Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator.

This explanation was undoubtedly pale and weak.

Even military generals like Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun, who weren't particularly politically sensitive, could sense that this was a form of invisible exclusion.

Li Ji had been away from Wu Commandery for two years, and undoubtedly a considerable number of people were unwilling to see him return to wield power in Wu Commandery again.

However, before military generals like Guan Yu and Zhang Fei could actively react, Li Ji smiled and spoke first.

“This Marquis has not yet taken office in Liaoxi Commandery, and is temporarily serving as the Administrator of Wu Commandery. Does anyone have any objections?”

Facing Li Ji's gaze, which seemed to completely see through his heart, the minor official immediately forgot the words he had originally prepared and stammered in response.

“No… No, I wouldn’t dare… This subordinate is just… just concerned about you, Marquis…”

“Then I thank you for your concern, but right now our lord is holding a meeting because there are important matters to arrange. Such private matters can be discussed later.”

Li Ji didn't take this small trick to heart, nor would he have any emotional fluctuations because of it.

Or perhaps, Zhang Zhao and Zhang Hong also knew that such words would not shake Li Ji's position at the moment, but in their view, which followed the "way of checks and balances," this was necessary.

The purpose was even to let Liu Bei, as the lord, see the extent of Li Ji's influence, so as to support them in checking and balancing Li Ji, lest Li Ji's family become too powerful.

And Liu Bei seemed to turn a blind eye to this little farce, sitting in the main seat and closing his eyes to rest.

This made Zhang Zhao and Zhang Hong, who had been secretly observing the changes in Liu Bei's expression, feel a little disappointed, regretting that they had failed to arouse Liu Bei's suspicion of Li Ji.

Unfortunately, what Zhang Zhao and Zhang Hong didn't know was that both Liu Bei and Li Ji were focused on the whole country, not just the one acre and three points of land in Wu Commandery.

What Zhang Zhao and Zhang Hong wanted to see at the moment was Liu Bei's suspicion of Li Ji, but they didn't know that if it weren't for Li Ji, whom they regarded as a political enemy, protecting him many times, Liu Bei would probably have started to directly eliminate a group of officials from the aristocratic families.

With Liu Bei's current prestige and influence in Wu Commandery and Kuaiji Commandery, coupled with the fact that a large number of common people were refugees who had fled from the north, even if he fell out with the aristocratic families, it would definitely not shake Liu Bei in the slightest.

At this moment, Liu Bei, who was silent, did not reveal his emotions, but in fact, he was disgusted with Zhang Zhao and Zhang Hong.

‘These aristocratic families are really forgetting to sow discord between me and Zikun day and night, which is extremely hateful.’

When all the civil and military officials who were qualified to participate in the meeting arrived, the first sentence Liu Bei said caused many people present to show surprised expressions.

“Thank you all for coming here. This meeting will be presided over by Zikun, please listen quietly.”

Li Ji cupped his hands towards Liu Bei, then took a roll of bamboo slips, stood up, and went straight to the point of arranging various tasks.

In addition to carrying out a full-scale military reorganization and preparing military equipment within the scope of Wu Commandery, it also involved all aspects of Wu Commandery's government affairs.

With the death of Liu Hong and the coming of troubled times, the measures that Li Ji had previously needed to carry out secretly in Wu Commandery had now reached the moment to turn from dark to light.

The first thing to bear the brunt was undoubtedly the issue of refugee household registration, which had been shelved for several years.

Previously, in order to avoid paying taxes on refugees to the imperial court, the issue of household registration was deliberately shelved.

But now that the Han Dynasty is undoubtedly unable to supervise the localities, the fundamental issue of household registration naturally needs to be resolved first.

In addition, there are also salt and iron, papermaking, military system reforms, etc., which were previously unsuitable for public disclosure, all of which need to be arranged.

Salt and iron are naturally self-explanatory.

Under Li Ji's guidance, the craftsmen of Wu Commandery had long mastered the technology of drying sea salt, but in order to avoid being taken away by others under the guise of imperial court orders and becoming someone else's wedding dress, they had always concealed it.

Papermaking is also the same.

Now, Wu Commandery has actually completed the improvement of papermaking technology and developed movable type printing technology, but premature disclosure would only be a crime of possessing a treasure, so it has been concealed until now.

As for the military system reform, it is to prepare for the coming troubled times.

Previously, the Han Dynasty's local military system was actually a commandery-based military system. On weekdays, the commandery soldiers were responsible for guarding the city and maintaining law and order, etc. In times of war, the tiger tally was used as a seal to allow the temporary commander to draw commandery soldiers and recruit young men to form an army.

In this way, the combat effectiveness of the local troops is actually quite limited.

At this moment, Li Ji proposed a "military household system" that had been in preparation for many years, which was a system based on the military colony system to take a further step.

Perhaps, in the eyes of many people, the "military household system" later seemed to have become one of the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the "military household system" also led to the Ming army's extremely weak combat effectiveness.

However, it is undeniable that during the early Ming Dynasty, the "military household system" allowed the Ming Dynasty to have extremely strong military strength, and the army did not need to consume a single grain of millet from the people when it went on expeditions.

It was only because the military households in the Ming Dynasty had a low status, and their descendants had difficulty escaping their military status, coupled with the rampant corruption, embezzlement of military pay, and exploitation of soldiers, that the military household system became one of the reasons for the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.

Li Ji's current plan is to set up military households around each city to replace the commandery soldiers, and actively improve the status and treatment of military households.

When there is no war, the military households, in addition to farming, regularly take turns to conduct military exercises and security garrison.

