Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1350 Testing
Jia Xu slowly stood up and walked a few steps, then he groaned, held his waist and stumbled, and said with a bitter face: "It's not that I don't want to go, but I really don't have the strength to do it."

"It took me more than a year to come here from the Three Kingdoms of Korea, and I have already lost half of my life. Now if I am asked to walk another seven or eight hundred miles to the tent of King Kobinen, I am afraid that I will die before I even reach the tent."

Sun Shao smiled and said, "So in order to make you feel more comfortable, I have followed the order of Lord Sun and built a rather comfortable carriage for you to travel on."

Jia Xu shook his head repeatedly, "I have planned all the strategies, and you just need to follow them. What's the point of me following you?"

"Don't go, don't go!"

Yan Jun said, "It's a complete show. Since it's a false surrender, it should be all over. How could there be any omissions?"

"If we follow what you said, we need to gain the other party's trust. Does that mean Lord Sun will also follow us? Who among us can stay out of this situation?"

Sun Quan nodded and said, "That's right. Living in a place like this for the rest of your life is simply worse than death. It's better to fight to the death so that you can negotiate terms with that fierce tiger and have a chance to return to Jiangdong in the future."

Jia Xu cursed inwardly, thinking it was really bad luck. Sun Quan must have lost his mind to want to go to the enemy camp himself to come up with a plan. He was here to give advice, not to die with them!

If you want to do great things and leave your names in history, then go ahead and do it. I just want to survive in this world and live the rest of my life in peace. I will only accompany you if I lose my mind!

Sun Quan looked at Jia Xu's expression and advised him, "Sir, you once became famous all over the world, but you didn't do it for fame or fortune, but only to protect yourself. You have been wandering around for many years, and your life must have been very hard, right?"

"I see that you have a hidden illness, so I'm afraid you have to take medicine all the time. But here in the Hetao Plain, there are only a few wild herbs. They are far less than the abundant wild ginseng in the Three Kingdoms of Korea, right?"

"How much of your current salary can support the production of herbs?"

Jia Xu's face froze. The older he got, the more he paid attention to health preservation and taking medicine. Unfortunately, the best herbs were extremely expensive, far beyond what he could afford with his salary of several hundred dan. So he said, "Lord Sun's salary is not much, right?"

Sun Quan sneered and said, "Not much, but as long as I make merit and return to Jiangdong, I can take out a few of my secret vaults. By then, it will be easy to buy medicinal materials for you, and even recruiting soldiers will be a piece of cake."

Jia Xu was shocked, "Lord Sun still wants to rebel?"

"Do you really think you can defeat King Jin?"

Sun Quan showed a trace of shame and anger on his face. "Why would I fight the King of Jin? I just don't want to live in his territory anymore!"

"As long as I return to Jiangdong and take out the secret treasury, I can buy a ship, sail south to the sea, and establish a new country!"

Jia Xu was shocked. It turned out that this was what Sun Quan was planning!

He shook his head repeatedly, "Lord Sun is really obsessed, is it necessary?"

Sun Quan said with a gloomy face: "Sir, since you are already on the ship, some things are beyond your control."

"After the matter is accomplished, I will definitely reward you handsomely. If you are willing to go to sea with me and establish a country, I will appoint you as prime minister!"

Jia Xu knew that if he refused again, the other party might kill him, so he could only sigh and said, "I am old and no longer have ambitions."

"After I help you accomplish this, I will live in seclusion in the mountains and forests and never concern myself with worldly affairs again."

"If Lord Sun is trustworthy, I will accompany you in this false surrender and gamble my life."

Sun Quan, Yan Jun and Sun Shao were delighted when they heard this. Jia Xu's reputation was well-known throughout the world. With his personal involvement, half of the plan was done!

A few days later, on a dark and windy night, two carriages, escorted by dozens of guards, quietly slipped out, heading north through the broken gap in the Great Wall at the entrance of the Silver Mountain Range, and headed straight for King Kobinen's tent deep in the grassland.

The next morning, the Jin army guards discovered that Sun Quan was missing. They pretended to chase him northward for hundreds of miles, and after entering the territory of the Xianbei people, they returned empty-handed.

It was already more than a month later in the summer when Yuan Xi received the news from the defenders. By then, the northern grasslands had been thrown into chaos by the Jin army's elusive cavalry. Dozens of tribes had been raided, and tens of thousands of Xianbei women and children had been captured and put on board.

The grassland tribes were also plagued by internal strife and they once tried to establish an alliance and attack the Jin cavalry, but the Jin army did not give them this opportunity. After all, the other side came and went like the wind, and by the time the Xianbei cavalry got the news and arrived, it was already too late.

The tribal leaders had no other choice but to scold the Jin army for being conscienceless, as the Jin army had adopted this approach, which was once used by the Xianbei to deal with the Han people inside the pass. Some tribal leaders tried to come to Youzhou to protest, but were directly blocked outside the pass. Some tribesmen even fled with their entire clan out of fear, and some even fled inside the pass and voluntarily joined the Wuhuan Xiongnu tribe.

Kobe never expected that his simple test would lead to such disgusting revenge from the State of Jin, so he urgently needed the help of Sun Quan and his advisers. He found that he could not cope with the methods of this ferocious tiger, and if he wanted to counter it, he could only rely on the ability of the King of Wei Wu, whose methods were even more disgusting!

