Chapter 22: The Dark Tide is Surging
Lu Bu looked at Chen Yu and the others who recorded that this time the family clan took advantage of Lu Bu's lack of full control of Pengcheng to exploit the content of the people, most of which were for various reasons and robbed the land of the common people, and only a very small number of the children of the family who could not get on the stage happened to the xx women. www.biquge.info In this era, land is the most important thing for the family. On the land of Xuzhou, there are very few truly free civilians, and many civilians are dependent on the family for a living. Only these freedmen had to pay heavy taxes, and it was harder to withhold a little tax from the families than to cut flesh on them.
Lu Bu has seen the granary and arsenal of Pengcheng, there are no particles in the granary, Cao Cao has already moved the grain in the warehouse to be used as military food after occupying Pengcheng, Cao Cao has never been rich, and he dug a lot of tombs to form a tiger and leopard cavalry, and there are some rusty weapons left in the arsenal that even the family does not look down on.
The grain that Lu Bu snatched from Mijiawu Fort can barely last a few days, but what about the food in the future? Lu Bu has no foundation now, and he relies on robbery to eat. What about the future? After converging with Zang Ba, there are tens of thousands of soldiers, so you can't always rely on robbery, right? Changlu County to Guangling County thousands of miles, how much grain to grab along the way. And there will be no grain in Guangling County, so it is very necessary to prepare grain and grass in Pengcheng, but if you want to prepare grain in Pengcheng, it is tantamount to preparing for Cao Cao, and Lu Bu has no one to escort grain and grass to Guangling. Lu Bu rubbed his forehead, he didn't care about these things before, and it was impossible for future generations to come into contact with these things.
"Prepare the grain and grass first, and then find a way to transport it to Guangling without Cao Cao." Lu Bu thought in his heart that it was best to leave these things to Chen Gong to complete.
If you want to raise grain and grass, the granary is empty, so you can only find the family family to bleed.
"General, General Zhang Liao asks to see you." A guard arranged by Lu Bu strode into the big tent.
Lu Bu did not return to the county office, and has been sitting in the barracks.
"Please." Lu Bu got up and went outside the big tent to greet him.
"Wen Yuan, how are things?"
"My lord, except for Chen Deng's wife and children who are far away in Guangling, all the family members of the Chen family have been arrested,"
"Caught?" Lu Bu didn't mean to be captured.
"The direct line of the Chen family, except for Chen Gui's old wife and the third son Chen An and the fourth son Chen Fang, who are greedy for life and afraid of death, are all 'resisting law enforcement' and will be brought to justice on the spot. The private soldiers, slaves, servants and maidservants killed more than 100 people, captured 400, and all of them were escorted to the school ground, asking the lord to decide. β
"Does Wen Yuan have any arrangements?" Lu Bu thought for a moment. Zhang Liao didn't understand what he meant, and didn't follow his arrangement, so Zhang Liao must have another better arrangement.
"If we take Guangling, we still need Chen An or Chen Fang to cheat the city, and the remaining son needs to be sent to Xuchang and handed over to the Son of Heaven, so I will keep it."
Lu Bu looked at Zhang Liao in surprise, he had always treated Zhang Liao as a general, ignoring Zhang Liao's strategy. Lu Bu had already had a strategy to take Guangling, and he would start arranging it immediately, but Zhang Liao's strategy was simple and practical, and his own strategy was more like redundancy. Moreover, sending a person to the Son of Heaven means that Lu Bu expresses his loyalty to the Son of Heaven and at the same time gives Cao Cao a problem, and the Son of Heaven will definitely hand over this kind of major matter to Cao Cao to decide, once Cao Cao kills Chen An or Chen Fang, it will confirm the Chen family's rebellion, which is the rhythm of forcing Chen Deng to rebel; If Cao Cao didn't kill, Chen Qi didn't choose what to say, and was countered by Lu Bu, and now he is raiding the Chen family, Cao Cao himself has the infamy of a traitor, which will only make the world feel that Cao Cao has bad intentions, so whether he kills or not, it is a very tricky thing. And not long after, as soon as the edict of the Son of Heaven came out, Lu Bu participated in the same position as a loyal minister, indirectly affirming the Chen family's rebellion, and Lu Bu's condemnation of the Chen family's extermination would be quelled.
