Vol 2 Chapter 2621: Shu and Chu attacked the barbarians, and Qin and Nan allied themselves with eac

Chapter 2621: Shu and Chu attack the barbarians, and Qin and Nan marry

Chapter 2617: Shu and Chu attack the barbarians, and Qinnan marries

Just when Li Jing and Han Xin joined forces to prepare for a last-ditch attack on Nanzheng, the situation in southern Shu changed again.

Yangping Pass was broken, and it was a matter of time before Hanzhong fell, but the Shu Han was still unable to regain Shunan.

If things go on like this, Shu Han will fall into a situation where both the north and the south will be trapped. This also makes the top officials of Shu Han, including Liu Yu, feel extremely anxious.

At present, the power of Shuhan alone is unable to reverse the current situation in the short term, so external forces must be introduced to intervene.

Liu Yu thought about it, but he could only ask Liu Xiu for help, so he sent Zhang Song as an envoy to Chu to persuade Liu Xiu, the king of Chu, to send troops to attack the southern country together with Shu.

After all, only by defeating the Southern Kingdom first and recovering the occupied Shunan can the Shu Han concentrate its forces to deal with the out-of-control war situation on the northern front.

Liu Xiuzhen didn't want to get involved in the battle in southern Shu. After all, the southern barbarians were a place where birds did not lay eggs. There was not much oil and water to be harvested, and the southern barbarians were not easy to provoke.

In addition, in order to centralize power after Sun Quan succeeded to the throne, he made constant manipulations and caused turmoil in Wu State. Therefore, Chu State was also accumulating strength and preparing to implement the plan to destroy Wu. Naturally, it did not want to cause any complications.

However, after the fall of Yangping Pass, Shu Han obviously could not cope with Qin Nan's two-sided attack. If Chu State did not help Shu State, Shu State's losses would be really great this time. This would also weaken the anti-Qin alliance in disguise. .

Liu Xiu has always been a person who has an overall view, and Zhang Song, the envoy of Shu, is really eloquent. Every sentence makes sense and speaks to Liu Xiu's heart.

 Therefore, even though many people in Chu State opposed it, Liu Xiu still insisted on supporting Shu Han.

Although Liu Xiu decided to send troops to attack Nanzhong, it was impossible to send too many troops. After all, the northern and eastern fronts of Shu also needed to deploy heavy troops to defend Qin and Wu.

In addition, the road from Guangzhou to attack Nanzhong was more difficult than the road to Shu. It not only had to pass through mountains, swamps and jungles, but also had to deal with attacks by wild beasts and mosquitoes. The cost of sending troops on a large scale was obviously too high.

After some discussion, Liu Xiu decided to appoint Li Xiu as the chief general, Shi Dakai and Cao Shen as deputy generals, and lead 30,000 Guangzhou troops and 20,000 Jiaozhou troops, a total of 50,000 troops, to set off from Yulin County to attack Nanzhong.

 The reason why Li Xiucheng was appointed as the chief general instead of Cao Shen, who was experienced in fighting the Southern Barbarians, was not because Liu Xiu did not trust Cao Shen, but because Li Xiucheng was the governor of Guangzhou and had stronger control over the Guangzhou army.

As for Cao Shen, after all, he had just joined the army not long ago. No matter how outstanding his abilities were, Liu Xiu still intended to reuse him, but there was always a process of promotion.

Cao Shen rebelled against Shu and returned to Chu, but this time he wanted to fight against the barbarians and aid Shu. Liu Xiu was also worried that Cao Shen would have a grudge, so he went to ask Cao Shen for his opinion, but he did not expect that Cao Shen was very aware and did not care about attacking Nan. Zhonghui helped Shu Han and made Liu Xiu completely relieved.

As for the Southern Kingdom, Chi You had long been prepared to prevent Shu and Chu from joining forces. He not only left 50,000 defenders behind, built the Yunnan and Guizhou Passes, but also arranged spies on the border in advance.

 Hence, not long after the Chu State sent out troops, the Southern State received the news.

Chi You, who had not recovered from his injuries, was very anxious when he learned that the Chu army had sent 50,000 troops, but the big stone hanging in his heart finally fell.

As an ally of the Shu Han, Chu State was like a knife on the head of the Southern Kingdom. If Chu State did not send troops, Chi You would not be able to relax.

Now it's good, the Chu State has finally sent out troops, and the number of troops sent is not large, only 50,000, and the big stone in Chi You's heart can finally be lifted.

Chi You obviously overestimated the status of the Southern Kingdom in the heart of Chu. He thought that if the Chu army sent troops, they would send out at least 100,000 troops, so he left 50,000 defenders in the rear.

But now Chu State has only dispatched 50,000 troops to attack Nanzhong. The 50,000 defenders left in the rear area of ​​Nan Kingdom are obviously surplus.

