Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 665 Negotiation
Zhang Yanzhi walked out of the palace proudly. He had just been ordered by Liu Xie to take the post of General Wei.

General Hussar, General Chariot, and General Wei are called the three generals, only under the general. However, Lu Bu died in the battle and the position of general was vacant. Zhang Yan has become the number one who actually has the title of general.

Of course, Yuan Shao's death left the position of Taiwei vacant. Cao Cao took the opportunity to take over the post of Taiwei. Xian Zhong Yao succeeded Cao Cao and became the Sili Xiaowei.

Zhong Yao looked at Zhang Yang's leaving figure and sneered in his heart. Zhang Yan was as unworthy of his role as Lu Bu. Just don't be choked to death when the time comes.

As for Zhong Yao himself, he was deeply trusted by Cao Cao and was given an extremely important mission.

In the past few years, Zhong Yao has played the most important role in Cao Cao's layout in Sili. He not only instigated Zhang Yan's rebellion, persuaded Ma Teng and Han Sui, but also successfully suppressed Liu Xie's close associates.

Because Zhong Yao was such a threat, Liu Xie couldn't hold back and launched his attack in advance when the time was not ripe, hoping to wipe out all Cao Ying's forces. As a result, the matter was leaked, and Zhong Yao successfully waited until Cao Cao arrived and cut off all Liu Xie's followers.

Cao Cao appreciated his merits afterwards and put Zhong Yao in charge of the Sili area. You must know that the three counties under Cao Cao's influence, Yanzhou and Yuzhou, are now under Cao Cao's personal control. The Sili captain has promoted Zhong Yao to the second position.

And Sili really needs people like Zhong Yao to be in charge, and only he can coordinate the intricate relationships in the Sili area after Cao Cao leaves.

For example, today's Sili has Yuan Shu's remnant army in the south, Ma Teng and Han Sui in Hedong and Hanoi, and the Yang family in Hongnong County, all of which are unstable factors.

Especially the Yang family of Hongnong. Although they ostensibly took refuge with Cao Cao, Yang Biao was obviously dissatisfied when he resigned and returned to his hometown. Moreover, Hongnong connected Jingzhou Nanyang to the south, which was Cao Cao's next plot after he flattered the emperor. Therefore, Zhong Yao He also has the important responsibility of monitoring the Yang family.

Regarding this point, Zhong Yao secretly scolded Yang Biao for being treacherous and cunning. With just one move of marriage, a faint rift developed between Cao Cao and Ma Teng.

Before leaving, Yang Biao did not know what agreement he had reached with Ma Teng, which was to marry a girl from his branch of the Yang family to Ma Chao. It is said that the marriage will be consummated after the Chinese New Year when Sili is pacified.

Cao Cao was very unhappy about this matter, because Hongnong's position was too sensitive.

Hongnong County is in the southwest of Sili, with Zuo Fengyi to the north and Liangzhou to the north.

Ma Teng and Han Sui fought all the way, passing through You Fufeng and Zuo Fengyi, and actually basically controlled these two counties. In addition, Cao Cao and Ma Teng Han Sui nominally co-administered Hedong Hanoi. It can be said that Ma Teng and Han Sui's power is, Already occupied the northern part of Sili.

If he controls Hongnong again, he will be able to plot against Jingzhou, which Cao Cao will never allow!
Cao Cao is bound to win, and there are two states that he is extremely obsessed with, one is Xuzhou and the other is Jingzhou.

These two states are the key to the southward unification of the world. Compared with the Xuzhou waterway, Jingzhou is the best choice for large-scale mobilization of infantry, so Cao Cao will never allow Hongnong to make any mistakes.

However, Yang Biao's move was extremely disgusting, because Ma Teng and Han Sui were now powerful, and Cao Cao needed him to contain the Black Mountain area, so it was not time to fall out with the two of them.

So Cao Cao privately ordered Zhong Yao to find ways to stabilize Sili's forces so that they could be used for his own purposes, but he should not let them become powerful. It would be better to find ways to allow them to fight among themselves and consume them.

