Whether Sun Quan has the heart to be the emperor or not, as soon as this question was raised by Lu Peng, Zhuge Jin immediately didn't know how to answer.

Lu Peng stared at Zhuge Jin's eyes, but he didn't ask.

None of the others spoke, and the whole hall was silent and a pin drop could be heard.

After a long time, Lu Peng saw that Zhuge Jin was still tightly closed and did not speak, so he sighed, leaned back in the chair, and then slowly said to Zhuge Jin: "This time, the court of the Han Dynasty has completely expressed its attitude, that is, it no longer recognizes the position of King Wu, and directly gave Liu Bei a legitimate reason to attack him, so according to this reason, I have reason to believe that Sun Quan is ready to establish himself as emperor." ”

Zhuge Jin thought about it, swallowed a mouthful of saliva with difficulty, and then raised his head and asked: "Could it be that my king is not called the emperor, and it has a very important relationship with your fulfillment of the original Yangtze River Covenant and the rescue of Eastern Wu?" ”，

Zhuge Jin is an honest and good man, he can't lie, but from his words, he has already seen Sun Quan's mentality now.

Lu Peng shook his head helplessly, then stood up, habitually paced slowly, and said slowly: "This is very related, and it is very important, all of them are my family members sitting here today, and I will tell you my thoughts openly and honestly." ”

Everyone listened cautiously, and no one bothered Lu Peng's narration.

"I know Sun Quan's mentality now, he definitely wants to be the emperor, I also tell you, my current thoughts, I don't recognize this Han Empire, in order to let the people have a long peace and stability as soon as possible, after I unify the world, I also want to be the emperor, and it must be successful, I want to use this method to break the inherent constraints and create a new and open empire, so that in front of me, if Sun Quan is the emperor, I really have no excuse to help him, because I can't help him become the emperor, and I will overthrow him in the future, Then I'm going to have a very hard time going to do that, and that's very critical. ”

Then he stood on his heels and glanced around the room, and no one expressed a surprised expression: "So I ask you to answer me." ”

"What will you do if your lord is the emperor or not? Have you broken your covenant? Zhuge Jin still asked vaguely.

Lu Peng smiled indifferently: "If Sun Quan becomes emperor, I will help him to a limited extent, but my purpose is to use his residual strength to contain and drag Liu Bei and Cao Wei, and in the end, I will give up Sun Quan at a critical time, after achieving my goal, and let him be destroyed by Cao Liu." ”

"What if King Wu doesn't claim the title of emperor?"

"Then he must show his allegiance to me and be a part of me."

Zhuge Jin said in embarrassment: "Everyone in the world knows what you do, you will make our lord a rich man, I believe this, but my father-in-law's father and brother have run Jiangdong for three generations, how can they be so good?" ”

Lu Peng said indifferently: "For other warlords, I will adopt that strategy, but I will open the net to my sworn brother Sun Quan." ”

Zhuge Jin said sarcastically: "Are you trying to take care of the reputation of this righteous brother?" ”

Lu Peng said directly and calmly: "I have a starting point and principles for the matter of righteousness, for example, several brothers and brothers here, we are out of life and death, so our righteousness is purely a form in our opinion, for example, Xu Jie, although the two of us have no righteousness, we are still brothers in life and death, so our brothers have been helping each other, life and death together." But my alliance with Sun Quan is actually for a reputation, for each other's needs, when I need each other, this kind of righteousness is just an excuse, when we don't need it, he is not even as good as a rag to wipe his feet. ”

said the knot so bluntly, the brothers present were not only not disappointed, but more intimate, and Xu Jie was not shocked.

"Then why are you open to my master's public network?"

"Because I need him, I need his status in Jiangdong to influence." Lu Peng replied to Zhuge Jin so bluntly: "Jiangnan and the north have always been estranged in people's hearts, I go to rule Jiangnan directly, it will inevitably cause the southerners to resist me, if you want to stabilize the south, I will pay a lot, that is half the effort, if I still use the influence of the Sun family to govern Jiangdong, especially for the Baiyue in the south of the Yangtze River, I will get twice the result with half the effort, in my army stationed in the south, let my righteous brothers govern, remember, it is to govern the south, then Jiangnan is equal to control in my hands, he still does not lose the prince, I'm a lazy person, and where I can save trouble, I try to save trouble, which is my principle of doing things. ”

"What if he insists on being emperor?"

"I still say the same thing, I don't want me to cultivate an emperor, I will kill him in the future, that is to make trouble for myself, so I have to give up and let Cao Wei destroy him first."

Zhuge Jin pondered for a long time, and finally asked a very surprising question: "If the Sun family is aside, all the officials in Jiangnan defect to the Tang King, how will you treat them?" Or do you have to banish him to the steppe, as your original policy was, or you have to do it your way? ”

Lu Peng gave them two paths to the officials from all over the country who surrendered, one way was to receive training from his own academy, and those who were qualified continued to be officials, but instead of letting him be promoted to three levels in a row like others, he was demoted, and once there was any violation of the rules of Youzhou in the middle, he would be punished mercilessly.

Another way is to draw them a piece of land on the grassland that matches their identity, and then give them a generous settlement fee, so that their families can migrate to the grassland to enjoy the so-called wealth and become a peaceful rich man.

But behind the scenes, this method has been criticized as banishment.

Zhuge Jin explained to Lu Peng: "The officials in the Central Plains can still go to the grassland, because whether it is from the climate, or from the living habits, everyone can still adapt to it, but the southern officials can't accept your conditions, because our climate is too different, the living habits are too different, and all the differences are very huge, even if you give a golden mountain on the grassland, to be honest, if you don't adapt to the water and soil, it will kill us, so what is the use of that golden mountain for us?" ”

Xu Jie is a human spirit, and he understood the intention of Zhuge Jin's words at that time, this is Zhuge Jin on behalf of those officials in Jiangnan is testing Lu Peng, which shows that the officials in Jiangnan do not have the determination to die with the Sun family at all.

Of course, Lu Peng also understood, and his heart couldn't help but move, if the officials in Jiangnan really obeyed themselves, it would be a real thing to get twice the result with half the effort.

But how to solve this matter, I really don't know in my heart.

After thinking about it for a while, he said cautiously: "This matter is related to the policy of the entire Youzhou Group, I can't answer you alone, I need to discuss it with my cabinet." Then he pulled the off-topic topic back: "I still ask you, is Sun Quan called the emperor?" ”

Zhuge Jin pondered for a long time, and finally gritted his teeth and raised his head: "Sun Quan does have the heart to be the emperor, but I can solemnly tell the Tang King, we, the civil and military members of the great family, except for his original generals, will never allow him to be the emperor, if one day he does something perverse, we will collectively throw ourselves to you, but you must promise us not to move our family to other places, we are this small request." ”