For the state of Chu, a war with Wei and Han was different from an all-out attack on Sishang.

The war with Wei and Han was a negotiable and controllable war; But if there is an all-out war with Sishang, judging from the attitude of running to Shangqiu in person, it will be an uncontrollable and unending war.

The state of Chu is not ready.

The people behind the Mojia negotiations in charge of intelligence are also very clear about the bottom line of this negotiation, that is, to send troops to the Chu State, at least to make the relationship between Wei, Han and Chu tense.

In order to persuade the Chu State to send troops, it is not just a matter of empty promises, but also needs something substantial.

There is no shortage of troops in the state of Chu, although the quality is not good, and the real ones who can fight are those county corps and the new army of the king of Chu, but at this time, every time the battle is talked about sending 100,000 troops, in fact, the real elite soldiers are only 30,000, so Wei Han does not send many troops, and the state of Chu is enough to deal with it.

What the Chu State lacked was some superior arms in Sishang.

For example, cavalry, artillery and sappers, these are what the Chu State lacks.

The state of Chu has few horses, and compared with the Central Plains, it is not good at chariot warfare, nor is it good at attacking and defending cities.

In the era of chariot warfare in the past, all countries in the Central Plains were equipped with one chariot with four chariots, plus a maximum of 100 soldiers.

And the state of Chu is a chariot with 200 soldiers.

The ability of the Chu State to attack and defend the city was also very average, and it was not until after Wu Qi changed the law that the defense system of the capital city of the Chu State was improved, keeping up with the city defense system of the Central Plains countries.

In the previous Wang Ziding Rebellion, the Mo family also sent sappers to cooperate with the King of Chu in order to cut off the Wei State, which can be regarded as cooperation experience on both sides.

It was the bottom-line condition given by the Mo family, that is, to send a division of irregular cavalry, four artillery companies, and an engineer brigade, plus a part of the infantry knights, as an auxiliary force, to cooperate with the Chu State to wage war against Wei and Han.

In addition to this, the Mo family could also launch an attack on Chengyang, which was the enclave of Wei and the open space of Wei and Sishang next to the buffer state.

In addition to Chengyang, it also includes a series of cities of the original Qi Kingdom, such as Liqiu, which became famous in those years.

For those cities, the Mo family did not want to occupy direct control, at least not for the time being.

Because the overall strategy is to defend in the north and attack in the south, Chengyang and other lands are a very bad salient for the Mo family.

Behind is Jishui, on the left is the vassal state of Wei, on the right is the Qi country that has hatred with the Mo family, and on the side there is Ohnoze, it can be said that if you don't have the intention to take the initiative to attack, it is not necessary to occupy this place, but it is easy to be dumplings.

The troops are insufficient, and it is impossible to attack to the north while fighting to stabilize the situation in the Chu State, so such a salient should not be controlled in the hands as much as possible.

But if you want to deceive the Chu State and induce the Chu State to believe that the Mo family is going to develop north in the next few years, instead of preparing to copy Sun Wuzi's conspiracy back then, then attacking Chengyang can also be regarded as an attitude.

In this context, the negotiations with the King of Chu were also quite smooth.

The king of Chu must have to talk about the reason first, and first talked about things like Zheng Guo taking in Wang Ziding and Si Ziyang starting a war against Chu, saying that a country like Zheng Guo was really self-defeating, and laid the groundwork for himself to take a share of the Zheng State from Wei Han in the future.

In addition to those big truths, the Mo family also talked about the battle of Jinyang that year, "the lips are dead and the teeth are cold" to divide Wei Hanzhi and the like.

Time waits for no one, there is no time for too much nonsense, and the two sides quickly get to the point.

After some negotiations, the Mo family expressed their willingness to punish Wei Han together with the Chu State in order to punish Wei Han's injustice and undeclared war.

It's just that after the person in charge of the negotiation of the Mo family used the word "punishment", the Chu people were a little unhappy.

These two words come from "Lu Song", the original text is "Rong Di is Ying, Jing Shu is punishment", which means that Lu Hou was brave and brave back then, defeating Rong Di in the north and the vassal state of the southern barbarians of Chu in the south......

The Chu people don't like to listen to the word "punishment" very much, because although the Chu people say that I am a barbarian, my body is still very honest, and I am extremely sensitive to the word barbarian and the various words derived from it.

For example, after Su Shi was demoted, Zeng Zuoyao and Tao Yuanming's poems said, "It is still far away from Yang Mo, and I want to punish Jing Shu a little", which regards the punishment of Di and the criticism of Yang Mo as two equal things, one is to criticize heresy culturally, and the other is to attack barbarians by force.

It's just that now the world is undecided, Confucianism has been defeated by Yang Modao and the three families, and it has not yet become orthodox, and now it is not clear who is orthodox and who is heretical, that is, the word "punishment" is not like to hear it because of some historical reasons.

Now the Mo family wants to grasp the right to speak, as a Mo who negotiates with the king of Chu, this cultural level is still there, the reason why I deliberately say this is that I want to say that the "morality" of the Mo family is orthodox, and dealing with Wei Han's unjust things is the same as attacking Yidi, which is politically correct, and can be punished.

In the past, the three Jin Dynasty punished Chu, and now Chu can also punish the Three Jins.

Although the king of Chu did not want to start an all-out war, he also knew that if the Mo family sent troops, it would be best to have a limited war to obtain the benefits that the Chu state wanted.

