My father Liu Xuande

Chapter 209 The sea is open to all rivers
Although Cao Cao's rule backfired countless times.

But one thing was indeed as Cao Cao had thought: they had captured a lot of territory without fighting.

With Cao Cao's encirclement of Yongqiu County imminent, it's no wonder that Zhang Miao and Gao Shun are so nervous and anxious.

Gao Shun and Liu Feng arrived at the inner palace together, where they saw Liu Bei already standing at the gate with a smile, waiting for them.

Upon seeing Gao Shun, he even took the initiative to walk down the steps, giving Gao Shun a truly respectful welcome that was worthy of a lower rank.

Gao Shun's expression remained unchanged, but he was still deeply moved inside.

Liu Bei personally led Gao Shun into the guest hall, where they took their seats as host and guest.

Just as the two sat down, Gao Shun suddenly stood up, walked to the center of the hall, and bowed deeply to Liu Bei, who was seated at the head of the table: "Lord Liu's reputation for benevolence and righteousness has spread throughout the Central Plains. Now, I, Gao Shun, presume upon my own abilities and earnestly request Lord Liu to aid my lord. I, Gao Shun, am willing to go through fire and water for Lord Liu and repay his kindness with my life."

"Why would a filial father say such a thing?"

Liu Bei was taken aback, but secretly pleased.

Although Liu Feng did not tell Liu Bei what kind of person Gao Shun was, Liu Bei had a keen eye and had long seen through Gao Shun as a loyal and righteous man. Even though he could not have imagined that Gao Shun would be so blindly loyal to the death, he still admired him very much.

After all, loyal and righteous people are still very precious in this era.

Gao Shun's words at this moment perfectly expressed his attitude of pledging allegiance and the conditions for his loyalty.

However, these conditions were entirely for the benefit of his former master, with not a single word for himself. This made Liu Bei appreciate and like Gao Shun even more.

Gao Shun replied, “My lord, Zhang’s brother and clan are trapped in Yongqiu. If no one comes to their rescue, they are doomed to perish. Only you can save them from the advance of Cao’s army in Yanzhou. I implore you to show your kindness. Zhang is willing to offer his seven hundred elite troops as a reward.”

“Father, please rise quickly and speak first.”

Liu Bei left his seat and helped Gao Shun up, comforting him, "To be honest, Father, I know all of Prefect Zhang's intentions. Now, I am also trying to find a way to help Prefect Zhang's brother and clan out of this predicament. Just now, the envoy sent to Yanzhou to mediate this matter has set off and is heading straight for Dingtao."

After Cao Cao decisively defeated Lü Bu at Dingtao and drove him out of Yanzhou, he temporarily halted his troops at Dingtao to observe the situation.

Gao Shun was overjoyed and kowtowed, saying, "I, Shundu, will surely die for you and my lord!"

Liu Bei quickly helped Gao Shun up, comforted him, and then personally saw him off.

After Gao Shun left, Liu Bei sat in the main seat, deep in thought.

Liu Feng was somewhat surprised, wondering what his father was thinking.

After a long while, Liu Bei slowly spoke: "Feng'er, you once told your father about the internal strife in Hebei and Jingzhou. Now that Xuzhou is gathering heroes from the Central Plains, is there a possibility of internal strife there as well?"

Liu Feng comforted him, saying, "Although we are now recruiting talented people, Xuzhou has already suffered great losses. Many cities in the three prefectures of Donghai, Langya, and Xiapi have been massacred, and the people have suffered great losses. Now we have many positions but few people, and we want to attract heroes from all walks of life to come and join us."

In addition, Liu Feng did not tell Liu Bei.

The most feared kind of factional strife is the struggle between two parties, such as the Niu-Li factional strife in the Tang Dynasty, the New and Old factional strife in the Song Dynasty, and the struggle between the eunuch faction and the Donglin faction at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

When two parties clash, it's easy for the conflict to escalate into a life-or-death situation, especially when there's no mediator.

Once things get to a life-or-death situation, then the focus shifts to personal attacks rather than the issue at hand, with people speaking purely from a partisan perspective, spouting platitudes about justice while pursuing personal gain.

The worst thing is to target the person instead of the issue. Once it comes to this, the person doing the work is easily attacked by the crowd and is inherently at a disadvantage.

If this continues, no one will be able to do anything, and the empire will only have one path left: destruction.

The imbalance at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was actually a struggle between two factions, with the eunuch faction facing off against the aristocratic alliance.

In the end, the aristocratic alliance won a Pyrrhic victory, but the benefits were immediately reaped by the military man Dong Zhuo.

Therefore, a healthy court is one where a hundred flowers bloom and multiple factions flourish.

