After Li Zicheng's death, the Yanzhou Ming army was leaderless, and the main force suffered heavy losses, so it was naturally difficult to resist Cao Cao's attack.

Cao Cao fought successively, and in only one month, he unified 78 counties of the five counties of Yanzhou and the three countries, collected and surrendered 400,000 soldiers and civilians of Mount Tai, and completely ended the three-year melee in Yanzhou.

Li Zicheng's military advisor Li Yan and nephew Li Guo led the remnants of the Taishan Ming army to the east to take refuge in Zhu Yuanzhang.

Li Yan and Li Guo wanted to cross the Yellow River and go to the Ming Court, but because Yanjindu was occupied by the general of Cao Jun, the road to Hebei was completely blocked, so he could only retreat to Xuzhou to defect to Zhu Yuanzhang.

Li Zicheng died in battle, Li Yan and Li Guo fled, and Cao Cao selected 100,000 light and strong people from the army and people of Mount Tai, organized and trained into an army, and called 'Taishan soldiers', and the momentum rose sharply for a while.

The unification of Yanzhou shocked Zhu Yuanzhang in Xuzhou, Zhao Kuangyin in Yuzhou, and even Qin Hao in Luoyang.

Whether it is Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhao Kuangyin, or even Qin Hao, Yanzhou is too close to them, and no one wants Yanzhou to be unified, and a chaotic Yanzhou is more in line with their interests.

However, Cao Cao's actions were too fast, and he directly cut through the chaos to solve Li Zicheng, and quickly unified Yanzhou within a month, without giving any surrounding forces a chance to interfere.

Now that Yanzhou has completed the unification, after Cao Cao reorganized 100,000 Taishan soldiers, the total number of troops under his command was nearly 200,000, and he was no longer the Cao Cao who needed to rely on people.

Although the major princes were dissatisfied with this, they were helpless, and they also needed to win over Cao Cao to prevent him from being pushed to their opposite.

After unifying the five counties and three kingdoms of Yanzhou, plus Yingchuan County, where he started, Cao Cao already had 9 counties in his hands.

In terms of the number of counties alone, Cao Cao is second only to Qin Hao as a prince.

But when it comes to overall strength, Cao Cao, who has 200,000 troops, looks strong on the surface, but in fact he is only a strong outsider.

The internal friction in Yanzhou was too serious, Cao Cao first fought against the four princes of Yanzhou, and then against the elite soldiers of Taishan Li Zicheng, and carried out a three-year melee battle, which not only destroyed the entire Yanzhou, but also consumed the essence of Yanzhou.

Yanzhou was the hardest hit area of the Yellow Turban Uprising, which had a population of 6 million before the Yellow Turban Uprising, but fell to 3 million after the Yellow Turban Uprising, making it the hardest hit state among the thirteen states.

When Cao Cao defeated Li Zicheng's command of Yanzhou, there were only a population of more than 1.5 million, only a quarter of its peak.

In just ten years, Yanzhou has lost three-quarters of its total population, which is nearly 4.5 million people, which shows how harmful the troubled times on the battlefield are.

Although Cao Cao defeated Li Zicheng, what he got was only a dilapidated Yanzhou, but fortunately he collected 400,000 Taishan people, so that Yanzhou's vitality was restored a lot.

Yanzhou has a total population of 1.5 million, including 400,000 Taishan people, plus Yingchuan County, which has more than 400,000 people, and the total population under Cao Cao's command is also 2.4 million.

A total population of 2.4 million, but a full army of 200,000?

If Cao Cao ruled a land of ointment, it could barely be raised, but it was obvious that except for Yingchuan County, Cao Cao's territory was extremely dilapidated, and it was naturally impossible to afford an army of 200,000.

Cao Cao knew that Yanzhou could not afford such an army, but he insisted on maintaining such a large number of troops, which was actually a helpless move. ‘

The foundation of the beaten Yanzhou is too thin, but it is in the land of four wars, as long as the slightest weakness is revealed, the wolves around him will gather to divide him, so Cao Cao must have at least 200,000 troops to deter the princes who covet him around.

The 2.4 million people in Yanzhou alone could not afford to raise an army of 200,000, so Cao Cao could only implement the Tuntian strategy to reduce the consumption caused by too many troops.

At the same time as implementing the Tuntian policy, Cao Cao also fully emulated Qin Hao and thoroughly promoted the "Great Han Tian Mu System", so as to restore Yanzhou as soon as possible.

The current Yanzhou, basically because there are few families, the strength of the family is unprecedentedly weak, so it is naturally impossible to stop Cao Cao.

In addition to comprehensively promoting the acre system, Cao Cao also followed the example of Yang Guang, the Sui king of Liangzhou, and abandoned the original inspection system and implemented the imperial examination in Yanzhou to recruit talents.

Long before the king of Qiang sent troops to attack Yang Guang, Yang Guang took the lead in proposing the imperial examination system in Liangzhou, in order to recruit talents from the cold family.

As soon as the imperial examination system came out, it immediately caused a sensation in the whole world, but there were not many scholars who responded to Yang Guang's call to participate, and more of them criticized Yang Guang verbally and in writing, and only the local poor disciples in Liangzhou responded to the imperial examination.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, filial piety and honesty were promoted by the election of officials, which continued from the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to the present, but Yang Guang took the lead in breaking the old system, which naturally caused criticism from people all over the world.

In this regard, Yang Guang didn't care at all, his reputation was not good, and it was impossible for the disciples of the big clan to defect to him, only by gaining the support of the disciples of the Han Sect could he be qualified to continue to participate in the hegemony.

In addition, the Qiang Yelu Abaoji is about to attack, if he can't even hold Liangzhou, it is useless for Yang Guang to ask for these reputations, so even if he knows the consequences of implementing the imperial examination, Yang Guang resolutely chose to implement the imperial examination.

After the implementation of the imperial examination system in Liangzhou, although it only attracted the local poor disciples of Liangzhou and some of the poor disciples in Guanxi, it also greatly alleviated the dilemma of insufficient talents under Yang Guang, and attracted a Liangzhou talent to come to take refuge, he was Cheng Gongying.

Cheng Gongying was originally Han Sui's military, and after Han Sui's death, he surrendered to Cao Cao, and was entrusted with a military advisor, a marquis, and even a rare resourceful man in Liangzhou.

Cheng Gongying, who was born in a poor family, has been waiting and watching in this life, and did not take refuge in Han Sui, seeing that Yang Guang proposed the imperial examination system, which is a system for the poor family in the world, he felt that Yang Guang was waiting for him, so he immediately took the initiative to take refuge in Yang Guang.

Yang Guang also heard the name of Cheng Gongying, and when he learned that he took the initiative to vote, he was naturally overjoyed.

Later, when the Qiang King Yelu Abaoji came, it was Cheng Gongying who went to persuade Ma Teng and Han Sui, asking them and Yang Guang to abandon their previous suspicions and form a coalition against the Qiang army, but they did not expect to destroy the Qiang people by mistake and completely solve the century-old trouble of the Han Dynasty.

Yang Guang's implementation of the imperial examination in Liangzhou, although it attracted a series of verbal and written criticisms, but it did not have any impact on Yang Guang, who was far away in Xiliang, but became the overlord of Liangzhou because of the remarkable effect of the imperial examination system.

The other princes were so worried that they didn't dare to try the imperial examination system easily, but Cao Cao had to try because he had no other choice.