This time the Mo family is full of sincerity, which is different from when the King of Chu attacked Wang Ziding and pacified Chen Cai, and only sent sappers, this time it can be described as a big fanfare.

A division of irregular cavalry, a certain number of field artillery, full-time siege and construction of sappers, and a part of the elite mounted infantry are all urgently needed by the Chu State.

The cavalry of the state of Chu was poor. The artillery of the state of Chu was not strong. After the battle of pacifying Chen Cai, the state of Chu had a high opinion of the sappers in Sishang.

All this made the king of Chu think that it was enough to start a skirmish with Wei Han and obtain some benefits.

As for the extent to which this battle will be fought, the king of Chu avoided talking about it.

Because the Mo family only sent a part of the cavalry and field artillery to cover the flanks, if the king of Chu didn't want to fight at that time, the Mo family would have no choice but to retreat.

Besides, the baggage and supplies need to be provided by the Chu State, although the Mo family will give some money, but the transportation logistics are not arranged by the Mo family.

In addition, the fact that the main force of the Mo family will go north to attack Chengyang Liqiu is not only a support for the Chu State in the eyes of the King of Chu, but also a verification that the Mo family has the heart to go north in the future.

In fact, the Mo family did not talk about the extent to which this battle would be fought, and what kind of result would be achieved to restore the territory of Zheng Guo three months ago? Or to restore the territory of Zheng Guo fifteen years ago? Or is it on this basis to promote Zheng Guo's reform of the law?

Didn't talk about it, or pretended to be careless and avoided it.

Because the Mo family didn't want to get involved too deeply in this matter.

If the state of Chu wins, and wins beautifully, then it can restore the territory of the state of Zheng three months ago, and make the situation in the Central Plains even more chaotic as a neutral country.

If the Chu State also wants to carve up the Zheng State and doesn't want to continue fighting, then the Mo family will withdraw the army very indignantly: It's not that we don't want to uphold justice, it's really that our teammates are too pitiful, so we don't fight, and the cavalry, artillery, and sappers have no infantry, and this battle can't go on.

After the two sides had a full exchange of views with each other's purposes, the Mo family negotiators talked about the Mo people who were detained under house arrest in the Chu State and those in charge of surveying and mapping.

The premise of Chu-Mo cooperation was that the state of Chu recognized Shangqiu as a reasonable and legitimate coup d'état, not an unreasonable coup d'état that required intervention.

Under this premise, the seizure and house arrest of some nobles of Chu State and the surveyors and mappers was quite unreasonable.

The king of Chu himself did not want to stimulate the Mo family too much, especially in recent years, the economy of Chu and the Mo family have become more and more deeply connected, and the Chu state itself does not want to cause more troubles and start a full-scale war with the Mo family, so that the reform will be in vain.

Just like the Qin State, when the Qin State changed the law, it went to war to the west by the way, relying on stirrups, firearms, and copper cannons, and fought Xirong to expand the population, improve the prestige of the monarchy, and make the bottom obtain military merits and be loyal to the Qin monarch, which is conducive to reform.

But if it is said that when the change was the most critical and drastic, he actually dispatched all his troops and national strength to start a war with Wei Han to seize the Xihe, it was a problem with his brain.

The same is true of the state of Chu, a small-scale war, which is conducive to the centralization of power and the prestige of the monarchy; A large-scale and never-ending national war, then there is no need to change the change.

So the king of Chu allowed a small-scale war, and as far as it seems now, this war is doomed to be a big deal, and it can only be a local war.

Without him, it is possible to fight the Second Central Plains War with the Mo family, which is essentially Wei, Han, Chuqi and Qin, Mo and Song; And between Wei and Han, it is likely to develop into Qin, Zhao, Mo, Song, and Chu against Wei and Hanqi, and Wei and Han do not dare to fight into a full-scale war.

Of course, it would be best if there was no war and relied on diplomatic activities with the Mo family and the Qin state to force Wei Han to cede some of his interests.

Therefore, the king of Chu happily agreed to the Mo family's request, and repeatedly said that the matter of detaining those in Chu Mo had nothing to do with him, and it was all done by those nobles.

He also spit out bitterness with Mo, only saying that the reason why the Chu State is big but not strong and the people are not rich is because of the weight of ministers and too many feudal monarchs.

In the past, the Mo family had always supported the reform of the Chu State, and in the early stage, because the Wei State was too strong, it had always maintained a close relationship with the Chu State, so to speak, without the Mo family's money, weapons, and talents who had been approved by the central government to serve in the Chu State as Mo scholars, the reform of the Chu State would not have been carried out to this point.

Now the Mo family actually supports the reform of the Chu State, only by changing the law can the bottom be more powerful, the legal principles of the old system will be looser, and the contradictions between the old aristocracy and the new aristocracy and the monarchy can be more serious.

Of course, the state of Chu will be very strong after the reform is completed, but the high-level of the Mo family has never been prepared to wait for the state of Chu to completely change the law before starting a war with the state of Chu, and when the reform is about to win but the old nobles have not yet won the crazy counterattack, that is when the state of Chu is the weakest.

As long as you seize the opportunity, the various things that helped Chu State change the law before are actually helping the Mo family themselves.

Superficial support, but also a kind of support.

Therefore, the king of Chu will spit out the bitterness of the minister's weight and too much feudal monarch in front of the Mo family's envoys, so as to establish a good relationship with the Mo family, so as to ensure that there is no environment for external interference in the reform of the Chu family.