My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 312 The secret that cannot be told
After listening to Zhuge Jin's description of the various benefits of completely resolving the worries in the south, Liu Bei was not too opposed to this plan.

But Zhuge Jin only solved one of the many questions Liu Bei had just raised: "During the period when we are not at full war with Cao Cao, are there any other breakthrough directions to expand our own power?"

There are still a lot of details about Liu Bei that need to be sorted out by Zhuge Jin.

Zhuge Jin continued to talk: "Then, let's see if supporting Yuan Tan alone is enough to contain Cao Cao? Can it prevent the defeat of Yuan Tan's army and help the enemy?
I think the key here is that our army should send liaison messengers to supervise the use of aid weapons.

If Yuan Tan uses everything according to our requirements, keeps clear accounts, and is eager to fight, we will continue to provide him with small amounts and multiple times. Once Yuan Tan is slack or steals from his employees, we can collect our assistance.

This may be difficult to do at first, as Yuan Tan will want to maintain more autonomy. We may have to give more benefits and less supervision for the first and second batches of supplies. But as his situation worsens, he will have to get closer to us, and then we will naturally intensify supervision.

From this perspective, before we directly sent troops to Hebei, we did not fail to gain territorial and population benefits in the north. In fact, we were gradually advancing the puppet Yuan Tan. Yuan Tan was unwilling to completely become a vassal of the lord, just because he was not miserable enough.

As long as Cao Cao's pressure on him increases, Yuan Tan will sooner or later become a vassal of the lord with his land. The Yuan family is our ally in fighting against the thieves, and we cannot attack our allies directly. Only when we help our allies and let them get deeper and deeper into trouble, and finally have to surrender, can we protect the righteousness of the lord.

Therefore, Yuan Shao had no choice but to die at the hands of Cao Cao. If Cao Cao had not done this, it would have been difficult for us to deal with him in the future. With Cao Cao helping us to be the bad guy, why not do it?

Moreover, if Yuan Tan is really in danger, part of our troops can accept Yuan Tan's invitation and enter Qingzhou or even Youzhou, and serve as Yuan Tan's friendly forces, fighting Cao Cao under the banner of the Yuan family.

Even if that day really comes and Cao Cao knows all this, he will pretend not to know, because Cao Cao does not want to openly engage in a full-scale war with us before Yuan Shang, at least the Yuan family, dies. If he can delay it for another day, Cao Cao will turn a blind eye.

Cao Cao knew very well that a full-scale war between our army and Cao's army would not benefit either of us, but would give Yuan, Ma, Liu Biao and Liu Zhang some breathing time. As long as our army and Cao Cao did not go to full-scale war, both of us could focus less energy on each other, and each of us could find some excuses to pick on other soft persimmons behind us.

Once either side has no more worries and no more soft persimmons to exploit, it is time for an all-out war. We and Cao Cao will not exploit all the soft persimmons behind us at the same time. Whoever exploits all the soft persimmons first will not be afraid of an all-out war. "

One thing must be made clear, that is, Zhuge Jin never said not to let Liu Bei directly attack Cao Cao with force, he just wanted to control the intensity and find excuses to let teammates bear more damage and hatred.

If you can fight a proxy war, do it first, which is good for both sides. Liu Bei's troops can participate in the war in the form of "voluntary" or "hired", and the specific situation can be determined at that time.

Many of the two superpowers competing for hegemony in the 20th century did the same thing. From the Middle East to Eastern Europe to the Peninsula, the bigwigs avoided personally taking action in an official capacity and tried their best to find white glove agents.

In this way, when the situation becomes unfavorable in the future, or when we encounter some other unexpected events and have to temporarily reduce the intensity of the confrontation, the boss himself will not lose face, but the white gloves will lose face, so they will not fight to the death and cannot stop.

At the same time, it ensures that the ones who suffer the most bloodshed and casualties are always the white-gloved friendly forces in front, as they bear the most damage.

In this way, we can control Qingzhou and even part of Youzhou in the end, and it will be decent. Why not do it?
In history, when Yuan Tan could no longer hold on, he briefly surrendered to Cao Cao, but later changed his mind. The psychological barriers and resistance for him to temporarily surrender to Liu Bei are probably much smaller than those for surrendering to Cao.

Moreover, if he were controlled by Liu Bei in this life, Liu Bei would have plenty of ways to prevent him from repeating his mistakes.

In other words, even if Yuan Tan eventually found out that he was about to be sidelined and wanted to revolt, by then people like Guo Tu, Xin Ping, Xin Pi, Wang Xiu, and Guan Tong might not necessarily follow Yuan Tan in revolt.

Zhuge Jin believed that Liu Bei's personal charm and ability to win over people should be stronger than Cao Cao's.

If he could slowly win over the hearts of these people in the process of using his puppet to marginalize Yuan Tan, Yuan Tan would eventually be left alone. What else could he do to fight back?
Of course, among these people, Guo Tu seems to have a slightly bad character... But it must be said that the more flattering a person is, the easier it is to use him. Everyone has his own use, and Guo Tu can adapt to the situation later on as he wants to use them. There is no need to reject people from the beginning.

Zhuge Jin never advised Liu Bei to leave Hebei alone and allow Cao Cao to annex Hebei. The most he could say was "allow Cao Cao to capture Yecheng and take over other areas of Jizhou except Bohai County, as well as Bingzhou."

But Zhuge Jin tried to find a way to preserve the entire Qingzhou and most of Youzhou for Liu Bei, and he did so through the puppet Yuan Tan. This never changed.