Because of the flourishing of diverse factions, each faction was not too powerful, thus giving the royalist party an overwhelming advantage over any other faction, making it the pillar of stability.

Throughout history, the founding periods of dynasties have always seen a great number of talented and outstanding individuals, yet the political situation has not necessarily become chaotic due to the presence of numerous factions.

The most important factor is the ruler's skill in mediating and governing. Secondly, the benefits brought by the rise of the entire faction can greatly reduce internal strife.

Take Yuan Shao as an example; his Hebei and Henan factions did not start out fighting each other to the death.

Even during the campaign against Gongsun Zan, the two sides cooperated quite a bit. For example, Zhang He, who was later tricked by Guo Tu and forced to surrender to Cao Cao, had cooperated with Guo Tu during the Hebei campaign.

This is because at this time, both the Hebei and Henan factions could take a cut from Gongsun Zan to share the spoils.

But when Gongsun Zan reached his end and his body became increasingly thin, then the increase in his strength turned into a decrease in his remaining strength.

The climax of the struggle was during the Guandu period.

why?
Isn't it because everyone thought Guandu was the last major battle?
Once the Battle of Guandu is won, who in the world can be Yuan Shao's match?
Local warlords like Liu Bei and Liu Biao were seen by Yuan Shao and his ministers as certain to surrender without a fight.

Indeed, that was the case. Given the backdrop of Yuan Shao's strength and Cao Cao's weakness, those who could stand by Yuan Shao's side and exert great effort were surely prepared to accept Yuan Shao as the master of the northern route.

Moreover, the situation in the Eastern Han Dynasty differed from that in later periods. The emperor was often quite tolerant of princes bringing their own resources into the government, as long as they didn't go too far.

Even with Han Xin, Liu Bang only demoted him to the title of Marquis of Huaiyin, instead of actually killing him.

When Han Xin died, Liu Bang was on a military campaign. Historical records state that before Liu Bang set off, he specifically asked Han Xin if he wanted to go with him, but Han Xin refused.

Ying Bu, on the other hand, rebelled on his own and deserved to die.

Only Peng Yue was truly wronged.

By the time the Eastern Han Dynasty was founded, countless large landowners and powerful families had joined the empire, from governors of Youzhou and Bingzhou to county magistrates of small cities. This was one of the main reasons why Emperor Guangwu was able to unify Hebei so quickly and defeat hundreds of thousands of bandits.

Liu Xiu's forces consisted entirely of frontier field armies, or at the very least, regular troops from commanderies and kingdoms. Unlike the various warlords of the Eastern Han Dynasty, who had to start from scratch and rely on their already weakened commandery and kingdom troops as a framework to slowly develop their military strength.

If a battle is lost, it will immediately cause serious damage, and the military structure will have to be rebuilt.

Even Cao Cao was no exception.

Therefore, Liu Feng only regretted not having recruited enough talented people or not recruiting them quickly enough; he never worried about internal strife.

Moreover, most of the talents Liu Feng gathered were top-notch individuals, or those with kind and honest personalities, such as Zhuge Jin, Bu Zhi, Lu Su, Chen Deng, Chen Qun, Zhang Zhao, Zhang Hong, Chen Gui, Chen Jiao, Xu Xuan, Qin Song, and Chen Duan. While these people may not be considered completely selfless in history, they at least prioritized public interest over private interests, and none of them indulged in internal strife and disregarded the overall situation.

If we have to find someone with a strong tendency towards internal strife and who prioritizes personal interests over public duty, then Wei Jing is the only one, and Liu Ye might be considered half of that.

During Zhuge Liang's reign, the Shu Han state was rife with factions, including the Yuan Cong faction, the Jingzhou faction, the Dongzhou faction, the Yizhou local faction, and even the eunuch faction. Was the struggle fierce?

No, because Zhuge Liang mediated so well, this period was actually the smoothest and most stable period for the Shu Han regime.

On the contrary, after Zhuge Liang, who held absolute power, died, the local faction in Yizhou was completely desperate, and the forces of surrender began to rise.

The local Yizhou faction's thinking couldn't be simpler: since you've been suppressing us Yizhou people and treating us like dirt, then even if we Yizhou people surrender to Cao Wei, it won't be as bad as our current political treatment.

Then why shouldn't I vote?
Moreover, Xuzhou is currently experiencing a strong development momentum, not only in a period of growth, but also with a large number of job vacancies within the prefecture.

In Pengcheng alone, there were five county magistrates, five county assistants, five clerks, and five chief clerks. Not to mention that, apart from Guangling, one-third to one-half of the counties in each of the other three commanderies were affected by the disaster. When these counties were hit by the military disaster brought by Cao Cao, they didn't care whether you were a scholar, a powerful family, or a commoner.

