The beginning of spring is a good solar term, and the plan for the year lies in spring, which means that spring can have a new beginning and new hope. At this time, those who are down and out will yearn to turn the world, while those who are successful will look forward to going to the next level. Hope is what everyone wants.

But for King Shu Wang Jian, this spring did not give him much vitality. Even if everything was thriving, his achievements were still dead. It may be inaccurate to say that death was too scarred, but it would be much more appropriate.

Sitting on the big chair in the main hall of the royal palace, the view through the empty hall and overlooking a large area of ​​Chengdu city outside the palace, Wang Jian's mood was lonely. It was like withered river grass, still glowing yellow, without any sign of greening.

The Yizhou City in front of you is no longer as prosperous as before. There are no few merchants and people standing shoulder to shoulder on the streets now.

After the Yuan Dynasty, the government opened seals, and even the officials were listless. For several days, even the palace was a little less than 100%.

Wang Jian's body is still round, strong and rich, but his eye sockets are deep and his eyelids are blue and purple, and he obviously has no energy.

The morning's meeting had already ended. Now that lunch time has passed, the waiter has come several times, and he is still sitting in the chair and is tracing his mind.

He was struggling to think about the way out of Shuzhong, or to be more precise, his own way out. There is a way out of Shuzhong, and there will be any way out. What he needs to do is to avoid the future of Shuzhong without himself.

Last year, the Central Plains was first defeated, with nearly 500,000 troops losing. Wang Jian's foundation was almost destroyed. Later, when Nanzhao learned about this, he launched a raid in winter. The prefectures and counties in central and southern Shu were successively destroyed, and the military situation was as hot as fire.

Wang Jian responded urgently, but there were less than 100,000 troops who could be transferred to the battlefield. News of the unfavorable situation was passed back to Chengdu, and many merchants and people fled.

In recent decades, Shu has not been peaceful, and Chengdu has not been brought to the city by Nanzhao troops. Everyone has learned to hear the news.

In the end, Wang Jian was able to withstand the Nanzhao army, and Wang Jian was completely fond of the monks' lives, especially the real-life cultivators. After the war, nearly half of the monks under his command were killed or injured! This made him red for half a month.

After the army's foundation was greatly damaged, the strength of the monks was greatly damaged. During the Shangyuan Festival, Wang Jian's generals actually appeared under his command! Three such incidents have occurred in the prefectures and counties bordering Hanzhong, and the highest position is a prefecture city defense envoy!

Not only were the generals on the run, but the monks were the same. If Wang Jian had not blocked the sword gate passage and carried out martial law in Chengdu, not only would the Qi-training monks escape, but even the real human realm would have been like this.

Of course, Wang Jian knew why these people ran away and why they ran away at this time.

When he was resisting the Nanzhao army, the court sent troops to Hexi, King An and King Qi to fight together, and defeated the twelve prefectures of Hexi for ten months, destroyed the Moon God Cult, and shocked the four fields.

Then he continued to work hard and led the army of monks to Liangzhou, and fought with Shimen at Pipa Mountain and Yangguan at Yangguan, which was a great victory, which shocked all directions.

Since then, Hexi and the northwest returned to the hands of the court. The remaining Shimen was subdued by King An and was willing to be the minion of the court and became a sword in King An's hand.

When Wang Jian and Li Ye were compared with the court in Shu, there was a difference between Wang Jian and Li Ye. Anyone with some knowledge could see the revival of the dynasty, and the decline in Shu was in danger.

In this case, it is normal for those who are determined to abandon Shu and surrender to the court.

Besides using his iron-blooded skills to behead the captured monks, killing chickens to warn monkeys, and opening the treasury to reward his subordinates, Wang Jian had no other way. The martial law measures in Shuzhong were treated with symptoms but not the root cause.

He must think of a good idea to break the situation soon.

"Your Highness, it's time to have a meal. No matter how worried military and political affairs are, you must take care of yourself. Once your Highness hurts your mind, it will be a disaster in Shu." Princess Liu came to Wang Jian's side and grabbed his hand to comfort him.

