Among the 100,000 Niu Guards deployed by the Pei family in Guanzhong, about 30,000 people stationed in Chang'an, and more than 10,000 people stationed in the major counties west of Chang'an, and about 60,000 people stationed in Tongguan. The general of Tongguan was Li Baozhen. After Cui Qinggong occupied Luoyang, Li Baozhen personally led 50,000 troops to guard Shaanxi County to protect the passage between Hedong and Chang'an. However, the tragedy of An Lushan's rebellion did not repeat itself. Cui Qinggong did not march into Chang'an immediately after occupying Luoyang, but was stranded in the Eastern Capital, which gave Li Baozhen a chance to breathe. He built fortifications day and night, trained his soldiers, and prepared to defend Shaanxi County.

Li Baozhen is the younger brother of Li Baoyu, a famous general in the middle Tang Dynasty. He is in his early sixties this year, but he is energetic and stronger, and has rich experience in leading troops. He is not a member of the Pei family, but a general appointed by Pei Jun. In the Pei family's military system, the leading generals are generally not members of the Pei family, but professional soldiers with experience in leading troops. Most of the students of the Pei family serve as civil servants such as Sima or Changshi in the army. In name, they deal with stray matters in the army and control money and food in the army. But in fact, they are the supervisors of the Pei family in the army. The same is true for the Tongguan army. The chief general Li Baozhen commands the decision in the battle, while the Changshi is a member of the Pei family, named Pei Wei, who was a Jinshi, and is responsible for the exchanges and transfer of money and food in the Tongguan army. Currently he is staying in Tongguan and is organizing civilians to build the Tongguan city wall.

Li Baozhen was also uneasy these days. Pei Jun's death shocked the world. How could he not be moved? Although he was in Tongguan, he knew the situation of the court well. The empress dowager had her own shell and poisoned the young emperor who was about to become an adult for his own benefit. This made Li Baozhen even more indignant. As a soldier, he firmly supported Zhang Huan's recovery of Anxi, but as a general of the Pei family, he did not dare to have any connection with Zhang Huan.

At this time, Pei Jun's death made him feel a crisis that the building was about to collapse. He was restless for several days and now he was worried.

"Master General, Lu Sima is here." The personal soldiers' reports came from outside the tent.

"Please come in!" Li Baozhen put down his pen and tried hard to calm down his chaotic mood.

A tent curtain raised, and a middle-aged scholar with a beautiful and beautiful face came in. He was Lu Xuanqing, the marching Sima of the Tongguan Army. Lu Xuanqing was Lu Qi's cousin. He was appointed as Li Baozhen's deputy because of Lu Qi's special relationship with Pei Jun. However, he, the marching Sima, had no power. The power to allocate money and grain and the right to select soldiers were in the hands of the Chief Pei Wei. He just painted battle maps or counted military merits and other idle trivial matters, but Li Baozhen trusted him very much. He liked to discuss some secret matters in the army. To a certain extent, he could be regarded as a staff member of Li Baozhen.

"I feel very bored and want to chat with Dashuai for a while. I wonder if Dashuai has time?"

Li Baozhen nodded, "Please sit down with Sima Lu!"

Lu Xuanqing walked to him and sat down, sighed slightly, "I just received a letter from my clan brother saying that the people in the capital were panic, and the documents of various ministries were piled up like mountains, and no one was focusing on official duties. Pei Xiangguo's death at this time is definitely not a blessing for my Tang Dynasty!"

Lu Xuanqing aroused Li Baozhen's worries. He shook his head and sighed helplessly, "Maybe Li's ability to turn the tide may be possible!"

"Is the Grand Marshal talking about Li Mian?" Lu Xuanqing sneered, "He couldn't even control his own Ministry of Rites and wanted to control the situation in the Tang Dynasty? I didn't underestimate him. Although he was the Minister of Rites and one of the three chief ministers of the cabinet, nominally, no one in the court knew that he was just a puppet of the empress dowager. He took the position of prime minister in name, but who would buy his account? My brother said that Pei Xiangguo had just passed away, so he drafted a list of personnel changes, which covered almost the entire court and the local government. Let me ask, when the country was in chaos, they were provoking trouble for the selfishness of the party. Can such people still turn the tide?"

