Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1276 Court Meeting
The news that Jin was going to attack Wu also reached Xudu at the same time. Cao Pi did not have a good impression of Wu, and he had been playing rather outrageous games in the harem recently, so he wanted to pretend to be sick and ignore the news. However, many ministers urged him to do so, and he had no choice but to drag his weak legs to court.

He slowly walked to the throne and sat down, looking around at the officials below, and said, "My Lords, do you have something to report?"

The official seat closest to him was originally occupied by Prime Minister Zhong Yao, but now that seat was vacant.

This is because after Cao Cao's death, when Cao Pi first ascended the throne, many officials outside the Yingchuan faction united to report that Zhong Yao was involved in the Jizhou Sili rebellion.

This so-called rebellion was a wave of rebellion in more than a dozen cities in the Jizhou area of ​​Sili from the time Guan Yu attacked Xu Du to the time the Jin army attacked Jizhou. This dealt a heavy blow to the Wei State, causing logistical disruptions and morale problems, which indirectly led to the rapid fall of Yecheng.

The reason why the hostile faction of the Yingchuan School made Zhong Yao a target was, firstly, that they believed that Zhong Yao had lost power since he failed to be selected as the minister to be entrusted by Cao Cao to take care of his son; secondly, as the prime minister, Zhong Yao was responsible for selecting officials, and many of the Wei officials who committed rebellion in the rebellion were promoted by Zhong Yao, including the most influential Wei Feng.

Afterwards, the Wei state reacted very quickly. Cao Pi, who was stationed in Xu Du, put down the rebellion with the help of Chen Qun. Wei Feng and others committed suicide after their failure. In the end, the Wei state did not find out whether there was any influence of Jin behind it.

Wei Feng was born in Jiyin, Yanzhou, and was used by the Yingchuan faction to attack the Yanzhou officials. When Cao Cao was alive, he stood on the side of the Yingchuan faction, but after his death, the Yanzhou faction and other factions would not sit idly by, so they used this incident to fight back.

The entanglement here is very subtle, and there are experts behind the Yanzhou faction who see that Cao Pi's throne is not stable yet and will no longer support the Yingchuan faction. This will cause the already delicate political situation to be unbalanced, and the Wei State will be in complete chaos.

As they expected, after the officials impeached Zhong Yao, the Yingchuan faction did not fight back. Instead, Zhong Yao resigned the next day and handed over the position of prime minister.

It seemed that the Yingchuan faction had given up on Zhong Yao, but only a few people knew that Cao Pi and Zhong Yao had an extraordinary relationship, and that they were doing this only temporarily to stabilize the situation and to show the ministers.

Sima Yi, who was kneeling below, sneered in his heart. After he became the regent, he began to understand Cao Pi's thoughts a little bit. This was not an ordinary person, nor a normal person. What he wanted to do was not something that most people present could guess.

After Sima Yi guessed Cao Pi's true thoughts to some extent, he was frightened and broke out in a cold sweat. He has been pretending to be deaf and dumb for a while, saying "um" and "ah" to everything. What will happen in Wei State next may very well be a huge whirlpool, and he doesn't want to be involved too deeply.

Seeing that no one was speaking, Cao Pi said, "Yesterday, many of you said that the matter was urgent. Why are you silent now?"

Someone immediately stepped out from the crowd and said, "I heard that Jin State has raised a large army and joined forces with Hannan State to attack Wu State. Wu State is now in danger. Wei and Wu have always been friendly. I hope the king will send troops to help and put down the enemy's arrogance."

Cao Pi said, "Oh?"

"I heard that the battle took place in Jianghuai. How can we get there now?"

"Should we march south from Yuzhou, capture Shouchun, and occupy Lujiang, or march south from Jingzhou, counterattack from Xiangyang, defeat Guan Yu's army, and then occupy Jingzhou?"

Seeing that everyone was speechless, Cao Pi couldn't help but sneer in his heart. Everyone can talk big, but when it comes to sending troops, you all back down. If that's the case, what's the point of farting here every day?

Chen Qun stepped out and said, "What the King of Wei said is very true. If we want to help Wu, we must attack from these two routes. However, the journey is long, and the soldiers are recruited in a hurry. Even if we can arrive in time, Wu may have been destroyed long ago."

"Furthermore, if troops are dispatched from Xudu, Guanzhong will be left empty. If the Jin army takes advantage of the situation to attack from Yecheng and Huaicheng, Xudu will be unstable."

After hearing this, everyone started talking about it, because although Yuan Xi had personally gone south during this period, the pressure from the Jin army on the Wei State had not been reduced at all.

In Yuzhou, Zhuge Liang sent Chunyu Qiong and Gao Lan to test the attack on Guanzhong, but Cao Hong had already led his troops to stop them.

On the other side of Huaicheng, there were Zhao Yun and Xu Huang, who were confronting the Western Liang Army led by Ma Chao and Han Sui. Huaicheng was backed by the Black Mountain, so supply was relatively easy. It was said that the Western Liang Army was already in decline, and Ma Chao had already written a letter requesting to retreat to Zuo Fengyi.

This incident also caused an uproar in Cao Wei. After all, if Zuo Fengyi was lost again, the Jingzhao Yin area would be exposed. If Luoyang was lost, the defense line in front of Xu Du would completely collapse.

So Cao Pi had to send Xiahou Shang to help Ma Chao. Xiahou Shang was the nephew of Xiahou Yuan. Although he was still young, he showed talents no less than Xiahou Yuan and was good at commanding the army. With his assistance, Ma Chao and others were able to temporarily withstand the offensive from Huaicheng.