Even scholars and powerful families would receive special treatment because of their large fortunes.

Cao Cao's army came to plunder wealth; they could rob scholars and powerful families far more than civilians.

Therefore, the local gentry and powerful families in Xuzhou also suffered a great blow; otherwise, it wouldn't have been so easy for Liu Feng to deal with the salt magnates.

Liu Feng had calculated that the current talent pool wasn't too large, but rather too small; it wasn't even enough to fill the county magistrate positions within Xuzhou. Not to mention that Pei State still had six counties whose magistrates and heads could be replaced at any time.

These people were powerless to resist Liu Bei's replacement, and even the local gentry of Pei State dared not resist too much at this time.

There are two reasons. First, Liu Bei's base of support is not the scholars of Yuzhou.

Secondly, Cao Zhoumu, the governor of Yanzhou next door, has already provided a perfect example.

Besides, the Xuzhou army will most likely march south to Yangzhou next year, which is a large prefecture with six commanderies and ninety-two counties. With insufficient talent to fill these key positions, are they all going to be left to the powerful clans and wealthy families of Yangzhou?
After that, will Yangzhou belong to Liu Bei, or to the local gentry and powerful families?
Even if Xuzhou only occupies one-third of Yangzhou in the end, it is still a very large piece of cake for Xuzhou, almost equal to two-fifths of Xuzhou's size. Even if we include a small number of scholars from Yuzhou and Qingzhou, they might not be able to digest it all even if they were stuffed.

Will this lead to internal strife and factional infighting?

This is a human being, not a cricket. They don't fight for factions; the essence of factions is to compete for interests.

Starting from the middle of next year, Liu Feng plans to transfer at least sixty people from Liu'er's camp to various places to serve as clerks, merit officers, and other positions.

Before the Rebellion of the Ten Attendants, these positions would have been filled by local gentry and powerful families; it would have been extremely difficult to parachute them in.

But now the world is in chaos, and because of Cao Yanzhou, many counties in Xuzhou are still under construction. These counties, which have just been completely destroyed, do not have local powerful clans.

After these clerks from Liu'er Camp have worked for a year or two, they will have gained practical experience and passed the imperial examinations. Once they have the qualifications, the best among them can be promoted to county magistrate or county head, while the next best can be promoted to chief clerk or merit officer, or transferred to a prefecture or kingdom.

Then, using these counties as a base, newcomers from Liu Bei's camp were continuously transferred to their original positions to take over, eventually forming an official group that depended on Liu Bei and his son, especially Liu Feng.

In this way, although it still cannot eliminate factional infighting, the ruler has the power to make final decisions and can effectively suppress the scale and intensity of internal strife.

Given Liu Bei's benevolent nature and considerable political ability, with a few years of study and Liu Feng's support and guidance, he would likely have done at least as well as Cao Cao. He might even have surpassed Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, Liu Biao, and others, standing out from the crowd.

After all, the feudal lords of this era were all quite incompetent; they not only couldn't fight, but they also couldn't farm.

Liu Feng didn't just look down on Cao Cao; he looked down on them all.

This wasn't because Liu Feng had become arrogant; rather, Cao Cao's land reclamation program was truly a complete disaster, a short-sighted and unsustainable endeavor. As a result, many of the land reclamation workers later fled, preferring to serve as servants to powerful clans rather than work for Cao Cao's regime.

Given such an extreme situation, did Cao Cao reflect on his actions?
Cao Cao's reflection was that since you are unwilling to establish civilian settlements, then I will establish military settlements.

They directly tied up civilian households and organized them into military settlements. Not only was the proportion of grain they had to hand over even more exaggerated, but they also had to conscript men from each household for every war. What was even more terrifying was that the entire family would no longer be civilian households, but would be transformed into military households, a status that would be passed down through generations, making them virtually indistinguishable from people of low social status.

The courage and bravery of the Han Dynasty thus completely succumbed, and the fierce spirit of the Han men disappeared.

After the reckless actions of the Wei and Jin dynasties, they conquered a vast territory, became the dominant force in the Central Plains, and forced foreign tribes to live in the harsh, cold mountains. Yet the Han people were labeled as ignorant of warfare and incompetent in battle. How tragic and lamentable this is!
The one who started this was Cao Cao.

Those who went even further were the aristocratic families of the Wei and Jin dynasties.

*****************
In early December, Guo Gong, the governor of Yu Province, recommended Yuan Tan as a talented scholar of Yu Province. Three days later, Liu Bei, the governor of Xu Province, recommended Yuan Tan as the governor of Qing Province.

Yuan Shao and his son Yuan Tan were overjoyed and sent Liu Bei a generous gift of gratitude, which included three thousand shi of grain, as well as various rare gifts such as furs from the north and ginseng from Youzhou.

