Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 791 What happened after death

Yuan Xi didn't say much in his letter, but his meaning was very clear.

Even though Liu Feng is already a long-lived person, have you ever thought about how his heirs will be arranged a hundred years from now?

With the Yuan family's affairs at hand, doesn't Mr. Jing Sheng have any worries about his future?

After Liu Biao looked at it, not only was he not angry because the other party talked about his funeral, but he also fell into deep thought.

What Yuan Xi said in his letter is indeed what he is most worried about now!

The two Yuans were fighting each other, and the two sons of the Yuan family were fighting among themselves, which almost gave up the good situation that was definitely belonging to the Yuan family. The princes of the world, including Liu Biao, were secretly alert when they saw it.

In the eyes of many outsiders, Yuan Shao abolished the elders and established the younger ones, which was a way to bring disaster. However, a few people understood Yuan Shao's thoughts, including Liu Biao naturally.

Because he also wants to abolish the elder and establish the young.

When the Han law stipulates the succession of heirs, although it mentions the order of elders and younger ones, what is more important is the decision-making power of the family head.

Since ancient times, the Chinese people have followed a pragmatic line even when it comes to false gods, not to mention the struggle for meritocracy that is directly related to the future of the family.

Everyone has their own family affairs. Liu Biao didn't know whether Yuan Shao's purpose and motivation were the same as his, but for Liu Biao, abolishing the elders and establishing younger ones was the best solution he could think of that took into account all parties.

Because in Jingzhou, the relationships between several major families are complicated and intertwined. If you want to act in Jingzhou, you cannot do without the support of these families.

There are actually eight major families in Jingzhou, namely the Pang family (Pang Tong), the Ma family (Ma Liang, Ma Di), the Xi family, the Yang family (Yang Yi, Yang Yong), the Huang family (Huang Chengyan), the Cai family (Cai Mao), and the Kuai family ( Kuai Yue, Kuai Qi), Huan Jia (Huan Jie), etc.

In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Xi family was the strongest among the eight major families. Their ancestor Xi Yu offered advice to Emperor Guangwu to pacify Qin Feng and was granted the title of Marquis of Xiangyang. At that time, the entire Xiangyang was the seat of the Xi family. Later Xi Zhen defected to Liu Bei and became the governor of Guanghan.

After Liu Biao entered Jingzhou in this life, he conspired with Kuai Liang and Kuai Yue from Yanzhong Lu County, Cai Mao from Xiangyang and others to seize Jingzhou, and the Cai family and Kuai family began to rise.

Although the Cai family's achievements are not obvious, judging from their marriage with Liu Biao, it is obvious that they put the bet on Liu Biao, and they must have put a lot of effort behind the scenes.

The two brothers who made the most contributions to the Kuai family were Kuai Liang and Kuai Yue.

Kuai Liang offered advice to Liu Biao, "To control peace, benevolence and righteousness are the first; to control chaos, power and strategy are the first. It is not about having many soldiers, but winning people. Yuan Shu is brave and unstoppable... The traitors and commanders in the clan are often greedy and violent, and they are in trouble for their subordinates... Let him show it to him." If you want to benefit, the crowd will come. The king will punish his dishonesty and care for him. If the people of a state have a happy heart and hear that the king is virtuous, they will come with him. The soldiers will gather and follow them, and they will occupy Jiangling in the south. , guard Xiangyang in the north, and the eight counties of Jingzhou can be sent to you."

This became the strategy that Liu Biao followed. At the same time, Kuai Yue invited more than fifty clan thief leaders to a banquet to kill them and seize their tribesmen. He also persuaded Jiangxia thief Zhang Hu, Chen Sheng and others to surrender, allowing Liu Biao to have his own As a private army, the two brothers became the main contributors to Liu Biao's capture of Jingzhou.

Of course, the combat effectiveness of these private armies is not as good as that of other families. At the end of the Han Dynasty, most of the princes used the private army system, that is, the subordinates of the lord had subordinates who directly took orders from their subordinates. The lord could not directly Commanded and mobilized.

