My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 606: The True Power of Zhuge Liang's Manifesto

When Liu Zhang first saw Liu Bei's army's declaration of war, he felt disdainful and angry.

This was not only because Liu Bei declared war on him, but also because Liu Zhang himself subconsciously felt that the goal of starting a war advocated by the other party was absurd and ridiculous.

People like Wang Lei and Zheng Du were obviously loyal to Liu Zhang, and this was known to everyone in Yizhou. So how could they be considered "treacherous and pro-Cao" people who "puppets" Liu Zhang?

Being wary of Liu Bei is being wary of Liu Bei, and being pro-Cao is being pro-Cao, these are two completely different things.

Therefore, Liu Zhang thought that Liu Bei was exaggerating when criticizing, which would make it seem too fake. No one in Yizhou would believe such a lie, and the overly flattering descriptions in the manifesto would only have the opposite effect!
After reading the letter, Liu Zhang could not help but angrily ask Huang Quan, who delivered the letter, "Gong Heng, who do you think wrote this letter?
The outrageous words in the article actually say that there are people in my Yizhou Governor's Office who are pro-Cao and traitors. Aren't these words too absurd?

Who in the world would believe this? When our army and its military officers read this, they will surely unite as one and share the same hatred for the enemy, right? "

Huang Quan still had some brains. Facing his lord's questioning, he still analyzed it carefully and answered in a serious manner:
"This civilization was apparently written by Wang Can, but Wang Can was just a literary scholar in Jingzhou. The main points in it were definitely not something Wang Can could have thought of. Even if he had thought of it, he was not qualified to set the tone.

Therefore, in all likelihood, this article was written by Zhuge Jin. Zhuge Jin is a great sage in the world. Ten years ago, he was praised by Your Majesty for his wisdom and foresight. He is good at discussing the rise and fall of virtues and fortunes in ancient and modern times. Now he has been in power for many years and is the Minister of Education.

Zhuge Jin's words are definitely not random, they must be based on profound thoughts. The lord feels that what is said in the article is absurd... perhaps the lord does not understand the truth implicitly explained between the lines.

I suspect that Zhuge Jin's pre-war psychological strategy has not been exhausted, and there must be a backup plan. The vague and overly brief parts of this proclamation may be because the proclamation is sent to the people of the world, and it needs to be understandable to soldiers and civilians, and appreciated by both the refined and the popular.

Once the enemy invades and besieges the city, they will certainly not use such superficial rhetoric to persuade our military and civilian leaders to surrender..."

After Huang Quan's analysis, Liu Zhang's mood changed slightly from anger and disdain to tension.

Can these nonsense accusations really win people's hearts and influence the support of civil and military officials?
Liu Zhang couldn't help but ask with a guilty conscience: "I really don't understand... Please explain it in detail."

Liu Zhang was born into a royal family, so he was not very knowledgeable. It was not surprising that he could not understand the other party's argument.

Huang Quan pointed to two relatively obscure paragraphs in the manifesto and succinctly explained Zhuge Jin's intentions - at least that was what he guessed Zhuge Jin's intentions were.

“My Lord, you know that ten years ago, when Zhuge Jin was still a humble man, he went to Xudu to pay homage to the Emperor. He was favored by His Majesty and stayed in Shiqu Pavilion to lecture on the scriptures and ask about the transfer of virtue and fortune in the world.

Your Majesty highly appreciated him and thought that he had made a more comprehensive argument for why Han should rule the world.

Ten years have passed, and many learned people in the world have heard of Zhuge Jin's theory. Today I will only talk about one point, which is consistent with this article:
What was Zhuge Jin's reason for arguing that Qin Shi Huang was still immoral despite unifying the world? He drew on Mencius' words to King Hui of Liang, "How can the world be stabilized? It depends on unity. Who can unify it? Only those who do not love killing can unify it."

According to Zhuge Jin's explanation of Mencius' theory, the reason why unifying the world is virtuous is not because unification itself is virtuous, but because unification can bring stability to the world and prevent the people from wasting their lives and money on civil wars. Stability is virtue.