Seeing that he belittled Li Mian, Li Baozhen suddenly remembered the rumors in Beijing that Lu Qi had defected to Zhang Huan. He couldn't help but feel moved, and asked quietly: "In your opinion, is there really no one in my Tang Dynasty who can turn the tide?"

Lu Xuanqing laughed dryly, "Why should the general ask knowingly?"

Li Baozhen's old face turned slightly red, and she still shook her head and said, "I really don't understand what you mean."

Lu Xuanqing stood up and bowed to Li Baozhen and said, "Now the situation in the court is in chaos, and everyone is considering their future. Does the Grand Marshal have no idea? My brother sent me a letter to persuade me to surrender to Zhang Huan. I have already agreed. If the Grand Marshal is willing, I am willing to help the Grand Marshal. If the Grand Marshal is unintentional, I have to resign and leave alone."

"This" Li Baozhen heard him speak so frankly, and his face changed slightly and lowered his head for a moment.

Seeing that he was meditating and silent, Lu Xuanqing knew that he was moved, so he stepped forward and whispered: "Master, there is Zhang Huan's special envoy in my tent. Can the Master be seen at first?"

Li Baozhen was shocked. He looked left and right, and lowered his voice and said, "When did it arrive?"

"I just entered the camp while the night was just now. Can the commander be willing to see you?"

Li Baozhen lowered his head and thought for a while and said, "Okay! You bring him to see me, but be careful not to let Pei Wei's people see it."

"Don't worry, there will be no mistakes!"

Lu Xuanqing hurried away, but Li Baozhen was even more upset. Pei Jun's death meant that the Pei family began to decline, and no one in the court could stop Zhang Huan's rise. How could Li Baozhen not know him, and how could he not be moved? He also knew that Zhang Huan's true life experience was the son of Prince Yu. As long as he restored his identity, he was bound to be the throne of the 9th Five. At that time, he and his elder brother were deeply grateful to Prince Yu. He should also defect to the new master for public or private matters. However, he held the army of the Pei family and defected to Zhang Huan, which inevitably led to the suspicion of selling his master for honor. Therefore, he had always been worried and difficult to make up his mind.

Li Baozhen stood up and walked to the tent. The sky was shining brightly outside the tent, and the night was as cold as water. Li Baozhen took a deep breath and his mind suddenly became much clearer. At this time, there were shadows flashing in front of him. Lu Xuanqing brought people. In the dim night, the person who came seemed to be young, wearing military uniforms, and there were five or six followers behind him. Lu Xuanqing led the way, with a respectful look.

"Master, here we come." Lu Xuanqing ran forward to report.

Seeing that he looked very nervous, Li Baozhen was stunned. Looking at him with the faint light in the tent, he had already seen the face of the visitor clearly. He was shocked and blurted out: "Sir Shangshu!"

The person who came had a nice smile, and there was a bunch of short beards under his jaw, but it was Zhang Huan who arrived in person.

Zhang Huan's troops stationed in Hejin were not far from Shaanxi County and could arrive in just one day. He walked up and smiled and said, "I hope General Li will not be surprised."

"I dare not be humble, so the Secretary of State quickly invites you to come in."

Li Baozhen was extremely excited. Zhang Huan actually convinced him personally, which shows his importance to him. He invited Zhang Huan into the account, and then he hurriedly took out a good celadon cup, poured a cup of tea for Zhang Huan, and gave it to him with both hands, "Shangshu worked hard all the way, please use tea."

Zhang Huan took the tea and took a sip. He had already learned from Lu Xuanqing that Li Baozhen was interested in defecting to him, but he still had some concerns. Of course, he knew what the other party was concerned about and did not want to make things difficult for him. He smiled and said, "I came here this time to discuss with General Li how to eliminate Cui Qinggong and coordinate with our two families."

