Guan Yu and Zhao Yun's oath ceremony on the altar was very solid.

Not only did the people of Henan Yin see all the princes, including a former Zongzheng envoy, but also recognized Liu Bei's power to manage the jade seal. He also skillfully praised at the oath ceremony, and explained the discovery process and opportunity of the jade seal clearly.

Let the soldiers and civilians know that Liu Beijun was because of "burying the imperial tombs excavated by Dong Zhuo, collecting the corpses of the people and the palace people for cremation, and treating the post-disaster plague", which was obtained by Heaven in the process of collecting corpses and curing the epidemic.

The tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians who came to listen to the story and watch the ceremony also received three days of porridge and food to satisfy their hunger, so that they could tide over the current difficulties.

Anyway, there is still some grain in Guishi County, and there are also Yang Yi left behind in the official warehouse in Luoyang, and Guan Yu and Zhao Yun can't take it away when they leave, and the rest is all for Zhu Jun's poor soldiers and horses to eat, and the people can afford to give a little porridge and kindness.

It won't be long before these people flee into exile, and Liu Bei's deeds of "not committing any crimes with Minqiu and helping to collect the funeral" when he went to Luo will spread farther and farther.

Even cautious Zhao Yun, because he was taken by Li Su before departure, shouted a few simple and easy-to-understand slogans: "Freeze to death without demolishing the house, starve to death without plundering", it was widely sung for a while, and the homeless people who watched the ceremony and took the porridge learned how to sing, and Sun Jian, who sang because of the food to the enemy, was a little ashamed.

Although the truth is: Luoyang has nothing to rob, and the empty house is enough to live in, so he can't be a villain in vain.

I have nothing to take, so I always have to take the publicity work of "last night's good deeds to the extreme", which is much more valuable than the jade seal.

After all this, it was about mid-March, and Guan Yu and Zhao Yun pulled out the camp and returned to Shuzhong. There were 8,000 troops when they came, and there were only more than 6,000 people left on the way back.

However, because it was fought with the Xiliang army, there were a lot of captures, and when they came, only 3,000 of the 8,000 people had horses, and when they went back, more than 6,000 people each had horses, and their armor was also upgraded.

Everyone in the army had horses, and the itinerary was faster, and they left Luoyang for three days to go south, and then returned to Luyang, the starting place in Nanyang County. Then asked Yuan Shu for more than ten days of grain and grass, and Yuan Shu had to pinch his nose to give it, late March? The troops arrived in Xiangyang? began to part ways.

Guan Yu asked Xu Huang to take the soldiers and horses of the headquarters of Hanzhong Taishou, more than 3,000 people? Walk on the road and go up the Han River? Return to Nanzheng garrison. The reason why this arrangement is made is because Guan Yu brought the jade seal? He himself had to go back to Chengdu in person to explain the situation to Liu Bei and listen to instructions.

But his troops couldn't make such a big circle, so they handed it over to Xu Huang. And Zhou Tai and Gan Ning are both southern generals who are good at water warfare? Maybe there is still a place to pacify Nanzhong in the future? Let's go back to Chengdu first.

Shangyong Road has been guided by Li Su, Tuntian has set up loading and unloading points, locks, and sectional shipping, and now it can be smoothly navigated in the river section above Wudang County (later Shiyan).

In the past two years, the official army on the Han River has built two or three hundred new ships, large and small. That is, the transportation cost and manpower consumption are still relatively high, and there are several places where a large number of people have to carry goods through the places where the drop is large and cannot cross the ship? That's why so many ships are needed.

When Xu Huang passed by with his troops? I saw that several swampy areas with a total area of millions of Han acres between Wudang County and Shangyong County have been turned into fertile taro fields after two years of remediation.

It looks like the taro fields piled up from the alluvial silt flats of Chongming Island in later generations, the silt fields are only a few inches above the water surface, and each square is about two or three acres in size? Between the silt fields is a deep ditch, which can directly allow the Han River to flow slowly.

When farming, people take small wooden boats to shuttle the rivers between the fields? Holding a large wooden ladle as long as a paddle from the river and pouring water on the taro seedlings, it is also very convenient for irrigation.

Xu Huang is also the first time to pass through here against the current? He had also seen people grow taro before, but they were all planted on slopes? Irrigation is laborious. At the end of the Han Dynasty, there was no such thing as directly composting the swamp and planting the old silt? So the harvest is simply not comparable.

The yield of red taro per mu in later generations is about more than 3,000 catties? The water-loving and easy-to-grow white taro is only about 1,500 catties, which is a relatively traditional variety.

