This time, what happened between these bigwigs who held power was caused by the Cui Qu case provoked by Guo.

In June of the second year of Yande, Guo Peng ordered Cao Cao to lead some members of the cabinet to connect with the Ministry of Industry led by Tian Feng to discuss the possibility of building a canal from Jiangnan to Luoyang.

Cao Cao and Tian Feng were still skeptical at first, thinking that Guo Peng was a bit too fierce to do this, and now that various major projects across the country have been launched, they are still working on such a big project, is it a bit too violent.

And the finances can't keep up.

Then Guo Peng took out the data he had counted for eight years of the spring and winter times.

According to the longitudinal comparison, Guo Peng told Cao Cao and Tian Feng that the weather is gradually getting colder, and the time of spring and winter in the second year of Yande has fluctuated significantly compared with the data of eight years ago.

Every year, spring begins later than the previous year, and winter begins earlier than the previous year.

This means that the time from spring to winter has been shortening for many years, which means that the time for food to grow will be shorter and shorter.

This trend has not changed for eight years, which proves that the situation is very likely to continue to worsen in the future.

Temperatures will get cooler and colder, and grain production in Hebei and the Central Plains will drop dramatically.

There is a significant link between food production and cold weather.

In their cognition, this kind of knowledge is very vague and unsystematic, and they only know that the cold weather will freeze the grain to death.

But what Guo Peng said was conclusive, and it sounded very reasonable, although they didn't know whether to believe it or not, but Guo Peng only asked them to discuss the possibility and take a charter to come out and take a look, so they did it.

At that time, the relationship between Cao Cao and Tian Feng was still relatively harmonious, and after more than three months of hard work, the two initially discussed a possible plan.

The initial plan was to take advantage of the Northern Expedition of the Sun and Wu regimes.

That is, from the Yangtze River to use the water to enter Chaohu Lake, and then from Chaohu Lake into Shishui, and then into the Huaishui, along the Huaishui into the Huai River, from the Huai River into Yingshui, all the way to the vicinity of Xuxian County, Yuzhou.

In this way, you can basically complete more than half of the journey.

Cao Cao and Tian Feng respectively sent officials from the Cabinet and the Ministry of Industry south to Jiangdong to conduct field investigations along this planned route, and initially determined that such a plan was worth adopting.

Make full use of natural waterways, reduce labor consumption, widen and dredge the wet water, water application, water and Yingshui to different degrees, and create a canal from the Yangtze River basin to the Yellow River basin.

This plan was approved by Guo Peng, and then Guo Peng asked Cao Cao and Tian Feng to continue to add details to this plan.

For example, how to widen and dredge the natural river channel, how to connect the water application and the water channel, how to partially divert the Yingshui water, and connect it to the waterway to Luoyang, so that it can really become a usable canal that can transport a large amount of grain and straw.

At that time, Cao Cao and Tian Feng really didn't expect that Guo Peng would really want to build a Grand Canal, to communicate between the north and the south, and to make some precautions for things that can't be seen at the moment.

It's an unimaginable project.

Once it really wants to be built, from Yangzhou to Yuzhou to Yanzhou to Sili, the Grand Canal connecting the four states does not know how much manpower and material resources will be mobilized and how many years it will take to complete the repair.

Is it really meaningful to engage in such a huge project?

You don't need to widen these waterways if you can use them directly, right?

Tian Feng wrote such an idea into a recital and handed it to Guo Peng, who issued an order to reprimand Tian Feng, saying that he was short-sighted.

When a grain harvest fails, is it just a local failure?

It must be a poor harvest in the Central Plains and Hebei, or even a poor harvest at the level of North China, what role can a canal with insufficient capacity play?

What about land transportation, whose capacity is far less than that of water transportation?

Can the speed of transportation keep up with the rate of food consumption everywhere?

Now is the time to start preparing for the worst!

The canal was built and the amount of grain stored in various places was increased so that it became a practice that grain reserves were regarded as a national priority.

