Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1076 Marriage
The so-called Baekje was a tribal state established based on the Han River basin. There are many theories about its origin. In the Korean book "Records of the Three Kingdoms", it is said that it was founded around the year 1 AD.

But from Yuan Xi's point of view, this record obviously has some problems, because the record also said that Baekje's capital at that time was Wiryeseong (Seoul in later generations), but two hundred years later, the current Wiryeseong is just a small mountain city on the seaside, which has just been conquered by himself.

Therefore, Yuan Xi was more willing to believe another statement, that Baekje was a country established by Qiu Tai, a descendant of Dongmyeong (Jumong), the ancestor of Goguryeo, in the former site of Daifang County. Later, Qiu Tai married the daughter of Gongsun Du, the prefect of Liaodong in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Later, Baekje built a temple to worship Qiu Tai.

According to this timeline, Baekje gradually grew in power after it formed an alliance with the Gongsun Du family. It surpassed Mahan Baekje and other peninsula countries, became the overlord of the southwest of the Korean Peninsula, and then established its capital in Weilie City. Then it began to have ambitions to plot against China.

Baekje first became the leader of the Mahan Alliance and its power expanded. During the Jin Dynasty, it wanted to invade Lelang County, but was defeated by the Jin Dynasty and its two kings were killed. After that, it lay dormant for a while and strengthened its strength. After almost unifying the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, it came into conflict with Goguryeo in the north.

Goguryeo also took the opportunity to expand its power. It occupied the northern part of the Korean Peninsula and invaded Lelang County, renaming it Pyongyang. Baekje naturally refused to accept this, and the two sides fought a great battle. Goguryeo was defeated and its king, Guguwonwang, was killed.

Baekje took the opportunity to expand its territory northward, and clashed with Goguryeo over the territory of the Jin Dynasty, causing them to become enemies. Baekje took the opportunity to surrender to the Jin Dynasty and was officially enthroned by the Jin Dynasty.

But in the following hundreds of years, even though Baekje formed an alliance with the newly rising Silla, it was still suppressed by Goguryeo and could not raise its head. In the end, the Goguryeo army broke through its capital Seoul, and even the king was killed. It was forced to move the capital, and its territory was greatly reduced at one point.

Although Baekje later joined forces with Silla to counterattack Goguryeo and take over the lower reaches of the Han River, Baekje later fell out with Silla and wanted to join forces with Goguryeo and Japan to destroy Silla.

At that time, China was already the Tang Dynasty. Silla asked the Tang Dynasty for help. The Tang Dynasty tried to mediate the two sides several times but failed. Baekje still insisted on attacking Silla, so Emperor Gaozong of Tang sent Su Dingfang to lead an army of more than 100,000 on an expedition. It took only half a year to capture the capital of Baekje and destroy the country.

During the hundreds of years since the establishment of Baekje, it was a dirty history full of betrayal of allies. From the Jin Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, almost all of its allies were stabbed in the back, which was somewhat similar to Sun Quan. Therefore, when Yuan Xi initially planned, he made Baekje the primary target.

However, the marriage between Baekje and the Gongsun family was indeed true. It was agreed upon between Gongsun Du and Baekje a few years ago when he was still alive. Naturally, there were some intentions behind it.

When Yuan Xi found out about it, he hinted it to Gongsun Du, but Gongsun Du pretended to be stupid and just did what he was supposed to do behind the scenes.

After Yuan Xi learned about this, he knew that Gongsun Du was difficult to control, so he turned to secretly support his illegitimate son Gongsun Kang. As a result, when Gongsun Du was seriously ill and the Gongsun family fought fiercely for the heir, Gongsun Kang unexpectedly won, and Gongsun Du died of illness.

Yuan Xi's investment also paid off. On the surface, the Gongsun family was still close to Yuan Xi, but privately Gongsun Kang had already sided with Yuan Xi and became Yuan Xi's white glove for his actions on the Korean Peninsula.

