Thousand-year-old family: its rise began with Shang Yang’s reforms

Chapter 391: The Brilliance of Red Cliff (End)
The evening breeze blew gently, falling on the calm river surface.

Liu Bei and Cao Cao were sitting in the big tent discussing the war. Several battlefields had already been opened up near Chibi.

In these battlefields, each company has its own wins and losses.

After a long time, the candle flame burned slowly.

In the distance, night-travelling boats quietly appeared on the river.

"Boom-"

"Boom-"

"Boom-"

The sound of war drums resounded through the sky, covering everything.

"Enemy attack——"

A shrill roar suddenly came from the army, and countless soldiers were instantly awakened. In the distance, the boats on the river suddenly moved, and many soldiers on the boats had already prepared for battle.

Cao Cao and Liu Bei had also boarded the ship and heard the sound of war drums in the distance.

"Rumble--"

There were continuous sounds like thunder, arrows fell like rain on the river, and flames burned on the river. But just as they had guessed, there was no "east wind" that was out of season on the river.

There was a hint of solemnity in Liu Bei's eyes.

"This isn't right."

"You and I both know Donglin's character. How could he fight an unprepared battle?"

"In the current situation, I'm afraid there is another conspiracy."

Cao Cao shook his head confidently: "Conspiracy? Where is the conspiracy?"

He stroked his beard and said, "Dayu has already been unable to hold on. Even if Donglin is here, he has not revealed his identity as the Chen family. Even if Donglin is a master of strategy, where can he find enough support?"

"Donglin lost this round."

Cao Cao smiled and turned to look at Liu Bei: "Since Donglin is still alive, our wish is to help the Han Dynasty. Why don't we wait until Dayu is destroyed and invite Donglin to be the prime minister?"

What he meant was that after Dayu was destroyed and Chen Zhulou returned, he would not plan to create any more divisions.

Although Cao Cao had ambitions in his heart, the desire to support the Han Dynasty had never been extinguished in his heart.

Liu Bei did not have as good a mentality as Cao Cao. He always had a bad feeling in his heart.

“I always feel that things are not that simple.”

The fishing fires on the river in the distance remained the same as usual, the sound of war drums became louder and louder, and the war had entered a critical moment.

Suddenly.

Like the explosion of spring thunder.

The ships and camps behind Cao Cao suddenly caught fire, and countless flames rose up in the blink of an eye. At this moment, countless east winds suddenly blew up above the sky as if deliberately cooperating with the budding flames.

Flames and strong winds.

The flag on the ship fluttered in the air, but along with the flag was endless flames that burned everything.

The miserable roars of the soldiers who were totally unprepared echoed on the river.

Cao Cao's expression changed. He stretched out his hand and looked at the boat across the river in the distance with a deep look: "Dongfeng?"

He gritted his teeth and said, "Even if there is an east wind, where does the fire come from?"

Liu Bei's expression revealed a hint of "as expected". He frowned and looked at Zhuge Liang beside him: "Kong Ming, where do you think this fire came from?"

Before Zhuge Liang could answer, the big ship they were on started to catch fire!
The fire is right behind them!
Liu Bei's expression suddenly changed. He exchanged glances with Cao Cao beside him, and then shouted in a stern voice: "Dock immediately! Dock immediately!"

The surrounding flames seemed to be mocking them.

The flames on the river surface burned bigger and bigger. This fire that came from nowhere was like a punishment from heaven. Most of the soldiers in the Cao-Liu coalition were from the north who were not good at swimming, and this fire suddenly broke out and burned the boats they were riding on.

Countless soldiers died in this flames.

Drowned or burned to death.

For some reason, the fire continued to burn, and almost all the ships brought by Cao and Liu were burned to ashes that night.

州陵
Zhang Liao led his troops to attack the territory of Dayu here. He took many soldiers and ran quickly on a small path under the cover of night, hoping to take the opportunity to get around behind Dayu's army.

But at this time, he had not yet reached the place he wanted to reach, and a dull "dong dong dong" sound came from the distance. This sound did not sound like the sound of a war drum, but rather the sound of something heavy rolling down from above.
Heavy objects? Tumbling?
Zhang Liao's expression changed, but before he could react, a relaxed and comfortable voice came from the high hillside in the distance.

"General Zhang, I have been waiting here for a long time on the orders of the Prime Minister."

liangzihu

On the lake, countless ships were burned to ashes and their wreckage floated on the lake. There were also countless corpses floating as far as the eye could see.

