On the first day of February in the thirteenth year of Yanxi's reign, there was a meeting at the Weiyang Palace in Chang'an.
This is the first major court meeting in the true sense since the beginning of the year.
Although some court meetings were held during the first lunar month, they were basically court meetings stipulated in the etiquette system, such as the emperor offering sacrifices to heaven, ancestors, or officials paying congratulations and other ceremonial events. These court meetings were not specifically discussed. National policy.
After all, the most important thing for the country is to worship the soldiers.
The first major court meeting on the first day of February is the time when the Han Dynasty's work focus will be truly determined for the next year or even several years.
As for this big court meeting, the number of people participating in the court meeting was also exceptionally large. After all, they had just attended Zhengdan. It happened that Zhuge Liang stayed behind to participate in this court meeting together.
The first half of the court meeting was nothing special. It was just the usual back-and-forth between the three provinces and the six ministries, fighting over the new year's policy plan and the distribution of fiscal and tax revenue.
Most of the things were just a formality. After all, the three provinces and the six ministries had already communicated with each other privately about the general direction. What was left was just some detailed issues that needed to be argued in court and to show one's strength in front of the emperor. Just a sense of presence.
The first major court meeting every year basically goes like this, and Liu Chan himself is used to it.
However, in the second half of this grand meeting, an accident suddenly occurred.
Xu Shu, the governor of Yanzhou, suddenly went out to report something.
"Now that Cao Wei is about to fall, and the arrogant people of Eastern Wu are still there, we, the Han Dynasty, are about to rise three times, how can we tolerate them. Therefore, I ask your majesty to issue an edict to attack Wu in order to rectify the world."
Anyway, what this means is that Cao Wei has now exhausted his energy and there is nothing to worry about. The focus of the next strategy should be on capturing Soochow.
But as soon as Xu Shu said these words, not many of the courtiers were surprised, but Liu Chan was shocked.
This is not within the scope of this grand meeting.
Regarding whether to attack Wei first or Wu first, Zhuge Liang and others had already started discussing it around the end of the twelfth year of Yanxi. Liu Chan actually knew that it was a matter of national importance. When Zhuge Liang and others were discussing, Liu Chan In accordance with the usual practice, Guan Xing and Chen Zhi were allowed to participate in regular meetings to listen to the deliberations of the important ministers.
However, according to the past rules, Guan Xing and Chen Zhi only had ears, not mouths. They were only responsible for listening. After listening, they reported the opinions of the important ministers to Liu Chan and let Liu Chan know.
Therefore, Liu Chan knew about this matter, and Zhuge Liang and others have not reached an agreement so far.
Of course, Zhuge Liang still pretended to stay out of the matter, not expressing his position, speaking, or making any decisions.
But among the remaining people, Xu Shu, Pang Tong, and Jiang Xu supported the attack on Wu, but Zhang Xi and Li Yan opposed the attack on Wu and advocated destroying Wei first.
Each side has its reasons.
The Wu faction believes that now that Cao Wei has nothing to worry about and there are constant internal disputes, they can follow Cao Cao's old wisdom of pacifying Hebei, relax the pressure on Cao Wei, and trigger internal fighting in Cao Wei. Then the small court of Cao Wei in Youzhou will inevitably suffer from internal fighting. And as it continues to weaken, Zhuge Liang in Yecheng will not need to send troops by then, and Jiang Wei in Youzhou can easily pacify it.
As for Soochow, Sun Quan has not used troops abroad for several years and has been recuperating. If Soochow is allowed to develop like this, he may not covet Yanzhou and Heluo.
Therefore, the Wu faction believes that they should strike first to disrupt Soochow's national policy of recuperating and recuperating, and use the current advantage of national strength to suppress Soochow.
Moreover, the Han Dynasty has now taken control of the entire territory of Jingzhou, and has been recuperating for seven years, with sufficient troops and food.
Taking advantage of Jingzhou's geographical advantages, they attacked the upper reaches and the lower reaches, and also used the land route south of Jingzhou to march into Yuzhang County and march to Jianye.
By advancing on both land and water, even if Wu cannot be destroyed in one battle, we can still seize several counties of Soochow and cut off the barrier of Soochow.
This is the reason and conditions for sending troops to defeat Wu.
The Wei-Destroying Faction believes that the time has come to destroy Wu now.
One is because Soochow's own strength is still there, and Sun Quan controls the overall situation internally. Although there are occasional dynastic disputes, there is never civil strife. Outside, Lu Xun, Zhu Ran, Zhuge Dan and others protect Jianye and rush to attack Wu with all their strength. You may not be able to gain anything, and even if you go deep into Wu Land alone, you may not make the same mistake as the Battle of Chibi in the past.
