Three Kingdoms: Let Yuan Shen be great again

However, the story of Lu Yi's feud with Sun Ce, and whether his betrayal of Hua Xin was true or false, is actually quite interesting.

According to Yang Hong, Lu Yi and Sun Ce had a deep-seated hatred for each other, which is beyond doubt.

It wasn't just the Lu family; during Sun Ce's conquest of Jiangdong, he also used ruthless methods, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that heads rolled and blood flowed like rivers.

Compared to others, Yuan Yao's cleaning skills are just for fun; he still needs more practice.

In short, the conflict between the Jiangdong gentry and the Sun family was real. Given the chance, they would love to kill Sun Ce, or at the very least drive him out of Jiangdong.

Before the Battle of Huainan, Yuan Yao rallied Yan Baihu's remaining followers to cause trouble within Jiangdong, which once made Sun Ce very busy. On the surface, this was because Yuan Yao provided some financial support and Liu Ye was remotely manipulating things. In reality, the root cause was that the powerful clans of Jiangdong were secretly pushing things along.

The problem is that Sun Ce was ultimately more skilled. Even though his expedition to Huainan failed, he still managed to preserve his main force, which was enough to suppress all internal opposition and allow him to continue as the ruler of Jiangdong.

This is troublesome.

Despite their grudges against Sun Ce, life had to go on.

After all, the foundation of these aristocratic families lay in their collusion with the official rulers, working together as one and the same. Now that they have been at odds with Sun Ce for a long time, the latter is only slightly troubled, while they are truly at risk of their social standing falling into ruin.

Seeing this, many families had no choice but to accept reality and prepare to obediently bow their heads and submit, including the Wu County Lu family, to which Lu Yi belonged.

However, the Lu family and the Sun family had a blood feud, and Lu Yi desperately hoped that Sun Ce could give them a way out. Even if it was just a matter of the two armies fighting for their own masters, he could still say that they could forget their grudges with a smile and let the matter drop.

But Sun Ce did not.

Sun Ce's killing of the Jiangdong gentry was similar to Yuan Yao's killing of the powerful clans of Huainan. It was partly for the purpose of maintaining his rule, but also partly because he disliked them. If he wanted Yuan Yao to say something conciliatory to the Lu family, then taking action with a knife would be more to his liking.

In the end, Lu Yi had no other choice but to take advantage of the unexpected turn of events in the Battle of Yuzhang to actively align himself with Sun Ce, and then naturally he was sent to Hua Xin's side as an undercover agent.

Having said all that, is it true or false that Lu Yi betrayed Hua Xin and sided with her?

Yang Hong's answer was: It's both true and false.

This is not contradictory.

Lu Yi's actions were ultimately aimed at finding a way out for the Lu family. Therefore, he would both reveal Sun Ce's intelligence to Hua Xin and inform Sun Ce about the anti-Sun coalition, acting as a double agent who would hedge his bets and then choose sides completely once the situation became clear.

In this way, as long as he can gain the trust of the final victor, he can use this opportunity to create a way out for the Lu family.

However, considering the disparity between Jiangdong and the anti-Sun coalition, even if they obtained intelligence at the same time, the effects would be drastically different. Sun Ce still had a greater chance of winning this war, so Lu Yi's identity as an undercover agent was more inclined to be that of Sun Ce.

But... whether it's a feigned surrender or a double agent, what does it have to do with Yuan Yao?

Throughout history, both in China and abroad, encirclement nets have always been torn apart by hand, resulting in more losses than wins.

Whether it was the alliance of six states against Qin or the original Nobunaga's encirclement, they all ended badly. The few successful anti-French alliances, however, failed five times before finally achieving victory only after Lao Na's own blunders.

Therefore, Yuan Yao never expected that this anti-Sun coalition would be able to kill Sun Ce. He was merely trying to annoy the enemy in various ways and slow down the enemy's expansion.

