Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 759 Unexpected

After Yuan Xi and his party returned to Shouchun, Yuan Xi planned to integrate the Youzhou soldiers and Jianghuai soldiers under his command, train together for a period of time to improve their combat effectiveness, and then wait for news from all parties to see which side needs the most support, and then he The bank decided to send troops there.

Now the next step he wants to take is the area that needs intervention most. Among them, apart from the Sili area where Zhao Yun and senior officials are jointly restrained and Yang Feng has the backup, there are three main places.

The first is Guandu where Yuan Shang and Cao Cao are confronting each other, the second is Xuzhou where Yuan Tan's army is harassing, and the third is Wancheng in Lujiang.

Among them, Wancheng was the area that Yuan Xi felt was least likely to start a fight. After all, when Sun Ce was still alive, he wanted to give up and even wanted to give it to Jiangdong in disguise.

But at that time, Sun Ce was assassinated and the situation in Jiangdong was unstable. He did not dare to fall out with Yuan Xi, so until Sun Ce died, he did not take action against Wancheng.

However, as soon as Sun Quan came to power, he attacked Wancheng in order to establish prestige. After all, this place was too important to Jiangdong. If it was in the hands of others, Jiangdong would not be able to plot Jingzhou at all.

Yuan Xi also knew this, so he also took a step back and sent a letter to his Lujiang prefect Li Shu to surrender in Kaicheng when Jiangdong's army came over. At the same time, he ordered Jiujiang prefect Liu Ye to step up the construction of Hefei. After all, this was Yuan Xi's mission. The final bottom line.

However, as soon as he arrived in Shouchun, he heard extremely unexpected news.

Li Shu indeed surrendered in Kaicheng, but was killed by Jiang Dong!

Yuan Xi initially thought that Li Shu resisted desperately and offended Jiang Dong. However, after learning the details, he found that it was not the case.

The origin of the conflict lies in the large-scale exodus of Jiangdong nobles around the time of Sun Ce's death.

The reason is that before Sun Ce died, in order to clear the way for Sun Quan, he used the excuse of tracking down his assassin to attack the Jiangdong nobles who had previously disobeyed the Sun family.

At that time, Mrs. Wu had not returned to Jiangdong, so Sun Ce let himself go, uncovered a large number of so-called murderers headed by Xu Gong's disciples, and beheaded them all.

Xu Gong was the prefect of Wu County during his lifetime. He was defeated when Sun Ce pacified Wu County and was forced to flee to Yuhang and defected to Xu Shao.

Because Sun Ce was busy pacifying Jiangdong at that time, he ignored Xu Gong, but Xu Gong did not give up. He sent a secret message to Cao Cao, telling Cao Cao to be careful about Sun Ce. At the same time, he made suggestions and suggested that Cao Cao, in the name of the Emperor, order Sun Ce to go to Huaicheng. Be an official around you.

This kind of tactic to draw money from under the cauldron is very disgusting. If Sun Ce goes to Huaicheng, it will be equivalent to giving up Jiangdong, so he will never choose it.

However, if he did not respect the emperor's will, he would be labeled as having cheap intentions, which would be a huge blow to the legitimacy of Sun Ce's regime in Jiangdong.

This is the trouble of holding the emperor hostage to control the princes. Therefore, although Sun Ce and Liu Bei were nominally independent, they still wanted to keep the emperor in their hands as much as possible, so it was natural for them to participate in the Yidai Edict incident.

The situation on Yuan Xi's side is different.

Yuan's desire for self-reliance can be seen by the whole world, and Yuan Shu also did it. Moreover, at that time, the two Yuans were competing and their strength occupied most of the world. No one cared about the emperor Liu Xie.

However, Yuan Xi was not strong enough, so he needed to keep a low profile, so he welcomed the emperor Liu Xie to Huaicheng, and received the emperor's edict to attack Yuan Shu. At least judging from the scene, he did so that others could not make mistakes, and those who did not People who like him can only secretly say that he is different from what he looks like, but they cannot deny what he has done.

Therefore, through this series of time, Yuan Xi occupied the moral high ground. Even if the emperor is now held hostage in Xu County, Guo Jia believes that Yuan Xi is not very afraid of the emperor's unfavorable edict against Yuan Xi.

