Soon, An Chonghui, the first important official of the Later Tang Dynasty, learned that the King of Wu had actually proclaimed himself emperor, and believed that this was the arrogant and arrogant man of the Southern Barbarians and ignored the destiny. He expelled the envoys sent by the Wu Kingdom, completely interrupting the friendly relations that had lasted for decades since Li Keyong and Yang Xingmi formed an alliance against Zhu Wen.

On December 15, the third year of Tiancheng, Gao Jixing, 71 years old, passed away in Jiangling. His position was inherited by his eldest son Gao Conghui. Gao Conghui's views in many aspects were very different from his father Gao Jixing. In Gao Conghui's view, the small Nanping broke with the powerful Later Tang Dynasty and relied on the weak Wu Kingdom was a death move.

Therefore, as soon as Gao Conghui came to power, Nanping's basic national policy had a 180-degree turn. He publicly criticized his father's diplomatic policy against his subordinates: "The Tang Dynasty is close to us, the Wu Kingdom is far away from us, and seeking far away is not a good way to establish a country and maintain peace?" Gao Conghui immediately sent someone to the State of Chu and took the initiative to admit his mistakes to the King of Chu. However, those were all mistakes from my father's era. I will do things in the future, and such mistakes will not happen again.

After obtaining the understanding of the King of Chu, Gao Conghui asked the State of Chu to help him pass the letter to the Later Tang Dynasty, expressing his sincerity to Nanping State admit his mistake and as long as the Central Plains pardoned his sins, he would be willing to leave the State of Wu and regain his favor. At the same time, Gao Conghui also wrote a letter to An Yuanxin, the governor of the Shandong East Road in the Later Tang Dynasty, asking him to submit a memorial to ask for it.

At this time, the Later Tang and Chu State had a way out, and they were already in a state of distraction. The Jingnan War was over for a long time. After negotiations between the two sides, Gao Conghui submitted a sanction to Li Siyuan and offered 3,000 taels of atonement silver. Li Siyuan admitted that Gao Conghui was the lord of Jingnan and abolished the attack on Nanping State.

Then, Gao Conghui sent envoys to visit Yangzhou, Wu's capital, and broke up with a very innocent reason: Since the ancestral tombs of the Gao family have been in the Central Plains for all dynasties, if they surrender to the State of Wu, it may cause harm to the ancestral tombs. I am sorry for the ancestors, so I really have no choice but to ask the State of Wu to understand the difficulties in Nanping, so let's stop contacting!

The end of the Nanping crusade also brought a new question to Li Siyuan, which is what reasons should be used to consume Meng Zhixiang's money and food, and to restrain Meng Zhixiang's military power in the future!

In fact, as soon as Gao Conghui succeeded to the throne, he began to go to the Later Tang Dynasty. Ma Chu shook his olive branch, but before he formally surrendered, Meng Zhixiang wrote a letter to Li Siyuan: Since Kui, Zhong, Wan Sanzhou has been recovered, and the war in the attack on Nanping has basically subsided, should the troops transferred from Xichuan to Kuizhou be transferred back? Of course, Li Siyuan disagreed. The implicit meaning of fighting Nanping was to prevent your Xichuan. But this sentence cannot be said explicitly, so he had to respond: The crusade was not over yet, and the army could not withdraw its troops!

Since the problem cannot be solved through legal means, Meng Zhixiang did not mind using a less legal way to achieve his goals. He quietly ordered Mao Chongwei, the general of the Xichuan Army stationed in Kuizhou, to incite soldiers to cause trouble, just like Pang Xun in the past, or Huangfu Hui a few years ago, to leave the garrison and return to his hometown. In the context of the arrogance of the soldiers at that time, doing such a thing was extremely risky, and maybe it would be impossible to get it true, and it would be impossible to take advantage of it! But Meng Zhixiang dared to incite his own soldiers to change because he had the confidence to control the army.

