Some things happen suddenly and unprepared. After traveling through the mountains and ridges in the dust, he has just arrived at the Annan Protectorate with five thousand soldiers from the Pagoda Battalion. Under Liu Yanyou's respectful waiting, Jingzhe hugged Haidong as soon as he entered the mansion. Qing panicked and ran in.
"Your Highness, Da Shi's secret letter." Jingzhe's face was still covered with large beads of sweat. He didn't even have time to wipe the sweat beads on the tip of his nose, and hurriedly handed the secret letter to Li Hong.
"Dashi?" Li Hong took the secret letter doubtfully. There was no one else whom Dashi could look for except Yeyue.
But although his whereabouts could not be said to be hidden, it was unlikely that Yeyue, who was thousands of miles away, could find him so accurately, and even sent a seemingly urgent secret message.
"It was conveyed by Jingwei. He should have come here with the business traveler." Jingzhe looked at Li Hong, who was holding the secret letter in his hand, and was a little confused, and hurriedly explained.
"No wonder, it seems that the demon Bai Chun told Yeyue my whereabouts." Li Hong figured out the link, and then slowly opened the secret message.
There were actually two secret letters. As if to prove the authenticity of the matter, the two secret letters were translated into Tang language. One was written by Ye Yue and the other was written by Saleh.
The contents of the two letters are basically the same, telling Li Hong that Yeyue's situation in Dashi is getting worse and worse.
The Sultan of the Hashemite family, relying on the family's domestic momentum, is continuing to put pressure on the Umayyad family. At the same time, Yeyue's father has begun to think again and prepares to marry Yeyue to the Sultan to ease the situation. The pressure put on him by the Hashemites and other families.
While describing this, Saleh naturally also mentioned that the cooperation and armistice agreement between him and Li Hong might be annulled by his father.
Because of the pressure from Hashim and other families, the Food King may comply with their pressure and prepare to conquer the East again and start a war with the Tang Dynasty.
Li Hong slowly put down the secret letter in his hand. During this period in history, there were indeed frequent wars between the Tang Dynasty and Dashi, and they always ended with the Tang Dynasty losing more than winning.
Dashi encountered difficult resistance during the Western Expedition. In order to continue to maintain the influence of the empire and the prestige of the Dashi King, including diverting the pressure from other families, the Dashi King had to go to war with the Tang Dynasty again to achieve relief. The purpose of self-stress.
"Where are Pei Xingjian and Chen Jingzhi now? Are they still floating on the sea?" Li Hong handed the secret letter to Jingzhe and asked Liu Yanyou next to him.
"Pei Xingjian, Chen Jingzhi and others have been in Qiongzhou. It takes three days to land there. In order to avoid alerting the enemy, they have been waiting for your order at Qiongzhou Port." Liu Yanyou described the relationship between himself and Pei Xingjian during Li Hong's march. The correspondence between them was handed to Li Hong.
Then he continued: "Now that we are in Songping, it is only three days' journey to enter the hinterland of Zhenla. If Pei Xingjian and the others go well, they can basically enter Zhenla at the same time as us and form a pincer attack. In this way, they will definitely be able to give Chenla caused panic and took the capital of Chenla."
"Where is Ma Zairen? Are you still in Zhenla?" Li Hong walked to the desk and looked at the map spread out by Hua Meng and Cheetah.
The seat of the Annan Protectorate, which is today's Songping (Hanoi, Vietnam), was built on the river originating from the Ailao Mountains in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. You can follow the famous Red River downstream. Directly entering the South China Sea, we can meet up with Pei Xingjian in Qiongzhou, Hainan.
The original two-way attack route by water, because of the secret message between Saleh and Yeyue, Li Hong now had to make new plans.
Rather than conquering Zhenla and ultimately occupying their ports and turning them into trading ports for the Tang Dynasty, as he did with the Japanese, Li Hong was more concerned about the possibility of Dashi once again going to war against Anxi in the Tang Dynasty. .
Although today's Anxi is already impregnable and not afraid of the cannibal cavalry, if the Tang Dynasty starts to fight two wars at the same time, it will be a big burden for the Tang Dynasty's household department.
The previous generation of American imperialism fought the Vietnam War for several years, but ultimately ended in failure, and then had to voluntarily withdraw from Vietnam.
Although the events of more than a thousand years ago cannot be used as a reference for this period, Li Hong had to make the worst plan, that is, if the Tang Dynasty fell into the swamp of this war and could not extricate itself, what would happen if the Tang Dynasty fell into the swamp of this war and could not extricate itself? What to do
If Dashi goes to war with the Tang Dynasty at this time, for Li Hong, it is definitely not the result he wants to see.
But now that the Tang Dynasty, as a superior state, sent troops to Zhenla in the name of the third prince of Zhenla for molesting the Princess of Tang Dynasty, it was obviously impossible to stop the war before the war started.
After all, this would only make Zhenla think that the Tang Dynasty was afraid of them and encourage their arrogance.
