My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 414: It is impossible to be demoted, so you can only find an excuse to promote someone in name only and demote him in reality
As the two major camps of Cao Cao and Liu Bei each carried out political operations around the event of "rebuilding the tomb of King Xiao of Liang after recapturing Xiaopei", the wheel of history quietly came to the end of November in the eighth year of Jian'an.

Around the time when Liu Bei's envoy arrived in Xiangyang, Cao Cao asked Guo Jia to write a letter back to Xu Du, instructing Xun Yu and others to submit a petition to remove Liu Bei from his official position, and the matter had begun to take shape.

After all, Cao Cao attached great importance to this matter, and Guo Jia's letter was also sent back to Xudu from Fuli at an urgent speed of 600 miles. After only three or four days of sending the letter and preparing, Xun Yu and other trusted officials who stayed in Xudu began to push forward the operation.

Xun Yu's final specific actions were further optimized compared to the plan that Cao Cao and Guo Jia discussed casually that day.

It is not known whether it was the work of the two Xuns or whether Jia Xu was also involved, but in any case, Cao Cao must have approved the final plan.

This is not surprising. Among Cao Cao's major advisers, Guo Jia was known for his unique strategies rather than political operations.

When it comes to handling internal affairs and grasping the political righteousness and justice, both Xuns are better than Guo Jia, and even Jia Xu is slightly better than him.

Finally, one day in late November, at a court meeting in Xudu, Xun Yu secretly asked the attendant Xi Lu to represent the court and submit the two memorials.

The content of the first memorial was about Liu Bei's "crimes". They found a few relatively deceptive excuses and demanded that Liu Bei be stripped of his position as General of Chariots and Cavalry.

The second memorial stated, "The current Zongbo is overwhelmed with affairs and cannot fulfill his duties. Please allow Your Majesty to transfer the former Zongbo Liu Ai to resume the position of Zongbo."

Liu Xie had not received any memorial from Cao Cao regarding Liu Bei for several years. He was a little surprised when he received it this time, and felt confused and uncertain.

He did not dare to express his opinion directly at the court meeting, so he said that the matter needed further discussion.

After the court meeting, Liu Xie summoned Xun Yu and Xi Lu to sound out the matter and find out who had the real intention.

Xun Yu and Xi Lu came to the Shiqu Pavilion, which served as the emperor's study. After the ceremony between the emperor and his subjects, Liu Xie asked Xun Yu how to deal with the matter.

Xun Yu: "The Shangshu and Zhongshu have their own duties. Your Majesty has made his own decision. How dare I interfere?"

Although the Han Dynasty used the system of three dukes and nine ministers and did not yet have the "three departments and six ministries" of the Sui and Tang dynasties, the prototype of the three departments and six ministries had already appeared.

The Shangshu Ling was the one who was in charge of the Shangshu in various fields below him, and the "Shangshu Tai" gradually evolved into the "Shangshu Sheng" of later generations.

The Shizhong was transformed from the "Zhongshu Ling" in the Western Han Dynasty (there was Zhongshu Ling in the Western Han Dynasty, but not in the Eastern Han Dynasty), and later gradually evolved into the "Zhongshu Sheng". It occupied a place in the three ministries of "Shangshu, Zhongshu, and Menxia".

Therefore, this "Shizhong Xi Lu" was, legally speaking, an important official of the same level as Xun Yu. The Shangshu and the Zhongshu each had their own responsibilities, and it was understandable that Xun Yu did not want to comment on Xi Lu's nominal memorial.

Although everyone knows that Xi Lu and Xun Yu both represent Cao Cao's opinion, Xi Lu is much less trusted by Cao Cao than Xun Yu. He is just a white glove who does dirty work.

In fact, Xi Lu was a student of Zheng Xuan, and was a fellow student of Cui Yan and others. His status in the academic world was very high. But among all the disciples of Zheng Xuan, Xi Lu's character was really despicable.

Historically, he did three things: First, he framed Kong Rong. Cao Cao wanted to kill Kong Rong but it was hard to find a crime, so he gave it to Xi Lu to fabricate the crime. Finally, Cao Cao pretended not to know the situation and "did not interfere with the law enforcement of officials."

In history, Kong Rong died in the 13th year of Jian'an, which was the eve of the complete destruction of the Yuan family and the southern expedition to Liu Biao. In this life, Kong Rong died a few years earlier, but it can be regarded as historical inertia, and the one who fabricated the crime was still this Xi Lu.

