Ji Han Grand Commander

Chapter 389 383. Old Things
Meng Jie returned from his study in Jingzhou and observed mourning for his mother for a year, which he insisted on doing. Originally, Meng Jie's father thought that Meng Jie's mother was dead and there was no point in observing mourning, but Meng Jie insisted on observing mourning for three years.

In the end, the two sides were deadlocked and had to make concessions. That was Meng Jie observing mourning for a year and then helping to deal with the matters in the cave.

After all, in the old cave master's opinion, since Meng Jie has learned the Han culture, he must be much more capable in handling affairs, at least he will definitely be able to crush those rough guys in other caves.

After a year of mourning, Meng Jie began to assist his father, Master Meng, in managing the Yinkeng Cave as requested by his father.

As the name suggests, Yinkeng Cave, like Yinzhi Cave, also developed rapidly by relying on silver mines as the main trading resource with the Han people.

During the time of the old cave master, Yinkeng Cave had a population of over 100,000 people, with 40,000 to 50,000 young and strong men under his command, ranking among the top among the 72 caves in South China.

When Meng Jie began to assist the old cave master in managing Yinkeng Cave, the old cave master was extremely displeased. Meng Jie proposed to use the Han people's etiquette to educate the brothers and sisters of Yinkeng Cave, which was undoubtedly "heretical" in the eyes of the old cave master. The reason why Nanzhong is Nanzhong, rather than a county under the rule of the Han people, is because Nanzhong has Nanzhong's rules.

The two sides once again had a fierce dispute over how to manage Yinkeng Cave. In the end, there was no other way but for each side to make some concessions, allowing Meng Jie to stay in Yinkeng Cave relatively safely.

However, the old cave master was already quite unhappy with Meng Jie, so he turned his hopes to his second son, Meng Huo, who he believed was the one who best conformed to the "rules of the South", and constantly instilled his own ideas into him.

When Meng Huo grew up a little and was nearly 20 years old, he took a lot of money and headed north, passing through Yongchang County, and traveled to Yizhou, Shu County and other large counties in Sichuan.

Here Meng Huo saw the prosperous life of the Han people. He also successfully met Yong Kai, the eldest son of the local emperor Yong family in Yizhou County.

Yong Kai was very generous to him. He not only took him to travel around Yizhou County, but also provided him with some travel expenses so that he could continue northward.

At that time, Yizhou was in trouble both internally and externally. Liu Yan had just died, and Liu Zhang inherited the position of governor of Yizhou in the midst of turmoil.

At the same time, because he was suspicious of Pang Xi who was stationed in Langzhong, Zhao Wei's repeated admonitions had little effect. Zhao Wei was fed up with Liu Zhang's weakness and incompetence, and seeing that the people of Yizhou seemed to have a lot of resentment towards this "outsider", he simply contacted the local wealthy families in Yizhou and started a rebellion.

As luck would have it, the time period when Meng Huo went north to Chengdu was exactly the time when the Dongzhou soldiers, who were fighting to the death for fear of being killed by Zhao Wei, had a decisive battle with the rebels led by Zhao Wei. Meng Huo witnessed with his own eyes how tragic the civil strife among the Han people was, and these bloody scenes made Meng Huo even more excited.

Because of the war, Meng Huo had to stay in Chengdu for several months. Finally, Zhao Wei was killed by his subordinates' rebellion. Only then could Meng Huo leave Chengdu and return to his hometown in Nanzhong which he had been away from for a long time.

Coincidentally, the people who betrayed Zhao Wei were Pang Le, a general from Yizhou, and a young officer who was holding a gold-rimmed axe. Although he was young, he was so brave that he could not stop any man.

After Pang Le and his companions killed Zhao Wei, Pang Le disappeared. Some said that he took advantage of Liu Zhang and became a rich man; some said that he was quietly killed by Liu Zhang; others said that he changed his appearance and name and served in the Yizhou army again.

However, it was not the case with the young axe-wielding general who killed Zhao Wei together with Pang Le. He fled all the way eastward to the territory of Jingzhou. Later, he found that Jiangdong was full of talented people. He immediately joined the Jiangdong camp because he was a bully of the weak and admired the strong. From then on, he fought for Jiangdong in the southeast.

Unfortunately, fate played tricks on him. After the axe-wielding young general had been in Jiangdong for nearly twenty years and had grown into a strong general, he participated in a battle that changed the end of his life, the Battle of Yiling. At the beginning of the Battle of Zigui, he and his superior Sun Huan were defeated by several young Han generals as the vanguard and had to flee in panic.

Later, the Eastern Wu replaced its generals on the battlefield and appointed Lu Xun, who did not have much prestige, as the commander-in-chief. The axe-wielding general also followed him and charged into the Han camp on a dark and windy night, ready to burn down the entire camp. As a result, he happened to run into the camp of the young Han general who had defeated him in Zigui in the past, and encountered the nightmare of his life.

The end of this axe-wielding general was to have his heart pierced by thousands of arrows, which is quite sad.

That’s right, this description is exactly the axe-wielding general Li Yi who served under Sun Huan together with Xie Jing in the past of Eastern Wu.

However, times have changed, and Li Yi's wind-touching grass is probably several meters tall.

Back to Meng Huo, the trip to Yizhou in the north successfully made him see what the old cave master wanted him to see. The Han people were rich, fighting among themselves, and had abundant resources compared to the South. If one day, the people of his South could live the same life as the Han people, it would probably be a scene that only existed in dreams.

After Meng Huo returned from his travels, the old cave master gave Meng Huo a large portion of the power that originally belonged to Meng Jie without saying a word, as if he was biased towards Meng Huo.

Meng Jie saw it all, but since one was his father and the other was his younger brother, he couldn't say anything and could only continue to be a silent doer.

Unfortunately, after Meng Huo's trip north to Yizhou, he was extremely disdainful of Confucian scholars like Meng Jie. In his opinion, Confucian scholars were only good at empty talk and could not do anything practical. With so many Confucian scholars among the Han people, shouldn't they still have internal turmoil?
So slowly, Meng Huo started to become more and more aggressive, reaching out further and further, and began to forcibly take over many matters that were originally the responsibility of Meng Jie.

Meng Jie naturally talked to the old cave master and Meng Huo about this, but unfortunately these two people acted as if they were real father and son, covering up for each other and turning a blind eye.

Afterwards, the old cave master arranged a marriage for Meng Huo. The target was the daughter of another powerful cave master in Nanzhong, Zhurong.

The Huoyun Cave where Zhu Rong lived was similar in size to the Yinkeng Cave and was not far away from each other, so the relationship between the two caves was naturally rather strained and they regarded each other as competitors.

Originally, this political marriage did not cause any waves in the caves on both sides, and people thought it was just like any other political marriage.

But what no one expected was that Meng Huo was indeed very capable. It was unknown how he managed to make Lady Zhu Rong fall in love with him with his eloquence and skills in flirting with girls.

With Madam Zhurong's help, Meng Huo was able to meet with the owner of Huoyun Cave, Madam Zhurong's father, many times to express his ideas.

All in all, Meng Huo's survival theory in the South unexpectedly showed that he was a man with great ambitions, which made the old cave master Zhurong clan praise him highly.

Then, something happened that changed Meng Huo and Meng Jie's lives.

(End of this chapter)