"In contrast to the Bloody March, April, which was not peaceful in the ninth year of Baoda, has just passed. May, which is laughed at as the "Monday of Mission" by everyone. In that hottest weather in summer, on the roads between countries and on the sea, brightly and darkly, there are always envoys from various countries running towards the target country with various faces, full of thoughts and panic, and full of expectations and fear for unknown results."

,, Excerpted from "Book of Southern Tang? Major Events of Lin Feng" written by Shi Yan, a historian of the Southern Tang Dynasty

Throughout May, except for Lin Feng leading the team to Liao Kingdom for trade and Kang Renjie and his party went to Japan as half a mission, the team of envoys between the other major countries basically did not stop, but some were swaggering, chariots and horses, while others were disguised and hiding whereabouts.

Among these big countries, the Southern Tang Dynasty was the most relaxed and relaxed.

Since May, the Southern Tang, who had a series of victories on the battlefield, has acted as a great country in the world. First, he sent a group of envoys to the Houzhou. The gifts were still heavy, and the words of the documents were still elegant and humble, but the taste of the words sounded a little wrong.

The envoy handed over the document said that the Tang Dynasty's revenge on Wu and Yue had been successfully completed, and Wu and Yue were willing to ced a land of Fuzhou. Both countries had already entered the warehouse, and their horses entered the mountains and stopped their weapons. He asked Emperor Guo Wei of Zhou to stop worrying about this matter.

The second batch of northern envoys from the Southern Tang Dynasty had not yet set off, and the congratulations from Li Congqian, the King of Ji of Chu, arrived first. Those who walked with them were actually congratulatory envoys from Later Shu.

Meng Chang, the latter leader of the Later Shu, who has insisted on "hiding into a small building and unification, turning a blind eye to the foreign affairs of Shu", did not know that the "Red Luan Star" moved. He suddenly handed a congratulatory document to the Southern Tang, which was in full swing, directly called Li Jing of the Southern Tang "the brother of the East". Meng Chang himself was born in 919 AD, 3 years younger than Li Jing, who was born in 916 AD.

The two groups of envoys who "combined two into one" immediately made the atmosphere of celebration in Jinling City stronger. Li Jing, who was in a happy mood, quickly sent a second group of envoys to the north.

This time, the documents submitted by the envoy of the Southern Tang Dynasty were more straightforward and simple, reprimanding the Southern Han Dynasty and a small country, but they were always greedy and wanted to swallow the elephant. They sent troops to the Guizhou area of ​​the Tang Dynasty again and again. The Tang Dynasty had decided to send troops to Wenzhou of the Southern Tang Dynasty to punish him for a small punishment. In the process of exercising justice, the Tang Dynasty would definitely protect the local people and not accidentally hurt any upright and kind person. Please do not worry about the Great Zhou Emperor.

Although the documents were just on the surface, the strong smell revealed between the lines completely annoyed the civil and military officials of the Later Zhou Dynasty.

The civil officials of the Later Zhou Dynasty were still elegant in words. A group of powerful generals directly cursed in the court. In the end, they were full of anger and had nowhere to be heard. They all pointed their finger at Wang Yan, who had lost his troops and generals under the city of Jinzhou and damaged the prestige of the Great Zhou Kingdom. They agreed that if Wang Yan had not dragged the Great Zhou back, the Great Zhou would not have lost face in front of the envoys of his own country. They strongly demanded that the eternal sinner be escorted back to Beijing and severely punished his incompetence.

Guo Wei himself came out of the battlefield. He had learned about the entire Jinzhou City war and knew who would be in such a deadlock. He was afraid that the soldiers would be lost. He had to try his best to calm down the anger of the brothers in the army, turned around and asked a group of civil officials how he had studied the measures for the reform of the Southern Tang Dynasty.

Zuo Jianyi's doctor, Wang Pu, the Tushimashi direct academic scholar, was considered the "acting leader of the reform leadership group" of the Great Zhou Dynasty. Under Guo Wei's questioning, he worked for several days in a row, and a complete set of reform plans for the Great Zhou Dynasty were rushed out in a hurry. The basic context was very clear: reduce harsh punishments, reduce taxes, and hide wealth from the people; train elite troops, strictly discipline, and form special forces; emphasize science and technology, select talents, and establish a science academy; concentrate military power, slow down the foreign power, and establish central authority...

After these measures were disclosed to the public on a small scale, they were immediately revealed to the outside world by those who were interested, and immediately caused an uproar in the Great Zhou Dynasty.

At this time, the Later Zhou Dynasty was a time when the old and new dynasties were alternating. To put it nicely, it was a mess. To put it really was a serious problem. These measures of change were directly targeted at the interests of the former Later Han Dynasty and the powerful and powerful dynasties of the new Later Zhou Dynasty. On the outside, everyone said that the reform measures were very good and very powerful, but when they changed the words, they all proposed that objective situations should be considered and specific national conditions were essentially accusing and slandering and picking faults. Faced with waves of provocation, a group of members of the "reform group" who were formerly aides of Tianxiong's army were tired of dealing with it.

What made Guo Wei the most headache was that there were too many saints and scholars in the Central Plains. They all quoted classics and allusions, allusions and holy words were flying everywhere, stories and examples were everywhere, and a reform measure that was originally hastily introduced was "attacked" from every implementation detail.

