Volume 5: Overlord of the Sea Chapter 536: The Secret Alliance of Three Families
"The King of Wei has sent another letter, and everyone has seen it. What are your opinions? Feel free to speak freely." Gongsun Kang tapped the armrest of his chair while asking for advice from his colleagues.
Because of its close contacts with the State of Chu before and its location in Liaodong, Yan State had a lot of contact with the "Hu people", so it was natural for Yan State to accept things like chairs very quickly.
Compared with Gongsun Du, Gongsun Kang was obviously more domineering and more ambitious. After he succeeded to the throne for several years, even the old ministers from Gongsun Du's time felt pressured in front of him.
"My lord, the evil Chu has bribed the Han people and alienated Buyeo. It is clear that it has been eyeing our Great Yan. Even without the help of Wei, we will not sit idly by and wait for death. What's more, the King of Wei also intends to break with the evil Chu. Naturally, our Great Yan should go with the flow." Bei Yan stood up and said when he heard it.
Bei Yan looked like he had some Wuhuan or Xianbei ancestry. He had a lot of body hair, including a beard. He even showed his chest hair on the cold days approaching winter. He wore a fur coat, looking like a northern warrior.
The Chu State would publicize the theory of the Shu Marquis destroying the Chu State, and others would naturally publicize the brutality and threats of the Chu State...
The most difference is the degree of public acceptance. On the surface, they must save their face. Moreover, for the old warlords, public acceptance... is actually dispensable and not as practical as two pecks of rice.
After all, it is impossible to muster the will to "fight for themselves", and the grassroots generals are forced to recruit reluctantly. What difference does it make whether the people accept the news or not?
The letter from Wei at this time was to ask the Marquis of Yan to support Wei and jointly drive the State of Chu out of the Bohai Sea!
"If Dayan goes to war, Zuo is willing to be the vanguard, first taking Andong and then pacifying Dagang!" Yang Zuo, who is about the same age as Bei Yan, stepped forward and asked for a fight.
Bei Yan and Yang Zuo both look to be in their thirties, and... both look mature compared to their age. In fact, they are only twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. They are both new generals who were promoted after Gongsun Kang came to power.
It is not difficult to guess Gongsun Kang’s attitude on this matter - with Gongsun Kang’s temperament, how could he tolerate that after he got the plate armor, the State of Chu still occupied his ports and minerals?
Previously, the Chu State’s mineral resources in Liaodong were seized one after another, so Gongsun Kang’s statement was naturally indispensable.
The two new generals promoted by Gongsun Kang are not only hawkish, but also definitely express their opinions in line with Gongsun Kang's wishes.
However, Gongsun Kang was not blindly reckless. He did not take Bei Yan and Yang Zuo's words to heart. He first praised the two for their loyalty and bravery, and then asked Liu Yi, "Mr. Liu... and Mr. Liang, what do you think?"
Liu Yi and Liang Mao were both old ministers left behind by Gongsun Du. Gongsun Kang also relied heavily on the former, and as for the latter... he was not on good terms with Gongsun father and son, so Gongsun Kang half used him and half was wary of him.
After all, Liang Mao was the genuine governor of Lelang, but he was intercepted and detained by Gongsun Du on his way to take office. The relationship between the two parties was not just an ordinary vassal relationship.
It was Liang Mao who secretly contacted Gan Ning at the beginning. It seemed that he was considering the Gongsun family, but in fact he was clearing obstacles for Gan Ning's negotiations.
Afterwards, although Gongsun accepted Liang Mao's analysis and became more wary of Liang Mao, under the secret planning of the Chu State Enlightenment Department, even though Liang Mao and his relatives were strictly supervised, some of his descendants were still able to leave Liaodong and be taken to Jinling.
After all, Liang Mao is a representative figure of Liaodong literati. During the time of Gongsun Du, he was used to publicize the Gongsun family's emphasis on talented people and the legitimacy of their rule over Lelang, so it is not easy to do anything to him directly.
“After we take action, we will lose our good relationship with the State of Chu, but at the same time… what we can gain is also very important.
Today, Chu is the sole ruler over the Bohai Sea and reaps all the benefits. If we can really drive Chu out of the Bohai Sea in one fell swoop, what benefits will it bring to Dayan?
If we only take back two ports, or even half-destroyed ports, it will not be very meaningful. The strength of Wei's navy is second only to Chu's. If the Chu Kingdom dominates Bohai Sea, will it really be beneficial to us? "Liu Yi obviously has a different view on this matter.
If he were to put himself in the shoes of Wei, or if Yan now had the naval strength of Wei, Liu Yi would think that it would be nothing to completely turn against Chu.
Firstly, the State of Chu had two important ports, which were located directly at the "doorstep" of the Marquis of Yan. Secondly, the navy of the Marquis of Yan was actually "not to be underestimated" - in history without the white rabbit effect, the Gongsun clan had exchanges with the Eastern Wu on the sea during the Three Kingdoms period, and... One point that was not emphasized in the romance of the three kingdoms was that, in fact, during the dispute between Cao and Yuan, the Gongsun clan set out from the sea and captured the coastal areas of Donglai in Qingzhou, which is now occupied by the State of Chu.
Historically, it was after the Battle of Guandu when Cao Cao occupied Qingzhou that he took back this place.
