Although Liang Xing successfully entered the palace, a small thing happened shortly before he entered the palace that outsiders could not notice.

However, this inconspicuous disturbance caused a huge change in the subsequent trend of the world, and it was beyond the expectations of all parties in the Chang'an vortex.

It fully tells the world what the butterfly effect is and what "small disturbances amplify into huge variables".

It turned out that on the way to the palace gate, he met the emergency secret envoy sent by his direct leader Duan Wei, General Pingdong.

When the secret envoy first arrived in Chang'an, he did not dare to inquire about Liang Xing's troops being moved there. Instead, he went directly to General Anji and his uncle Dong Cheng's mansion to inquire, and then went straight to the camp and intercepted him halfway.

"Ameng? Didn't you listen to General Duan's army? How could you suddenly come here? Could something happened in front of the army?" Liang Xing was also very surprised when he saw the visitor. It turned out that this was Liang Meng, one of his nephews, who followed Liang Xing to join Duan.

Every time Duan Wei leaves Liang Xing to guard the rear, and when he goes to war in person, he will bring Liang Meng to accompany the army. On the one hand, it is also convenient to contact the rear when encountering urgent matters, and on the other hand, it also means leaving a hostage around him-

As for why Liang Xing's son is not taken as a hostage, there is no way to do anything about it. Because Liang Xing's son is still underage, this nephew is his eldest brother's son, only a teenager younger than Liang Xing and is over twenty years younger, so he can be entrusted with a task.

As soon as the secret envoy Liang Meng saw Liang Xing, he immediately pulled him aside and whispered: "Uncle, the matter is urgent! General Pingdong's battle on the Jingyuan front is unfavorable, and Li Jue is afraid that it will not last long. Fortunately, the King of Hanzhong sent a secret envoy to persuade him, saying that all the troops of the Xiliang army were deeply guilty, and Li Jue and Guo Jue could not be forgiven. Only General Pingdong did not plunder and was diligent in farming, so that he could be forgiven. The general has secretly made an appointment to surrender and asked me to inform you to return to Tongguan to defend so as not to be harmed by Li Jue!"

Liang Xing heard this and felt like he heard a thunderbolt, but he hadn't reacted for a long time.

Some people may be surprised: Why did Duan Wei's urgent messenger come faster than Li Jue's people? Is it Duan Wei's messenger faster?

This is impossible, because after Li Jue's defeat, the envoy could change horses if he was tired of running along the way. Duan Wei's envoy had to avoid the court's post station and could not change horses. It was more than 400 miles from Jingheyuan to Chang'an, so he would definitely have to run at least half a day longer.

The real reason is: Duan Wei was determined to surrender to Liu Bei as early as the middle of the night on April 11, or the early morning of April 12, and he had already sent this messenger before the final battle started!

In fact, it is normal to think about it. Duan Wei was deceived by Fei Shi and forced to join Liu. Of course, he would consider how to avoid the loss of the troops he left behind, or be incorporated by Li Jue.

After all, Fei Shi told him that "Dong Cheng sent a secret letter to Liu Bei, which said that Dong Cheng had won Duan Wei's old subordinates who had stayed in Hongnong to join in the ceremony." Duan Wei took it seriously.

Duan Wei sent out a very secret envoy. After Liang Xing received it, he pretended that he had not received anything and wanted to save his strength. Even if Duan Wei met Liu Bei later, he did not mention "I sent someone to preserve his strength before surrendering." Anyway, this matter was secret enough, and I was afraid that Liu Bei would think that he had selfishness after it was mentioned, so it would be better not to say it.

Each party has its own maximization of interests, and no one is willing to be a puppet.

However, it is precisely because Duan Wei, the envoy, was sent out very early, before the decisive battle even took place. This also led to the information that Liang Meng could provide to Liang Xing, which was less useful than Li Jie's envoy who would not arrive tomorrow morning, and was even misleading.

