In the darkness, after an unknown amount of time, He Qing'er finally opened her eyes again.
I don't know when she fell asleep.
Suddenly, she was shocked, because at this moment, a cold hand gently crossed her smooth back.
Her whole body relaxed immediately.
Li Xuan's voice sounded softly in the darkness: "You're awake, can I ask you something?"
"You ask?" He Qinger bit her lower lip slightly.
"Well!" Li Xuan's voice was soft, but the question was very direct: "You have been following your father for a long time. Do you know how many people the Tianyin Sect has in Muzhou? How long does it take for them to assemble and how long does it take to reach Meizhou? How many people can arrive in front of Lingguan?"
Although Li Xuan captured Meiling Pass, he would face the most direct threat from Muzhou at any time.
He needs to have a clear understanding of the number, size and strength of the enemy.
"The prestige of Empress Gu in Muzhou is very high. Over the years, the taxes imposed by the governor of Muzhou in Muzhou are more than twice as high as those in other nearby states, making the people of Muzhou even more alienated. Today, there are seven people in Muzhou Cheng is a loyal believer of the Tianyin Goddess."
He Qing'er's words made Li Xuan's heart feel heavy.
Although Muzhou has been losing population over the years, even so, the entire Muzhou still has a population of 15,000 households.
There are five counties, Chun'an, Jiande, Fenshui, Shouchang, and Sui'an, with 15,000 households and a minimum population of more than 50,000.
Among them, there should be at least 20,000 men who can take up arms and join the army.
Twenty thousand, suddenly, Li Xuan felt inexplicably relaxed.
Tianyin Sect comes out from both east and west. Wuzhou in the southeast and Shezhou in the northwest are the focus of Tianyin Sect's attack.
Even Shezhou in the northwest is more important than Wuzhou.
Back then, Chen Shuozhen attacked Wuzhou only after he failed to attack Shezhou first.
Shezhou Dudu's Mansion is stationed with half of Huidong Mansion's soldiers from Zhechong Mansion. Once they go eastward, they will stab the Tianyin Sect in the back.
Unless the old nest is no longer needed, nearly half of the force must be allocated to attack Shezhou.
Li Xuan saw this, and the emperor and the central government also saw this, so they sent Qiu Shenji to Shezhou to serve as the governor of Shezhou.
The purpose is to use Qiu Shenji to assist Wang Dali in seizing the Tianyin Sect's way out from the west.
Once the Tianyin Sect goes west and crosses Shezhou and Xuanzhou, it will immediately reach the coast of the Yangtze River.
At that time, whether they cross the Yangtze River to attack Luzhou, or go down the river to attack Jinling and Yangzhou, they are all within their options.
They even went upstream and hit Jiangzhou directly.
The entire Jiangyou area is under the opponent's military front.
Just like playing chess, traveling eastward to Wuzhou, Hangzhou and Yuezhou is just playing dead chess in the corners.
But if you go west, whether it is Luzhou, Jiangzhou or Jinling Yangzhou, all the chess pieces of the Tianyin Sect on the entire chessboard will be alive.
At that time, they truly had the power to threaten the world.
The ones who should really worry about them are no longer Li Xuan and Qiu Shenji, but Empress Wu, Li Zhi and the princes of the court.
It is impossible for Tianyin Sect to let go of such a strategy, so their troops going south to Wuzhou will only have 10,000 troops at most.
Ten thousand.
Li Xuan breathed a sigh of relief. Wang Fanglin and he once deduced that without recruiting people on a large scale, Wuzhou could recruit retired soldiers, young and strong people, as well as police officers from various places. There are probably two thousand people under Li Xuan's command.
There may be more to come.
If the strength of the Tianyin Sect's followers is only that of a black pawn, and only with a steady stream of logistical support, then Li Xuan can completely block the Tianyin Sect outside Meiling Pass.
…
After withdrawing his thoughts and feeling the slightly cold skin on his fingertips, Li Xuan calmed down and then asked softly: "It is impossible for all the Tianyin Sect's troops to go south to Wuzhou in one go. They always have an order in doing things. You can guess it." Is one likely to come?"
"Once there is an uprising in the church, the first thing to be determined is the center. I have heard Aye and the others mention that this time they do not plan to use the banner of Emperor Wenjia anymore, but plan to raise troops to oppose him in the name of Muzhou Governor Shi Xu. The imperial court was harsh in its administration, and then changed the Yuanbao response, calling on the world to respond." After He Qing'er finished speaking, he immediately felt that the other party's breathing became heavy.
"What's wrong?" He Qing'er asked subconsciously.
"The Empress has great plans!" Li Xuan's voice sounded faintly.
In the darkness, he lay flat on the bed. No expression on his face could be seen clearly, but the silence showed his shock.
In the name of the governor of Muzhou, he raised troops to oppose the harsh government of the imperial court and changed Yuan Baoying.
Such an action is far from being as simple as a cult's rebellion. What they are really plotting is the entire world.
If the governor of a state directly rebels, the shock caused can spread to the entire world in an instant.
When the world is in turmoil, it will be impossible for the imperial court to take care of Muzhou.
Just like in the past, in the end, the Central Committee only sent three troops from Yangzhou Governor's Mansion southward. In the middle, he mobilized the Hangzhou Navy, the Yuezhou Governor's Mansion army, and finally added the troops from Wuzhou, and the total was less than 10,000 people. , and finally relied on a "meteorite falling from the sky" to put down Chen Shuozhen's rebellion.
"Father said that the queen did not want to appear in front of everyone this time. People only need to know that the goddess Tianyin is protecting her secretly. He said that the queen had other plans this time." He Qing'er's words , once again shocked Li Xuan.