Although the gap between Yan and Chu in many naval tactical concepts is unbridgeable, otherwise they would not have given up Liaodong Port and Andong Port... But now in the Chengji world, the size of the Liaodong navy has been compressed due to the intervention of Chu, but its strength has also become stronger due to the absorption of some of Chu's technology!
It is precisely because of this that Yan State became the target of Wei State's wooing in Bohai Sea.
After hearing what Liu Yi said, Gongsun Kang frowned, but did not insist on refutation. However, Liang Mao sneered at this time, and Gongsun Kang, who heard the laughter, had a fierce light flashing in his eyes.
On the contrary, Liu Yi saw this and asked politely, "What do you think, Bo Fang?"
"Bohai is now Chu's Bohai, but if Chu loses power in Bohai, it will no longer be Wei's Bohai! Will the Duke of Qi watch Wei and Chu fight for control of Bohai and remain indifferent? Or...if Wei has not even coordinated with the Duke of Qi, will it dare to rashly go to war with Chu?" Liang Mao asked calmly.
Gongsun Kang heard this, but he didn't care about being angry. Instead, he pretended to be respectful and asked, "Mr. Liang, do you think that there was a deal between Wei and the Duke of Qi?"
"It's just common sense speculation." Liang Mao had an expression that said "You can't even guess common sense", which made Gongsun Kang's eyes flash coldly again, like a domineering president .
"If that's the case... why didn't Wei mention it at all in the letter?" Seeing that Gongsun Kang seemed dissatisfied, Bei Yan immediately glared at Liang Mao and attacked him.
"General, you asked a good question. This is the key point!" Liang Mao did not ridicule this fool.
"What Bofang means is that the State of Wei deliberately did not mention the matter of the Marquis of Qi in order to prevent us from having contact with him? Well... If this is true, I'm afraid that the State of Wei would tacitly regard us as , rather than an alliance of three families..." After being reminded, Liu Yi nodded in sudden realization.
Indeed, he never mentioned or even hinted that the Duke of Qi... or the princes who assisted Han, would support their actions.
It was indeed as Liang Mao expected that the old rivals, the King of Wei and the Marquis of Qi, had reached an agreement on the issue of Bohai Sea.
With the rise of maritime trade, the sea has been increasingly valued by the princes. It would be fine if those princes would rather die than go near the sea, but how could Cao Cao and Liu Bei sit idly by and watch the already powerful Chu State become even stronger by dominating the Bohai Sea and the East China Sea?
Especially from a geopolitical perspective, the East China Sea is fine...but Bohai Sea is definitely the influence radiation zone of Jizhou and Qingzhou, right?
It was just because of a momentary mistake that the originally unimportant Linhai County was "given" to the State of Chu.
But now the Duke of Qi and the King of Wei also have their own ports and their own navy.
It would be fine if the Chu navy could always maintain its absolute advantage, but the performance in the past two years has shown that Chu is not invincible in Bohai Sea...
Although there is a gap between the two sides, it doesn't seem to be very big!
As for the East China Sea, Chu State has Zhouhu, Danzhou, and the ports in Chu State's homeland, which cannot be easily shaken , but the Bohai Sea in front of them...
Both the Wei State and the Qi Marquis felt that as long as they joined forces, there was still "hope" that they could drive the Chu State out of Bohai. If they joined forces with the Yan Marquis, then there would be "very hopeful" success.
However, in the alliance with the Marquis of Yan, the interests of Wei and the forces supporting Han were obviously different. Wei was more like cooperating with the Marquis of Qi with its "little brother" Yan, rather than a three-party cooperation between Wei, Yan and Qi...
"In other words, after expelling the evil Chu, it will be the navies of Qi and Wei that will fight each other in Bohai? No, Chu has military ports in Zhouhu and Danzhou. Even if it is really defeated in Bohai, it will definitely try to make a comeback at any time. Wei and Qi should not be unwise to fight each other in Bohai. Instead, it is more likely to coexist peacefully and guard against changes in the East China Sea. This will also be an opportunity for us Great Yan!" Liu Yi had also reacted at this time.
If it was just Wei and Yan, the owner of Bohai would have changed after the Battle, and it would still not be Yan's turn to speak. Even Wei's rule over Bohai might not be more beneficial to Yan than Chu's.
But if Wei and Qi coexist, especially if they have to face the powerful enemy Chu, then Yan can definitely fight for a place in the cracks!
After hearing this, although Gongsun Kang was skeptical about Liang Mao's purpose, it was his own judgment after all, and even Liu Yi accepted this logic, so he finally tactfully agreed to Wei's letter and began to try to contact the Duke of Qi on his own.
In this way, the three states, either openly or secretly, reached a consensus on the Bohai issue - first "colluded" and first cleared the influence of Chu from Bohai...
The reason why there was no immediate action was because this is the "Bohai Sea" and it is already October. Unlike the climate south of the Yangtze River where naval battles are barely possible, the Bohai Sea is already freezing cold in October.
On the other hand, even if the three parties joined forces, they were not completely confident of defeating the Chu navy and needed to accumulate experience.
It is more difficult to "accumulate" a navy than ordinary soldiers. After all, manpower can be recruited, but ships can only be built slowly. Especially now, only Wei's warships can fight against Chu, and Wei has no intention of opening its technology to its "allies".
Of course, there is another important factor...
The three parties, as well as the State of Chu, are all waiting for a piece of news...
Can the other half of Chu's navy ever come back?
