Chapter 394 The Emperor’s Lobbyist
Man Chong's suspicion was really misplaced.
Liu Feng gave up Jiaozhou to Cao Cao, but he really didn't have any good intentions.
Jiaozhou is a very evil place. If you want to choose a state and county that loves peace the most among the Han Dynasty, it must be Jiaozhou.
Jiaozhou loves peace very much from top to bottom. Not to mention fighting for world hegemony, they even refuse to pick up the slack.
Several governors and state pastors in Jiaozhou all died because of raising troops.
Zhu Fu wanted to raise his troops to attack Zuo Rong, who had killed his younger brother Zhu Hao, but he was attacked and killed by the powerful nobles of Jiaozhou.
Zhang Jin wanted to raise his troops to fight with Liu Biao, but was killed by his subordinate Ou Jing, who was also a powerful Jiaozhou gentry.
In the future, Shi Xie will simply be a native of Jiaozhou. According to the Three Mutual Laws, he cannot be in charge of Jiaozhou at all.
But the problem is that neither Cao Cao nor the emperor needs Shi Xie to stabilize Jiaozhou, so there is a small bug and he appoints Shixie as the Zhonglang General of Suinan, the governor of the seven counties of Jiaozhou, and the prefect of Jiaozhou remains as before.
This is equivalent to Jiaozhou Mu without the name of Jiaozhou Mu. What is even more exaggerated is that after that, Shi Xie nominated his three younger brothers as the governors of the three counties.
There are nine counties in Jiaozhou, four of which are occupied by Shixie's family.
It can be said that Jiaozhou is a big pit. Without heavy troops, it will be very difficult for anyone to go there.
The powerful local gentry in Jiaozhou are simply enhanced versions of Yizhou, Jingzhou, and Yangzhou. They have no idea of expansion at all and only want to hold on to their own one-third of an acre.
It would be useless no matter who Cao Cao sent, they would only be ignored by Shi Xie and the local nobles. If we insist on pushing forward the "Northern Expedition" in Jiaozhou, Zhu Fu and Zhang Jin will soon have company.
At this point, it is useless even if Cao Cao equips his confidant with thousands of elite troops. Unless he is equipped with more than 10,000 heavy troops at one go, it will only cause chronic blood loss and will not help.
Moreover, all the issues in Jiaozhou cannot be solved by just the title of state shepherd. On the contrary, the county guards below are quite powerful, especially the scholar family.
In the final analysis, even if Liu Feng gained real power in Jiaozhou, he would have to send heavy troops south and replace officials on a large scale in order to fully grasp the power of the state.
In the process, rebellion is almost bound to break out.
In fact, in the original time and space, Sun Quan also sent heavy troops to take control of Jiaozhou, but later he still could not suppress the rebellion in Jiaozhou and almost lost Jiaozhou.
It is sad to say that the reason why Jiaozhou was not lost was because Soochow was destroyed.
At that time, there was only one handsome man left in Soochow, and that was Tao Huang.
But there are two theaters in Soochow that lack a coach, and Tao Huang can hardly be distracted.
As we all know, there are three war zones in Soochow, two front lines, the Jingzhou War Zone and the Jiangdong War Zone, and a rear area with constant rebellions, the Jiaozhou War Zone.
The Jiangdong Theater could be commanded by the Soochow Emperor, but the Jingzhou Theater had always needed to be led by commanders.
The Jingzhou War Zone in Soochow went from Zhou Yu to Lu Su, then to Lu Meng, then to Lu Xun, and then Zhuge Ke, Lu Dai, and Bu Zhi took charge of the overall situation. Finally, after Lu Kang's death, the talents withered, and only Tao Huang was qualified.
But at this time, a large-scale rebellion broke out in Jiaozhou. First, we visited the Jingzhou war zone, but the Jiaozhou war zone collapsed. Without the resource supply of Jiaozhou, Soochow could not survive at all.
Tao Huang had no other skills, so Sun Hao could only use time lag tactics, asking him to pacify Jiaozhou first, and then move to Jingzhou.