Wang Jian came back from his thoughts, sighed heavily, and looked at the gentle and virtuous Liu family and said, "Now there are rumors all over the city. It is said that when King An occupied Hexi, the reason why he did not launch a large army was to use troops to Shu after the beginning of spring. Everyone in Shu is in danger and his morale is sluggish. I have only one ability, but I can't use it!"

Liu shook his head and said firmly: "Your Highness defeated the Nanzhao army, which was in the northern offensive in less than 100,000 troops in ten months. The army was in full swing and everyone in Shu was in power. How could morale be sluggish? The mere rumors were just a small person who wanted to take advantage of the chaos and make profits. Your Highness didn't have to care about these."

Wang Jian laughed at himself, "I defeated the Nanzhao soldiers and horses! They had enough money and people, and they didn't want to fight for a long time in the cold winter, so they retreated. I just curbed their attack on Chengdu. In this way, they also lost nearly half of the realm..."

Speaking of this, Wang Jian turned his head and looked out the hall gate, his eyes full of bitterness.

He continued: "When the King of Nanzhao retreated, he was still shouting at me in front of Guancheng, saying that when the flowers bloomed this spring, he would definitely raise one million troops to capture Chengdu Prefecture, Yizhou in one fell swoop! The unscrupulous Nanman dared to be so arrogant. At that time, I really wanted to take off his head! It's a pity that he had the heart but lacked strength..."

Liu held Wang Jian's hand tightly, tears filled his eyes, "Your Highness, you should not underestimate yourself! You have ambitions and great talents. Even if there are some setbacks in front of us, we will eventually overcome the difficulties..."

"Train through the difficulties?" Wang Jian shook his head, "I'm afraid there is no chance. If nothing unexpected happens, King An will soon be sent to Shuzhong. Now, the whole country is the only one who does not return to the court, and he will not let Shuzhong go.

"Do you know that it is circulating in Shu now. Wang An is wearing a sword in his green shirt and fighting 50,000 monks before Yangguan, and he stepped on a flying boat and returned home. What they say is the deeds of King An, and the will to return to the court!

"The human heart is no longer with me, what can I do?"

Liu's face was filled with tears, and he was crying so hard that he could not speak.

Wang Jian patted her hands, gave her comfort, stood up, looked at Chengdu City with his hands behind his back, and his back was slapped: "From the moment King Qi surrendered to King An, I knew that I had walked onto a single-plank bridge in Shu. I thought I could still make a difference while King An went to Hexi, but I didn't expect that Nanzhao's invasion at this time made me feel passionate... to waste my life!

"The general trend is in the court or not, this is the number of days, what can people do?"

Li Ye met Wukong and Wei Xiaozhuang in the palace. These two people are now sect leaders, and are responsible for preaching on the plateau, helping the court to control the Tubo people spiritually, and infiltrate the Uighurs in the Western Regions.

This time the two came together, in addition to reporting on the plateau and Western Regions affairs, they also discussed the intention of the two religions to divide their spheres of influence in the Tang Dynasty in the future.

The struggle between Buddhism and Taoism has been a long time. Although the current Quanzhen Temple and Wukong Shumen are essentially different from the previous Taoism, they are still two hills after all. In order to avoid internal strife, Li Ye needs to draw a territory for them.

"There is no division of territory, and it's not a gang, so why do you build a mountain?" Li Ye waved his hand and said to Wukong and Wei Xiaozhuang: "Shimen, Quanzhen Temple, will be the two sects under the jurisdiction of the imperial court in the future. Eliminate the deceptive narrations in your doctrine and just act as ordinary sects."

Wukong and Wei Xiaozhuang looked at each other and saw the bitterness in each other's eyes.

Without those deceptive classics, how can you fool the Tubo people and control their thoughts and spirits?

Li Ye quickly thought of this and added: "You can deceive outsiders, but there is no need to do anything to the Chinese. Well, when the Tang army goes outward, you will be the vanguard, infiltrate the enemy country first, and control the enemy's thoughts. When the army arrives, it is of course the best if they can surrender without fighting.

"We cannot let the enemy country surrender, at least we must fool their people and cooperate with the army inside and outside."

Speaking of this, Li Ye paused for a moment, touched his chin and said seriously: "It seems a bit too much to say the word 'fool'. After all, you are also part of our Han and Tang civilizations, representing our face, and not completely lie to others.

