Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1479 Accident
Facing Empress Dowager Guo's questioning, Sima Yi did not answer, but simply said: "When the time comes, the Empress Dowager will naturally know."

"Now is not the right time. If I tell you, it might get leaked. I don't fully trust the Queen Mother yet."

Queen Mother Guo gnashed her teeth and said, "As the Queen Mother, I don't even have the right to know the inside story?"

"How do I know if you will betray me?"

"After all, I can't trust the Prime Minister!"

Sima Yi listened and showed a mocking look on his face, "Given the Queen Mother's current situation, she is not qualified to talk to me about this."

"I have been patient for many years and have had enough of being manipulated. Your Majesty has been very kind to me, and I have also made great contributions to the State of Wei. Now we are even."

"Your Majesty, please remember that you and I are only using each other now. Before you have enough cards to prove yourself, you can only listen to me obediently."

Queen Mother Guo was furious, "Aren't you afraid that I will break up with you and reveal everything?"

Sima Yi's eyes instantly flashed with a sinister and fierce light, "Your Majesty, you can give it a try."

"If you can bear the consequences."

Queen Mother Guo's tone softened after hearing this. "I just want to protect myself. I don't want to live a life of displacement anymore, and I don't want to be sold like a commodity anymore!"

Sima Yi stood up and said, "Don't worry, Queen Mother. I, Sima Yi, will never abandon my allies."

He pointed to the Jinjiang River that flowed through the city and said, "I swear by the river that no matter what happens in the future, I will definitely protect your life."

Empress Dowager Guo felt relieved after hearing this. She asked, "Prime Minister, did you come to the palace just to tell me this?"

Sima Yi said: "Of course not."

"The Queen Mother should know that the Jin army has already captured Jiameng Pass and more than half of the Jinniu Road has been lost. By the end of next year at the latest, the Jin State will reach Chengdu."

"So for some things, it's better to prepare for a rainy day."

"The loss of Jiameng Pass this time was all due to Cao Zhi's surrender, and I can imagine that he must have put forward some conditions to the State of Jin, such as guaranteeing the safety of Queen Mother Bian when the State of Jin attacks and destroys the State of Wei in the future."

Empress Dowager Guo was shocked, "Are you going to attack the Grand Empress Dowager?"

Sima Yi sneered: "Of course not."

"But by doing this, the Cao family has clearly betrayed the Wei Kingdom. They can no longer call themselves Cao Wei."

Queen Mother Guo cried out in amazement: "I understand, you want to usurp the throne!"

Sima Yi sneered, "I'm not that stupid. The Cao family forced the Han emperor to abdicate, and their reputation is already in disgrace. Do you really think I'm envious?"

"I just want to live the rest of my life in peace. I will fight to the death with anyone who wants to go against me."

Queen Mother Guo said, "If that's the case, the Prime Minister offered Wei to Jin and was initially granted a title of nobility. Why did he still deliberately go against Jin?"

Sima Yi's expression turned cold. "You don't need to know this. You just need to understand that we are all in the same boat now."

"I am entering the palace this time to ask you to issue an edict on behalf of the emperor. From now on, we will fully prepare for war. All the people in Yizhou will be soldiers and ready to go to war at any time."

"I am ordered to take over the military affairs of the general, and to be in charge of the appointment of generals and the allocation of supplies. Everyone should obey your orders and there should be no delay!"

After hearing this, Empress Guo had no choice but to do as she was told. The next day in the court, all the officials listened to the imperial edict. Although they all had some ideas in their minds, Sima Yi had already integrated the forces in the court. No one dared to raise any objections. The imperial edict was passed without any obstacles, and the Wei State soon entered into a full mobilization.

The unusual movement in the direction of Wei State was naturally spread by the spies of Jin State in Chengdu City. Soon the direction of Jin State got the news. At that time, Zhuge Liang had already returned to Hanzhong with his army for the winter. He pondered for a long time with the intelligence, trying to put himself in the role of Sima Yi to think about it, but after thinking for most of the day, he still had no clue. He couldn't help but feel irritated and walked slowly to the courtyard.

Snowflakes began to fall from the sky. Zhuge Liang looked up at the pitch-black sky and found that the night sky was blocked by thick clouds. Not even a single starlight could be seen. It seemed that he could not observe the stars.

Zhuge Liang suddenly thought of his lord. Every time His Majesty said that he could see the general situation of the world from observing the stars, Zhuge Liang saw the opportunity and observed the celestial phenomena with Yuan Xi several times. As a result, Zhuge Liang discovered that His Majesty did not need to observe the stars at all, or the astronomical theory he used was not the one passed down by Guiguzi, because Zhuge Liang pointed out wrong interpretations of the stars several times, and Yuan Xi did not raise any objections at all.

Finally, Zhuge Liang could not help it and asked Yuan Xi, "You have written a lot of new knowledge that could establish a new school of thought, but astrology was the only thing missing. Why didn't you write it down?"

In response to this, Yuan Xi simply laughed it off and said that his stargazing skills also had some inaccuracies. If they were passed down, they would only lead people astray, so it would be better not to pass on this stargazing skill.

Zhuge Liang knew very well that this was absolutely an excuse. No theory or doctrine would be perfect when it was first born. It would need to be revised and improved by future generations. How could one throw the baby out with the bathwater just because there might be errors?

