Tai Shi Ci hesitated for a while, hugged his fists and said: "Thanks to the love of the general, he is favored like a general, but the loyal ministers are not the two masters, Tai Shi Ci has already served under Liu Tingshi, how can he do the act of forgetting righteousness?" I can't agree to this, and I ask the general to forgive me! ”

Ma Chao admired it even more when he heard this, and frowned: "Ziyi's words are different!" Liu Xuan is the assassin of Yangzhou appointed by the Dong thief court, he can't compete with Yuan Shao, and he should have been put on the court, and the court came forward to solve the matter. However, Liu Miao not only turned to the general, but also seized Guangling County, Xuzhou in a vain attempt to dominate, and his behavior is undoubtedly the same as that of the thief! As a general of the imperial court, Ben Jiang has the responsibility of maintaining the majesty of the imperial court, and will never tolerate these stubborn local princes! Liu Xuan's soldiers are poor and widowed, Sun Jian covets him in the south, Yuan Shao is eyeing him in the west, and Shi Taoqian, the assassin of Xuzhou, has returned to the imperial court, and Liu Miao is attacked on three sides, which is no different from the dry bones in the tomb!"

What Ma Chao said is reasonable, Tai Shici knows it, and he is not happy under Liu Xuan, he is only a hundred masters. But Liu Miao is his fellow countryman, and when he fled to Liaodong, he was greatly helped by Liu Xuan, and although he had a bright future with Ma Chao, it was really unrighteous to abandon Liu Miao at this critical moment. Tai Shici pondered for a while, hugged his fists and said: "Although what the general said is reasonable, but Liu Miao has a great favor for his subordinates, and now that the kindness has not been repaid, how can he vote for the master?" Please don't say it again, General! ”

Ma Chao didn't want to force Tai Shi Ci either, so he smiled and said, "General Tai Shi is really a loyal person!" Even so, the general will not force it, and the door of the imperial court will be open for you at any time. If you don't want to do it in the future, you can come to work under your command! As for the old lady Taishi, she would have sent someone to take care of her, Ziyi can rest assured! ”

Tai Shici was grateful, hurriedly got up and bowed down, and said with a grateful face: "Thank you for your care, General!" If there is a chance in the future, Tai Shi Ci will definitely join the command of the general, and he is willing to start from a pawn! ”

Ma Chao laughed and said: "Ziyi is too modest, if there is really such a thing, I will let you start from the captain and directly lead a thousand people!" With Ziyi's ability, it is only a matter of time before he is rewarded for meritorious service! How can the ambition of this general be the thirteen states of the Han Dynasty? Once the internal stability is made, sooner or later troops will have to be dispatched to Jiaozhi in the south, Liaodong in the northeast and the prairie in the north, and Ziyi is in need of a general like Ziyi who can lead troops to fight alone! ”

Tai Shi Ci didn't even dare to say it, but he made up his mind to come to Ma Chao when Liu Miao fell. And Ma Chao is also calculating this matter in his heart, Liu Miao will be destroyed sooner or later, but in order not to make it difficult for Tai Shi Ci, the best way is to borrow a knife to kill people. Because of its proximity to Jiangdong, Guangling County has long been coveted by the Sun family's father and son, and the best way is to encourage Sun Jian to get rid of Liu Xuan.

And Sun Ce was born in 175, and now he is 193 years old, that is, nineteen years old, and he should have mixed with Zhou Yu and others. If history repeats itself, it will be very bad for Sun Ce to accept Tai Shici, and once Sun Jian's father and son kill Liu Xuan and take Guangling, it will take a lot of effort to drive them out, and the gains really outweigh the losses!

Looking at the territory of Xuzhou, in addition to Zang Ba, there are also two people who are attached to Liu Xuan, such as Xiangrong and Zhao Yu, the Taishou of Guangling, if they surrender Zang Ba and let him send troops to attack Guangling, it is a good idea to kill people with a knife.

Before that, Cao Ying attacked Xuzhou, and the whole territory of Xuzhou was like a frightened bird, and Di Rong led his soldiers and subordinate men and women, totaling more than 50,000 people, to Guangling County. Zhao Yu and Liu Xuan, the Taishou of Guangling County, treated Zhen Rong as a guest of honor, and set up a grand banquet to entertain Ji Rong and his soldiers and subordinates. Zhen Rong saw that Guangling County was rich and the people were rich, and the two of them still had tens of thousands of armor soldiers in their hands, so they stayed in Guangling County to dominate one side, and Liu Miao was the leader among the three.

