Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1411 Forgetting
After Yuan Xi retired from the court, he invited Lu Xun to a family dinner. During the dinner, Yuan Xi had heard about the Lu family's children and said to Lu Xun, "We should not avoid relatives when recommending people from within the family, and we should not avoid suspicion when recommending people from outside the family. As long as people are talented and virtuous, they should all have a suitable position. You don't have to worry about your current position."

Lu Xun smiled bitterly and explained, "I didn't suppress them on purpose. I just felt that they had experienced the war to destroy Wu, and many of them were a little impatient, so I wanted to let them settle down for a few years."

Yuan Xi sighed, "I know you want them to bide their time, but now is the time for Jin to advance bravely and expand its territory. I am keeping an eye on the north, and there is Kong Ming in Chang'an. The places with the most opportunities right now are Jiangdong Minyue and Jiaozhou Nanman."

"These are all on the front line of Shouchun and Nanchang. We are quite short of people. You and Lu Zijing will discuss it carefully and nominate some people."

After hearing this, Lu Xun knew that Yuan Xi wanted to take him with him when he went to Nanchang this time, so he quickly agreed. Yuan Xi said, "Besides, I plan to have a good talk with Hannan Kingdom. Please let them know."

Lu Xun's heart moved, "Your Majesty wants Hannan Kingdom"

Yuan Xi saw that Lu Xun had misunderstood, "It's not to put pressure on them."

"Instead, we are discussing cooperation to deal with the southern barbarians."

Lu Xun was puzzled. "Although the Nanman are stubborn, with the strength of our Jin State, we will be able to destroy them sooner or later. Is it necessary to let Hannan State benefit?"

Yuan Xi explained: "The troubles of the Nanman may be beyond your imagination."

"In a sense, they are more stubborn than the barbarians from the northern border."

"If the Outer Barbarians are a semi-slave, semi-feudal tribal system, then the Nanman tribes are close to slavery."

"Their cave masters naturally don't want to change, and don't even want to accept the advanced technology and culture of the Han people. They only want to rely on looting and killing to maintain their status."

"If they don't learn to educate them, then even if there are hundreds or thousands of years, it will be useless. Moreover, soft tactics can only have a temporary effect on them, and it can't solve the root cause."

What Yuan Xi said was based on facts. The legend of Zhuge Liang capturing Meng Huo seven times in later generations showed Zhuge Liang's magnanimity. Although this is fictional, in actual history, Zhuge Liang did adopt a rather relaxed and conciliatory policy towards the Southern Barbarians.

Under the personal charm of Zhuge Liang, the Southern Barbarians behaved themselves for a while. But after Zhuge Liang's death, the Southern Barbarians began to stir again and rebellions broke out in various places. After the demise of Shu, the Southern Barbarians were completely separated from the Yizhou regime and turned into a large-scale bandit problem.

When they were at their most rampant, no one in the surrounding area for a thousand miles could control them. They even invaded Chengdu and abducted hundreds of thousands of people. They became a hidden danger that the Central Plains regime had not been completely resolved for thousands of years.

Faced with the deep mountains filled with miasma swamps and poisonous snakes and ferocious beasts, Yuan Xi had no good solution for the time being. Later generations could rely on modernization to build roads through almost every mountain, build bridges over rivers, and then connect with cars and trains, but the current Jin State did not have this ability.

So he thought about it and decided to work with the Hannan Kingdom to adopt a policy of gradual erosion of the southern barbarian caves. Although it might take dozens or even hundreds of years, it is better to do it now than later.

After listening to Yuan Xi's idea, Lu Xun thought for a long time, and finally raised his own question: "Nowadays, there are still thousands of miles of undeveloped territories in the Shanyue and Baiyue regions of Jiangdong. Why should we allocate so much manpower and resources to deal with the Nanman?"

Yuan Xi said, "Good question."

"Because the Nanman area is located in an important position on the West Sea route I am planning."

"The more civilized these places are, the more benefits the shipping routes will bring to Jin in the future. In the distant future, our Great Jin's ships will not only be able to attack Persia and the Arabs, but also reach Daqin or even further."

"Huaxia is a good place for farming, but some mineral resources are a little insufficient. Imagine if we could take over the port area of ​​Dashi in the future and mine a steady supply of black oil."

Lu Xun knew that the black oil referred to the black kerosene mined in Liangzhou, which had played a big role in the Battle of Chaohu. But Lu Xun didn't understand what other uses this thing had besides fighting. If it really wanted to be used as fuel, which one wouldn't be better than the pungent black oil, the odorless charcoal or the easy-to-transport coal?
Yuan Xi knew it was difficult to explain to Lu Xun the use of oil. After all, before the industrial revolution, oil could not be used effectively. He smiled and said, "Bo Yan only needs to know that this thing will be very useful thousands of years later."

"Of course, we will have died by then. Now we can only point out a direction and leave it to future generations to do."

Lu Xun nodded, not quite understanding. Yuan Xi suddenly remembered something and said, "I heard that your wife gave birth again two years ago?"

Lu Xun knew that Yuan Xi had misunderstood, so he explained, "It's not my wife, it's my uncle's posthumous child."

Yuan Xi didn't react for a while, and only after Lu Xun told him what happened did Yuan Xi understand.