At the end of the Han Dynasty, there were not so many varieties of breeding, basically all of them were white taro, but others planted on the slope for a harvest of two or three hundred catties per mu, or five hundred catties. Li Su used silt and strong irrigation to grow seven or eight hundred catties, equivalent to one thousand and a half catties of taro, although the yield is still half lower than that of later generations, but it is already three times that of the same era of sloping taro!

"The "Agricultural Politics Technique" has such a miraculous effect, if the lord occupies Jingzhou in the future, there will be a swamp ten times larger than here in the hometown of Yunmengze around Nanjun. If we can also control the silt fields, why worry that the people will not be able to have abundance, and the military food will not be spared. ”

Looking at the tall taro seedlings along the way, as well as the mediocre population that has increased significantly in the past two years, Xu Huang was full of emotion in his heart. He secretly thought: If he really does something to Jingzhou in the future, even if he goes directly down the river from Hanzhong and directly into Xiangyang and Nanyang, he will not be afraid of running out of military food.

Of course, these are just casual thoughts, whether it is Liu Biao or Yuan Shu, they are still allies now.

……

Xu Huang, who had been away from the base for a year, could be so emotionally moved by the changes in the base area, Guan Yu followed Zhao Yun to continue south, and returned to the Chengdu Plain in Yidu County, and there were more surprises and discoveries along the way.

After parting ways in Xiangyang on March 20, they arrived in Yiling on the 26th, then boarded the ship in Yiling, and made several land and water transfers in between, arriving in Yong'an in early April (the White Emperor City had been renamed by Liu Bei), arriving in Jiangzhou in the middle of the month, and returning to Chengdu at the end of the month.

When Guan Yu and Zhao Yun returned, the princes of the world were not idle, and the turmoil was quite violent.

After all, after Qiao Mao's death in February, it was as if Pandora's box had been opened all of a sudden, Guan Yu and Sun Jian were still courting Dong, and Zhang Miao, Yuan Shao, Gongsun Zan and other camps began to go off as scheduled.

After all, Yuan Shao took advantage of Gongsun Chan in the process of coercing Han Fu to abdicate, how could Gongsun Chan endure such a violent temper? He just waited for an excuse to do it.

Soon, Dong Zhuo, who was far away in Kansai, secretly pushed and helped Gongsun Chan make an excuse.

After Dong Zhuo learned that Luoyang was burned, but the jade seal was obtained by Guan Yu Liu Bei, he was furious and vented, and killed a few palace maids to vent his anger, but after venting, he endured it, and was too lazy to confirm "how thoroughly Luoyang was burned", and he didn't care about Zhu Jun's refusal to accept the broken Henan Yin Zili, so Zhu Jun helped him block the Kwantung princes.

But Dong Zhuo was not idle at all to find an excuse for Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zhan to start a war, so he viciously released Liu He, the son of Liu Yu, the Youzhou pastor who was detained in the imperial court, and asked Liu He to go back to contact Liu Yu and entrust Liu Yu to take charge of the "Qingji, Youhe, and Yanxu Six Prefectures Military".

It must be mentioned here why Dong Zhuo could give Liu Yu such a big reward in the name of Emperor Han Xian - this is because before Han Fu got out, Han Fu was pushed to the front desk at the instigation of Yuan Shao, and planned to "support Liu Yu as the emperor to avoid the situation of Emperor Han Xian who fell into the hands of Dong Zhuo", but Liu Yu refused. This initiative was put forward in January this year, and Han Fu got out more than a month after he finished mentioning it.

And Liu Yu not only refused, but he also specially sent an envoy to secretly sneak to Chang'an to show his intentions, saying that he would never be the emperor. (Historically, the envoys of Liu Yu's faction were Tian Chou and Xian Yufu.) But now Tian Chou was dug up by Li Su to Mizhu in Liaodong, and Xian Yufu was killed because he colluded with Wuhuan when he was begging for Zhang Ju, so Liu Yu could only choose another messenger)

Therefore, it is very reasonable for Dong Zhuo to allow Liu Yu to rule the six eastern states in the name of the emperor, which is a reward for Liu Yu's "loyalty to the imperial court", and it is also an excuse for Gongsun Zhan, the main military general of Liu Yu's subordinates, to go south to take over Yuan Shao's territory, and also convict Yuan Shao of "plotting to set up another country", so that Gongsun Zhan can change his name and crusade against Yuan Shao.

