Hong Yuetian has always been friendly with the eldest prince Xiao Ting, and he believes that the throne of Sichuan should also be inherited by Xiao Ting, after all, he is the eldest son, and it is natural to inherit the throne.
Without the instruction of the imperial court, Hong Yuetian took matters into his own hands, left the fiefdom, led the Hong family army back to Zhaoyang, the Sichuan capital, and stationed the army outside Zhaoyang City.
The Hongjia Army is the largest family army, with a total strength of 150,000 people, and the whole army is prepared by the regular army of the Qing Dynasty, and its combat power can be described as extremely strong, and it is not inferior to the Zhongyng Army, or even better.
Hong Yuetian led the army back to the capital, which made the ministers and generals who supported Xiao Xiang nervous.
Soon after the Hongjia army arrived in Zhaoyang, there were a total of twelve princes such as Xiao Yi, Marquis Xiao Yong, Marquis of Wuguan, Dou Zhong, Marquis of Chishan, and Liu Zhen, Marquis of Qingyun, who led their respective family armies to Zhaoyang one after another.
The princes all have their own spheres of influence, and they all have a large family army under their command, and who will inherit the throne is closely related to their vital interests.
The princes returned to the capital one after another, and their intentions were unknown, and the four generals Zhang Situ, Yang Zhao, Lu You, and Bu Ying came to Xiao Xiang's princess's mansion to discuss with her how to deal with it.
At present, the four generals Zhang Situ, Yang Zhao, Lu You, and Bu Ying can control the Sichuan Zhongyng Army, which has a total of eight corps, the first, third, fourth, sixth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth corps, and the ninth and eleventh corps are far away in Zhenxi and are basically useless, and the six corps that can be directly dispatched are the first, third, fourth, sixth, tenth, and twelfth corps.
There are also the second, fifth, seventh, eighth, thirteenth, and fourteenth legions near Zhaoyang, and in addition, there are now more family armies of the thirteenth princes such as Hong Yuetian, with a total of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses, and the situation is becoming more and more complicated.
When discussing countermeasures, Zhang Situ first spoke: "Hong Yuetian has always been friendly with the eldest prince, this time he returned to the capital without authorization, and he must have come to support the eldest prince, in addition, many of the other twelve princes also supported the eldest prince and the second prince, and the eldest prince and the second prince are now united, the situation is not optimistic for us."
Listening to his analysis, everyone frowned and nodded one after another, thinking that his analysis was reasonable.
If the princes don't return to the capital to participate, they can also use their prestige in the army to forcibly promote Xiao Xiang to the throne, and now that the princes have returned to the capital, they still led their respective family armies to rush over with murderous spirits, and it has become impossible for them to force Xiao Xiang to push Xiao Xiang against public opinion.
Bu Ying looked around at everyone, and suddenly said: "The battle for the throne has reached the point of life and death, if the princess can successfully ascend to the throne, you and I can be safe, if the princess loses, whether it is the eldest son or the second son, not only is it difficult for the court to have a foothold for us, and even whether our head can be kept is unknown."
Now, it can be said that we are standing in the same boat as the princess, and we can only help each other in the same boat, and there is no way back."
The more Yang Zhao listened, the more he felt that Bu Ying was having something to say, and he asked, "What does General Bu mean by this?"
"What I mean is, the princess is glorious, then I am glorious, the princess is declining, then I am declining, now, we must do our best to assist the princess, if we hide our selfishness, look forward and backward, and stab each other, in the end, we will only suffer from it" Buying said in a deep voice.
Pa Yang Zhao was furious, slapped the case, and asked angrily: "You are alluding to our evil intentions and being unfaithful to the princess."
Bu Yingzheng said: "I just kindly reminded you, and I have no other intentions."
"You are obviously holding a sand shè shadow" Yang Zhao was so angry that his beard was raised so high that his eyes were round, and he almost rolled up his arms and sleeves, and rushed over to fight with Bu Ying.
Seeing this, Xiao Xiang, who had been silent, waved his hand to the two of them again and again, and persuaded them: "Okay, General Bu and General Yang, now that the situation is tense, if it is not good, it will make trouble to the point of fighting each other, and we will not have chaos within ourselves." ” Hearing Xiao Xiang's words, Yang Zhao forcibly suppressed his anger, glared at Bu Ying fiercely, and sat back angrily.
Xiao Xiang looked around at everyone and asked, "The princes led the family army back to the capital one after another, and the generals have a good plan."
Zhang Situ said worriedly: "What the last general is most afraid of is that the family army will join forces and be enemies of the princess, so that he will not say any more, but shook his head again and again.
The princes of the thirteenth road, each of the family armies has tens of thousands of people, especially the Hongjia army, a family has 150,000 soldiers and horses, if so many armies are really united in one place, they can compete with the zhongyng army, not to mention, the four of them have not yet mastered all the zhongyung army.
