??In the evening, under the dim and warm winter sun, dragging a long shadow, a single horse is waiting to be ridden, trampling on the frost and snow, riding along the official road, flying north. It is late winter, and there are few people on the road, just for the flying horses to gallop. The knight was a strong man, with a letter flag on his back, and was a soldier of the Post Army. His face was weathered and he looked tired. When he arrived at the Military Post Station in the southwest of Tokyo City, he reined in his horse and almost rolled off the horse.
Immediately, the guarding postmen came forward to help and lead the horses, and then the post officials in charge went out to ask questions.
The identity was quickly verified and passed. He cut off the knot with a knife, took out a bamboo tube and handed it over. The knight spoke in a tired Nanyin and said: "Your Majesty has appointed you. Please report the Hunan battle to the Privy Council as soon as possible!"
The post official didn't talk nonsense. While ordering people to help him go down to rest, he quickly arranged for people to report this "urgent military information" to the city of Tokyo.
By the time it was presented to Liu Chengyou's imperial case after several passes, the sky had completely darkened.
Liu Chengyou was exhausted when he returned from the military camp. It took him a hundred days to patrol the imperial army, from the front army to the guard army, from the cavalry army to the infantry army, and from the imperial city to the outer city.
Regardless of spring, summer, autumn or winter, basically every month, Liu Chengyou will take time to go to the military camp to inspect and train military discipline, inspect the morale of the soldiers, and most importantly, strengthen the construction of loyalty to the emperor and patriotism...
The military report submitted contained a lot of content. Based on the military situation in Hunan, it basically reported the situation of the Ma brothers in Hunan for half a month. Hunan is far away from the Central Plains, and there is Jingnan in between, so it is basically difficult to transmit news from the south to the north in a timely and effective manner. Liu Chengyou had specially ordered to pay attention to the military situation in Hunan this time, otherwise the transmission of the news would be delayed.
The minister who met in the palace was Wei Renpu, deputy envoy to the Privy Council, who had always been relied upon by Liu Chengyou as an important minister. After Wang Jun was transferred to deputy commander of the bodyguard and continued to command the army, Liu Chengyou promoted him to deputy privy envoy, sharing the privy councilship with Guo Wei.
"Come here, call Fan Zhi, Wang Pu, Wang Pu, um... call Tao Gu too!" After browsing for a while, Liu Chengyou gave Zhang Dejun instructions, and then began to read carefully.
Over in Hunan, the situation has been chaotic for two years since Chu King Ma Xiguang succeeded to the throne, and it reached a climax this winter.
Due to the ancestral system of "brothers eventually descend to younger brothers" of the Chu king Ma Yin, as early as the year of the rise of the Han Dynasty, Ma Xi'e, the governor of Langzhou, revealed his dissatisfaction with Ma Xiguang, who succeeded the throne. Ma Xihe's ambitions were never restrained from the very beginning. When he took the throne, some of his subordinates suggested that Chu King Ma Xiguang should strike first and get rid of Ma Xihe, but Ma Xiguang flatly refused and did not want to kill his brother. Even if he is in Langzhou, don't ask him.
As a result, in the next one or two years, the power struggle between the Ma brothers intensified in Hunan. By last year (the second year of Qianyou's reign), it had completely turned into a military expedition, with the same room fighting against each other. Ma Xi'e raised troops in Langzhou and went south to attack Tanzhou, the capital of Ma Chu.
Then, Ma Xihe was defeated sharply, and Ma Xiguang once again showed his "mercy" to the Ma Chu soldiers and civilians. In order to avoid hurting his brother, he restrained the frontline soldiers from pursuing Ma Xihe and let him return to Langzhou. I hope Ma Xi'e will learn a lesson, recognize the situation, and dare not rebel again.
As everyone knows, seeing how weak Ma Xiguang is, Ma Xi'e has no scruples at all. Even if he is defeated and captured, the end will not be too miserable given Ma Xiguang's cowardice. If you lose, you can save your life and even your wealth. If you win, you will be the lord of Hunan. There is no reason why Ma Xi'e shouldn't do this kind of business.
As expected, after returning to Langzhou, Ma Xi'e did not stop at all, gathering the defeated troops, regrouping, recruiting troops, and licking his wounds.
It took nearly half a year to regain his strength. However, in Changsha, Ma Xiguang remained unchanged in his politics and made no achievements. He ignored his subordinates' advice to be wary of Ma Xi'e and hunkered down in the palace all day long.