Guo Peng said that if a country wants to be stable, it must be prepared to ensure that the whole country's population is supplied with rations throughout the year under the extreme situation of a bad harvest.

If we fail to achieve this preparation, we will not be able to support the foundation of the country, and once the real disaster comes, it will inevitably cause millions or even tens of millions of hungry people!

Twenty years at the least, thirty years at the longest, and when the time comes, maybe we will all be alive, but we will have to face such a tragedy!

Cao Cao and Tian Feng were terrified, and they didn't know whether Guo Peng was a prophet or crazy.

Guo Peng didn't intend to reason with them, and directly ordered Tian Feng to join forces with Cao Cao to complete this matter, otherwise he would be severely punished.

Tian Feng had no choice but to continue to send people to join forces with Cao Cao to carry out detailed local investigations and repairs to find the real feasibility.

How to choose the starting point, how to widen the river, repair the supporting facilities, recruit local people, how to connect the waterways to form a complete capacity, etc.

As soon as this matter was done, it took three years to Yande, and it was not solved when the Cui Qu case broke out.

Cui Qu case, Guo Peng thundered and was furious, the courtiers were panicked, Cao Cao and Tian Feng were in the whirlpool in the center of the big case and couldn't get out, where could they continue this kind of work?

Fortunately, more than a month later, this big case was settled, and Cao Cao and Tian Feng were involved in danger and were not affected much.

But the crux of the matter is not here, but in the relationship between the two.

Once, Tian Feng and Cao Cao were both relatives of the royal family, and their relationship was not bad.

Tian Feng hoped that Cao Cao could let Cao Lan take care of Tian Rou more and not let Tian Rou be bullied, so he didn't care whether Cao Cao was a eunuch or not, and he was very close to Cao Cao.

But in the Cui Qu case, because of the Cui family's breaking point, when Cao Cao fought back against the anti-commercial tax group, he regarded Cui Qu as a typical example, and pulled out Cui Qu's super tumor, which implicated countless people at once, such as Tian Feng.

Tian Feng is the big leader of Cui Qu, and he is Cui Yan's son and daughter, and while he is close to Cao Cao, as a scholar, he also has a family circle of scholars, and he is also close to Cui Yan, who is also from Jizhou.

The Cui family was almost wiped out by Guo Peng under the rage, as an important relation, Tian Feng certainly did not hide from it, and was also implicated and hit to a certain extent.

Not only was he held accountable by the emperor, he lost face in front of his subordinates, his reputation was greatly damaged, and he also offended Cheng Yu.

Cheng Yu is Tian Feng's boss, he has a great desire for power, and he has never had a good face for Tian Feng, but he didn't engage Tian Feng because of Tian Rou's face.

As a result, Tian Feng's subordinates actually made Cheng Yu lose face, his face was swollen, and it is said that he was angrily reprimanded by the emperor, so you can imagine how angry he was.

In the more than a year since the end of the Cui Qu case, Tian Feng has felt the malice from Cheng Yu several times.

Cheng Yu's malice and suppression of him is no longer a normal degree, but a special concern.

Cheng Yu always pays special attention to the official affairs of the Ministry of Industry, and especially likes to conduct strict reviews on the economic expenditure of the Ministry of Industry.

Whenever the Ministry of Industry proposed how much money was needed to do things, Cheng Yu always paid considerable attention and extremely meticulous review, and personally sent his cronies to keep an eye on the Ministry of Industry.

No matter what the Ministry of Industry wants to do, Cheng Yu always has to get the audit results from Cao Cao as soon as possible, and then get his own money plan from the Ministry of Industry, tracking it from beginning to end.

His eyes widened and he went over there to see if the Ministry of Works had done anything about the payment.

It seems that Cheng Yu is not preventing the Ministry of Industry from letting the Ministry of Industry do things, but looking forward to the Ministry of Industry doing things, finding problems from them, so as to use Guo Peng's severe punishment measures for corrupt officials to hit Tian Feng hard.

He tried to abolish the Tian Feng family in one go and ensure that his position would not be impacted.

