Shu Han Confucian General of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 36 Back to Xuzhou

"Wei Yan?" In the Runan prefect's mansion, the new prefect Zhao Feng looked at this strong man with a maroon face who was about his own age.If it is paired with a long beard, it will look more like Guan Yu's son than Guan Ping.

"Young general Wei Yan was originally the county captain of Shanyang County, Nanyang County, under Liu Biao's account in Jingzhou. My friend Li Yan and Li Zhengfang mentioned that General Guan and General Zhao were in Runan, recruiting talents, so they came to serve." Wei Yan looked at this. The young man who looked fair and clean replied respectfully.He didn't even say a word, Li Yan once told him that Guan Yu was quite arrogant, but Zhao Feng was much more easy-going, so it was best not to go directly to Guan Yu, but to go to Zhao Feng.

Of course, Li Yan never expected that Zhao Feng would reuse him as soon as he heard that he was Wei Yan.

"What can you do?" Zhao Feng asked directly.As soon as Wei Yan heard that Zhao Feng's tone was not bad, he quickly replied, "I have read military books since I was a child, and I am proficient in martial arts." Zhao Feng was not surprised when he heard that, so he took him to the school grounds to meet Guan Yu.Although Guan Erye is now Yuzhou Mu, Jian Yong is basically responsible for civil affairs, and Guan Yu spends more time in the training ground.

"Martial arts are good!" Seeing Wei Yan wielding his 28-pound sword with ease and gaining the upper hand with Guan Ping one-on-one, Guan Yu nodded again and again.Then he asked Wei Yan some tactics of war, and the latter also answered fluently.Perhaps seeing Wei Yan's red face suits his taste, Guan Yu immediately appointed Wei Yan as the school lieutenant, in charge of the two recruits.

"Thank you for the promotion of General Guan!" Wei Yan said happily. He was originally a county lieutenant, but now he has been promoted several levels in a row.Guan Yu stroked his beard and smiled, but then asked suspiciously: "The chief minister is so talented, why is his career in Jingzhou so difficult? It was the same with Zhengfang before." Wei Yan sighed, and then asked Guan Yu and Zhao Feng in detail.It turns out that there are many aristocratic families in Jingzhou, except for the Cai family and the Kuai family, there are still many other smaller wealthy families.Although Liu Biao is the shepherd of Jingzhou, if he wants to secure this position, he must get the support of these aristocratic families. Therefore, the important official positions in Jingzhou are all occupied by the children of these aristocratic families.Both Wei Yan and Li Yan came from humble backgrounds, so their official careers were not smooth.

"So that's how it is!" Zhao Feng was also stunned. Although he knew that the aristocratic family was very powerful at this time, he didn't expect it to be so exaggerated. Talents like Wei Yan and Li Yan were suppressed to become little sesame officials.In fact, this cannot be blamed on Zhao Feng. Although there were aristocratic families in Xuzhou or Yuzhou before, most of the four major families in Xuzhou were not prosperous. For example, the Mi family finally had two brothers, and the other three were bare brothers. At best, their family has dozens of people, and each family has only five or six people who are officials in Xuzhou, and some of them are only small officials; The Diandian family either left here a long time ago, or they were flattened by Liu Pi and the others, so Zhao Feng has never had an intuitive understanding of their influence.

Wei Yan's defection was just the beginning. In the next few months, many small officials who were unsuccessful in Jingzhou abandoned their official positions one after another and came to Yuzhou to seek a future. Jian Yong and Guan Yu also accepted them one by one.But just when Zhao Feng, the prefect of Runan, was having a good time, suddenly an unexpected visitor came to Yuzhou.

"Second General, when did you get so angry?" On this day, Zhao Feng was urgently called by Guan Yu to the State Shepherd's Mansion for a discussion. As soon as he entered the door, he saw Guan Yu sitting in the main seat angrily, but everyone in the hall dared not speak out.

"Bo Tao, someone won't let you become an official!" Guan Yu said bitterly, and then handed a letter to Zhao Feng.Zhao Feng found out that this was a letter written by Liu Biao from Jingzhou to Guan Yu. The letter stated that Jingzhou general Wenpin had been appointed by the imperial court as the prefect of Runan and was about to take office. "Old man Liu Biao is deceiving people so much that he has meddled in my Yuzhou affairs." Guan Yu was still angry.