Fishermen and soldiers were salvaging the bodies of the soldiers around, and then transported them all to a certain place, burned them in a pit, and then erected a tombstone for this mass grave.

Taishi Ci stood there with a hint of pity on his face.

He is an enemy of these soldiers, but he is also not an enemy of these soldiers.

These people are ordinary people who just want to earn a living. They are also trying to defend their country and survive. There is no need to humiliate them after their death.

Their bodies were burned because it was difficult to deal with so many bodies, and soaking them in water was disrespectful to the bodies and would affect the water quality downstream, posing a high risk of an epidemic.

So he decided to burn the bodies and erect a tombstone to bury them, so that they would have a final resting place.

汉阳
The two brothers Xiahou Yuan and Xiahou Dun looked at "Dong Zhuo" in the distance with somewhat unpleasant expressions: "Why is Dong Zhongying here?"

The seventh year of Yuan'an, late autumn.

A huge fire on Chibi burned everything, and the Cao-Liu alliance had no way to continue in the face of such a tragic ending. Their strength was not as good as Dayu, and now they were seriously injured.

Some are happy and some are sad.

The defeat of the Cao-Liu alliance was a complete victory for Dayu.

The fire at Chibi made Dayu, which already had strong morale, even more prosperous. It seemed that the emperor of Dayu had the aura to unify the world.

Huarong Road

Liu Bei and Cao Cao were riding horses and leading the remnants of their defeated troops, rushing northward.

As they walked, Cao Cao suddenly sighed, and then laughed: "Xuan De, although we have suffered a miserable defeat this time, Dong Lin still made a mistake."

He smiled and said, "If I were Donglin, I would just deploy troops here and we would be unable to escape."

Before Cao Cao finished his words, his pupils suddenly constricted, because there seemed to be "human figures" appearing in the distance.

Cao Cao's heart was instantly in suspense.

At this time, the spy also came back with a relaxed look on his face.

"Prime Minister, there seems to be an ambush ahead, but..."

He spoke hesitantly: "But the man did not hide. Instead, he stood there on his horse, as if waiting for the Prime Minister to come."

Liu Bei and Cao Cao looked at each other, then squeezed their legs together and the horses under them galloped away.

Zhao Yun was waiting there, riding on a horse, holding a silver spear.

A soldier beside him was holding a plate with two wine glasses on it.

Zhao Yun bowed slightly.

"Yun meets Prime Minister Cao and Uncle Liu."

"I am waiting here on the orders of the Heavenly Master, and I am giving you these two cups of green plum wine."

There was a hint of calmness in Zhao Yun's voice.

"In addition, the Heavenly Master has something else for me to convey to you two." Cao Cao and Liu Bei looked at each other, both holding the reins tightly.

Zhao Yun's voice came from not far away.

"The Heavenly Master said that this cup of wine is to express his old friendship with the two of you. Today, he disobeyed the Emperor's order and deliberately left this road open to let the two of you go. This can be regarded as fulfilling the friendship of our childhood friends."

"As long as the war continues, the people will suffer."

"Today's wine has severed our friendship. Next time he will definitely not hold back. The next time we meet, it will be under the city wall, and the country will be destroyed."

Liu Bei and Cao Cao looked at the glass of wine in front of them with a hint of sadness in their expressions.

After a long time, the two men picked up their wine glasses and drank them all.

"Tell the Heavenly Master that I know."

A glass of wine with an old childhood friend.

In this way, the friendship between old friends is severed.

Linjing City

Qinzheng Hall
Facing the returning Zu Tianshi, Zhang Cheng's face was filled with curiosity.

He asked in a low voice: "Prime Minister, why don't you leave Cao Cao and Liu Bei behind? In this way, Chang'an and Langya will be leaderless. Wouldn't that be more conducive to our unification of the world?"

The Heavenly Master Zu’s expression remained unchanged.

"More favorable?"

He laughed.

"Your Majesty, does Dayu still have the strength to fight a northern expedition now?"

Zhang Cheng's expression suddenly stiffened. He remembered the records he had seen in recent days about the money and grain in the Dayu treasury, and suddenly understood what Zu Tianshi meant.

Zu Tianshi didn't say much, just smiled.

"After this great battle, Dayu no longer has enough strength to launch an offensive. Even if it can win a few battles, they will be interrupted by the follow-up."