These two military dispatches also sent out some signals. Although Cao Hong and Xiahou Shang were both capable generals of Cao Wei, Cao Hong was a minister of state, and logically speaking, he did not need to lead the army in person for such matters.

Xiahou Shang's qualifications were also questionable. In comparison, there were more suitable candidates in Cao's camp, namely Cao Zhang and Sima Yi, but they were unexpectedly not selected. Although the reason is unknown, some smart people have smelled the bad signal and began to watch from the sidelines. The situation in Wei State became confusing for a while.

In fact, as long as there is a court, there will inevitably be internal strife. No matter how fair the emperor is, there will be differences in closeness and distance, and officials will take sides. This was the case with Wei and Wu. The open and secret struggles among their officials can be regarded as another major cancer that affects internal decision-making.

Among the Three Kingdoms, the weird one was Yuan Xi's Jin State.

Wei and Wu both had clear core circles of officials, which were the areas where their capitals were located. But in the eyes of officials from both countries, Jin's approach was extremely strange. It seemed that it did not have, or did not want to have, a unified political system, but was constantly shifting.

Moreover, the auxiliary officials under Yuan Xi were replaced all the time. When attacking Jizhou, Yuan Xi moved to Yijing to command. When attacking Wuhuan, he returned to Jicheng. When attacking Jianghuai, he returned to Shouchun.

Each region has a team to handle local affairs. After Yuan Xi brings his men there, he will not intervene deeply in local political affairs. He will only establish a military system on the spot and focus on defeating the enemy.

Especially at that time, Yuan Xi established a secondary capital in Yecheng and let Zhuge Liang set up a government, which was equivalent to establishing a small country's court to deal with the Wei State with all his strength. Jianghuai was given to Lu Xun, and Jicheng was given to Ju Su.

In fact, in the eyes of most Cao Wei officials, this approach was simply seeking death. If any place showed the ambition to become independent and rebel, several states would immediately be in chaos. Wasn't Jin afraid of the collapse of its foundation?

However, only a few people including Zhong Yao and Sima Yi knew that this approach was extremely terrifying. It not only showed the King of Jin's confidence, but also showed that he had an extremely stable and reliable system of controlling officials, which allowed each region to govern itself while cooperating with each other. The efforts made overtly and covertly were not achieved overnight, and it was possible that they had been operating for many years to form.

After analysis, Sima Yi believed that Wei State could never learn this model because one of the key factors was the speed of information transmission.

He discovered through various signs that the maximum speed of news transmission in Wei State was two to three hundred miles a day, and this was the most ideal situation when the weather was good, the roads were dry and unobstructed, and the post stations could always guarantee the supply of horses.

This was still the most urgent military intelligence. Generally, news would take more than a month, or even several months, to be transmitted over thousands of miles. In this case, the central government's control over the local governments was very untimely. Just like the previous Wei Feng case, the riot had been going on for half a month, but Xu Du had not received any news, so it was naturally at a loss as to how to respond.

Yuan Xi centralized government orders into several regions, each of which was led by a minister who established a government office. On the one hand, this shortened the distance of information transmission. On the other hand, what made Sima Yi feel out of reach was that the key to the two countries' awareness was that the speed of information transmission in Jin was much faster than that in Wei.

The prerequisite for post station delivery is a smooth road, but in mountainous areas and waterways, the speed will be greatly slowed down. However, the Jin army used means that were beyond the times and compressed the average speed of news delivery in an area of ​​thousands of miles to within ten days.

The difference between the two is decisive. It means that no surprise attack or incident can cause a fundamental blow to the State of Jin. If one wants to defeat the State of Jin, he can only advance step by step and destroy the enemy head-on.

This made Sima Yi feel deeply powerless. Can such an enemy really be defeated?
Then a voice interrupted his thoughts, and someone stepped out and said, "Your Majesty, although Wu may not be able to rescue us in time, Jin cannot escape at this time, and the situation in Guandong is still good, so now is a very suitable time."

"I believe that the Han Dynasty has lost its virtue and the world is in turmoil. Now that Wei is following the will of heaven, the Han Emperor should abdicate and inherit the throne!"

With a loud bang, all the officials in the court were in chaos. They looked in the direction of the voice, wanting to see who was so bold, but they saw that the person who spoke was Sikong Hua Xin.

Someone immediately shouted, "Hua Xin, you are so audacious! How dare you spread rumors and deceive the king to do something that is despised by the world?"

"The King of Wei would never do this if he were still alive. Do you want the State of Wei to perish?"

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone knew that this person was finished. Do you really not see the situation clearly, or are you looking for death? What does Cao Pi think? Is it your turn to squeeze him?

Sure enough, a gloomy look flashed across Cao Pi's eyes. He originally wanted Hua Xin to test the ministers, but now it seems that things are not going well.

The emperor's abdication was definitely not a spur-of-the-moment decision of Cao Pi, but was the result of discussions with his trusted ministers.

If Cao Cao could have expanded his power by eliminating the princes and successively conferred titles of King of Wei and Duke of Wei when he was alive, Cao Pi no longer had such conditions.

Because his enemy is the State of Jin, it would be good enough if he could defend his achievements, let alone destroy it and create momentum. His days in the future will only become more and more difficult. Instead of doing this, it would be better for him to proclaim himself emperor as soon as possible and attract those forces who want to speculate to join him. Maybe he could even have the strength to fight against the State of Jin!
(End of this chapter)