Super Cultivation System of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 622: Cruel and treacherous
Cui Jun thought for a moment and said, "Could it be that he wants to annex Yuan Shu's troops and then turn around to deal with our army?"

Xun You shook his head and said, "This is just one of the reasons. He has always been eyeing Yuan Shu and Yuzhou covetously. It is natural for him to swallow up his people and occupy his city. If he only wanted to deal with Yuan Shu, he could have taken away a part of his troops, secretly crossed Chencang, secretly returned to the army, and joined the troops stuck in Yuzhou, suddenly attacked and captured Yuzhou, and threw Luoyang back to the lord. Wouldn't he get Yuzhou and the court's praise?"

Cui Jun nodded slightly: "It seems that Cao Cao really has ulterior motives and is more difficult to deal with than the two Yuan brothers."

Seeing that they couldn't come to a conclusion for the time being, Liu He decided to give up.

"Even if Cao Cao gets Yuan Shu's troops, they are still far inferior to ours. If he makes any unusual moves, I can wipe him out at any time."

Xun Yu asked, "What are your plans, lord?"

Liu He looked up at the sky outside the study and said slowly, "Immediately issue an imperial edict to commend Cao Cao for his efforts in regaining the capital and defeating the traitor Yuan Shu. Order him to clean up the city and the palace. One month later, I will personally lead an army of 100,000 to welcome the emperor back to the court."

Xun Yu said, "If you want to go to Luoyang, you better hurry rather than slow down. One month is enough time for Cao Cao to chase into Yuzhou, completely wipe out Yuan Shu and take over his troops. By then, Cao Cao will have no less than 160,000 or 170,000 soldiers. If he guards the dangerous passes inside and outside Luoyang and then attacks you and the emperor, I'm afraid it will be very difficult for our army to escape."

Xun You also agreed, "That's right. Follow my suggestion and purchase a large amount of food and grass within ten days, and then send a large army immediately. At the same time, recall Generals Guan and Zhao with a total of 30,000 cavalry to garrison in Henei. If there is any change, they can rush to Luoyang in half a day. Recruit Generals Zhang and Gao to lead the Han Wuzu and the Jindao Battalion to garrison Shangdang. Recruit General Ye to lead the Shenji Battalion and 20,000 infantry to garrison in Hedong. The three armies will form a pincer attack to threaten Luoyang."

"In addition, if we can successfully occupy Luoyang, we should promote Cao Cao in public but secretly surrender. We can promote him to General Wei and keep him in the court. We can send our generals to take over all his troops and station them in Yanzhou and Yuzhou. In this way, no matter what ambitions he has, they will be like rootless duckweed and it will be difficult for him to achieve anything."

Cui Jun agreed, "Yes, Cao Cao's messenger has not arrived yet. He must have been delaying on purpose, wanting to wait until he completely destroyed Yuan Shu before inviting our army to come, so that he would have enough time to make arrangements. He did not expect that the lord had the Flying Eagle Guards keeping an eye on Luoyang at all times. Within a day, they would know all the news in Luoyang. If he wants to be slow, our army must be fast."

After the two of them talked, Liu He finally understood everything.

"Okay, let's follow Gongda and Zhouping's advice. Summon them immediately and inform all the ministers that they will set off for Luoyang in ten days!"

As soon as the news came out, all the ministers in the court were excited and overjoyed. They originally thought that it would take at least one or two years for Liu He to send troops to capture Luoyang, but they did not expect that they would be able to realize their wish to return to the capital so soon. This also meant that their achievement of "supporting the new king" was just around the corner.

All of a sudden, all the ministers were running around in the palace telling each other, anxious to finalize the list of recommendations put forward that day as soon as possible, so that after the establishment of the new dynasty, relying on such great achievements, the people on the list would surely be given great responsibilities.

The people in the city were also crying with joy. They were proud of such a great event. As for the merchants, they were even more surprised. After evacuating Luoyang, many merchants suffered heavy losses. Now that they have returned to Luoyang, their business can be expanded again, which can support the construction of Yunhai County and contribute to their efforts to win the title.

At this time, Cao Cao was personally leading his army to pursue the remnants of Yuan Shu. At night, inside the tent, Cao Cao's face was as gloomy as water.

"It was only three days ago that our army defeated Yuan Shu. How come Liu He knew about it two days ago? Now even the emperor's decree has been delivered to me. Isn't this man too well-informed?"

Cheng Yu was also puzzled. "It would take at least two days to go from Hanoi to Luoyang to gather information and then report it back to Taiyuan, even if we rode at full speed day and night. It would take at least four or five days to find our army and send someone to deliver the imperial edict. But Liu He was able to do it in three days, which only proves that he has been sending people to secretly monitor all the movements of our army. I'm afraid that when our army just launched an ambush on Yuan Shu, the news had already reached Jinyang City, and wherever our army goes, there are people monitoring it in real time."

Xiahou Dun was horrified. "If that's the case, then Liu He's methods are too shocking. If we become his enemy in the future, our ambush and camp locations will be exposed. How can we keep them secret?"

Cao Cao's face turned livid. He held the edict inlaid with golden silk patterns tightly in his hand and said in a very decisive tone: "Liu He must die. I thought I had overestimated him in the past, but now I know that he has many tricks and they are endless. If we can't take advantage of this opportunity to kill him, I'm afraid we won't have another chance in the future."

"Yes, after our army won the victory, we did not send a message to Jinyang immediately. I am afraid that Liu He has become suspicious. Now he has a hundred thousand troops with him. He must want to take over Luoyang in one fell swoop and completely squeeze our army out of Sili. If he succeeds, the next step will be the emperor's edict in front and hundreds of thousands of troops behind, ordering the lord to withdraw from Yanzhou and Yuzhou again, and the lord will have to obey even if he doesn't want to."

