Luo Yi looked surprised: "Your Majesty, why is this?" At present, Yang Jian is embattled, and it is a good time for us to take advantage of the situation and attack it unprepared to seize Hanzhong in one fell swoop. Chen Kefu shook his head, "Right now, Yang Jun is no longer afraid, he has become a person who has little influence." What we should really see is that the Chen Dynasty in Jiangnan has been expanding extremely fast recently, and in the next step, he will become the biggest obstacle to our unification of the world. ”

Li Jing looked at Chen Kefu and said, "Your Majesty means that Nan Chen will win the battle of the Four Heroes in Hanzhong?" Speaking of this, Li Jing's face also became very solemn.

Chen Kefu nodded, Yang Xuan and Yang Hao have both been defeated, and the Sui room is finally a thing of the past. Now our real enemy is Nan Chen, who is also under the banner of Chen, and they are our real enemy. Shen Faxing seized a good opportunity and seized the land of Jianghan in one fell swoop when we were unable to seize the Central Plains. If Shen Faxing is allowed to scoop his chin again, then Nan Chen will be able to occupy the entire south, and then they will be our worst enemy. Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget that the name of the Southern Dynasty is also Chen, and the emperor is still my father, this is not only a battle between the north and the south, but also a battle between my father and son of the Chen family. ”

Xue Dingguo said with some doubts: "No, Nan Chen just captured Jianghan, but they also lost Huainan, and now Lingnan is attached to my court." Although they went west into Bahan, but the Yuwen clan was also involved, and the belonging of Bahan is not yet known, maybe this will be a dragon and tiger fight, wouldn't it be better for us to sit and watch the tiger fight. Wait until they fight to lose. It would be more appropriate for us to send troops. ”

Chen Kefu sighed and said, "You only saw some superficial things. But I didn't notice anything substantial. Didn't you notice that the current Southern Dynasty has ended the previous situation of separate and loose alliances between the major clans? The four major families of Nanchen, Shen, Wang, Gu, and Xie, as well as the dozens of small and medium-sized families below, have basically lost the army in their hands now, and the soldiers and horses of Nanchen are now all in the hands of Shen Faxing. Even Du Fuwei, who controlled the last tens of thousands of Huainan troops, has now become Shen Faxing's godson. Shen Faxing controlled the army of the Southern Dynasty, and he had become the de facto emperor of the Southern Dynasty. Ladies and gentlemen, Nanchen has completely changed, this is a Jiangnan dynasty in which the Shen family mastered the Nanchen army and began to centralize power. If we still look at today's Nanchen with the previous bias towards Jiangnan. Maybe we will be the next Jiang Han to be captured by them. ”

Chen Kefu planned to give Yang Jun, who was still unwilling to surrender in Hanzhong, with food, grass and equipment to support him to continue to resist Shen Faxing and their three troops. Then Marshal Yang Shanhui and Zhang Zhongjian were divided into two armies on land and water to march south. Of course, in view of the current situation of grain and grass in the imperial court, Chen Kefu's combat intention was not to recover Jiangnan in one fell swoop. Instead, Yang Shanhui and Zhang Zhongjian mobilized a small number of elite men and horses to raid Jiangnan.

Zhang Zhongjian commanded the four fleets along the southeast coast and the Yangtze River to attack and plunder the territory of Nanchen. The biggest goal is to harass Nan Chen's soldiers and horses, mobilize Nan Chen's soldiers and horses, and loot Nan Chen's food and materials when he finds an opportunity. Especially now is the time for the grain harvest in Jiangnan, and the attack on the south at this time is also to grab the grain that Nanchen has just harvested.

While attacking and harassing Nanchen and plundering Nanchen, an elite army led by Yang Shanhui will wait for Zhang Zhongjian to mobilize Nanchen's soldiers and horses to the southeast coast and the Yangtze River to move defense, and then quickly move south from Jiujiangfu, the bridgehead on the south bank of the Yangtze River that has been captured. Capture the four counties of Yuzhang, Yichun, Luling and Nankang in the fastest time.

The biggest strategic purpose of this move was to cut off the Jiangbiao princes in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, which the Southern Dynasty now occupies, and the Jianghan, Jingxiang counties in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and completely cut them off. And open up the channel connecting the four provinces of Lingnan. It not only cut off the territory of the middle and lower reaches of the Southern Dynasties, but also connected the dependent territories of Lingnan, killing two birds with one stone. …,

Before Zhang Zhongjian and Yang Shanhui left, Chen Kefu deliberately left the two of them to have the imperial meal. During the meal, Chen Kefu specially explained to the two that although the battle for Hanzhong at this time was related to the future strategy, the new dynasty had just been established, in fact, because after the reorganization of the team, Da Chen's army did not increase but surrendered, and a large number of surrendered troops and prisoners were cleared. After disbanding or demoting to reserve forces such as township soldiers and militia groups, Da Chen's army now numbered only more than 300,000, and it was also divided into government soldiers. A large number of soldiers were distributed land, disbanded as farmers, and carried out a long round of repairs.

In such a situation. Chen Kefu had neither food nor soldiers. If you want to participate in the battle for Hanzhong, you can't do it. Moreover, according to the analysis of the General Staff Headquarters, if the Chen army enters Hanzhong strongly at this time, then the greatest possibility is to cause Shen Faxing, Yang Hao, Yu Wenhua and their joint confrontation, and then the war is likely to turn into a long-term confrontation. And this is exactly the war that Chen Kefu can't afford to play now.