As a result, the Western Jin Dynasty was unstoppable, the time lag strategy failed, and Soochow OVER.
According to Liu Feng, the reason why rebellions occurred frequently in Jiaozhou was mainly due to two reasons.
The first one is naturally that Soochow drew blood too harshly and squeezed it too harshly, so that the powerful gentry in Jiaozhou easily deceived the people into rebellion.
The second reason is that the local gentry in Jiaozhou are too powerful, while Soochow only knows massacre, but it is unpopular, and eventually it completely loses the hearts of Jiaozhou.
In general, Liu Feng is confident that he can win Jiaozhou and control Jiaozhou, but Liu Feng estimates that he will need to invest a lot of effort. Although the output is abundant, with the current population size of Jiaozhou, the annual rice output is one million It is basically no problem to use stone to capitalize on the north.
But the price is 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers and horses, and a large number of talents must be paid.
It would be more cost-effective to invest the same resources in Jingzhou.
After Jingzhou is acquired, it is not too late to consider Jiaozhou.
Since the price/performance ratio is not high at the moment, it’s really better to throw it to Cao Cao first, since the other party can’t digest it anyway.
In this way, he could not only sell Cao Cao a favor, but also repay his favor by proclaiming himself as Yangzhou Mu, and dig a hole to bury him. It was like killing three birds with one stone.
********
Liu Feng was waiting at home that night. At midnight, an ox-cart drove quietly into the palace of the Hussar General. Sitting in the ox-cart was none other than Sili Colonel Zhong Yao, known as the Crouching Tiger.
Liu Feng guessed a little bit about Zhong Yao's purpose of coming, and suspected that he might have come to him under the emperor's favor.
Originally, there was no need to listen to the emperor's quotation at this time. Besides, the emperor was sorry for me, Liu Feng, in this matter, and it was not me, Liu Feng, who was sorry for his emperor.
But Liu Feng thought again and again, and finally did not refuse Zhong Yao's request, and decided to meet him.
Zhong Yao entered the study and saw Liu Feng and others. He first greeted him respectfully and said, "I have seen General Zhengnan."
General Zhengnan was ranked below Jiuqing, but because of the blessing of Kaifu Yitong and the Third Division, he was ranked above Jiuqing.
The status of Sili Xiaowei is equivalent to that of Jiuqing, so Liu Feng is above Zhong Yao.
Liu Feng nodded: "Yuan Chang, please rise. Please sit down and talk in detail."
There were many people in the study. In addition to Xu Chu who was serving behind Liu Feng, the Zhuge brothers and Pang Tong were also at the table, and Ling Tong directed the maids to serve tea.
After Zhong Yao took his seat, he tasted the tea soup and looked at Liu Feng's face quietly.
When he was sure that Liu Feng was in a good mood, he sighed leisurely: "The emperor regrets it."
The Son of Heaven is the emperor, so naturally he cannot make mistakes.
Then it must be the ministers who are wrong, and the emperor will regret at most that he listened to the wrong advice.
Liu Feng exclaimed, and sure enough, Zhong Yao really came to work as a lobbyist for Liu Xie.
It seems that Liu Xie is not stupid enough, he knows that the situation is very wrong, and he has found the right person.
"How can the emperor know his regrets? What Yuan Chang said is very difficult to understand."
Liu Feng replied with a smile.
He is very dissatisfied with Emperor Liu Xie now, but he doesn't show it easily. Moreover, Liu Feng had also made deductions in his mind. Now the emperor has become an obstacle to him, rather than a help to contain Cao Cao. If Cao Cao solves the Yang party and takes care of the emperor, it will be a good thing for Liu Feng.
Because the unified Sili will help Cao Cao grow in power, and thus better contain Yuan Benchu, the overlord of Hebei who is about to eliminate Gongsun Zan, drink horses from the Yellow River, and spy on Henan. However, although Liu Feng was dissatisfied with the emperor and hated Yang Biao, it did not mean that he wanted to betray the emperor and Yang Biao.
