The house was leaking and it was raining continuously. After receiving the urgent report from the border, Chen Ruchang hurriedly convened a court meeting to discuss the dispatch of troops to the Jiangling front line. The seven civil and military ministers who were recruited by the court had just lined up in the Xuanzheng Hall and had not yet entered into the topic. , Wang Pu, the minister of Honglu Temple, ran all the way into the Xuanzheng Hall. He didn't even know where to throw the wat board that he must hold when he goes to court!
Seeing Chen Ruchang sitting on the dragon chair in the middle of the Xuanzheng Hall, he hurriedly prostrated himself on the ground, "Your Majesty, Princess Qingfeng who came to get married from the State of Zheng is returning home!"
"What?" Chen Ruchang was startled. He didn't bother to blame Wang Pu for his panic, and asked: "Didn't you agree that she would marry the prince of Lian in a few days? Why did she have to leave so suddenly? Woolen cloth?"
"Your Majesty, Princess Su Xingran of Qingfeng said that if Chen Guo agrees to send troops to help Zheng Guo resist Chu's invasion, she can wait a little longer. Otherwise, she will have to return to the country early to assist her father in resisting Chu's invasion of Zheng. Invasion!"
At this time, the weather had entered late winter and the climate was extremely cold. Several charcoal-burning stoves were lit in the Xuanzheng Hall. However, these stoves were of little use to the huge Xuanzheng Hall. Therefore, the ministers who were on duty at the Xuanzheng Hall They all wear various fur clothes under their court clothes to keep warm! But Chen Ruchang, who was sitting on the dragon chair, was sweating profusely at the moment!
More than ten years ago, Xu Da, who was still the crown prince of Wu State, decided to lead his trusted general He Ang to attack Zhucheng, the most prosperous border town of Chen State at that time, and the birthplace of Chen Dynasty, in order to enhance his prestige among the civil and military officials of Wu State. In order to protect this land of the Chen family, Chen Ruchang almost devoted all his troops to fight to the death with the state of Wu. Since the two countries were equally powerful, the war situation became a stalemate. At this time, the prime minister of the state of Wu, Zhu Yuan, volunteered to go out as an envoy to fight with the state of Wu. The Zhou State, which often had frictions on the border, lobbied the Zhou Emperor Li Ze to send troops to assist the Wu State in attacking the Chen State. On behalf of the Wu State Emperor Xu Da, he promised to split the Zhucheng into two after capturing it, with each country occupying half. This condition This made Emperor Zhou Li Ze very excited, and he quickly ordered General Zuo An to lead 100,000 troops to the battlefield to help the Wu army attack Zhucheng!
Although the left prime minister Zhao Gang and the right prime minister Shen Ru of Chen State also sent envoys to the neighboring states of Qi and Jin respectively, they all returned empty-handed. Either the price demanded by the other party was too high and Chen State could not afford it, or Playing a two-headed snake, neither side is offended.
Due to the sudden addition of one hundred thousand troops from Zhou State to Zhucheng's war, Chen State quickly fell into an extremely critical situation. However, what no one expected at this time was that it had almost no contact with Chen State for many years, and there were only a dozen or so people on the border with Chen State. In the land bordering Chen State, the small country Zheng Guo, which only has more than 40 cities in the country, actually sent nearly 200,000 troops to help Chen Guo in the war, without any conditions attached. You must know that the total population of Zheng State at this time is less than 300. Thousands of people, it can be said that almost all the country's efforts came to support Chen Guo.
Facing the sudden appearance of the 200,000 Zheng army, the Wu and Zhou allied forces were immediately defeated and retreated for dozens of miles. In the end, Chen barely managed to save the cities in Longxing.
