Until the banquet ended and when Ma Xifan left, he did not clearly express his desire to ask the Wei Dynasty to take action and support him in order to compete for the position of Chu State... But Li Tianqu knew that even if the other party was still inconvenient to express his thoughts on the surface, he would inevitably break with his second brother Ma Xisheng in the future.

After all, although the deadline for King Ma Yin of Chu is approaching, he is still alive. Ma Xifan could not immediately ask the Wei Dynasty to help seize the throne, which was to break the rules set by his father, relying directly on external forces and approach the Ma family... But even if Ma Xisheng succeeded to the throne and became the lord of Chu, Ma Xifan could not bear to bow down to him for a long time, and would definitely wait for the most appropriate opportunity to overthrow his second brother and step down.

The Ma brothers of Chu State turned against each other and became enemies. Li Tianqu said intently that the situation would only become more favorable to me.

No matter how fierce the Ma brothers in the Chu State fought, they have always pursued the national policy of surrendering to the Central Plains dynasty, and will not give any excuses to the Wei Dynasty for sending troops to attack... Just like the official historical line, the Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, and Later Han dynasties were frequent internal turmoil and changed too quickly, so they never launched a large-scale war against the Chu State, which had always been a minister. The fall of the separatist regime of Ma Chu was also caused by the Southern Tang taking advantage of the situation and was not destroyed by the Central Plains dynasty.

However, Li Tianqu knew that the current Wei Dynasty was even more threatening to the countries in the south. Even if the State of Chu was only called a vassal state but not a king, he would never sit idly by and watch the State of Wei annexation of Wu, Yue and other countries one after another, and would inevitably take military actions... As long as the State of Chu was moved, it would not be easy to come up with the name of sending troops to you in one fell swoop?

When Ma Xisheng, the Chu State, had to be an enemy of the Wei Dynasty, was a great opportunity to take action with his fourth brother Ma Xifan, who was resentful and resentful to him, to seize the position of lord.

Li Tianqu pondered the evolution of the current situation in the official history. Ma Xifan became the third generation king of Chu. When he was dying for more than ten years, he violated the rules that he had set to sort his brothers and brothers by ordering his brothers and directly passed on the throne to Ma Yin's 35th son, Ma Xiguang, which led to Ma Xi'e's splitting the territory and killing his brothers, and then Ma Xichong rebelled... This is the war that the sons of Ma Yin, the Southern Chu, who were known in history as "the gangs compete for the troughs", broke out to fight for the throne.

When King Ma Yin of Chu died, and his second son Ma Xisheng succeeded to the reign, the Ma family's sons were disagreeing and turned against each other, which was only the beginning of clue. Li Tianqu thought that according to the historical records, when the Chu State's horses were fighting for the most quarrels, I had already become an old man... To be unified, I must be as early as possible. I don't want to wait until Ma Xiguang, Ma Xi'e, Ma Xichong, and Ma Yin grew up. Using the hatred and confrontation between Ma Xisheng and Ma Xifan, I should incite the fire as much as possible, so that I can also achieve the effect of taking advantage of the situation and annexing the Chu State.

After the Chu State envoy Ma Xifan, the envoy sent by Yue State to investigate the reaction of the Wei Dynasty had arrived in Bianjing... Li Tianqu had no intention of summoning him in person, but ordered the officials of the Honglu Temple to go and sarcastically.

Liu? The guy thought that the territory of the Wei Dynasty was too far apart, so he openly changed his mind to call himself the Emperor of the Great Yue Kingdom. However, he did not expect that the Wei army would swallow Shu and enter Yunnan, and was frightened and panicked... However, Li Tianqu ordered the Honglu Temple to send officials to receive the envoys of Yue Kingdom to curse a few words about their master's behavior of usurping the emperor, but there was no need to give a command to the Yue Kingdom to surrender immediately, otherwise he would send troops to attack immediately, and he would not accept the other party's request to pay tribute regularly and resume diplomatic relations... In short, he would mock the Yue Kingdom for a few days and then send the Yue Kingdom to get out quickly.

Because Li Tianqu knew very well that the Southern Han Dynasty in the official history, the current Yue Kingdom was very different from other separatist regimes. After Liu became emperor, until the eve of his destruction, he had only two times when he took the initiative to send envoys to the Central Plains dynasty to express his willingness to pay tribute regularly...One time, Emperor Zhuangzong of Later Tang destroyed Liang and Bian; the other time, he had to wait until Emperor Shizong of Later Zhou Dynasty Chai Rong won the southern expedition, so he had always had a very distant relationship with the Central Plains dynasty.