The reason for this is due to cost issues. Someone has to be responsible for the weapons, armor, and food of the tribe. Many princes do not have land and property, so naturally they cannot afford to raise troops, so they can only adopt a compromise strategy, that is, recruit their own troops. subordinates, loyal to themselves.

Most of these subordinates are local landlords and wealthy families, and only they have a large number of domestic slaves and the land that can support the domestic slaves. They are called private soldiers. This was the case for Qu Yi's 800th advance and Gao Shun's camp. .

In this way, the lord does not need to raise troops, he only needs to get subordinates who are loyal to him. The subordinates who join the lord are naturally because of the conditions promised by the lord. Most of the time, the two parties only cooperate based on interests.

But this situation naturally has hidden dangers. The lord cannot mobilize troops and horses at will, which means that he cannot fully control his subordinates. The weapons, armor, and even the food and family members of the tribe are all adopted by the generals as landlords. Naturally, they also pay more to the head of the family than the top. The lord is more loyal.

For the princes who are content with their small fortunes, they can only turn a blind eye to this, but the lord who is ambitious and ambitious will find ways to eliminate these hidden dangers.

The most common way is to take advantage of the conflicts between the nobles and find an honest excuse to control the size of the subordinates. If it is more obvious, it is to directly attack some subordinates who are not obedient, punish them, cut off their territory, and seize their subordinates. Later, Sun Quan was the leader in this way.

This phenomenon is also very common in the Central Plains region that pursues great unification. When Yuan Shao dealt with Qu Yi and Lu Bu, he saw the hidden danger of his private army. Cao Cao directly suppressed and even killed the Yanzhou nobles. This was not the case. Wrong, it’s just about profit.

Of course, Cao Cao's political skills were still immature when he killed and surrendered. His methods were too extreme and his goals were too obvious. They were far less subtle than Yuan Shao's use of conflicts among the Jizhou gentry and counselors, so he aroused a strong backlash and suffered a big loss.

The solution he came up with later was the farming system, which involved reclaiming excess land, increasing taxes on the people, and using the excess goods to buy off the nobles. After the Yanzhou nobles failed in their rebellion, they had no choice but to accept Cao Cao's conditions. The two sides coexist for the time being.

Yuan Xi saw this problem early on, so when he first attacked Youzhou, he did not rely on the local gentry. Instead, he relied on some small gentry with low status, or good family members to conquer the world, and at the same time, he tried his best to absorb the land. Raise soldiers for the public fields.

A large part of the reason why he dared to do this was because he was backed by the powerful Yuan family.

But the Central Plains approach is somewhat unworkable south of the Yangtze River, because whether it is Jiangbiao where Jingzhou is located, Jiangzuo where Jianghuai is located, or Jiangdong where the gentry are the most stubborn, compared to the Central Plains where the gentry has been war-torn for years, the gentry’s big family It has been operating stably for hundreds of years, and its power has long been entrenched.

Under such circumstances, it was extremely difficult to completely control a place, especially as a foreigner, anything that the lord wanted to do could not be done without the support of the local nobles.

This is also the reason why later generations Sun Quan stayed in the Fighting Clan throughout his life. The Sun family was of too low a background and did not have hundreds of years of personal connections. It would be difficult to subdue the local nobles without resorting to extreme means. Of course, Sun Quan's starting point was just to turn the Sun family into the largest noble clan. His ambition was not as good as that of Cao Cao and Liu Bei, so he made the most compromises. However, the stubbornness of the local noble clan was also the first among the Three Kingdoms. If Sun Quan could achieve this It is quite difficult to reach this point. At this point, both Cao Cao and Liu Bei still have high praise for their political skills.

Liu Biao's mediation methods were also outstanding. He supported the Kuai family and the Cai family, who were not the first among the eight major families, to ascend to power. This suppressed other families in disguise and stabilized Jingzhou's internal affairs.

When it came to the issue of heirs, Liu Biao had not thought of following Yuan Shao's example and dividing several major families into two factions, each supporting his eldest son Liu Qi and his second son Liu Cong. Whoever wins in the end will inherit his position.

But the two sons of the Yuan family are now fighting over each other, which makes Liu Biao see that the hidden dangers of this approach are too great. Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang are now in a desperate situation. Liu Biao also wrote to Yuan Tan to persuade him, but the other party did not listen, and Is determined to continue walking alone.