After the war, Chen Ruchang learned that when he was young, his father Chen Ting'en and the current Emperor of Zheng, Su Jincheng, had fought together against the Tatars on the northern grasslands. The two had a deep friendship, but later they They were all busy developing their own territories, and as they were getting older, the two countries did not have much bordering land. Zheng's neighboring country, Chu, received advice from experts and gradually became stronger. It often sent troops and had some minor conflicts with Zheng's soldiers on the border. , which made Su Jincheng anxious all day long, and then Chen Tingen passed away, which almost cut off contact between the two countries that had no contact in the first place!
This time I heard that Chen Ruchang, the son of my old friend, was in dire straits during the war in the cities of the Longxing Land of Chen State. I was tempted and decided to help my old friend's son, so I ordered General Cheng Bao of the State of Zheng to lead an army of 200,000 to surprise him. , flanked the Wu and Zhou coalition forces with lightning speed, and reversed the unfavorable battle situation with Chen State in one fell swoop. After the battle, the Zheng State troops quickly withdrew to their own country, not staying for a while to prevent the remaining Chu State troops from entering!
In order to express his gratitude to the Emperor of Zheng, Su Jincheng, Chen Ruchang not only donated one million taels of silver in military expenses, but also sent a large amount of grain and grass. He also hoped that Chen and Zheng could marry and the two countries would forever be friends with Chen and Zheng.
It just so happened that Su Jincheng also had this idea. Originally, small and medium-sized countries were in crisis in this world where the jungle was strong and the strong preyed on the strong. Even if you wanted to form alliances and marriages with big countries like Qin and Chu, they would still look down upon you, and they were even afraid that you would pull them in at a critical moment. In the water, in small and medium-sized countries, the eldest brother is not big, and the second brother is not small. Everyone is similar. Forming an alliance can not only stay together for warmth, but also help each other in case of any emergency.
After discussion, Su Jincheng and Chen Ruchang decided that Su Chongyang, the eldest son of Prince Su Shangming of Zheng State, would marry Chen Xuan, the youngest princess of Chen State, and then Chen Hong, the sixth prince of Chen State, would marry Su Chengxuan, the second prince of Zheng State. The eldest princess Su Xingran. Unfortunately, just after the wedding date of Su Chongyang and Chen Xuan was set, the Emperor of Zheng, Su Jincheng, suddenly passed away, so the wedding naturally had to be postponed. Unexpectedly, just after the state funeral, the prince Su Shangming sat on the dragon Chair, the Chu State took advantage of the opportunity and entered again. When the transition between the old and the new in the Zheng State had just been completed, and when Su Shangming still had little prestige among the court ministers, Chu State General Jiang Chao led an army of nearly 500,000 to attack the important border town of Zheng State, Cicada City. The two sides are at war with each other, and the war is about to break out.
At the suggestion of Wu Qi, Prime Minister of Zheng State, Su Shangming, who had just ascended to the throne of emperor, decided to lead the expedition himself. Firstly, to enhance his prestige among the civil and military ministers. Secondly, to boost the morale of the Zhengguo army. Faced with an area and a population of ten The morale of Zheng's army, which was twice as large as Chu's, had been in panic all day long. In order to support Zheng in resisting the invasion of Chu's army, Chen's 200,000-strong army, led by Prince Chen Ren, also quietly crossed the border between the two countries. Only more than ten miles of the border line entered the Zheng State to join the Zheng State army.
The final battle broke out on the morning of November 6, the 26th year of Xuanhe's reign, in Cicada, a border town between Zheng and Chu. Both sides killed each other in rivers of blood. Corpses were strewn across the fields, and the sky was dark. In the end, even Su Shangming and Li Ren drew their swords. He led the guards in front of the palace to guard the troops, and the horse army entered the battlefield.
The war lasted for six consecutive days, with hundreds of thousands of people neither eating nor drinking, nor sleeping, until they fell to the ground and died with their last breath. After the fighting between the two sides ended on the sixth day, almost no one was even cleaning the battlefield to bury the corpses. I couldn’t find it. Fortunately, it was already winter, otherwise a plague pandemic would have been inevitable as a large number of corpses rotted!