It happened that the front line was in a hurry. After successive defeats, the Southern Kingdom lost a lot of men, and the total strength dropped to 110,000. However, it still had to face the Shu Han army of 200,000, which was not an ordinary pressure.

Therefore, Chi You and his men decided to mobilize 20,000 troops from the rear to the front.

 Only 20,000 troops were obviously not enough to get the Southern Kingdom out of trouble, so Chi You also ordered an army expansion in the rear.

For the Southern Kingdom, it is easy to expand the army, but the ordnance, as well as food and grass needed for the expansion are not so easy to come up with. The captured ordnance and food and grass are not enough to support the Southern Kingdom to complete the expansion of the army.

Nanzhong can only afford the cost of an army of 200,000 people, and the newly acquired Shunan land has not yet been digested. Not only is it unable to provide assistance to Nanguo, but it also restrains some of Nanguo's forces.

Even if the Southern Kingdom expands its army now, it can only make up for the shortfall of 200,000. However, this is not enough to defend the territory against the counterattack of more than 200,000 Shu troops, so new establishments must be added.

The Southern Kingdom could not afford so many resources on its own, so it could only pin its hopes on Da Qin, so it sent envoys back to Qin with Zhang Yi this time to seek marriage and obtain more material support.

Chi You made the right move to ask for help from the Qin Dynasty. The Qin Dynasty wished that the two countries in southern Shu could continue to fight. Now they only need to provide ordnance, supplies and food, so that the southern country can continue to fight against the Shu Kingdom and continuously weaken the Shu Kingdom. Strength, this is naturally something that is desired.

After the envoy from the Southern Kingdom arrived in Luoyang, Ying Hao agreed to sell a batch of aid supplies to the Southern Kingdom at "cost price" without much effort.

The first batch of aid materials alone included: 10,000 swords, 20,000 spears, 2,000 suits of armor, 3,000 crossbows, 1,000 horses, and 200,000 stones and grain.

After these materials are loaded at Beihai Port, they will immediately go south and be transported to Qingmei Port in Annan, and then transported back to the South Country by land.

In order to defend the counties in southern Shu, the Southern Kingdom has made serious efforts. The purchase list not only contains a large amount of grain and grass, but also various ordnance that is enough to equip an army of 50,000 people.

The amount of materials needed by Nanguo this time is huge, so it is naturally impossible to give them away for free.

Da Qin sells to the Southern Kingdom at cost price. If transportation is taken into account, it is actually a discount. However, transactions between countries are not only measured by money.

Even if Great Qin did not make a penny from aiding the Southern Kingdom this time, it actually made a huge profit.

The Great Qin court quickly approved the material support to the Southern Kingdom, but the Great Qin official discussed the Southern Kingdom's request for marriage for a long time.

 With the marriage proposed by the Southern Kingdom, not only did they want to marry a princess, they also wanted to marry a princess from Great Qin. This has never happened in the diplomatic history of Great Qin.

The Southern Kingdom is still of great use value to the Qin Dynasty, and once this two-way marriage is concluded, the connection between the two countries will be deeper.

But after all, the Southern Kingdom is a foreign race, and it is only a small country with a population of less than three million. Is it really qualified to marry the princess of the Celestial Kingdom?

The military generals generally opposed marrying a princess to the Southern Kingdom, even if it was just a daughter of the clan, but in terms of status, she was only a princess after all, and they all felt that the Southern Barbarian King Chiyou was not qualified to be the princess of the Qin Dynasty.

The civil servants all supported this marriage. After all, the value of the Southern Kingdom was indeed great. For the great cause of unification, the emperor could marry a foreign princess. Why couldn't the Da Qin princess marry a foreign king? After some debate between the two sides, the civil servant faction took the upper hand and decided on a two-way joint venture between the two countries. And Ying Hao took advantage of the situation and agreed.

“My daughters are all underage and Zongzheng. I wonder if there is any unmarried woman of the right age in the clan?” Ying Hao asked.

Ying Hao knew that Qin Nongyu, Qin Xiyan, and Ying Yuanman, whom Ying Zheng brought into the world, were all daughters of the Great Qin clan, but he did not know who among them was unmarried.

Zongzheng among the Nine Qings is responsible for the affairs of the royal family and the clan. Generally, there are elders of the clan, and the Zongzheng of Great Qin is naturally Qin Jian.

 Qin Jian was still immersed in the grief of Ying Wen's death, but he did not know that Ying Wen died because of self-blame, nor did he know Qin Rang's true identity, otherwise it would be nothing but trouble.

After hearing what Ying Hao said, Qin Jian thought for a moment and replied: "Your Majesty, I am afraid that the only girl in the clan who is suitable for marriage is Nong Yu."