If possible, he hoped that Cao Cao would come forward to deal with Yang Biao himself and evade the emperor.
If he takes out the letter between Yang Biao and Yuan Shu, no matter whether the letter is true or false, by that time, Cao Cao will definitely drag Liu Feng into trouble. No matter how Liu Feng explains, his wet hands will never be clean. .
The current situation is great. Liu Feng is standing on the shore, innocent and clean, watching Cao Cao take action to deal with Yang Biao and control the emperor. He has been a loyal minister of the emperor from beginning to end. This is what Liu Feng wants most. desired result.
Zhong Yao was choked by Liu Feng and could only sigh: "The emperor actually always remembers Zi Sheng's kindness in traveling thousands of miles to Hedong to escort him. This time, he just hopes to keep Zi Sheng in the capital to assist him. It's true." The act of favoring Zisheng was only taken advantage of by others, which led to a misunderstanding.”
Liu Feng smiled and said nothing, just stared at Zhong Yao.
Even though Zhong Yao was quite deep in the city and his bottom line was relatively flexible, Liu Feng saw him and made him blush.
"Hey, I also urged the emperor not to suppress Zi Sheng before, but the emperor didn't listen."
Zhong Yao stopped pretending and sighed directly, with a lot of resentment in his words.
Seeing that Zhong Yao had made his attitude clear, Liu Feng stopped hiding it. After all, he still admired Zhong Yao very much, and he had been trying to win over Zhong Yao to completely stand on his side.
If you continue to act at this time, your efforts to win over will be in vain.
"Hmph, I worked hard to go south to suppress the rebellion, help him find Yuxi, and capture Yuan Shu alive, but he was so lucky that he actually wanted to kill the donkey."
Liu Feng snorted coldly: "There is still more than half of the wheat warehouse, why are you so anxious to kill the donkey?"
"The emperor is probably jealous."
Zhong Yao sighed again. This was not to defend the emperor, but because he really thought so.
"Zisheng, you are only fourteen years old, four years younger than the emperor, but you have become a general and a prime minister, mounted your horse to lead the army, dismounted your horse to pacify the people, pacify the place, restore production, establish laws and regulations, help the people, and be a powerful nobleman. All of you admire me. ”
As Zhong Yao talked, he felt a little sore in his heart. This Liu Zisheng was so enviable.
Liu Feng said displeased: "I have served the court wholeheartedly, but it has become my fault?"
Zhong Yao smiled bitterly and shook his head: "I'm not blaming you. It's just that everyone is surprised and afraid of you."
Liu Feng became even more unhappy, with a look of dissatisfaction on his face: "That Yuan Shu is a traitor. He set up many police stations in Huaibei and used Jiuxi to regulate it privately, so he just had to go to court to control it. These rebels and traitors, I serve the country. , to eliminate it for the imperial court, for the sake of the emperor, is it still wrong? ”
"Of course not bad!"
Zhong Yao straightened his face and praised vigorously: "Zisheng's merits are well known to the scholars and the people, and they all applaud him."
Liu Feng said angrily: "I didn't see it."
Zhong Yao sighed again: "Zisheng, of course you are not wrong, but if you are forced to say that you are wrong, you may be wrong because of Ping Yuan Taisu."
Liu Feng's heart sank, but his face was pretending to be angry: "For such a big thing as countering a rebellion, isn't the sooner the better?"
Zhong Yao glared at Liu Feng angrily, obviously seeing that Liu Feng was not serious about what he said, but he explained: "Yuan Shu is the overlord of Huaisi. Since taking over Jiangbei, he has invaded Yuzhou in the north and Xuzhou in the east. Entering the south of the Yangtze River, there were few opponents, and his power was overwhelming. Tao Qian, Liu Yao, Lu Kang, and the Zhou brothers were all defeated by him. "
"For such a behemoth, you broke through its capital in just one season and captured it outside the palace. Then in less than half a year, you wiped out Jiangdong and captured Sun Ce's entire clan alive."