The result of this battle was that Emperor Su Shangming and his son Su Chongyang, who were newly enthroned by Zheng Guoxin, were both killed in the battle. Prince Chen Ren of Chen State had an arm cut off. Wang Gan, the deputy commander of the front office of the palace, died in the battle. General Xin of Chu State was killed. Jiang Chao, the envoy of Yang Jian Du, and He Hu, the minister of the Ministry of War and the supervisor of Xinyang Pass, also died in the west!
Because the new emperor Su Shangming and his son both died in battle, the second prince of Zheng State, Su Chengxuan, was immediately pushed to the throne by the civil and military officials of the court on the grounds that the country was in ruins without a king for a day. Chen, who had not yet married Su Muyang, had set a wedding date. Princess Chen Xuan has also become an outcast!
Although the Chu State is huge, this battle also severely damaged its vitality. The main thing is that Jiang Chao, known as the Chu State's military god, died in the battle, leaving the Chu State Emperor Xiong Ze without a sharp sword that could slash outwards!
After the great battle between Chen State and Zheng State, they also lost all their elite troops and their morale was depleted, almost to the point of collapse. The world enemy Wu State and Zhou State took advantage of the opportunity and began to continuously encroach on Chen State's territory. Within ten years, Chen State's territory had been reduced. More than 20 cities were occupied by the two countries in small steps, and the national power became weaker and weaker. Even the third prince Chen Heng was inspected by General Wu during a large-scale border conflict a year ago. Sima Zhen killed him!
At the beginning of the thirty-sixth year of Xuanhe, Emperor Xu Da of the State of Wu sent Prime Minister Zhu Yuan to the State of Chu to propose a marriage with the State of Chu. His sister, Xu Yu, who was known as the most beautiful woman in the world, would be married to the Crown Prince of Chu State, Xiong Guang. As a concubine, and hoping that Chu State would send troops to attack Zheng State again, Wu State and Zhou State allied forces attacked Chen State at the same time, destroying the two countries sandwiched between them in one fell swoop, so that the borders of the three countries formed a border to support each other. , to maximize their interests to other countries, the Three Kingdoms Alliance Plan proposed by Wu State was finally accepted by Emperor Xiong Ze after a fierce debate in the Chu State Court!
Then the three countries prepared for war for nearly a year. After the winter of this year, the two countries of Wu and Zhou began to create friction on the border with Chen State in order to contain Chen State's military strength and prevent it from sending troops to support Chu State's heavy troops. Zheng Guo under attack.
At this time, the State of Zheng was under a fierce attack by the army led by the Chu general Xinyang joint commander Han Fei. Ming came to Chen Guo for help.
All civil and military officials in the Manchu Dynasty objected to Su Xingran's request to get married and to request Chen Guo to send troops to rescue Zheng Guo. In particular, Li Tong, the brother of the imperial concubine Li Meiniang and uncle of the sixth prince Chen Hong, deputy envoy to the Privy Council and minister of the Ministry of War, objected particularly fiercely. It is believed that it is the general trend that Zheng State will be destroyed by Chu State. There are more than 40 cities in the country, and now only four or five isolated cities are still holding on to resist. There is basically no way to recover, and there is no fundamental relationship between Chen State and Chu State. Conflict of interests, taking a step back to say that Chu's vitality will be damaged after conquering Zheng. At this time, if Qi, which has a good relationship with Chen, is asked to mediate, it may cause Chu to temporarily stop fighting and let Chen If the state allocates its troops to deal with the allied forces of Wu and Zhou, then the Chen state at least still has the ability to protect itself. If Chen Hong, the sixth prince of the Chen state, and Su Xingran, the princess of the Zheng state, get married, it will be equivalent to indirectly declaring war on the Chu state. Then the Chen state will be attacked from both sides. It's too late to regret.
