Brother, stop curling up! You're curling up like the founder of the Han Dynasty!

Chapter 244 Yuan Shao's defenses are breached, Liu Bei's plan to lure the enemy succeeds (Seeking subscriptions and monthly votes)
The Han army camp.

Upon learning that Yuan Shao had divided his troops and set up camp outside the city, Liu Bei's smile grew even brighter: "Yuan Shao finally couldn't resist. Once his troops leave the city, it won't be easy for them to return."

The hardest part of anything is starting from zero; once you get there the first time, you can do it countless times.

Once you take the first step, no matter how many difficulties or obstacles lie ahead, you will try to struggle to survive and will not be willing to retreat.

This is human nature!
Zhang Fei rubbed his hands together excitedly and volunteered, "Brother, I am willing to lead the troops to attack the stronghold! We will surely break through the enemy's stronghold within three days!"

Last night, Han Meng and his men raided the camp, and they happened to reach the gate of Zhao Yun's camp, which led to Zhao Yun's great victory. He even fought three opponents single-handedly, which made Zhang Fei extremely envious.

If Han Meng had changed direction, he would have attacked Zhang Fei's camp gate instead, and the great victory over the rebels, where he single-handedly defeated three of them, would have belonged to Zhang Fei, not Zhao Yun.

Envious of Zhao Yun's great achievements, Zhang Fei couldn't wait to volunteer for battle.

Although they are close sworn brothers in private, they also compete for credit in the military camp, and they must keep public and private matters separate.

Seeing Zhang Fei's eagerness for battle, Liu Bei did not agree to Zhang Fei's request to fight. Instead, he chuckled and asked, "Third brother, are you leading the troops to attack the camp to win or lose?"

Without hesitation, Zhang Fei replied, "Of course I will win! And I will win big! I will definitely kill more than my fourth brother! My fourth brother killed three bandit generals, and I will not bully my fourth brother. I will only kill four, and I will not kill more than that."

As they spoke, Zhang Fei gave Zhao Yun a provocative look, but Zhao Yun just smiled and shook his head.

Seeing this, Zhang Fei immediately objected, saying, "Fourth brother, do you not believe me? I'll bet you, if I can't win more than you, I, I, I'll give you ten jars of fine wine!"

Zhao Yun laughed and said, "Third Brother, I am not good at drinking, so you don't have to lose this fine wine to me. If you win, Yuan Shao will surely be too scared to leave the city. If Yuan Shao doesn't leave the city, how will we fight the subsequent battles? We haven't prepared any siege weapons."

Zhang Fei was immediately stunned.

Liu Bei sent Guo Tu to carry out a counter-espionage plot, advanced to ten miles outside Dangyin City to set up camp, and even deliberately released prisoners. Wasn't this all to lure Yuan Shao out of the city?
Now that Yuan Shao has just set up a separate camp outside the city, Zhang Fei has already gone to destroy it with great force. How can Yuan Shao still have the courage to leave the city?

Although he understood the reasoning, Zhang Fei was still unwilling to give up and suggested again, "Then I'll feign defeat. How about that? I also have some experience with feigning defeat."

Zhao Yun laughed and said, "Third Brother, I just won a great victory last night. If you go and feign defeat today, who will believe you?"

Seeing that neither victory nor defeat was acceptable, Zhang Fei paced back and forth anxiously, then turned to Liu Bei and said, "Brother, I don't care, I want to make a contribution! You can't always favor your fourth brother!"

Liu Bei laughed and said, "Third brother, please be patient. There will definitely be opportunities to make contributions. There's no need to rush."

He then looked around at everyone and said, "From this day forward, each camp will take turns challenging the city of Dangyin. If you see Yuan Shao send out troops, do not engage him in battle."

Zhang Fei said sullenly, "It's too boring to just challenge them without actually fighting them."