"Second General, calm down, look at this letter, does Liu Biao really mean it?" Zhao Feng persuaded, but sneered in his heart: Cao Cao used this move more than ten years earlier than in history. At that time it was Zhou Yu and Cheng Pu, but now it is Wenpin.

"Bo Tao, what do you mean?" Guan Yu read Liu Biao's letter carefully again, and seemed to understand something. "That's right, what Liu Biao said was that the imperial court ordered Wenpin to come to Yuzhou, and now His Majesty is in Xuchang, under Cao Cao's rule. This appointment is probably Cao Cao's intention." Zhao Feng knew it well, but Still speaking in a speculative tone.

"That's the way it is, but what should we do now?" Guan Yu had a headache: Don't agree, it's not good to violate the imperial edict, and my elder brother spends all his time helping the Han Dynasty as his own responsibility, and his violation will make him It's embarrassing; if Wen Pin were to be the prefect of Runan, not to mention it would be unfair to Zhao Feng, but Liu Biao would put such a person in his heartland, just thinking about it would make him uncomfortable.

"Since there is an edict from the imperial court, let Wenpin take up the post!" Zhao Feng laughed, before Guan Yu and the others could speak again, Zhao Feng asked directly, "Second General, what do you think of Liu Biao from Jingzhou? "

Guan Yu was taken aback for a moment, but after a moment of consideration, he said, "I see Liu Biao, although he is known as the eight steeds of Jingzhou, it is not wise for him to employ people now. There are countless civil and military officials who have abandoned Jingzhou and come to Yuzhou these days. Why does Bo Tao do this?" Ask?"

"Second General, this Liu Biao is over fifty years old. Now the power in Jingzhou is in the hands of Cai and Kuai. Liu Biao's eldest son Liu Qi is cowardly, and his youngest son Liu Cong is young. After a hundred years, Jingzhou will be in chaos. But Jingzhou is the belly of the world. The most important thing. If the lord wants to become a hegemony, Jingzhou is indispensable. Wenpin is the general of Jingzhou, and now he comes to serve in Yuzhou. In Jingzhou, there is a big lack of resistance!" Zhao Feng talked eloquently, and he found that he liked this feeling more and more, no wonder those leaders in the previous life liked to give reports, and talking to a group of people really gave them a sense of accomplishment. .

Everyone in the hall listened to Zhao Feng's words, and it took a while before they came back to their senses, and they couldn't help being surprised: This Zhao Feng is really far-sighted, Cao Cao just used Liu Biao to plot Liu Bei and Guan Yu for a while, but he used Liu Biao Retreating instead of advancing directly calculated what happened after Liu Biao's death.

"It's so good, I'll write a letter to tell my brother personally, and ask him to appoint Bo Tao again." Guan Yu is not a fool, after listening to Zhao Feng's explanation, he immediately understood.So Zhao Feng will wait for Wenpin to arrive in the next few days, so that he can go through the handover procedures.However, Liu Bei's reply letter arrived before Wenpin, and he asked Zhao Feng to return to Xuzhou to wait for orders after completing the handover.

However, the speed of Wenpin was not too slow. One day after Liu Bei's reply letter arrived, Wenpin also arrived.After completing all the formalities, Zhao Feng set off for Xuzhou.Guan Yu led the main officials of Yuzhou to give a banquet to see him off. Of course Jian Yong, Wei Yan and others were there, and even the newcomer Wenpin was also present.

"Take care, General Zhao, and have a good journey!" Wen Pin also took the initiative to toast.It has been a few days since I came to Runan, and Wenpin has a deep understanding of what it means to be unfamiliar with a place.Few people from the former old ministry followed him, and most of them were left in Jingzhou by Cai Mao.Moreover, the people in Yuzhou didn't seem to welcome him to be an official. Except for Jian Yong, he could say a few words, and the rest, such as Guan Yu and others, were veterans whether they were consciously or unconsciously. He was not satisfied with squeezing Zhao Feng away.Wenpin didn't want to be isolated forever, so he took this opportunity to build a good relationship with the client Zhao Feng.

