Chapter 461 Partisanship
Of the four city walls in Chengdu, the most stressful north and east walls were guarded by Zhang Ren and Wu Yi respectively, while the overall coordination was under the charge of Li Yan, who was good at leading troops.
This was Liu Fan's choice after careful consideration.
"Your Majesty, can Li Yan be trusted?" Zhang Song suddenly asked when he was secretly left alone by Liu Fan after returning to the palace.
Liu Fan looked at Zhang Song deeply.
Before Tianze attacked, Zhang Song seemed careless and did not pay much attention to the defense of Chengdu. But the king and his ministers knew that Zhang Song did it on purpose to lower some people's defense and see through some people's disguise.
Zhang Song was Liu Fan's man from beginning to end, and was a member of the faction under Liu Fan that was inclined towards Liu Bei.
Liu Fan knew this very well and never cared about it.
Because even he was inclined to Liu Bei.
His position as the Emperor of Han was a joke in itself, but he had no other choice but to hold on, and the pressure behind it was too great for him to bear.
Liu Fan knew clearly that he was not Emperor Gaozu and that his opponents were much more powerful than the former King of Western Chu, and he had no ability to restore the Han Dynasty.
They didn't even have the ability to defend Yizhou.
The system of provincial governors proposed by Liu Yan in the past seemed to have undermined the foundation of the Han Dynasty, but in fact was it not a helpless choice?
The thirteen states of the Han Dynasty had five or six governors, all of whom were surnamed Liu, not to mention the prefects of each large county and some diehard Han loyalists.
That's how it is. At this point in the game, only Liu Bei is left to take the lead, and he is still a grassroots person who was not valued by anyone in the past.
The royal family has tried their best to some extent, but the Liu clan is simply too rotten to be helped.
The only one who was qualified and able to fight was assassinated early by the Skeleton King Yuan Shu.
"Before you proposed to send troops to support Jiange, it was Li Yan who pointed out the problem of garrison around Chengdu. If we had listened to him, we would at least have lost tens of thousands of soldiers and horses less, and we might not even have lost Fucheng and Jiange." Liu Fan spoke as if he was persuading, or as if he was talking to himself.
"Besides, who else can I use besides Li Yan?"
At this point, there are not many people he can trust.
If he can't even trust Li Yan, there are probably only three or five people left that he can trust.
Although Zhang Song was talented, he was not good enough to defend the city. Although Wu Yi had enough experience, he still lacked ability. Not to mention Zhang Ren, he did not even have enough experience.
After carefully sorting out his civil and military officials, Liu Fan found that he had very few options, and Li Yan was the only best choice.
Zhang Song fell silent upon hearing this.
He had also seen Li Yan's previous performance and indeed could not find any fault with it, but he was always a little frightened, feeling that this person was not as simple as he seemed.
He was a genuine representative of the Yizhou faction, while Li Yan was the leader of the Dongzhou faction. The relationship between the two had always been bad.
In Liu Fan's eyes, it was normal for them to attack each other, but this time he was not speaking from the standpoint of the Yizhou faction, but he really felt that there was something wrong with Li Yan.
During this period of time, Liu Fan promoted many people from the Yizhou faction, although he also promoted and reused Li Yan and others from the Dongzhou faction as a way of appeasement.
But in the end the pie was cut smaller.
Including the previous trip south, the Yizhou faction ate the meat while the Dongzhou faction watched from the sidelines.
The Dongzhou sect has always been feeling angry because they only suffered losses but never gained any advantages.
When Liu Yan was still alive, they had never suffered such injustice.
But then again, Liu Fan still trusted the Dongzhou faction the most. The reason was simple: the Yizhou faction had a much wider escape route than the Dongzhou faction.
The most intuitive manifestation is in Liu Fan's military reform. Except for the several thousand troops under Yan Yan's command, the rest were Dongzhou soldiers commanded by Li Yan and Wu Yi.
The aristocratic families in Yizhou were still wary of Liu Fan. They did not want him to interfere too much in their own military power, nor were they willing to cooperate with him too much.
The Dongzhou soldiers led by Li Yan and Wu Yi followed Liu Fan closely because they had no roots in the local area and had no other choice.
Therefore, Liu Fan undoubtedly trusted the Dongzhou faction more.
After Liu Fan said this, Zhang Song said no more.
In this situation, being able to give a reminder is already the limit. Saying more can be completely regarded as shaking the morale of the army and internal party struggles.
Moreover, in this kind of situation, if anyone else were in that position, Zhang Song would probably have some complaints.
After all, if he were in that position, he would be afraid that he would not be able to resist making a contribution to Da Qi. The pros and cons were too obvious.
Because of the current situation, everyone knows that Liu Fan, the so-called "Son of Heaven", is doomed.
Liu Fan was determined to let Liu Bei inherit Yizhou, but his subordinates did not think so.
Liu Fan was destined to fail, and they were left with only two choices: Tian Ze and Liu Bei.
Anyone who has a little understanding of the current situation in the world knows what to choose.
What can you get by choosing Liu Bei? Is there a future for following Liu Bei?
In this world, there are always more people who add flowers to the icing on the cake than those who provide timely help.
Who would be willing to bet on Liu Bei when the odds are in his favor? Even if the rewards are great, the risks are also great!
At their status and position, there are not many things that would make them willing to take risks, and supporting Liu Bei is not one of them.
Zhang Song absolutely believed that if a secret ballot was held now to choose whether to surrender, at least 80% of the people would want to open the gates of Chengdu and welcome the royal army into the city.
After all, the situation is like this, and their emperor has long been prepared to surrender to the enemy, so they, the ministers, naturally have to think about themselves.
At this time, the shortcoming of Liu Fan's indecision was revealed. If he had been determined to hold on and had not expressed the idea of abdicating to Liu Bei, perhaps the current situation would be much better.
The current situation is that people’s morale has been completely dispersed, and most people don’t even know who they are fighting for.
There is a certain irony in this: We, the ministers, are ready to fight to the death, but Your Majesty surrenders first.
And the one who wants to surrender is not the enemy in front of him.
There are gains and losses in many things.
Liu Fan led Liu Bei into Shu, which provided Liu Bei with a lot of conveniences, but also laid the groundwork for the current embarrassing situation.
To the extent that Liu Fan now has no other choice but to leave everything to fate.
"I hope the Zhengfang will not disappoint my expectations."
After Zhang Song left, Liu Fan murmured in a distraught manner.
The Chixiao sword at his waist had slipped to the ground at some point.
At the south wall of Chengdu, Li Yan, who was arranging defenses, seemed to sense something. He looked deeply in the direction of the imperial palace with a complicated look, and it was unknown what he was thinking about.
(End of this chapter)
