Tibet

Wei Jiansu hurried to the imperial study. The emperor had not summoned him for several months. What did Wei Jiansu feel when he suddenly summoned him this time?

"I am here to see you, Your Majesty!" Wei Jiansu bowed respectfully.

"Long time no see. How is Wei Aiqing?" Li Heng asked with concern.

"Thank you for your concern, Your Majesty. I can eat and sleep, and I am in good health."

"That's good. At this age, your body is the most important thing. You must take good care of it."

Wei Jiansu was confused. Why did the emperor suddenly care about his body?

The answer was revealed immediately. Emperor Li Heng pondered for a moment and said: "If Wei Aiqing's health is still okay, I would like to ask Wei Aiqing to make another trip to Longyou."

It turned out that I wanted to go to Longyou, and I talked about it for a long time.

Wei Jiansu immediately bowed and said: "I am willing to share your worries for Your Majesty!"

Li Heng showed a smile on his face and waved his hands quickly: "Please sit down! Let's sit down and talk slowly."

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for sitting down!" Wei Jiansu sat down on the soft pier next to him.

Li Heng said slowly: "I have decreed to move the capital to Luoyang. There are less than twenty days left until mid-March. Everyone is almost ready. The first batch of material transportation ships has already set off.

But my only worry is that after the capital was moved to Luoyang, the gap left in Chang'an and even Guanzhong, and Guanzhong is close to Longyou. The power of King Qi is likely to expand to Guanzhong. Even if he does not expand explicitly, I am also worried about his secret expansion. , so I really want to sign a contract with King Qi to agree on the spheres of influence of both parties, and hope that his army will not enter Guanzhong. "

Wei Jiansu frowned and said: "Your Majesty, as far as I know, Longyou's troops and supplies go to Bashu via Chencang Road. If his troops are not allowed to enter Guanzhong, it may not be realistic."

"It's okay to borrow a way, but what I mean is that you can't stay in Guanzhong, especially Jingzhao Mansion, and you can't enter Chang'an in the name of maintaining law and order. Does Wei Aiqing understand what I mean?"

Wei Jiansu nodded, "Weichen understands!"

Li Heng then said slowly: "In addition, I also want Wei Aiqing to go to Longyou to negotiate a deal. I want to exchange Beiting, Anxi, and Hezhou with the King of Qi. First, his power cannot enter Guanzhong. Second, return Jingxiang to me."

Only then did Wei Jiansu understand the emperor's wishful thinking. It had to be said that this was indeed a very good idea. The imperial court could not control Anbeiting, so it simply exchanged them to the King of Qi and at the same time obtained the benefits he needed.

Wei Jiansu pondered for a moment and said, "But Jingzhou, Mianzhou and Xiazhou are still in the hands of King Qi. I'm afraid they won't hand them over easily."

Li Heng nodded, "I am considering exchanging the Central Guizhou Road for the Six Prefectures of Jingnan, but this is the next step, so I won't mention it this time."

Wei Jiansu understood the emperor's thoughts. Through the exchange with Anbeiting, Li Ye directly gave up Jingzhou, Mianzhou and Xiazhou because they also belonged to Jingxiang. But was Li Ye so stupid?

Moreover, Wei Jiansu knew Li Ye very well. The emperor moved the capital to Luoyang. It would be strange if Li Ye did not expand to Guanzhong. The emperor thought too simplistically. Maybe in the end, An Beiting was lost and Guanzhong was not saved.

Wei Jiansu didn't say much. He said in a deep voice: "Wei Chen will pack up today and leave for Longyou tomorrow!"

"good!"

Li Heng said happily: "I heard that the King of Qi has another son, and he can be crowned King of Heyuan County on my behalf."

Early the next morning, Wei Jiansu set out for Longyou.

At this time in Xiangyang, the situation changed again.

The confidant soldiers Liang Chongyi sent to Xiahe Village, Shangyu County, Songzhou to find out the situation came back.

The confidant soldier reported to Liang Chongyi: "Bizhi found Xiahe Village and met Wang Dian's parents, wife and children. Bizhi gave twenty taels of silver to his parents. His parents were very grateful. Several other parents in the village also came to inquire. The situation of their son is that of the family members of several of Wang Dian’s men.”

"There's nothing unusual!"

The confidant soldier shook his head and said, "There is nothing unusual. There is one more thing. Wang Dian may have made a mistake."

Liang Chongyi was startled, "What?"

"The county government sent people to arrest Wang Dian, but it was not because he was a deserter, but because he had a murder case in his hometown before joining the army, and the case was not closed. So after he came back as a deserter, the family members of the host went to the county government to file a complaint, and the county government The government was about to arrest him, and his relatives in the county government came to tell him to run away. This was what his parents told me personally. I went to the county government to inquire about it, and the clerk helped me find out that Wang Dian had been arrested five years ago. There is indeed a murder involved.”

Liang Chongyi nodded and smiled: "He should know that he just used the excuse of catching deserters to coax other men to run away with him, that's what I say! I haven't heard of catching deserters in other places, so why did I go to Yu County to catch them? ? It turned out to be an excuse from Wang Dian."

The arrest of deserters was indeed a loophole. In order to fill this loophole, the Intelligence Department did not hesitate to bribe the Shangyu County Magistrate and County Cheng to fabricate a murder case record for Wang Dian and put it into the county government files. Now it was seamless and Wang Dian was guaranteed The authenticity of the sources and the archival record of his murder.

Liang Chongyi was completely relieved, and he immediately ordered Wang Dian to be promoted to the commander of the eighth battalion, with his men in charge of five thousand troops.

It has been half a month since Wang Dian joined Liang Chongyi's army. He continued to select elite and strong men from the laborers who built the palace and developed them into his own subordinates. Every day, there were gains, ranging from twenty to thirty men to more than a dozen. After half a month, he has accumulated two thousand people under his command. After putting on armor and training, they are really like that, neat, powerful and murderous.

In Wang Dian's words, the people he selected had all served in the army, been on the battlefield, and experienced the temper of war, so they had a murderous feeling.

That morning, Wang Dian was promoted to the commander of the eighth battalion. Liang Chongyi allocated him another 3,000 troops, bringing his strength to 5,000. He also received his first task, to transport a batch of military rations back to Rang County, Dengzhou. Xiangyang.

Wang Dian left three thousand troops, led by his deputy Li Shangfeng, to continue to guard the civilians building the palace. Wang Dian personally led his two thousand troops and escorted thousands of carts to Rang County to transport grain.

Rang County is the seat of the capital of Dengzhou. It is relatively close to Xiangyang. It only takes two days to get there. Five days later, two thousand soldiers escorted thousands of carts full of grain back to the city at night. The carts came one after another in a mighty manner. As they drove into the city, the city gates were brightly lit, illuminating the carts as they entered the city, but soon they drove into darkness. Each cart was hung with a lantern so that the carriages in front and behind could see it.

After one of the large carts entered the dark street, the lantern suddenly went out and turned around into another alley. The carriage behind did not see it and continued to follow the lantern in front, speeding up to follow.

Not long after a carriage in front entered the alley, it soon entered an open gate. When the carriage entered, the gate was immediately closed.

In the large yard, several men unloaded an extremely heavy wooden box and hid it in the hay pile. Everyone quickly carried it to the back room.