Weird Three Kingdoms

Chapter 3658: Cinnabar reveals brotherhood, copper leaks out ghost ambition

The night is getting darker and the dew is heavier. The copper clock is dripping.

The bright candlelight could not dispel the heavy feeling in the tent.

The incense was lingering, but it couldn't cover up the invisible smell of rust.

This seems to be the remaining breath after the power struggle.

Just like after humans make peace, some scent will be left behind.

Life, or death.

The greatest power of mankind is not to fight against nature, but to decide the life and death of others.

The power of mating is to decide the life of oneself and others.

The power of judgment is to decide the death of oneself and others.

Peacemaking happens to be the final compromise reached during the process of mutual friction.

In the feudal dynasties and even in the medieval kingdoms, no matter whether it was the East or the West, or any other big or small ones, they all expressed the same meaning. Even if the rulers could not eat it, they would spit it out, and would rather fall into the gutter or vomit in the toilet, rather than let the powerless get it.

Cao Cao also couldn't eat any more...

But still have to eat.

He couldn't let go, nor could he let go of the meat in his hands.

otherwise……

In the Cao army camp, Cao Cao was bending over his desk reviewing military reports. The candlelight danced around his sunken eye sockets, illuminating the mountains of bamboo slips on the desk.

He drew circles on the bamboo slips with a red pen. Each red circle was like an invisible noose, tightening the names that might threaten his power.

This is the list of the aristocratic children who are about to be purged...

His movements were steady and powerful, as if he had the entire world in his grasp.

However, at the moment when the pen tip was hovering, a sudden, sharp pain, like a red-hot steel needle, pierced his temple!

"Well! 』

Cao Cao groaned and the red brush in his hand fell to the ground, leaving a glaring red stain on the table, like splattered blood.

He covered his forehead violently, his knuckles turning white from the effort.

The pain came so suddenly and strangely, as if it was his usual headache, or a cold throbbing coming from the depths of his soul.

It was like the grin of death, or the cold knock of fate.

At this moment, a face clearly appeared in his mind for no reason...

Xiahou Dun's face.

It's not the heroic spirit of fighting side by side in Changsha, nor the bravery of fighting on the battlefield during the Battle of Guandu, nor the honest and loyal appearance in daily life...

It was the face he had imagined through secret reports in the Anyi cage, a face corroded by despair and decadence.

That face, at this moment in his mind, was shrouded in a strange light that was a mixture of relief and endless sadness, and then...

It suddenly dimmed, like a candle extinguished in the night wind.

An indescribable chill instantly gripped Cao Cao's heart.

It was not fear, but a deeper, cold confirmation of the outcome.

"Yuan Rang..."

Cao Cao murmured unconsciously, his voice dry and hoarse.

He slowly loosened his hand that was covering his forehead, and the severe pain receded like a tide, leaving behind only a deep bone-deep fatigue and a feeling of…

Everything is clear now that the dust has settled.

He slowly closed his eyes.

In the darkness, Xiahou Dun's dim face, the phantom of his bloody fight with Le Jin, Cao Xiu's unwilling eyes before his death, Mrs. Ding's sad tears, Chen Gong's curse, Kong Rong's ridicule...

And the rotting corpse of Cao Ang...

Countless faces who have fallen or are about to fall on the road to the pinnacle of power, stacked up layer by layer, interweave into a huge and cold net, appearing before Cao Cao's eyes.

They are all the price, the ballast that Cao Cao must throw away when he steers the giant ship called "Hegemony".

Power, this supreme authority, is as heavy as a mountain and as cold as iron.

Is he wrong?

Cao Cao's thoughts flowed coldly and clearly like an undercurrent beneath the ice...

Xiahou Dun, his brother, his right-hand man...

The weight of all these emotions and achievements needs to be re-weighed on the cold political scale.

How much is a captured Xiahou Dun worth?
Xiahou Dun is one of the symbols of Cao Wei's military spirit.

Being captured is itself a heavy blow to military morale.

If the enemy takes him as a hostage and demands a huge ransom or a strategic location, will Cao Cao give it?

If they give, they will aid the enemy and undermine their prestige; if they don't give, they will discourage the soldiers, especially the Xiahou clan.

What kind of person is Fei Qian?
Even if Fei Qian doesn't know how to use it, who knows if his counselors won't use every possible means to pry Cao's army secrets out of Xiahou Dun's mouth?