"Do it all at once, second time tired, third time exhausted."

"Since we cannot completely capture Chang'an and Langya, there is little point in keeping Liu Bei and Cao Cao."

Zu Tianshi raised his head, as if looking at the scene in the distance through the sky.

"On the contrary, we need Liu Bei and Cao Cao to go back and stabilize the situation in their country. We cannot allow the government to be completely monopolized by the aristocratic families, otherwise the situation will become more complicated."

He said with a complicated expression: "Chang'an is fine, but there seems to be some movement in Langya."

Master Zu Tianshi sighed and said again: "However, the fire at Chibi also completely cut off the possibility of cooperation between Cao and Liu. Now they will only guard against each other, fearing that the other side will take advantage of their weakness to swallow them up."

"not to mention"

He was silent for a moment and then spoke: "When Cao Liu finds out how the "fire" appeared this time, more things will happen."

"Dayu can take this opportunity to recuperate and wait until the right time to launch a general attack, sweeping across the world and unifying the nine provinces."

Only then did Zhang Cheng feel relieved.

In fact, he also understood all this, he just wanted to test whether Zu Tianshi still had any "old thoughts" about the Han Dynasty.

Now it seems that there should be no such thing.

The seventh year of Yuan'an, winter.

Cao Cao and Liu Bei, who lost the Battle of Chibi, returned to their respective nests, and after returning, they immediately began to "investigate" this failure.

The fire appeared too cleverly.

Moreover, the burning of the fire was very strange, as if someone had prepared it in advance.

Why were there so much kerosene on their ships?
After in-depth investigation, both Cao Cao and Liu Bei found the "culprit" behind the failure of the Battle of Chibi.

It's Liu Bei.

In other words, it is the "Liu people" represented by Liu Bei.

Weiyang Palace in Chang'an
Liu Bei stood there, his face filled with anger.

He almost squeezed out a sentence from between his teeth: "Why did your Majesty do this?!"

Yes.

Why did the fire happen so coincidentally this time? Why were there so many kerosene tanks on board those ships?
Because the people who did this were just ordinary soldiers in the Cao-Liu alliance, and no one would notice if they wanted to do something.

Because they are not strangers, nor are they spies.

They are the Allied soldiers themselves.

They obeyed the emperor's order and prepared a large amount of kerosene on the ship. Then at a critical moment, when the east wind suddenly appeared, they ignited the flame. In an instant, the flame burned with the power of the east wind.

There was even a lot of kerosene thrown around the ship in order to allow the fire to spread across the river.

Liu Bei stood in front of Liu Min, rising like the flame that burned their victory.

He was angry, very angry.

Liu Min's expression remained unchanged: "Why?"

“Does it need a reason?”

He grinned: "If we win this war, are you going to merge the two big men into one?"

"If the two are combined into one, I, a person without children, will naturally be no match for Liu Xie, who has children!"

Liu Min also said in an angry tone: "If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for cooperating with Cao Cao! He killed my father! And if you cooperate, I will lose the throne!"

Liu Bei looked at Liu Min: "Just for the throne?"

Liu Min sneered: "That's it? Isn't it that everyone in the world is fighting for this position?!"

"I'm not wrong!"

"I would rather let the world betray me than let the world betray me!"

After saying this, Liu Bei fell into silence for a long time.

After a long time, he finally said in a hoarse voice: "You are crazy."

He closed his eyes and said, "From today on, Your Majesty should rest and recuperate in the Weiyang Palace. You don't have to attend court anymore."

Liu Bei chose to imprison Liu Min in the deep palace.

He should have killed Liu Min, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

He is still the benevolent Uncle Liu.

The same is true for Langya.

After Cao Cao returned to Langya, when he heard the report that the eldest prince was missing, he knew that the emperor was involved in this "conspiracy".

But does he have evidence?

No.

but
Cao Cao also didn't need evidence.

The eighth year of Yuan'an.

A very significant year in the history of the Three Kingdoms.

The Emperor of Chang'an seemed to be suffering from insanity, so he was recuperated in the deep palace. Liu Bei was appointed as the regent, who supervised the country on his behalf and exercised the power of the emperor.

The Emperor of Langya suddenly fell seriously ill and was also recuperating in the deep palace. Cao Cao was appointed as the regent to supervise the country and exercise the power of the emperor.

(End of this chapter)