Late Tang

In the study, I had a toast with old friends of the staff, and only drank three cups, but Zheng Tian was very drunk, and when the lights were lighted at night, the staff left.Mrs. Zheng made herself comfortable and Zheng Tian washed and rested. In the middle of the night, Zheng Tian woke up and sat alone in the study, took out Li Jing's personal letter and read it repeatedly, sighing.I thought in my heart: "The world of Li Tang is corrupt, and only Li Jing has elite soldiers and strong generals in the world today, who can save the world. But I think Li Jing, although he has always insisted on his status as a monarch and minister, and firmly established the banner of Li Tang, but this People do things, but they are not those who are loyal to the king. If you compare it, it is similar to Cao Cao who wiped out the hero at the end of the Han Dynasty. Now Li Jing suddenly writes in a certain book, saying that he wants to be king. But think carefully, there is no other reason. If Li Jing really wants to be the king, and he has already fought near Luoyang at the beginning of the year, so why did he retreat to the east and transfer Yu Yuxin and others to serve in Cao Song? I heard that Li Jing has newly captured Youzhou, and Lulong has been destroyed. It is heard that he has assembled a large army to send troops to the north to attack the grasslands. Li Jing wrote a letter at this time, inviting King Qin, and it is very likely that they will be used to contain the various forces in the Central Plains."

After thinking about it for a while, Zheng Tian guessed what Li Jing meant, but sighed again after a long time.Even if Li Jing really intends to do so, so what?All the towns in the world are either directly falling towards Huangchao, or they are already waiting and watching, sitting on the wall and vacillating.If this continues, the last bit of prestige in the Tang family will be exhausted.

He couldn't help but think a little self-deception, maybe Li Jing is just a little domineering, but he is still a loyal minister of Li Tang after all.After all, Li Tang treated Li Jing well, as a farmer, he has the honor of today's king, and was able to be included in the royal family, and be honored as the emperor's uncle by the current emperor, what an honor it is.And if he turns against him, he will surely be left with a bad reputation in the history of the future.

The Duke of Zhou was afraid of rumors saying that Wang Mang was humble and humble before usurping him.

The Duke of Zhou monopolizes power, but he has always worked hard on the king's affairs all his life, and he has never had a second heart.But when Wang Mang was not usurping the throne, he was extremely humble and praised by the world. Who would have thought that he would usurp the throne in the end?Today's Li Jing is acting in a dictatorial manner, seemingly domineering, maybe he is a loyal courtier.

Anyway, in this world, if even Li Jing really turned against him, then Li Tang is really hopeless.If Li Jing just wanted to be a powerful minister, then the Tang Dynasty could still be preserved.Now, I can only trust Li Jing.

Zheng Tian had just recovered from a long illness, and drank wine again at night. At this time, his body was weak. After sitting in the middle of the night, he couldn't help being sleepy, so he fell asleep on the desk.

When Mrs. Zheng saw that her husband was tired, she cooked a midnight snack and brought it over.Entering the study room, I saw my husband sleeping at his desk, with a letter under his sleeve revealing the word '孤'.Mrs. Zheng couldn't help but think of the letter her husband received yesterday, she watched it silently, but saw that the letter was indeed written by Qin Wang Li Jing, and it said that Li Jing summoned the world's soldiers and horses to fight against the yellow thieves and grass bandits. Recover the two capitals and welcome back Shengjia.In the letter, Li Jing mentioned that Qin Fan had just regained Youzhou, and now that the north was a little stable, he could send troops to the Central Plains.Moreover, he also mentioned that now is a great opportunity to crusade against Huang Chao, because according to the information he has, Chang'an's Huang Chao only has a month's surplus of food and grass.Second, Huang Chao conscripted 40 Chang'an people to Fengtian to excavate the tombs of the Tang Emperor and the tombs of the Guanzhong clan, which has already made the wealthy and powerful families in Guanzhong resent Huang Chao extremely.Thirdly, Huang Chao sent envoys to various towns to ask for grain and grass offerings.Therefore, in the letter, Li Jing proposed that now is a good time to counterattack Huang Chao. He asked Zheng Tian to rebel against Fengxiang Army in Guanzhong, and Li Jing would also contact other towns to persuade them to send out a large army to serve the king.