"You go back and change the doctrine first. The key is to let others know our power and arouse their admiration for the Han and Tang Dynasties, and be proud to be a Tang man when they can go to Chang'an of the Tang Dynasty and be a Tang man. Inspire them to fight for their whole life in order to become Tang people! Change the word "false" and "ideological transformation" or "promote ideological progress" to be more accurate."

After hearing what Li Ye said, Wukong and Wei Xiaozhuang looked embarrassed.

Li Ye was relaxed when he spoke. It would be a huge project to change the teachings of the two religions like this.

However, since Li Ye gave the order, they had no room for refusal and could only do as they said.

Although the workload is large, the prospects depicted by Li Ye are very attractive. As long as you think about Quanzhen View in the future, wherever Wukong Shu goes, they are all people who are devoted to the Tang Dynasty and are all people who have fought for the Tang Dynasty for their whole life, which is a crazy thing.

What is the difference between fighting for the Tang Dynasty and fighting for the Tang Dynasty? When they arrive in the Tang Dynasty, they will pay taxes to the Tang Dynasty court. If they lose their household registration in the future, they will become serious Tang Dynasty people.

Those who can do this are naturally elites from all states. They all become bricks and tiles of the Tang Dynasty, which can be regarded as the introduction of talents, which can definitely promote the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty.

Of course, the threshold for becoming a Tang people must be raised, the number of people must be strictly controlled, and the status must be limited, so that the old stories of An Lushan must not be repeated.

After understanding this, Wukong and Wei Xiaozhuang felt that one day, Quanzhen Temple and Wukong Shimen could really be built to the horizon.

After Wukong and Wei Xiaozhuang left, Li Ye picked up a document and naturally reviewed it, as if he had just said a lot of common words.

At this time, he did not realize that the sects under the jurisdiction of the imperial court were only two religions that changed the thoughts of the enemy nations. In the process of future development, they gradually became state spy agencies.

This extremely powerful secret service agency has doctrine and strength, which can not only change people's thoughts, but also destroy people's body.

When dealing with people who can turn enemies into me, doctrine is a powerful tool to spread the gospel of the Celestial Empire. When dealing with "backward factions" who cannot turn enemies into me, strength is the executioner who sends them to hell.

Continuously improving one's view of Quanzhen and Wukong Shu, he truly became a favorable pioneer for the Tang army to expand the border.

They are demons that make the rulers of the enemy country frightened, but they are also the envoys of the enemy country...

......

As Wang Jian expected, when spring was in full bloom, Li Ye mobilized the troops of various towns in Guanzhong, and the newly formed Shence army began to march towards Hanzhong, preparing to completely deal with the sleeping person who was sleeping beside the bed in Shuzhong.

The newly compiled Shence Army is to draw elite troops from various vassal states to form. On the one hand, it ensures its own strong combat power, and on the other hand, it also weakens the military strength of the vassal states, which is a killing of two birds with one stone.

At the beginning, the army of the vassal states was mostly composed of refugees, and later formed a stable interest group within the vassal states, and everything was for the vassal states and their own survival and interests.

Whenever the imperial court issued an edict, the vassal army refused to fight to the death, retreated when encountering danger, and moved forward if there were benefits, and slacked off without rewards. They ordered the court to violate the rules and even ignored them directly, creating a situation of "superb soldiers and generals".

To the court, the vassal state army was already very similar to the mercenary army.

They have their own interests and survival rules, and they have no allegiance to the court.

Now that Li Ye is here, the vassal states dare not cause rebellion. The civil servants, generals and monks sent by the court have gradually grasped the power of the vassal states and controlled the situation.

After implementing the new policy, allowing the people to farm and live and work in peace and contentment, and solving the problem of refugees, the foundation of the existence of the vassal states was weakened, and then gradually eroding the strength of the vassal states to achieve the ultimate state of no longer exists, which is Li Ye's solution to the cancer of the vassal states.

In winter, when Li Ye and King Qi went to fight Hexi, Li Zhen, Cui Keli and others had completed the preliminary selection of the Shence Army. Although the number of people was not large for the time being, there were 300,000, and the Pinglu Army was the backbone.