The second famous event of Xi Lu in history also happened in the same year as the plot to kill Kong Rong. Cao Cao wanted to abolish the Three Dukes system and appoint himself as prime minister, and he thought that the old minister Zhao Wen was an eyesore (Zhao Wen had been the minister before Emperor Xian returned to the east, and had a very long career)
Then Cao Cao set up a trap - Cao Pi was 21 years old that year and it was time for him to enter the government. However, according to the Han Dynasty system, the three officials were allowed to recommend talents in an exceptional way, so Cao Cao hinted to Zhao Wen to recommend Cao Pi as a talented person.

Zhao Wen did not dare to resist and obeyed. As a result, Cao Cao turned the tables and reported to the emperor that "Zhao Wen recommended Cao Pi not because Cao Pi was really talented, but because he wanted to please me."

As soon as Cao Cao finished playing the role of selfless, the attendant Xi Lu quickly took over, impeached Zhao Situ for selfish motives and dismissed him, thus clearing the way for Cao Cao to become prime minister.

Later, Xi Lu represented the emperor and enthroned Cao Cao as Duke of Wei. He also presided over the Fu Wan and Fu Shou cases and personally supervised the killing of Empress Fu's entire family. He was a good dog who did Cao Cao's dirty work.

……

Although only the first case in this series of cases has happened, Liu Xie is also a person of character.

When Liu Xie saw that even Xun Yu began to back off and only let Xi Lu come to make the comments, he knew clearly in his mind:
Cao's intention this time must be extremely dirty! Otherwise, Xun Yu would not be embarrassed to listen and would only push Xi Lu to the forefront!

But Liu Xie had no choice but to feel sad and patiently negotiate with Xi Lu - the soldiers in the palace were all left by Cao Cao and they all listened to Xi Lu. Liu Xie could not resist openly at all.

The emperor felt very aggrieved for having to do this.

Liu Xie cleared his throat and said tentatively, "I think there is still some room for discussion regarding Xi Qing's memorial... The prestige of the imperial court is not so strong now, so we can only use kindness to control the people and calm their hearts. If we use force and dismiss officials at will, we need to use military force to support it - otherwise, people from all over the country will treat the imperial edict as nothing, which will further undermine the majesty of the imperial court, right?"

Liu Xie tried his best to be as tactful as possible in order to avoid showing his direct favoritism towards his uncle. He did not say whether Liu Bei should be dismissed from his post or not, but only said that in the current situation, if the edict was beneficial to the foreign princes, then they would definitely obey it. As for the edict that was purely harmful to the foreign princes, they would refuse to obey it and find a lot of excuses, and it would be the court that would be embarrassed.

If Cao Cao wanted to dismiss Liu Bei, he had to first think about how to defeat Liu Bei on the battlefield. If he couldn't do it militarily, it would be useless to fight with words.

Liu Xie used a lot of thought to say this, and thought Xi Lu would refute him and find excuses to refuse by citing classics. He was still thinking about how to struggle further.

Who would have thought that Xi Lu would take advantage of the situation and partially adopt his suggestion:

"Your Majesty has a far-sighted vision and excellent insights, which have greatly inspired me. After thinking carefully about your Majesty's words, I suddenly felt that my remarks yesterday were indeed quite incomplete.

In this case, you can reject the proposal I made yesterday regarding the dismissal of foreign officials, and only discuss the remaining proposals for promotion and transfer. "

Liu Xie was stunned for a moment, and after a few tentative confirmations, he realized that Xi Lu had given up the request to "remove Liu Bei from the post of General of Chariots and Cavalry" and only insisted on requesting "letting Liu Ai come back to be the Minister of the Imperial Secretariat."

Liu Xie pondered for a moment and finally understood what they were going to do. He couldn't help but ask, "But as far as I know, if Liu Ai is to be reappointed as the Minister of the Imperial Clan, wouldn't that mean Liu Bei's position as the Minister of the Imperial Clan would be revoked? That would bring us back to the situation we were worried about before..."

Xi Lu interrupted, "I did not ask Your Majesty to dismiss Liu Bei from his post, but only to transfer him. Liu Bei has many responsibilities and is no longer able to manage the affairs of the Minister of the Imperial Household."