It's a pity that although Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zhan still started to work in the end, the process was not as Dong Zhuo and Li Ru imagined - Liu He did not return to Youzhou at all, and as soon as he walked out of Henan Yin, he was discovered and detained by Yuan Shu at the junction of Nanyang and Yuzhou.

Yuan Shu directly asked Liu He, on behalf of Liu Yu, to unite with him and deal with Yuan Shao together, and also listed the charges of Yuan Shao and him exchanging official positions such as Yuzhou Assassin Shi and grabbing land, saying that Yuan Shao was sabotaging Dong Daye and engaging in internal strife - not to mention, although Yuan Shu was narrow-minded, his complaint was quite right.

Because since the original Yuzhou Thorn Shi Kong Ling (also the prince of Dong) died of illness last year, Yuzhou has not had a history of thorns in the past few months. But most of the Taishou in Yuzhou who are qualified to compete for the position of assassin are Yuan Shu's people.

Including Li Min and others, who supported Sun Jian to fight against Dong this time, attracted Huaxiong, Hu Zhen, and Lu Bu to be killed in Bi Guiyuan, Yuan Shujun still produced a few righteous people who sacrificed for the great cause of Dong Shao, but Yuan Shao was so far away.

The people who vacated these sacrificed righteous men on the list of their own people are indeed even more inauthentic for Yuan Shao. It is no wonder that Sun Jian, who cooperated with Li Min to fight against Dong, was very indignant after hearing that Yuan Shao was meddling in the personnel of Yingchuan and other counties in Yuzhou, and instead of the sacrificed Li Min, he sought justice and attacked Zhou Xin, the assassin of Yuzhou who was Yuan Shaobiao.

Liu Yu's son Liu He didn't know much, he probably felt that "since the emperor asked my father to take charge of the affairs of the six states, then Yuan Shao in Jizhou should also be in charge of him, and Yuan Shao should be crusaded if he didn't do it right", all in all, Liu He's mistake was to bring Liu Yu a will that was unfavorable to Yuan Shao.

Originally, there were only one or two points of will, but when it came to Gongsun Zhan's hands, he was overjoyed, and one or two points had to be done according to ten points. Gongsun Zan first sent his younger brother Gongsun Yue to go all the way to the battlefield in Yuzhou to help Sun Jian fight Zhou Xin together.

This time, Gongsun Yue was not shot to death by a small probability event as in history, but since Gongsun Chan wanted to use the topic to play, it didn't matter whether his younger brother died or not, he soon launched an attack on Yuan Shao's Jizhou.

Although Liu Dai's killing of Qiao Mao was also an internal strife, it was still a form of officialdom struggle. The fire of Yuan Shaogong and Sun Zan finally opened the hot war within the princes of Dong.

It's just that Gongsun Zan of this world, because he didn't get enough benefits when he raised Zhang Chun at the beginning, at least 10,000 or 20,000 elite soldiers were divided away by Liu Bei. Moreover, Liu Guanzhang himself is not helping under Gongsun Zhan's account now, and Gongsun Zhan is missing Liu Bei, a powerful "Sima of other departments". Therefore, Gongsun Zhan's offensive against Yuan Shao was not very sharp, and Yuan Shao could barely resist it without even needing Lu Yi.

Because of Liu Bei's absence, those warlords on the Kwantung battlefield who should have been helped by Liu Bei in history, such as Gongsun Chan at present and Tao Qian in the future, obviously began to be eaten by this unfavorable butterfly effect, and their strong period will inevitably be shorter, and their decline will probably be accelerated.

……

"Big brother! Third brother! ”

"Second brother!"

"Second brother! I want to die! ”

With Guan Yu returning to Chengdu, to be precise, with the news of the jade seal and the cannibalism of the external princes, Liu Bei and Zhang Fei also felt very cordial.

Guan Yu solemnly arched his hand: "Big brother, this is the heirloom jade seal obtained by Luoyang Nangong, I and Zilong, Zhu Gongwei, Sun Wentai, and Liu Jingsheng have sworn an oath, and you will keep it on your behalf, and then return it to the court when the Son of Heaven is not held hostage by the thieves." I also ask my eldest brother to forgive me for being in a hurry, and I agreed to the oath on your behalf......"

Liu Bei patted Guan Yu on the shoulder: "What is it!" If I am here in person, I will also swear such an oath, Yun Chang really knows my heart! ”

——

PS: Because of the butterfly effect, the fire between the princes will be accelerated, and I occasionally have to give a quick explanation according to the timeline, and try not to simplify as much as possible.