Chapter 1184 The Successor is Difficult to Protect

Chapter 1184 The Successor is Difficult to Protect

"Hou Andu was so bold that in order to fulfill his own merits, he dared to break the contract and break the alliance, turning our country into an unjust country. It is really hateful and should be severely punished! This disciple should be captured and sent to the Wei State and handed over to the Tang Dynasty The king will impose punishments, hoping that the differences will be resolved and the alliance will be restored as before!"

After receiving the envoy from Liyang, Chen Baxian convened everyone in the court to discuss how to respond to the Western Wei Dynasty's questioning. Prince Chen Chang, as the person who most supported the alliance and cooperation with the Western Wei Dynasty, naturally pointed the finger at Hou Andu and hurt him. Add a rebuke.

After hearing the words of the prince, Chen Xu, the king of Shixing who was attending the meeting, subconsciously raised his eyebrows and wanted to refute. However, he remembered that his uncle Chen Ba had beaten him first, and he secretly looked at his brother Chen Qian and saw Chen Qian. Qian just frowned and remained silent, then she also suppressed it and did not rush to express her opinions.

Xu Du once went to Jingkou to communicate secretly with the Qi people. Naturally, he knew that Hou Andu's move was not just a matter of greed for merit and breaking the contract, and seeing evil in the Western Wei Dynasty. It was even more unsuitable to hand Hou Andu over to the Western Wei Dynasty for punishment.

Seeing His Majesty the Emperor's eyebrows furrowed, he stood up and said: "The Duke of Xijiang is the founder of the country, and now he is ordered to supervise the Northern Expedition in Huainan. The battlefield situation has always been changing rapidly, and it is not necessary for the general to act expediently. The situation at that time may be unavoidable. Without such variables, Duke Xijiang responded decisively to changes in circumstances. Fortunately, the situation could have good results, which is also very gratifying.

The king of Wei State and Tang Dynasty knows soldiers well and must be well aware of this truth. The envoy from Wei Dynasty came to ask, not necessarily to accuse me of breaking the alliance, but just to find out the specific situation and variables at that time. Later, Duke Xijiang came to the court and asked him to report the battle report in detail. In order to gain Wei Guo's understanding. Since the two countries formed an alliance, they have helped each other and benefited each other. Wei will definitely not break with me over this trivial matter. "

"Are Xu Hou's words teasing my ignorance? Everyone has heard of what happened in Huainan. The power of Qi has weakened and it is difficult to hold on. The retreat order has been issued. None of the soldiers have the will to fight. What changes are there to make our army urgent? Go out to attack? Hou Andu will take advantage of this to advance. If he still loses, he will be humiliating himself!"

After Chen Chang heard Xu Du's words, he immediately sneered and said: "This matter is nothing more than a strong general greedy for power and violating the agreement of his allies. If you explain this fact to the Wei people clearly, you can still maintain your magnanimous attitude. You know what is right and wrong. To remain stubborn and sophistry is to hide the evil inside and expose the evil to the outside. If a general is difficult to control, what big things can be done with him?"

"This this……"

Hearing the prince's questioning, Xu Du was speechless for a moment and didn't know how to respond.

When Chen Chang saw this, he retracted the sneer on his face, and turned to worship his father with a solemn expression: "I am not asking this question out of fear of the strong and the strong. The strength of the weak depends on the facts. , Now when the country is talking about this, the people of the country have no way to answer the question. How can the Wei people be weaker than me? We really can't expect to be able to resolve this matter easily.

With small things making big things happen, with diligence and sincerity, you can always achieve success. Trying to form an alliance through deception will only end up harming yourself and your subjects. Hou Andu sent troops rashly, seemingly to regain Guangling and the people of the country were happy, but in fact it was difficult for me to regain control of the remaining counties and counties in Huainan. If our country really has the strength to recover Huainan by itself, why delay it until now? Now we are relying on the power of the Wei State, but we are making a big deal out of small things. If we take this as a merit, I am afraid that disaster is not far away! "

After saying this, he stood up again and returned to his seat, leaving his father to weigh the matter.

After hearing his son's words, Chen Baxian's eyes became deeper. He understood what Chen Chang meant, and while he could still explain it a little, handing over Hou Andu, a man who made his own decisions, to the Western Wei Dynasty could prevent the Western Wei Dynasty from taking advantage of this and continue to use it to force Nan Chen to pay more. Much price. Relatively speaking, this is a better solution for Nan Chen.

But if you take a chance and hope that you can get through by fooling around, if you can't get through, then the entire Nanchen will be in a very passive state.

If the original allies become enemies, this will be the most serious and bad consequence for Nan Chen. At that time, it will not be a problem that can be solved with a warm-blooded spirit. I am afraid that he will have to face the golden horses of the Wei army and the country. The separatist forces in various parts of the country are experiencing rebellion and nuisance one after another!

However, Chen Baxian's concerns were more, and he could not consider only the pros and cons like Chen Chang. Not to mention Xu Du's worry that if Hou Andu is handed over to the Western Wei Dynasty, the details of the secret conspiracy with the Northern Qi Dynasty may not be concealed. The key is that Hou Andu has followed him for many years and contributed indispensably to the establishment of Nanchen. , such a figure was forced to be handed over to the Wei State, so why should Chen Baxian comfort and order the subjects of the country?

