Water Margin: Lu Bu sits on Mount Liang

"It's time for today's great general to take a step forward."

Turning the rim of the cup, the middle-aged man stared at the young man sitting over there.

"My dear nephew Wang Zheng should know a saying: if the name is not right, then the words will not flow. In the past, the general had no reputation in Liaodong. To put it bluntly, it didn't matter to the people of Liaodong whether the general was the general of the cavalry or not. However, Liaodong today has to crawl at the feet of the general, listen to the general's voice, and obey the general's will. If it still loosely follows the orders of the general's mansion, it is somewhat unreasonable."

The young man seemed a little moved, and sat back a little, with shadows covering the spirit in his eyes: "Uncle means to persuade him to marry..."

"That's right." The middle-aged man nodded, raised his head to drink the wine, put the cup down, and knocked on the table: "Gao Yongchang can do it, the Wanyan family can do it, and the general can do it too."

He stood up, swayed for a moment, and stopped Yang Min who wanted to help him: "My father is not good at drinking, you two brothers drink first." He turned around and walked to the door, looking back: "My dear nephew, why don't you think about my words and help the general to get his name corrected as soon as possible. Only after the name is corrected can he truly command Liaodong, stabilize the morale of the army, and give his subordinates hope."

Wang Zheng looked at him with flickering eyes, tapped his thigh with his fingers, and nodded slowly: "Okay!" The middle-aged man over there smiled and strode away, leaving Yang Min sitting there, looking at his classmate in confusion.

The night gradually deepened and the lights went out in the darkness.

……

The next day, the weather was fine.

The sunlight cuts off people's shadows, but the streets are still bustling during the day. There are many waiters outside the shops and restaurants on both sides to solicit customers, and the sound of hawking comes from the vendors' mouths one after another. Some merchants put up signs offering discounts, which are hung on the doors and stretch out, attracting many women to stop and watch.

Two carriages were moving one after the other on the dirt road in the market. The already small street seemed a little crowded, and many shoppers moved to the sides to avoid them.

In the carriage at the back, a middle-aged man looked at the scene from the window and leaned back. He had heard that Liaoyang Prefecture was well governed. From what he saw along the way yesterday and the scene today, he could roughly conclude that it was just as the rumors said. This made people feel a little expectant.

Although he decided to follow Wang Zheng's path and join the army of the General of Cavalry, he still hoped that the force he joined would be able to maintain long-term stability. Now it seems that although he does not know what the future will be like, he is still satisfied for now.

The shaking of the car gradually subsided, and the person who stepped out of the car stood on the ground. Wang Zheng's voice came to his ears: "Uncle, please come in with me. I will go to find the general of the cavalry first, and someone will come to invite you later."

"it is good."

The middle-aged man straightened his collar and sleeves, and followed the young man in front of him over the threshold under the watchful eyes of the guards. Someone led him to the side to wait. Perhaps because of Wang Zheng, someone brought him some tea and snacks, and the middle-aged man sat down with great interest.

After taking two sips of tea and tasting a piece of dessert, someone came over to treat me.

……

When Lu Bu got up today, he went into the office to deal with the backlog of official documents. The military achievements of this battle were still being recorded. Pei Xuan and his subordinates were sorting them out. He believed that they would be sorted out soon. However, Wu Jiao in Zhenhai Prefecture wrote a letter, hoping to transfer a navy back. Recently, some pirates have been looting along the coast, and several villages have been affected. When troops were sent to suppress them, they ran into the sea, which was very annoying.

It was at this time that Wang Zheng walked in with a normal expression. When he came, Li Zhu was buried in his desk, writing something.

"…Someone wants to see me? The wealthy man from Bohai who borrowed grain last time? Interested in serving as an official?"

"Yes, he can be said to be Zheng's elder. He passed the imperial examination in the Liao Dynasty and became a proofreader. Later, he resigned because he could not stand the absurdity of the Liao Dynasty emperor. He is very talented and has many sons in his family, many of whom serve as officials in the court."

"Interesting, we do need more talents... Then let's meet."

……

The conversation in the room ended quickly. Lu Bu sat in his seat and waited. He could hear the slight footsteps outside the door. Now that his territory had expanded, he was in urgent need of talents who could help him govern the place. Now that someone from a big family had come to surrender, this could be seen as a signal.

A signal of the people's support in Liaodong.

The door creaked and opened to both sides.

A foot stepped in, and Lu Bu looked up. It was a middle-aged man with an elegant appearance. His hair and beard were combed meticulously, and his clothes were decent and without wrinkles, which made people feel good about him.

The middle-aged man who entered took a quick look at the people in the room, then walked over to Lu Bu and bowed, "I am Yang Pu from Tiezhou, and I am honored to meet the General of the Cavalry."