Now that this secondary objective has been achieved, all he can do is speed things up and complete his main task of making money, and at most, decide whether to provide some support to the main battlefield depending on the situation.

Of course, Yuan Yao couldn't say these things openly to Lu Yizhi, as it would damage his image as the ruler of Huainan.

At this moment, if it were anyone else, Yuan Yao would have dismissed them with the excuse that it was a matter of military secrets and he couldn't disclose it. After all, Hua Xin wouldn't come after him anyway. However, considering that Lu Yi's identity was rather special and that he might be useful to him, Yuan Yao decided to say a few more words to him.

He took out a military map of Yuzhang, which was drawn by the officers brought by Yuan Yao during their inspection tours.

"Boyan," Yuan Yao beckoned him over, "You've just returned from the front lines, could you please mark the military deployments of all sides on the map for me?"

Lu Yi pursed his lips and finished the task first. Seeing that the other party was staring at the map and remained silent for a long time, he finally couldn't help but urge him, "Please forgive my rudeness, but I have come here on the orders of Lord Hua to ask your army for help. I hope that Young Master Yuan will tell me what your plans are."

"Hehe, Boyan, don't be in such a hurry," Yuan Yao said with a smile. "However, before I answer this matter, I also have a question I would like to ask you."

"Young Master Yuan, please speak."

"As Boyan said, the situation in Yuzhang is urgent, and we urgently need the assistance of the Huainan army. So, how should our army deploy its troops to reverse the defeat?"

"what?"

Yuan Yao grabbed Lu Yi's hand and said meaningfully, "Boyan, please speak freely. If you were to command the allied forces, how would you deploy your troops to defeat Sun Ce?"

Lu Yi fell silent, wanting to decline on the grounds of his lack of knowledge and skills, but seeing that Yuan Yao's expression was serious and not joking, and coupled with his youthful arrogance, he agreed to this theoretical discussion.

Half an hour later, the deduction was completed.

Yuan Yao stroked his chin and asked, "So, no matter what our Huainan army does, we have a very small chance of winning this battle and will be unable to hold Yuzhang."

Given Yuan Yao's military prowess, he was able to lead the Jiangdong Army to defeat Lu Yi's anti-Sun coalition, so what else is there to say?

Lu Yi paused for a moment, finally realizing that Yuan Yao was finding a reason to refuse to send troops. But since things had come to this, he could only bite the bullet and try to salvage the situation: "It can't be said that way. As the saying goes, everything depends on human effort. Besides, even in the worst-case scenario, it would take the Jiangdong army more than a month to conquer Yuzhang. We might be able to come up with another way."

"Boyan, you don't need to persuade me anymore." Yuan Yao revealed his true intentions: "I never intended to fight alongside the Allied Forces."

Those people were really too incompetent. Yuan Yao was afraid that he would get involved and that if something went wrong, he might not be able to escape smoothly.

Of course, as a member of the anti-Sun alliance and the mastermind behind Sun Ce's encirclement, Yuan Yao couldn't just sit idly by; he had to do something to give everyone an explanation.

"Please tell Lord Hua that I will do two things for him in this battle. First, to defend Pengli Lake and thwart the Jiangdong army's attempt to launch a combined land and water attack. Second, to pacify the rear so that he will not be left with nowhere to retreat. As for the rest—with Lord Huang in charge of the allied forces, I will not overstep my bounds."

Speaker Lu sighed, "As you command."

Having said that, he was about to return to report.

"Wait a moment!"

But Yuan Yao called him back again.

Yuan Yao stared into Lu Yi's eyes and slowly asked, "There's something I'd like to ask Boyan specifically: who do you think is more important to me, you or Sun Ce?"

Lu Yi was puzzled, and subconsciously replied, "Naturally, it's Sun Ce."

"No, guess again."

"...It couldn't be me, could it?"

"That's not right either."

"What exactly is that?"

Yuan Yao said slowly, "Whether Sun Ce is here or not is important to both of us."