Because if such an edict is issued, discerning people in the world will think that it must be issued by Cao Cao under coercion of the emperor, and they will be even more disdainful of Cao Cao. This is why Cao Cao has not used this method to target Yuan Xi.

But Sun Ce was different. He relied on Yuan Shu, who had proclaimed himself emperor. When he attacked Jiangdong, he fought only the clan members of the Han Dynasty and the governor Zhou Mu appointed by the Han court. It can be said that his teachers were unknown.

Although he later secretly met with the Han court envoys, accepted the Han court's edict and title, and attacked Yuan Shu, but Yuan Shu was the leader of Sun Ce's residence, and Sun Ce could not openly fall out with Yuan Shu, so he had no choice but to attack Jingzhou.

But in the eyes of the people of the world, this kind of behavior is a double-edged sword. Especially when Yuan Xi attacked Yuan Shu, he wanted to invade the Lujiang River that the opponent had captured. This was seen by the people of the world, especially the Jiangdong nobles. It was simply a shame. Extremely embarrassing.

So Sun Ce was eager to participate in the practice of the Yidai Edict to prove himself, but luck was not on his side, and the matter was exposed. Sun Ce failed to succeed, but was assassinated. His flattery of the emperor was also characterized by Cao Cao as slandering the emperor and intending to rebel. .

Sun Ce wanted to gain the title of emperor, but he couldn't get rid of the suspicion of following Yuan Shu to cause rebellion. Therefore, when Xu Gong's secret message of collusion with Cao Cao was intercepted by Sun Ce, Sun Ce was extremely angry and asked Xu Gong to confront him. Xu Gong made excuses, and Sun Ce So he ordered the warriors to hang Xu Gong.

Xu Gong's incident also marked that Sun Ce's limited patience in recruiting Jiangdong nobles was exhausted. At the same time, because of the disappearance of Mrs. Wu, Sun Ce began to change his previous tolerant style and began to kill people he did not deal with. people.

Xu Gong was born in Runan and secretly attached to Yuan Shu. He also had conflicts with the Wu Hui clan. However, Sun Ce took the opportunity to spread the matter to the entire Jiangdong and began to suppress the Jiangdong nobles who disobeyed him.

Especially after Sun Ce was assassinated, not only Xu Gong's disciples, but also other Jiangdong nobles were involved in the plot under the pretext of being assassinated. So he launched a large-scale purge operation with the purpose of keeping Cao Cao, Yuan Shu and other forces in Jiangdong's secret plan.

From the perspective of motivation, Sun Ce took this opportunity to eliminate dissidents in order to stabilize his political power. He indeed had a unique vision. However, Sun Ce thought that he was about to die, so his methods were somewhat rough and impetuous. The Jiangdong nobles saw several family heads. After they were all accused and killed by Sun Ce, people became panicked and began to think of ways to escape. As long as the nobles of Wu Commandery cross the Yangtze River to the north, they can directly enter the Guangling Commandery controlled by Yuan Xi. Jiangdong also knows this, so he blocks the river going north. Even passing merchant ships must be strictly inspected, not to mention those bringing families with them. Escape vessel.

So the Jiangdong gentry had no choice but to take a compromise route. They first took the land route from Wu County to Yuzhang County, and then looked for ships to cross the river north and enter the Lujiang River.

Wancheng, the headquarters of Lujiang Government, has a convenient dock and Wankou, which makes it the first choice for Jiangdong people to flee, so many people fled to Wancheng for refuge.

As the prefect of Lujiang, Li Shu is happy to see this happen. After all, these people are against Sun Ce. Taking them in can poach Sun Ce on the one hand, and on the other hand, he can also take the opportunity to build connections for his family. After all, these people The Jiangdong gentry have a profound background, and the Li family may not be able to make further progress in the future.

Li Shu's abacus was very loud, but he did not calculate that Jiangdong would suddenly use troops against Wancheng while Yuan Xi was attacking Cao Cao. Seeing the army approaching, Wancheng was about to be surrounded, and he was forced to make a choice.

Should the fleeing nobles be handed over to Jiangdong, or should they be sent to escape?

After thinking about it, Li Shu made a choice to send all the refugee nobles in Wancheng north to Shouchun.

Because if Wancheng was captured by Sun Quan's army and he handed over all the fleeing nobles, he would certainly be able to please Jiangdong, but it would undoubtedly cost the lives of all the fleeing nobles, and his reputation would be ruined.