Chen Chang's own position is closer to that of the Western Wei Dynasty. In addition, he has not personally experienced or felt the difficulties of his father's entrepreneurial business. He also has no special feelings for a founding father like Hou Andu. If he thinks that the other party has caused trouble, he must be punished on a case-by-case basis. , thereby avoiding greater costs.

Of course, when Chen Chang held this view, he did not know that in the original history, Hou Andu also "discussed the matter" with him once. Perhaps the two of them were destined not to have the fate of being a monarch and a minister. Although the situation has changed now and he returned to Nanchen earlier, it is still difficult for them to live in harmony with each other.

Regarding his son's stance of being closer to the Western Wei Dynasty, Chen Baxian also had complicated feelings. On the one hand, he naturally hopes that his son will have great talents and strategies, and can continue to carry forward the legacy he has built during his busy life, so that their Nanchen national industry can be passed down forever.

On the other hand, he knew very well that it was difficult to support too much ambition with the current national strength of their Southern Chen. Especially now that Li Boshan of the Western Wei Dynasty was leading the world by a cliff, even with the strength of the Northern Qi Dynasty, Li Boshan took power in the Western Wei Dynasty for only a few years and completed a counterattack.

Such a great talent and strategy, even Chen Baxian sighed that he was far inferior to him. When he thought that his son would be an enemy of such a person, it would definitely be a very terrible difficulty. But if he could maintain an open-minded attitude of being optimistic and knowing his fate, he would not be a poor man.

As a monarch, Chen Baxian was quite dissatisfied with his heir, thinking that Chen Chang lacked the heroic spirit that a successor should have. But as a father, he was more pleased with his son's vision of judging the situation and knowing how to follow the will of heaven, so he could avoid great disasters.

Putting aside these thoughts, when his mind turned back to the matter at hand, Chen Baxian had a headache again. He was a little confused. What kind of mentality did Hou Andu have? When he gave him great autonomy, he actually chose the worst way to deal with it.

Hou Andu's actions violated the agreement with the Western Wei to send troops to take over the Huainan counties, which would inevitably have a bad impact on the handover and ownership of the counties. At the same time, he forged a deep hatred with the Northern Qi, causing the relationship between the two countries, which had just improved, to fall back to the freezing point.

If it was just for greed, Hou Andu would have already achieved success and fame. Doing so would not only fail to take his achievements to a higher level, but would also arouse Chen Baxian's vigilance and precautions.

However, thinking about Hou Andu's motives for his actions was not what Chen Baxian had to worry about at the moment. How to give an explanation to the Western Wei as soon as possible was the top priority at the moment.

Xu Du's so-called alliance between the two countries for mutual assistance and mutual benefit was actually a bit of a face-saving for them, the Southern Chen. If the diplomatic relations between the two countries really deteriorated, then the Southern Chen would inevitably suffer greater losses.

Let alone how to solve the current Huainan problem and whether Wei would have military actions against Southern Chen, just restricting the trade would cause great pressure on Jiankang, a city where most of the daily necessities need to be transported from outside. At present, a large part of the various materials for the people's clothing, food and daily life in Jiankang City comes from the markets of Liyang and Gusu.

Chen Baxian specially convened such a meeting, not to discuss any perfect countermeasures in the meeting, but to convey the pressure to Hou Andu through this meeting, so that he would understand how big a mess this had caused, and he would not have any resistance when making any arrangements for him later.

In the end, this meeting did not discuss a result, and after the meeting, someone naturally passed the relevant news to Hou Andu who did not attend the meeting.

Hou Andu was originally at home thinking about what kind of reward he would get this time, but he didn't expect that there would be voices in the court to hand him over to the Western Wei for questioning. He was so frightened that he broke out in a cold sweat. Then he couldn't help but slap his legs and cursed inwardly: "The master is a hero in his life, but he unexpectedly gave birth to such a son as the prince! With such a cowardly son, it is difficult for ordinary people to keep the family business for a long time, let alone the royal family! I have fought for half my life to create this national business for the master, and I am afraid that I will have to hand it over to others soon!"

Complaining about the prince could not change Hou Andu's dangerous situation. After thinking about it, he went to Taicheng overnight to ask for forgiveness. He was summoned to the inner palace by the emperor, and the king and his ministers talked until midnight.

The next day, Hou Andu was appointed as the governor of East Yangzhou and left Jiankang to sit in Kuaiji.

Although Kuaiji is also located in the Three Wus, it is adjacent to Dongyang, Jin'an and other counties, which are controlled by local tyrants and are not in the power core of Southern Chen. Hou Andu's departure is tantamount to exile. However, Chen Baxian still cherishes his old friendship and loves his loyalty and bravery. In this case, sending him to the southeast can not only avoid personnel disputes in the country, but also deter and pacify those local tyrants.

After arranging Hou Andu, Chen Baxian summoned another nephew Chen Tanlang, who was in Jingkou, and asked him to go to Hongnong as an envoy to meet the King of Tang, and to explain and apologize with his own handwritten letter, and to stay in Wei as a hostage instead of Chen Chang and Chen Xu who returned to the country.

In order to gather gifts to apologize to Wei, he even asked the empress and concubines in the harem to donate all their gold and silver jewelry, melt gold and cast utensils as an apology. His attitude was extremely humble and sincere.