When there were external threats, Sun Kewang, Liu Wenxiu, Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi could advance and retreat together.
However, as soon as He Luohui retreated to Guanzhong, the contradictions between the four people immediately exposed. Sun Kewang was originally called Sun Kewang, and he changed "Wang" to "Wang". It goes without saying that he was looking at the throne left by Zhang Xianzhong.
But his prestige was not enough to convince the other three.
When Zhang Xianzhong was alive, he played a balancing act. The troops led by his four adopted sons were of similar strength. If Sun Kewang wanted to seize the throne left by Zhang Xianzhong, he had to win the support of at least two of them. Only with absolute advantage could he achieve his wish.
When Qin Mu's envoy Wang Huanran came to Sichuan, Li Dingguo intended to ally with Qin to fight against the Qing Dynasty. Ai Nengqi was on good terms with Li Dingguo and also tended to agree with Li Dingguo's opinion, so the four of them had a quarrel over this.
Later, Sun Kewang received a secret report saying that Wang Huan later went to meet Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi, gave them many gifts, and had secret talks for a long time before happily leaving Shu.
Sun Kewang, sensing that the situation was changing, decided to strike first. He invited Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi to his house overnight under the pretext of a meeting, and armed them with a knife, intending to subdue the two first, then take over their troops and force Liu Wenxiu to accept the facts.
However, just as Sun Kewang shouted to attack and the ambushed swordsmen rushed in, two violent explosions were heard outside the hall. Smoke and dust filled the air, beams and pillars shook, tiles fell one after another, and everyone was panicked.
Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi took advantage of the chaos to rush out, joined forces with the personal soldiers in the front yard, and together they broke out of Sun Kewang's mansion.
Sun Kewang didn't have time to figure out why the explosion happened suddenly, because Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi immediately joined forces and led their troops back, and a melee broke out.
Liu Wenxiu was confused and withdrew from Chengdu to protect himself. Sun Kewang was defeated by the coalition forces of Li and Ai and was forced to withdraw from Chengdu before dawn.
Afterwards, Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang both sent people to find Liu Wenxiu, each arguing his own point. Liu Wenxiu was unable to tell right from wrong, so he led his 40,000 troops to Chongqing in anger. Sun Kewang failed to win over Liu Wenxiu, and could not cope with the offensive of Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi alone, so he was forced to retreat south to Jiading Prefecture with 50,000 troops.
The split of the four men caused chaos in the prefectures and cities formerly controlled by the Dashi Army. The two thousand white-pole soldiers of Shizhu, led by Qin Yiming and Ma Wannian, quickly attacked, successively breaking through Fengdu and Fuling, and rushing to capture Chongqing before Liu Wenxiu.
In Jingzhou in the east, 5,000 Qin troops, led by Liu Yongzhi, were also advancing westward urgently. Liu Yongzhi was originally an important general of the Dashi Army, and surrendered to Qin Mu in the Battle of Liuyang River. This time, Qin Mu sent him to Sichuan to use his relationship to recruit the surrender of the Dashi Army along the way.
Sure enough, with Liu Yongzhi's appearance to persuade them to surrender, the resistance of the Dashi Army in the remaining Yilingzhou (Yichang), Guizhou, Badong and other places was extremely weak. Liu Yongzhi not only advanced at a very fast speed, but also persuaded them to surrender along the way. The number of troops continued to increase, and soon reached more than 10,000 people, approaching Kuizhou.
At this time, Wang Huanran in Shizhu made a serious mistake. Before he could persuade Qin Liangyu to express support for Qin Mu, he leaked the news that Yebushou was stepping up efforts to divide Zhang Xianzhong's four adopted sons, so that Shizhu was prepared in advance and quickly sent troops to attack Chongqing.
No matter how he tried to persuade her, Qin Liangyu refused to give in, and even asked Qin Mu to support Zhu's descendants. Wang Huanran was in a state of panic, and hurriedly chased Qin Yiming and Ma Wannian to the city of Chongqing, trying to persuade them to join Qin Mu. Although they were tempted, they did not dare to disobey Qin Liangyu.
Wang Huanran had no choice but to temporarily give up lobbying Qin Yiming and Ma Wannian, and urgently detoured to Guang'an and Nanchong, and then went to Chengdu in order to reach a final agreement with Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi.
When the news reached Wuchang, Qin Mu frowned secretly and sent Wang Huanran to lobby Qin Liangyu. He wanted to use Qin Liangyu's high prestige in Sichuan to quickly win the support of Sichuan officials and people after splitting Sun Kewang and the other three. For this purpose, he even had the nerve to claim to be related to Qin Liangyu.
Although Qin Mu was not satisfied with Wang Huanran's performance, there was nothing he could do about it. You cannot expect every one of your subordinates to never make mistakes, and you cannot expect all of them to have the eloquence of Su Qin and Zhang Yi.
Now he had to be careful when deciding the rewards and punishments for his subordinates' merits and demerits, and he had to be objective and reasonable. At least he couldn't act based on his own likes and dislikes.
