Wait, please don't call me Emperor Zhaolie

Chapter 317 Gongsun Zan Returns

On May 20th, a message came from Wei County that Guan Yu and Lu Bu had captured Ye City and killed Wen Chou.

He then led his troops to Handan, Zhao's territory, and Liangqi County surrendered without a fight.

If Handan were lost, the remaining counties of Zhao would no longer be a concern.

Such good news made Liu Bei happy. As for the letters written by those nobles, he didn't care much about them. Now Bohai County, Wei County, Ganling State, Anping County, and half of Hejian State were in his hands.

Even if the powerful people who were forced to farm wanted to rely on their troops to capture the county town, it was wishful thinking. Without arsenals in various places to arm their troops and servants, what could they use to fight against them?

All the soldiers and servants collected from various places were dispersed and dispatched to Qingzhou, Yanzhou, and even to Yuzhou to fill the population gap in the Central Plains.

As for the remaining places like Changshan State, Zhongshan State, Zhao State, Julu County, etc., not to mention whether many officials can work together, it is even more difficult for the wealthy and the gentry to unite. Although they seem to be aggressive, in fact, each family has its own ulterior motives.

You only need to devise a strategy and attack them separately, which can make the enemy lose his mind and rebel in the middle of the battle.

It was promised that those who surrendered first could retain 300 troops, and would be rewarded if they killed the enemy, but there would be no pardon for those who surrendered later.

There are still many smart people in the world who can see the disadvantages of the local powerful families. When the troops are scattered, they are weak, and when they are gathered, they are strong.

No one could stand up and coordinate the efforts. Although there seemed to be a large number of people, in fact, each of them was fighting on their own. They were just a pile of loose sand, and when the wind blew, the sand would fly everywhere.

Liu Bei specially took time out of his spare time to hold a banquet to entertain the wealthy families who had voluntarily surrendered to him, and asked each of them to leave 300 soldiers behind. After they followed the army to fight, they would be returned to their respective clans, and the previous land taxes no longer needed to be paid. This surprised the wealthy families of Hejian who were ready to cut off their territory.

Unexpectedly, this was not the end. The King of Han then said solemnly: "Anyone who helps to suppress the rebellion and reports the rebellion will be rewarded for military merit. If the merit is too great, he will not lose the title of Marquis of Guannei in the future."

This undoubtedly made everyone happy. With the decline of the Han Dynasty, the status of the marquis had also declined a lot. According to the strength of the King of Han, the title that had been purchased before would inevitably be abolished.

I have heard that the King of Han has reduced the money and grain taxes on the princes of various counties, and I am afraid that he will depose more princes.

In that world, besides the Emperor Liu, the most honorable person is the Marquis…

What's more, rewards for military merit mean that the land, the farmland that was handed over under duress, can be returned to one's hands as long as one has made military achievements. In the process, all one has to do is fight to the death with his troops.

They can sit back and enjoy the results at home, so why not?

The five clan leaders and patriarchs of the Liu, Shu, Dongxiang, Zhang and Xing families looked at each other and were secretly delighted, but could not express it due to the occasion.

The previous disagreements suddenly disappeared, and with tears in his eyes, he stood up and bowed deeply to the King of Han: "Your Majesty, you are like a dragon and a tiger. When faced with storms, you rise up quickly and defeat the many with a small number. You are always victorious. You offer generous rewards and sweet baits to gather people. You win them over with kindness, so the people are happy to follow you. How dare we not serve you?"

Knowing that the King of Han was so generous to surrender, they had come early and perhaps they could have taken credit for the attack on Guangchuan County.

The head of the Togo clan was still sighing in his heart. The Yuan clan surrendered too quickly. It would have been much better if they had waited a few days for them to bring their troops to attack the city before surrendering.

"Yuan Shang, you are the son of Lord Yuan, but you surrendered without integrity. Why don't you fight for a few more days and let the world know the Yuan family's stubbornness..."

