Of course, Zhao Mingyuan also entered everyone's attention with this battle and became the third most famous figure in Wagang Village.
However, Li Mi obviously fought side by side against Zhang Xutuo, and Li Mi obviously admired Zhao Mingyuan. However, everyone did not expect that Zhao Mingyuan actually refused Li Mi's solicitation.
This puzzled everyone.
Even Li Mi visited many times and asked Zhao Mingyuan to join his Pushan public camp, but Zhao Mingyuan repeatedly refused.
Only Zhai Rang was overjoyed to see this and regarded Zhao Mingyuan more highly.
Because Zhai Rang saw that Li Mi was in a strong position, but Zhao Mingyuan was not on good terms with him. Therefore, he planned to support Zhao Mingyuan to compete with Li Mi.
In this way, as long as Li Mi cannot occupy an absolute advantage in Wagang Village, he will not dare to act rashly.
Then Zhai Rang can sit still on the Diaoyutai and watch the two tigers fight. No matter who wins or loses, they can no longer threaten him.
Even though Zhao Mingyuan gradually became ambitious like Li Mi, Zhai Rang believed that Zhao Mingyuan was definitely not a greater threat to him than Li Mi.
After all, in his opinion, Zhao Mingyuan has no power and no foundation. Although his character, martial arts, and talents were all top-notch, he could not compare to the family background and huge reputation of Li Mi IV and Third Duke.
Therefore, Zhai Rang rewarded Zhao Mingyuan heavily on the grounds of his suggestions, and perhaps gave Zhao Mingyuan the qualification to form an independent army to correspond with Li Mi.
Even fearing that Zhao Mingyuan couldn't deal with Li Mi, Zhai Rang gave Zhao Mengyuan a lot of elite talents, and even asked Zhao Mingyuan to pick any talent he wanted, as long as both parties were willing.
After all, Li Mi's reputation was so great that it even surpassed that of Zhai Rang. Many heroes came to join him because of his fame, but he was by no means comparable to Zhao Mingyuan.
But with Zhao Mingyuan's reputation, it is difficult to recruit any talents.
With Zhai Rang's help, Zhao Mingyuan's power naturally developed rapidly.
Since Zhai Rang asked him to choose his soldiers, Zhao Mingyuan naturally did not refuse. The first thing he did was to find Qin Shubao.
Since the Battle of Dahai Temple ended and Zhang Xutuo was defeated, Qin Shubao's previous bet with Zhao Mingyuan has naturally lost.
Now that Zhao Mingyuan invited him, Qin Shubao naturally did not refuse. Not only did he come, he also brought Luo Shixin and Cheng Yaojin.
Yes, Luo Shixin and Cheng Yaojin were also defeated and captured in the battle at Dahai Temple.
I don’t know how Qin Shubao persuaded the two of them, but in short, Luo Shixin and Cheng Yaojin also agreed to work for Zhao Mingyuan.
As a result, the three powerful generals under Zhang Xutuo all returned to Zhao Mingyuan's command.
Zhao Mingyuan even brought over those captured Sui troops.
Although these Sui troops were indeed elite, more than 10,000 of them were captured. However, his military spirit has not yet returned, so he can only be dispersed and slowly appeased.
However, if under the command of Qin Shubao, Luo Shixin, and Cheng Yaojin, and led by familiar generals, the original combat strength can be restored almost immediately.
Although Zhai Rang was a little reluctant to hear Zhao Mingyuan's request, he thought that these Sui troops were useless in his own hands. It is tasteless to eat and a pity to throw away. Not only is it difficult to take advantage of their strengths, but you have to be wary of them at all times.
Thinking of Li Mi who threatened his position, Zhai Rang gritted his teeth and agreed.
He was even afraid that Zhao Mingyuan only had the Sui army under his command and would be counterattacked, so he gave Zhao Mingyuan some sergeants to contain the less than 20,000 troops under his command.
In this way, Zhao Mingyuan became the third force in Wagang Village not only in name but also in strength.
The development of this series of events naturally caused Li Mi's attitude towards Zhao Mingyuan to change several times. From Zhao Mingyuan's great admiration, to resentment, to now he is regarded as a thorn in his side and a thorn in his flesh, and he can't wait to get rid of it quickly.
Unfortunately, everything moved too fast. Not long after Zhai Rang allowed Li Mi to set up the Pushan public camp, he agreed to let Zhao Mingyuan lead the army alone.
Nowadays, Li Mi's Pushan public camp is not fully constructed, but Zhao Mingyuan has already subdued three Sui generals, Qin Shubao, Luo Shixin, and Cheng Yaojin, with the support of Zhai Rang, and also used this to subdue more than 10,000 captured Sui troops.
Those are all the elites who followed Zhang Xutuo in his battles in the north and south!
Suddenly, Zhao Mingyuan's strength was no worse than him, but his reputation was still inferior.
Now, Li Mi's ambition has been revealed and everyone can see it clearly.
But after all, Zhao Mingyuan became famous not long ago, as if he appeared out of nowhere, and everyone was curious about him.
After carefully studying his experience, everyone discovered that Zhao Mingyuan had only reformed the military medical camp in Wagang Village.
That incident is still highly praised by everyone, especially after the battle with the Sui army, many wounded soldiers who had been left to die in the past were revived.
After they recovered, many of them joined Zhao Mingyuan, and even brought their brothers and fellow villagers to join.
After all, for ordinary soldiers like them, fighting is everywhere, and following Zhao Mingyuan at least will not lead to death so easily.
In other respects, Zhao Mingyuan has almost no stain.
This also means that Zhao Mingyuan has nothing to attack and accuse.