Zhuge Liang knew that he could no longer rely on His Majesty's astronomical skills, and that he would have to rely on himself to record and improve them in the future. But the key issue was that, although the current situation in the world seemed to be settled, there was a slight variable that Zhuge Liang could not see clearly no matter what.

He remembered what Yuan Xi once said, that the art of stargazing is not omnipotent, and what is truly in one's own hands is the most important. No matter how things in the sky change, they will ultimately be reflected in the sufferings of the world.

In this case, it is better to take your eyes away from the sky and take a closer look at the various creatures that are rising and falling in the human world.

Zhuge Liang seemed to be thinking about something, fearing that he was thinking in the wrong direction. Not to mention that stargazing is affected by many factors, the key point was that the other party did not know how to stargaze, so his idea must be based on a certain logic of action.

What we need to do now is to think clearly about the cause and effect of this logic and predict what the other party wants to do, so that we can complete your majesty's entrustment to the greatest extent possible and save as many innocent people as possible.

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Thinking of this, Zhuge Liang sighed inwardly. The Wei State today is like a trapped beast fighting desperately. It would be fine if they brought about their own destruction, but they are dragging the people to be buried with them. This is the most troublesome thing.

After receiving the message from Yizhou, Lu Xun hurriedly said goodbye to Liu Xie, left Changsha and returned to Xinye for defense. The Jin fleet gathered, the soldiers moved the baggage and food into the cabin, and the sailors checked the sails and set them up. It was extremely busy for a while.

It was almost winter, and the weather was cold. The lower-level generals of Jin State had thought they could spend the winter in Changsha, but now they had to set out in the severe cold. Not only were they a little lazy, but Xu Sheng, who was in charge of the army, saw them dawdling in the wind and snow to prepare the boats, and he could not help but shout, "Wake up! If Wei State launches an attack now, are you going to face the enemy like this?"

After hearing this, the generals sped up their actions. Someone muttered in a low voice: "I'm afraid this is a trick by the Wei army to confuse us. They don't want us to have a good New Year."

"I really don't think they dare to start a war in winter. With Wei's logistics, I'm afraid that people will freeze to death during the battle."

Someone nearby said, "Who knows? If they really fight us to the death, we will be in a very bad situation if we are not prepared. After all, fighting in winter means leaving everything to fate."

Faced with Wei's full mobilization order, the Jin army was very nervous. As a result, when the New Year came, the Wei army did not appear at the front line. This made Lu Xun, who hurried to Fangling, feel that he was deceived by the Wei army. Just when he was feeling depressed, news came from Yizhou again.

What surprised Lu Xun was that Wei State did send troops, but the attack was not against Jinniu Road, nor against Jiangling where his Shangyong and Hannan were stationed, but against Nanzhong of Yizhou!
According to intelligence, the Wei soldiers, who had been well prepared, sent out local natives to lead the way after arriving in Nanzhong. They mainly led by Yizhou generals, and a mixture of Dongzhou and Yizhou soldiers, launched surprise attacks on various Nanman tribes and achieved quite shocking results.

Yizhou is located in the Nanman area south of Nanzhong, which has always been a place with many conflicts. The people of Yizhou here were often harassed by the Nanman. Many families of Yizhou soldiers were looted and killed by the Nanman savages. Therefore, the feuds between the two sides in the early years were difficult to resolve.

At this time, the Southern Barbarians were still in an extremely primitive and backward slavery period. If they were placed on the plains, it would naturally be difficult for them to confront the Wei army head-on. However, over the past few hundred years, the Southern Barbarians have suppressed the Yizhou soldiers in the Chengdu area of ​​southern China, relying on the harsh local environmental conditions in Yizhou.

The southern part of Yizhou, south of Nanzhong, has heavy rains all year round. It is muddy from spring to autumn and is prone to mountain torrents and mudslides. The terrain is rugged and difficult to travel on, with dense vegetation and poisonous snakes and ferocious beasts everywhere. The roads are also unrepaired narrow paths. Under such circumstances, it is quite difficult to mobilize a large army and march a hundred or two hundred miles.

But winter is the best time of the year to travel. The ground is frozen extremely hard by the severe cold and there is no rain. Although it snows occasionally, as long as the shoes are non-slip, walking in winter is actually the fastest.

At the same time, during this period, due to the severe cold and food shortage, many southern barbarian tribes who had previously lived scattered in the mountains would gather together to help each other through the winter, while these tribesmen in the plains would live in seclusion in the deep mountains and would be extremely difficult to find.

The State of Wei chose this period to send troops because it had accurately grasped the soft spot of the Southern Barbarians. Just like when Emperor Wu of Han used troops against the Xiongnu in the spring, they had fully understood the opponent's living habits and then launched an attack that was ready to strike.

Of course, sending troops at this season, even though they had bribed local spies in advance and prepared clothing for cold weather marches, as well as a considerable amount of food and fodder, they still encountered resistance from the soldiers as expected.

After all, fighting in winter would result in too high a casualty rate. Even the Yizhou soldiers who had a blood feud with the southern barbarians were afraid to move forward. In response, the military judge sent by the Wei State was Xu Yi, who had been promoted twice. He used extremely cruel and decisive means, and chopped off the heads of hundreds of soldiers who violated military discipline. The Wei army found that they had no way to retreat, and their ferocity was aroused.

The army attacked the caves and villages of the Southern Barbarians, burning, killing and looting wherever they went, while driving the captured young and strong men to continue fighting. The offensive gradually snowballed, and soon achieved unprecedented great results in southern Yizhou.

(End of this chapter)