Chapter 629: Absolute

Hongying asked someone to see Yang Ye away, and looked at the window for a long time and sighed quietly.

Suddenly, a voice said: What is the relationship between Madam and Yang Ye?

The expression on Hongying's face turned and she smiled: Friend.

The person who walked into the door was the handsome young man named Yu Liang who came to Tokyo to participate in the imperial examination.He was obviously very upset, with a look of humiliation and anger on his face.

Hongying smiled and swept across his face with her eyes, thinking that the three words "I'm ignorant", but because of this, this scholar is much more interesting than those who are enjoying the world.

Sure enough, Yu Liang held back his anger and said: Are you afraid that it will be more than that?

Hongying didn't argue with him, but leaned gently over and said, "If I hadn't known those high-ranking officials and nobles, how could I find a way for you?"Don’t be angry, no matter how many people I know, my heart is not yours.

Yu Liang's anger has not yet subsided, but he has nothing to do.

Hongying gave him a blank look and said: If you are so noble, let’s not beg Han Xizai.

Yu Liang sighed alas and said angrily: I hate officialdom!But only this path can make you successful and famous!

Hongying advised with kind words: The "Han Xizai Night Banquet" became so popular so quickly, Mrs. Chen spent a lot of effort. What do you think Mrs. Chen is for? Just want to wait for a price? The wife’s famous paintings are much more expensive than this one. But the biggest difference between those famous paintings and this night banquet picture: the people in the famous paintings are dead, and the people in the night banquet picture are still alive.

A scholar-official may be able to regard money as dirt, but who would not want his reputation to be heard everywhere in the scholar-official forest? People respect each other wherever they go? This face is so big. Mr. Han understood in his heart how good Mrs. Chen was.

Now we are asking him for a little help and send the poems you usually write to Li Gu, who is the prime minister in the court. Can he refuse?

After hearing this, Yu Liang felt complicated and said: No matter what, my wife is kind to me.

Just know, you have no conscience!Hongying waved her pink fist and punched him in the chest.Yu Liang grabbed it with one hand: I don’t treat you well!

Outside the door, night gradually descended.

The warm wind makes the night drunk, and the lights of Tokyo are bright at night, and the sound of silk and bamboo orchestra echoes in the long streets and alleys, making the spring scenery charming.

...The border of Tokyo is becoming more and more prosperous, and it is already showing signs of prosperity.But the court did not give up the national policy of war.

Wei Renpu, deputy envoy of the Privy Council, presented a strategy and sent a detailed plan to sneak into Shangjing and Youzhou, Liao Kingdom, to understand the internal affairs of Liao, and to take the opportunity to raid Youzhou during the rebellion in the country.

Guo Shao did not respond and did not agree very much, so he summoned ministers such as Wang Pu, Li Gu to ask for advice.

(Guo Shao has the final say in the position of the minister, but if one is forced to be implemented without the support of the ministers, it will be troublesome to implement it in detail, and therefore there is a delicate balance between the power of the monarch and the prime minister.)

Wang Pu, who is also a minister of the Privy Council, did not agree with this plan.

It is believed that Wei Renpu's strategy is no different from the plan of the Northern Expedition at the beginning of this year. At the beginning of the year, the Northern Expedition was to create the opportunity to suddenly enter the Northern Expedition, and Wei Renpu's strategy was to wait for a favorable opportunity... but the essence is still a surprise attack and a quick battle.

The previous method has proved that it failed, and we have to do it again, and neither Wang Pu nor the prime minister agrees very much.

Although the Northern Expedition did not suffer heavy damage, it consumed huge military spending and civilian power, and did not get any benefits.

When Guo Shao heard this, he stopped mentioning Wei Renpu's strategy.

A few days later, Guo Shao handled the memorial in Jinxiang Hall, and Zuo You and the other two were busy sorting out and sorting them out not far away.

At this time, Zuo You stood up, walked to the imperial desk with a memorial, and bowed and said: Your Majesty, this memorial is a bit unusual.

Guo Shao put down his brush, reached out to take it, looked carefully at the content without punctuation, and pondered: Guiyi Army?

Zuo You hurriedly said: The Guiyi Army is in the Hexi Corridor, which is the Dunhuang area.During the rebellion of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, he left Tubo and entered the Central Plains.But the situation there is complicated, traffic is blocked, and there has been no contact for many years.The Guiyi Army suddenly stated that it was a rare thing.

When Guo Shao heard familiar place names such as Hexi and Dunhuang, he immediately became interested and hurriedly asked the eunuch to find the map.

Unfortunately, on the largest map, only place names such as Shazhou (Dunhuang) are marked, and there is a blank space there.Guo Shao was stunned at the white paper and could not see anything.

Zuo You said: During the Han Dynasty, the Central Plains were obtained from the hands of the Huns, and the army built a city, so this place was found.For hundreds of years of the Han and Tang dynasties, the court took Hexi as its foundation, went out of the Western Regions, opened up trade routes, and all countries came to worship.It’s a pity that after the Anshi Rebellion, the war in the Central Plains became increasingly frugal.

Guo Shao's fingers stroked the blank space, and a familiar and confused feeling surged into his heart.

Most areas in the Western Regions should be modern Xinjiang; and Dunhuang belongs to Gansu, which are all well-known famous places.

Nearly a thousand years ago, China opened up territory in these places, but now it is in its own hands, and it is blank and cannot even find a map for a while.

Guo Shao, who had experienced extreme confidence and expansion, was very complicated at this time.The country is not as big as imagined.

He subconsciously measured the distance with his palm, and finally turned his attention to the place in Beijing in the northeast.Compared with the out-of-control in the west, Youzhou is the most threatening lost territory.

Guo Shao put this memorial alone and said: We must actively respond to the memorial of Guiyi Army.