Or a more ruthless way, using Xiahou Dun's identity to create suspicion and discord within Cao's camp?
Xiahou Dun's loyalty is beyond doubt, but how much torture can a mortal body endure?

just in case……

Xiahou Dun's existence itself has become a huge, uncontrollable variable.

Cao Cao couldn't predict how Fei Qian would use this chess piece, which made him feel uneasy.

The best strategy, naturally, is to eliminate unstable variables.

The potential risks and political costs of a living, captured Xiahou Dun far outweigh his "surplus value" as a founding hero.

Only at the time of his death can Xiahou Dun's loyalty be fully controlled and transformed into a symbol of "loyalty and bravery" to be used as an inspiration rather than a constraint.

Of course, if Cao Cao did this, it might also provoke the anger of the Xiahou family.

After all, Xiahou Dun is not only the commander-in-chief, but also the pillar of the clan.

The death of Xiahou Dun will inevitably trigger tremendous anger within the Xiahou family. This anger will first be directed at Le Jin, who is carrying out the mission, but in the end, the spearhead will vaguely point to him as the decision maker.

However, this anger is exactly what Cao Cao can take advantage of.

The Xiahou clan no longer has a core figure...

This means that their power will inevitably be damaged, which is a delicate balance for other clans and generals from other families.

He could appease Xiahou's grief and anger by giving her a lavish funeral, posthumously conferring titles, and providing her with compensation.

The sadness of a clan is the nourishment for the consolidation of power.

The death of Xiahou Dun not only weakened the Xiahou family, but also strengthened Cao Cao's absolute position as the only core.

Family affection?

Brotherhood?
In the face of the greater goal of maintaining eternal power, all are sacrificial prices.

Xiahou Dun is his brother, but more importantly, he is a node in his power map.

When this node threatens to become an ant hole that causes the dam to collapse, it must be ruthlessly removed.

You are brothers when you start a business, but after the success, if you just want to lie down and enjoy it together, you are no longer brothers.

Le Jin, a loyal and brave general, is the best person to carry out this dirty task.

If Le Jin succeeded, it would be a testament to his loyalty and bravery; if he failed, Le Jin would be a natural scapegoat who could appease Xiahou's anger and take the blame for "failure to rescue".

Whether Le Jin succeeds or not, he is destined to be strangled by the noose of power.

Cao Cao was well aware of this and believed that it was a necessary sacrifice.

Authority needs loyal dogs, but also needs abandoned pawns when necessary.

The word "voluntary" was Cao Cao's last fig leaf for himself, the world, and history. It attempted to whitewash a cold political murder into a heroic act of loyalty.

Did Xiahou Dun do it voluntarily?
Is Le Jin "voluntary"?
Is this important?
What matters is the result.

What is important is that it conforms to the needs of authority and that history books can be written in this way.

There was no longer any ripple in Cao Cao's eyes, only an unfathomable depth.

Like an abyss. Like a prison.

He picked up the red pen again, as if the palpitations and the disillusionment with Xiahou Dun in his mind had never happened.

He dipped the pen in cinnabar, but the pen remained suspended in mid-air.

He raised his head and his eyes fell on the boundless darkness outside the tent.

In the face of supreme authority, all people are nothing more than ants, pawns, parasites that cling to it to absorb nutrients, or minions waiting to be crushed.

Xiahou Dun is an accomplice.

He fought all his life and contributed to Cao Cao's power, but in the end he was sacrificed because of the need for power. His loyalty became a noose that strangled him.

Le Jin is also an accomplice.

He faithfully carries out orders, no matter how cold and cruel the orders are, but will eventually be swallowed up by this authority and become a sacrifice to appease its wrath.

Isn't Cao Cao himself the biggest accomplice?

He is driven by this giant beast called "power". In order to maintain and feed it, he must constantly sacrifice, sacrifice his enemies, sacrifice his friends, sacrifice his brothers, and even sacrifice part of his own humanity.

Every such sacrifice made the authority heavier and colder, and made him one step further away from Cao Mengde, who once drank with Xiahou Dun under the moon.

So, when did I change from a human to a ghost?
Cao Cao closed his eyes and thought.

Perhaps it was when I started to become suspicious...

Suspicion is a poison that is engraved into the bone marrow.

This poison was not something Cao Cao was born with, but was fed to him spoonful by spoonful of cruel reality.