On the other hand, if Cao Wei is still alive now, he will definitely take refuge in Soochow. Once the Han launches a war to defeat Wu, Cao Wei will also send troops to harass Youzhou, eastern Jizhou and other places in order to ensure his own safety, causing the Han to fight on two fronts and be attacked from both sides.
In this way, the Han Dynasty's conquest of Wu was very expensive, so it would be more appropriate to concentrate its forces and destroy Cao Wei first and eliminate its worries before raising troops to attack Wu.
This is the reason for destroying the Wei sect.
In fact, Liu Chan understood these things. Even Liu Chan himself was wavering back and forth between conquering Wu and destroying Wei. He even thought that this matter would not be brought up to the court, but would be discussed in private. , after several important ministers reach an agreement, then leave it to yourself and issue the edict and use the seal yourself.
But who knew, Xu Shu still spoke out at this court meeting, and more importantly, he did not communicate this matter to Liu Chan in advance.
Liu Chan didn't know whether his important ministers had reached an agreement, so he subconsciously looked at Zhuge Liang's father. What did this mean? !
Unfortunately, Liu Chan didn't get any hint from Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang still looked expressionless and didn't even move his eyelids.
Liu Chan was really a little numb for a moment. He didn't know what to say. He could only follow the court meeting procedure and hand over the issues raised by Xu Shu to the ministers for discussion.
Then, Zhang Xi stood up and objected.
The reason is still the same one that Liu Chan is familiar with, saying that now is not the right time to send troops to defeat Wu.
As soon as Zhang Xi finished speaking, Pang Tong stood up again and explained in detail the necessity of defeating Wu. He was still familiar with Liu Chan.
After Pang Tongyong finished speaking, Li Yan stood up again and said that now the world is newly settled, everything is in need of prosperity, and money and food must be used everywhere. In short, it is still the same rhetoric of no money and no food.
If Liu Chan didn't understand what it meant at first, the more he listened to it, the more Liu Chan began to understand Zhuge Liang's intention.
On the one hand, Zhuge Liang and others really couldn't come up with the reason for the quarrel, and they couldn't convince anyone. Therefore, they could only put this matter on the court to listen to the opinions of more ministers.
On the other hand, Zhuge Liang probably hoped that Liu Chan could make his own decision after listening to this, so as to consolidate his majesty and imperial power.
To a certain extent, this is Zhuge Liang's excessive power, so on such an important occasion, Zhuge Liang didn't say a word.
This is a good thing. Chen Zhiying secretly sent countless looks to Liu Chan, asking Liu Chan to stand up quickly and make the final decision.
In Chen Zhi's view, it actually doesn't matter which strategy Liu Chan chooses, because no matter which strategy he chooses, there will be support from important ministers.
If it succeeds, the decision-making credit will of course belong to the emperor Liu Chan. But if it fails, the blame will be taken by the important ministers who support this strategy. It is only good for the emperor and has no harm.
But Liu Chan couldn't make up his mind.
He also knew that as an emperor, no matter what he said on this matter, there would be people who would support him. But, it was a matter of national policy and the life and death of tens of thousands of soldiers, so he did not dare to make a decision easily.
Once the wrong decision is made, tens of thousands of people will die.
After all, Liu Chan is not a purely political creature. To put it nicely, he is too kind. To put it badly, he is a little indecisive and does not have the ruthlessness that an emperor should have.
Another thing is that Liu Chan is really not used to having to decide such national affairs by himself.
Therefore, Liu Chan subconsciously looked at Zhuge Liang again, hesitated, and asked, "How do you think this matter should be handled?!"
Zhuge Liang raised his head helplessly, glanced at Liu Chan, and sighed silently in his heart.
After all, the emperor still lacked some decisiveness. But in fact, this was also expected by Zhuge Liang. After all, Zhuge Liang had done everything in the previous ten years, and the emperor lacked experience.
But this time, Zhuge Liang decided that he still couldn't be too used to the emperor, and he should have the consciousness of the emperor.
Therefore, Zhuge Liang came out, bowed his hands to Liu Chan, and said, "This matter needs to be judged by the emperor."
Liu Chan choked up as soon as he said this. If I had an idea, why would I ask my father-in-law? !
But now it is a major court meeting, and Zhuge Liang has said this in public. The only thing left is for Liu Chan to choose one of the two. There is no other option.
Liu Chan was helpless and could only weigh it back and forth by himself. After pondering for a long time, he finally decided.
“This matter will be discussed later!!!”
Well, let's drag it out for a while. It's not a bad thing to drag it out for a while.
(End of chapter)