There was something wrong with the way Zhong Yao looked at Liu Feng, as if he was looking at a monster.
"Although Huaiyin uses troops, it is nothing more than this."
Liu Feng was stunned for a moment, and then thought about it carefully. He started from his father's business of one and a half counties, and within three years, he had swept through 17 counties in four states. In order to seize food from the tiger's mouth, he forcefully seized half of Qingzhou from Yuan Tan's mouth, and placed Beihai and Donglai counties in the vassal state.
Hiss, if you look at it this way, it seems that your achievements are no worse than those of Han Xin, the Marquis of Huaiyin.
After all, Han Xin only won three counties in Bingzhou, nine counties in Jizhou, and six counties in Qingzhou, which was exactly eighteen counties.
This comparison instantly amused Liu Feng. He never thought that one day he would meet the Porcelain Soldier Immortal. What makes Liu Feng even more proud is that this comparison was proposed by Zhong Yao, a famous official in the Han and Wei Dynasties.
Thinking of this, Liu Feng felt that he was almost convinced by Zhong Yao, and it was right for the emperor to restrict himself.
But it is a pity that it is only almost, not completely.
"It is said that Yuan Chang has a sweet mouth and a sweet heart. When I heard it today, it turned out to be true."
Liu Feng smiled and shook his head, then his smile faded and he changed the topic: "Yuan Chang, I am afraid you will no longer be qualified for the post of Sili Xiaowei. However, I would like to declare that you will be appointed as a minister and a minister." , what do you think?”
In the system of the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the status of Sili Xiaowei was equal to that of Jiuqing, but in fact, because of his excessive real power, his actual status was slightly higher than that of Jiuqing.
In comparison, Shizhong was promoted from one thousand shi in the Western Han Dynasty to two thousand shi. He was of the same rank as Jiu Qing, but his status was slightly lower than Jiu Qing's.
As for Shangshu Ling, this official position is the most complicated. In terms of status, he is not only lower than Jiuqing, Shizhong and Sili Xiaowei, but also lower than the Grand Administrator of the Central Plains County and the Prime Minister.
But in terms of appearance, he was of the same rank as Sili Xiaowei. The so-called three independent positions in the Eastern Han Dynasty refer to Sili Xiaowei, Yushi Dafu and Shangshu Ling. They have their own exclusive seats in the court, and they happen to be facing the three princes to show respect for their authority, so they are called three independent seats.
Moreover, the Shangshu Ling, who oversees the Shangshutai, is nominally the permanent general person in charge of the Shangshutai.
The reason why it is nominal is that almost most of the time, the Sangong will record the affairs of the minister. Once the affairs of the minister are recorded, the order of the minister will be subject to the jurisdiction of the Sangong.
Because the status of Shangshu Ling is slightly lower than that of Shizhong, equivalent to the prefects and prime ministers of larger counties in the north, and lower than that of Sili Xiaowei, Shizhong and Henan Yin.
If Liu Feng directly moved Zhong Yao to serve as his servant, it would naturally be a proper demotion.
Regardless of status, face or real power, the servants are inferior to the Sili Xiaowei. Especially now that the emperor's authority is weak, even the greatest invisible benefit of being close to the emperor has been abolished.
But after Liu Feng became a servant, he was given the title of Shangshu, which was completely different.
Not only can the minister legally accompany the emperor, but the minister can also participate in state affairs. The two combined, even if they are not higher than the captain of the Sili school, they are not far behind.
But after Zhong Yao heard this, his expression darkened.
Liu Feng deliberately changed the topic and avoided talking to the emperor, but it was equivalent to telling Zhong Yao his attitude through actions.
At this time, if Zhong Yao is removed from the official position of Sili Xiaowei, who will be given to the vacant Sili Xiaowei? It is not difficult to determine with Zhong Yao's wisdom.
Once Cao Cao takes control of Sili Xiaowei and Henan Yin at the same time, Yang Biao will be no different from a lamb waiting to be slaughtered, and Cao Cao can reasonably and legally purge the disobedient courtiers in the court.
(End of chapter)