The first poison was the youthful arrogance of the North Gate Lieutenant of Luoyang. He enforced the law strictly and beat his uncle Jian Shuo to death with a stick, but in return he was promoted in name only and demoted in reality, and was transferred to a distant place in Dunqiu. The first blow to power taught him that rules are as fragile as paper in the face of absolute power. Loyalty and integrity are sometimes not rewarded with appreciation, but fear and exile.

The second poison was the blood of Lü Bushe's family. It was also a stain and nightmare that could never be washed away from his heart. His roar of "I would rather betray others than be betrayed by others" was an extreme defense born out of his fear, and also the first naked outbreak of the poison of suspicion.

The third bite of poison, the fourth bite of poison...

It's all betrayal.

He tried his best and lost almost all his family fortune, but the soldiers he recruited, who took his pay, betrayed him overnight.

I regarded Zhang Miao as my friend and entrusted my life to him, but I ended up being betrayed once again...

Betrayal completely extinguished his last fantasy of "friendship".

He began to understand that on the chessboard of power, there are no eternal friends, only eternal interests.

Loyalty requires the most rigorous surveillance and the most brutal tactics to maintain.

From then on, he looked at everyone with scrutiny and caution.

When awakened from a dream, a sharp knife is always kept by the pillow; food and drink must be tasted by a trusted person first; when a general goes to war, his wife and children must be left as hostages...

These are the evil flowers that bloom from suspicion.

Knowing that suspicion is like a maggot on the heel, why don't you change?
Because it cannot be changed!

Cao Cao opened his eyes, and there was no longer any ripple in them, only an unfathomable depth, like a cold pool in the abyss.

He knows the price of suspicion...

However, in the extremely harsh political environment of the late Eastern Han Dynasty, suspicion was not a character flaw but an instinct for survival!
In Shandong, within the Central Plains, good people don’t live long!
There were hidden dangers within the Cao Wei regime from the very beginning.

The Xiahou and Cao clans were very powerful. For example, Xiahou Yuan and Cao Ren were undoubtedly loyal, but the expansion of their family power itself posed a potential threat to Cao Cao's absolute authority. The Xun and Chen clans of Yingchuan, the Cui clan of Jizhou, and other aristocratic families had deep roots and were intertwined. They attached themselves to Cao Cao for the benefit of their families. Once Cao Cao became weak or had better options, it was not impossible for them to betray him.

Generals who came from humble backgrounds, such as Le Jin and Yu Jin, were loyal and useful, but they could also be lured and used by various forces.

Cao Cao had to be like a skilled chess player, using the royal family to suppress the gentry, using the poor to check the royal family, and using the false name of the imperial power to unify all parties. Any imbalance on any side could lead to a subversion.

From a wanted fugitive to a local lord, and then to a powerful prime minister, Cao Cao knows what the transformation from "being in the opposition" to "being in power" means. He used to be a rule breaker, but now he must become a rule maker and defender. Anyone who challenges the existing order, whether it is an external enemy or a potential internal threat, must be ruthlessly crushed.

Suspicion is the nerve ending that allows him to maintain absolute control.

It is also his last resort to maintain his rule.

"Report!" Outside the big tent, a messenger came hurriedly, "Urgent report from Wen County!"

"pass! 』

Cao Cao said in a deep voice.

The letter was delivered to the desk, and under the light, every ink color seemed to be filled with the breath of war.

Cao Cao read it once, pondered for a moment, and said, "Come here, tell Wen Ruo to come."

Xun Yu came very quickly, as if he had no habit of sleeping at all.

Cao Cao handed the letter to Xun Yu and remained silent.

"The cavalry has arrived in Hanoi?" Xun Yu quickly read the letter and was quite surprised.

The letter was sent by Cheng Yu.

Cheng Yu said that the spies he sent out pretended to be the sons of the nobles in Hanoi and went to meet Fei Qian. Although they did not receive Fei Qian, they saw Fei Qian from afar, which proved that Fei Qian had arrived in Hanoi...

Although Cheng Yu did not express anything explicitly in the letter, the underlying meaning was that his "bait" work in Hanoi had now been completed, and he had successfully lured the Hussars!

As for the bait, if you don’t pull it away in time after catching the fish, the bait will be sent into the fish’s stomach.

"If this is the report..." Cao Cao stood up and stood in front of the map hanging on the screen on the side of the big tent.

His voice was deep and echoed in the huge military tent, as if every word was extremely heavy. "The bait... may have been used..."

