Chapter 360: Hebei chaos begins, Zhang Song becomes disloyal If Cao Cao could be given a chance to be reborn, he would definitely not let Qin Zhen go. At least, he would not let Qin Zhen leave his command alive. Unfortunately, there is already one lucky person who traveled through time, so it is obviously not the turn of Lao Cao in this world. All he could do was accept the bleak reality that Liu Bei had already occupied half of the country. The two existing princes Yuan Shao and Liu Zhang also need to accept this situation. However, compared to Lao Cao, the two of them obviously did not have as many worries about Qin Zhen. When Yuan Shao heard that Liu Bei had captured Jingzhou, he immediately sighed to his subordinates: "I fought a great battle with Cao Mengde, but Liu Xuande gained the upper hand. Now Liu Bei is so powerful that I am afraid he will be hard to control in the future!" As everyone listened to Yuan Shao's words, they sighed and their faces looked heavy. Because Yuan Shao's situation is much better now than in the original history, Tian Feng and Ju Su are both under his command, and Zhang He and Gao Lan have not surrendered to the enemy. However, Yuan Shao was overly worried about the Battle of Guandu, and his health deteriorated day by day.

Faced with this situation, his wife Liu urged Yuan Shao to establish an heir several times, but Yuan Shao did not respond. When his civil and military officials saw this, they knew that Yuan Shao might not live long, so they all tried to persuade Yuan Shao to establish a successor. In desperation, Yuan Shao gathered Tian Feng, Ju Su, Shen Pei, Feng Ji, Guo Tu and others to discuss the matter. According to Yuan Shao's idea, he wanted to make the third son Yuan Shang his heir because he was most like him, with handsome appearance and extraordinary demeanor. In comparison, the eldest brother, Yuan Tan, is cruel and murderous but does not know how to use people; the second brother, Yuan Xi, is cowardly and unable to handle important matters. Guo Tu, who originally supported Yuan Tan, was naturally unhappy about this and quickly advised him not to depose the eldest son and enthrone the youngest. Feng Ji, Shen Pei and others who had the support of Ju Su strongly supported Yuan Shang, making Yuan Shao hesitant. This gave Yuan Xi an opportunity, and he tried to win over Tian Feng, Xun Chen and others while actively performing his duties. Seeing this situation, Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang also rushed to get Yuan Shao's approval. As a result, Yuan Shao became upset and unable to manage affairs, so he drove the three men back to their respective states and counties. Since the country needed to recuperate and was unable to start a war, Yuan Shao took the initiative to send envoys south to make friends with Liu Bei. After talking about Yuan Shao, let’s talk about Liu Zhang in Shu. Liu Zhang was originally the youngest son of Liu Yan. According to the inheritance rules of that era, Liu Zhang was not qualified to inherit Liu Yan's throne. Unfortunately, his brother Liu Fan and others died early due to the Li-Guo Rebellion, making him the next in line to the throne. However, because Liu Zhang was weak, he was marginalized by Sima Zhao Wei, Zhizhong Wang Shang and others as soon as he came to power. Later, Jingzhou Beijia Liu He saw the opportunity and instigated Shen Mi, Lou Fa, Gan Ning and others to rebel. In order to suppress the rebellion, Liu Zhang appointed Zhao Wei as the General of the Eastern Expedition and prepared to attack Liu Biao. Unexpectedly, as soon as Zhao Wei left, the Bayi people Du Fu, Pu Hu, Yuan Yue and others betrayed Liu Zhang and defected to Zhang Lu. In anger, Liu Zhang killed Zhang Lu's mother, which led to a complete break between Zhang Lu and Liu Zhang.