Cheng Yu spoke in a somewhat anxious tone.

Xiahou Yuan said: "But our army has not yet succeeded in pursuing Yuan Shu. If we return to Luoyang now, Yuan Shu will surely flee to Yuzhou and join his main army. Wouldn't our army fail in this case?"

Cao Cao immediately said, "Miaocai, Yuanrang, listen to my orders."

"The general is here!"

"I order you two to lead 10,000 soldiers and continue to hunt down Yuan Shu. Not only must you kill him, but you must also seize the land of Yuzhou. If you fail, you must bring your heads to me!"

"We obey your command!" Xiahou Yuan and Xiahou Dun replied firmly.

Cao Cao stood up in awe: "Order the whole army, rest early tonight, cook at five o'clock tomorrow morning, and return to Luoyang as quickly as possible!"

His army had just left Luoyang and not far from it. On the second day, at daybreak, the entire army broke camp. The two Xiahou led their troops to Yuzhou, while Cao Cao personally led his troops back to Luoyang. Within a day and a night, they successfully returned to the gate of Luoyang.

The generals who stayed in the city naturally knew their lord, and quickly opened the city gate to welcome him in. Cao Cao was in a hurry, and was about to give an order, but he didn't expect that the general guarding the city seemed to be more anxious than him.

"My Lord, something big has happened!"

Cao Cao immediately looked alert: "Why are you so panicked? Could it be that Liu He's army has arrived?"

The guard was stunned, not knowing why he suddenly said such a thing: "No, I don't have any news about the general."

Cao Cao finally breathed a sigh of relief: "What on earth is going on?"

The garrison commander hurriedly said, "My lord ordered me to lead 10,000 soldiers to garrison Luoyang. I inspected the city and found that it was not an empty city."

Cao Cao was immediately annoyed when he heard this: "What's the big deal? Luoyang is such a big city. Even if Liu He moved most of the people away, there must be some people left in the city. You are still panicking about this and disturbing the morale of the army. You should be executed!"

"My lord, wait a minute." Xi Zhong said, "From the look on the general's face, I'm afraid there's something else going on. Let him finish his words."

Cao Cao then shouted, "Why don't you speak quickly?"

The guard had just escaped from the gates of hell and was covered in cold sweat.

"Yes... When I was inspecting the city, hundreds of people came to me. They claimed to be..."

He glanced at Cao Cao cautiously, and then continued, "They claim to be important officials of the Han Dynasty and heads of major families. Among them, the leaders are Chen Ji from the Yingchuan Chen family, Wei Ji from the Hedong Wei family, and Zheng Tai from the Xingyang Zheng family..."

Cheng Yu beside him was stunned: "How could it be them? Shouldn't they have been executed by Liu He long ago?"

Xi Zhong suddenly remembered something: "Ah, there is no doubt about it. After the Luoyang Incident, all these people were arrested and detained by Liu He's order, and interrogated strictly. They were originally going to be executed. However, the interrogation took a long time, and the Yellow River flooded during the interrogation. Liu He had no time to think about this matter. Then he evacuated Luoyang, and these people must have been left in the city's prison. I guess Yuan Shu released them after occupying the city to show his intention to make peace."

Cheng Yu suddenly realized: "Well, it makes sense. Yuan Shu considered himself the heir of the Yuan family. As the leader of the nobles, he should be kind to these people. But he didn't expect that he would be expelled from Luoyang so soon. It would be inconvenient to take these old, weak and sick people with him, so he had to abandon them."

He said to Cao Cao: "My lord, although these people have lost their reputation, they are still the leaders among the nobles. It is better to go and meet them and properly settle them."

Cao Cao frowned, as if thinking about something else, and asked the guard, "How many people are there?"

The garrison commander did not dare to hide the truth: "The man who called himself Chen Ji said that, including his relatives and family members, there were nearly 30,000 people in total, all in their respective mansions."

"Thirty thousand men?" Cao Hong's eyes widened. "This is more than half of our current army."

Cheng Yu was not surprised. "These are all the top families in the Han Dynasty. As far as I know, there are nearly 20 people in Wei Ji's generation, including his sons and nephews, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law. If we count the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and family branches, it is reasonable that there are 30,000 people in these hundreds of families."

But Cao Cao's expression was very grim: "Did they say what they wanted?"

The garrison commander replied, "My lord, according to what they said, all their property has been confiscated by Liu He, and now Yuan Shu has been defeated. Everyone is starving. Please quickly allocate food for them to eat, and it would be best if there is also wine and meat. Please also specifically order me to personally invite these hundreds of family heads to set up a banquet in the palace to celebrate my capture of Luoyang."

"What?" Cao Hong almost jumped up. "The food and grass that our army brought only lasts for less than two months. With 30,000 mouths, won't they take away at least one month's food and grass from our army? And they want wine and meat? It's really a daydream. If we fight with Liu He's army later, it will not be Liu He who is short of food and grass, but our army. Meng De, this cannot happen."

Cao Cao didn't say anything. Seeing this, Cheng Yu opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but finally stopped himself.

At this time, Guo Jia came over and said, "As soon as Liu He entered Luoyang, he wanted to execute all the officials who rebelled against the court. My lord, for the sake of the people of the world, begged him, but Liu He not only refused, but also beheaded them in front of my lord. Faced with such a tyrannical person, my lord was forced to resist and had no choice but to kill Liu He and support the emperor."

When Cao Cao heard this, his eyes suddenly lit up.

"Cao Hong, I have something for you to do..."

(End of this chapter)