There were objective factors behind Wang Huanran's failure to convince Qin Liangyu. Qin Liangyu fought for the Ming Dynasty all her life and was loyal to it. It was extremely difficult to convince him. Wang Huanran's mistake was that he revealed his action plan before convincing Qin Liangyu. This responsibility will be investigated later.
The situation is very passive now. It is difficult to assess whether Qin Yiming and Ma Wannian can capture Chongqing, and whether it will be beneficial or harmful to their side if they capture Chongqing.
Fortunately, Qin Mu has been blocking the news, and Qin Liangyu has not yet learned that Zhu Yujian proclaimed himself emperor in Fujian. But the truth will come out sooner or later, and it is hard to say how she will react then.
Qin Mu had no idea for the moment, so he asked his attendants, "Mr. Sima, how should we deal with the chaos in Sichuan?"
Sima An pondered and said, "In my opinion, the first step of separating Sun Kewang and the other three has been taken. The next important thing is to bring Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi over.
As for Qin Liangyu, if you can't convince her, just let her be and don't break off relations with her.
If Liu Yongzhi can successfully take Kuizhou, we can let him bypass the stone pillar and head west to Dazhou and Guang'an. In this way, once Wang Huanran convinces Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi, we can also connect with Chengdu."
Li Yuan continued, "After all, the King of Qin and Qin Liangyu are from the same clan. Although Qin Liangyu did not express her support for you, the King of Qin, she did not criticize you for claiming the throne, which shows that she still has some reservations.
In my opinion, my king might as well bypass Qin Yuliang and send someone to directly appoint Qin Yiming as the general of Sichuan and Ma Wannian as the deputy general. Regardless of whether they dare to accept it or not, we should first show our sincerity. In this way, at least Qin Yiming will not become an enemy of our army. "
He Liang thought for a while and said, "Your Highness, we can also try from Fujian. Let our people in Fujian announce that Qin Liangyu has surrendered to our Qin State. If Zhu Youjian reacts excessively, it will be very helpful for us to win over Qin Yiming and Ma Wannian."
"Okay, let's do as you say."
Although Sichuan is important, according to the current layout, the Qin army's top priority is to seize the "right to control the river". Liu Meng and Zhao Han have basically completed the reorganization of Li Zicheng's remnants and the Guanning Army. Now a hundred thousand troops have been assembled and are ready to take Anqing in the east.
So the focus of Qin Mu's discussion with Sima An and others quickly shifted to this aspect. At this time, Yan Gaofei walked quickly into the Chongzheng Hall and reported: "King Qin, Hui Dengxiang and Jin Shenghuan's black flag fleet have arrived in Jiujiang. The two of them asked to meet with you, King Qin, before agreeing to discuss the matter of surrender."
Li Yuan immediately stopped him and said, "King Qin, you must not put yourself in danger, in case the two of them are up to something."
Qin Mu nodded without comment. Although the behavior of Hui Dengxiang and Jin Shenghuan's 60,000 troops was questionable, they had hundreds of large and small ships, all of which were looted from various counties near Nanjing when the Qin army was purging the court. These ships were exactly what the Qin army needed most now.
In order to smoothly receive this army, Qin Mu said: "Anyway, our focus will also be moved eastward, so it's okay for me to meet Hui and Jin. Don't worry, I won't take risks alone. After arriving at Liu Meng's army, let one of them go ashore to negotiate. Is that okay?"
Li Yuan happily replied, "That's great."
"King of Qin, King of Qin," the Minister of Revenue Liu Boquan came in with a look of ecstasy on his face. After trying hard to suppress his emotions, he whispered, "King of Qin, it's done, it's done."
"What's done?"
"King Qin, Yunduan was not lying. We have found something in Dabagou. General Ling has transported it back to Xiangyang in two nights without anyone noticing."
"Hahaha, good. Don't we have a large number of grain ships to transport food and fodder to Ma Yongzhen and his men? On the return journey, arrange for the grain ships to transport the supplies back to Wuchang as quickly as possible, and try to cover it up to prevent the news from spreading to Luoyang."
"Don't worry, King Qin. Hehe, this time, no matter how many ships King Qin wants to build, I won't frown."
After Liu Boquan finished speaking, everyone in the hall smiled with joy. Seventy million taels, even if the taxes in Huguang and Jiangxi were not collected, it would be enough to squander for a year or two.
Of course, it is impossible not to collect taxes.
ps: The editor said that this crackdown is very "strict", and even skirting the rules is not allowed. Some chapters of my fifth volume need to be deleted and revised. I have been busy all day, and the chapters are messed up, and my nerves are messed up. Moreover, the author can only delete three VIP chapters a day. If I haven't finished it today, I will probably be working on two chapters tomorrow. Please pay attention to the serial number of the newly issued chapters to avoid duplicate subscriptions.
I feel so heartbroken because the chapters to be deleted are those with the highest number of subscriptions. The average subscription will drop a lot. Alas!
However, the subscription volume of those chapters that need to be deleted is relatively high. What does this mean? It means that the public needs it. Hehe
.rs! .
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