Although Cao Pi used the attack on Xiahou Shang to warn Sima Yi, Xiahou Shang was promoted by himself and a powerful general on the battlefield who made great contributions. Therefore, although Cao Pi had complained about Xiahou Shang's behavior afterwards, he still used him as always, and the favor he gave him did not decrease at all.

Soon, Xu Huang, who was guarding Xiangyang in place of the late Cao Ren, intercepted a confidential letter between Shu Han and Eastern Wu. After reading the contents of the letter, Xu Huang thought it was of great importance, so he quickly sent someone to send him to Luoyang for 800 miles to express his message to Cao Pi in a hurry.

At this time, Cao Pi had just wanted to gradually start searching and intend to weaken the foundation of Sima Yi's secretly established connections, but the emergency information sent by Xu Huang forced him to temporarily move his attention away from Sima Yi, because compared to dealing with Sima Yi, the information sent by Xu Huang was far more important, so that he became restless and almost fell from the dragon collapse.

The eunuchs had never seen Cao Pi so panic, so they rushed forward and helped Cao Pi up:

"Your Majesty! Are you okay?"

Cao Pi, who was still in shock, did not care about his failure to comply with his just now, immediately said to the eunuch:

"Hurry! General Jiang Ji of Xuandong, Xinpi, the waiter of Guangpingting, and Cao Zhen, the general, came to see him!"

"Wait a moment!"

The eunuch turned around and walked a few steps, Cao Pi called him again. Although he hesitated for a while, he still issued this order:

"Send someone to urgently summon Xiang Township Hou Sima Yi to Luoyang to meet him! No mistakes are allowed!"

At this time, the third update had just passed, and Xinpi was resting when he received Cao Pi's urgent summons. At this time, he quickly realized that something must have happened in the palace, so he did not dare to neglect and quickly got up and changed his clothes, and led by the eunuch to go to the palace.

When he arrived, Cao Zhen and Jiang Ji had already taken a step forward. Looking at Cao Pi who was solemnly sitting on the dragon collapse, Xin Pi thought that something was going to happen, but he had no eyes yet.

Seeing that everyone had arrived, Cao Pi handed over the secret letter presented by Xu Huang to the eunuchs to them to watch them, and his tone inevitably showed concern:

"Look at it, three dear friends. This is the eight hundred miles of emergency that Xu Huang, who is guarding Xiangyang, has just been sent back to Luoyang."

After reading the contents of the secret letter, the three of them all showed shock. Cao Zhen said in an incredible tone:

"Zhu Han Prime Minister Zhuge Liang has agreed with General Lu Xun of the Eastern Wu Sui State that after quelling the respective civil strife between the two sides, he will advance together from east to north and attack our Wei State on a large scale!"

Cao Pi looked at Jiang Ji, who had opposed the southward attack on Sun Quan from the beginning:

"What is the judgment of the Dongzhonglang?"

Jiang Ji replied: "Your Majesty, you have already attacked the Eastern Wu twice before. Although Sun Quan escaped from danger twice, these two attacks were enough to make Sun Quan and Jiangdong civil and military officials highly vigilant. In order to avoid frequent approaching the Yangtze River, Sun Quan and Lu Xun wanted to join the Shu Han alliance with the attack as defense, which is possible."

Xinpi, who was standing aside, agreed with Jiang Ji's proposal and also expressed his own views:

"What the General of the Eastern Central Army said is very true, but Your Majesty does not need to worry too much. At this time, Yong Kai is in chaos in Nanzhong. Even if Zhuge Liang wants to fulfill the agreement with Lu Xun to invade our Great Wei border, he must first deal with Yong Kai in Nanzhong. Therefore, I believe that there will be no major moves between Wu and Shu in a short period of time, which can leave us time for deployment."

For Cao Pi, Lu Xun alone made his dream of trying to get involved in Jiangnan constantly shattered, which shows that his strategic vision is far above him. If he joins forces with a terrible person like Zhuge Liang, then he really has no confidence to resist it.

At this time, the first person he thought of was Sima Yi who was rushing to Luoyang by the imperial edict...

After arriving at Luoyang City, Sima Yi wanted to go home first to visit Sima Fu and his family who were blind, and also wanted to meet Chen Qun first, but as soon as he arrived at the city gate, he was intercepted by an envoy sent by Cao Pi early:

"Your Majesty has an order. Please give up all your private affairs after entering the city and go to the palace to meet immediately."