As a result, a mutiny occurred in Kuizhou, and the military camp was in full swing. The soldiers of Xichuan ignored the imperial court's orders and resolved themselves.

The scattered back to Xichuan led to the striking spirit of the army on the Western Front. Fortunately, Gao Conghui had decided to be a vassal of the Later Tang Dynasty, so this mutiny did not cause serious consequences. However, this still aroused Li Siyuan's anger, and then issued an edict: He should severely punish Mao Chongwei and his subordinates who had left their posts without permission!

However, these people had returned to Xichuan. Under Meng Zhixiang's protection, the Emperor of the Later Tang Dynasty could not control them, and the edict was reduced to a piece of empty text. In order not to completely break up with the Emperor of the Later Tang Dynasty, Meng Zhixiang did not want to openly disobey the order, so he came out to pretend to be a good person and asked for the soldiers. He wrote a letter to Li Siyuan, emphasizing various reasons, the actual difficulties of the soldiers of the Xichuan City, etc., and requested the pardon of Mao Chongwei and others.

After calming down, Li Siyuan and An Chonghui had to reconsider the reality. It is obvious that whether the Xichuan soldiers who caused trouble could be punished had nothing to do with whether the Luoyang court pardoned them. Meng Zhixiang's rebellion seemed to be no longer a question of whether it would happen, but a question of when! At this time, the Later Tang Dynasty did not have enough troops to deal with the rebellion in Shu, so it would be better to appease Meng Zhixiang first and buy time for the relocation. So, Li Siyuan sold Meng Zhixiang a favor, and acted as nothing had happened and no longer pursued the Kuizhou mutiny.

Then Li Siyuan announced that a grand ceremony for worshiping heaven would be held in the southern suburbs, but the national treasury was short of money, so the extra expenditure was paid to the vassal states. The wealth in Shu was rich, so it should be a big deal. So An Chonghui sent his confidant, Guzhou envoy Li Renju to enter Shu to convey the imperial decree. Specifically, he asked Meng Zhixiang of Xichuan to donate one million guan and Dongchuan Dongzhang donated five hundred thousand guan.

After receiving the order, Meng Zhixiang expressed his understanding of the difficulties of the court. However, Xichuan suffered a disaster this year, rice prices rose sharply, and taxes could not be collected. The town's financial expenses were already very embarrassing, and military pay could not be paid on time! However, even so difficult, Xichuan would still grit his teeth, tighten his belt, overcome all difficulties, and share the worries of the country! Let's do so, Xichuan pledged 500,000 trump cards!

Meng Zhixiang cut half of it, but Xichuan was not reliable at all, so that was all that was possible. Will Dong Zhang, who was praised by An Chonghui as a "loyal and righteous man"? Li Renju came to Zizhou, the headquarters of Dongchuan again to pass the imperial edict. Dong Zhang first placed him in the inn, and then set up a banquet the next day to welcome him. As for the matter of donating money, I will talk about it when I arrive at the table tomorrow.

By the next day, all the civil and military officials from Dongchuan arrived. Everyone waited in the banquet hall for a long time, but Li Renju did not appear. Dong Zhang felt strange and rushed to the post station to find him, but saw Li Renju holding a beautiful woman, having fun, and forgot everything he should do today. Dong Zhang was furious and immediately ordered the guards to step forward, tie Li Renju off the bed, and then pointed at his nose and cursed: "Have you only heard that Xichuan killed Li Yan? Can't Dongchuan kill Li Renju?"

Li Renju was so scared that he burst into tears. He hurriedly knelt down and kowtowed like pounding garlic and begged for mercy. Dong Zhang did not turn his threat into a practical action. Two days later, Dong Zhang thought that Li Renju was a special envoy sent by the court, so it would be better not to offend him, so he sent someone to apologize to him and sent a considerable number of red envelopes. However, when it comes to serious matters, our Dongchuan is more difficult than Xichuan, and we can only pledge 100,000 tuitions.