Li Baozhen knew in his heart that Zhang Huan was just using a subtle method to win over him. After all, both families were Tang Army, and he was the Minister of War, and the Grand Marshal of the World, and was fully qualified to mobilize himself. In this way, he could surrender to him reasonably and legally without being criticized. This was undoubtedly an extremely clever method.

At this moment, he had no last concern. He immediately stood up, knelt down on one knee and saluted Zhang Huan, "I am willing to obey the commander-in-chief!"

Zhang Huan stroked his beard and smiled. Qianniuwei was Pei Jun's most elite army. Even Li Baozhen defected to him, which shows that the Pei family's general situation was gone.

"Okay! When Cui Qinggong's civil strife is together, it will be the time for you and I to attack."

In Luoyang, the 30,000 Zhang Huan's former army, which was originally stationed on the other side of the Yellow River, had quietly retreated to the north. At the same time, the Xiangyang army, which was fiercely attacking Xinzheng County, also retreated to Xuzhou in the south. Cui Qinggong's military pressure plummeted, and another scout found out that a 3,000 elite soldier quietly returned to Tongguan in two days.

All signs indicate that Zhang Huan may have secretly returned to Beijing to fight for power. As the threat from foreign enemies decreased, the internal trivial matters in Cui Qinggong's army gradually increased.

In the past two days, a little news has spread quietly in Cui Qinggong's army through various channels, saying that Li Shidao had begun to be seriously dissatisfied with Cui Qinggong's arbitrary behavior and wanted to cross the Yellow River to establish his own mountain.

No one knows where this news comes from, but many people believe it is true. Li Shidao's surrender to Cui Qinggong was originally a loose interest alliance. If Cui Qinggong's strength was on the rise, perhaps Li Shidao would continue to rely on Cui Qinggong, but Cui Qinggong's power was getting worse and worse. The foundation he had worked hard to build was a wedding dress for others. In this way, how could Li Shidao have no strange intentions? Not only Li Shidao, but many people think that Ma Dawei is not so reliable.

Cui Qinggong himself, including Cui Qinggong, also believed in this statement. Since Zhu Tao advised him to take advantage of the chaos in the court to kill Li Shidao and Ma Dawei and seize their troops, Cui Qinggong began to have an idea.

Among his 300,000 army, except for one of the 30,000 Ruyang troops who followed him, the others were in the hands of Li and Ma. One was Li Shidao's 30,000 Puyang elite soldiers, and the other was Ma Dawei's 50,000 Xuzhou troops. Most of the surrendered troops after defeating the Hedong Army were obtained by the two.

Although he had a large number of people under his command, most of them were mobs. The main reason was that he captured the strong men after counterattacking the Central Plains. Many soldiers did not even have military uniforms, and some people used agricultural tools as weapons. From the fact that Chenliu's defenders surrendered without fighting, we can know that these new troops were not reliable. Therefore, how to get the elite in the hands of the two has always been something Cui Qinggong thought about day and night.

But Cui Qinggong is not stupid either. He knew that this kind of thing was a double-edged sword. If handled well, he could control all the troops and thus greatly increase his strength. If handled poorly, he would hurt himself. Judging from the current situation, it is best not to have civil strife, but he also knew very well that if he did not deal with this matter as soon as possible, the second general would most likely have a strange intention.

Therefore, Cui Qinggong was extremely cautious about this matter. On the one hand, he ordered people to investigate the source of the news, and those who talked nonsense would be executed. On the other hand, he sent money, food and beauty to Li Shidao and Ma Dawei, and promised to share the world with him in the future.

While winning over the two, he secretly discussed the best way to get rid of them. Zhu Tao suggested that he join forces with Ma Dawei to get rid of Li Shidao, the closest to Luoyang, and then use Li Shidao to assassinate Ma Dawei, so that he could collect all the two troops. It can be said that he killed two birds with one stone. Cui Qinggong agreed deeply. After finalizing many details, he immediately formed a special service guard and selected those with high martial arts skills and skillful assassination. He led it directly and sent his confidant to inform Ma Dawei. Li Shidao had the intention to surrender to Zhang Huan.