The new Shence Army was named Chang'an Imperial Army by Li Ye, and is temporarily under the jurisdiction of three numbers: Longxiang Army, Tiger Guard Army, and Wolf Fang Army. Each army has 100,000 combat soldiers, with a main general, named General of the Commander and a deputy general under the jurisdiction.

In order to avoid excessive authority, the imperial guards did not have a commander, but only a general in command of each army, and unified it under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council. The three armies of Longxiang, Huwei and Langya were respectively named Zhao Polu, Zhao Bingkun, Shangguan Qingcheng as the generals, and Zhao Nianci, Yang Xingmi, Sun Ru and others were all among the deputy generals.

The 300,000 elite troops in the battle are the first phase of Li Ye's policy of strengthening and weakening.

After 300,000 Chang'an Imperial Guards and 200,000 troops from various Guanzhong towns entered Hanzhong, they temporarily stopped moving forward and received more than ten days of rest.

Next, the army will head towards Jianmen. The road is rugged and narrow, and it is difficult to walk. Fierce battle is about to break out, so that the soldiers can regain their strength and prepare for fierce battles.

Li Ye took the eldest son Siming, Li Maozhen and Song Jiao, while the army was resting, flew over the Big and Big Sword Mountain and overlooked the Jianmen Pass.

"The road to Shu is difficult, it is harder than to reach the sky. When a large army enters Shu, it must not only walk the narrow and dangerous plank road in the mountain, but also must conquer Jianmen Pass. This is a real place where ten thousand men can't open the pass. It is also equipped with a special guardian magic array. The real world is useless to use it. In ancient times, the forces that separatist Shu have all relied on this natural barrier to the majesty."

King Qi opened the folding fan and shook it gently on his chest, with a graceful and elegant look. "Although Wang Jian suffered many soldiers and generals due to the two major battles, it would be extremely difficult for the army to enter Shu if he guarded Jianmen Pass to the death."

Seeing that she was speaking seriously and solemnly, Li Ye smiled and said, "Did King Qi have already made good plans to break the barrier?"

"I don't have a good strategy to break the pass." King Qi snapped away the folding fan, tapped his palm gently, and paused for a moment, "But I have one of the plans to pacify Shu."

"I hope King Qi will give you advice." Li Ye pretended to bow and said in a cooperative manner.

King Qi smiled at the corner of his eyes and expressed his appreciation for Li Ye's cooperation. "It's simple. I'll go to Chengdu to persuade Wang Jian to surrender."

Li Ye didn't expect that the other party's plan to pacify Shu was to ride alone to persuade Wang Jian to surrender! Even though he was used to King Qi's increasing recklessness and domineeringness, he was deeply surprised at this moment. But looking at King Qi's appearance, it really didn't seem to be joking.

Li Ye said seriously: "If you can persuade Wang Jian to surrender, it will be of great benefit. Your Majesty and I will not hesitate to protect him from his whole life. If you attack Jianmen Pass, the soldiers will indeed suffer heavy losses, adding countless orphans and widows to the Tang Dynasty. However, this plan must be practical."

He did not think that Li Maozhen could convince Wang Jian to surrender.

Li Maozhen patted Li Ye on the shoulder, looking like a close sister, and she sighed with a serious scent.

She said seriously: "Wang Jian and I met Shen Ce Army. At the beginning, we were considered close friends. Later, we stayed in Fengxiang Army together to participate in the quelling of the Huang Chao Rebellion, and we also had the friendship of bloody comrades. After the incident, you, me, Zhu Wen, and Wang Jian were having fun in the Anwang Mansion and had brotherly feelings.

"Although after that, everyone went their separate ways and became rivals in the face of the torrent of great struggles in the world, there was no personal grudge. We had never killed his wife and children, nor did he kill my parents. At present, Wang Jian was in trouble in Shu, and he wanted no soldiers, no food, and the struggle was just to increase casualties and could not change the general trend.

"The dynasty wants to revive and the prosperous age will come again. In the end, it is to use troops from outside. If you compare with foreign races, you can shed less blood in the country. It is better. After all, I will be able to pull him in his desperate situation. This guy is not a fool. He should see the situation clearly and serve in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, so he will not let him down."
To be continued...