Zheng Tian woke up and found that his wife was watching Qin Wang's secret letter, silent.

"Husband, is what the King of Qin said true? If so, the opportunity to counterattack the grass thieves has come."

"What Li Jing said in the letter is true and false. Huang Chao killed countless people in Chang'an, killing the emperor's relatives, officials and gentry, and even ordinary businessmen and people. Now Huang Chao has sent all the people in Chang'an to Fengtian to excavate the Qianling Mausoleum. I am devastated. However, Li Jing said that Huang Chao sent people to ask for a large amount of money and food from the towns attached to the puppet Qi. My husband has not heard of it. If this is true, then the Huang Chao is really digging his own grave. Miss Tang Shi The various feudal towns have long been monopolized by warriors, and they are separated from one side. The warriors in each town are all monopolized and difficult to govern. In the past, even the imperial court could not really control the towns. Whenever the interests of the feudal towns were touched, the soldiers would revolt and the commanders would be killed. In the end, the imperial court can only bow its head. But now the towns are afraid of Huang Chao's power, so they are only superficially attached. Come back to the court."

"This is a good thing, what is your husband still worried about?"

Zheng Tian sighed and said: "My husband's worry is that Li Jing only intends to provoke the towns to fight against Huang Chao, but he may not really go south to the Central Plains Qin Wang. If Li Jing does not lead the Qin army to go south, the towns will have no leaders to fight against the brutal yellow bandits. There may not be a chance of winning. I'm afraid, Li Jing's strategy is to drive away tigers and devour wolves. When Zhuzhen and Huang Chao are both defeated, he will lead troops south again. At that time, who in the world can stop Li Jing? On that day, if Li Jing If you have some rebellious intentions, I'm afraid the Tang family will die!"

Mrs. Zheng raised her eyebrows slightly, and persuaded: "Is there a better choice in the current situation? If you don't take advantage of the yellow thief's current weakness and send troops to fight for it, if Huang Chao survives this hurdle, I'm afraid it will be difficult to get it from now on." Extinct. Huang Chao and Li Jing, the two evils are the lesser, and Huang Chao should be taken first. Besides, there is no cloud in the art of war, far away and close attack. No matter whether Li Jing is loyal or not, from the perspective of military art, he cannot start a war with both sides at once. Besides, Li Jing Isn't it against now?"

Zheng Tian nodded, he really had no choice.

Besides, he still has a lot of things to do now, the first thing is to take back the control of the Fengxiang Army and get rid of the chaos anyway.

"Arranging a banquet in the mansion, it is said that my husband recovered from illness, and colleagues at all levels in Fengxiang Town are invited to the banquet to celebrate together." Zheng Tian stroked his beard, his eyes full of determination.No matter what Li Jing's intentions are, as a Tang official, he will never miss the opportunity to get rid of Huang Chao now.

That day, Fengxiang Army Commander's Mansion held a banquet, and all officers of Fengxiang Army were invited to come, even officials from Xiazhou County, Erzhou, Fengxiang Town, were also invited to come.

Although Fengxiang Town has been attached to Qi on the surface, in fact, Zheng Tian, ​​the commander-in-chief of the Tang Dynasty, still lives in the commander-in-chief's mansion.Today, when he recovered from his illness, officials at all levels came to celebrate him. No matter what, Zheng Xianggong is still respectable.

Today, civil and military officials with some status in Fengxiang, and even some high-ranking nobles without official status are all here, and the drums and music to set off the atmosphere are also played together for a while, and the scene was very lively at the beginning.

When the music sounded, all the guests happily raised their wine glasses together, and when they were about to congratulate the old man, they found that Zheng Tian, ​​who was sitting at the head, did not get up, but was wearing a formal purple round-neck official robe. But depressed, and even silently weeping.

Everyone was puzzled and asked what happened.