Liu Bei knew Zhang Fei wanted to make a name for himself in battle, so he smiled and reassured him: "If you want to fight Yuan Shao, you must do as I say. Do not make a mistake!"

A few days later.

Every day, Liu Bei would send a different battalion to challenge the city of Dangyin, sometimes led by Zhang Fei, sometimes by Zhao Yun, sometimes by Huang Zhong, sometimes by Ma Chao, and sometimes by Taishi Ci.

The way the challenge was presented was quite different from the usual challenge.

A typical challenge involves verbally abusing the enemy general, insulting his ancestors and relatives, until he loses his temper and is finally provoked into battle.

However, Liu Bei's challenge to battle was to send someone to give a speech at the foot of Dangyin City.

What is a speech? A speech is a revolution of ideas!
The theme of the speech was the same as Liu Bei's earlier speech at Puyang: "Why do you want to be soldiers?"

These principles are certainly not something that aristocratic families, powerful clans, celebrities, and nobles would disdain.

But Liu Bei wasn't telling this to Yuan Shao, nor to the celebrities and dignitaries under Yuan Shao's command; he was telling it to the ordinary soldiers on the walls of Dangyin.

Liu Bei's new policies were harsh on the scholars and commoners but benefited the common people. Therefore, the speeches that Liu Bei wrote for a fixed class had a great ability to resonate with ordinary soldiers.

The soldiers who gave the speech didn't need to improvise much; they just needed to read the speech script given by Liu Bei and add some of their own experiences and those of their comrades in the army.

They can talk for an hour at a time.

If one person gets tired of talking, another person can continue.

As long as Yuan Shao doesn't send troops, they'll keep trying to persuade him.

These speeches are delivered in plain language that is close to everyday life, so even ordinary soldiers who are illiterate can understand the gist of the speech.

It also contains phrases like "Are kings and nobles born with a special destiny?" and "How can I bow and scrape before the powerful and wealthy, making me unable to be happy?" that encourage people to resist the powerful and wealthy.

The discourse of powerful and influential families is about protecting the privileges of a minority, while Liu Bei's speech was about mobilizing the majority to seize power; the two are completely different in scope.

The former is about defending the old order, while the latter is about building a new order.

When the old rules are completely overturned, those who follow them are naturally powerless to resist.

Yuan Shao's army already contained a large number of Black Mountain Yellow Turbans and Qingzhou Yellow Turbans. These people were from the lower classes and joined Yuan Shao's forces just to earn a living.

When Liu Bei's highly inflammatory speeches were coupled with crude language that even celebrities and nobles would disdain, Yuan Shao began to feel afraid.

If these remarks circulate in Youji for a year or two, who knows how many people will want to compete with the powerful families, celebrities, and scholars for power!
"Isn't that big-eared thief afraid of getting himself caught in his own trap?"

"You've already declared yourself emperor, yet instead of thinking about how to keep the people ignorant, you want to enlighten them! Aren't you afraid that one day your descendants will have their heads chopped off by the same lowly people?"

Listening to Liu Bei send people to give speeches day after day, extolling the corruption of the powerful and the suffering of the people, and teaching them how to resist and seize power, Yuan Shao felt that Liu Bei had gone mad.

If it weren't for the emperor, there would be no problem with promoting the idea that "nobles and generals are born with special privileges."

Even after becoming emperor, promoting this is just asking for trouble.

Chen Sheng, who shouted these words, killed the villagers because they trampled on the king's authority, yet Liu Bei wanted to actively diminish the emperor's authority.
Crazy!
Yuan Shao could not understand Liu Bei's ambitions. Or perhaps no one in this world could truly understand Liu Bei's ambitions.

Essentially, Liu Bei was an idealist, someone who wanted to be emperor but didn't want to be assimilated into a native emperor.

In Liu Bei's eyes, the emperor was just a title, a name representing the head of the country.

It can be an emperor, a king, a monarch, an emperor, or even a postmodern term.

The key is not the title, but what a national leader can bring to the people who depend on the country.

