at the top, this is because doing so will be of great benefit to the Langya Wang family.

The real risk lies with the Jin court. For the powerful people of the aristocratic families, why not do this kind of risk socialization and personal interests?

After all, he is Wang Dun of the Langya Wang family, not Wang Dun of the Jin court. Even if he controls the government now, the government is just a tool to him!

All in all, because Liu Tai followed the smooth trade of the Jin court, Liu Tai had quite a lot of information about the Jin court. Liu Tai naturally knew about things like the Zhao State sending envoys to the Jin court.

However, after he learned about Sima Rui's death, Liu Tai no longer cared about the so-called alliance between Zhao and Jin.

There was no way. Although Sima Rui was basically no different from a puppet after Wang Dun won the Battle of Stone City, Sima Rui was still the emperor of the Jin Dynasty after all, and to some extent, he could even be regarded as the founding king of the country.

His death will inevitably cause turmoil in the Jin court. No matter what the Jin court has in mind, at least there will be no more wars in the short term.

After Liu Tai received the news of Sima Rui's death, he decisively ordered and began to migrate people to Luoyang to fill the population.

Even if it is him, he will take his own Imperial Guard headquarters and go to Luoyang first to complete Luoyang's plan.

Now there are probably three forces that may take the initiative to attack themselves.

One is the Murong clan who is at odds with the Duan clan, the other is the Jin court south of the Yangtze River, and the third one is the Zhao state.

Although I look down on the Sima family and the Jin court, it is undeniable that at least the Jin court had some experience in the Northern Expedition.

Compared to a country that offered vassal status to a foreign race, although the Jin court was rubbish, at least it still had some integrity.

Therefore, now with the death of Sima Rui, there will be no more troubles in at least two places. In the end, only the Zhao country will be left with orphans and widowed mothers.

If they dare to abandon Tongguan and take the initiative to attack themselves, Liu Tai said that is what I want.

Under such circumstances, he brought his headquarters to Luoyang and started planning for the entire Luoyang.

Of course, the army coming towards Luoyang still made Zhao more or less nervous. After all, Liu Tai had taken action himself.

But they were relieved to see that Liu Tai was only stationed in Luoyang and made no next move.

As for arranging forces to take the initiative to attack Liu Tai, no one in the entire Zhao Kingdom dared to propose such a thing.

Because there is no point in bringing it up, because they know very well that if they take the initiative to attack Liu Tai, they really can't defeat him.

The last time he took the initiative to march, Zhao lost an emperor and 100,000 elites. It directly reduced the forces that might have unified the world into shaky little princes. They relied on sheep to sew and patch things up to survive. The same loss , you can never eat it twice.

Even if they know that such behavior is almost like waiting for death, even if they wait for death, it is better than dying.

Liu Tai didn't know that the people in Zhao State were in complicated mood at this moment. After arriving in Luoyang, they praised Li Ju's contribution.

Although he also knew that Li Ju's defeat of Zhao Gu relied heavily on the ability of his soldiers, and he himself had not shown much of it, but for Liu Tai, it was not easy to set a standard for demotion, and it required a little training!

"Shihui, you are familiar with the environment in Luoyang. I heard that the descendants of Zhuge Wuhou were moved to the border of Hedong. Now that I, the Han Dynasty, are expected to recover, how can I not treat the wise man so badly? You go search for it and report to me when you find it!" Liu Tai said to Li Ju.

"Your Majesty, I obey!" Li Ju immediately responded after hearing Liu Tai's words, but he was also a little surprised in his heart.

But soon, this shock turned into relief, and Li Ju also understood that Liu Tai wanted to go to the border of Hedong to find out about Zhuge Liang's descendants, hoping to give Zhuge Liang's descendants an identity.

For Liu Tai, his national lineage comes from the Xiongnu Han Kingdom, and the Xiongnu Han Kingdom is inherited from the Shu Han Kingdom, so Liu Tai also needs some representatives from the previous dynasty to embellish himself.

The best choice originally was to add Liu Chan's descendants to the clan to enrich his somewhat weak clan. After all, the clan was somewhat of a key force in protecting the royal family.

But when Wang Mi followed Liu Yao to occupy Luoyang, he killed all of Liu Chan's descendants. This made it difficult for Liu Tai to get some clan members to come in.

Then we can only settle for the next best thing, see if Zhuge Liang's descendants are still alive, and win over them first.

If you build a great man, you will never treat any loyal minister badly, even the descendants of loyal ministers.

As for the standards, let them be based on those who have served as masters. All the descendants of the Han ministers who have served as masters, now the big Han has risen, and the big Han is covering you!

(End of this chapter)