After receiving the news that Sun Quan had fled outside the Great Wall, Yuan Xi said to Ju Shou: "Everything is going as planned."

"The rest depends on how Sun Quan fools Kobineng." Ju Shou was one of the few who knew the intricacies of the situation. He said, "But your majesty said to put on a complete show. Sun Quan is not a pushover. What if his strategy leads to the death or injury of Jin soldiers?"

Yuan Xi sighed, "In order to make the performance more realistic, the two sides did not communicate with each other, so what follows is a matter of countering each other's moves."

"Only in this way can Kobe be fooled. In order to solve this problem once and for all, some sacrifices have to be made."

"All we have to do now is to cooperate with the opponent until Kobe reveals his fatal weakness."

"But in the final analysis, the Xianbei side will not necessarily have fierce conflicts in the past two years, but the Sili side makes me a little worried."

"I heard that Prime Minister Zhuge and Sima Yi are facing off?"

Ju Shou said hurriedly: "That's right, the two have been fighting for two months and are still testing each other. Neither side dares to advance rashly, for fear of falling into the other's trap."

After hearing this, Yuan Xi said, "Kong Ming is under a lot of psychological pressure this time."

"I told him to fight as hard as he could, but he was still afraid of more deaths, so he acted much more cautiously."

"On the contrary, from what I've seen in the past few military events, Sima Yi seems to be making a desperate move. He must have been forced into this by adversity."

He thought that the roles of the two people now seemed to be reversed from that in later generations, but Zhuge Liang should be able to understand this point. Taking the first step requires him to take the initiative, and it would be useless for him to say more.

What Yuan Xi has to do now is to wait quietly for the outbreak of civil strife in Western Xianbei.

As expected, news later came that a large-scale purge was being carried out within the Zhong Xianbei. It could be said that there were signs that the Zhong Xianbei would do this. After all, the Jin cavalry were elusive and could accurately avoid the Xianbei cavalry who were returning to defend. This was something that could not be achieved with just a few balloons.

As a result, many people reported to Kobineng that there were many people in the tribe who were secretly colluding with the State of Jin. If these people were not exposed, the Xianbei would never have any hope of defeating the State of Jin.

Kobe knew this, but on the one hand, this action was extremely devastating to morale, especially if the wrong people were arrested. On the other hand, he did not have a list of these collaborators. He could not just arrest the Han people who escaped and were the most suspicious without any evidence, right?
Just at this time, Sun Quan's troops fleeing north arrived.

Ke Bineng was naturally very happy and held a banquet to entertain him. During the banquet, he smiled and said to Sun Quan: "Although I am in the north, I have heard a lot about the King of Wu."

"I heard that the King of Wu plotted to kill Zhang Fei and almost turned the tables. Is that true?"

Sun Quan knew that Kobe was testing him, meaning that you, Sun Quan, once pretended to surrender and assassinate me in the name of peace talks. So, do you have the same idea in mind when you surrender to me today?
He immediately said in a serious tone: "Zhang Fei's death was caused by his harsh treatment of his subordinates, often punishing them privately, which led to the backlash and he was killed by his subordinates. It really had nothing to do with me."

"I also don't agree with this behavior, so I returned his two subordinates and Zhang Fei's head afterwards, which can be regarded as fulfilling the righteousness of both countries."

"It's just that Liu Bei coveted the foundation of my Wu Kingdom, and he was not satisfied afterwards, so he aggressively invaded my Wu territory. I had no choice but to fight back, and Liu Bei and I both suffered losses. This is how Jin took advantage of me. I really don't want to accept this."

"Now I have been exiled to the north, bearing the hatred of my country's destruction. I want to defeat the fierce tiger all the time. Now my goal is the same as yours, so I have the audacity to surrender to you, hoping to lend a helping hand to you, the king!"

Kobe smiled and said, "I understand Wu's intentions, but Your Majesty is a Han Chinese from the Central Plains, but you are helping a barbarian like me. Aren't you afraid of criticism from the world?"

Sun Quan sneered and said, "Although we are Han Chinese in Jiangdong for generations, the people in the Central Plains have always looked down on us and called us barbarians. I will show them how barbaric we are!"

Kobe heard this and laughed out loud, "King Wu is such a wonderful man. Well, since I'm like this, how about you and I becoming brothers?"

After hearing this, Sun Quan said decisively: "Okay!"

"Since the Chanyu appreciates me so much, if I refuse, I will be really ignorant of the good and the bad!"

The two men immediately swore an oath of blood covenant and became sworn brothers, which was very common on the grassland. Kobe once again held a banquet, inviting the chiefs of various tribes to congratulate him, and they drank all night long.

The moon was at its zenith. After several Xianbei women helped the drunken Sun Quan and others back to their tents to rest, Kobineng, who was originally drunk, took the opportunity to open his eyes and asked someone to call someone in.

Under the cover of night, the person who came to see Kobineng was actually Jia Xu.

No one knew that the reason why he came from the Three Kingdoms of Korea and had not yet arrived at the Hetao Plain to meet Sun Quan was that he took a big detour and came to meet Kobinen first!
Kirby was able to get Jia Xu to drink the sobering medicine, and then he said, "Tell me everything you said to Sun Quan before."

"Jia Xu, you must know that the lives of the Jia family are now in my hands, and I also know about your previous false surrender to Baekje."

"So don't play tricks in front of me, or I'll make you regret it for the rest of your life."

(End of this chapter)