Lu Ji was assassinated in Nanchang, leaving behind a pregnant widow. After Lu Xun took over as the head of the family, he took her back to Shouchun and asked his wife Liu to take care of her. Later, Lu Ji's widow gave birth to a daughter and then fell ill and died.

Together with Lu Ji's two younger sons, there were three in total. Lu Xun was busy with military affairs, and his wife Liu also had her own children, so he could not take care of them all. So Lu Xun found a mansion and gave it to his cousin Lu Mao, allowing him and his family to move in and take care of and raise Lu Ji's three sons.

Yuan Xi heard this and couldn't help but sigh: "These children's parents died early. What a miserable fate they have."

"This child is an orphan caused by the war. No matter what, both sides of the war are responsible. Although the Wu Kingdom has been destroyed, I cannot just ignore it."

"I actually overlooked this. I only provided compensation to the families of the soldiers who died in the war, but I still neglected the families of the Wu who died in the war." "Now that the economy of Jin is improving, you should formulate a strategy and allocate money and grain from the treasury to take care of the orphans who lost their families in the war. If there is no family to raise them, bring them together to raise them, appoint officials and teachers, and let them learn how to survive."

After hearing this, Lu Xun immediately agreed. Yuan Xi felt that there was something he hadn't remembered. He was stunned for a while and said, "I always felt that there was something I had forgotten in Shouchun in the past two years, but because I was always busy with military affairs, I put it out of my mind. This time, I forgot it completely again."

"Is there anything else in Shouchun that I should be aware of?"

Lu Xun was also confused and guessed, "Could it be that the emperor mentioned earlier about setting up an official selection and assessment office?"

"Xun proposed several candidates at that time. Does Your Majesty have a better choice?"

Yuan Xi thought for a moment, "You mentioned Ji Yan and Zhang Wen at the beginning?"

Lu Xun said: "That's right, is it because Zhang Wen is too young?"

Yuan Xi said, "No, although he is less than 20 years old, I know his ability. Ji Yan is too straightforward and easily offends people. If you have a chance, remind him."

Lu Xun was puzzled and said, "Official assessments are supposed to offend people. Ji Yan is upright and honest, isn't that a good thing?"

Yuan Xi said: "Strong people are easily broken. No one is perfect. He has offended too many people. It is easy for others to use him as a handle and tempt him to make bigger mistakes."

"I have always had an idea that officials are evaluated by people, not machines. The more rigid the work, the more likely they are to be seduce by corrupt officials. To deal with these people, we must have a more covert method of dealing with them."

"Otherwise he will be attacked from the dark if he is in the open."

After listening to this, Lu Xun nodded as if he understood, not quite. After seeing this, Yuan Xi also sighed in his heart. Lu Xun's ability in military and domestic affairs was impeccable, but his life was too smooth and his family background was also top-level aristocratic, so he had not been exposed to some dark political tactics and still underestimated the wickedness of human nature. Therefore, in terms of the sense of propriety in doing things, he did not grasp the public opinion as accurately as those old foxes of the aristocratic family.

This is also the reason why he easily stepped on Sun Quan's landmine in later life and never figured it out until his death. However, Yuan Xi has explained many such things to Lu Xun in this life, which should help him improve in this regard.

Lu Xun said, "In this case, the examination office will be established soon. Will I bring Ji Yan and Zhang Wen to meet Your Majesty tomorrow?"

Yuan Xi nodded and said, "Alright, this is a big deal, we must proceed with caution."

"In fact, the situation here is much more complicated than that of Jicheng and Yecheng. The officials in those two cities are relatively simple, most of them are from You and Ji. Moreover, the officials' families have all experienced wars, and most of them are sparsely populated, so the influence of family power is not strong."

"But it's different here in Jianghuai. Previously, they had subordinates of Yuan Shu, people from Wu, and even people from Wei. The families behind them were also Ou Pangen illusions, and their interests were deeply entangled. That's why I set up an assessment office to make them behave more restrained."

"The influence of clan power on officialdom is long-lasting and far-reaching. Overall, it will become a negative factor sooner or later. Therefore, Boyan's consideration of the Lu family is not unreasonable."

"But on the other hand, if Jin wants to move forward, it must rely on the collective efforts of everyone. We can't abandon him just because of his background, or be too defensive. I originally..."

When Yuan Xi said this, he suddenly realized, "I remember what I forgot!"

"Didn't General Huang capture the seriously injured Xiahou Yuan in the battle of Jingzhou a few years ago?"

"How many years have I kept him locked up?"

Lu Xun was speechless. Didn't Zhang Fei's widow come over to ask for Xiahou Yuan's body two years ago? So, Your Majesty, have you completely forgotten about such an important figure like Cao Wei?

He said, "He is locked up in a house somewhere in the city. I have sent people from the Procuratorate to keep an eye on him. It has been several years now."

"How is your majesty going to deal with him?"

Yuan Xi thought about it and couldn't help laughing, "I really didn't remember him."

"At first I thought of using him as a means to deal with the State of Wei, but Cao Pi's performance was beyond my expectations, and Cao Ang failed to shake his foundation. Later I felt that Xiahou Yuan would not be of any use, so I simply forgot about him."

"I didn't expect it would take so long. When Zhang Fei's widow, Xiahou, came over, I just dealt with it casually. Then when the war started, I forgot about it and it dragged on until now."

"Anyway, there's nothing urgent these days, so I'll go see how he is doing tomorrow."

(End of this chapter)