He turned his back to Xun Yu and looked at the location of Wen County in Henei on the map.

On the map, the dark color of Wen County seemed to be just covered by the halo of an oil lamp, which made it a bit dazzling, making it difficult for Cao Cao to see clearly. "Wen Ruo... do you think this fish... has taken the bait?"

The lights flickered.

Xun Yu frowned and sat still for a long time.

Cao Cao did not urge him either. He just stood in front of the map in silence.

Xun Yu's slender fingers brushed across the thin silk book again, as if he wanted to touch the besieged city wall of Wen County in Henei through the ink and feel Cheng Yu's mood at the moment.

This letter was a bet that Cheng Yu wrote with his life as ink.

True, false, imaginary, real.

A slight error can lead to a huge mistake. A small mistake can turn into an endless gap between victory and defeat.

Therefore, Cheng Yu did not dare to write conclusively that Fei Qian was indeed in Hanoi, but only described what his spies had seen...

"Your Excellency's concerns are very true."

Xun Yu finally spoke, his voice was like a spring hitting a stone, so calm that it formed a sharp contrast with the solemn atmosphere in the tent, "Cheng Zhongde used himself as bait to lure the cavalry into the trap. His heart is commendable and his courage is admirable. However... the cavalry is not an easy person to deal with. This man uses troops in a way that often combines the real and the fake, and the strange and the normal. If he really intends to go to Henei and comes in full force, Wen County will be in danger, and Zhongde may be in danger of being destroyed; if he is just bluffing and sending a false signal to us, then if we rescue Zhongde, at best we will waste our troops and be exhausted, and at worst..."

It doesn’t matter whether Cheng Yu really “voluntarily” offered himself as bait.

In the Central Plains of Shandong, during the feudal dynasty, all processes can be ignored and rewritten, only the results are the most important.

"I think that if we just rely on the words of one or two young men, sending troops to Henei..." Xun Yu said in a deep voice, "it is really unwise."

Cao Cao slowly turned around and looked directly at Xun Yu. "According to Wen Ruo, what Cheng Zhongde said in the letter... about the appearance of the cavalry... is not reliable? Or... is it a fabricated report?!"

Xun Yu said, his eyes flashing with a light of insight, "Mingsong, this is not a false report, but a farsighted one... It itself is the biggest doubt!"

"Hmm?" Cao Cao walked to the table and tapped Cheng Yu's letter with his fingers. "Wen Ruo said... this is a cavalry, did he do it on purpose?"

"The cavalry is the most important part of the whole army. How can we easily expose the location of the key point of Guanzhong?" Xun Yu said slowly, "When the two armies are fighting, they will do everything they can... If the key point of the central army is discovered by the enemy... The cavalry cannot be unaware of the key point..."

Cao Cao frowned and stroked his beard.

"It is because the cavalry has always been cautious... and at this moment, when the battle between the enemy and us is in full swing, he easily let the "son of the Hanoi nobles" approach? This matter is really... too deliberate, too... smooth. It's as if he wanted to personally deliver the fact that "the cavalry is here" to us. "

Xun Yu raised his head, his eyes sparkling with brilliance, "Although it is said that in military affairs, if there is a doubt, another plan should be made, but the current situation cannot be neglected! If the cavalry is smart all his life, but confused for a moment, and makes a mistake and loses it, it will be a pity! Therefore, Cheng Zhongde sent a letter here in a hurry, not because he did not know what he was doubting, but because he did not want to miss the opportunity!"

Cao Cao nodded when he heard this, "What Wen Ruo said is very pertinent."

Cao Cao was originally very dissatisfied with Cheng Yu's lack of clarity and the fact that he didn't even report a single "suggestion".

After all, if it was an ordinary military academy for generals, it would be fine.

As Cheng Yu was also one of Cao Cao's counselors, how could he bring such a letter, the authenticity of which could not be confirmed, to Cao Cao's desk?

But after Xun Yu said this, Cheng Yu's "negligence" became a situation where Cheng Yu could not be sure whether it was true or not, and he could only ask Cao Cao for help and ask Cao Cao to guide the decision...

This makes perfect sense.

Xun Yu paused, speaking at a moderate pace, but each word was as powerful as a nail. "I think... the key to this matter is not to meet the person! It is to find out whether he is real or not! Is he with 30,000 elite cavalry, or only a thousand decoys? This is the key!"