Just like the Gongsun family fleet, on the surface it was Gongsun Kang's people, but in fact they were all Yuan Xi's spies, who finally betrayed Jiangdong.

Of course, Yuan Xi's plan did not stop there. After Gongsun Du's death, Baekje was obsessed with the marriage with Gongsun Du's family and sent people to urge it several times. After consulting Yuan Xi, Gongsun Kang sent the originally agreed candidate, Gongsun Du's daughter and his half-sister, all the way to Silla a few months ago. She had just entered the capital of Baekje.

According to normal etiquette, this woman should have married into the palace half a month later, but at this time Yuan Xi led a fleet to attack Weili City, and the reason for the attack was that Baekje was plotting something bad.

Yuan Xi naturally got the evidence of Baekje's secret tricks. When Qiu Tai, the tribal king of Baekje, learned that Yuan Xi led his troops to attack Weilie City, he was also panicked. After all, the capital of Baekje was only a hundred miles away from Weilie City. If Weilie City was lost, the capital of Baekje would be in danger!

Qiu Tai knew very well that Baekje's military strength was simply incapable of resisting Yuan Xi's army. Fortunately, he had started planning to deal with Yuan Xi a long time ago. After all, Yuan Xi's expansionary momentum seemed to be the kind that would allow others to sleep soundly beside his bed. In this case, why didn't Baekje take the initiative?

So, on the one hand, Baekje formed an alliance with Gongsun Du's family, and on the other hand, it secretly colluded with Cao Cao and Sun Quan, and obtained their promise of help, which gave it some confidence.

It happened that at this time, Cao Ang escaped. He was escorted by hundreds of Youzhou rebels all the way from Liaodong to Baekje and sought refuge with Qiu Tai. When Qiu Tai learned about it, he was naturally very happy. In his opinion, Cao Ang was a rare commodity and would definitely be able to fetch a good price in the future.

Of course, Qiu Tai was not the kind of person who believed easily. After confirming Cao Ang's identity through multiple checks, he sent Jia Xu and all his Youzhou rebel soldiers to guard Weili City. In this way, even if Cao Ang had problems, he was just a lone man and posed no threat.

There was singing and dancing going on in the Baekje Palace at the moment, but Qiu Tai was hosting a banquet to entertain Cao Ang. On the other side of the guest table, there was a girl with a slim figure. She was Gongsun Shuo, a member of the Gongsun family who had come to the marriage alliance.

She was in a bad mood, not because of the arranged marriage. After all, family arranged marriage was the unshirkable responsibility of the women in the family, and she had already accepted her fate.

It's not entirely because Qiu Tai is ugly, although he is indeed very ugly. After several generations of interbreeding between his ancestors and local women, he no longer looks like people from the Central Plains, especially his extremely flat face with sunken facial features, as if he had been flattened by an iron plate.

In comparison, the handsome Cao Ang looked elegant and graceful. Of course, Gongsun Shuo would not have any other thoughts about this. The reason she was unhappy was because she felt it was against the rules.

According to Han customs, a girl cannot easily meet outsiders before she gets married, but it happens that here is a tribal slavery system, using the customs of the Hu people in the border areas, so the wives and concubines have to come out to entertain guests.

Although Gongsun Shuo did not officially marry in, she still had to come out to entertain guests according to the tribal rules of the Baiyu tribe. This made Gongsun Shuo extremely uncomfortable, and she cursed herself in her heart for being unlucky and marrying into a den of savages!
But even though she felt uncomfortable, she still maintained the etiquette of a woman from an aristocratic family and politely offered him a glass of wine. When she turned to Cao Ang, she paused for a moment on his face, but her eyes were attracted by the guards behind him. There were two guards, one was a man with a wasp waist and a monkey arm, obviously with extraordinary martial arts skills, and the other was a woman with scars all over her face.