This also gave Li Mi a headache.
Because, Li Mi discovered that the best way to deal with Zhao Mingyuan was to physically destroy him and find an opportunity to assassinate him.
However, almost everyone understood that Zhao Mingyuan was introduced by Zhai Rang to check and balance him. If Zhao Mingyuan was suddenly killed, it would be almost obvious that he was the murderer.
Even if it was really not his fault and Zhao Mingyuan died unexpectedly, everyone would think it was his fault.
Although Li Mi doesn't care about his reputation. However, if the reputation is tarnished but no real profits are made, then the business is not worthwhile.
If Zhai Rang and Zhao Mingyuan can be eliminated in one fell swoop and gain the power of Wagang Village, then the reputation will be ruined.
However, only getting rid of Zhao Mingyuan would cost his own reputation. If people in Wagang Village are alienated from him, many neutral people will leave him and turn to Zhai Rang, which is not worth the gain.
Wouldn't that mean that Zhai Rang could reap the benefits?
Perhaps, this is the real reason why Zhai Rang spared no effort to push Zhao Mingyuan to the top to check and balance Li Mi.
Zhai Rang never expected Zhao Mingyuan to be able to deal with Li Mi. He just wanted to find a way to cause trouble for Li Mi.
When Li Mi had a headache and didn't know how to deal with Zhao Mingyuan, Shen Luoyan came up with a plan for Li Mi.
Instead, she asked Li Mi to challenge Zhai Rang to capture Luokou Cang.
This was the original strategy. Now that Xingyang City has been captured, the next step is to capture Luokou Cang, the number one warehouse in the world.
If Luokou Cang can be captured, Wagang Village will never be short of food again. This is naturally a great achievement.
If Zhai Rang agreed to let Li Mi attack, he captured Luokou Cang.
Then, as long as Li Mi captures Luokou Granary and opens it to release grain. Then Li Mi will definitely become more powerful, the people will support him, and people from all over will come to vote for him.
As long as they are strong enough, Zhai Rang and Zhao Mingyuan can fight together, so what?
If Zhai Rang did not agree with Li Mi to go, he would instead let Zhao Mingyuan capture Luokou Cang.
Then, Zhao Mingyuan's reputation will definitely increase greatly in the future.
As long as Zhao Mingyuan's ambitions are explained in front of Zhai Rang later, and Li Mi can even give in, saying that Zhao Mingyuan has such great achievements, he will be more worthy of taking the second place in Wagangzhai, and Li Mi can retreat to third place.
This is a strategy to kill.
Let's see if Zhao Mingyuan will get carried away. If he is really ambitious, then he can use his hand to kill Zhai Rang.
Li Mi can take advantage of the situation and hold high the banner of revenge for Da Longtou, bring order to the chaos, kill Zhao Mingyuan, and completely take Wagang Village into his own hands.
Secondly, you can also sow discord between Zhao Mingyuan and Zhai Rang, and even reverse the offensive and defensive momentum. Zhai Rang may even think of ways to strengthen Li Mi's strength to deal with Zhao Mingyuan. This is also possible.
After all, Zhai Rang would think that Zhao Mingyuan was highly praised by everyone today and moved from the third place to the second place. In the future, will Zhao Mingyuan be favored by everyone and be promoted to the top spot?
As long as Zhai Rang has this idea, it will only be a matter of time before they fall out.
This is a serial plan. No matter which way the situation develops, Shen Luoyan has corresponding countermeasures.
Li Mi was convinced after hearing this, and proposed to Zhai Rang that the next step of the Wagang Army's strategy was to attack Luokou Cang. He also volunteered and expressed his willingness to lead the Pushan public camp to attack.
Zhai Rang fell into the trap and asked Zhao Mingyuan what he thought, hinting that Zhao Mingyuan should send troops to attack.
After all, Wagangzhai has already captured Xingyang City, and it will be much easier to attack Luokou Cang next.
Zhao Mingyuan said: "Luokou Cang is too important, and the foolish emperor Yang Guang will definitely send people from Luoyang to lead his army to support.
Luokou warehouse is also related to the fate of our Wagang village. We must not be careless and must go all out.
Xingyang is such an important town, so there must be no room for failure. Da Longtou must be in charge personally.
As for Luokou Cang, it would be better for Pu Shanggong and Zhao to lead an army each and attack on both sides. "
Everyone was shocked when they heard this. Although what Zhao Mingyuan said seemed to make sense, everyone could tell that this was almost a confrontation with Li Mi.
Both sides attacked Luokou Cang at the same time, and naturally they wanted to see who could capture Luokou Cang first, who would be the winner.
This almost brought the conflict between the two sides to the surface.
Zhai Rang felt very satisfied after hearing this. This was exactly the result he wanted.
After promoting Zhao Mingyuan, everything went smoothly. Even Li Mi has to ask himself first when he has something to do, and he respects himself more.
Is this the legendary way of balance? Zhai Rang felt very proud.
But Li Mi was not in a good mood. Unexpectedly, Zhao Mingyuan would find another way. Such a choice was completely beyond their expectations.
However, now that things have come to a point, he naturally cannot back down. Li Mi didn't believe that he would lose to the young man Zhao Mingyuan in this competition, so he was ready to agree.
At this time, Li Mi suddenly felt someone tugging on his sleeve secretly.
Li Mi looked calmly out of the corner of his eye and found that Shen Luoyan was shaking his head at him, apparently asking him to find an excuse to retreat.
Li Mi was furious for a moment. Do you also think that I will not be as good as Zhao Mingyuan and may lose?
(End of chapter)
