Wait, please don't call me Emperor Zhaolie

Chapter 18 A more chaotic era is coming

One of the young men pursed his lips and couldn't help asking, "I heard that the Lord of the Mansion will come in person to be our teacher and teach us martial arts. Is that true?"

Liu Bei smiled and nodded.

The teenagers and children immediately cheered.

This person is the disciple of the county governor. Even if Liu Bei is just a figurehead, he will never come again.

In the future, they can go out and proudly say that they are disciples of Lord Liu and have learned military tactics from him. Who in Qingzhou would dare to look down on them?

For this reason, I would rather stay here than be beaten by retired soldiers, and I would rather die in Pingyuan County.

I heard that many rangers wanted to establish a relationship with the Lord, and even tried their best to send their young sons in, but they failed.

There were many rumors in the county. One had to know how difficult it was to become a disciple of a prefect in the past. Only the children of wealthy families had to pay a large amount of money to have the chance to be accepted as a disciple.

Although Liu Bei was not a great Confucian scholar, he was still very attractive to the children of wealthy families.

Not only did he personally take charge of military affairs, he also held the power to dismiss officials. Most provincial governors did not have as much capital as him and were instead controlled by the gentry and wealthy families. Liu Biao of Jingzhou was a good example.

Being Liu Bei's disciple was a great feat for the wealthy families, and it was even more so for the common people who rarely left their hometowns.

He is a character in countless stories sung by knights.

Nowadays, Confucianism is popular and emphasizes Heaven, Earth, the Emperor, Parents and Teachers. If you were to become a master and disciple with Mr. Liu, it would be like smoke coming out of your ancestral graves. Your ancestors must have suffered for many generations to accumulate such good luck.

Liu Bei looked at the excited children and teenagers and felt a surge of pride in his heart.

They needed Liu Bei to change their fate, and Liu Bei also needed them to change the fate of the world's overturn to avoid hundreds of years of chaos in the future.

In a few years, when they grow up and become soldiers and officials deeply rooted at the grassroots level, Liu Bei's army will not be led by just anyone.

The retired soldiers watched with great interest and asked, "The Lord is so kind to the boy from the Qianshou family, what about our children?"

Liu Bei glanced at the soldiers and saw that he treated them very well. All those who had made contributions were given land, and except for their military service, they were exempted from corvée labor.

Those who had fought with Liu Bei on the battlefield became his followers, and they realized that these soldiers were just joking and making trouble.

Liu Bei then said, "Go away, go away, I need your help to raise your kid too, we can talk about it after you die."

The retired soldier did not hesitate to crawl out of the pile of dead bodies, but smiled and said, "Okay, since the Lord has said it, then it is a deal."

"When you come to my house, don't beat my son out with a stick."

"Get out of here! You guys died on the battlefield, so how can you die so easily after retiring?"

Liu Bei glared back and cursed angrily.

"Hahaha!"

"That's right. It's not my turn to fight, so it's not easy for me to die. It seems my son won't have the chance to be raised by the Lord."

Everyone laughed.

Liu Bei's soldiers had begun to show results, and their influence had gradually seeped into the countryside. Soldiers who had made meritorious services were selected and each was given 100 acres of land, which could be passed down to their descendants.

Taxes were collected as usual, but labor service was exempted.

In addition to financial rewards, soldiers can hire refugees to farm for them while they themselves can take time off from work for training. If they make more contributions, their children can go to the government to learn laws and become minor officials after graduation.

For ordinary soldiers, this kind of reward is enough to make them jealous. Even if they have to fight to the death, they must have a good outcome.

Besides, the lives of common people are worthless in the eyes of other officials. Since the Lord has been so kind to them, there is nothing wrong with selling their lives to him.

If you treat me as a scholar, I will repay you with a scholar.

Apart from the combat soldiers, the auxiliary soldiers also had their own land but could not be exempted from corvée labor, and their farming was only one-tenth of that of the combat soldiers. Therefore, many auxiliary soldiers wanted to be selected through training, and even joined the combat soldiers after making meritorious deeds on the battlefield.

