Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1374 Means
When the Wei army conquered Yizhou and Liu Zhang surrendered, almost all of the Yizhou aristocratic families defected to Wei, represented by Qiao Zhou, Huang Quan and others.

The Dongzhou faction was a clan located at the border of Jingzhou and Yizhou, and had connections in both states. Most of them were former subordinates of Liu Zhang's father Liu Yan, represented by Xu Jing, Zhang Song, and Fa Zheng.

During the period when Liu Yan was the governor of Yizhou, in order to suppress the Yizhou faction, he made use of the Dongzhou faction. This approach was similar to that of Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, both of whom used foreign aristocrats to weaken the influence of local aristocrats. It was a common practice of that era.

Even Yuan Xi could not avoid the intrigue in this situation, so he set up two secondary capitals so that the officials under him could not figure out which faction Yuan Xi actually favored.

As Yuan Xi's territory expanded, the officials under his command came from all corners of the country. Although factions among officials were inevitable, no one dared to say that their faction was marked by a region. This invisibly enabled him to safely transition to a stable period, thus avoiding many hidden dangers.

But the same situation happened with Wei. If Wei could unify the Central Plains, it would naturally be able to suppress many hidden dangers. But now Wei has lost a large amount of territory and its prestige has been damaged. As a result, many aristocratic officials are quite dissatisfied with Cao Pi's prestige, and even extended it to the dead Cao Cao.

As a result, the hidden dangers left by Cao Cao's practice of relying on the Yingchuan faction gradually became apparent. The gentry who had been excluded by the Yingchuan faction began to band together and fight openly and secretly with the Yingchuan faction.

And within the Wei State, there was another force, the Cao and Xiahou clans, which also played a lot of roles in this. Many of their members had previously married into the Yingchuan faction, but some of them deliberately kept their distance from the Yingchuan faction because they noticed that the new emperor Cao Pi and Cao Cao had different ideas, and it seemed that they did not fully support the Yingchuan faction.

As a result, the Cao Wei clan was divided into two factions. The relationship between them was complicated, and the one who saw it all was Cao Pi.

He survived Cao Cao's Gu refining, and his skills seemed to have reached a new level. This time, summoning the officials of Jingzhou individually was one of his methods.

If one wants to control a place, one cannot do without the local nobles and powerful people, because the imperial power does not go down to the countryside, and if one does not have good relations with the local powerful people, one cannot even farm.

Of course, killing all the local powerful people and arranging one's own people to move in is also a solution, but if they are not killed completely, there will be troubles in the future. This was the case when Cao Cao governed Yanzhou.

Although Cao Pi's behavior was absurd, he was not a complete madman. Especially now that the Wei State was in urgent need of help from the gentry, he naturally chose to win them over and make them appeasement.

In this situation, if Cao Pi wanted to stabilize Jing and Yi, he had to gain the loyalty of officials from both factions. Now, even if he had to hold his nose, he had to make these officials, who originally had different thoughts, temporarily gather together to serve the Wei State.

Because Cao Pi had already investigated this group of people with complex compositions through the Imperial Household Department, and found that their positions were extremely confusing. Some of them had pledged their allegiance to the Wei Kingdom, some secretly sympathized with Liu Yan and Liu Zhang, and some had previously had secret communications with Liu Bei and were inclined towards the Hannan Kingdom.

A few years ago, Cao Pi would have ordered a purge, but his previous experience in Xu Du made him realize that such a move would actually have little effect and would cause great damage to the prestige of the Wei State. If this continued, people would be in panic, so who would dare to be loyal to the Wei State?

In addition, the war situation in the past two years had been unfavorable, so Cao Pi's extremely tough approach and attitude when he first ascended the throne gradually softened. He was looking for a breakthrough to rally the people's hearts and establish prestige, so he took a different approach, starting with literature.

Cao Pi was well aware of his own military capabilities, which were no match for his father Cao Cao. Moreover, Cao Cao was not only good at military affairs, but his literary talent was also convincing. That was why he was able to convince his officials with his abilities and personal charm.

Cao Pi knew clearly that he was not good at fighting, so he simply handed over the military and political power to Sima Yi. Sima Yi was also very capable. After Xun You's death, he had become the only military and political minister who could take on the responsibility in the Wei State. In comparison, the great general Xiahou Dun had become an empty figure with only a nominal title.

Of course, the Cao clan has also made efforts. Its biggest hope now is the rookie Xiahou Shang. His previous battle record was also remarkable, but because he was too close to Ma Chao, he was implicated in Han Sui's report of Ma Chao's rebellion, and has now been transferred back to Chang'an.

The person who succeeded Xiahou Dun in Liangzhou Road was Cao Zhang, who had always been dissatisfied with Cao Pi. When he was sent to Liangzhou, some ministers privately advised Cao Pi that if Cao Zhang rebelled in Liangzhou or even defected to Jin, it would be a devastating blow to Wei.

Cao Pi sneered in his heart about this. He knew Cao Zhang's character very well. Although Cao Zhang was dissatisfied with him, he was extremely respectful to Cao Cao.

If the State of Wei was strong enough to dominate the world, Cao Zhang might really rebel against Cao Pi. But now that the State of Wei is in turmoil, Cao Zhang will not rebel and destroy the State of Wei that Cao Cao founded.

Knowing Cao Zhang's mentality, Cao Pi boldly sent Cao Zhang to garrison Liang Province. While suppressing the rebellion in Liang Province, he also resisted the Jin army, which achieved excellent results. At least the offensive led by Gao Gan of the Jin army came to an abrupt halt after reaching Wuwei County.

