I did it all for the Han Dynasty!

Chapter 189 Rebirth from the Fire
Liu Miao looked at Pang Tong with a half-smile.

Pang Tong felt uneasy under that gaze, as if he had been stripped naked and was standing in front of Liu Miao, leaving him somewhat at a loss.

Liu Miao rested his chin on his hand.

To be honest, Pang Tong was indeed quite different from what he had imagined.

Even if one is ugly, one should still be neither humble nor arrogant in order to be called "Young Phoenix" by someone like Sima Hui and to be on par with "Sleeping Dragon".

But the current Pang Tong seems completely out of place.

This is no phoenix at all; it's not even as good as a drenched chicken.

Liu Miao beckoned, and Pang Tong immediately came over.

"My lord! Please give me your orders!"

Liu Miao looked at Pang Tong seriously: "Shiyuan, do you think I should let you go back to Jingzhou?"

"not going back!"

Pang Tong immediately frowned: "I'd rather die than go back! My lord, you are wise and mighty, what would I do if I went back to Jingzhou?"

"Okay, then we won't go back!"

"There is a shortage of a magistrate in Kuaiji right now, so you should give it a try."

Pang Tong's expression hardened, but he quickly realized what he meant: "My lord! With my talents, how could I possibly be a county magistrate? Why don't you keep me in the army as a minor military officer?"

Liu Miao nodded slightly upon hearing this: "That's true."

"In that case, you may stay in the army."

Pang Tong nodded repeatedly, like a phoenix pecking at rice: "Yes!"

------

That night.

Huang Zhong was fast asleep when suddenly there was a rustling sound outside.

"who?"

"General Huang, it is I, Pang Tong!"

Huang Zhong didn't know what Pang Tong was doing here at this time. He and Pang Tong had never been related or acquainted; they were just from the same place in Jingzhou. What important matter could Pang Tong have to do with him?
Unexpectedly, Pang Tong then whispered, "General Huang! I have a secret letter here that Liu Biao brought for you! Would you like to take a look?"

"General Huang, Liu Jingzhou has treated you well, yet now you won't even bother to read his letters?"

Pang Tong kept urging him from outside, and Huang Zhong hesitated for a moment before letting Pang Tong into his tent.

"General Huang!"

When Pang Tong saw Huang Zhong, he immediately tore open his clothes.

"Speak your mind! Why are you taking your clothes off?"

"General Huang will know at a glance!"

After Pang Tong took off his clothes, he pulled hard, and Huang Zhong then discovered that the clothes were actually sewn with two layers!

Moreover, the craftsmanship was so exquisite that it's no wonder Taishi Ci and Zhang Hong didn't discover it.

"General Huang, this is a letter from Liu Jingzhou. Please take a look!"

Huang Zhong took the silk scroll that Pang Tong had sewn into his clothes and looked at Pang Tong with a complicated expression: "You came to Yuzhang, did you come to see me?"

"The main problem was persuading those mountain tribe leaders to do things, but we failed."

Pang Tong's eyes were now bright and alert; there was no trace of the sleazy air he had displayed these past few days.
Pang Tong lowered his voice: "General Huang, now that Liu Jingzhou is in danger, you really can't just stand by and watch him die!"

"Ever since the incident with Liu Pan, Liu Jingzhou has felt particularly guilty towards General Huang, so he brought back the general's family members in Nanyang and took good care of them."

"This is precisely the moment when General Huang returns to Jingzhou and reunites with them!"

"Moreover, you have always treated Liu Pan like your own son. He is currently near E County and can come down the river to meet you at any time!"

"Liu Jingzhou guarantees that as long as you return to Jingzhou, you will be treated with the utmost respect as a prefect with a salary of two thousand shi (a unit of grain)!"

Huang Zhong did not respond to Pang Tong, but instead used the dim light of the oil lamp to read Liu Biao's handwritten letter.

Nothing else was said; it was largely similar to what Pang Tong had said.

It was nothing more than adding some stories from the past between the two, and telling some things that only Liu Biao and Huang Zhong knew.

Huang Zhong silently put down the letter.

"Liu Jingzhou truly showed me great kindness and recognition."

"If it weren't for Liu Jingzhou, I'm afraid I would still be an old soldier in Nanyang, barely making ends meet with a meager salary."

Pang Tong was overjoyed upon hearing this!

"Yes!"

"General, you have already taken the blame for Liu Pan's mistakes, thus repaying the kindness of Liu Jingzhou! Now that you have returned to Jingzhou, you should be enjoying your retirement. How can you still be feeling frustrated and unfulfilled under Liu Miao?"

Huang Zhong looked at Pang Tong strangely: "What makes you think I'm frustrated and unfulfilled here with our lord?"

A bead of cold sweat suddenly trickled down Pang Tong's temple.

"Furthermore, Liu Jingzhou's letter, to put it nicely, is asking me to return to Jingzhou; to put it bluntly, isn't it asking me to betray my lord?"

Pang Tong felt a thorn in his side: "But General Huang's relatives are still in Jingzhou, aren't they?"

Huang Zhong shook his head again.

"When you reach my age, you'll understand that once your parents and uncles are buried, there will be no close relatives left in the clan, only unfamiliar faces. No one will recognize each other, so how can you talk about missing them?"

"As for my wife, she also died young and is buried in our hometown of Nanyang."

“My son Huang Xu died young and was buried in Changsha. But what you may not know is that my lord has helped me remarry and found me wives and concubines in Jiangdong, and three of them are already pregnant.”

With each sentence Huang Zhong spoke, Pang Tong's back became more soaked with sweat.

When it was mentioned that he already had offspring in Jiangdong, Pang Tong's eyes widened in disbelief, and he stood there dumbfounded.