This matter has received unprecedented attention. The Political Affairs Hall and the Privy Council have both reviewed many previous archives and probably figured out the situation in Hexi over the years.

After the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the Han people in the Hexi Corridor broke away from the control of Tubo and were very strong, with eleven states. The above statement was regarded as the Tang Dynasty as the main story and the Zhang family was the governor of the Guiyi Army.

After the fall of the Tang Dynasty, the Guiyi army suffered civil strife and its strength declined, becoming a vassal of the Ganzhou Uighurs.The Cao family, a great clan of Shazhou, restored the Guiyi Army and occupied the two prefectures, Sha and Gua, until now.

Recently, people from the Central Plains Dynasty wrote a letter to the people from the Cao family, named Cao Yuanzhong.

There is too little content in the memorial. The Central Plains have no time to look west in recent years and have little knowledge of the specific situation in the far west.Most of the ministers discussed matters with some speculation.

Ministers believed that the reason why Cao Yuanzhong sent people to contact Tokyo was because the Great Zhou Dynasty continued to expand and accelerate the unification of the world over the years, and his reputation had begun to spread to the distant places; Cao Yuanzhong was in a difficult situation in the complex Hexi area and wanted to use the title of the Central Plains dynasty to establish a reputation as orthodox in the local area.

For a time, officials scrambled to praise the emperor, and their reputation spread all over the world and gained recognition from all over the world.

Guo Shao sat on the dragon throne and had to admit that something was easy to be self-inflated by his ministers.But he still knew the facts in his heart: even the capital of later generations, Beijing, was not taken back.

The king and his ministers hit it off and generously responded to the Guiyi Army, formally enthroned Cao Yuanzhong: Hexi Jiedushi, the Great Protector of the Western Regions...

No one opposed it because the power of Zhou State could not reach Hexi at all, and in fact it could not control it.

The locals took the initiative to come to worship Zhengshuo, but they didn't want money or soldiers, so they were of course very generous.

In the court's attitude, Cao Yuanzhong was not only able to control Hexi in name, but also legitimately use the identity of the Central Plains dynasty to communicate with the tribes of the Western Regions.

Guo Shao decided to send an envoy and a Guiyi army envoy to Hexi, bring the imperial edict from the court, and go to find out the situation.

At this moment, Lu Duosun, an official from the Hanlin Academy, volunteered to serve as an envoy.

During the Battle of the Southern Tang Dynasty, Lu Duoxun risked his life to Jiangning to persuade him to surrender, but his contribution was not very effective in the Southern Tang War. In addition, his qualifications were too shallow, so he still did not receive any reuse after returning to the court.

This time he volunteered again, and Guo Shao agreed to his request.He also asked the Privy Council to order Wang Jing from Qinzhou to receive the imperial envoys and send troops to escort them.

...The Tokyo Guest Provincial Envoy had close contacts with the Wu Yue Kingdom, hoping that the Wu Yue Kingdom could surrender; Han Xizai, who was respected in Jiangnan, was also trying to persuade the Qian family.

But there is not much progress. Wu Yue Kingdom is obedient and pays tribute every year, but it still maintains a lot of force in the country.

On the one hand, the Great Zhou could not find a reason to launch troops against Wu Yue, but on the other hand, he felt that it was exhausting the people and the money... Wu Yue was not easy to fight. The Southern Tang Dynasty had not been destroyed after decades of war with it.

Last year, the Great Zhou Dynasty also sent an envoy to the Southern Han Kingdom to contact him. Unexpectedly, the lord of the Southern Han Kingdom responded to the court and actually called himself I and regarded himself as the Emperor of the Han Dynasty.This Guo Shao was very angry.

At the beginning of this year, people were sent to discuss, asking the Southern Han lord to give up the imperial title and to applaud the Zhou Dynasty... The ministers believed that this was a reasonable request.

Now the Great Zhou Dynasty is in charge of the Central Plains, annexing Shu, Southern Tang and a group of separatist regimes, which is the largest country; and the Southern Han Kingdom is in a corner, so it is natural to surrender to the Central Plains, and it is also a wise approach.

Unexpectedly, when Lu Duosun left Tokyo, he suddenly received a report from Jiangnan: the Lord of the Southern Han Dynasty and the envoy of the Great Zhou Dynasty did not reach an agreement, but he actually killed him in anger!

When the ministers heard the news, the court was in an uproar.

People cannot understand why the Lord of Southern Han did that, Wang Pu said directly: The Lord of Southern Han is a foolish monarch!

The ministers discussed and immediately launched a war against the Southern Han Dynasty.

The generals also volunteered to bring a group of troops to destroy the Southern Han Kingdom... The generals were very active. They saw that the Southern Han Kingdom was relatively weak and the internal darkness was also very dark. This was an obvious opportunity to make military achievements.

But Guo Shao did not make a statement immediately.Although he was as angry as the court officials, he could not disrupt his position; observing ministers such as Wang Pu, Li Gu, etc., he did not rush to shout for fighting and killing.

Guo Shao couldn't help but think about the specific considerations... The dispatch of troops was too far away. There were no soldiers in Jiangnan now. After the demise of the Southern Tang Kingdom, the elite soldiers were taken away and the military power was divided. It was mainly to guard against the rebellion of Wu and Yue Kingdom and the internal forces, and the attack was insufficient.

Secondly, it will take time to launch a rash battle to destroy the country thousands of miles away.

Before the Great Zhou Dynasty, the general idea was to first north and then south, to establish prestige through the Northern Expedition, and then take advantage of the opportunity to regain remote areas in the south; now launching a war in the south again is to change the strategic direction, and you cannot act rashly.

Guo Shao now needs an adjusted overall strategy.