According to the inference of Gongsun Pei and others and the Military Command Administration, in less than a year, Gongsun Zhan and Liu Yu, who urgently need to dominate Youzhou, will be able to distinguish the winners and losers, and then Yuan Shao will definitely use a grandiose excuse to go north to crusade against the victors, so Liu Cun is not in a hurry, he still has a year to prepare.

What Liu Cun and his henchmen have to do now is to promote Liu Cun's benevolence to the world and establish a higher political prestige for Liu Cun.

Secretly, the number of Liu Cun's shogunate expanded to more than 300 people, and they used the tools of public opinion in their hands to make public many major events that had affected the fate of the Han Dynasty over the years, describing and exposing the truth of the incident in detail, so that the people of the world could see how rebellious Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, the descendants of the fourth and third dukes, were, and what a disaster to the country and the people.

On the Chang'an side, Liu Cun also sent his henchmen to reach an alliance with Yang Biao, Ma Riyan, Zhao Qi and other important ministers to lobby the young emperor and the Chinese martial arts.

It's all built on key interest deals:

Liu Cun promised to restore the old capital Luoyang, do his best to welcome back the holy car, and restore the court, so that the new policy of Qingzhou could be implemented to Jizhou and Youzhou, as for whether the young emperor and the selfish courtiers in the future can rebuild the court, whether they can revive the court, whether they can recast the glory of the Han Dynasty, are not in the consideration of Liu Cun and his henchmen.

Every morning, he walked out of the newly built camp between the north bank of Luoyang City and Xiluoshui, inspected the cleaning of facilities inside and outside the imperial city, and then went to the surrounding villages to express condolences to the soldiers and civilians. Inspect land reclamation and resettlement of displaced people.

A month and a half to come. With the hard work of 250,000 displaced people from Qingzhou and Xuzhou. The ruins inside and outside Luoyang City have been cleared, and piles of neatly stacked bricks and stones have saved Liu Cun a lot of building materials, but the inside and outside of the city have become empty.

On the mottled city wall of 30 miles on all sides, only the east gate in the east and the two towers above the summer gate in the northwest corner are still intact, and the towers of the rest of the gates have been burned down, and all the ruins and broken walls in the city have been demolished and cleaned up.

As far as the eye can see, the capital of the Han Dynasty in the cold winter is full of burn marks that cannot be concealed. The Chongde Hall where Liu Cun and the first emperor Liu Hong met is also only a broken pedestal, dozens of halls in the entire Nangong and thousands of houses are long gone, and only the military camp in the southwest corner of the entire inner city is still intact, and it is currently temporarily used as a cold residence for 50,000 people.

Liu Cun stood on the tower of the Middle East Gate, through the fluttering snowflakes, he vaguely saw a lonely figure above the bare Kaiyang Gate in the east, thought about it and walked over quickly, and only after getting closer did he realize that it was his chief staff Gongsun Pei.

Gongsun Pei didn't look back when he heard the familiar footsteps, still staring at the ruins of Taixue, Mingtang and Lingtai in front of him, and sighed to Liu Cun, who came to stand beside him:

"Before. The most lively place in the whole capital is this place in front of me, and I never thought that I would have the opportunity to come back in this life. But after coming back, there was nothing, the Taixue that could accommodate tens of thousands of teachers and students was gone, the Ming Hall that worshiped the ancestors of the Han Dynasty was gone, and even the spiritual platform for worshipping heaven and earth and praying for the common people was gone. ”

"I came here in the late autumn of the fifth year of Zhongping, and I went to this place for a walk, and it took more than an hour to walk a little and a half, and now it's gone." Liu Cun said in a low voice.

Gongsun Pei sighed, turned to Liu Cun and asked about the matter: "Gongsun Pei (frustrated) They went to the North Palace today?" ”

Liu Cun nodded: "Only Mr. Cui Yan went to Xidaying, he wanted to observe General Guan Hai's training methods, and Mr. Gonghe and Mr. Mao Jue, Gongsun Fang and other gentlemen recommended by him were in the North Palace to discuss the reconstruction plan of the city in the North Palace. ”

"The opinion of several gentlemen is that the North Palace will not be built according to the original restoration, and the South Palace and the West Palace will not be built, referring to the style of Jinan City, and build a large square of two miles square in the center of the city in front of the North Palace, and use the existing base of the South Palace near the south of the central square to build the three mansions of Sikong, Situ and Taiwei."

"As for the vacated areas, they will be used for the construction of streets, schools, shop areas and four public and private residential areas."

Gongsun Pei agreed with the approach of Fu Zhu and others, believing that this was not only to save construction funds, but also a good deed to benefit the people, but except for Liu Cun and a few of his own henchmen, everyone did not know that this large-scale move to repair Luoyang was strictly speaking just a pretense, and it was purely a helpless measure to serve the purpose of defeating Yuan Shao and occupying Jizhou in the future.

It's just that no one expected that there would be so many talented people in this world who still pretended to be the Han Dynasty in their hearts, and they came from all directions from the west and immediately joined the ranks of construction.

This result made Liu Cun and Gongsun Pei cry and laugh, so they could only make mistakes and secretly decided to reduce capital investment, first ensure the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of displaced people and gradually resume farming, and then concentrate their spare labor, dig kilns to burn bricks, and open mountains and quarry, so as to avoid large-scale construction investment affecting the covert military expansion, and the restoration of Luoyang City only needs to be done in a similar way.

Perhaps thinking of the importance of talents, Gongsun Pei specially told Liu Cun:

"Mao Xiaoxian (Mao Jue) and Gongsun Fang are both down-to-earth rare talents, if it weren't for the mediocrity of Liu Biao in Jingzhou, Gonghe intercepted Mao Jue and Gongsun Fang who went to Yanzhou to defect to Cao Mengde in time, so big a talent is no longer owned by the lord."