Liu Xie: "But I heard that Liu Bei is now very concerned about the affairs of the royal family. In Pei County, he once..."

Xi Lu: "Your Majesty! Your Majesty may have forgotten the court laws. I would like to remind your Majesty that the Zongbo is in charge of the affairs of the living royal family. Those former kings of the Han Dynasty who have passed away for a hundred years or even longer are not in the Zongbo's charge. Instead, they should be worshipped by the Taichangqing.

Taichang is in charge of rituals, music, and sacrifices, and is the head of the Nine Ministers. When Liu Bei was the Minister of the Imperial Clan, he promoted the previous Minister of the Imperial Clan, Liu Ai, to the position of Minister of the Imperial Clan. Now that Liu Bei is so busy that he doesn't care about the affairs of the living imperial clan members, but wants to care about the affairs of the imperial clan members who have been dead for hundreds of years, then let him be the Minister of the Imperial Clan, and let Liu Ai come back to be the Minister of the Imperial Clan, which is also the best use of people and reflects your majesty's favor to the foreign ministers. "

Liu Xie was left speechless by Xi Lu's carefully crafted words.

Indeed, the transfer of Zongbo to Taichang was theoretically a promotion rather than a demotion.

Although the Taichang had little actual power, it was nominally the head of the Nine Ministers. As the saying goes, "the most important affairs of the state are sacrifices and military affairs", the positions of the Ministry of Rites have always been noble since ancient times.

Moreover, this time Liu Bei had so many living relatives of the Han Dynasty to take care of their affairs, and after recovering the birthplace of Emperor Gaozu, he wanted to rebury King Xiao of Liang in Pei, who had been dead for hundreds of years.

Cao Cao's experts did their best to explore the potential and found an excuse to promote Liu Bei's Zong Bo to the position of Tai Chang Qing: Since you like to manage the affairs of the dead ancients, you will be in charge of the dead members of the royal family from now on. Please give up the power to manage the living members of the royal family.

Liu Xie struggled again, but Xi Lu had already shown his true colors. His gentle and easygoing attitude gradually disappeared, revealing his ferocious nature of not giving in.

In the end, Liu Xie had no choice but to follow Xi Lu's suggestion and issued an edict: rejecting the petition to remove Liu Bei from the post of General of Chariots and Cavalry, and reprimanding the person who submitted the petition. At the same time, considering Liu Bei's "personal interests", Liu Bei's Zong Bo was promoted to Tai Chang, and Tai Chang Liu Ai was allowed to return to the post of Zong Bo. This meant that after several years, the two exchanged their positions again.

After the edict went through the process, it was immediately issued to all parties without being mentioned.

Of course, although Cao Cao was very clever in this move, Liu Bei's advisers were definitely not weak either. In any case, Liu Bei's camp had to do this political propaganda, which was a big deal.

Even if Cao Cao issued an edict to transfer Liu Bei's Zong Bo to the position of Tai Chang, Liu Bei could still refuse to obey the edict - no one stipulated that the princes of the outer garrison could only say that the edict of demotion was "a forged edict that violated Your Majesty's original intention", and you could also say that the edict of promotion was a forged edict. Liu Bei's strategy was to not accept any edicts from then on, no matter whether they were good or bad.

Cao Cao's move was completely ineffective against Liu Bei, but it would be of some use to Liu Biao and Liu Zhang. If Liu Biao and Liu Zhang wanted to rebel against Liu Bei, then Cao Cao's edict would give them an excuse.

If in the future Liu Bei interferes in the internal affairs of Liu Biao and Liu Zhang under the banner of Zongbo, they will resist fiercely. At this time, they can take out this edict from Cao Cao and resist a little, saying that Liu Bei is no longer Zongbo and should not interfere in their family affairs.

To put it bluntly, at this moment, the final result was that Liu Bei and Cao Cao both forced all the princes with the surname Liu in the world to take clear sides.

When Dong Cheng sent the secret decree back then, some people were still playing dumb, neither admitting nor denying it, and trying to smooth things over.

There is absolutely no way I can continue to play the game of compromise this time. I must make my stance clear.

Both the pros and cons have been put on the table. You can believe whichever you want.

Anyway, humans only believe what they want to believe, and they believe whatever is beneficial to them.

No one can wake up a person who is pretending to be asleep.

(End of this chapter)