Several clan leaders could not help but feel angry at the lack of fighting spirit, and repeatedly lamented that the Yuan family no longer had any courage.

The Yuan family who stayed in Luoyang would rather be killed by Dong Zhuo than bow to the thief Dong. Why can't you learn something? They had the opportunity to make merit, but now it's gone. This made many clan leaders want to beat their chests and stamp their feet, and they couldn't help but feel even more distressed towards Yuan Shang.

Liu Bei was sitting in the hall, and seeing the different expressions of the leaders of the powerful families, he immediately knew what was going on.

His consistent approach to dealing with the powerful and samurai families was to divide and disintegrate them and defeat them one by one, in order to prevent the local powerful and samurai families from forming groups.

Now he is stationed in Xindu and has assigned his generals and captains to first stabilize Anping County, then capture the remaining six counties of Hejian State, and then recover Julu and Zhongshan, leaving Changshan for last.

If there really is a strong man who can lead his troops to defeat the Han army under his command, then he will go there personally to defeat the bandits.

Just as Liu Bei was setting up a banquet for the wealthy and powerful, footsteps were heard outside the hall. Zhuge Jin, who had been transferred to accompany the army, walked quickly in, bowed and apologized to the clan leaders, then handed a scroll of documents to the King of Han and said a few words in a low voice with his head down.

Liu Bei couldn't help showing some joy, and immediately waved his hand and said: "Ziyu, please invite Mr. Tian in. When I bought horses from Youzhou, it was thanks to Mr. Tian's transportation and careful care. Otherwise, I don't know how many horses would have died along the way. We are really old friends."

Dian Wei turned sideways and said, "Lord Dian, have someone set up a table and bring in seats not far from my hall."

Then he looked up and smiled at the leaders of the Liu, Shu, Dongxiang, Zhang and other powerful families, and explained: "You may not know that the person who came is an old friend of mine. He came all the way from Bohai to Ganling to pay a visit to me. I have not heard from you for a long time, so I was a little excited. I hope you will forgive me."

"How dare we! How dare we!! Why would we mind? A banquet must have more people to make it more lively. This gentleman came at the right time!"

"Since you are an old friend of the king and you came from Bohai, perhaps we have known each other before. It can be said that it is fate that we meet now. Please come in and meet us."

"Your Majesty, may I ask this gentleman's name? Zhang has lived in Hejian for many years, and he is familiar with everyone in the neighboring counties. Perhaps he is also an old friend of ours."

When the clan leaders of Liu, Shu and Zhang heard this, they all beamed with joy, raised their eyebrows and clasped their hands together, expressing their joy without any resentment.

They only vaguely heard something about buying horses for transportation, but did not hear the rest clearly. They also did not expect that the so-called old friend of the King of Han actually came from Youzhou and still greeted him warmly.

After hearing this, Liu Bei looked quite strange. He wanted to explain, but since the gentlemen in Hejian didn't mind, he would not mind either. So he smiled and said, "That's great. I will introduce him to you. The person who came is Tian Kai, an official under Gongsun Bogui of Youzhou."

Before Liu Bei finished speaking, everyone at the table gasped.

"What? The person who came is an official under Gongsun Zan's jurisdiction?"

"Is Gongsun Bogui coming back again?"

Mr. Shu and Mr. Dongxiang were even more shocked and blurted out what they were thinking.

When Gongsun Zan attacked Jizhou, the two families rewarded his troops with food and fodder and surrendered. However, they did not expect that the Gongsun family was vulnerable.

As a result, the two families suffered from Yuan Benchu ​​using this as an excuse to arbitrarily levy money, food, cloth, and fine silk whenever he attacked Youzhou. In just a few years, the family's century-long savings were consumed.

It can be said that apart from Yuan Shao, the person they hated the most was Gongsun Zan, who plundered their money but still could not defeat Yuan Benchu.

(End of this chapter)