Also, because Sanfu and Nanyang sent soldiers from Dongzhou in Shu to plunder everywhere, Liu Zhang fell into a situation of internal and external troubles. Upon seeing this, Zhao Wei launched a rebellion. At one point, Shujun, Guanghan, and Qianwei all responded with tens of thousands of troops. So when Liu Bei attacked Jingzhou, Liu Zhang was using the Dongzhou troops to quell the rebellion. As a result, just after Zhao Wei died, he received the news that Liu Bei had occupied Jingzhou. Liu Zhang was a timid man to begin with, so he was naturally frightened when he heard that a huge monster suddenly appeared beside him. He ordered his general Pang Xi to go to Qu and recruit Li Yi, Pang Le and other generals under Zhao Wei to guard against Liu Bei's eastward advance. I have to mention here that the Li Yi at this time is not the Li Yi from Changsha, but a person with the same name and surname. After Zhao Wei was defeated, he was killed by Li Yi and Pang Le. There were as many as 10,000 people under his command. After taking these defensive measures, Liu Zhang was still worried about Liu Bei's advance, so he called all his men together to discuss the matter. Among them was a man named Zhang Song, who was short in stature and came from the Zhang family, a prominent family in Shu. He and his brother Zhang Su were both important officials in Shu. When he was about thirty years old, he had already held the position of Gongcao in the county, but he often sighed that he could not display his talents because Liu Zhang was too weak. At this moment, when he heard Liu Zhang asking everyone's opinions, he felt a little ashamed, so he simply stepped out of the group and said bluntly: "Please forgive me for speaking frankly, but Liu Zhengdong is a strong and powerful soldier with hundreds of thousands of men." "Now that they are about to take Jingzhou, you should send envoys to make peace with them as soon as possible. How can you guard the key roads with troops first?" "Such an act is to resist the enemy before fighting. Even if Liu Zhengdong is kind and righteous, he would be angry if he saw this." "Why not withdraw the troops and make peace with them, and give them money and food to fight the bandits, so that there will be no trouble in the future!" When Liu Zhang heard this, he hesitated for a moment, but then he saw his subordinate Wang Lei step out and refute: "Liu Bei is a great thief of the country. He was on good terms with Liu Jingsheng before, and the situation is still the same today." "Now our Yizhou is located in a natural dangerous place, and you have 100,000 soldiers under your command. Why should you be afraid of Liu Bei?" "Rather than bowing and kneeling, why not first station a large number of troops, dig deep trenches and build high fortifications to guard the strategic locations?" "In this case, even if Liu Bei leads a large army here, it will be difficult for him to break through the dangers of Shu." But Zhang Song saw that he was ready to fight to the death, so he sneered and said: "It is really treasonous to say such a thing. Is Shu the land of your family?" "Today, the emperor is still in Guanzhong. The road to the north has been blocked by rice thieves. All those entering or leaving Shuzhong should head east." "There are no external enemies at the moment, and if you are so strict in defending yourself, if the emperor knew about it, he would definitely think that you want to split the land and become a king." "In that case, issue an imperial decree tomorrow, and even if Liu Zhengdong doesn't want to fight, we should still defeat him." "But I don't know if the soldiers at that time would be willing to go to the front line to resist Liu Zhengdong's troops." "Even if you are willing to go, you can ask me whether the people of Shu are willing to help you fight against the imperial court?" In terms of loyalty, Zhang Song is not as good as Wang Lei, but in terms of eloquence, ten Wang Lei are no match for Zhang Song. After he said this, Wang Lei's face turned red and he was speechless for a while. When Liu Zhang heard this, he thought that this was also true, and he would definitely not be able to beat Liu Bei.

Since they couldn't win, what was the point of stationing in a strategic location? It would only make Liu Bei wary! Rather than stationing troops and making enemies with Liu Bei now, it is better to please Liu Bei first so that they can get along well with each other after being defeated in the future. After thinking this through, he simply stopped the two from arguing and agreed to Zhang Song's suggestion. Not only did he prepare to withdraw Qu's defensive troops, he also decided to make peace with them by offering them 100,000 dan of grain and fodder and tens of millions of coins. As for the selection of the envoy, Liu Zhang did not want to trouble others and directly asked Zhang Song to go on the mission. After Zhang Song received the order, Wang Lei was naturally indignant. He left the hall and said to everyone: "If we do not prepare for defense when Liu Bei arrives, it will lead to disaster. We will be captured sooner or later." Unexpectedly, as soon as he finished speaking, someone told Liu Zhang about it. Upon hearing this, Liu Zhang immediately dismissed Wang Lei from his post and replaced him with Zhang Song's brother Zhang Su. When Zhang Song heard this, he was very proud and called his good friends Meng Da and Fa Zheng to have a banquet. However, Meng Da and Fa Zheng were both from Fufeng County and were originally from Guanzhong. Because it was the early years of Jian'an, there was a severe drought in Guanzhong and the people were suffering. Although Qin Zhen provided disaster