It was the first time that Gongsun Shuo saw a woman with so many scars on her face. She wondered what she had gone through to get so injured?

She looked at her carefully and found that the woman actually had quite regular facial features and exuded a heroic air. Although the scar looked scary, the more she looked at her, the more she discovered that there was an indescribable temperament in her.

The person on the other side noticed Gongsun Shuo's gaze and glared at her. Gongsun Shuo felt a gleam of light in the other person's eyes and felt a pain in his eyes, so he lowered his head subconsciously.

Qiu Tai, who was sitting at the top, noticed Gongsun Shuo's actions. He mistakenly thought that Gongsun Shuo was looking at Cao Ang, and immediately felt unhappy. However, he couldn't get angry. After all, if the other party was really Cao Cao's eldest son, it would be difficult for him to offend him.

In comparison, what is Gongsun Shuo? He married into the Gongsun family in order to seize Liaodong, but how could the Gongsun family be compared with Cao Cao?
If Cao Cao was willing to give him all the land north of the Yellow River, Qiu Tai wouldn't even mind wearing a green hat and sending Gongsun Shuo away.

Of course, this is just Qiu Tai's wishful thinking. Gongsun Shuo is naturally not worth the price, but there is no problem in exchanging Cao Ang for Youzhou!
As long as he could establish a relationship with Cao Cao and help him defeat the evil tiger, wouldn't it be a natural thing for him to get Youzhou?
Qiu Tai was sitting there daydreaming when someone rushed in and knelt down and shouted, "My king, it's bad, Weili City has been lost!"

As soon as these words came out, everyone was in an uproar. Qiu Tai stood up suddenly and said in a lost voice: "How could it be lost so quickly?"

"what's going on?"

"Didn't the reinforcements from Wu come?"

The messenger hurriedly said, "Report to the king, the Wu army has arrived, but was defeated by the fierce tiger!"

Qiu Tai was surprised when he heard this. "How many people came from Wu?"

"Are there only a few boats coming?"

The messenger said in a hoarse voice: "Report to the king, Jiangdong has sent nearly a thousand warships and tens of thousands of soldiers, but they were all defeated by the fierce tiger army!"

"Moreover, when Weili City sent troops to help Wu's army, they were ambushed by the Xionghu Army, and the city was breached. The people and officials in the city were forced to abandon the city and flee!"

Qiu Tai looked grim, and glanced at Cao Ang, "Where are the Youzhou troops?"

"Aren't there soldiers from Youzhou who surrendered to defend the city?"

The messenger hurriedly said, "It was precisely because he blocked the fierce tiger army that most of the people in Weili City had time to escape safely!"

"They are now escorting the governor of Northern Han County and other remaining soldiers towards the capital!"

After hearing this, Qiu Tai didn't have much thought in his mind. The other party would definitely not give up. The capital was about a hundred miles away from Weili City, and it would take five or six days to get there. By then, he would have to face the ferocious tiger that was famous all over the world!
Previously, Qiu Tai thought that Cao Cao and Sun Quan would send troops to help him, so he was still dreaming at the beginning. But now that the Wu army was easily defeated by the fierce tiger, Qiu Tai became completely panicked. How should he deal with the attack of the fierce tiger next?

Just relying on Baekje's poorly equipped soldiers?
In panic, he glanced at Cao Ang, and his eyes suddenly lit up, as if he had grasped a life-saving straw, and hurriedly said: "Master Cao, is there a way to contact the King of Wei and ask him to send troops to help me?"

Cao Ang heard this and said, "Your Majesty, distant water cannot quench immediate thirst. I hope Your Majesty will take action as soon as possible."

Qiu Tai got angry after hearing this, "So I can only wait to die?"

"I provoked the fierce tiger just to take you in. Shouldn't you think of a solution now?"

After hearing this, Cao Ang said, "When Mr. Wenhe returns, I will personally lead the troops into battle to report to the king."

(End of this chapter)