Although Dong Zhang bargained more fiercely than Meng Zhixiang, how could Li Renju dare to stay in Zizhou and bargain with him? As soon as he got the reply, he quickly ran back to Luoyang as if he was running back to the court.

Li Renju, who was safe, criticized Dong Zhang harshly, saying that the Dongchuan Jiedushi was arrogant and domineering and ignoring the national law, was even worse than Meng Zhixiang! It is unrealistic to use Dongchuan to restrain Xichuan, and the country should prepare for the crusade as soon as possible!

Therefore, the Later Tang Dynasty court decided to attack Dong Zhang first. Li Siyuan appointed the famous general Xia Luqi as the governor of Wuxin and entered Suizhou. Lang and Guo Erzhou established Baoning Town, and Li Renju was used as the governor of Dongchuan to form a half-encirclement. But Li Renju was not a veteran of the battlefield, so he gave him the position of governor and became a neighbor of Dong Zhang. It felt too risky.

Xia Luqi went, but he didn't dare to go. It would be better to talk to An Chonghui and lead some people to take office with the army. So An Chonghui recommended his brother-in-law Wu Qianyu to be the governor of Mianzhou, and let him and Li Renju take the Central Imperial Army to Bashu. When Wu Qianyu goes to Mianzhou to gain a foothold, his powerful brother-in-law will cut off Mian and Longzhou from Dongchuan, establish a new vassal state, so that Wu Qianyu can also become the governor.

Dong Zhang felt that it was not good. The recent arrangements of the court were obviously aimed at him. The noose was slowly tightening, and he must not wait until he was tied to his neck before reacting! The same uneasy was Meng Zhixiang of Xichuan, Suizhou where Xia Luqi was guarding, and Langzhou where Li Renju was guarding. Mianzhou where Wuqianyu was guarding was close to Xichuan, only more than 200 miles away from Chengdu. The court went there to dispatch troops. The drunkard's intention was impossible to be just Dong Zhang.

Originally, Dong Zhang arranged to restrain Meng Zhixiang, so the relationship between the East and West Rivers was not friendly before. Previously, Dong Zhang used the large number of salt wells in Dongchuan and abundant production, so he organized salt merchants to dump salt into Xichuan to destroy Xichuan's salt income. To this end, Meng Zhixiang set up checkpoints at the main traffic intersections at the junction of the two rivers and imposed tariffs heavily until the salt merchants in Dongchuan were scared away.

But at this point, the same sense of crisis forced the two to abandon past grudges and unite and help each other. Dong Zhang took the lead in sending envoys to Chengdu to propose to Meng Zhixiang's daughter for his son. This kind of marriage is naturally 100% irrelevant to love. For the two parents, what they need to guarantee is much more important than the love of their children. So Meng Zhixiang immediately agreed and sent his deputy Zhao Jiliang to Zizhou to envoy, officially forming the alliance between the two Sichuans.

On February 1st of the first year of Changxing in the Later Tang Dynasty, Zhao Jiliang returned to Chengdu from Zizhou and quietly said a sentence to Meng Zhixiang, fully proving what a covenant is to tear it down: "Dong Zhang is a greedy, cruel, has great ambitions, but has low IQ. I think our alliance with him will not last long, and he will eventually turn against us and become a big trouble for our Xichuan!"

Of course, before the alliance was torn down, the alliance between the two Sichuans was still very important to both sides. Meng Zhixiang and Dong Zhang jointly submitted a memorial to Li Siyuan, and his tone became much tougher: "The military and civilians in Liangchuan, heard that the court was going to establish a vassal state in Langzhou, and sent troops in Sui, Lang and Mianzhou. They all felt that this was the court's distrust of us. Therefore, everyone was worried and the military and civilians were uneasy. I hope the court could revoke the above decision and transfer Xia Luqi, Li Renju and others back to the court to appease the morale of the army!"
Chapter completed!