The reason why Qin had no moral integrity was that after the unification, it became even more ruthless in its levies and extortions. As a result, although there was no longer a civil war in the country, the burden on the people was even higher than before the civil war. It seemed that the unification was in vain.

Qin forgot that unification was only a means to stabilize the world, not an end in itself, and the people did not benefit from it, so "the land was divided when the First Emperor died."

Zhuge Jin further elaborated that whether one has virtue or not is determined by whether the people are truly benefited, so Mencius’s words, ‘The people are the most important, the country is second, and the monarch is the least important’, make sense…”

Liu Zhang was a little confused and interrupted him: "Gong Heng! Can you cut to the chase? Are these past discussions related to today's manifesto?"

Huang Quan quickly bowed his hands to apologize, and then tried to speed up his explanation and speaking:
"It does matter. I will briefly explain it to you - what do these two paragraphs in Zhuge Jin's manifesto say today? They are talking about the land of Yizhou. Since ancient times, 'the rest of the world is in chaos before Shu'. The reason for this is that Shu is isolated by mountains and rivers, making it easy to defend but difficult to attack.

If the world is in chaos and scattered, and Shu becomes an independent country, the local people will seem to be able to maintain fewer soldiers and pay less money and grain in the short term, and the burden on the people will be lower than when it was part of the world.

Therefore, when the empire was about to fall into chaos, a natural force that rebelled against the imperial court would repeatedly emerge in Shu. What they wanted was to secede and establish their own independent regime, so that "Shu people would only serve Shu people as soldiers, and Shu people's money and food would only be spent by Shu people themselves."

These people may claim to be loyal to the lords of Shu, but in essence they are betraying the imperial court at the cost of dividing the world. Moreover, the benefits they promised to "reduce the burden on the people" are only temporary.

This is because as long as Shu is independent, it will inevitably lead to military confrontation between the world inside and outside Shu in the long run. At that time, the princes of Shu will have to support countless armies to protect themselves, and the burden on the people will continue to increase. The cost of maintaining an army will eventually far exceed the cost of "not having to pay tribute to the central court."

Therefore, in Zhuge Jin's words, the trend of Shu's independence is not only a rebellion against the Han Dynasty and a treason, but in the long run, it is also harmful to the people... Of course, this is just Zhuge Jin's words, which does not mean that his subordinates will believe these fallacies.

However, in wartime, we should be lenient with the enemy. Just because I do not believe it does not mean that we should not be on guard against Zhuge Jin using this to spread propaganda, giving the frontline cities a way out and giving them an excuse to surrender when they are not doing well in battle..."

Huang Quan roughly explained to Liu Zhang the reasons in the manifesto about why Shu could not benefit the people in the long run if it lived a simple life behind closed doors, and why unification with the outside world would be most beneficial to the people. Liu Zhang was still a little confused, but he understood it more or less.

He couldn't help but break into a sweat. He didn't expect that Huang Quan was smart enough to interpret such profound things from just two short paragraphs.

This does require strength, because Wang Can's article requires "appreciation by both the refined and the popular", not a political essay, and many things are just slogans without arguments. Huang Quan himself has some knowledge, knows himself and the enemy, and has read the works of the enemy, so he can interpret these things.

After Huang Quan's interpretation, Liu Zhang finally realized Zhuge Jin's sinister intentions: Zhuge Jin certainly knew that it would be impossible to persuade the generals under Liu Zhang's army to surrender by relying solely on drama.

But what if civil and military forces are combined? If the military attack is going well, the defenders are exhausted and feel that they have no chance. At this time, they originally relied on their loyalty and courage to hold on.

But if Zhuge Jin's literary drama gave them just the right way to back down, making them realize that "it turns out that surrendering at this time will not be shameful, and history books will not say they are traitors", then would the probability of these wavering people or fence-sitters surrendering increase?

This is why Cao Cao said when he saw Chen Lin's proclamation of war before the Battle of Guandu, "If one has literary skills, he must use military strategy to support them. Although Chen Lin is good at literary skills, he is not as good as Yuan Shao in military strategy!"

The greatest purpose of the manifesto is not to directly persuade people to surrender, which is impossible.