The motive of Liu's envoys this time is very similar to the historical records... It is nothing more than being frightened because the Central Plains dynasty is strong or it may have been possible to kill the territory under his control, so he sent an envoy to the dynasty to observe the situation in the Central Plains and test the reaction of the Zhengshu Dynasty.

But the more you try to test the Wei Dynasty's reaction, Li Tianquxin said, the more you can't guess. Whether to fight or to be harmonious, the attitude given was very ambiguous, and it would not reveal any intention, but let the king and minister of Yue find out a clue. In short, if the Wei Dynasty will attack next time, you will be worried about guessing...

However, in addition to the Chu and Yue countries that sent envoys to Bianjing one after another, Li Tianqu's attention quickly turned to the Wu Kingdom.

"Your Majesty, there are ships that have come to our dynasty's Maritime Mansion Bureau in the name of maritime merchants to resell goods, and continue to go north to contact the Khitan. Fortunately, our dynasty first reached an agreement with the Khitan to open a sea town in the coastal areas of Jili Prefecture, Liaodong, and surrounding islands. There are frequent ships. It is naturally not difficult to find out which vassal states in the south have more close contact with the Khitan.

Xu Wen... Although he now undermines the Lord of Wu and controls the Xuancheng court, he is still submissive to our dynasty. But just now he pacified Liu Wei and Tao Ya's opponents. He then plotted against him and secretly formed a Khitan to fight against our dynasty... Xu Wen is indeed used to hiding his sword in his smile, and is not satisfied with undermining the Yang family and controlling the Wu Kingdom..."

In the inner court of Bianjing, in the side hall, the close minister Jie Qing reported all the movements of the Wu Kingdom they are currently in control to Li Tianqu. Li Tianqu's face was calm and calm. It seemed that Xu Wen was already as he expected:

"Xu Wen finally defeated Liu Wei, Tao Ya, Li Jian and other rivals. Now he is appointed as the prime minister in Wu State, governing the military affairs of China and abroad, governing the army, governing the army of Zhenhai Ning State, governing the Grand Marshal and the Secretariat, and was granted the title of Prince of Donghai, and still guarding Shengzhou. As for his adopted son Xu Zhigao, he has been granted the title of Prime Minister and is still in the middle of the regent... Xu Wen still holds Yang Long on the throne, but is actually the lord of Wu State, and of course he will not be willing to surrender to our dynasty all the time."

The previous situation in Wu was different from the historical trajectory. Liu Wei, Tao Ya, Li Jian and others followed Yang Xing's loyal generals who conquered the world secretly and fought against Xu Wen, which intensified the internal friction of Wu.

However, with Liu Wei, who was in charge of the Zhennan Army, Tao Ya, who was in Shezhou, died one after another... The backbone who resisted his rebellion passed away, Xu Wen finally had the last laugh, but he couldn't help but hurt his vitality. During this period, although Li Jian had to admit defeat and surrender, he married his daughter to Xu Wen's second son Xu Zhixun, and expressed his submission to the Xu family, which actually controlled the Wu Kingdom. However, Liu Wei's son Liu Chongjing still had to fight against Xu Wen. Although he lost the Zhennan Army and led the remnants of his troops to Chu Kingdom, which caused the Wu Kingdom to consume a certain amount of military strength due to internal struggles.

Li Tianqu certainly knew that Yang Xingmi, the founding king of Southern Wu, had more ambitions than the founding kings of other forces... He repeatedly opposed Zhu Wen back then, and wanted to fight for the opportunity to enter the Central Plains; and Xu Wen was not a good-for-nothing lamp. He not only wanted to replace Yang as the lord of Wu, but also competed with the Central Plains dynasty.

After all, according to historical records, it was not until Xu Wen completely controlled the Wu court, and his adopted son Xu Zhigao usurped power and changed the Wu name to Tang... Later, the Southern Tang Empire was different from other separatist forces, and swallowed Chu and destroyed Fujian, and continued to rush to acquire his younger brothers with the Central Plains dynasty. It was not until the Later Tang Dynasty, Li Yu, succeeded to the throne, that he was beaten by the Later Zhou Dynasty and the Song Dynasty could not raise his head. Then he had to remove the Tang title and change it to the King of Jiangnan, and submit to the Central Plains.

As for now... Li Tianqu knew that Xu Zhigao, who seized his adopted father's foundation, was still tied to the same rope as Xu Wen, so he still tried his best to assist his adoptive father in reorganizing his team and fighting against the Central Plains. To measure the strength of the Wei Dynasty, which now dominated the Central Plains, the Wu Kingdom not only wanted to unite Chu, Yue and other countries, but also used any conspiracy to suppress the Central Plains dynasty?

After thinking about it, Li Tianqu recalled a historical record:
Chapter completed!