Of course, Guo Wei knew the root of the matter. Reducing taxes harmed the interests of civil servants, and concentrating military power would harm the interests of military generals. It would be strange if they didn't object. At the end, Guo Wei couldn't help but get angry and first planned two things: forming a special forces and establishing a Academy of Sciences.

Everyone is on the same level as the Academy of Sciences, and they are all "white necks". Naturally, there are not many people fighting for it. However, the question of who will lead this special forces is equivalent to throwing another hornet's nest into a group of generals.

Lin Feng, the nameless boy from the Southern Tang Dynasty, won martial arts all over the world. What did he rely on? Isn’t it that Luo Shizi’s special forces? So the itchy generals all offered their hidden performance skills.

The generals in the capital all swore to prove that they were most suitable to serve as the leader of this special forces; the adults who also served as the governors near Kaifeng in Tokyo were not willing to fall behind, and expressed their willingness to select elite troops in their army to try. After two days, well-informed governors from all over the country sent quick horses to deliver memorials to express their loyalty, count their achievements, and provide qualifications, and requested that they allow themselves to select elite soldiers in the army to form special forces.

Guo Wei took the initiative to propose to form a special forces first and had his own selfish intentions. He secretly instructed a general to nominate Chai Rong, the governor of Chanzhou, to return to the capital to take on this position in the court.

Just halfway through this proposal, Wang Jun, the Privy Councilor and the subordinate of the Secretariat, jumped out and strongly opposed the proposal. He looked gritting his teeth and wanted to bite the proposed general to pieces and swallow it alive. On weekdays, because Chai Rong, the adopted son of the saint, was too smart and decisive, and too prestige, he had to stop even his memorials. If he was allowed to return to Beijing easily, wouldn't it be a big deal?

After arguing, balanced, this important task finally fell on Zhao Kuangyin, the leader of the East and West Team of the Imperial Guards who were responsible for the palace guards. He was only twenty-three years old. Later, the Emperor of Song, Zhao Kuangyin, began his unexpected position and embarked on a path of hegemony in different historical pasts.

Before the quarrel and debate in the Later Zhou Dynasty was over, the Wu Yue envoy, who had the Prime Minister Wu Cheng as his envoy, rushed to Kaifeng, Tokyo on an inconspicuous merchant ship. In order to conceal the audio-visual, Wu Cheng, who had "unordinary" had not followed the normal interaction process between the two countries. He directly surrendered to the office of the Minister of War and the Deputy Envoy of Privy Councilor Fan Zhi, and requested to meet the Emperor of Great Zhou directly.

Fan Zhi, who has always been famous for his "integrity is never given to all parties", met Wu Yue. After seeing Wu Yue, he was shocked and immediately brought Wu Cheng into the palace to meet Guo Wei.

The conditions for the alliance brought by Wu Cheng were very simple and straightforward. Wu Yue was willing to be a country affiliated to the Great Zhou Dynasty, tribute 200,000 chunks of silk every year and requested the Great Zhou and Wu Yue to form a military alliance, attack the Southern Tang Dynasty from north to south, and avenge the revenge of Fuzhou being seized.

In the current situation, Guo Wei was certainly willing to have a great power to surrender, but the military and national affairs were really reckless. He signaled Fan Zhi to arrange Wu Cheng and others in the mansion, and secretly publicize it and wait for the Great Zhou to discuss it before the acquisition was reclaimed.

In the following days, Guo Wei summoned his confidant officials to discuss secretly in the palace after the morning court, weighing the pros and cons. This time, civil officials and military generals were no longer divided into two camps, and they were split into the fast attack faction and the slow attack faction.

The Quick Attack faction insisted that the Southern Tang Dynasty had a very strong development momentum. If this trend was not suppressed, it would become a big problem in the future. It would be better to have short pain than long pain. First, it would be a heavy army to kill their morale. The Slow Attack faction believed that the Great Zhou was not stable now, and the lost Jinzhou area was even more thorny in the heart. The Liao Kingdom in the north was unclear. If he rashly attacked a big country at this time, if he lost or the war was delayed, the Great Zhou would be detrimental.

Both factions make sense and have pros and cons, and Guo Wei was unable to make a decision for the time being.

A few days later, two other shocking news came: one was that Lin Feng had been appointed as the governor of Shouzhou and the envoy of Shouzhou by the Southern Tang Dynasty, and was on the south bank of the Huai River and facing the city of Tokyo; the other was that the envoy of the Southern Han Dynasty had also arrived. Just like Wu Cheng, the envoy of Wu Yue, the leader of the envoy of the Southern Han Dynasty, ran directly to the left censorship, and the mansion of the Privy Councillor Pu, directly asked to introduce Guo Wei.

At this point, all the bigwigs who could make decisions in the Later Zhou, Wu and Yue, and Southern Han gathered together.

Just when the Three Kingdoms were quarreling for the interests, status, and names of various countries, Liu Chong of the Northern Han Dynasty also sent his own envoy to the Liao Kingdom in late May. The leader was the Minister of Rites who was destined to die on the Zhongjichang this time. He was the same as Zheng Gong, the staff member of the Hanlin scholar Boxing, and others were accompanied by Hanlin scholar Boxing, Wei Rong and others.

The Northern Han Dynasty's mission was more than a month earlier than the real historical envoy. However, because of the brilliant achievements under the city of Jinzhou and the active attack, Liu Chong did not ask for himself as his nephew emperor in this invitation ceremony like in the original history, but called himself a brother and asked the two countries to form a brotherly blood alliance to attack the Later Zhou together.
Chapter completed!