But at this time, He Qing'er's words also explained the problem just now, why she knew so clearly about such a big thing as the Tianyin Sect's rebellion against the Tang Dynasty.
It turns out that the one who really knows everything is not her, but her father He Zheng.
"Using the name of the governor as the skin, the Tianshen Sect as the skeleton, and finally at the critical moment, the former imperial family will be selected as the leader. In this way, everything will fall into place and everything will fall into place and Chengdu will be completed." Li Xuan said at a glance I saw the calculation behind this.
Emperor Wenjia is already dead, so there is no need to dig her out again.
Empress Wei will not step out of the front desk this time, so the one standing in front of everyone this time should be Wen Fuzhi.
This also explains Li Xuan's previous question, why at the critical moment when the Tianyin Sect was about to start an uprising, Wen Fuzhi and Zhang Wanyu were not at the main altar in the mountain, nor in Wuzhou, but running around outside.
If Fang Yunxiu hadn't died, even Zhang Wanyu wouldn't have come back.
It turns out that it was not them who started the trouble from the beginning, but Shi Shu, the governor of Muzhou.
This poor guy.
According to historical records, his father was Shi Huaixun, the former minister of Sinong Temple, and his grandfather was Shi Wanbao, the former Duke of Luozhou and the governor of Luozhou.
Shi Wanbao, the former Duke of the country, had a brother, Shi Wanzai, the former Duke of Taiping County in the Sui Dynasty and the general.
At that time, Shi Wansui was framed by Yang Su because of Yang Yong's incident. Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty Yang Jian was violently killed in the court, and the family was framed as treason.
Later, Shi Wanbao and Li Shentong raised troops, and together with Princess Pingyang, opened the gate of Chang'an and welcomed Li Yuan into Chang'an.
Single-handedly destroyed the Sui Dynasty.
But who would have thought that the children of the Shi family would follow in the footsteps of their ancestors.
Only this time, it was not the court officials who framed them, but the Empress Tianyin.
Li Xuan was not surprised at all that Tianyin Sect was able to hold Shi Xu hostage and raise troops.
Although Shi Xu has been appointed as the governor of Muzhou for many years, the Tianyin Sect has cultivated deeper in Muzhou.
Coupled with the fact that the imperial court has imposed harsh taxes on Muzhou for more than 20 years, it is surprising that he can win over the people.
As time passed, his family and friends in Muzhou, and even himself, were controlled by the Tianyin Sect, and they were no longer able to control themselves.
Li Xuan only hopes that his life will be better than that of his great-uncle Shi Wansui.
After Yang Jian killed Shi Wansui, he had already realized that he had fallen into Yang Su's conspiracy, but at that time, he had already killed Shi Wansui, so he simply made the mistake.
Now, once Shi Xu Tianyin Sect really starts an uprising in his own name, even if he is coerced, the center will immediately arrest all nine of his clans in the name of treason.
If you encounter an emperor who is as ignorant as Yang Jian, it is possible for him to be executed by everyone in his family by accident.
I just hope that Li Zhi can be more patient and have more trust in Shi Xu.
"I'm afraid this matter is far from that simple."
In the darkness, feeling He Qing'er's cold skin, Li Xuan's face became more serious.
Thousand-faced Buddha, Shi Jin.
Prince seal.
Governor.
If the Tianyin Sect takes the name of Muzhou Governor Shishu, pretends to be in the name of Prince Li Hong, and then uses the name of the Qing army side, then the whole world will be shocked.
At that time, the central government will have to face not only rebellions from various places, but also governors and various careerists from various places.
If Silla, Turks, and Tubo attacked at the same time at this time, the Tang Dynasty would immediately fall into turmoil.
"The rebellion of the Tianyin Sect must be resolved quickly." Li Xuan was determined, and then turned to ask: "Then when will reinforcements from the Tianyin Sect arrive in Meiling Pass?"
"Three and a half days." He Qing'er gave the answer directly, and then briefly explained: "In fact, a few days ago, Hall Master Zhang had already sent a request for help to Muzhou, and they should arrive around six o'clock on the fourth day. Meiling Pass, but the number of people will not be too many, the most is the manpower of Jiandetang, there should be about a thousand people."
"Thousands of people, only a thousand people?" Li Xuan was suddenly stunned.
Thousands of people, if there were only a thousand people, he could bury them all by himself without any backup.
"That's what Master Zhang said, but if the Jiande branch is fully organized, it should have 3,000 people. However, in this case, the Jiande branch will be completely empty." He Qing'er said the Tianyin Sect's update Many secrets.
In addition to the main church in Zhoucheng by Qiandao Lake, the Tianyin Sect also has branch churches in five other counties.
Before the uprising, the internal backbone of each branch were elites trained over ten or twenty years.
Some are stronger than the black pawns, and some are slightly weaker than the black pawns, but overall there is not much difference.
Once an incident breaks out, the personnel can be expanded rapidly, and it is not surprising to expand to more than 3,000 people.
In the entire Muzhou, once there is an uprising, the Tianyin Sect will immediately have a force of close to 20,000.
This calculation is consistent with the previous calculation.
"Muzhou Church has been operating for many years and is not comparable to other branches outside. Even many of the church leaders of other branches have left Muzhou. The power of a branch church in Muzhou is almost equal to that of branches in other states. power, so that once something happens, all the power will erupt like a volcano."
In the darkness, Li Xuan nodded silently.
Now he is a little lucky that he was not appointed to serve in Muzhou.
If that were the case, his end might be even worse than Shi Xu's.
With He Qing'er, everything in the future became clear in front of Li Xuan.
Reaching out, Li Xuan hugged He Qing'er into his arms again.
(End of chapter)
