Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1266 Determination
After Yuan Xi captured Yecheng, he almost simultaneously received news of the Xianbei invasion. He did not have any time to stabilize the situation in Yecheng, and hurried to Youzhou to defend the city.

In the meantime, he fought with the Xianbei several times in Jicheng and Yijing, until he transferred Zhuge Liang over to make the final decision. More than two months had passed unknowingly. It was already deep winter and almost spring.

At this time, of course, the New Year had already passed, and it was also the time when Yuan Xishao did not celebrate the New Year in Jicheng. Thinking about the fact that more than ten years had passed since he was reborn into this world and went to Beixincheng to guard the city, he could not help but sigh that time flies and he is no longer young.

Years of endless fighting not only left wrinkles on his face, but also left his body with many hidden illnesses and injuries. In this era when medicine was not well developed, this was not a good condition.

The original body actually had a very average foundation, even worse than most of the children of aristocratic families. Although Yuan Xi had paid great attention to exercise and health preservation in recent years, fighting was extremely harmful to the body, and there had been people who died young since ancient times, so Yuan Xi's physical condition was not very optimistic.

The death of Cao Cao also sounded a wake-up call for Yuan Xi. He knew that he could not fall down now. If his body collapsed, the road of Jin State and even the world would probably come to an abrupt end, and all he had paid before would be wasted.

This is also the reason why Zhuge Liang insisted on leading Yuan Xi to fight the Xianbei, and why Yuan Xi finally gave in because he found that he really could not hold on any longer.

The pressure that war brings to people is not only physical, but also psychological. In the past few years, except for Liu Bei, he was almost alone in fighting against the three major enemies of Wei, Wu and the Hu people outside the Great Wall. He was in danger several times, but fortunately he finally survived it without any danger.

Now that Wei has retreated to Guanzhong and the Xianbei's large-scale attempt has been defeated, Yuan Xi can finally free up his hands to think carefully about the problem of Wu.

If possible, Yuan Xi did not want to act so hastily. In the past few years, the State of Jin had been constantly using military force. Although he tried his best to control the level not to be too wasteful and costly, as long as there was a war, it would inevitably deplete the country's strength and vitality. Especially the final battle with Cao Cao, which had exhausted most of Yuan Xi's reserves over the years.

At the moment, it is difficult for him to launch a war involving tens of thousands of people within three years, but the problem of Wu must be solved, otherwise Liu Bei will be destroyed, and Jin will have to face a Wu that is rampant and has no bottom line in the south of the Yangtze River.

Moreover, unlike Cao Cao who had a hidden illness, Sun Quan lived a very long life in later generations. Therefore, if Yuan Xi fought a war of attrition with him, it was hard to say who would be the winner. Especially in terms of life span, Yuan Xi had no confidence that he could live longer than Sun Quan!
So when the news of the pacification of the Xianbei came, Yuan Xi's thoughts on using military force against the Wu State resurfaced, especially when the news of Zhuge Liang's great victory came along with intelligence from Jianghuai.

The news was not very good. First of all, Mrs. Wu's request to meet with Sun Quan was rejected. Obviously, Sun Quan chose the latter between filial piety and the world. Moreover, Mrs. Wu's death was announced by Sun Quan himself. How could Sun Quan possibly slap himself in the face again?

When Mrs. Wu first proposed to meet with Sun Quan to persuade him, Yuan Xi was actually not very supportive. Firstly, he felt that Sun Quan was now a qualified king and would not be hindered by blood ties. Moreover, from the perspective of later generations, Sun Quan was extremely ruthless and would even kill his own children. How could he ruin his great plan for a woman like Mrs. Wu?
Secondly, if Sun Quan surrendered, Yuan Xi would have a headache, because given Sun Quan's status, what position should he give him?
If he is still sealed in the south, it will definitely cause a lot of trouble, but if he is transferred to the north, everyone in the world will see his intentions, so Yuan Xi should at least pretend in this regard.

Although this behavior was extremely hypocritical and made Yuan Xi resist it, it was precisely because of this that if everyone did not follow the tacitly accepted unspoken rules, chaos would inevitably arise in the future, especially with regard to the attitude towards the gentry.

On the Wei side, Cao Cao was actually suppressing the power of the aristocratic families to ensure the dominance of the Cao family, but this instead led to an even more violent backlash, so much so that after Cao Cao's death in later generations, the Wei State adopted the Nine-Rank System to compromise with the gentry, bringing everything back to the starting point, or even worse.

In this regard, Sun Quan was actually similar to Cao Cao. He was also strengthening the absolute control of the Sun family. His methods were much more direct than Cao Cao's. He took advantage of the infighting among officials and found excuses to kill people indiscriminately, thereby weakening the power of the aristocratic families.

This was actually very similar to what Cao Cao did when he was guarding the border of Yanzhou before, but Cao Cao failed, paid a heavy price for it, and was forced to reach a compromise with the aristocratic families.

In this regard, Sun Quan was born with a very good sense of smell and means. He could accurately test the bottom line of the Jiangdong gentry. He used extremely secret means to accuse them of crimes, and repeatedly jumped on the edge of rebellion without stimulating them. In addition, the resistance of the Jiangdong gentry was far less strong than that of the Central Plains gentry, so the Jiangdong gentry was unknowingly controlled by Sun Quan, and the blood of the family was slowly drained, and they had no power to resist.

