Three Kingdoms: I don’t want to fall in love in troubled times

Chapter 27 Xiliang Incident (2)

It was getting dusk, and the students said goodbye to Xu Jiashu one by one with unfinished wine jars in their arms. He and Jia Xu were the only two people left in the wine shop.

After three drinks, we sat across from each other by the warm stove, creating a chatting atmosphere.

"Brother Wenhe is from Liangzhou, can you tell me something about Xiliang?" Xu Jiashu took the initiative to start the conversation.

The longer we come to this era, the more we discover the specialness of the Liangzhou people - their relationship with the Han Dynasty is like a father and son who are angry with each other. A loving group of people.

What he wanted to know was, where did this outcast-like mentality come from?
Hearing this question, Jia Xu seemed a little surprised. He took a sip and said, "I didn't expect anyone in Luoyang to be interested in Xiliang's affairs."

In the past eighty years or so, the word "Qiang Rebellion" has been lingering around the land of Xiliang.

At the beginning, when the territory of the Han Dynasty continued to expand in Liangzhou, the Qiang villages that originally lived in scattered river valleys were brought under the rule one after another. During the rule, they learned the system and technology of the Han Dynasty, and several villages were formed from countless loose villages. A big tribe.

In the first year of Yongchu, the imperial court recruited a large number of Qiang people from the three counties of Liangzhou to fight in the Western Regions. There were defections on the way, which opened the prelude to the Qiang rebellion. From then on, Liangzhou became a festering wound on the western frontier of the Han Dynasty.

If the original purpose of the war was simply to counter the Qiang rebellion, then after four generations of long conflicts, the Liangzhou people, regardless of the Qiang Han, have been regarded as an untrustworthy group of people.

To put it simply, they are no longer regarded as one of their own, and the eyes from the East are somewhat full of scrutiny and alienation.

Within the Eastern Han Dynasty, there had been voices calling for abandonment of Liangzhou many years ago. In addition, after the reform of the imperial examination system to allocate quotas in proportion to population, it became more difficult for Liangzhou scholars to enter the imperial court as officials.

Losing the right to speak in the court made this already difficult-to-govern place even more uncontrollable. In this confrontational atmosphere, the foreign governors who governed Liangzhou only wanted to protect themselves and make money, and had no ambition to defend their territory. , the guarding army's military discipline was lax, which further corrupted the local people's hearts.

The situation has thus entered an irreversible cycle of suspicion. In this case, the situation of local Han officials like Han Sui and Bian Zhang can only be said to be that Zhu Bajie looks in the mirror and is not human inside and out.

Help the prefect sent by the imperial court, they won't trust you at all.Help your fellow countrymen, you are an official of the imperial court.

As a result, more and more Han people directly chose to go to Luo with arms and openly declare their interests to the princes in the court - don't you think the people of Liangzhou are double-minded?
Let's clarify, you are right.

Rotten.

"."

With Jia Xu's personal account, Xu Jiashu had a deeper understanding of the crisis facing the Han Dynasty - Liangzhou was like this, how could the Huns in Bingzhou and Xianbei in Youzhou be easy to deal with?
It is said that the Han Dynasty died due to force, but in fact the seeds of the subsequent foreign invasion had been planted at this time, but they were temporarily suppressed by the heroes of the Three Kingdoms era.

"No wonder the Liangzhou army behaved like this." Xu Jiashu originally wanted to say cruelty, but suddenly he heard that Jia Xu had just led his men to rob the people, and he held it back.

"So cruel?" Jia Xu said it for him, and then asked: "Zimao, do you know how things are done in the world?"

"Please give me some advice from Brother Wenhe."

"It's just taking advantage of the situation." Jia Xu poured a few drops of wine on the ground, pointed at them and said: "Water flows to lower places, and people go to higher places."

"Nowadays, people are like fish and meat, and I am like a swordsman. Have these Liangzhou soldiers with swords suddenly turned into saints and stopped killing and robbing?"

He pointed to his chest, "It's true that I am a captain, but can I really block everyone's financial path with just one sentence?"

Xu Jiashu didn't know how to answer, so he just raised the wine bottle and drank a full glass.

Jia Xu was holding a wine bottle in his hand and was already a little drunk. "In my early years, I also thought about correcting the righteousness of the world. There are so many things that can be seen. I just feel that it is enough for me to take care of myself for my insignificance." At the age of 42, Jia Xu has spent his whole life. Having lived under the rule of two historically weak emperors, Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling, they were in the turbulent Xiliang region. Everywhere they looked, there was a doomsday scene.

Are there any heroes in the world?

There must be some, such as Fu Nanrong from Beidi County.

During the rebellion between Wang Guo and Ma Teng two years ago, Fu Nanrong held on to the county seat and ran out of ammunition and food.

At that time, there were thousands of Huns cavalry from Beidi County outside the city. They had received Fu Nanrong's kindness and felt his loyalty. They kowtowed together outside the city, begging him to leave the city and surrender, and were willing to ensure that he returned to his hometown Beidi County safely. Fu Nanrong He refused to listen and was martyred in the battle to defend the city.

And Dong Zhuo, before he became the prime minister of this country, he could be regarded as a loyal person to the country. He was worthy of the title of hero during his military life.Once he came to power, he also turned into a gluttonous figure.

There is no justice in the world, and heroes either turn into corpses or degenerate into monsters.

Jia Xu doesn't want to be a hero, he just wants to live well. Apart from that, if he can occasionally take advantage of the situation and do something useful, he will have a clear conscience.

“Making the best of the situation.”

Xu Jiashu chewed these four words carefully and drank another full glass.

Frankly speaking, Jia Xu's thoughts were similar to his own, which was just to save his life in troubled times. Didn't he, Xu Zimao, always want to go to Xuzhou to join Mi Zhu and live a happy life without fighting against the world?

But hearing this kind of words from other people's mouths always makes me feel very harsh.

The cause of the chaos in Xiliang certainly does not lie with this generation. The predecessors are undoubtedly the most responsible. Not to mention the two Huan Lings, the Yongchu Qiang chaos is a matter that dates back to Emperor Han'an of the Han Dynasty!

In other words, the people who made things bad in the beginning are all dead now and turned into a pile of loess.

Demanding the dead is just a joke.

As for Jia Xu's generation of Liangzhou people, even though they hated the imperial court, they committed all kinds of evil in Luoyang once they became powerful. In essence, they were just victims of the mistakes of their predecessors, or at least one of the victims.

It seems that everything makes sense - I am not to blame, you were the first to make a move, this is how things have been since I was born, and it has always been like this.

But it's always been like this, right?
Xiliang was so dilapidated that by the end of the Three Kingdoms, the combined population of several counties was only tens of thousands of households. The local people's livelihood was exhausted and supplies were scarce. Zhuge Liang even made the harvest of wheat a major event during the Northern Expedition.

Even the adjacent Guanzhong area became desolate and dilapidated. It was not until the Tang Dynasty established Chang'an as its capital hundreds of years later that it prospered again.

Aren't these the results of generations of people "taking advantage of the situation"?
"It's just an old soldier from Liangzhou talking nonsense." Jia Xu said with his tongue hanging out, lying on the table like a drunken uncle who can be seen everywhere at night snack stalls, "If I were 20 years younger, I would also like to be Fu Nanrong. "

Xu Jiashu was afraid that Jia Xu would choke, so he laid him flat on the couch, stood where Mi Zhu was, and looked towards Shanglin Garden in the distance.

At some point, a thin layer of white gauze covered the ground.

Snowing.

(End of this chapter)