In addition to the military households, some major generals are also allowed to lead their direct subordinates as elite troops to enhance the army's combat effectiveness and dispatch elite troops in emergency situations.

For example, the "White Horse义Cong" was designated as a direct subordinate force led by Zhao Yun.

Similarly, there are the three thousand Yi soldiers with swords and axes that Guan Yu brought back from Yizhou, and the three thousand cavalry that will be led by Zhang Fei.

This meeting lasted for a full five hours.

Almost everyone who participated in the meeting was assigned a large number of tasks. Li Ji seemed to know everyone's abilities like the back of his hand. The arrangements he made gave these people a feeling of being just filled, but not exceeding the standard.

Soon, as Li Ji re-sat in the government office, overseeing all matters, and personally arranged and implemented the tasks from the previous meeting one by one.

Almost every official was so busy that they felt dizzy and bloated, and they didn't have the slightest extra thought to consider any matters of power struggle.

And Wu Commandery, which had accumulated a full four or five years of foundation, began to undergo a transformation in a very short period of time.

In particular, the large number of elite soldiers from Youzhou and Yingzhou that Li Ji had brought back would become the core of promoting the military household system, and Li Ji would publicize and elevate their status within Wu Commandery.

In the current situation where Wu Commandery and Kuaiji Commandery have reclaimed countless fertile fields, these military households have been directly rewarded with a large amount of money, food, and fertile fields through military merit.

For a time, this triggered a craze in Wu Commandery for a large number of civilians to actively apply to become military households.

And the fields and glory of those military households are all tied to Liu Bei, who promoted this policy, which also invisibly tied all the military households to Liu Bei, making those military households staunch supporters who share honor and disgrace with Liu Bei.

Jia Xu, who saw these things in his eyes, once sighed in private that he had a sense of seeing the Qin people who unified the six kingdoms implement the military meritocracy system, and that Li Zikun's move was no less meaningful than Shang Yang's to the pre-Qin period.

Perhaps, there were also some aristocratic families who felt that this move might infringe on their interests, but with the support of the 30,000 elite soldiers that Li Ji brought back and a large number of military households, the slight opposition from those aristocratic families was simply insignificant.

Wu Commandery, where Liu Bei had cultivated and gained prestige for nearly five years, was simply impossible for the mere aristocratic families to obstruct once Liu Bei insisted on something.

And just as Wu Commandery was rapidly transforming, the latest intelligence was sent back to Wu Commandery, causing Liu Bei's slight good mood to stop again.

[Lu Bu killed Ding Yuan, led the Bing Province army and surrendered to Dong Zhuo, Dong Zhuo deposed the emperor on September 1st, supported the prince Liu Xie as emperor, and poisoned Empress Dowager He in Yong'an Palace, and prohibited the imperial court from holding a funeral for Empress Dowager He.]

The news was tantamount to a fatal blow to the little prestige left in the Han Dynasty.

Deposing the emperor and killing the empress!

What Dong Zhuo did was even worse than Wang Mang.

Immediately, Liu Bei no longer hesitated, and almost with tears in his eyes, he wrote three letters and sent them to Liu Yu, the governor of Youzhou, Liu Biao, the governor of Jingzhou, and Liu Yan, the governor of Yizhou.

……

And just as the world was about to undergo drastic changes, Cao Cao, who was in Luoyang, was determined to assassinate Dong Zhuo with a seven-star sword, but he failed in the end and fled Luoyang in a panic, fleeing to his hometown of Qiao County.

But when passing through Zhongmou County, Cao Cao, hungry and thirsty, had no choice but to disguise himself and enter the city to fill his stomach, but he was captured by the soldiers guarding the city.

It was only because Chen Gong, the magistrate of Zhongmou County, admired Cao Cao's righteous act of assassinating Dong Zhuo that he not only did not send Cao Cao back to Luoyang to hand him over to Dong Zhuo, but instead took the risk of abandoning his official position to save Cao Cao and flee east together while it was late at night.

Relying on his status as a county magistrate, Chen Gong easily took Cao Cao away from Zhongmou County, and was preparing to ride away quickly in the dark to avoid the city officials from noticing and chasing after them.

The fast horses that Cao Cao and Chen Gong were riding on suddenly stepped on a horse trap on the official road, and the two of them were completely unable to react and fell to the ground along with their warhorses.

Fortunately, Cao Cao had been in the military for a long time, and his martial arts were also quite extraordinary.

Although Chen Gong was a scholar, he was also proficient in the six arts of a gentleman, and his physical fitness was extraordinary.

However, when Cao Cao used the moonlight to see clearly that the horse trap that the warhorse had stepped on was obviously deliberately arranged, his face suddenly changed drastically, and he subconsciously drew his sword and pointed it at Chen Gong, shouting.

“Chen Gongtai, Cao thought you were a righteous man, why did you deceive me and dig a horse trap here?”

Chen Gong was shocked by Cao Cao's bird-like gesture of drawing his sword and pointing it at him. While feeling a bit of sadness in his heart, he explained.

“Brother Mengde, if I wanted to kill you, I only needed to arrange a jailer in the Zhongmou County prison, why would I need to go to such great lengths?”

When Cao Cao heard this, he immediately realized that he was suspicious, but before he could open his mouth to ease the relationship with Chen Gong, he suddenly heard several sounds of breaking through the air.

Cao Cao instinctively rolled to the side in a clumsy tumble, three feathered arrows piercing the very spot where he had just been standing.

Immediately afterward, from both sides of the official road, more than a dozen black-clad figures wielding sharp blades rushed towards Cao Cao and Chen Gong.

(End of Chapter)