Zhong Yao thought of Cao Cao's arrangement and felt a dull pain in his head. How could he do such a thing?
Another thing was that he and Ding Chong found out the spies left by various forces around Liu Xie.

Zhong Yao had already arrested a group of people, including the people from Yuan Shu's palace sent by Yuan Xi. After torture, more than a dozen people admitted to accepting bribes from Yuan Xi, and were executed on the spot by Ding Chong.

According to Ding Chong's wishes, everyone should be killed without missing a beat, but on the one hand, it is difficult to find palace people now, and on the other hand, continuing to kill like this will arouse Liu Xie's resistance, so the matter was dropped.

The remaining group were the suspected ministers. After being tortured by Ding Chong, many of them admitted to colluding with other forces, including Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Liu Bei, Sun Ce, Yuan Xi and other forces, all of whom were involved.

Ding Chong was overjoyed and executed a group of people openly or covertly.

However, Dong Zhao, who was the most suspected by Ding Chong before, checked again and again, but found no problem, so Zhong Yao finally came out to deal with the aftermath in person.

He initially guessed that Dong Zhao had taken refuge with Yuan Xi when he was in Youzhou. Later, he found out that he had been imprisoned for a year. After finding an opportunity to escape, he went south to Sili and took refuge with Zhang Yang. Then he followed Zhang Yang to welcome the emperor and entered the country. Be an official in court.

His experience during this period was clean, and the spy installed in his mansion was Dong Zhao's document, and no evidence was found that he had colluded with Yuan Xi.

Zhong Yao and Ding Chong were disgraced, and they were glad that they didn't make a big deal out of it. Otherwise, what would the other ministers who had taken refuge in Cao Cao think?
Ding Chong was still resentful and said to Zhong Yao: "I always feel that Dong Zhao is dishonest. If he deliberately conceals it, it will be difficult to find evidence!"

He stretched out his palm and struck down everything fiercely, "I would rather kill him by mistake than let him go. It is better to kill him secretly..."

Zhong Yao sighed: "Youyang, you have killed too much. What if you arouse public anger and force everyone to oppose Cao Gong?"

Seeing Ding Chong's unwillingness, he sighed in his heart, knowing that Ding Chong killed indiscriminately because his mentality was somewhat unbalanced.

Ding Chong actually has great ambitions. As a fellow countryman of Cao Cao, his relationship with Cao Cao should be closer than Zhong Yao.

But Zhong Yao walked step by step and unknowingly arrived in front of Ding Chong. Suddenly, Ding Chong found that the gap between himself and Zhong Yao had widened.In particular, Ding Chong was determined to win Sili Xiaowei, but was defeated by Zhong Yao, so he was quite disappointed.

But Zhong Yao could only secretly attack Ding Chong. He was not greedy for Sili Xiaowei, but gave this position to Ding Chong. The other party could not cope with the current situation.

Zhong Yao thought of this, stood up and walked towards Cao Cao's mansion, preparing to see off Cao Cao who was leaving tomorrow. Zhong Yao had already guessed from Cao Cao's words that Cao Cao would make big moves in the coming year, and he might be able to get closer by then. step!
At the Black Mountain Pass camp, Yuan Xi had already learned that Cao Cao was about to leave. He was a little unwilling and wanted to give it a last try.

But this behavior is probably meaningless. Maybe it is just an explanation for the upcoming Lu Lingqi?
However, he has been able to receive information from Huaicheng so far because the relationship network he established previously has not been completely destroyed.

Although Ding Chong carried out a large-scale purge in the city and almost destroyed more than half of Yuan Xi's informants, several key nodes and hidden lines were preserved.

This may be due to luck, but the main reason is that Yuan Xi asked Tian Yu and Lu Xun to do a lot of secret work before.