A small team of cavalry drove in the morning mist. The front was Sishui County. The cavalry broke up with one person and rushed north. Ma Siyi looked at the cavalry with the curtains, so he turned his horse's head, determined the direction, and ran towards the city.

Sishui County is where Ma Dawei's troops were stationed. In the confrontation with Zhang Huan, Li Shidao's troops were stationed on the edge of the Yellow River north of Luoyang, while Ma Dawei's troops were stationed on the Sishui, two hundred miles east of Luoyang, to prevent Zhang Huan from breaking through from the east.

Ma Dawei is slightly different from Cui Qinggong's cruelty. He is a civil servant, and is relatively a little tolerant of the people and can restrain soldiers. Therefore, the Zhengzhou and Xingyang area he controlled are somewhat vital. In addition, the land where he stationed troops is fertile, and since ancient times, it has been a high-yield grain area. The people can have a bite of food, so Ma Dawei has a little reputation among the people.

Early this morning, many angry gentry jointly found Ma Dawei to file a lawsuit. The reason was that a Cui Qinggong army who was fighting in Chenliu crossed the border, burned, killed and raped all the way, dozens of villages were destroyed, and thousands of women were arrested. The gentry accused the transit army of crimes and persuaded Ma Dawei and Cui Qinggong to part ways, not to be implicated by this cruel person, so that future generations could not bear their heads.

With a 'bang!', Ma Dawei punched the table hard, shaking the tea bowl and spilling water all over the floor.

"This bastard Cui Qinggong!" Ma Dawei cursed with gritted teeth. This incident also made him extremely angry. Not to mention that he hated the army's violence more and more, and doing evil on his territory, it was obviously not giving him face.

Although he still doesn't want to turn against Cui Qinggong for the time being, Cui Qinggong's actions have become increasingly disgusting, especially two days ago, Cui Qinggong sent someone to explain his ambition to be emperor, which made Ma Dawei suddenly smell a burnt smell, "Repute to be emperor!" What kind of virtue does he have to dare to call the emperor?

Originally, Ma Dawei hoped that Cui Qing would become a prime minister in the court, and he could also be promoted to the governor and taste the taste of separatist rule. But now Cui Qinggong seems to be getting further and further away from what he thought of, and he also wanted to take the world's greatest power to be the emperor, which forced Ma Dawei to consider his future.

"Master, we'll go to Pengjun!" The person who spoke was Ma Dawei's wife. Her surname was Ma, and her name was Ma Xianglian, who was Ma Siyi's girl. She was about twenty-four or five years old. She had skin as snow as snow, and was extremely beautiful and deeply loved by her husband. Especially since she was six months pregnant, Ma Dawei, who was nearly fifty years old and had no children, was obedient to her and took her there, fearing that something would happen to her in the chaos.

She stepped forward to clean up the tea bowls on the ground, and Ma Dawei quickly supported her, "Madam, be careful, let the servants do these things."

Ma Xianglian sat down slowly. Seeing that her husband seemed to be hesitating, she frowned and advised: "Cui Qinggong's army is so cruel. Even I, a person who doesn't go out, have heard countless times. The master is innocent. Why do you want to mingle with such a person? It's not that we don't have our own territory and army, we can completely break away from him!"

Ma Dawei sighed, waved his hand and said, "Madam, just take care of the children in her belly, don't ask about the men's affairs."

"Master, I'm not trying to ask about your military affairs, but these days I've been having nightmares. I dreamed of the Bodhisattva being angry and accused me of killing people. I'm worried about the child!"

Speaking of this, Ma Xianglian couldn't help but shed tears and said, "Even if you don't think about me, you should think about our children. If you commit too many evils, you will be retribution."

"Okay!" Ma Dawei was upset by his wife. He paced back and forth with his hands behind his back, and finally said to his wife: "Let's discuss this matter when your elder brother comes back. Now you go back to the house to rest first, and don't think about this matter anymore."

Ma Siyi went to Luoyang ten days ago to urge military rations. He thought he should have come back long ago, but he had not appeared for a long time. Could it be that something happened halfway through the way? This also made Ma Dawei very nervous.
Chapter completed!