Liu Bei's ambition was to reconstruct the feudal system of benevolent rule, breaking not the symbol of power of the "emperor," but the political inertia of the hereditary monarchy since the Qin and Han dynasties.

The Qin dynasty ended the feudal system with the prefecture-county system, but it did not escape the logic that "the monarch is the core of the world"; the Han dynasty inherited the Qin system, and even with the Confucian advocacy of "the people are the foundation of the state", it ultimately fell into the private power succession of the Liu imperial family.

What Liu Bei wanted was to transform "monarchical power" from "a privilege inherited by the family" into "a trust that fulfills its responsibilities to the people".

The underlying logic of this idealism is the dual transcendence of identity and political goals. Based on benevolence and virtue, its core concern is not "how to restore the Liu family's rule", but "how to pacify the world and save the people from suffering".

In Liu Bei's mind, "Han" was not the private property of the Liu family, but a cultural and order symbol that "the people aspire to"; "Emperor" was not a title passed down through the family, but the "responsible subject" who carried this order.

The Han dynasty that Liu Bei revived was to be reconstructed with the people as the foundation, rather than being a dynasty exclusively for the descendants of Liu Bang.

If a descendant of Liu Bei were a piece of trash, and the ministers still supported that trash to become emperor, then that would go against Liu Bei's original intention.

The legitimacy of indigenous emperors throughout history stemmed either from the theological narrative of "divine mandate," from the power logic of "unification by force," or from the institutional inertia of "hereditary succession."

Although Liu Bei relied on his status as a descendant of the Han dynasty, his claim of "unification by force," and even his assertion of divine mandate during his ascension to the throne, he did not wish to continue these methods.

Liu Bei employed this method to concentrate power in the shortest possible time, so as to put his ideas into practice.

The core of the legitimacy that Liu Bei attempted to establish was "authorization": the people attached themselves to the state not because of the monarch's bloodline or military strength, but because the monarch could bring "peace of mind, food and dignity"; the monarch possessed power not because of "divine mandate" or "hereditary succession", but because "the people recognized his responsibility".

Under this logic, the essence of power is "a contract between the people and the monarch".

If a ruler loses his virtue and the people suffer, the people have the right to "choose again," which is the underlying reason why Liu Bei always insisted on "benevolence": he wanted to prove through his life's actions that he was a qualified executor of this logic.

Therefore, Liu Bei's desired "people-oriented kingship" required a governance system that was independent of the gentry and reached directly the people, so that household registration would not be controlled by powerful clans, taxes would not be collected on behalf of the gentry, and local areas would not rely on the support of powerful clans.

Although in this era where "military force determines survival and the gentry control resources," such idealism was like building a city on quicksand, and Liu Bei could not reconstruct the entire social interest structure in the short term, he was willing to put it into practice and become a pioneer.

This is why Liu Bei consistently upheld the core ideology of the Lingyan Army: "We would rather freeze to death than dismantle houses, and starve to death than plunder." He also created ideological deputy positions such as squad leader deputy scribe, chief deputy scribe, and military commander deputy scribe, and devoted himself to publicizing the corruption of the powerful and the suffering of the people, even teaching them how to resist and seize power.

Liu Bei didn't not want to be emperor; rather, he wanted to be a native emperor who didn't belong to the feudal era. He didn't want to deny power; rather, he wanted to reconstruct the essence of power.

As a descendant of the Yuan family, which had produced four generations of high-ranking officials, Yuan Shao could be considered to be among the elite of that era. He was also well-versed in the social logic of the time and would weaken the power of his ministers in order to concentrate imperial power.

However, compared to Liu Bei's more idealistic pursuits, Yuan Shao's current understanding is insufficient.

Liu Bei is only thirty-three years old this year, not even halfway through his life, and still has plenty of time to pursue his ideals.