Liang Meng only knew that Duan Wei was going to rebel, but he didn't know the result of the decisive battle thereafter. Li Jue had not collapsed when he left.

Therefore, after Liang Xing discussed with him, he still estimated that "even if Duan Wei threw himself into Liu, Li Jue could still leave tens of thousands of main forces and retreat, and come back angrily to clean up the internal ghost." He greatly overestimated Li Jue's remaining power.

Otherwise, if Liang Xing could open the perspective of God and know that Li Jie had only less than 20,000 main force left, he would definitely have the courage to rely on his own 5,000 people, Dong Cheng's 5,000 people, and some newly recruited strong men, had an internal strife in Chang'an City, and even directly responded to Zhang Fei who had arrived in Huaili, opened the city gate and put it in for Zhang Fei, and made another great contribution.

The misjudgment of the remaining enemy situation made him cowardly, afraid that he would take the credit and completely get himself in. Maybe before Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun arrived, he had been completely destroyed by Li Jue, so he decided to implement a more stable plan of "the entire army retreated to Tongguan and defended to the death, and let Liu Bei and Zhang Fei fight to the death to attack Chang'an."

It’s okay to choose this way. Although the credit is tempting, it is something outside of your body after all. If you only have one life, it is really your own.

Just like in later World War II, the Poles wanted to maximize their own interests and after the Soviet army pushed back to the Vistula River, they would rise up to fight against Germany in Warsaw, and wanted to steal the head of the "Poles liberated Warsaw themselves". Fortunately, they had more benefits after the war.

But what happened? The Soviet army was already at the end of its strength to attack the other side of the Vistula River and was unable to attack any further. The Poles were too early to go, and they were vacated by the Germans.

Although Liang Xing did not know the history of later generations, the principles of seeking profit and avoiding harm are the same. Since ancient times, people may be sold to their teammates.

After setting this tone in his heart, he thought about how to accomplice Dong Cheng for a while.

...

Inside the palace, Shiqu Pavilion.

Liu Xie summoned Dong Cheng at Shiqu Pavilion. After a while, Liang Xing also entered the palace and Li Ru arrived immediately.

Liu Xie ordered the meal to be held in the side hall outside the Shiqu Pavilion. Liang Xing took advantage of the time when the people in the kitchen were cooking, and took the opportunity to pull Dong Cheng to chat with him.

He did not mention that "Duan Wei asked him to find Dong Cheng". After all, Dong Cheng may survive and confront Liu Bei in the future. If he told Dong Cheng, Liu Bei might know that Duan Wei sent the secret envoy Liang Meng to the future.

Therefore, Liang Xing just pretended to "he made a temporary decision, made a decision, and was willing to work with Dong Cheng, regardless of General Duan's safety." For this reason, he also found many excuses that he had to do, and pretended to be a god to predict, "I expect Li Jue to be defeated in Jingyuan." One, two, three, and four listed a few unfavorable factors for Li Jue.

No matter what, Dong Cheng was quite surprised, but the surprise made him not have time to think about the surprise in detail: "Oh? Captain Liang is...it is recommended to take His Majesty to Tongguan for a while in chaos in Chang'an? Cheng had this intention long ago!"

Liang Xing: "Li Ru and Li respond to our suspicion is already very obvious. If you don't act, you will inevitably suffer disaster! Don't hesitate!"

At this moment, the core interests of both sides were considered a complete showdown: protect the emperor, leave the battlefield, and stay in seclusion.

Dong Cheng: "Okay, then I will tell Captain Liang about his final plan. Today I also brought some guards into the palace and some supplements for my daughter. After a while, the night banquet ended, I persuaded His Majesty to take advantage of his lack of energy and rest early, and to summon the girl to bed tonight, leaving only a few loyal and righteous eunuchs around him to serve him.