In view of this, how could Ma Xi'e endure it. This time, he thought more carefully and did not rush southward. After all, with only Langzhou's power, there was still a huge gap in absolute strength compared with Chu King Ma Xiguang.
Ma Xi'e first sent someone to request orders from the imperial court, hoping that Liu Chengyou would send troops south to help him capture Changsha and depose Ma Xiguang, promising a lot of benefits. Unfortunately, Liu Chengyou was not tempted, but he neither agreed nor refused.
Ma Xi'e's palace was shallow and he didn't have much patience. Although he didn't get a reply from the court, it didn't stop him from continuing his actions. They sent people to contact Chenzhou, Xuzhou and Meishan barbarians to lure them to attack Changsha. The barbarians had known that Changsha had the wealth of Hunan, so they could not resist the temptation and gathered their troops eastward.
When Ma Xi heard about it, he sent troops to resist. He was defeated in consecutive battles and lost thousands of troops. The barbarian troops were so powerful that they broke through Tanzhou counties and towns. When the threat was greatest, they broke through Ditian (today's Xiangxiang) west of Changsha, which was less than 200 miles away from Changsha.
The situation at that time was that without Lang's troops, Tanzhou was already in chaos. At that point, Ma Xiguang finally felt threatened and knew that his "respected" brother was irreversible. But facing this situation, there was no other option but to send troops to garrison Yutan, the gateway to Changsha.
The King of Chu was not without talents or courage. His general Liu Yanxin persuaded Ma Xiguang with some heroic words and took the initiative to send troops north to attack Langzhou and capture Ma Xihe.
Ma Xiguang, who was at a loss for what to do, saw a good general offering advice and happily accepted it. That is to say, Liu Yanxin was appointed as the commander of Zhanchudu and the commander of Langzhou's camp. He led more than 10,000 naval and army troops to go north to Langzhou. He also sent Zhang Hui, the commander of the cavalry army, to lead the army to take the dry road and avoid attacking Langzhou.
The result, of course, was not what Ma Xiguang had intended. Liu Yanxin was a man of great arrogance but insufficient talent to support Ma Chu's foundation. He was careless in Langzhou and fell into Ma Xi'e's plan to confuse the enemy. He was cut off from the rest of the way. On the way, they took advantage of the wind and set fire to the Langman coalition forces who wanted to burn Ma Xi'e. Unexpectedly, the wind turned against them in an instant and they burned themselves.
Liu Yanxin was defeated and almost wiped out, and only the remaining troops returned south. On the other hand, Zhang Hui's army, upon hearing the news of their defeat, withdrew their troops back to Yiyang, a small county in the northwest of Changsha. Ma Xi'e sent 3,000 troops to attack urgently, but Zhang Hui escaped before the enemy troops arrived. As a result, the Yiyang defenders were leaderless and more than 9,000 people died.
After continuous defeats and general losses, no matter how big the family fortune was, it could not withstand Ma Xiguang's efforts. Seeing that the situation was getting weaker and weaker, Ma Xiguang urgently sent an envoy north to Tokyo to ask for help from his father in the Northern Han Dynasty, hoping that Liu Chengyou could make the decision for him.
At that time, the extermination of Buddhism was in full swing in the Han Dynasty, and Liu Chengyou had no time to intervene. He just issued an edict, ordering the Ma brothers to stop their troops and each defend his own territory. As for the effect, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty knew it very well. He even harbored evil intentions.
However, it is not too much to describe the affairs in the south as saying that a single move affects the whole body. The civil strife in Ma Chu involved Jingnan, the Southern Han Dynasty and the Southern Tang Dynasty. Therefore, Liu Chengyou ordered people to pay more attention to the chaos in Hunan.
On the other hand, Ma Xi'e was furious after receiving the edict from the Emperor of the Northern Han Dynasty. At that time, he had gained the upper hand in the war against Ma Xiguang, but he felt that Liu Chengyou was favoring the incompetent leader Ma Xiguang. As a result, he angrily surrendered to the Southern Tang Dynasty and asked for troops to help him attack Tan.
After the successive defeats in the Battle of Meishui and the Battle of Yiyang, the Ma brothers had different offensive and defensive positions. Ma Xi'e turned from defensive to offensive, raised his troops southward, and marched towards Changsha again.
And Liu Chengyou received military information, which was the progress of the Langzhou soldiers in November. Up to now, Ma Xi'e has led his army southward, breaking through the barriers and building strongholds, recruiting surrenders and accepting rebels. His army is approaching the Xiangjiang River, and his troops are pointing directly at Changsha City.