After thinking about it for a long time, he planned to scoop Jiangnan this time. First, most of the soldiers and horses of Nanchen were in Jianghan and Bahan, and the area around the river surface was empty. On the other hand, as Li Jing said, there is no richest place today in Liaodong, Shuzhong, Huainan, and Lingnan. Because there has been no war in these four places in recent years, they far exceed those in the Central Plains. The imperial court is now short of food, but Chen Jun is not suitable to enter Shuzhong at this time, so the only way is to rob Jiangnan, and open up the passage with Lingnan, and take the grain from Jiangnan and Lingnan.

Chen Kefu asked Yang Shanhui how he was going to fight the battle to the south, and Yang Shanhui said that if he sent 50,000 troops, he could take all the counties of Jiangbiao in half a year. This made Chen Kefu happy and a little surprised, "I didn't expect Marshal Yang to look at the situation in Jiangnan in the same way." ”

Yang Shanhui looked panicked: "Is it the minister's mistake?" If His Majesty feels that half a year is too long, then the minister will work hard, and four months will almost be able to recover the counties in the south of the Yangtze River. Chen Kefu said heavily: "Scooping down Jiangnan in half a year is already a very remarkable ability." But what I want to say to you now, I hope you never say it in the future. Because, this time, I only need to capture the four counties of Yuzhang, Yichun, Luling, and Nankang. Because of the shortage of food in the imperial court now, I nominally gave you 50,000 soldiers and horses to march south, but in fact only 30,000 people were sent to Lingnan, and the other two outsiders were the soldiers and horses sent to Lingnan at the beginning. And tell Ling the real reason, all because the goal of the imperial court this time is to get grain, plunder grain from Jiangnan, and collect grain from Lingnan. The capture of the four counties was not only to cut off the east and west of Nanchen, but also to open up the north-south passage between the imperial court and Lingnan. The reason why Ling was not allowed to occupy more territory of Nanchen at this time was because we needed food from Nanchen, but at this time, the imperial court was no longer able to accommodate more people. ”

Chen Kefu's words are very straightforward, in the face of the new territory and population of nearly half of the area due to the successive victories this year, this time the food shortage of the imperial court is even greater. For this reason, Chen Kefu discussed with the prime ministers of Shangshu Province for a long time, but could not find a way. In the end, Chen Jie put forward an somewhat 'unkind' proposal, that is, to rob the grain of the Jiangnan court and the people, and take grain from Lingnan.

In order to squeeze more grain from Jiangnan, then the people of Jiangnan may have no food available, which is a cruel thing. And if the Dachen court does not recover all parts of Jiangnan, then the court will only do this as a normal practice for the two countries to be at war. But if the imperial court occupies the provinces in one fell swoop, the situation is complicated. At that time, those people in Jiangnan were also the people of the imperial court, and it was impossible for the imperial court to collect all the grain of its own people in Jiangnan and scoop it up for the people in Henan, Hebei, Shandong and other places to eat.

So in the face of this situation, Chen Jie's proposal is the method of sucking blood. For the time being, he did not seize these Jiangnan provinces that had been able to seize, but only plundered and grabbed grain from the imperial court. In this way, the imperial court not only took food, but also did not have to take care of the people in Jiangnan, and did not have to bear a bad reputation. Moreover, compared with only the imperial court raiding and looting operations, compared with a full-scale attack on Jiangnan, the imperial court needs to mobilize fewer soldiers and horses, consumes less grain and grass, and the stronger the control of the situation. …,

This practice of deliberately leaving all parts of Jiangnan not recovered, but only using it to suck blood to supply Henan and Hebei and other recovered territories is indeed cruel, at least for the people of the dozen or so counties in Jiangnan. But in the court, there is only one way at this time. This is also why, in the face of such a big move as Zhengnan, Chen Kefu sent Yang Shanhui, the least famous of the top ten marshals.

Hearing the emperor's personal explanation, Yang Shanhui was also moved. In an instant, he also understood that his biggest responsibility for going south this time was not to recover Jiangnan, but to collect grain.

On the second day, Yang Shanhui and Zhang Zhongjian quietly left Beijing without any grand ceremony. Even a little quietly, Chen Kefu was dressed in civilian clothes, and led a team of guards to send off the two marshals by the Luoshui River at dawn. The two went south this time, and they also took away a group of more than 100 middle- and lower-level officers from the Broken Army Lecture Hall in Luoyang. This group of outstanding officers who were all selected from the original Hebei army to be sent to the martial arts hall for further study, this time to the south, will enrich the Chen army in the south of the Yangtze River, for the imperial court to more firmly grasp this army of soldiers.

Yang Shanhui and his party had just left, but another group of people had just arrived outside Luoyang City. This is a large army of up to 1,000 people, led by Li Xiuning, a concubine who is guarded by dozens of female soldiers.

Behind her, Li Tang's courtiers in the past also followed the team. Li Yuan's old courtiers Pei Lian, Feng Deyi, Tang Jian, Dou Wei brothers, Wen Daya brothers, Liu Hongji, Yin Kaishan, Liu Zhenghui, Ren Gui, Yang Gongren, Feng Li, Xie Shufang, Li Gang, Du Yan and others. In addition, there are Li Shentong, Li Daozong, Li Xiaogong, Li Xiaoan, Li Daoxuan, Li Daoan, Linghu Defen, Chai Shao, Shi Wanbao and other generals of the Li Valve family, as well as Li Yuan's son, Li Zhiyuan, the current head of the Li family, and Li Wujing, Li Yuanchang and other Li Yuan's children.

As soon as Chen Kefu ascended the throne, he immediately gave the Li clan and the old Li family ministers in Hedong the title of knights, and then there was a holy decree that all the Li clan and the old Li family's military generals were transferred to Luoyang, the capital division. (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to (.) to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support is my biggest motivation. )