My father Liu Xuande

Chapter 10 Big Ears, Listen to Me
“Father, no one has spoken ill of Chen Gongcao to me, and I have no ill feelings towards Chen Gongcao.”

The son felt that the current situation was difficult, and that any change could have far-reaching consequences.

We, father and son, are at the center of a vortex; if we make a wrong move, unspeakable disaster may follow.

Liu Bei gradually calmed down.

After assuming the post of Governor of Xuzhou, he brought all his family members over.

He now has three sons and two daughters, but the one who truly satisfies him and whom he loves and cares for the most is his eldest son, who has already become famous in the north.

Thinking of his son's precocious talent and the secret of his dream encounter with the immortals, Liu Bei's anger gradually subsided.

After a while, he sat down cross-legged and looked at Liu Feng: "Very well, I want to hear your profound words. Tell me what this trouble is."

"Father, do you really think we are the rulers of Xuzhou?"

Liu Feng's first words almost made Liu Bei lose his temper again.

What does this unfilial son mean? Is he mocking his father as a puppet?

Fortunately, Liu Bei was very magnanimous, and he patiently continued to listen.

"The son tried to analyze the situation for his father."

Liu Feng got up and took several bamboo slips and silk books from the table, placing them on the ground. Then he pointed to the bamboo slips and said, "There are roughly four factions within Xuzhou. Father can be considered part of the governor's faction, holding the title of governor, and his assistants are Second Uncle, Third Uncle, Uncle Zilong, Uncle Guorang, etc."

However, his father, Yuan Cong, was in a weak position and lacked talent.

When my father first arrived, he had fewer than a thousand soldiers and only four generals. Even with the help of Tao Gong's four thousand Danyang soldiers, he was only able to protect himself.

Father, you have neither the support of your clan nor your protégés or former officials. Although you hold the high position of governor, the affairs of the state are not truly in your hands.

After the Chen and Mi families, the local gentry of Xuzhou, elected Liu Bei as the governor of Xuzhou, they naturally seized control of the state affairs. Their situation was much more powerful than that of the gentry of Yanzhou against Cao Cao.

Cao Cao had the strong support of his clans, such as the Cao family, the Xiahou family, and the Wei family, and his clans were full of talented people who could hold some key positions.

But what about Liu Bei?

Aside from Jian Yong, Tian Yu, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun, he couldn't even find many literate subordinates, let alone aristocratic scholars.

Otherwise, when Yuan Shu launched his attack a year later, and Liu Bei led Guan Yu to resist him, he wouldn't have been in such dire straits that he had to leave Zhang Fei behind to take command.

Liu Bei was certainly aware of this problem, but he racked his brains and still couldn't come up with a good solution. The only thing he felt he could do was to increase his efforts to win over Chen Deng and Mi Zhu, rely on them fully, and try to tie them together as much as possible.

There's no right or wrong in this strategy, because logically speaking, it was utterly foolish. Not only did it abandon the advantage of being a high-ranking official who could mediate, it also directly intervened in the political struggle, and even provided the greatest convenience for Chen Deng and Mi Zhu to sideline Liu Bei.

However, in retrospect, it was precisely because of this strategy that Liu Bei was able to receive continuous support from Chen Deng and Mi Zhu after his base was raided by Lü Bu. They provided him with money and food, allowing him to amass an army of ten thousand and almost turn his fortunes around.

What was the situation of Lü Bu, the relative winner at that time?
When he attacked Liu Bei, who had an army of 10,000, he could only send three or four thousand men, while Liu Bei's total strength was no more than 10,000.

Although they were all seasoned veterans, it was clear how desperate Lü Bu was.

The newly appointed ruler of Xuzhou, Liu Bei, surprisingly did not squander his family fortune and started afresh with a large army.

Liu Feng is now trying to help Liu Bei protect his territory in Xuzhou. If we look at it from this perspective, then Liu Bei's actions are extremely foolish. "Father, this second force is the powerful clans and gentry of Xuzhou."

These people can be divided into two.

The Chen and Mi families, who are close to their fathers and relatively loyal, also hold all the power in the state. They are forces that need to be appeased and divided.

Furthermore, another faction, such as the Wang and Zhuge families, were gentry families who knew nothing about their fathers and lacked trust in them. They preferred to flee and seek refuge rather than serve their fathers. This was a force that could be appeased and won over.

As Liu Bei listened to Liu Feng's account, the anger hidden deep in his eyes gradually subsided, replaced by deep thought.

Liu Bei had actually been aware of what Liu Feng was saying, but he had no way to deal with it.

At this moment, he couldn't help but feel a sense of anticipation towards Liu Feng, hoping that the other party could come up with a practical solution.

"The third force is the outsider faction from Danyang, led by General Jianwei."

They were originally trusted confidants brought by Tao Gong from his hometown, loyal to him, but also deeply resentful and hostile towards the local gentry of Xuzhou. This force both leaned towards and distanced itself from the father, showing both a desire to submit and a degree of vigilance and suspicion.

However, they had a long-standing feud with the Xuzhou literati faction, to which Chen Gongcao belonged, and the conflict between the two sides was sharp. Now that his father had taken office as governor, he had to mediate and appease them, at least to the point that the two factions could coexist.

Otherwise, not only will these two forces be preoccupied with internal strife and neglect their duties, but it will also easily lead to factional imbalance, making them vulnerable to invasion by external enemies.

Liu Bei suddenly spoke up: "Foreign enemies, who exactly are the foreign enemies my son speaks of?"

Although Liu Bei couldn't see things so clearly before, he could always vaguely sense some of them thanks to his outstanding talent.

However, he had always been favored by Chen Deng and Mi Zhu, and Liu Bei was not good at balancing things. Therefore, he was soon alienated by the Danyang faction because of his close relationship with the former.

Liu Bei did not actually intend to eliminate the Danyang faction, but in many matters, he naturally leaned more towards Chen Deng and Mi Zhu.

Liu Bei had also considered this in his mind. As an outside faction, the Danyang faction had no local roots. Although it had military power, it had to rely on the support of local scholars for money and provisions.

If Liu Bei joins forces with Chen Deng, the Danyang faction will have virtually no chance of winning.

Under these circumstances, Liu Bei even conceived the idea of ​​gradually annexing and assimilating the Danyang faction by taking advantage of the pressure exerted by the local literati on the Danyang faction.

Whether this idea is feasible or not depends on Liu Bei's subsequent actions and tactics.

But all of this requires a closed circle.

Because of the closed nature of the circle, the Danyang Sect could not find any outside help.

Without the help of other forces, the Danyang faction was left with only two choices: to be eliminated or to surrender to Liu Bei.

Liu Bei had no deep-seated hatred for them, so the Danyang faction leaders would be crazy to choose the first one. In this way, wouldn't Liu Bei have a chance to annex and assimilate the Danyang faction?

Liu Bei had previously thought it wasn't a big problem, and he had already discussed it with Yuan Shao when he took over as governor.

Chen Deng's letter to Yuan Shao, announcing the appointment of Liu Bei as Governor of Xu Province, led Yuan Shao to choose to reconcile with Liu Bei. Surprisingly, although Liu Bei reconciled with Yuan Shao, he did not break ties with Gongsun Zan, and incidentally, this also deprived Yuan Shao's ally Cao Cao of any pretext to attack Xu Province again.

(End of this chapter)