However, it can have the effect of catalyzing the enemy to take advantage of the situation when one side has a military advantage.

However, during the Battle of Guandu, Yuan Shao did not gain a military advantage, and it did not reach the point of being "the last straw that broke the camel's back" for Cao's civil and military officials, so Chen Lin's manifesto did not have much effect.

At least for now, Zhuge Jin has planted a seed in the circle of resistance through the manifesto: there are many "local protectionist" elements in Shu, as well as many people with separatist tendencies. They all win the hearts of the people under the guise of reducing the burden on the local people in the short term, but in fact in the long run they increase the burden on the people and harm the people of Shu.

(Note: To clarify, what is said here is that the regime in Shu that is intent on separatism does not have the virtue of "reducing the burden on the whole world", because as long as the separatism lasts for a long time, both sides will inevitably strengthen their armaments, and in the end the burden on the people of both sides will increase and they will suffer.

However, historically, the Han Dynasty under Zhuge Liang was certainly just and virtuous, because Zhuge Liang always proposed the slogan of the Northern Expedition and put it into practice. He did not intend to maintain a long-term separatist stalemate, but wanted to reunify the world, and he believed throughout his life that he had a chance to do so.)
At the end of the manifesto, Zhuge Jin was able to label people like Wang Lei and Zheng Du as treacherous and "loyal in appearance but treacherous" based on this logical reasoning.

Because Zhuge Jin knew very well that people like Wang Lei were undoubtedly loyal to Liu Zhang - in history, Wang Lei was not afraid of death in order to oppose Liu Zhang's invitation to Liu Bei to enter Sichuan. If you directly said that he was not loyal to Liu Zhang, no one would believe it.

However, Zhuge Jin could also sharply point out that these people were loyal to Liu Zhang not because of loyalty, but because Liu Zhang could represent the interests of their family and small groups.

Wang Lei and others undoubtedly supported the "local protectionism of Sichuan". What they pursued was to live behind closed doors, not paying money to the court or serving as soldiers for the court, spending local money locally, and not taking a penny out of Sichuan.

Wang Lei had no loyalty to the Han Dynasty, and had no intention of contributing money or effort to the reunification and stability of the Han Dynasty.

Those in Shu who seek to live their own lives behind closed doors actually have this mentality.

If Zhuge Jin wanted to occupy the moral high ground, he had to break through this layer and then launch a large-scale offensive to persuade the enemy to surrender.

He must first solve the problem of "loyalty to Liu Zhang does not equal loyalty" and break down the other party's psychological defenses.

Moreover, from Zhuge Jin's perspective, this deal is definitely not a loss.

Because he knew that no matter how many people he could persuade by breaking down this psychological defense line later, at least at the beginning, he could persuade three important civil and military officials to surrender - but the enemy on the opposite side did not know this.

……

Liu Zhang was so frightened by Huang Quan's thorough explanation that he was somewhat shaken.

He hurried to the side of the map and examined it carefully: "I didn't expect that a manifesto could hide so many sinister intentions. I heard that... the enemy troops from Zitong have already approached the outskirts of Fucheng and started to build a siege camp, preparing for a strong attack?
The enemy troops in Jiangzhou have also crossed the river and headed south, surrounding General Yan in Jiangzhou City? General Yan, Xiaozhi, and Ziqiao should not be deceived by Zhuge Jin's sweet words, right? "

Faced with this question, how could Huang Quan dare to answer: "These are all loyal and righteous people. I dare not speculate rashly.

However, Zhuge Jin's ability to confuse right and wrong is unmatched in ancient and modern times. He is good at twisting loyalty and treachery, making loyal people doubt their loyalty and making cunning people mistakenly believe that they are actually loyal. Now, our army can only defend one step at a time, first consume the enemy's spirit, and then wait and see what happens.

If the enemy fails to achieve a clear military breakthrough, then even if there is incitement, it may not be effective. Cao Cao once said, "Those who have civil affairs must be supported by military strategies." Now it depends on whether Liu Bei's military strategies of the two armies are worthy of supporting Zhuge Jin's civil affairs. "

(End of this chapter)