Seeing that Cao Pi summoned him so urgently, Sima Yi had to change his original plan and follow the envoy to the palace to meet Cao Pi.

Sima Yi, who had been away from Luoyang Palace for two years, had no stranger at all when facing the familiar palace that appeared in front of him again. Under the guidance of the palace servants, he came all the way to the Deyang Palace where Cao Pi was. Seeing the long-lost Emperor Cao Pi, Sima Yi immediately knelt on the ground and kowtowed to him:

"My minister Sima Yi, pay homage to Your Majesty!"

Cao Pi looked at Sima Yi kneeling in front of him and bowed to him. He wanted to see through Sima Yi's thoughts, but after staring for a long time, he still had no answer. So he stood up and walked to Sima Yi, holding Sima Yi's shoulders in both hands and helped him up:

"Your dear to Luoyang for so long, and I have stabilized the rear for me well. It's really a hard work."

Sima Yi seemed very modest in the face of Cao Pi's praise:

"This is all the credit of Your Majesty. I am just ordering to act according to the will of the Holy One, and I dare not say anything about the credit."

Perhaps even Cao Pi himself did not notice that since he became emperor, the trust and respect between him and Sima Yi had quietly disappeared, and there were only intrigues and suspicions of each other.

After the greetings on the scene, Cao Pi asked Sima Yi and said:

"Do you know why I recalled you back to Luoyang?"

Sima Yi lowered his head and bowed his hand and said:

"After receiving His Majesty's urgent order, I came to see you all night long, and I don't know what happened."

After sighing, Cao Pi expressed his purpose of recalling Sima Yi:

"I have recently received a reliable secret report. The Prime Minister of Shu Han Sima Yi and the Commander of the Eastern Wu Lu Xun have reached a secret agreement to launch an attack on our Cao Wei wings from Chen Cang and Hefei. Although the three-legged tripod is now the strongest in our Great Wei, if this situation really happens, then I will have to be attacked on both sides. I am afraid that even I will not be able to control what the situation will be like at that time."

From Cao Pi's tone, Sima Yi felt that Cao Pi was very concerned about the joint attack between Wu and Shu, and that he couldn't sleep or eat. So he analyzed the entire situation for Cao Pi:

"Your Majesty, according to my opinion, since Wu and Shu already have the intention of attacking the alliance, the only way to break their alliance is to concentrate their strength to attack one of them while they have not clenched their fists."

"oh?"

After hearing this, Cao Pi was very interested in Sima Yi's statement: "Please explain in detail with my dear."

Sima Yi continued to analyze: "From the distribution of strength, on the surface, Shu Han was the weakest among the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu. Most of the people who hold this conclusion are based on Shu Han losing its strategic location Jingzhou and Shangyong. However, this may not be a completely bad thing for Liu Chan and Zhuge Liang, because in this way they can concentrate their troops in Hanzhong and Bashu. Your Majesty should also know that Bashu has a complex terrain and mountains, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack. Look at the east

Wu, although they killed Guan Yu, seized Jingzhou in a very short time, and defeated Liu Bei in the Qiting, and their power was greatly expanded, but the territory occupied by Sun Quan expanded too much in a short time, so they had not had time to completely digest it. What's more, most of the Jiangdong territory is a vast plain and vast land. Compared with Yizhou, it is not as difficult to attack than Yizhou. I think the reason why Your Majesty chose to fight twice in the south was because of this, right?"

Cao Pi's claim to move south has been opposed by many people, including wise men like Jiang Ji and Xin Pi. For this reason, Cao Pi believes that they cannot understand their good intentions. After listening to Sima Yi's words today, he finally felt that he had met the voice:

"From my dear view, if I want to concentrate my efforts to attack one side while the Wu-Shu Alliance has not yet taken shape, my only choice is Sun Quan from Jiangdong?"

"Your Majesty clearly understands that Wu and Shu conspired to divide their troops to attack Wei should be kept strictly confidential, so as to prevent the domestic military and civilians from turmoil without fighting."

Since Cao Pi became emperor, Sima Yi, who had never expressed his opinion on the decision-making issues of war, once he opened his mouth, he clearly supported Cao Pi's attack on Wu:

"Your Majesty's two previous attacks on Wu were very accurate, because Liu Bei had just died and the situation in Shu was very chaotic, and Zhuge Liang was unable to look east. At this time, he was busy dealing with the rebellion of the tribes in Nanzhong, and had no time to go north, and had no energy to assist the Eastern Wu. Therefore, attacking the Eastern Wu at this time is an excellent opportunity to absolutely not be wrong."