Then, let's change clothes for Your Majesty, mix with my personal guard and go out of the palace. Then we immediately open the east gate, and use our cavalry to go straight to Huayin in the middle of the night. The subsequent infantry will not be exposed too early for the escape of the vanguard cavalry. As long as we leave midnight earlier than the pursuers of the Li family, we will go to Huayin with two hundred miles, even if they go with fast horses, they will not be able to catch up.

If you catch up, the troops will be allowed to resist and delay for a while. No matter how many soldiers in the headquarters return to Huayin alive, as long as His Majesty arrives safely and closes Tongguan, even if the troops are scarce, they can still be defended for a long time."

Liang Xing said that he would do it according to the plan.

When Dong Cheng decided to implement this plan, he was also worried because he knew that he would sacrifice several confidant eunuchs who were willing to conceal their whereabouts for the emperor, and his daughter, the eunuch's life was worthless, the key was his daughter.

Because once the emperor announces to sleep with other concubines tonight, those concubines will not risk their crimes to conceal the news that the emperor is actually not here. Only Concubine Dong can help cheat on this lie, but if you miss it tomorrow morning, Li Jue's people will definitely execute Concubine Dong on the charge of robbing.

But for the sake of wealth, life, military power, wealth, and protection, one daughter could only die.

...

When they were talking, Li Ru had already entered the palace, first saluted the emperor, briefly reported the military information, and then drank with Dong Cheng and Liang Xing in the side hall to talk about military information.

There are dozens of guards from Dong Cheng and Liang Xing outside the surrounding area, but after all, the soldiers in the entire palace are controlled by Li Ying and Li Xian, so Li Ru could mobilize more soldiers, and Dong and Liang would never dare to take risks.

Li Ru said a few tentative words first, and Dong Cheng responded very carefully and did not reveal any flaws - this cannot be blamed for Li Ru's lack of intelligence, but Dong Cheng is a man who has always had his acting skills in pretending to be pure. When he faces Cao Cao's doubts, he can also be innocent.

Li Ru did not test it out, so he decided to make a ruthless and unexpectedly beat him.

He first hinted the guards to be alert, then took out the framed letter written by Yuan Shu's counselor Yang Hong, and threw it directly in front of Dong Cheng: "Mr. Dong is so cunning! Then how do you explain this secret letter of Yuan Shu's collusion!"

Dong Cheng was shocked, took it over and glanced a few times, and his mind turned to light. He knelt down and begged for mercy. He spoke righteously and cried: "Shizhong Li! If you want to accuse your loyalty and kindness, why bother like this? If you want my military power, just take it away. My military power is here, and I am willing to hand over the military power!

But is there little precedent for Yuan Shu to murder court officials with letters? Li Shizhong will not forget that when Taishi Dong was in office, who was wrongly killed because Yuan Shu had "wrong people"? Was it true that Yuan Shu really "wrong people"? Or did he deliberately do it, hoping that court officials would plot against each other!

At this autumn of national crisis, the key guards around the imperial court's vassal of the Three Assisters were not enough. Will Li Shizhong still kill the generals without such internal strife? We may be...ah!"

Dong admits that he admits so straightforward and makes sense, which Li Ru did not expect - it is even more straightforward than when Cao Cao asked Dong Cheng to take off his brocade robe and jade belt in another time and space.

"He simply said he wanted to hand over the military power and save his life? This... Yuan Shu's counter-espionage plan was indeed clumsy, but at this point, Dong Cheng was definitely afraid. It would be impossible to continue to use it. So he took advantage of the situation to seize his military power. After all, he was still the general of our Xiliang Army. The Taishi Dong was promoted. If he killed without a clear proof, it would be very panic. Maybe it would make other generals who are not Li Jue's direct lineage also in danger..." Li Ru thought to himself.

After thinking it through, Li Ru accepted Dong Cheng's military talisman seal and other related documents and tokens: "Since that's the case, in order to help Dong Guojiu avoid suspicion, I will let Li Jin take over your subordinate first. If you encounter any opposition, come to Dong Guojiu!"
Chapter completed!