Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

Except for Liu Bei who had already known about Li Ji's grand ambitions, no one at the table understood.

The noble families only cared about their own interests. In order to recover their ancestral land as soon as possible, Li Ji stated that they were short of manpower and needed to re-inspect the land in Yuzhou in order to determine the amount of land that had been occupied by each family.

This policy would have been met with fierce opposition from the aristocratic and powerful families in the past, but it now won their full support, and they even voluntarily provided manpower to check the land.

Amidst a great deal of praise and awe-filled gazes, Li Ji left the banquet with Li Xiang and Li Xi and returned to their temporary residence in a carriage.

Li Ji returned to his mansion and asked Li Xiang to go to the neighboring mansion to wait for A Dou to come back.

After all, Adou has the status of a young master, so it is inconvenient for him to live in the same mansion with Li Ji.

Therefore, even though Adou basically stayed together with Li Xiang on weekdays, he still had to live separately in a mansion.

When Li Ji patiently coaxed Li Xi to sleep and arrived at the main hall of the mansion, Zhuge Liang had been waiting there for a while.

"Sorry for the long wait, Lao Lianger."

Li Ji raised his hand to signal Zhuge Liang that there was no need to be polite, then he sat opposite Zhuge Liang and took the papers that Zhuge Liang had placed on the table and began to look through them.

At a banquet, when there are many people talking and lots of things to say, it is most likely that one may inadvertently reveal one's inclinations and attitudes.

The size of the "cake" of farmland in Yuzhou is almost fixed.

Now that he had finally managed to take a large amount of "cake" out of the mouths of the aristocratic families and distribute it to the people, which had greatly eased the contradiction of land annexation, it was naturally impossible for Li Ji to sacrifice the interests of the people to satisfy the appetites of the aristocratic families.

The essence of politics is not just balance, but also to satisfy the majority and then strike down the minority.

Although the Yuzhou noble families now seem to be united in expressing their attitude towards Li Ji, their internal structure is far from being a solid block. Instead, they are "enemies" fighting over a share of the pie.

For Li Ji, Yuzhou was still too crowded, and the Yuzhou families needed to be streamlined.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to sacrifice another part of the Yuzhou families, and then use the flesh and blood of this part of the Yuzhou families to stabilize the majority of the Yuzhou families?
As for opposition, the sacrificed group has no right to object, and the Yuzhou families who have benefited are even less likely to object. This will undoubtedly be a win-win situation for all parties.

Li Ji wins, Liu Bei wins, and the Han Dynasty wins!

However, Li Ji still needs to decide which families to sacrifice.

What Zhuge Liang submitted was the records of what they said secretly at the banquet made by his confidants.

According to the current attitudes of the aristocratic families and the powerful people, combined with the Jinyisi's past records of the behavior of the aristocratic families and the powerful people in Yuzhou, it is not difficult to make a list of those who are not qualified to keep up with the imperial warships that are about to be revived.

When Li Ji lowered his head and flipped through the pages, he was quite surprised that the first thing that appeared before his eyes was "Nanyang Xu Family".

Li Ji recalled briefly and spoke.

"Could this Nanyang Xu family be Xu You's family?"

"Indeed," Zhuge Liang replied.

"But why would the Xu family from Nanyang appear in Yuzhou?" Li Ji was a little puzzled.

Although Nanyang County was adjacent to Yuzhou, Li Ji did not remember that the Yellow Turbans in Yuzhou had wreaked havoc in Nanyang, Jingzhou.

Zhuge Liang, who compiled these contents, had naturally investigated the reasons and answered.

"Before that, Jingzhou was in turmoil, and Nanyang County was caught in the flames of war and became the focus of the dispute between Yuzhou and Jingzhou. Later, it seemed that Xu You learned about Yuan's plan in advance and knew that Nanyang County would be ceded to Lu Bu by Yuan Shu, so he instigated Lu Bu to fight with Jingzhou."

"Therefore, Xu You sent a message to the family early on, asking them to move to the distantly related Xu family in Ruyang for refuge. Through various exchanges of interests, they obtained a large amount of land and settled in Ruyang."

"As for the result, all the newly acquired land was taken away by the Yellow Turbans. Now the Xu family in Nanyang is afraid that there is not much money or food left." After hearing this, Li Ji couldn't help but feel a little amused.

In troubled times, moving the whole family is undoubtedly the way for the wealthy and powerful families to survive.

Many noble families judged that a certain place would become a place of endless war, so they would choose to sell off most of their assets and move to a more stable area for development.

Xu You, who knew in advance that Nanyang County would be plunged into war, naturally secretly informed his family of the relevant news.

But the unfortunate place of the Xu family in Nanyang was that they moved to Yuzhou.

Now, the entire Nanyang Xu family is probably on the verge of falling apart from top to bottom. The land and property they exchanged for in Ruyang with the proceeds from selling their ancestral property were gone before they could even enjoy their wealth.

According to the usual practice among aristocratic families, it is possible that the Nanyang Xu family may not have any surplus food now, and may even owe the Ruyang Xu family a large sum of money and food that needs to be repaid slowly.

Xu You had been greedy all his life, but his family suffered like this. It seemed like all his efforts were in vain.

Then, Li Ji read it carefully again and found that the words recorded by Nanyang Xu at the banquet frequently mentioned the word "untouchables" and some of his remarks were extremely radical.

This made Li Ji's eyes narrow slightly, and he remembered that he had indeed heard someone repeatedly referring to the common people in such a contemptuous way during the banquet.

However, Li Ji couldn't get angry at the banquet, and even when there were so many people talking, it was difficult for Li Ji to tell who said what.

"Humph!"

Li Ji picked up the brush on the table, lightly wrote the word "go" on the paper that recorded Nanyang Xu's remarks, and then put it aside.

Then, Li Ji looked through them one by one and conducted a preliminary screening of the aristocratic families and powerful people in Yuzhou.

Or postpone, or stay, or go...

Until I saw the last one - "Yingchuan Guo Family", which is the family that Guo Jia and Guo Tu came from.

When Li Ji was present, Guo Ling's words were quite appropriate. However, after Li Ji left the banquet, he repeatedly made disrespectful remarks when talking with representatives of other noble families.

Zhuge Liang did write down an analysis of his intention, which was that Guo Ling wanted to save face in front of the aristocratic families by showing his awe and fear when facing Li Ji.

Human nature is often like this.

Respectful at first, arrogant later.

Li Ji's eyes were cold. In front of Zhuge Liang's surprised look, he picked up the pen and wrote the word "go".

"Liang'er seems confused?" Li Ji asked.

Zhuge Liang hesitated for a moment, then answered truthfully.

"Although Senior Brother Fengxiao has drawn a clear line between himself and Yingchuan Guo, they may still have some ties. If Guo leaves, it will probably make Senior Brother Fengxiao feel awkward. Teacher, can you give it some thought?"

"What Liang'er said is absolutely right. But that's exactly why the Yingchuan Guo family should 'go'." Li Ji replied with a smile.

Zhuge Liang, who also came from a noble family, looked at Li Ji in great confusion.

"Let's not talk about the past incident in which Yingchuan Guo Clan offended the master. Let's talk about the fact that Fengxiao was kicked out of the family tree by Yingchuan Guo Clan because he followed the master, and the boundary between them was drawn..."

"As a teacher, it's time for Feng Xiao to vent his anger himself."

Li Ji took a sip of tea and said leisurely. (End of this chapter)