Chapter 10 Brother Big Ear, listen to me
“Father, no one told his son about Chen Gongcao’s slander, and his son had no objection to Chen Gongcao.
It’s just that the son felt that at the moment The situation is difficult, and a single move can affect the whole body.
You and I are in the center of the whirlpool. If we make a mistake, there may be unbearable disasters. "
Liu Bei gradually calmed down. down.
Since taking over as Xuzhou Mu, he has taken over all his family members.
Now he has three sons and two daughters, but the one who truly satisfies him and loves and cares about him the most is his eldest son who has become famous in the North.
Thinking of his son's precocious wisdom and the secret of meeting the immortal in his dream, Liu Bei's anger gradually subsided.
After a while, he sat down cross-legged and looked at Liu Feng: "Okay, I want to hear your wise words as a father. You should tell me carefully what the disaster is."
"Father, do you really think we are the lords of Xuzhou?"
Liu Feng's first words almost made Liu Bei furious again.
What does this traitor mean? Is he mocking me as a puppet?
Fortunately, Liu Bei was still very tolerant, and he continued to listen patiently.
"Er Shi analyzed the situation for his father."
Liu Feng stood up and took several volumes of bamboo slips and silk books from the desk, placed them on the ground respectively, then pointed at the bamboo slips and said: " There are roughly four forces within Xuzhou. The father can be the Zhou Mu faction, and he is in charge of the Zhou Mu faction, and his assistants are the second uncle, the third uncle, the uncle Zilong, and the uncle Guorang.
However, his father's fortune was weak and he lacked talents.
My father had just arrived. He had less than a thousand soldiers and only four generals. Even with the help of Tao Gong's four thousand Danyang soldiers, he could only protect himself.
Father, you have neither the help of your clan members nor the disciples and old officials. Although you are the shepherd of the state, the affairs of the state are not in your hands. ”
The local gentry in Xuzhou headed by the Chen family and the Mi family, after electing Liu Bei to take over as the pastor of Xuzhou, naturally took the state power into their hands. The situation was even stronger than that of the Yanzhou gentry against Cao Cao.
After all, Cao Cao has strong support from the Cao family, Xiahou family, Wei family and other clans, and there is no shortage of talents in the family, who can hold some key positions
But what about Liu Bei?
Except for Jian Yong, Tian Yu, Guan, Zhang and Zhao, he couldn't even find a few literate subordinates, let alone gentry scribes.
Otherwise, a year later, when Yuan Shu invaded and Liu Bei took Guan Yu to resist, he wouldn't have been so embarrassed that Zhang Fei stayed behind as the commander-in-chief.
Of course Liu Bei also knew about this problem, but he thought hard and couldn't find any good solution. The only thing he thought he could do was to increase his efforts to win over Chen Deng and Mi Zhu, rely on them with all his strength, and try to tie them to each other. Together.
This strategy cannot be said to be right or wrong, because logically speaking, it is completely stupid. Not only does it give up the advantage of being a high-ranking official and mediating in the middle, but it also directly participates in political struggles, and even It provided the greatest convenience for Chen Deng and Mi Zhu to isolate Liu Bei.
But in terms of results, it was precisely because of Liu Bei's strategy that after Lu Bu stole his home, he was still able to get continuous support from Chen Deng and Mi Zhu, who gave people money and food, and once had an army of ten thousand people. The main reason why I almost turned over.
And what was the situation of Lu Bu, the relative winner at that time?
When he attacked Liu Bei, who had tens of thousands of troops, he could only send three or four thousand men. At that time, his total strength was no more than ten thousand.
Although they are all experienced soldiers, you can still see how embarrassed Lu Bu is.
The newly appointed lord of Xuzhou did not lose all his family property, and Liu Bei came back with many troops.
Liu Feng now wants to help Brother Big Ear defend Xuzhou's foundation. From this perspective, Liu Bei's actions are extremely stupid. "Father, this second force is the powerful gentry in Xuzhou.
These people can be divided into two.
Led by the Chen family and the Mi family, They are close to their father and are relatively loyal, but the state power is also in their hands, which requires both comfort and differentiation.
In addition, other factions such as the Wang family, Zhuge family and other noble families have no regard for their father. Understand, lack of trust, and would rather take refuge than work for my father. This is a strength that can be comforted and fought for. ”
As Liu Bei listened to Liu Feng's narration, the anger hidden in his eyes gradually dissipated, replaced by deep thought.
Liu Bei has actually noticed what Liu Feng is saying now, but he has no countermeasures.
At this moment, he couldn't help but have expectations for Liu Feng, hoping that the other party could come up with a practical solution.
“The third force is sent from outside Danyang, headed by General Jianwei Zhonglang.
They were originally the confidants brought by Tao Gong from their hometown, and they were loyal to Tao Gong. They also have deep grudges with the local gentry in Xuzhou, and they are hostile to each other. This force is both close to and alienated from his father, and they are both wary and suspicious.
However, they had a long-standing feud with the Xuzhou Scholars Faction where Chen Gongcao belonged, and the conflicts between the two sides were sharp. Now that my father has become the state pastor, he must reconcile and appease the two factions, at least to allow the two factions to coexist.
Otherwise, not only will the two forces be busy fighting among themselves and not interested in getting down to business, it will also be more likely to cause factional imbalance and lead to invasion by foreign enemies. "
Liu Bei suddenly said: "Foreign enemies, who are the foreign enemies my son is talking about? "
Although Liu Bei couldn't see what Liu Feng said so thoroughly before, he could always vaguely perceive part of it due to his outstanding talent.
It's just that he has always been distracted by Chen. Deng and Mi Zhu were close friends, and Liu Bei's ability to carry water was not high. Therefore, he was quickly alienated by the Danyang faction because of his close relationship with the former.
Liu Bei actually had no intention of eliminating the Danyang Sect, but in many matters, he naturally favored Chen Deng and Mi Zhu.
Liu Bei also had some calculations in mind. As a foreign faction, the Danyang faction had no local roots. Although it had military power, it had to rely on the support of local scholars for money and food.
Once Liu Bei joins forces with Chen Deng, the Danyang faction has almost no chance of winning.
In this case, Liu Bei even came up with the idea of slowly annexing and digesting the Danyang Sect through the pressure of the local scholar faction against the Danyang Sect.
Whether this idea will work depends of course on Liu Bei's subsequent operations and tactics.
But the premise for all this is that there must be a closed circle.
Because the circle is closed, the Danyang Sect cannot find any foreign aid.
Without other forces joining in, the Danyang faction had to choose between being eliminated or defecting to Liu Bei.
Liu Bei doesn’t have any deep grudge against them. The Danyang sect’s bosses would be crazy to choose the first one. In this way, wouldn’t Liu Bei have the opportunity to annex and digest the Danyang sect?
Liu Bei didn't think the problem was big before. When he succeeded as state pastor, he got angry with Yuan Shaotong.
Chen Deng's "Send to Yuan Shao to Report to Welcome Liu Bei as Xuzhou Shepherd" made Yuan Shao choose to reconcile with Liu Bei. Miraculously, although Liu Bei reconciled with Yuan Shao, he did not break up with Gongsun Zan. By the way, Yuan Shao's ally Cao Cao lost the name of attacking Xuzhou again.
(End of this chapter)