However, the climate in Liang Province was very bad. Cao Pi learned that Cao Zhang had been ill several times in the past two years. You have to know that Cao Zhang had just turned 20 years old at this time and should not be so weak.

However, not many people cared about Cao Zhang's illness. After all, epidemics were too common in that era. Not to mention ordinary people, even the children of aristocratic families were helpless in the face of sudden infectious diseases and could only leave it to fate.

Especially before, Wei State gave up Xudu. Although there was a threat from Jin State, one of the important factors was that it had experienced a great epidemic. Many Cao Wei officials died of the disease, which caused panic among the people. They felt that they were being punished by heaven and had to move the capital to calm the people. This epidemic was not only a big blow to the Cao Wei court, but also to Cao Pi himself. Wang Can and Liu Zhen, two of the Seven Sages of the Jian'an Period in later generations, who had a close relationship with Cao Pi in this life, both died of the epidemic. Xun You also contracted the disease and recovered, but his health collapsed. He died of the disease soon after arriving in Chang'an.

Hundreds of officials died of the disease in Xudu. Since then, the Cao Wei court has been terrified at the mention of epidemics and has not yet gotten out of this shadow. With the defeat of the Xianbei army by the Jin State last year, a very outrageous rumor began to spread around Chang'an, and it became more and more intense.

The rumor was extremely outrageous, saying that the current Jin Emperor, or the fierce tiger also known as the King of Jin, had mastered the magic of spreading the epidemic. The previous attack on Wei's Xu Du and this time's defeat of the Xianbei in Dai County were all caused by him spreading the epidemic.

The rumor became more and more outrageous, and at one point Chang'an was terrified at the mention of the evil tiger. Under such circumstances, if the State of Jin attacked the city again, the people in the city might collapse before they even reached the city!

Cao Pi found out through the investigation of the Imperial Household Department that the source of the rumor seemed to have come from a Taoist alchemist. In anger, he ordered the Imperial Household Department to search for the alchemist and torture him for interrogation, because he felt that the alchemist must be a spy from the Jin State who spread rumors in order to disrupt the people of the Wei State!

After receiving the order, the spies from the Imperial Office arrested hundreds of suspected alchemists. Although they learned after interrogation that many of them were indeed involved in spreading the rumor, they did not find any spies from the State of Jin among them. Instead, these alchemists believed the rumor spontaneously. They thought that Xionghu was an immortal from heaven and had asked the God of Plague from heaven for help to cast a spell on the State of Wei.

Cao Pi was speechless about this for a while. Although he took Wu Shi San, he did not believe in the Huang-Lao Taoism. To be precise, he did not believe in anyone, so he often behaved in a nearly schizophrenic manner.

For Cao Pi of this age, the pressure he had to bear was already far greater than that of his peers. However, the fear of death in the competition for the crown prince had created a distorted pressure-resistant mentality in Cao Pi. Therefore, since he came to power, although he faced the danger of national destruction many times, he managed to survive and won him a lot of prestige in the Wei court.

Now he was making use of his strengths and literary talent to discuss classics and compose poems with officials from Jing and Yi. His talent in this regard was not much inferior to Cao Zhi. Moreover, the officials from both Jing and Yi that he called upon were all quite young. They were exactly the next generation of confidants that Cao Pi wanted to foster, just like Zhu Shuo, Wu Zhi and others.

Therefore, with his decadent character and neurotic behavior, he won a lot of praise and admiration among the young generation of officials who made a living by working at the age of fifty, and established his own prestige.

The young officials of both factions felt the enthusiasm and poetry of the young monarch, and their hearts were filled with admiration and excitement. As the monarch and his ministers talked more and more heart-to-heart, the two sides became more and more compatible. Cao Pi decided to hold a banquet to celebrate this rare good day.

Zhu Shuo, Wu Zhi, and even Xu Yi and others came, bringing with them the Five Stones Powder that had just been refined by the alchemists. So as part of the celebration, the emperor and his ministers held a feast of the Five Stones Powder together.

During this period, everyone present seemed to see the court rising to the sky in the thick smoke, with footsteps on the clouds. Everyone joined hands to walk beside the sun and the moon, watching the brilliant stars in the sky, sublimating the Jian'an style to the extreme.

Cao Pi sat high on the throne, looking at the people swaying wildly in the hall with drunken eyes, as if he had forgotten all the troubles in the world. On a whim, he asked the palace servants to call out the concubines in the harem to dance with the palace maids to entertain the guests.

His personal eunuch Wang Changshi groaned inwardly after hearing this. It was obvious that the king had taken too much Wu Shi San. Was this something that could be done?

But he did not dare to disobey the order, so he had to go to the harem to announce the order. After hearing this, Cao Pi's concubines, although reluctant, dared not disobey the order, so they had to follow the palace servants.

The eunuchs hurried over to Queen Guo, told her about Cao Pi's order, and knelt down and said, "Queen, you should go and persuade His Majesty. If this matter gets out, where will the royal family's reputation be?"

After hearing this, Empress Guo stood up and was about to persuade Cao Pi, but after taking two steps, she suddenly stopped and began to think.

After a long while, in front of Wang Changshi's surprised gaze, Empress Guo said, "There is no need for me to go."

"That's good."

Wang Changshi stammered, "How can this be possible? Your Majesty's reputation is not..."

Empress Guo said calmly, "It is not shameful or injustice to serve wine to His Majesty's loyal ministers. If His Majesty asks me to go, I will not disobey your order."

"As a woman, even if you are His Majesty's concubine, you should contribute to the country. Are you wronged? You can't get in from outside. There are so many people who are wronged. If you want to be wronged, you don't have this opportunity."

(End of this chapter)