"Mr. Yang, please stand up." Lu Bu stood up, walked around the desk and helped him up, smiling as usual: "I heard from the military advisor that your talent is a hundred times better than his. I am very happy to hear that. There are many vulgar people in the army, and we are in need of gentle people like you." He personally led the man to his seat and asked him to sit down. He spoke first: "I come from the military and don't like to talk in a roundabout way. Are you here to help us with important things? We are in need of people at this time. If you can help us, we will be able to achieve twice the result with half the effort."

Even though he knew that Wang Zheng had discussed these with the other party in advance, Yang Pu still showed satisfaction on his face. He pushed himself up with his hands and was about to stand up, but Lu Bu stretched out his hand and pressed him down. Suddenly, a strong force surged up and he couldn't stand up. Then he bowed his head and saluted: "Yang Pu is just an ordinary man struggling in this world. I am willing to do my best to serve the general and do my best." After a pause, he reached into his arms and took out a hardcover document: "In addition, there is another thing to present to the general. It is the gentry of Tiezhou, Tongzhou, Chenzhou, Yaozhou and other places who voluntarily donated food, cattle and sheep to the general to help the army in the war. I hope the general will accept it."

"Oh?" Lu Bu raised his eyebrows, took it, looked at it for a few seconds, and almost threw it to Wang Zheng beside him. Yang Pu's eyelids twitched as he listened to the other side saying, "Your kindness makes me extremely happy...", and a pair of eyes looked at Yang Pu and narrowed slightly: "May I ask for anything?"

As expected, directly...

Yang Pu sighed in his heart and clasped his hands: "I just hope that the general will give a chance for the children of each tribe to prove their talents."

Lu Bu turned around and took two steps, then turned back and said, "To be honest, sir, there are more cities now, and we do need people to govern them. But the supervision here is very strict, and the performance appraisal is also held every year. I don't know these..."

"This is as it should be." Yang Pu's face was calm. "The children of each tribe just want to find a place where they can display their talents. If someone is not good at governing and bullies the people, someone will tie him up and hand him over to the general for punishment without the general's order."

"Okay!" Looking at Wang Zheng and then at Li Zhu, Lu Bu said, "Let Li Zhubu and Pei Gongcao handle this matter together."

Li Zhu bowed and accepted the order.

Lu Bu looked at Yang Pu with a smile: "In this case, sir, are you relieved?"

"Not yet."

Yang Pu shook his head. Lu Bu stood up while frowning and knelt on the ground. "A craftsman can give people rules, but he cannot make them skillful. A teacher can be a model for people, but he cannot make them act. The general created a division, defeated the enemy with a small force, drove out the Liao nobles, captured and killed Gao Yongchang in Liaoyang Prefecture, attacked the Jin Kingdom in the north on the banks of the Liao River, killed its king and destroyed its army, repeatedly made extraordinary achievements, shocked the four directions, and planned to dominate the world and build a country with ten thousand chariots. This is not something that a general of a prefecture can compare to. Now, from the south to the north of Liaodong, dozens of military states have surrendered, and all the troops have surrendered. Now we can move mountains and fill the sea with our strength, but we cannot reform the old and establish the new. I hope the general will go one step further, enthrone the emperor, confer titles on the various tribes, and send out proclamations to respond, and we will surely be able to settle thousands of miles away. It will connect to the sea in the east, the Song Dynasty in the south, the Western Xia in the west, and the people of distant countries in the north. It will build a foundation for eternity and build the emperor's country. If there is any doubt in the implementation, disaster will come as soon as an arrow is shot. What do you think, general?"

Sunlight shone in from the door and window lattices, casting Lü Bu's shadow on the ground. Between the light and shadow, dust was slowly floating. Li Zhu, who was standing in the back, suddenly opened his eyes wide, stared at the kneeling middle-aged man, then looked at Wang Zheng, who looked normal, and then stroked his beard with a thoughtful look on his face.

Yang Pu knelt motionless. Lu Bu had a complicated expression on his face. There was a movement in his tiger eyes. He shook his head for a while: "...Not right." He took two steps, stood still, raised his hand to grab the ring-handled sword on the shelf, took a look, and shook his head again: "Not right."

Then he flicked his sleeves and strode away. The sigh of "Something's wrong..." echoed in the air for the third time, and his footsteps faded away.

……

Under the daylight, the two standing and one kneeling figures moved.

Wang Zheng stepped forward and supported Yang Pu: "Uncle, please stand up."

Yang stood up with a smile on his face, looked at Li Zhu who was squinting and stroking his beard, and then looked at Wang Zheng: "My dear nephew, today's matter was started by me, and now it's up to you."