"There is also a talented Cui Yan, he is Zheng Shi's protégé, and he is also a supporter of Qingzhou's new policy, and he is a famous man with a strong personality and full of economy, his prestige and talent are not under Guan You'an and Guozini, the lord should trust them more, reuse them, and he will get a hundredfold return."

Liu Cun nodded solemnly, and then said helplessly: "It's just that at present, my power is limited, so I can only respect Mr. Mao Jue's wishes and appoint him as the general of the Diannong Zhonglang, responsible for all reclamation and civil affairs in Luoyang and the surrounding counties; Mr. Gongsun Fang served as the head of the General's Mansion. ”

"In the past two days, the two of them have always asked me, when will Mr. Huo Jian, the master craftsman, arrive? It can be seen that they all want to contribute their talents to the restoration of the imperial capital. ”

"Only Mr. Cui Yan's choice was a little unexpected, he was unwilling to serve as a lieutenant general in the army, but asked to enter my Che Cavalry General's Mansion as a military captain, seeing that he was so enthusiastic about military affairs, I had to agree to him."

Gongsun Pei looked shocked: "This guy is proficient in the legal code, good at government affairs, although he also knows the art of war, but his fiery personality is by no means material for leading troops, it's okay to be familiar with the military, but don't let him command the army......"

"However, a few days ago, Lu Jiu and Zhao Li invited Wei Yan Wei Wenchang from Yiyang (now Xinyang, Henan) is good, and it can be seen from his conversation with the lord that this person is not only proficient in the art of war, knows how to advance and retreat, but also is calm and resolute, majestic, and can take on heavy responsibilities with a little training."

"Yes, I have appointed Wei Yan as a guerrilla general, let him and the young general Chen recommended by Guan Hai get together, send his family to Jinan to settle down, and then they will enter the base camp of Wuyingshan and train together with the 7th Division of the Qingzhou Army that was organized in September...... I intend to appoint Wei Yan as the commander in chief of the Seventh Division in March next year, and lead the Seventh Division to garrison Taigu Pass in the south. ”

Liu Cun informed Gongsun Pei of his decision.

Gongsun Pei was not surprised, he was very optimistic about Wei Yan, who led five hundred fierce young men and more than 100 family members to defect at the end of last month, although Wei Yan was only twenty-three years old, but only ten days of contact, he gave people the feeling of being as old as thirty-two, in addition to being slightly inferior to Xu Sheng in kung fu immediately, the martial arts such as foot combat and bows and crossbows were surprisingly high, which could be described as outstanding.

It's just that Gongsun Pei still can't figure out where Liu Cun learned about a talent like Wei Yan, and before he arrived in Luoyang, he sent his generals Lu Jiu and Zhao Li to find someone in advance, and he was really able to bring people back.

The military generals who are very optimistic about Gongsun Pei, as well as the young general Chen to Chen Shuzhi from Runan.

Chen to the family was originally a Hanmen clan in Runan, but in the war-torn Runan, the family has long been in decline, and life is very miserable, hearing the news that Liu Cun led his troops to Luoyang to rebuild the imperial capital, Chen Zhi's family did not hesitate to leave Runan, and followed the 150,000 displaced people sent by Xuzhou to Luoyang to join Liu Cun, who was praised by the people.

Two days after Chen Zhi, who had just turned eighteen, arrived in Luoyang with his family, he applied to join the Guan Hai Department that was recruiting to fill the vacancy.

That night, Guan Hai reported the incident to the lord Liu Cun, and asked Liu Cun to appoint the eighteen-year-old Chen Zhi as his military attendant.

Liu Cun asked Chen Dao's name clearly, and immediately rushed to Xidaying to meet Chen Dao, and then went to visit Chen Dao's parents and Wei Yan's family.

On the morning of the next day, Liu Cun appointed Chen Zhi as the assistant lieutenant of the guard's battalion of the General's Mansion, appointed Wei Yan as a guerrilla general, and instructed Chen Zhi and Wei Yan to send more than 300 of their families to the stable and wealthy Jinan New Town to settle down, and then personally wrote a letter to Ji Wei, a soldier in charge of the base camp of Wuyingshan Mountain, ordering Ji Wei and the instructors to conduct special training for Wei Yan and Chen Zhi within three months, so that they could understand the entire system of the Qingzhou Army and be familiar with the training and combat methods of various arms of the Qingzhou Army.

Liu Cun never explained the reason for his "discerning eyes", and in the face of the puzzled eyes of Gongsun Pei and Fu Zhu, Liu Cun praised Fu Zhu and was full of gratitude to Fu Zhu who first proposed to enter Luoyang and recruited talents on a large scale.

He not only put forward suggestions and a set of effective methods for recruiting talents, but also used his own connections to do so, sparing no effort to run around, publicizing Liu Cun's noble character of being loyal to the Han family and caring for the people, and continuously recruiting all kinds of talents for Liu Cun from the surrounding states.

Now, Mao Jue, who also proposed to Liu Cun the lofty strategy of "serving the Son of Heaven with orders not to be subordinate, cultivating and planting with livestock and military resources", has been cited by Liu Cun as a confidant, although coercing the Son of Heaven to order the princes is a double-edged sword that Liu Cun cannot grasp, but Mao Jue, who can put forward this proposition, is definitely a high-minded and handsome man.

Mao Jue, who was born in a poor family, also admired Liu Cun's humility and noble character, and also regarded Liu Cun, who respected the Han family and cherished the people, as the master of the Han dynasty and the revitalization of the Han Dynasty in his mind. (To be continued......)