 “Nongyu?”

Ying Hao was startled. He didn't pay much attention to the marriage leave of his subordinates, but if he remembered correctly, Nong Yu and Bai Feng had a crush on each other.

“Zong Zheng, Nong Yu is not with Bai Feng…”

Ying Hao didn't say anything else. After all, although Bai Feng's official position was not high, he was implanted into Bai Qi's younger brother, even though Bai Qi didn't value this younger brother very much.

Seeing that Ying Hao didn't understand the situation, Qin Jian immediately said: "It's like this. That girl Nong Yu did fall in love with Bai Feng before, but that boy Bai Feng is too confused and doesn't know how to please his daughter's family. Everyone is busy with their own affairs, there is less communication, and the relationship naturally fades. "

Hearing this, Ying Hao instantly understood why the two people were drifting apart.

Baifeng is essentially the same type of person as Gai Nie Weizhuang. They are both the kind of people who are not interested in women. They only have martial arts in their hearts, and women will only affect the speed of drawing their swords.

If Wei Zhuang hadn't met Chi Lian, and Gai Nie hadn't met Duan Murong, and if Ying Hao had acted as a matchmaker for them, these two people would have been singles for the rest of their lives.

Nongyu may have really liked Baifeng at first, but Baifeng was not knowledgeable about men and women, and later did not take the initiative to maintain this relationship. Naturally, Nongyu would not take the initiative either. After all, she is now a member of the clan, and she also has the status of being a member of the clan. The pride of a proud girl will naturally fade away if it remains like this for a long time.

Although Ying Hao felt a little regretful about this, he had no intention of forcing CP. After all, everyone has their own way of living.

“Even if Nongyu and Baifeng don’t get along, Nongyu shouldn’t be the only one in the clan who is suitable, right?”

Ying Hao asked with a puzzled look on his face. After all, Ying Yuanman and the other seven women were also very close to him and were equally eligible for marriage.

Nongyu's ability is quite good, and he has made many achievements in Heibingtai. If there were other choices, Ying Hao would naturally not want to marry Nongyu, just like Chi You would not marry Zhurong.

Ying Hao actually didn’t want to increase the number of people in the harem for a long time.

He and Sun Shangxiang just finished their wedding not long ago, and now it is a time when they are inseparable. There are so many beauties inside and outside the palace, and they all need to be nourished by him, but he is really unable to do everything on his own. .

 But this is a political marriage, and you must marry him, and you can't do it without marrying him, so Ying Hao naturally hopes that the marriage partner is Zhu Rong, after all, the two of them at least know each other.

 But Chi You was not stupid and would never send a **** of war away.

Ying Hao also knew this, so from the beginning to the end, he never made any demands on the marriage partner of Nanguo.

 Because this is a political marriage, without any emotional basis, he only marries as a princess of the South, no matter whether she is beautiful, ugly, fat or thin, she must marry.

Of course, it is impossible for Chi You to send an ugly girl for marriage, otherwise it would be suspected of deliberate humiliation, but it would really offend Ying Hao to death.

 “Your Majesty, it’s like this…”

After listening to Qin Jian’s explanation, Ying Hao finally understood why Nong Yu was the only one suitable.

Ying Hao doesn't care about clan marriages, but Ren Hongchang is particularly interested. Now Ying Yuanman and other seven girls are either married or engaged.

Ren Hongchang is also very particular about the people he introduces to the daughters of the clan. They are all high-quality heroes with good character, talent and appearance.

Ying Yuanman married Han Xin, the deputy governor of Jingzhou.

Ying Yinman married Wang Li, nephew of Prime Minister Wang Meng.

Charmaine Ying married Bai Juyi, the younger brother of General Bai Qi.

Ying Chanman married Zhang Yi, the Minister of Rites.

As for Ying Huiman, Ying Liman, and Ying Jiman, who are young and have just grown up, they are already engaged.

Ying Huiman was engaged to Long Yang, the younger brother of Long Qie, the deputy governor of Liangzhou.

Ying Liman is engaged to Yue Yun, the son of Yue Fei, the governor of Youzhou.

Ying Jiman is engaged to Wang Xuance, the son of Prime Minister Wang Meng.

Qin Xiyan has the qualifications of a great master, so it is definitely impossible for her to get married, so after searching around, among the high-status, unmarried women in the clan who are suitable for marriage, there is really only Nongyu left.

Now even if Ying Hao is reluctant to let go, he can only let Nongyu get married, and she will be the only one left single.

 “In accordance with my decree, Qin Nongyu is granted the title of Princess Anyang. From now on, the surname will be changed to Ying to represent the marriage between our country, Da Qin, and the Southern Kingdom, so as to repair the alliance between the two countries.”

 (End of this chapter)