Three Kingdoms: I am not Liu Bian

Chapter 51 Xun Yu: Xun Shuang, you will regret it!
For three consecutive days, more than 48,000 Han troops were stationed in Yingchuan County.

The Crown Prince led the Crown Prince's Guards, the Three Schools of the Northern Army, the Yulin Left and Right Cavalry, and the Huben Guards, totaling more than 8,700 people, to station in Yangdi, the county seat. Huangfu Song led an army of 46,000 good men from Sanhe County to wipe out the Yellow Turban Army in Yingchuan County.

This arrangement did not mean that Liu Bian deliberately stagnated, and of course no one dared to accuse the prince of being cowardly. This decision was suggested by Huangfu Song.

Although many of these 40,000 good family men were veterans who had participated in the suppression of the Qiang Rebellion in Liangzhou in the past, they had not experienced war for many years and were inevitably unfamiliar with the battlefields. The new recruits were in urgent need of training.

Previously, the 3,000 Yellow Turban Army led by Huang Ping was easily wiped out, and the escaped bandits successfully informed Xiaoqushuai Huang Shao that the main force of the Han army had arrived.

As a result, all the leaders of the various factions, including the great leader Bo Cai, fled with the looted money and food and stationed in the Changsha area.

Only a few Yellow Turbans, eager for the chance to plunder, remained in the western part of Yingchuan County, each numbering no more than two to three thousand men.

Huangfu Song then regarded him as a training object for his soldiers, allowing the new soldiers to see blood and the old soldiers to regain their form.

Liu Bian did not pay much attention to the details of these wars. His current energy was mainly focused on the land issue in Yingchuan County.

In front of the butcher's knife, life is equal.

The Yellow Turban Army will not show mercy just because your ancestors were three dukes or generals, and many aristocratic families in Yingchuan County were slaughtered, so their land became ownerless.

Liu Bian immediately dispatched Chen Lin, Qian Zhao, Xun You, Guo Tu and others to supervise the county magistrates to register the unowned land.

In fact, Liu Bian also knew that such a rough investigation would not be able to find out how many "black lands" were not registered. After all, the precise land area needed to be carefully measured with tools. If it was done on a normal day, it could also be roughly measured by the number of steps taken while walking. However, it was during the Yellow Turban Rebellion, and each family was particularly wary of strangers wandering around their land.

However, a few days later, Liu Bian received reports from the embroidered uniform envoys from the western counties of Yingchuan County. Combining these reports, the results were shocking.

In the study, Liu Bian suddenly stood up and angrily threw the report to the ground with a loud "bang". He shouted angrily: "How audacious! How audacious! Do they still take the court seriously? Do they still take me seriously?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Liu Bian turned around and said to Xun Yu beside him with an angry look on his face: "Wen Ruo, take a look too!"

Xun Yu, who was standing by, walked slowly forward and picked up the report thrown on the ground by the prince. The more he read it, the more frightened he became. The information in the report also included the "black land" illegally occupied by their Xun family in Yingyin County. The hand holding the report could not help but tremble slightly.

From the perspective of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, the actions of the wealthy and powerful families are truly too arrogant.

Take the Li family of Xiangcheng as an example. The county government’s land register only records that they have 12 hectares of land eight miles east of the city. However, there are hundreds of hectares of land hidden in the north and south of the city that are not in the land register. If this is not “black land”, what else can it be?
Xiuyizhizhi often can easily find out such "black land" by asking local people about the ownership of the farmland.

Many families were involved in this investigation, including their Xun family, as well as famous families such as the Han, Chen, and Zhong families.

Xun Yu tightened his grip on the report, his fingertips turning pale from the strain, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead. But he still took a deep breath, mustered his courage, and stepped forward to offer his advice: "Your Highness, I beg you to calm down your wrath for a moment."

Liu Bian's eyes were dark, and he didn't hide the anger in them. He took a step forward, staring intently at Xun Yu and asked, "Is Wen Ruo trying to protect his fellow villagers and his family?"

Xun Yu's expression changed slightly, and a hint of panic flashed in his eyes, but he quickly calmed down and responded frankly: "No one is heartless. As a member of the clan, I naturally want to protect my family."

Xun Yu frankly admitted his selfish motives, but then he changed the subject, raised his head slightly, and looked at Liu Bian sincerely, "But why did Your Highness pardon the imprisoned traitors? Isn't it because you are worried that they will collude with the Yellow Turban rebels?"

"I implore Your Highness to emulate Guangwu and hold back your anger for now. We can settle all the accounts one by one later." "As for my selfish motive, it is to serve Your Highness and earn your forgiveness through merit. When I take control of the Xun family, I will certainly hand over all the illegally acquired land and pay the Xun family's unpaid land taxes for many years."

Liu Bian suddenly stood up, walked to Xun Yu, and asked a question in a serious tone.

"Wen Ruo, you want to take charge of the Xun family. Do you know what that means?"

Xun Yu bowed and saluted, then replied, "I know."

"But Lord Ciming, he is old."

"If the Xun family of Yingchuan can be favored by His Highness, then farming is nothing. Can it be more magnificent than the Emperor's grace?"

"Lord Ciming cannot distinguish between the important and the trivial, but my minister Xun Wenruo can!"

There was an unprecedented determination in Xun Yu's eyes, but when he thought about the past, his heart was still filled with pain and helplessness.

He was also an ambitious and aspiring man, but he could only watch as his father bore the bad reputation of being a eunuch who coveted power for Xun Shuang and married him to the daughter of the eunuch Tang Heng, thus ruining the future of both father and son.

It's funny to say that when he married Tang Heng's daughter, Tang Heng had already died of illness for more than ten years. How could he be greedy for power?
Could a dead person crawl out of the grave and recommend him to the emperor, or send a dream to the emperor?

If the prefect Yin Xiu had not appreciated his talent and appointed him as the chief clerk against all odds, he would probably have had no hope of a career in officialdom. But even so, he would have been at most a county magistrate in his lifetime. No one would be willing to promote a scholar who married the daughter of a eunuch.

Liu Bian patted Xun Yu's shoulder, a relieved smile on his face: "Wen Ruo, he is my future father-in-law. Don't speak like that in front of outsiders in the future."

He was quite satisfied with Xun Yu's answer. His anger just now was more to test Xun Yu's loyalty.

If Xun Yu answered that he didn't care about his family, he would only think that Xun Yu was hypocritical.

If Xun Yu answered that he cared but could not give him the answer he wanted, he would also feel disappointed.

Xun Yu's answer confirmed that the flash of resentment he caught in Xun Yu's eyes when he looked at Xun Shuang that day was not an illusion.

Liu Bian stretched and walked towards the door with a relaxed pace, but suddenly stopped, turned around and waved to Xun Yu.

Seeing that Xun Yu was much taller than him, he gestured for him to bend down, leaned on Xun Yu's shoulder, and whispered in a voice that only Xun Yu could hear: "I'll tell you a secret in a low voice. Actually, I don't like my future father-in-law either."

After saying this, Liu Bian walked out of the study as if nothing had happened, leaving Xun Yu alone to savor the moment.

Xun Yu frowned slightly, with a hint of confusion in his eyes.

He seemed to have realized something, yet also seemed confused and puzzled, but there was one thing he was very sure of.

That is……

Xun Shuang, you will regret it!
(End of this chapter)