"As I have said, Liu Jingzhou's kindness to me, though profound, has already been repaid."

"Now that I serve under my lord, how could I possibly betray him?" Huang Zhong, now fully armored, extended an invitation to Pang Tong.

"Do you want me to tie you up and take you to see the lord, or do you want to walk with me to see the lord?"

……

"Snapped!"

A slap.

Zhou Tai pointed at Pang Tong and cursed, "You ugly thing! You really didn't have any good intentions!"

The South Stone Islet was brightly lit.

Inside Liu Miao's tent, oil lamps were lit in abundance.

Huang Zhong led Pang Tong to kneel in the center, while Liu Miao held the letter from Liu Biao that Pang Tong had smuggled in for several days.

"First, use the Yue tribes to disrupt the situation, then persuade General Huang to seize the opportunity to rise up and join forces with Liu Pan to take Yuzhang?"

Liu Miao asked Pang Tong, "Whose strategy was this? Kuai Liang's? Kuai Yue's?"

Pang Tong shook his head: "No, those two brothers aren't that smart."

"It was on my own initiative that I asked Liu Jingzhou for this letter and sewed it onto my person as a backup plan."

"The results of it?"

"Let's smash it!"

At this moment, Pang Tong felt no fear of his plan being exposed, only a carefree attitude of accepting defeat.

"Bad luck."

Who could have imagined that at this crucial moment, Zhang Hong would fill the vacancy left by Hua Xin, and upon taking office, he would immediately take action against the powerful clans of Yuzhang, eventually tracing the clues back to Pang Tong.

Who could have imagined that Liu Miao would act so quickly towards Huang Zhong, without monitoring Huang Zhong's abilities or questioning his loyalty, directly entrusting him with important responsibilities, and even arranging for his child to be born?
Huang Zhong was neither a general with outstanding military achievements nor a famous scholar. Why did Liu Miao give Huang Zhong such treatment?
Therefore, when Pang Tong heard Huang Zhong say that he already had children in Jiangdong, he knew that his so-called ingenious plan was nothing but a dead end.

Liu Miao nodded, "It was indeed bad luck."

"That's why I never like taking risky moves and don't want to gamble with the lives of my soldiers."

Pang Tong said enviously, "Liu Biaoji was born into the Han imperial family, so naturally he doesn't know the hardships of someone like me."

"I am not from a powerful family. If I do not take risky measures, how can I win the position of filial and incorruptible official and become a noble minister?"

Liu Miao asked curiously, "The Pang family of Jingzhou, aren't they considered a powerful clan?"

"Compared to the Cai and Kuai families, they naturally don't count."

Pang Tong continued, “Military matters, for example, Liu Jingzhou would promote common soldiers like Wen Ping and Huang Zhong to serve as his right-hand men. But in internal affairs, the Kuai and Cai families never relinquish their power. Even someone like Yi Ji, who is from the same hometown as Liu Jingzhou, has difficulty wielding real power, let alone me.”

Liu Miao exclaimed in surprise, "Has Jingzhou become so isolated? Liu Biao can't even entrust important responsibilities to his own fellow townsman?"

Pang Tong: "Back then, Liu Bei entered Jingzhou alone, relying entirely on the Kuai and Cai families. The Buddhist teachings say: cause and effect, retribution. This must be the case."

Liu Miao truly hadn't expected that Jingzhou could be so completely isolated.

Yi Ji was Liu Biao's fellow townsman.

Pang Tong himself was a scholar from Jingzhou.

How come such a person can't even get into the decision-making circle in Jingzhou?
No, judging from what Pang Tong said, they wouldn't even be given a sip of soup, let alone the decision-making circle!

Liu Miao couldn't help but chuckle: "So you want to use me as your stepping stone?"

"Ugh."

At this moment, Pang Tong's smile finally carried a hint of bitterness.

"If I had known you were like this, General Liu, I would never have come to Jiangdong."

What do I look like?

"What kind of person would dare to confiscate the land of powerful clans and distribute it to the common people? They must be either a saint or a madman."

Pang Tong bluntly stated, "Fortunately, Jiangdong is remote."

"If you were to implement any kind of equal land distribution in the Central Plains or Hebei, you would probably be labeled as a remnant of the Taiping Dao and killed by other warlords!"

Liu Miao was extremely curious about this: "Why?"

"What else could it be? The things you did in Jiangdong, which seem to be the opposite of what the Taiping followers did, are actually exactly the same."

Pang Tong seemed to know he was going to die, and he dared to say anything.

"It's just that they only shout slogans and do nothing; while you, General Liu, only do things and don't just shout slogans!"

Pang Tong suddenly murmured, "Why does this seem so familiar? It's like back at the end of the Qin Dynasty, when Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, those two great wronged men, were shouting slogans, but Emperor Gaozu quietly finished the job?"

Liu Miao's eyelids twitched slightly.

This is the first time in history that someone has linked their actions to the Taiping Christians...

Liu Miao then changed the subject: "Is Jingzhou really as closed off as you say? But I've heard that Liu Jingzhou is not an incompetent person."

"So what if someone is incredibly talented?"

Pang Tong interrupted Liu Miao.

"Ever since he married Cai, his every move has been under her surveillance. He's such an old man; if he's still scheming against each other every day, he probably won't live much longer!"

At this moment, Pang Tong was truly blinded by rage!

They dare to say anything and comment on anything.

Such arrogance perhaps best matches Sima Hui's assessment of him.

Phoenix Chick.

Liu Miao finally chuckled when he saw Pang Tong.

You're about to die, have you hatched?

Does this mean that the phoenix chick must undergo a phoenix-like rebirth before it can become a true phoenix?

(End of this chapter)