This was also a deliberate attempt by the Yuan family to curry favor, knowing that Xuzhou had always been short of food.

Liu Bei was very grateful and treated the gift-giver to a grand reception.

As for Guo Gong, who actually stepped forward to recommend Yuan Tan, he also received a courtesy thank you from the Yuan family, since he was nominally Yuan Tan's recommender.

However, it was clear to everyone that Guo Gong had already submitted to Liu Bei, and the position of "Outstanding Talent" was originally intended for Liu Feng, requiring only a formality for Liu Feng to go through the motions in Yu Province. But Liu Feng felt that such an arrangement would not only be of no benefit but would also offend the scholars of Yu Province and damage his reputation, so he politely declined.

In addition, Liu Bei, as the governor of Xuzhou, actually wanted to recommend Zhuge Jin as a talented scholar.

When the news reached the Zhuge family, it immediately caused a great uproar among Zhuge Xuan and his brothers.

After receiving Liu Biao's personal letter, Zhuge Xuan felt at ease staying in Xuzhou.

Liu Biao asked him to find an opportunity to mediate between Xuzhou and Jingzhou, hoping to achieve a deeper alliance.

For Liu Biao, he was actually surrounded by enemies.

Liu Zhang to the west, the Liangzhou army to the north, Jiaozhi to the south, and Yuan Shu to the east.

In terms of strategic predicament, Liu Biao was not much better off than Yuan Shu; at most, his enemies did not have the same strong "ambition" as Yuan Shu's enemies.

The alliance between Liu Biao and Yuan Shao was actually very similar to that between Liu Bei and Yuan Shao.

They were all forced into alliances because they wanted to secure their positions.

Liu Biao formed an alliance with Yuan Shao to alleviate the pressure on Yuan Shu, who occupied the two commanderies of Nanyang and Zhangling and then expanded southward in an attempt to seize all of Jingzhou.

Liu Bei, lacking both prestige and strength, had no choice but to switch sides and join Yuan Shao's camp in exchange for Yuan Shao's endorsement of him based on his own prestige if he wanted to take the throne of Governor of Xu Province.

Of course, neither Liu Biao nor Liu Bei needed Yuan Shao's original support anymore, but the alliance was still maintained.

However, Liu Biao was very wary of his ally Cao Cao in the northeast, which made him feel isolated and helpless, and gave rise to the idea of ​​befriending Xuzhou.

From this perspective, Liu Biao's desire to form a deep alliance with Liu Bei was very sincere, but the premise was that he had to share the spoils in Yangzhou, or even have the lion's share while Xuzhou only got the soup.

Therefore, Zhuge Xuan, his trusted former official, close friend, and also from Xuzhou, who was highly regarded by Liu Bei, became a hot commodity.
“Uncle, I am unworthy of such a talented person.”

When Zhuge Jin heard that Liu Bei wanted to recommend him as a talented scholar, his first reaction was to refuse.

What merit or ability does he possess? Even Chen Deng, Liu Bei's most trusted advisor, did not have the title of Maocai. How could Zhuge Jin be worthy of it?
Although Chen Deng was no longer needed to take the imperial examinations because he had already entered officialdom, there were still many members of the Chen family who had not yet entered officialdom.

The Chen family is the foremost scholar family in Xuzhou today. Who else but the Chen family would dare to claim this title?
Zhuge Jin is cautious, steady, humble and virtuous by nature. How could he put his family in conflict with the top leader of Xuzhou for the sake of temporary fame?

Zhuge Xuan smiled broadly; he couldn't be more satisfied with his nephews.

The eldest son is loyal, diligent, and cautious; the second son is resourceful and prudent; and the youngest son, though still young, has good character and a promising future.

Zhuge Xuan himself had no children, so he treated his brothers and sisters as his own flesh and blood.

Historically, the legacy left by Zhuge Xuan through his life also led Liu Biao to treat the Zhuge brothers very well. Otherwise, relying solely on his intelligence, a second-rate aristocratic family from the north living in exile in Jingzhou would not have been able to marry the legitimate wife of the Huang family, a top aristocratic family in Jingzhou.

Liu Biao truly made a huge contribution to enabling the Zhuge Liang family to form marriage alliances with these four families: Cai, Kuai, Pang, and Huang.

"Ah Liang, what do you think?"

Instead of directly responding to Zhuge Jin's request, Zhuge Xuan inquired about Zhuge Liang.

In Zhuge Xuan's eyes, although Zhuge Liang was the second son, his vision, perspective, and ability all surpassed those of his eldest son, Zhuge Jin, to the point that even he, as the uncle, felt somewhat inferior.

(End of this chapter)