"General Wen is serious! Runan is an important place, General Wen needs to be more careful." Zhao Feng also did his best to get drunk that day, and the next morning Zhao Feng packed up and went to Xuzhou.On the way, they passed through Qiao County, Liang State, Pei State, Lu State and other places. Chen Jiao, Mi Fang, Guan Hai, Sun Guan and others all went out to welcome them in person. The warm hospitality made Zhao Feng's itinerary delayed for a few days.

But no matter how slow the schedule was, Zhao Feng finally returned to Xuzhou City. "It's back again!" Zhao Feng looked at the familiar Xuzhou city wall and sighed in his heart. It has been three months since he left Xuzhou for this trip. Since he rescued Xuzhou and settled in Xiaopei three years ago, he has never been away for such a long time.First go to the State Shepherd's Mansion to report to Liu Bei, "Bo Tao has worked hard!" Liu Bei was also very happy to see Zhao Feng's return.

"Brother, boy Zhao is back?" Zhao Feng was talking to Liu Bei when a rough voice suddenly sounded behind him. "The three generals haven't seen each other for a long time!" Zhao Feng turned around and saw that it was Zhang Fei walking over with a smile.

"Hey, boy Zhao, it's better to come early than coincidental. It just so happens that my old Zhang is getting married soon, so you can drink my wedding wine!" Zhang Fei laughed and patted Zhao Feng on the shoulder and said.

"Huh?" This time it was Zhao Feng's turn to be surprised, but Zhang Fei is already 30 years old, and there are very few ancient people who have not yet married at this age. "I don't know which girl it is?" Zhao Feng asked tentatively, but did he remember that Zhang Fei robbed Xia Houyuan's niece as his wife in history.

Sure enough, Liu Bei laughed and said, "It's a girl from Xiaopei's Xiahou family, but it's Xiahouyuan's niece." Liu Bei was also quite helpless, because his brother fell in love with Xiahouyuan's niece, so he immediately sent the girl who went out to collect firewood. The little girl was snatched back.Not thinking about the little girl but not being afraid of him, she agreed to be his wife, these two confused people can be regarded as compatible.

"Congratulations to the three generals!" Zhao Feng was also quite surprised, he didn't realize that you Zhang Laosan is still a lolicon.Only then did Liu Bei turn to the topic and assign Zhao Feng a new position.Since Zhao Feng served as the prefect of Runan before, his Xuzhou Zhonglang general position has been replaced by Zhang Liao, and Guan Yu's soldier Cao position has also been replaced by Zhang Fei. The remaining Zang Ba, Song Xian, Pei Yuanshao and Chang Xi, etc. Everyone has a miscellaneous number general.At first, Liu Bei couldn't find any suitable vacancy for him. Later, Biejia Chen Gong suggested that Xiapi in Pengcheng County should be designated as a separate county.Let Zhao Feng and Xu Sheng be the prefects of Pengcheng and Xiapi respectively.Zhao Feng served as the prefect of Pengcheng, adjacent to Xuzhou, so it was convenient to discuss matters with Liu Bei.This kind of practice is not uncommon. Didn’t Cao Cao set up Xiangcheng County in a few counties from Yingchuan County? At that time, he didn’t want to take care of those counties because of his lack of strength. In the end, Hou Cheng made a profit for nothing. Prefect when.

"It's developing really fast." Zhao Feng looked at the army roster that Liu Bei handed him. Now Xuzhou has a good momentum, recruiting and training are in full swing, but Zhao Feng still wants to put forward some suggestions of his own: " My lord, now that my lord occupies the Xu and Yu states, there is no shortage of generals, but there seems to be not enough civil servants!"

After hearing Zhao Feng's words, Liu Bei's originally excited expression darkened: "That's true. Although the former Fan Xianhe brought a group of civil servants to Yuzhou, there are still not enough manpower to govern the area. Many counties still only have one county magistrate."

Zhao Feng has been thinking about the solution to this problem on the way back, and now he has some preliminary ideas.Immediately remonstrated: "Actually, the last general has a way, which seems to be able to relieve the urgent situation."

(End of this chapter)