Obviously, Cheng Yu seems to have understood the previous incident as Tian Feng and Cui Yan teaming up to develop their own forces in Shangshutai, so as to confront him, and then replace his political scheme.

It can be said that Cheng Yu has regarded Tian Feng as an enemy.

He didn't regard Tian Feng as a simple subordinate at all, but regarded Tian Feng as an enemy who could compete with him for power, and as an enemy who had to be eliminated.

In order to deal with Tian Feng, Cheng Yu felt that his power was not enough, and the odds of victory were not great, so he even took the initiative to ease relations with Cao Cao and take the initiative to make friends with Cao Cao, even if Cao Cao was the one who pressed the explosion switch of the Cui Qu case.

But in Cheng Yu's opinion, it seems that Cao Cao is not as hateful as Tian Feng.

And as the queen's brother and the prince's uncle, Cao Cao's identity is very special, and Cheng Yu, who was born in Guo Peng's retainers, really doesn't have the courage to be an enemy of Cao Cao.

Moreover, in the previous commercial tax struggle, Cheng Yu actually supported the introduction of commercial tax, and his position was no different from Cao Cao.

So Cheng Yu unilaterally "generously" forgave Cao Cao, eased relations with Cao Cao, and made further intimate contacts, trying to reach a political alliance with Cao Cao to fight against the rebel forces in Shangshutai led by Tian Feng in his fantasy.

In Cheng Yu's opinion, as long as Cao Lan is still the queen and Guo Jin is still the prince, Cao Cao is simply undefeated.

Although Cao Lan did not express any relevant opinions in the previous turmoil, and did not talk about any related issues in front of Guo Peng, this is also Cao Lan's cleverness.

As long as Cao Lan is still there, it is impossible for the Cao clan to be shaken.

Even if Guo Peng and Cao Lan are gone, the crown prince Guo Jin also has the Cao family's bloodline, and it is impossible to really target the Cao family.

Cao's existence is really buggy.

Therefore, in order to counter the advantage of half of the Tian Feng family's relatives, Cheng Yu chose to take the Cao family's route.

Cao Cao led the cabinet to connect with Shang Shutai, but whenever something needs to be done, it is difficult to cooperate without Shang Shutai.

The deterioration of the relationship with Tian Feng had made him very difficult, and the Grand Canal with the Ministry of Industry had reached an impasse, and he could not promote it normally for a long time.

Guo Peng asked about this matter several times, and when he learned that the progress was limited, he already felt blamed, and felt that Cao Cao did not work hard.

Cao Cao's heart was helpless.

He was very annoyed by Tian Feng's non-cooperation, but he felt powerless, at this juncture, of course he was unwilling to continue to offend Cheng Yu, if he offended Cheng Yu again at this time, life would not be over?

Therefore, the friendship between Cao Cao and Cheng Yu seems to be a matter of course.

Both of them have hearts, and it is normal for the relationship to be good, but now Cheng Yu and Cao Cao are very close, and the relationship has been greatly eased.

After Tian Feng heard these gossip rumors, he became deeply frightened and wary.

For more than a year, Tian Feng has been struggling to cope with Cheng Yu's blows and threats.

He felt that the reason why Cheng Yu hadn't killed him was because he was afraid that his family had someone in the harem, and he also gave birth to a daughter, which was quite favored by Guo Peng.

He had reason to suspect that Cheng Yu took the initiative to woo Cao Cao in order to counter the Tian family's advantage in Guo Peng's harem and offset the Tian family's advantage.

In Cao Cao's side, because of Empress Cao Lan, Tian Feng was especially wary of this matter.

Not to mention Guo Peng's attention to Empress Cao Lan, just to mention the power of his Tian clan, after losing the support of the scholars led by the Cui clan, it is impossible to confront the Cao family, let alone add Cheng Yu.

This is equivalent to Shang Shutai and the cabinet fighting him together, can he still survive?

Tian Feng thought about it, and thought that Tian Rou had once told the family who went to visit her that she had a good relationship with the big and small bridge sisters.

This seems to be a breakthrough.