Yuan Xi felt inferior to Cao Cao in this kind of talent. He believed that Sun Quan was the most suitable person to engage in politics in this era, and that Sun Quan's talent in this regard was even better than Cao Cao's.

However, the methods adopted by Yuan Xi were completely different from those of Cao Cao and Sun Quan. He took a less upright route.

Most of the confidants he really relied on were from humble beginnings. Yuan Xi regarded them as his future pillars. However, on the surface, he made a lot of compromises and appointed many officials, including the Liu royal family and the children of the Yuan family. Although most of these people were internal officials and honorary positions, the proportion was quite large. This is why many nobles in the world abandoned Wei and Wu and came to Yuan Xi. Of course, it was because of the great power of Jin, but also because of the various illusions made by Yuan Xi, which made the nobles in the world think that Yuan Xi's previous behavior of hanging the nobles on the city walls was simply due to Yuan Xi's personality.

Only Yuan Xi understood that his ultimate goal was to completely eliminate the gentry as a group. Everything he did now was for that long-term goal, which might not be fully achieved until his death.

Yuan Xi was very secretive about this. Every time he took action against the gentry, he had a seemingly legitimate reason, such as the gentry in Beixincheng storing grain, or the gentry in Xuzhou rebelling. These were all acts of self-defense, so the gentry could not say much.

In this regard, Yuan Xi actually imitated Sun Quan, but he did it more unnoticeably. He quite agreed with Sun Quan's approach of suppressing the gentry. If he could really let Sun Quan kill some of the gentry who were difficult to target, what would be the harm in delaying his destruction of the Wu Kingdom by a few years?
But Sun Quan had a keen sense of smell and knew that if he continued like this he would be destroyed sooner or later, so he brought all his cards to the table, ready to go all in with Yuan Xi and Liu Bei.

Yuan Xi thought that it was fortunate that Sun Quan was not good at fighting, and Jiangdong's location also had a natural disadvantage. If he and Sun Quan switched positions, he would have no chance of breaking the impasse!
But now that Mrs. Wu's negotiations had failed, Hannan had been attacked, and Jiangxia of Jin had also been invaded, Yuan Xi had to respond seriously.

He picked up his pen and wrote several letters, one of which was to Mrs. Wu in Wankou, saying that he had done his best, and that Mrs. Wu was now a member of the Yuan family, and the two sides had no relationship anymore. If she stayed at the front line any longer, she might put pressure on people like Lu Su and Jiang Qin, so he asked Mrs. Wu to return to Yecheng first and wait until he had made plans.

The other letter was to Zhen Mi. He said that since Yecheng had been captured, it was time for Zhen Mi to go back to Yecheng to take a look. Moreover, it was almost spring and Yecheng was in ruins. The city defense houses that were destroyed in the fire last year also needed further repairs and completion. Therefore, he suggested that Zhen Mi bring the Zhen family's property to Yecheng. As for how much to bring, it was up to Zhen Mi to decide for herself.

Yuan Xi believed that with Zhen Mi's knowledge, she would be able to easily guess his intention. Rebuilding Yecheng was a huge project, and it would be difficult to finance it solely with local taxes from Jizhou, especially since the wars in recent years had completely drained Jizhou.

So in this situation, if the gentry in various states could donate money, a considerable gap could be solved. However, Yuan Xi couldn't make it too obvious, so if he let Zhen Mi take the lead in donating money, it would also allow many gentry in Youzhou and Jizhou who had fled to donate money and solve the funding problem.

Yuan Xi must have been very confident about this. After all, Jizhou had been pacified, and many Jizhou gentry who had fled before also hoped to return to their hometown, and the donated property was the pass Yuan Xi issued to them.

At the same time, the time when Zhen Mi returned to Yecheng was also a time for her to establish her prestige, send a signal of goodwill to Hebei, and let the world know that Zhen Mi's position as queen was unshakable. After all, some time ago, some Jianghuai gentry with ulterior motives hyped up rumors that Madam Wu had ascended to the throne.

Yuan Xi could guess what these people were up to with his butt. He couldn't get angry now, but once the world was pacified and the matter was settled afterwards, these people would not be able to escape.

After writing these two letters, Yuan Xi originally wanted to write a letter to Lu Xun, instructing him on some things to pay attention to, but he threw the bamboo slips into the fire and burned them halfway through.

The reason for this was that he received news that the military advisor sent by Sun Quan to attack Liu Bei was Zhuge Jin, while the military advisor for the attack on Jin State was Lu Ji.

Yuan Xi naturally guessed Sun Quan's intention. The Lu family had once fought to the death with the Sun family, who were affiliated with Yuan Shu, in Lujiang. Many people died on both sides. It can be said that there was a grudge between them.

Now Sun Quan has appointed Lu Ji, on the one hand to show a gesture of putting aside past grudges, and on the other hand it is also a warning to suppress the Lu family, because everyone knows that Lu Xun is the governor of Jianghuai in Jin State. Letting Lu Ji deal with Lu Xun naturally depends on the loyalty of the Lu family.

Yuan Xi couldn't help but sigh at this, saying that Sun Quan was really an expert at playing politics.

At this time, Yuan Xi wrote to Lu Xun saying that nothing was appropriate and it would be better to let him do it.

(End of this chapter)