"Pass my order and invite the Tao family, the Cao family, the Liu family, the Mi family, and the Chen family to come to the barracks to discuss matters." Lu Bu ordered the soldiers. Xuzhou is not just a Chen Deng's Chen family, the Chen family has many side branches, Lu Bu didn't plan to gain a foothold in Pengcheng at all, and he didn't have much time to spend here, so he first extinguished the evil spirit of Chen Deng's family, and the other families obediently cooperated, and Lu Bu decided not to trouble them.
Reflexively entered the big tent, picked up the bamboo slips that Chen Yu had just recorded that the family took the opportunity to exploit the people, and continued to look at it.
At night, these big families reluctantly sent one or two juniors to deal with Lu Bu, and none of the high-status patriarchs and elders came, only Cao Hong, the head of the Cao family, sat down in the hall, and Cao Hong had been imprisoned in the prison.
These juniors of the family turned pale, it turned out that they were frightened when they saw Lu Bu hanging more than a hundred heads at the gate.
Lu Bu asked around, only the Mi family and the Chen family's side branches did not come, and he made a decision in his heart to gather people to calm the Mi family and the Chen family's side branches who did not know the current affairs after the meeting.
Lu Bu was not polite to these children of the family, and took out the bamboo slips to read out the land annexed by the family today and the things committed in the city, but he hadn't finished reading it yet.
"Report!" A soldier panicked and broke into the tent.
"Report, there are enemy troops coming to call for battle!"
"Who did it?" Lu Buhe stood up from the main seat at once.
"My subordinates don't know that the enemy army has surrounded our army's large battalion, and General Zhang has already led his troops out of the gate to meet the enemy, and he has sent his subordinates to report it."
Not long after, the barracks fence caught fire everywhere, and it turned out that the enemy had set fire outside. Lu Bu couldn't sit still, and he didn't look at the celebratory children of the family in the hall, he got up from the main seat and walked towards the Dianjiang platform, and the soldiers had all been assembled at this time. The drums in the barracks were beating all day long, and the cheers were repeated outside the gate.
LΓΌ Bu came to the battlefield with his soldiers and found that Zhang Liao was fighting with a young general on a horse, and the soldiers on both sides were two arrows away from each other, cheering each other for the main general.
Lu Bu looked at it, and it turned out that it was Mi Fang, the guard of the East Gate, who was fighting with Zhang Liao. Lu Bu's troops were insufficient, and he focused on guarding against the sudden attack of the family in the city, although the east gate and the north gate were barely submitted, they did not disperse their forces to control, and still only guarded the west gate.
The generals who can beat Zhang Liao look at the entire Han Dynasty, no more than ten, and Mi Fang is definitely not included in these ten people. Lu Bu rode on horseback and waited quietly for Mi Fang to be defeated, and then led the army to cover the kill.
Mi Fang and Zhang Liao fought for twenty rounds, secretly frightened. Zhang Liao's reputation is not obvious, and he has never fought with Mi Fang, so that the conceited Mi Fang thinks that his martial arts have few opponents in the world, Mi Fang took advantage of Lu Bu to convene the family to discuss the camp, that is, to avoid Lu Bu, Lu Bu's prestige is too prosperous, Mi Fang did not dare to invite the battle in front of Lu Bu. He planned to shoot Zhang Liao and then wave his army to kill, when the Lu army was in chaos, Lu Bu could not resist and must retreat, so he skillfully captured Pengcheng, and the reputation of the Mi family went to a higher level.
Mi Fang saw that Lu Bu led the army out of the camp to help in the battle, and the square inch was in chaos, and he was not careful to be slapped off the horse by Zhang Liao, Zhang Liao bent over and lifted Mi Fang with one hand and put it on the horse's back, and the long knife was raised: "Kill!" β
Zhang Liao took the lead in the previous horse and killed Mi Fang Da Xu, and the escort of Da Xu saw that Mi Fang was captured, so he left Da Xu and turned around and ran. When the other soldiers saw Daxu fall, they scattered as birds and beasts.