Zheng Tian’s aide, Sun Chu, replied on behalf of the Lord: “Today is a day of celebration, but just now old Linggong suddenly received a letter from his family. Killed the whole family, more than a thousand members of the Zheng family's Chang'an clan disappeared."

Everyone couldn't help being silent when they heard the words, and some clansmen in Chang'an were also killed for this reason or other reasons.

Zheng Tian wept and said: "My Zheng family was wiped out in more than ten families in Chang'an. What makes this old man feel heartbroken is that the yellow thieves not only killed those who refused to be false ministers of Qi, but also did not distinguish between them. Indiscriminately, hundreds of thousands of people in Chang'an were sent to dig graves for military funds. They went up to the Fengtian Emperor's Mausoleum, down to the noble families, giant merchants and local tyrants. The remains of the ancestors are exposed to the wilderness, what a madman!"

The news had not reached Fengxiang, and everyone was shocked when they heard the news.Since ancient times, from the princes to the dawn, the ancestors are the most important. Not only are there built shrines and plaques at home, but also if there are some conditions, the dead ancestors will be buried grandly, and the cleaning and worship will continue every year.But now, Huang Chao actually dug someone's ancestral grave, regardless of the identity of the tomb owner, which is too appalling.You know, Fengxiang is in the west of Beijing, not only that many officials originally lived in Chang'an.And today Huang Chao is digging in Chang'an, there is no guarantee that he will not come to Fengxiang to dig tomorrow.If they can't even keep their ancestral graves, then what face will they have to meet their ancestors in the future?

Sun Chu sighed and said: "Now there are rumors in Chang'an that Huang Chao has killed too many people and has lost his mind. He is half crazy and half mad. He only says that those who follow me will prosper and those who oppose me will die. More than 20 people have died in Chang'an. Under the knife of Huang Chao. A certain person also heard that Huang Chao had already run out of food, hundreds of thousands of troops had no food, and had built [-] ladle villages on the outskirts of the city. The people of Chang'an threw themselves into it, pounded their skins and bones into minced meat, and used it as military rations. Moreover, Huang Chao also sent people to bring back a lot of salt from the salt pond in the river, and directly salted the corpses that had been killed too much and had no time to scoop and grind them. Army rations. Grass thieves have gone completely insane, they eat people, they are no longer human."

The news of cannibalism was more shocking than digging graves. Most people couldn't help but feel sick when they heard it, and some even vomited directly.However, there are also some generals who don't immediately believe it. After all, these things are too unbelievable.

Zheng Tian glanced over the crowd, keeping everyone's reactions in his heart.The news of cannibalism is of course false, Huang Chao is not short of food yet.However, the news worked well, at least making many people fearful of Huang Chao.

Immediately hit the railway while it was hot: "You may not know that Huang Chao has sent envoys to the towns. Huang Chao has an order to send 50 shi of grain to Chang'an from Fengxiang Town, plus [-] sheep and [-] cattle. , eight thousand donkeys, five thousand rough horses, and three thousand war horses. In addition, one hundred thousand guan will be offered.”

"How is this possible?" Li Changyan, Sima Fengxiang's marching officer who had been silent just now, finally couldn't bear it anymore.The Fengxiang Army was actually controlled by him during this time, and he joined Huang Chao in order to replace Zheng Tian as the Fengxiang Army's Jiedushi.Now Fengxiang Army, Zheng Tian is the Jiedu Envoy of the Tang Dynasty, and Li Changyan is the Jiedu Envoy of the Qi State.

If the army's heart did not really fall to the Qi Dynasty, it was just that the two sides could not offend because of their flattery. Because of this, Li Changyan never took any action against Zheng Tian.If Huang Chao really did those murderous and grave-digging things in Guan Chang'an, it wouldn't have much to do with him.But if Huang Chao really sent someone to ask him for the money, food, cattle and horses, then he was sure that no one in Fengxiang's army would agree to this matter.