"General Zhang is right," Lu You said slowly: "There are two keys now, one is that we can't let the princes unite, and the other is that we have to win over the two people immediately. ” Xiao Xiang's heart moved, and he asked, "Which two people are General Lu talking about?"
Lu Youzheng said: "One is Wei Heng, and the other is Ren Fang." ” Wei Heng and Ren Fang are both generals.
Wei Heng is the old aristocrat of Sichuan State, for hundreds of years, the Wei family has provided batch after batch of generals and talents for Sichuan State, and there are countless children of the Wei family who have been stained with blood on the battlefield and shrouded in horse leather, and it can be said that the whole family has made great contributions to Sichuan State.
Wei Heng has a high reputation among the Sichuan army, even if he can't reach the first call, but it is not far away, and he also directly controls the second army, which is the strongest in Sichuan.
As for Ren Fang, he was even more famous general, when the Four Kingdoms were attacking the wind, Ren Fang served as the commander of the coalition army, and was one of the representatives of the new aristocracy of Sichuan.
Xiao Xuan also trusted Ren Fang very much during his lifetime, and handed over the command of the three Zhongyng Army Corps to him alone, Xiao Xuan dared to leave the capital to expedition to Shenchi, also because Ren Fang sat in Zhaoyang.
It's just that since Xiao Xuan's death, Wei Heng and Ren Fang's attitudes have not been clear, and they have not clearly expressed who to support or who not to support.
Wei Heng, as usual, lived in a simple house, even if any prince or princess went to visit, he mostly said that he was sick, Xiao Ting, Xiao Yuan and even Xiao Xiang had eaten his closed-door soup.
As for Ren Fang, he did it more simply, after Xiao Xuan died of illness, he moved directly to the military camp outside the city to live, away from the big quagmire of Zhaoyang, from which it can also be seen that Ren Fang is a smart person, and he also knows the way to protect himself.
Wei Heng and Ren Fang's approach is tantamount to making it clear that they don't want to participate in the battle for the throne between Gongzi and the princess, no matter who inherits the throne, he has no objection.
If the princes did not return to the capital, Xiao Xiang and his faction could not be so anxious to win over centrists like Wei Heng and Ren Fang, but now they can't help but be in a hurry, if they don't have the support of these two people, they may not be able to gain the upper hand in the game with the princes.
After listening to Lu You's words, Xiao Xiang was a little deflated, and she didn't say anything for a long time, and after a while, she sighed softly and said: "In the past, this palace has not worked hard, and I have personally visited General Wei and General Ren, but General Wei is closed, and although General Ren has seen this palace, he has not expressed his attitude to support this palace, and now if I go to win over the two of them, I am afraid that it will be difficult to succeed."
Lu You said: "General Wei can be persuaded by the last general, as for General Ren, the last general is not sure to persuade him, so he can only bother the princess to go again in person." ” Xiao Xiang didn't care about going to the barracks outside the city, but she was worried that she would go in vain.
She pondered for a moment and asked curiously, "General Lu is confident that he can convince General Wei."
Lu You smiled slightly, and said: "Although the old general doesn't care about who inherits the throne, but the old general's loyalty to my Sichuan country will never change, and now the princes do not listen to the imperial court's orders, and return to the capital without authorization, they have committed the crime of disobedience. ” Xiao Xiang nodded again and again when she heard this, and secretly praised Lu You for being smart and clever, this entry point was just right She smiled and said, "This palace can also follow General Lu and persuade General Ren for the same reason." ” The smile on Lu You's face turned into a wry smile, he was confident that he could convince Wei Heng with this, but he didn't have the confidence to convince Ren Fang, not that Ren Fang's loyalty to the Sichuan Kingdom was lacking, but he couldn't see through Ren Fang at all, and he couldn't guess what he was thinking in his heart.
He looked at Xiao Xiang again and again, and finally swallowed back the words that came to his mouth, and said in a low voice: "Try it, maybe the princess can really convince Ren Fang."
Xiao Xiang accepted Lu You's suggestion and went out of the city again to find Ren Fang at the Sichuan army garrison outside the city, trying to persuade him to stand on his side.
She could think of wooing and letting go, how could Xiao Ting and Xiao Yuan not think that it was just the same result as Xiao Xiang, Xiao Ting and Xiao Yuan also failed to succeed.
Ren Fang currently lives in the barracks of the Fifth Army, the headquarters of the Fifth Army is located in the north of Zhaoyang, dozens of miles away, there is a large vast plain area, as far as the eye can see, there are patches of farmland, that is the Fifth Army's tuntian.
There is a kind of person who is born with the material of commander, Ren Fang is such a person, he knows very well the importance of grain and grass for the legion, and the tuntian of the fifth, seventh, and eighth legions under his control is the best, and the three legions not only do not need to ask the court for grain and grass every year, but also can hand over grain and grass to the court in turn, even so, the granaries of the three legions are all hoarded, as long as there is a war, these three legions do not need to make preliminary preparations, and they can immediately send troops to fight
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