Wu Chenghou was satisfied but not dissatisfied with his nephew.
The third prince, Prince Jing, is unfit for the throne in terms of ability and character, as he is greedy for wine, lustful, irritable, and has no palace.
Wu Chenghou saw this clearly.
If King Jing had not had the support of these noble groups behind him, his competitiveness for the throne would not even be as good as King Yu, who seemed submissive at first.
To put it bluntly, it means being born well.
This is where Marquis Wu Cheng is dissatisfied with King Jing, but at the same time, it is also where he is satisfied.
King Jing's character and ability also represent good control.
If King Jing ascends the throne, then the control of Dali will essentially fall on these nobles, and it can be said that their power status will reach an unprecedented level.
Wealth and honor are found in danger, so although King Jing was unworthy of being promoted, the nobles headed by Marquis Wu Cheng still stood on King Jing's side.
But Wu Chenghou actually had no other choice.
In the upper class of feudal society, everyone was a member of their own family, and their behavior could not entirely rely on their own preferences, but must consider the interests of the family.
Unless King Jing publicly expresses his intention to give up the throne, other princes and princes will not be able to accept his surrender simply by virtue of their blood relationship.
Who knows if Wu Chenghou pretended to surrender and then stabbed him in the back at a critical moment.
No one can ignore the danger posed by a foreign relative with military power.
Even now, even King Cheng, whose body is occupied by the world lord's clone, dare not recruit Wu Chenghou to his command before King Jing expresses his intention to give up the throne - even if Wu Chenghou has already expressed his intention to surrender.
mean.
Because of the competition for the throne, undercurrents surged in the court.
Marquis Wucheng is recognized as a force of King Jing. At this time, how can a force that does not belong to King Jing allow Marquis Wu Cheng to go on an expedition to perform meritorious service and increase the advantage for King Jing!
Therefore, even though he went to court many times, he was turned back by the court every time.
From here we can also see the difference between Wuchenghou, the border marshal, and Di Xin, the border general.
In terms of rank, the Border Marshal is a dignified first-rank official, while the Zhenguan General is a second-rank official.
Because of the different jurisdictions, no one can control the other in normal times, but if there is a joint battle between multiple borders, unless there is a special order from the court, Emperor Xin will need to obey the command of Marquis Wu Cheng.
As for the troops he could recruit, the taxes he could put into his own pocket, etc., Wuchenghou had much more than Di Xin.
Apart from anything else, Emperor Xin was able to expand his troops many times because of his achievements, which even included the achievements of destroying the Turks and opening up new territories.
But even so, the total number of troops in northern Xinjiang is only 90,000.
As for Southern Xinjiang, when Marquis Wu Cheng was promoted to Grand Marshal of the Border, he had the authority to command an army of 100,000 troops, which was 10,000 more troops than Emperor Xin had now, let alone before.
As a marquis, Wuchenghou, like Di Xin who was named a prince, actually had his own fiefdom in Dali.
But that's only in name.
For a true member of the royal family like Di Xin, he could only return to his fiefdom with the emperor's permission - but without the emperor's permission, once he returned to his fiefdom, he could not come out at will.
This is the same as how Emperor Xin could not leave the capital at will before he was promoted to General Zhenguan.
People in the royal family are actually not as comfortable as ordinary people sometimes.
As for Wuchenghou, his fiefdom was smaller than that of Emperor Xin who was a prince, but similarly, he could only be allowed to return to his territory when he resigned from his official position and retired.
To put it bluntly, the fiefdom was a place for these princes to retire, and only when they returned to the fiefdom could they get their share of the tax revenue from those places.
This is also the reason why Di Xin never made any plans to fief his own land after arriving in Northern Xinjiang.
If he dared to intervene in matters concerning his fiefdom in advance, a memorial saying "Prince Yu has impure thoughts" would be photographed in front of the old emperor.
But after all, the prince's status is more noble than that of his maternal relative, the marquis.
Therefore, although Emperor Xin's General of Zhenguan was lower in rank than the General of Border Pass, and his various powers were correspondingly reduced, there was one thing that none of Marquis Wu Cheng could envy.
That's right, it is the right to send troops that can be decided by oneself without going through the court.
Although all this must be based on the premise that the territory under his jurisdiction will not be invaded, it is enough to make others envious.
Therefore, when he learned that King Yu was still not satisfied after destroying the Turks, so he chose to expedition against the barbarians who were supposed to be faced in other territories, Wu Chenghou immediately threw the table.
In the eyes of those who were also border commanders, King Yu's behavior was just to gain credit.
In the eyes of Wu Chenghou, who had gone to court several times to no avail, it was even more of a slap in the face.
Since you want to destroy Ryukyu so much but the court doesn't allow it, then I'm here to help you!
This is probably what Wu Chenghou had in mind for King Yu, and his response was——
Who wants your help?
If he could send troops, he could destroy Ryukyu himself. With the combat power of his navy, it would not be difficult to destroy the even more vicious Yingzhou further away.
However, no matter how furious he was, he could not organize the Northern Xinjiang Expeditionary Force.
He, the first-rank border general in southern Xinjiang, has no command authority at all over the second-rank general in Zhenguan in northern Xinjiang.
Even if two people meet, the second-rank Zhenguan General who should be saluting the first-rank Border Pass Grand Marshal will turn into Wu Chenghou and salute Emperor Xin because of his status as a prince.
This is the rule of the family.
The identity of a member of the royal family must always be higher than those of official positions.
When the news came out, the servants in the Marshal's Mansion could hear various smashing sounds and angry sounds coming from the study, and the servants who were cleaning up the study at the back saw the mess all over the place.
It is said that a nephew follows his uncle.
King Jing would have a violent and irritable temper, and some clues can be seen from Marquis Wu Cheng.
However, for Marquis Wu Cheng to rise from a relative to the position of general marshal at the border, even if his family's fortune was involved, there must be something special about him.
We have to face the possible invasion of barbarians all the time. If we don't have any real skills and knowledge, I'm afraid I won't even know how I died.
When Wu Chenghou walked out of the study that day, he had already regained his composure.
After that, he didn't do anything unwise because of his emotions.
He just watched the expeditionary force's direction with a cold eye, silently collecting all the information.