Wang Zheng nodded and looked at Li Zu. Mr. Jin Jian put down his hand and walked over, a little confused: "Zu... I don't quite understand. It's a good thing to be a king or an emperor now. I don't know why the general is unwilling?"

Yang Pu smiled, stroked his goatee and took a step back. Wang Zheng smiled beside him, his lazy look disappeared, and he looked at Li Zhu: "I have some ideas, I wonder if they are right."

The other party made a please gesture.

Wang Zheng raised his index finger and said, "My uncle just came today and brought up this matter hastily. The general would definitely not be happy about it, so he instinctively said 'not appropriate'."

Assistant Li nodded.

"The second sentence, the general read it after he took the knife." Wang Zheng touched his chin, narrowed his eyes slightly, and extended his middle finger: "The knife is a weapon, and it can also be regarded as a representative of the army. This matter is inappropriate without the participation of the generals in the army. This is the second sentence."

“These three…” Wang Zheng gestured three and tilted his head, his eyes somewhat puzzled: “The general sighed when he left. Zheng thought that he had some concerns in his heart, but he didn’t understand why.”

Li Zhu and Yang Pu were also thinking about something. After a while, Li Zhu shook his head and said, "No matter what, now that we have a foundation, we should establish a country as Mr. Yang said. In the next two days, I will try to find out the general's intention. I would like to ask the military advisor to gather the colleagues in the military and government of Liaoyang Prefecture to persuade them to do this. I will write letters to the old brothers in other places and make sure this is done."

"Just follow what the chief clerk said." Wang Zheng nodded and looked at Yang Pu and said, "I wonder if my uncle has anything else to add?"

"No." Yang Pu shook his head and rolled his eyes: "But I can find famous scholars and noble families from all over Liaodong and jointly persuade him to ascend the throne. This also represents the will of the people of Liaodong."

"and many more."

Wang Zheng had just shown his joy when Assistant Li hurriedly stopped him: "Mr. Yang, you must not act this way. The general hates those big families telling him what to do. If you really do this, I'm afraid it will be bad."

Yang Pu looked at him in surprise, then thought: "No wonder you didn't seem to be really happy when you gave the food, fodder, cattle and sheep donated by various tribes to the general. So that's why..." He turned around and bowed to Li Zhu: "I also want to thank the chief clerk for clearing up my doubts and reminding me. I almost missed the big thing."

Li Zhu smiled and bowed in return: "No problem, we will all work under the general from now on, so we should help each other."

Yang Pu stroked his beard and said, "Perhaps, I should call you Your Majesty after some time."

The three of them looked at each other and smiled.

……

Hurry up footsteps were heard in the courtyard. The three women in the room were teasing little Lu Wen. When they heard the sound, they turned around and saw Lu Bu striding in with a red-sheathed ring-handled sword in his hand, with an expressionless face. He put the sword down and sat down on the seat.

"Daddy—"

The little man looked at Lu Bu coming in, called out, and staggered over.

"Hey--"

Lu Bu hurriedly forced a smile, bent down and picked up his daughter.

Wu Qing looked at Hu Sanniang and Su Jinniang, and saw that the two women also had strange expressions. He immediately knew that it was something that happened in the front yard. He signaled them not to speak for the time being. He watched Lu Bu teasing his daughter, and his expression eased a little before he stood up and said, "Did someone make my husband angry?"

"Uh... um."

As soon as a sound came out of his nose, Lv Wen in his arms probably saw the bright color of the scabbard and touched it. Lv Bu was afraid of hurting her, so he quickly drew out the knife and handed the scabbard to his daughter. He put the knife far away, turned around and looked at the three women, hesitated for a moment: "It's not that someone made me angry, I...", sighed: "I'm angry with myself."

The three girls' eyes lit up. Wu Qing pulled Lu Bu over to sit down and said, "Why is this happening? Why are you so angry with yourself?"

Lu Bu smiled bitterly, leaned back on the chair, looked up at the beams, and said, "Today, an elder of Wang Zheng came to surrender. I was very happy. Even if this person was from a big family, I could have tolerated it. I didn't expect..." He slowly straightened his head, and the skin between his eyebrows twisted into a "川" shape, "This person persuaded me to become the emperor."

The three girls opened their mouths slightly, looked at each other, and smiled. Wu Qing sat down beside them and spoke carefully: "Does the young master agree?"

"...Never."

The woman was puzzled: "Why is my husband angry with me?"

Lu Bu opened his two big hands and placed them in front of him. He stared at his hands in silence for a while, then said: "I am moved...", then turned his head to look at the three women next to him: "I... never thought of becoming an emperor at the beginning."

Hu Sanniang rushed to speak: "What did you want to do at the beginning?"

The man watched her open her mouth, then close it again. After a while, he whispered to her, "I just want to restore the Han territory." (End of this chapter)