Without this ideal to support Liu Bei in seeking change and breakthroughs, he would most likely have fallen into decline under the tide of history and eventually been ridiculed as a half-emperor of all time.

It is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality. Without lofty ideals and the spirit of "overthrowing others to the death," it is hard to resist the corrosive influence of decadent luxury.

Take Liu Hong, for example. He reigned for twenty years. If he hadn't been so greedy for pleasure and hadn't indulged in things like parading around the palace naked, and had restrained his personal desires, he wouldn't have died at the young age of thirty-three.

Liu Bei's daily provocations and speeches made Guo Tu, who was in Dangyin City, think back to his days as a prisoner.

The reason why Guo Tu chose to serve Liu Bei was not only because Liu Bei offered so many benefits that Guo Tu could not refuse, but also because of a more fundamental reason: ideological indoctrination!

It was roughly the same as the daily life of the Lingyan Army. However, Guo Tu came from a noble family, so during the ideological baptism, he was bombarded with a large number of ancient and modern classics and Liu Bei's new ideas.

Day after day, he followed a regular routine: rising at dawn to practice martial arts, eating and reading at dawn, practicing riding and archery at mid-morning, eating and reading at noon, practicing swordsmanship and spear fighting at 1-3 pm, eating and reading at 3 pm, practicing endurance at 5 pm, and going to sleep to recharge at 7 pm. All of these practices were deeply imprinted in Guo Tu's mind.

Until Guo Tu passed Jia Xu's test.

"My lord, we cannot allow Liu Bei to challenge us every day any longer." Guo Tu took a deep breath, suppressing his past memories, and suggested, "I also heard when I came here that Liu Bei used this tactic to break through Puyang City. Before the army's morale is swayed by Liu Bei, let's send the army out of the city, advance step by step, and drive Liu Bei away!"

This time, even Feng Ji did not object to Guo Tu's proposal.

When Shen Pei failed in Puyang, Feng Ji had heard about it and thought Shen Pei was too stupid to leave the city on his own because Liu Bei was inciting people outside the city.

Now that I think about it, even if Feng Ji were in Shen Pei's position, he would still have to take the initiative to leave the city.

Taking the initiative to leave the city would still give them a chance of winning, but having Liu Bei spread propaganda around the city every day makes it impossible for them to sleep soundly.

Feng Ji no longer resisted going out of the city to fight. If Liu Bei were to spread propaganda like this, he would truly be sitting and waiting for death.

Xun Chen, Xin Ping, and Xin Pi also urged Yuan Shao to send troops.

Those present were all wise men, and they understood how powerful Liu Bei's rhetoric was in stirring up the morale of the army and the people. In the past, Zhang Jiao had used similar rhetoric to incite the common people of eight provinces to rebel.

Seeing his strategist with such perfect understanding for the first time, Yuan Shao realized that Liu Bei's methods were too insidious. Only by going out of the city to fight and using military might to drive Liu Bei away could the soldiers give up their unrealistic fantasies.

A lowly person is a lowly person; do they think they can turn the world upside down?
Yuan Shao no longer hesitated. He ordered Chunyu Qiong, who was camped outside the city, to lead the vanguard of six generals: Han Meng, Han Juzi, Lü Weihuang, Sui Yuanjin, Zhang He, and Gao Lan. He also ordered Guo Tu to supervise the left flank of the army, which included Zhu Ling, Jiang Qi, Jiang Yiqu, Wang Men, and He Mao. Finally, he ordered Feng Ji to supervise the right flank of the army, which included the newly arrived generals Xianyu Fu, Xianyu Yin, Qi Zhou, and Tian Chou.

The three armies advance in a triangular formation.

Yuan Shao personally led his generals Wang Mo and Guo Zu, along with Xun Chen, Xin Ping, and Xin Pi, to garrison Dangyin City to observe the situation.

The three armies, the left and right wings, together numbered 80,000, and they marched in a mighty force toward Liu Bei's camp, directly attacking it.

(End of this chapter)