Zheng Tian saw what Li Changyan was worried about, and he didn't argue with him.The banquet broke up hastily, and everyone left with their own thoughts, and then sent people to inquire about the news one after another, wanting to confirm the truth of what Zheng Tian said.

What is false cannot be true, and what is true cannot be false.Just one day later, Huang Chao's envoy arrived at Fengxiang and brought with him the imperial edict of Emperor Qi.The imperial edict first rewarded all civil and military personnel in Fengxiang Town, and the high-ranking officials were very generous.But none of the people present were happy, because they were still waiting for the next decree.

Sure enough, after announcing the reward edict, the envoy took out another edict, but it was indeed an imperial edict asking Fengxiang Town to provide money, food, war horses and other things. Difference.

Li Changyan, the commander of the marching army, and Yuan Jinrou, the supervisor of the army, looked at each other with disappointment in their eyes.

At this point, both of them knew what they were going to do next, and they could only do that. They had no choice but to return to Tang anyway. At that time, those who insisted on following Huang Chao would die without a place to bury them.

Li Changyan quickly recognized the situation and did not hesitate.Under Huang Chao's envoy's frightened gaze, Li Changyan drew his sword out of its sheath, and chopped off the envoy's head with one blow.Lifting the head, whose eyes were still wide open, he shouted: "The rebels in Huangchao are brutal, and we will wait for the loyal soldiers of the Tang Dynasty, and vow to fight the rebels to the end!"

Therefore, Li Changyan and Yuan Jinrou immediately took Zhu Wenwu to Zheng Tian's mansion, welcomed Zheng Tian out of the mansion, and went to the military camp.

Zheng Tian had already known what happened outside, and when he arrived at the barracks, he immediately cut his finger, wrote a blood book, and reported what happened to Fengxiang to the emperor in Chengdu and Qin Wang Li Jing, the general of the army and horses in Youzhou.At the same time, the generals and Fengxiang soldiers were summoned to express their position.

This time, all the officers and men were united as one, resolutely not at odds with the yellow thieves, Zheng Tian and all the officers and men poured blood into an alliance to fight against the yellow thieves, and vowed to be unambiguous!

Afterwards, Zheng Tian sent his aide, Sun Chu, to lead people to the towns in Guanzhong and outside the Guan, and made a secret agreement with the towns to respond to Qin Wang Li Jing's order, and jointly raise troops to fight for the king's thieves.For a while, the towns of Jingyuan and Shuofang in Guanzhong, as well as Jinshang, Zhongwu, Heyang, and Hezhong outside Guanzhong, which had already changed the banner of Daqi, saw the envoys of Sanba successively.

Yiba is the envoy of Huang Chao, who came to ask for a large amount of money and food.

The second Ba is the envoy of Li Jing, the king of Qin, who ordered the towns to raise troops to serve the king.

The third is the former Xiangguo, the envoy of Fengxiang Jiedu envoy Zheng Tian, ​​who invited them to respond to King Qin's order and seek thieves anyway.

The generals reacted quickly, and after Fengxiang Town resumed its normal operation, Wang Chongrong, the Jiedu envoy of Hezhong, immediately issued a statement denouncing Huang Chao, announcing that he would return to the Tang Dynasty anyway.Immediately afterwards, the towns of Zhongwu Town, Jinshang, Fengguo, and Zhongguo also announced that they were anyway, and the towns in Guanzhong even changed their banners.

The king's flag changed overnight on the top of the city!

As soon as Li Jing's order came out, all the towns responded and turned back to Tang Dynasty one after another.

Taking advantage of the heat, Zheng Tian immediately led the Fengxiang Army to send troops to some key points in the periphery of Guanzhong that month, where tens of thousands of Shence Army and Boye Army were still stationed there.After the imperial court withdrew from Guanzhong, these troops would lose their roots just like the Tongguan defenders at the beginning, and there would be no food and grass. Zheng Tian collected all these tens of thousands of horses and recruited them into the Fengxiang Army. The Fengxiang Army was suddenly strong and powerful, and became the leader of all the feudal towns in Guanzhong, with [-] troops. (To be continued.)