For example, there are doubts about Dong Zhao. Yuan Xi consciously falsified his imprisonment experience when he was in Youzhou, and the two subsequent news about Dong Zhao were not through Dong Zhao himself, but through his daily actions. The secret code that needs to be decrypted is then passed on by the hidden informant.

The most critical one was to notify Lu Bu to return to Junhuaicheng from the Liangzhou border in advance, so that Zhong Yao and Ding Chong's purge plan failed.

But judging from the results, Cao Cao was the superior in the end. Taking advantage of the attack on Yecheng, he personally led his men to attack Huaicheng, and Dong Zhao reported the news this time, which almost exposed his identity.

However, there were many more people who were suspicious of Dong Zhao, and it was impossible for Cao Cao to kill all the ministers. Speaking of which, Dong Zhao was suspected because of the relationship between his surname and his younger brother.

The Dong surname was originally an enemy of Cao Cao, as was the case with Dong Zhuo and Dong Cheng who were killed before. Dong Zhao's younger brother Dong Fang was also a subordinate of Zhang Miao. This time he escaped death due to Dong Zhao's intercession, saying that the two of them were not It is impossible to be suspected.

But at least Dong Zhao was not exposed this time. The Youzhou army knew that it was Dong Zhao himself who delivered the news, and only Yuan Xi and not even Lu Xun knew about it.

Yuan Xi sighed. Whether Dong Zhao can live safely now can only depend on his luck.

He was a little regretful that his intelligence network had been laid out for several years, but it had not yet been established and perfected, resulting in information transmission that was not timely enough. If only he could control the Taiping Tao alchemists!
The spies came in and said that the motorcade had arrived. Yuan Xi stood up and walked out of the camp. The sound of horse hooves came from the mountain road in the distance. Not long after, a cavalry army escorted a carriage.

The carriage stopped in front of Yuan Xi, and Lu Lingqi jumped off the horse. Yuan Xi saw that she had a piece of linen tied on her head, and sighed inwardly. Sure enough, Lu Lingqi knew about Lu Bu's death!

But to Yuan Xi's expectation, Lu Lingqi looked calm and said, "Mr. Fengxiao asked me to come here."

When Yuan Xi heard this, he made a guess and said in a harsh voice: "It's windy outside, let's go in and talk."

The two of them entered the camp side by side. When Lu Lingqi finished speaking Guo Jia's words, Yuan Xi sighed: "Mr. Fengxiao still understands me."

"But I still haven't asked for the bodies of Marquis Wen and his wife. Will you blame me..."

Lu Lingqi shook her head and said, "Without a husband, my father might have been plotted during the last Huaicheng Rebellion."

"My father also saw clearly that Huai City was in danger and that my husband was able to protect me, so he allowed me to marry him."

"Now that God's will is like this, husband, you don't have to blame yourself."

Yuan Xi wanted to say something, so he opened his mouth, but in the end he fell silent. The two of them just sat there, the wood in the fire in front of them creaking, making them even quieter.

Yuan Xi seemed to have finally made up his mind and said: "I will negotiate with Huaicheng again."

"It would be best if we can get the bodies of Marquis Wen and his wife back. If not, we can go back temporarily and wait for revenge in the future."

That day, Zhong Yao took the letter of Yuan Xi's negotiation and said to Ding Chong, "What do you think?"

Ding Chong sneered: "Of course I can't agree to him."

"Firstly, Lu Bu's body is needed to shock the world, and secondly, it is also a bait. Fierce Tiger will definitely not be willing to give in, otherwise he would not have stayed at the Black Mountain Pass for half a month."

"Because of emotions and reasons, Fierce Tiger will not give up collecting Lu Bu's body. After all, Lu Bu and Lu Bu are allies and related by marriage. If he retreats, we can make a big fuss and call him ungrateful."

"He must want to wait for Duke Cao to leave and take advantage. When the time comes, we join forces with Zhang Yan and Ma Teng and Han Sui to make him suffer a big loss. It will definitely be a great achievement!"

(End of this chapter)