Eventually, Liu Bei will own the entire south and east, and fight against Cao Cao in the northwest - don't understand that Liu Bei only has the south, no, he also has the east, all the way to as north as Youzhou. As long as it is east enough, as long as it is along the coast, Liu Bei will go to hold on and give full play to the shipping advantages of his camp.

In this situation, it is necessary to let Cao Cao completely control the part of Jizhou except Bohai, and in a few years, Bingzhou will also be controlled by Cao Cao.

Because if Cao Cao failed to capture Ye City and most of Jizhou, then his pressure on Yuan Tan would not be great enough, and Yuan Tan would have no need to surrender to Liu Bei.

Yuan Tan could live well on his own, so why did he join Liu Bei? He joined Liu Bei because he couldn't survive on his own. To win over an ally, you must go through this process, otherwise you will ruin your reputation and become the one who actively backstabs your ally. Liu Bei in this time and space would not do such a thing.

Even more, if Liu Bei did not listen to Zhuge Jin, but chose to directly march north to attack Cao Cao in his own name at this time, it would also lead to the failure of the puppet's forced surrender of Yuan Tan.

When Liu Bei launched a full-scale northern expedition, Cao Cao would definitely withdraw heavy troops to fight Liu Bei. If Yuan Tan's situation was not so critical by then, how could he be willing to be a puppet? Yuan Tan had to bear the damage himself, and he would eventually "prefer to be with Uncle Liu, not with the thief Cao" because he could not bear it.

In addition, Zhuge Jin knew that historically Gongsun Du would die in 204. Liu Bei would destroy Sun Ce in 201 and could attack Shi Xie in 202. After that, when he was reinforcing Yuan Tan, he would have to maintain a certain number of troops in the Qing and You battlefields, even if they were under the banner of "Yuan family reinforcements" and Yuan Tan would supply them with food and grass.

Given Cao Cao's current situation, if he fails to defeat Yuan Tan, he is very likely to persuade Gongsun Du to join forces. Cao Cao has the name of the court in his hands. As long as he grants Gongsun Du an official position and makes a promise, Gongsun Du may not be afraid to accept Cao Cao's official position, relying on the 400-mile wasteland of the Liaoxi Corridor.

As long as they accept it, Liu Bei's army can just pick grass and kill rabbits nearby when assisting Yuan Tan, and they can also take advantage of the unstable opportunity when Gongsun Kang takes over after Gongsun Du's death to attack him.

This did not affect the progress of the Northern Expedition, because there was no need to specially dispatch troops from a long distance, and the enemies were all close at hand.

For ordinary princes, even if they occupied Qingzhou or Liaoxi, it could not be said that Liaodong was within reach, because they had to travel by land and face the 400-mile barren Liaoxi Corridor and the Liaoze in the Liaohe River basin.

But for Liu Bei who was traveling by sea, Liaodong would indeed be close at hand, and he had ships that could sail directly into the Liaohe River and land.

These are all later stories. There are more variables in the follow-up, so there is no need to elaborate for now, and Zhuge Jin does not intend to tell them all.

……

Zhuge Jin explained the two strategies of "sending a strong delegation to supervise the use of military aid" and "when the time is right, let our army enter under the banner of Yuan's reinforcements, while maintaining our army's independent command system to ensure that Yuan Tan cannot interfere with the command of this army" to Liu Bei.

Liu Bei's problems were finally completely solved, and he suddenly felt enlightened.

Zhuge Liang finally realized what the difference was between himself and his elder brother when answering the following questions.

Zhuge Liang's original view was a little more radical than Zhuge Jin's. He also suggested using some troops against Qingzhou and Youzhou, but he did not expect Zhuge Jin's idea of "proxy war".

This cannot be blamed on him. After all, people in the Han Dynasty and earlier times were very concerned about legitimacy. There was no concept of "proxy war" before. No matter how smart Zhuge Liang was, he could not imagine something that did not exist before.

Zhuge Liang was indeed a man of extraordinary intelligence, and he understood everything immediately. After Zhuge Jin pointed it out, he understood it instantly, and then he could draw inferences about other things.

In comparison, Pang Tong also understood these principles, but his previous advice to Liu Bei was more "pragmatic" and a little less shameless. For example, a few months before, Pang Tong had advised Liu Bei that "if Yuan Tan is in trouble in the future, you can take the opportunity to stab him in the back and seize Yuan Tan's territory."

This move is obviously exactly the same as the one in history where Pang Tong taught Liu Bei to ignore the alliance and stab Liu Zhang in the back to directly capture Chengdu.

In history, Liu Bei knew that this was too unjust, so he chose the middle strategy among the three strategies. He would rather lose the initiative and wait for Liu Zhang to turn against him first. Later, Liu Zhang did kill Zhang Song, seal the pass and expel Liu Bei. If Liu Bei had taken action at that time, the process of taking over Sichuan would have been much more difficult, but the degree of injustice would have been much less than Pang Tong's best strategy.

In this life, Pang Tong advised Liu Bei to stab Yuan Tan in the back and seize Qingzhou, but of course Liu Bei rejected it.

He felt that Yuan Tan treated him as his uncle, and it would be shameless to stab his nephew in the back. It would be better to wait until Yuan Tan could no longer hold on, was forced into a corner, and took the initiative to ask for it and offer it with both hands.

Even if the cost is a little higher.

After comparing and verifying all these issues, Liu Bei finally felt at ease.

Anyway, the northern front needs Yuan Tan to withstand the pressure and force him into a puppet, so everything won't be delayed.

(End of this chapter)