Liu Qianxian, the king of Jin, was nine years old Chinese New Year's Eve, a full fourteen years younger than Liu Yutong, but he was born to a mother. In Liu Yutong's struggle to seize the throne, most of the prominent princes were purged, and only Liu Qian was able to survive. On the one hand, he is Liu Yutong's younger brother, and the relationship between the two is not comparable to other brothers; On the other hand, when Liu Yutong succeeded to the throne, Liu Qian was still a child, and he was not a threat at all.

As the only biological brother of the former emperor Liu Yutong, Liu Yutong, who has always acted severely, has never attacked this brother, which is of course emotionally linked, but the more important reason may be that Liu Yutong has purged many princes and has been badly criticized, so Liu Qian's existence can somewhat alleviate this evaluation. After this bloody palace struggle, Liu Qian, who has grown up, has always kept a low profile, acting cautiously in front of his brother, just like his name, dormant for many years. As time passed, Liu Yutong sat firmly on the throne, and Liu Qian's threat had become no longer important, so Liu Yutong let Liu Qian get in touch with some political affairs.

It's just that this Liu has no achievements in politics, but he still has some experience in leading troops to fight. Although his command ability can only be classified as a second- or third-rate general, Liu Yutong still gave him the title of King of Jin, gave him the position to stay in Taiyuan, and let him command an army of 150,000 and be responsible for the defense of the line from Shuozhou to Linzhou.

In the face of the imperial brother's trust, Liu Qian was grateful—after all, it was not easy to keep the throne, let alone the grace of granting military power. For this reason, Liu Qian left his eldest son and eldest daughter in the capital, and he has always been conscientious in Taiyuan, and he did not dare to slack off in the slightest.

Now the emperor Liu Yutong has died. As the most powerful one in the royal family, Liu Qian's back is enough to influence the situation of the court. But at this time. He chose to rebel, which was really unexpected by everyone. Everyone who learned the news was surprised.

In fact, Liu Qian's rebellion was indeed sudden, and even Liu Qian himself was completely unprepared. The incident dates back to August of that year, when Liu Qian received a secret letter from Liu Yutong, which roughly said that his health is getting worse and worse, and he is afraid that he will die soon, and I hope he can assist the crown prince Liu Yan to ascend the throne. But in recent years, Concubine Li Guifei and Han Kemin have colluded privately and have controlled half of the court, and they found out too late, and their bodies are no longer good when they want to curb them. What I am most afraid of now is that once Concubine Li becomes the queen mother. Liu Yan's actions will be controlled by her everywhere, and I am afraid that only the emperor's uncle can contain Li Guifei's actions.

For this letter, Liu Qian was full of emotion. At the time of the change of the throne, when it was the most bloody and bloody, he was cautious all his life, but he didn't want to encounter this crisis-filled situation again. For this reason, he found a close aide An Zaidao to ask him for help, and An Zaidao said after reading the secret letter: "What is said in this letter is indeed the truth in the court, and I have heard a little about it. It's just that there is one thing I want to ask the prince, the handwriting of this secret letter does not look like that of His Majesty, is its content true or false? ”

Liu Qian's heart moved. Busy You carefully looked at the secret letter before saying: "It's true, the imperial brother is seriously ill and can't write, and it is reasonable to find someone to write on his behalf." Besides, the royal brother and I have an appointment in advance. In all the letters he gave me, my name must be written in one more horizontal line, and below it is a headword. If there is no such thing, someone is forging it. Although the handwriting of this secret letter is different, this subtext is indeed an extra stroke. ”

An Zaidao twisted his beard and nodded, "That's true." This is also in the interest of the royal family. If the code is also in line with it, it can indeed be considered to be from His Majesty's original intention. In this way, I think we should actively contact the children of the royal family. So that they can have a joint audience to stop Li Guifei's scheme. ”

Liu Qian nodded yes, and immediately began to arrange.