Moreover, he did this kind of thing as a subordinate of Yuan Xi, so he would undoubtedly implicate Yuan Xi in this matter. If he offended Yuan Xi, would his son who was sent to Youzhou be able to live well in the future?

So after Li Shu thought about it, he asked his other son to escort the refugee nobles to leave Wancheng urgently, and then he stayed in Kaicheng and surrendered.

To be fair, although Li Shu's approach was selfish, it could be said that he had both sides, and neither side was offended. On the one hand, he protected the Jiangdong nobles for Yuan Xi, and many nobles would inherit Yuan Xi's face in the future. On the other hand, he handed over Wancheng to Anhui without resistance. It was given to Jiangdong, which reduced the losses of Sun Quan's army.

He had good intentions, but he encountered Sun Quan who didn't act according to common sense.

It was Zhou Yu who led the troops to attack Wancheng. He sent a letter to Sun Quan asking how to deal with Li Shu, and received only one word in reply.

kill.

It is not known what Sun Quan’s psychology was. Maybe it was because he had just taken control of Jiangdong and needed to kill people to establish his authority. Maybe he felt that Li Shu could not escape the relationship between Sun Ce’s assassination in Wancheng. Maybe he felt that Li Shu had let a large number of nobles go. , Sun Quan's plan failed, but in any case, the result was that Li Shu, a surrendered general, was killed inexplicably.

Sun Quan did this, not only did Yuan Xi not expect it, but Guo Jia, Lu Xun and others also did not expect it. Even Zhuge Liang, who had just joined, was a little stunned when he heard the news. Killing and surrendering is an extremely taboo thing. Although Yuan Xi hates Jia Xu very much, In the end, he didn't take action. What did Sun Quan think?

Now everyone is sitting in Shouchun's official residence, and there are many counselors and officials in the room.

In addition to Zhuge Liang of Guo Jia who followed Yuan Xi, and Lu Xun of Shouchun, the prefect of Jiujiang Liu Ye also arrived, and beside him was Liu Ji who was recommended by him.

Liu Ji was the son of Liu Yao, the former governor of Yangzhou. After Liu Yao was attacked and destroyed by Sun Ce, Liu Ji and several younger brothers fled to Yuzhang for refuge and lived in seclusion in the countryside. Their life was very difficult.

Later Liu Ji was famous for his outstanding appearance. In addition, Zhuge Liang and Lu Xun were both outstanding in appearance. Not to mention whether Yuan Xi's subordinates would have the idea of ​​​​judging people based on their appearance. Huang Yueying, who was pretending to be a book boy behind Zhuge Liang, was already extremely happy. Zhongzheng frantically weaves Liu Bei's article.

At that time, when Liu Ye was fighting Sun Ce's army in Yuzhang, he learned the news about Liu Ji and saw that he was in a lot of difficulties. However, Liu Ye could not protect himself at that time, so he kept it in mind for the time being.

Later, Liu Ye accepted Yuan Xi's appointment through Li Shu and became the prefect of Jiujiang. Remembering that Liu Ji was talented, he sent someone to recruit Liu Ji.

Liu Ji was initially unwilling to serve as an official, but later he heard that Liu Ye was now seeking refuge with Yuan Xi, who had previously sent Tai Shici to help Liu Yao. So after Liu Ji thought about it, he crossed the river to Shouchun and became Liu Ye's vassal. .

Now that Yuan Xi had seen Liu Ji, he was overjoyed and said, "I am very happy to have the young master come to vote for him."

Liu Ji stood up quickly and said: "My subordinates are scared. My late father has to be helped by my lord. Ji Ming is so worried that he will not dare to refuse when he is called by his lord."

Yuan Xi sighed: "It's a pity that Liu Shijun died young. I heard that he was infected with miasma during the campaign against Zuirong?"

Liu Ji looked gloomy, "It's true that there is a lot of miasma in Nanling, but my late husband insisted on avenging Lord Zhu Fu (Zhu Hao) and insisted on going there in person, so he contracted the disease."

Yuan Xi sighed: "Liu Shijun's righteous deeds are rare in this world, and I admire him deeply."

"Zei Rong's crime was extremely heinous. I wonder if he is dead?"

(End of this chapter)