It turned out that Mi Fang saw that Chen Qi's family was beheaded all over the house, and said that the Chen family side branch was sad that the rabbit and the fox were sad, and other families also responded, and put together more than 10,000 people to attack Lu Bu's camp.
When Chen Gong heard the news, he rushed with his guards, just to block some of the family's defeated soldiers and Zhang Liao.
Seeing that Mi Fang's army was in chaos, Lu Bu ordered the soldiers to put out the fire, and he himself had to sit in the Chinese army to stabilize the morale of the army, and the matter of fighting was handed over to Zhang Liao. With the children of the family who watched the lively celebration at the gate, they returned to the main tent to continue the discussion.
"Can anyone solve the puzzle for Ben General?" Lu Bu looked at the silent children of the family under the hall, they had just seen the arrival of Mi Fang's army, and they held a hall to celebrate, seeing Mi Fang was captured, and the more than 10,000 troops organized were about to collapse, and the disciples of the family who knew that they were involved in this matter were very worried that Lu Bu would be angry with them.
"You don't have to worry, as long as you and other families are not involved in this matter, they will not be investigated. We continued to discuss the matter of the land that had just been annexed. Lu Bu began to read out the contents of the bamboo slips again, and the hall did not have the indifferent atmosphere at the beginning. Whenever Lu Bu pointed out whose family, there was always a child in the hall whose body trembled.
Finally, Lu Bu finished reading the bamboo slips, and the children of the family waited for Lu Bu's final decision, they didn't care at all about how much property and land the people had been stripped of, and what they were most concerned about was to see what Lu Bu did.
"I suggest that you should go home first and tell your parents about the troubles caused by the children of the family, and let your parents come to discuss with you tomorrow." Lu Bu is not in a hurry to settle accounts with the family now, and when Zhang Liao is pacified, he will ask the soldiers to ask those families who are involved, and then serve it in a pot.
For the people of Pengcheng for the past two days, they were frightened. Families closed their doors tightly, not daring to go out into the street to take a look. During the day, it was quiet, and at night it was shouting and killing all day long, and the streets were full of soldiers fighting, but they were the ones who suffered in the end.
Lu Bu had been sitting in the lobby waiting for Zhang Liao's battle situation. Since Cao Cao's attack on Xuzhou, Lu Bu has not had a good rest for several months, and he has racked his brains and been tired in the past few days, but Lu Bu did not dare to sleep with peace of mind, he was afraid that he would be tied up and dedicated to Cao Cao as soon as he closed his eyes.
Just when he was groggy, the sound of footsteps outside woke Lu Bu.
"The last general, Zhang Liao, asks to see him." Zhang Liao's majestic voice came from outside the tent.
After Lu Bu agreed, Zhang Liao took the lead in entering the account, and a group of soldiers behind him escorted Mi Fang and pressed Mi Fang to his knees.
"Wen Yuan has made another great contribution, and Budang sent an envoy to the court to show Wen Yuan as a rebellious general." Lu Bu looked at Zhang Liao, who had made great contributions again, and said. Strictly speaking, Zhang Liao was not Lu Bu's direct subordinate, he was only a vassal of Lu Bu after the fall of Dong Zhuo. At this time, Zhang Liao was in the position of Lu Xiang, Lu Bu couldn't let Zhang Liao go back to take care of the counties in Lu State, Xuzhou basically fell into the hands of Cao Cao, and letting Zhang Liao return to Lu State was equivalent to giving it to Cao Cao? After Zhang Liao surrendered to Cao Cao, he worshiped as the general of Zhonglang and the marquis of Guannei, but Lu Bu wanted to give Zhang Liao a marquis, but he couldn't do it now, who called the Son of Heaven in Cao Cao's hands, and Cao Cao would give him the marquis to whoever he wanted. Lu Bu's performance of Zhang Liao as a rebellious general is just An Zhang Liao's heart, and in the end, Cao Cao has the final say.