relief, scholars such as Fa Zheng and Meng Da were unwilling to associate with the common people. So the two of them went south to rely on Liu Zhang, but they were both frustrated and unable to achieve their goals. Also, because of their identities as Dongzhou scholars, they were unable to integrate into the Shu gentry and had to live on the outside. Here we have to discuss in detail the factional issue in Yizhou. Compared with other places, there are many factions in Yizhou. Because Yizhou was a relatively closed area, the local gentry were extremely xenophobic. After Liu Yan entered Shu, in order to stabilize the overall situation in Yizhou, he employed a large number of foreign talents and suppressed the local natives. This led to the gradual division of Shu into two factions, one was the Dongzhou faction and the other was the Sichuan faction. However, due to the xenophobia of the Shu people, the competition between the Dongzhou scholars and the natives of Sichuan was extremely fierce. In order to balance the forces of all parties, Liu Yan promoted a group of emerging local gentry. The original Sichuan-Shu faction split into the old and new factions, and the conflict turned internal. Also, because Yizhou was relatively peaceful, it had been continuously absorbing talents from outside for more than ten years. With the rise of Liu Zhang, the Dongzhou faction gradually grew stronger and split into the new and old factions. For example, the brothers Zhang Song and Zhang Su were local natives, while Meng Da and Fa Zheng were new Dongzhou scholars. For example, Wang Lei and Huang Quan were emerging local gentry, while Zhao Wei and Pang Xi were the old Dongzhou scholars. The interests of the four factions were very complicated, which made the suppressed Zhang Song and the frustrated Fa Zheng and Meng Da become good friends. At this time, everyone gathered together and laughed heartily when talking about Wang Lei's miserable situation of asking for trouble. But after laughing like this, Fa Zheng sighed sadly:

"Although Wang Lei's words are foolish, they are in line with the current reality!" "Yizhou has a population of one million. If it weren't for Envoy Liu's lack of ambition, he would have accomplished great things long ago!" "I heard that when Liu Zhengdong started his career, he only had a few thousand soldiers and horses, but he still has the current momentum." "If Envoy Liu had ambition, the land of Jingzhou would not be his to conquer." As soon as he said this, the smiles on Meng Da and Zhang Song's faces naturally froze. Just like what Fa Zheng said, was Wang Lei's words wrong? That's right! With such a large territory as Yizhou, there is no need to be afraid of Liu Bei who is far away in Jingzhou. What really makes Liu Bei seem scary is that Liu Zhang is not strong enough. If Liu Zhang really wanted to dominate the world, he would not have stayed in Bashu for the seven years since he came to power. Not to mention that a small Zhang Lu refused to defend Hanzhong, even Jingzhou would not be captured by Liu Bei. When thinking of this reality, Meng Da shook his head and lamented, while Zhang Song, drunk, said: "In today's world, many heroes have emerged, and rebels have usurped power, such as Dong Zhuo and Yuan Shu." "Fortunately, Liu Zhengdong turned the tide, destroyed Yuan Shu, chased away Lu Bu, defeated Sun Ce, and now controls half of the country! "Thinking of Yizhou, which is a place of great peril and fertile land, with a rich people and a prosperous country, it should be inhabited by capable people." "I didn't expect that this land for starting a business would be occupied by Liu Zhang and his sons for more than ten years." "I think you two are also good talents for the country, but he ignores them and does not entrust them with important tasks." "If there is no wise leader, then forget it. Now that we have the General Zhengdong by our side, why don't you two go and serve him?" In Zhang Song's opinion, Fa Zheng and Meng Da were both rare talents, and since they were still in their youth, it would be a waste of time for them to stay in Yizhou. In this case, it would be better to go directly to Jingzhou to join Liu Bei and do something great! But as soon as he finished speaking, Fa Zheng and Meng Da looked at each other, both shook their heads and smiled. Fa Zheng sighed: "Liu Zhengdong now has countless talented people under his command. How can we, the petty officials, be employed by him?" As a man of extraordinary talent, he naturally wanted to display his talents, but unfortunately there was no place for him under Liu Bei. Even if he went to seek refuge now, he would most likely have to start as a minor official and would have no chance of being promoted. Meng Da listened and added: "Yes, we are not as good as you. If we really go to Jingzhou, we may not be able to see Liu Zhengdong." "Although I am not valued in Shu now, I can still seek for food and salary. This may not have been the case in the past!" Zhang Song became angry when he heard what the two said. He thought that Liu Bei had passed the start-up period and it would be difficult for them to make important use of him if they went there. But Liu Zhang is a guy with no ambition and he just occupies the toilet without doing anything. Doesn't this hinder their future? After thinking about it for a while, he suddenly felt a flash of inspiration in his mind. He looked at the two of them and whispered: "What if we can plan to offer the land of Yizhou to Liu Zhengdong?" When Fa Zheng and Meng Da heard this, they were stunned and stood there in a daze. Offering Yizhou to Liu Bei? Zhang Song's idea was too bold even if he was drunk! (End of this chapter)