Therefore, Li Hong had to leave Yuan Shuji, Guo Shifeng and Liu Yanyou to conquer Zhenla at this time, while he had to go down the Red River directly to the South China Sea, and then take a boat via the South China Sea to the Dashi Capital.
After only staying at Song Ping in the Annan Protectorate for three days, Li Hong led the Futu Camp of 3,000 people and started sailing to the South China Sea with Lawless.
After two days of traveling down the river, three thousand troops once again stood on the beach. Looking from a distance, two warships flying the flag of the Tang Dynasty were already anchored at the simple port.
It was like entering a more primitive tribe again. Under the bright sunshine, in addition to the two huge warships of the Tang Dynasty, there were some merchant ships like fishing boats at the simple port. Among these merchant ships, there were The Tang Dynasty had many merchant ships.
After all, these places still belong to the Tang Dynasty now, not to other countries like in the previous life.
On the bustling dock, a large amount of goods were inspected and tested before they could continue along the coastline and continue southward, truly entering the South China Sea from the Beibu Gulf. Then along the ancient Silk Road on the sea, merchants began to carry out Real world trade.
Ever since Li Hong entered Songping, he felt as if he had stepped into the territory of another country. After all, he had been to Hanoi in his previous life and had also visited the Red River on a cruise ship.
Just like this time, we finally arrived at Namding Port and then took a boat back to Sanya again.
He squinted his eyes at the merchants at the port and hurriedly made way for them. If it weren't for the large Chinese characters on the flag fluttering behind him to indicate his identity, I am afraid that these merchant ships and the merchants on the shore would have jumped one by one. The sea escaped.
Pei Xingjian and Chen Jingzhi rushed to meet Li Hong. The two ships did not have many soldiers, but the Suzaku and Qinglong, which had sufficient daily necessities, were ready for Li Hong.
"It is estimated that Cui Zhibian will arrive from Quanzhou in the next few days, so His Highness does not have to worry about the general and others going to Zhenla." Pei Xingjian, who had just stepped onto the Qinglong battleship, explained to Li Hong.
"That's naturally the best." Li Hong stood at the bow of the ship, looking at the three thousand people from the Pagoda Camp on the dock who were boarding the ship in an orderly manner. He breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Three thousand people, two battleships, food. Just enough water.”
"Don't worry, your highness. After receiving your order the day before yesterday, the general has already stepped up his manpower to carry out the work. What's more, before that, the general and Lord Chen Jingzhi have been making sufficient preparations for the expedition to Zhenla, so your highness, please There is no need to worry. However, after conquering Chenla without you, who will make the decision on the negotiations with King Chenla after we donate the capital of Chenla?"
Walking into the spacious cabin, in front of Li Hong were Pei Xingjian and Chen Jingzhi, besides Wei Tuqi.
The two of them are worried about no small problem. After all, this time the expedition to Zhenla was originally led by Li Hong, but now the general is leaving. Although it will not cause too much instability in the morale of the military, in terms of the aftermath, I am afraid that this will It is easy for several military generals to have disagreements on some matters.
When Li Hong set out from Songping, Liu Yanyou once asked Li Hong this question, and Li Hong simply gave him five words: Pei Xingjian and Ma Zai.
So now facing the problem of Pei Xingjian, Li Hong still believes that Pei and Ma were able to manage Anxi in an orderly manner, and they had enough ability to make decisions on the Zhenla issue.
What's more, now that Ma Zai has been lurking in Zhenla for many years, with the tacit understanding between the two of them and Ma Zai's understanding of Zhenla, it is not difficult to make decisions that are beneficial to the Tang Dynasty after the war.
There are many mountains and dense forests here, and there is not much land that is as flat and vast as the Central Plains. Therefore, neither Li Hong, nor Pei Xingjian, nor Ma Zai have much interest in the land separated by the Changshan Mountains outside of Songping. I don’t even want to keep it as my own.
Just like the original purpose of Li Hong's expedition to Zhenla, what they could see were the ports on the Maritime Silk Road. The huge economic profits generated by trade at each port were what they were most concerned about.
Therefore, as long as we can capture those ports outside the Changshan Mountains, it will be enough for Chenla to split into water and land Chenla many years later.
Both Pei Xingjian and Chen Jingzhi are the father-in-laws of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, so when Li Hong no longer participated in the war and after solving the problem of Zheng Zhenla's decision-making candidates, they were actually happy from the bottom of their hearts that Li Hong could not participate in the war. Participate in this battle yourself.
After all, as the father-in-law of the prince, both of them had received orders from their daughter, the princess and others, that is, when His Highness the Prince was fighting against Zhenla, his father must take good care of him and not let His Highness get hurt.
But now, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has withdrawn from the personal battle due to important matters. This also makes the two of them breathe a huge sigh of relief after solving the decision-making problem, and their expressions look more relaxed than before.
(End of chapter)