Although Cao Pi never dared to relax his guard against Sima Yi's hidden ambitions, Sima Yi's words this time were completely in his heart. For this reason, he had no doubts anymore and made up his mind to attack Sun Quan of the Eastern Wu for the third time.

After eliminating the concerns of cracking Sun Liuhezong, Cao Pi focused on Sima Yi again, and he said to Sima Yi:

"If I had my dear friends on my side to give me advice the past two times, I would probably not have returned in vain. Do you think this is good? I intend to let my dear friends serve as the general of the Fu Army, and give you five thousand troops to your direct command and follow me to fight south."

Sima Yi is not a fool. He knew that Cao Pi's words were definitely not sincere. After all, this kind of thing was not once or twice. If he had expressed the idea of ​​getting involved in military power a few times, Cao Pi would have solved it long ago, so how could this time be an exception? So he refused on the spot:

"Your Majesty has tried to give me important tasks many times, but I know that I am just a strategist who can only show off his verbal skills. Since I thanked Your Majesty Long's Eternal to guard Xuchang, I have felt a little overwhelmed and have become even more powerless in getting involved in the military. I have been away from home for a long time and have made me miss my family and children more, so I asked Your Majesty to take back my orders and allow me to resign and go home."

As soon as Sima Yi proposed to resign, Cao Pi's face changed immediately, and his eyes showed surprise and disbelief, but he quickly covered up this emotion and expressed his reluctance to Sima Yi's departure:

"If I hadn't helped you, I'd probably not have the status and power I am today. Now, in the crisis, I need a talented person like me to help me solve my problems. How can you bear to leave me?"

"But..."

Before Sima Yi finished speaking, Cao Pi reached out to interrupt him and tried to keep him:

"Okay, there is no need to mention this matter, I will never let you go."

After saying that, Cao Pi held Sima Yi's hand emotionally and said in a humble tone when he asked Sima Yi to make suggestions for his position as crown prince: "Mr. Zhongda, you cannot leave me at this time no matter what."

In February of 225 AD (the sixth year of Huangchu of Wei), Sima Yi submitted a formal document to Emperor Cao Pi, requesting resignation on the grounds of his physical condition to recuperate. This incident immediately caused considerable shock in the court. Jiang Ji, Gao Rou, Chen Qun and others all stood up and tried their best to keep Sima Yi. Even Cao Zhen did not agree with Sima Yi leaving the Cao Wei temple at this time.

In the end, Cao Pi rejected Sima Yi's resignation document and appointed him as the general of the Fu Army. During the holiday, he led 5,000 troops and added them to the Shizhong to record the affairs of the Shangshu:

"Your dear is my minister of the Great Wei Dynasty. Now that Wu and Shu are still there, please share my worries for a few more years."

Although Sima Yi accepted the continued service in the court, he still refused the military power given by Cao Pi:

"Thank you for your Majesty's attention to the empress, but this empress is really incompetent as the general of the Fu Army. Please..."

Cao Pi knew that Sima Yi would refuse, so he interrupted before he could finish his words:

"Since I ascended the throne, I have been busy with state affairs all day long, and I have forgotten the day and night, and there is no moment of peace. Today, the official positions, military power and private soldiers I have given to my beloved minister are not glory over your head, but the burden on your shoulders."

After saying that, Cao Pi stood up and said to the civil and military officials in the court:

"My dear friends, Wu and Shu are all major troubles for our Cao Wei. If they are not eradicated, they will cause endless harm and the people will never have any peace. Today I officially announce to you that you will immediately start digging the canal to attack the enemy, and the three armies are on standby to prepare to attack Wu!"

When he heard that Cao Pi wanted to conquer Sun Quan for the third time, all the civil and military officials in the court sighed. Jiang Ji, Xin Pi, Gao Rou and others expressed their opposition to sending troops, but Cao Pi could not listen.

At this time, Jiang Ji looked at Sima Yi who was standing aside and silently, thinking that he was the only person who could stop Cao Pi, so he hoped that he could stand up and say something, but Sima Yi was unmoved at all, which surprised Jiang Ji.
Chapter completed!