So Liu Biao felt that he could not make the same mistake as Yuan Shao, so he thought about it and finally made a decision.

Let the second son Liu Cong take the throne, and exclude the eldest son Liu Qi, not giving him the ability to rebel against Liu Cong, thereby eradicating the hidden dangers of fighting similar to the Yuan family's three sons each controlling a state.

The reason for this is that Liu Cong was born to Mrs. Cai, and he already had the support of several big families. If he continued to support his eldest son Liu Qi, trouble would inevitably arise. Liu Cong's faction would never give in, and there would be rebellion.

And Liu Biao did not dare to use the internal fighting among other noble families to suppress the Cai family. He now had too many internal fighting and external troubles. If several big families fought, would Jingzhou still be able to defend it?

In Liu Biao's view, Yuan Shao, who was much more powerful than him at the time, started fighting among the nobles through the fight between his two sons. As a result, the situation overturned and the Yuan family was almost destroyed. This lesson learned from the past was too terrible.

So Liu Biao simply refused to give Liu Qi power, and at worst, let him become a wealthy village official. It was better than forcing him to rise to power, but he was unable to hold his position and his life was difficult to save, right?

Therefore, the words in Yuan Xi's letter spoke to Liu Biao's heart. He was silent for a long time, and then Liu Bei sighed: "Ferocious tiger... No, Yuan Shijun's eyes are really like a torch."

"I finally understand why he has achieved such success in the past few years. If I had such a son, I might have been able to settle down and take care of myself in retirement."

Liu Bei smiled and said: "Brother is too modest. If Jingzhou didn't have a brother, I don't know what kind of chaos it would be."

When Liu Biao heard the implications of Liu Bei's words, he was moved in his heart and said, "Did Yuan Shijun promise anything to my brother?"

Liu Bei heard this and said, "Bei didn't hide it from my brother. Yuan Shijun did mention it."

"He said that if Yuzhou cannot be defended, he can help the army capture Sili and the two states in the future."

On the one hand, Liu Biao was surprised by Liu Bei's frankness, but on the other hand, he was also a little confused. This fierce tiger was not someone who spoke freely. How could he think of letting Liu Bei go to conquer Liangzhou?

No matter how you look at it, the senior cadres in Bingzhou are the most recent, right?

He put aside the doubts in his mind for the time being, held up the silk and smiled at Liu Bei: "Shijun Yuan doesn't seem to have much trust in the Kuai family and Cai family."

"When he handed this letter to my dear brother, he probably didn't know that I sent Kuai Yue."

"In the letter, he named several people he wanted to meet."

"They are all people from the three major families who are under my command and have almost no official career."

"Pang's, Ma's, Yang's."

Liu Bei smiled bitterly and said: "Jiu Hu is a bit shabby. He brought it up openly. I'm afraid it will make the three families afraid of being hated by my brother, which will lead to him really turning to Xiu Hu."

After hearing this, Liu Biao laughed and said: "If that's true, he looks down on me, Liu Jingsheng. If the three families want to serve as officials under his rule, I can't ask for it. After all, if the two sides are allies, I will go along with the flow as a favor. What's the point?" This family will more or less accept my love."

After Liu Bei heard this, he quickly raised his hands in admiration and said: "Brother, I have so many preparations that it is hard to match them. Listening to your words today is better than reading thousands of books."

Liu Biao laughed and said, "Brother Xian, you think too highly of me. There are many things I can't help but do in Jingzhou."

"But I was a bit wrong when I sent the Kuai family. I thought Yuan Shijun had appointed Zhuge Kongming as his military advisor because of his relationship with me."

"Furthermore, Zhuge Kongming has two sisters who married into the Kuai family and the Pang family respectively. Yuan Shijun was wary of the Kuai family, but he was very interested in the Pang family. It was really unexpected."

"Xiangyang Ji" records, "Kuai Qin married the wife of his ancestor (Kuai) Qi, who was Zhuge Kongming's eldest sister. The people of Pangshan also had a name for marrying Zhuge Kongming's younger sister."

(End of this chapter)