Liu Bei's ability to carry out drastic reforms in Pingyuan and Jinan was inseparable from the chaos in Qingzhou.

Due to the rebellion of the Yellow Turbans, countless powerful people were in danger of losing their power and relied on soldiers more than usual. In addition, Liu Bei divided and won over people, and gave those who disobeyed a beating and then a treat, which enabled him to successfully implement these measures.

If it were in Xuzhou, any slight movement would probably provoke a counterattack from the gentry and powerful families.

Of course, Liu Bei’s measures were not limited to the people and soldiers.

The nobles around him all knew that Lord Liu did not care about the system of recommendation. He did not need anyone to recommend him for any position, nor did he need to be recommended as a filial and honest person or have a good family background before he could become an official.

As long as he joined the Ministry of Personnel, there would naturally be an assessment and promotion process, and he would be personally responsible for the assessment of officials.

This move broke the previous monopoly of officials from the aristocratic families recommending each other and then serving as officials in various places.

Many powerful families secretly hoped that Liu Bei could move up to a higher level, and they hoped to become a prefect with a salary of 2,000 stones under Liu Bei.

As for whether Liu Xuande would offend the gentry in the world by doing this, that was not within their consideration.

……

The next day, I got up early in the morning.

A letter arrived from Youzhou by express horse.

Liu Bei opened the letter and took a closer look. It turned out that his good friend Gongsun Zan learned that he had been promoted to the position of Prime Minister of Pingyuan and invited him to join him in conquering Jizhou.

The letter ambiguously revealed that there was an insider in Jizhou, and repeatedly emphasized that Jizhou was the richest province in the world, claiming that it could support a million soldiers and had enough food and fodder for ten years.

Han Fu was afraid of this God-given opportunity, and Pingyuan County borders Jizhou, Bohai, Hejian, and Ganling. The world is undergoing drastic changes, and if he does not seize it, he will regret it for the rest of his life.

Liu Bei had a complicated expression.

How could he not know about the wealth of Jizhou? When he donated the position of county magistrate, the price asked for by the Jizhou magistrate was twice as high as that of Gaotang.

He figured it out and realized that the combined wealth of his three brothers was not enough to buy an official position, so he gave up the idea of ​​becoming a county magistrate in Jizhou.

When I saw Gongsun Zan's letter at this moment, apart from feeling sad for his old friendship, I guessed that he had been deceived by Yuan Shao.

Yuan Benchu ​​simply used him to seize Han Fu's position as governor of Jizhou.

If it weren't for the time traveler's foresight, who would have thought that Yuan Shao, who had three generations of officials, would direct and act in his own drama and fool everyone.

Liu Bei took out paper and pen to write a letter to remind Gongsun Zan immediately, but he put the pen down on the desk halfway through.

Based on his understanding of Gongsun Zan, he probably only remembered him after the troops had gone out to fight. So Liu Xuande hurriedly asked a secretary to write a letter for him, which has only now been delivered to Pingyuan.

By the time his reply reached Gongsun Zan, Yuan Shao would probably have already succeeded.

Liu Bei pondered for a long time, and finally decided to pick up the pen, finish writing, stamp it, and ask a knight to deliver it.

After all, knowing is one thing, not saying it is another.

Gongsun Zan still remembered him when it came to dividing Jizhou, and Liu Bei also remembered their friendship as classmates.

In this case, he carefully analyzed his guess about who would gain the greatest benefit if he went south to attack Jizhou, and let Gongsun Zan think about it carefully.

Looking at the figure of the military officer disappearing outside the door, Liu Bei couldn't help but sigh that when Yuan Shao became the governor of Jizhou, his behavior of bullying his allies would also trigger internal strife among the coalition forces.

The campaign among the princes against Dong Zhuo was about to end, and a more chaotic era was finally approaching.

(End of this chapter)