After half a month, Liu Qian received the second secret letter, and the content of what it said surprised Liu Qian. The letter said that it was confirmed that Li Guifei and Han Kemin were suspected of secretly communicating with the Turk Khan Abichilir, and asked Liu Qian to strengthen defense to prevent Li Guifei from jumping over the wall in a hurry to lead the Raiders to invade the border and create chaos. According to another secret report, there are also Li Guifei's henchmen in the north and south camps of Chang'an, but this matter has not yet been verified and cannot be acted on for the time being. Let Liu Qian prepare a cavalry unit in advance to be on standby at any time, and if things change abruptly, he will be entrusted with the exclusive authority of the plane, and quickly enter Beijing to seize control of the north and south battalions, so as to ensure the smooth succession of Liu Yan.

The subtext of this letter is still one more horizontal, and Liu Qian's heart can't help but become nervous. In this way, the power struggle in Jingshi is close to white-hot, the imperial brother is no longer able to control the overall situation because of his physical condition, and the prince's party and Li Guifei's party are seizing the time to fight for the military power of the north and south battalions, and it seems that it is entirely possible to turn into a mutiny. In this regard, An Zaidao believes that since there is a secret edict from the emperor, he should start to prepare, so that even if the situation changes, he can adapt to it. can support the crown prince to take power smoothly, and everyone is naturally happy; Even if Liu Yan fails, he can raise troops to quell the coup d'état, and even if a new monarch is set up at that time, the credit for supporting it is still Liu Qian's.

Immediately after that, the information from the border pass said that there were indeed signs of troop movement in Tuqi, so Liu Qian actively deployed troops to prevent accidents, and at the same time, he was more convinced that Li Guifei and his party were indeed colluding with Tuqi, so he quietly prepared a cavalry unit to prepare for the unexpected.

In mid-September, the news of the death of Emperor Liu Yutong reached Taiyuan. Almost at the same time, Liu Qian received two confidential letters from Liu Yan, the contents of which were very different. The first letter is to declare that the emperor has died, and invite the emperor's uncle to attend the emperor's funeral. The second letter is to say that Li Guifei has mastered the military power of the North Battalion, and the South Camp is also in the midst of indecision, and now the forbidden army in the Beijing Division also has signs of instability, if the North Camp soldiers really invade the Beijing Division, they are only afraid that the situation will be out of control, please ask the imperial uncle to immediately send troops to calm the chaos and fulfill the agreement with the emperor.

But the subtext on these two secret letters did not add an extra horizontal word.

In this regard, Liu Qian was confused, and could only invite An Zaidao to ask questions again. An Zaidao carefully read the two secret letters and said, "Lord Wang, it seems that the first secret letter is fake. ”

"How so?"

"I think that only this secret letter is inconsistent with what was stated in the first two secret letters, and if Your Majesty dies, there must be chaos in the court. The dispute between Li Guifei and the crown prince may have surfaced, and in the game between the two sides, the most important thing is the dominance of the forbidden army and the north and south battalions. The prince has a heavy army, as long as the prince goes out, the situation will be reversed immediately. Therefore, it is more in the interests of the prince to invite the prince to send troops, and it is more in line with the interests of Li Guifei and his party to invite the prince to Beijing to attend the funeral, if the prince enters Beijing alone, then the 150,000 army in your hands will not be able to affect the situation, and once you enter Beijing, if Li Guifei and her party send someone to assassinate the prince, the situation will be even more unpredictable. Therefore, this letter is that Li Guifei wants to earn the prince to enter Beijing. ”

"But neither of these letters is written correctly."

"That's true, but it is not known that His Majesty may not have had time to inform the crown prince of this matter when His Majesty died, or if there were people from Li Guifei's party present at that time. We don't have enough information at the moment to make a definite judgment, but the current situation is critical, and we must make a decision immediately. I thought that the prince should lead the troops into Beijing, the prince you have the emperor's secret letter as evidence, even if you lead the army into Beijing, you are acting on orders, if things do change, your army can quell the rebellion of Li Guifei, which is a great achievement; Even if you take 10,000 steps back, the truth is as the first letter said, then the prince only needs to station the army outside the city and enter the city to face the saint, indicating that leading the army is just to prevent accidents, even if it is useless, it should be no fault. ”

Liu Qian frowned and pondered for a long time, and finally agreed with difficulty to personally command the 50,000 army to go south, and send another 5,000 cavalry as the vanguard to rush directly to the north camp in case of accidents.

But Liu Qian was wrong. These four secret letters were all written by Li Guifei alone. (To be continued......)