And although this Zhenrong is not famous in history, he is a well-known figure in the history of Buddhism. During his tenure as prime minister, he set up Buddhist temples in Xiapi County, and asked the people of Xiapi County to chant and read Buddhist scriptures at night. As a result, monks, nuns, and Buddhists from nearby counties moved into Xiapi County, with more than 5,000 households moving into the county. On the eighth day of the fourth month of the Buddha's birthday, the "Buddha Bathing Meeting" is held, and the cost of setting up a banquet on the side of the road alone should be calculated in units of 100 million. The Futu Temple and the Nine Mirrors Pagoda built by him in Xiapi have a pivotal position in the history of Buddhism.

Especially the Futu Temple, Ma Chao also visited it in person. This temple is built in the south of the city of Xiapi, there is a tower in the temple, there is a gold plate on it, there is a heavy building under it, the tower is nine layers of octagonal, each layer has cornices, each side is inlaid with copper realm, there is also a copper mirror facing the sky at the top of the tower, it is called "nine mirror tower". Around the pavilion, more than 5,000 people can read Buddhist scriptures in the inner class, and the Buddha statue is painted with gold and draped in a brocade robe. Every time you come to the Buddha bathing meeting, you will set up a table on the side of the road for dozens of miles, and you can eat and drink wine and rice, and the people who come to visit and worship the Buddha reach as many as 10,000 people. The luxury of the arrangement, the grandeur of the scene, and the majesty of the momentum are rare in the world. In this troubled era of extreme scarcity of materials, it is a strange thing to be able to organize manpower to build such a temple.

Ma Chao hates Buddhism, so naturally he will not leave a fanatic of Buddhism like Zhenrong, and it is necessary to send troops to exterminate Liu Xuan, Zhenrong and Zhao Yu. Not only that, but in the future, he will also demolish all the temples in Xiapi, and all the monks and nuns will be put into the tuntian camp for forced labor. Buddhism must not be allowed to spread within the Han Dynasty.

After the dismissal, Tai Shici stayed in Xiaopei for five days before leaving, under Ma Chao's graciously retainery. During this period, Ma Chao said that he would hold a banquet, and when he left, he also gave Tai Shici a good war horse and a sword as a gift.

Sent away Tai Shici, Ma Chao left Xu Huang and Cao surnamed 50,000 troops to be stationed in Xiaopei, and Wen Ping was in charge of internal affairs, so that Cao Ying could be deterred in the west, Yuan Shao could be prevented in the south, and Qingzhou and Jizhou were close to Qingzhou and Jizhou in the north, so it would not be a problem to fight and supply. Huang Zhong and Chen Zhi returned to Xiapi and stationed there, so that they could fight with Tao Qian, who was sitting in Pengcheng, and was enough to resist Yuan Shao's surprise attack. Zhang He returned to Qingzhou to assist Xun You and Tian Kai in their work.

Ma Chao himself has to return to Luoyang to preside over the overall situation, as for Cao Ying, Liu Bei, Lu Bu, Liu Miao and others, they are not in a hurry, just let them attack each other. The most important thing at the moment is to calm down, try to repel Yuan Shao in one fell swoop, and then take the opportunity to send troops to Jianghuai and Jiangdong. And he didn't know which route Yuan Shao sent his troops from, in case of a repeat of the battle of Guandu and the battle of the princes against Dong, it would be useless for him to stay in Xuzhou, and he might be caught off guard by others. After all, Luoyang and Jizhou are his base camps, and there is no room for loss, and the loss of Xuzhou and Qingzhou will not affect the overall situation.

After making up his mind, Ma Chao called Zhuge Liang and Ma Jun to his side, and sent Gan Qian, who had been with him for several days, to the Xiapi Mi family, so that in the future, he could marry the Ma family as Mi Zhen's marrying maid, and he could also get a name. Gan Qian was overjoyed when she learned the news, and took the initiative to find Ma Chao for a whole night that night.

However, it was said that Cao Ying suddenly learned that Liu Bei led the army to vote, and he was immediately overjoyed and personally went out of the city to greet him. He has long coveted Liu Bei's two fierce generals, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, since Liu Bei came, how could Guan Yu and Zhang Fei not come? But when he learned that Ma Chao led the army to attack Xiaopei and Zhang Fei was beheaded, Cao Ying panicked at that time, Xiaopei was close to Yanzhou, and he could go up the Wenshui River to take Dong'e and Dongping, and this area was his base camp.

Cao Ying couldn't bear Ma Chao's next move, so he had to inform Yuan Shao of the matter in a handwritten letter, urging Yuan Shao to send troops to Xuzhou quickly. In this way, he and Liu Bei can send troops from Yanzhou, forming a two-sided attack. Yuan Shao had already learned that Ma Chao had occupied Xiaopei and drove Liu Bei away, and in order to contain Ma Chao's troops, under the suggestion of his adviser Feng Ji, he sent the generals Yan Liang and Zhu Ling to lead 50,000 troops north to Lingbi, and they could send troops to Pengcheng and Xiaopei at any time.

But Yuan Shao's troops are different from Ma Chao, he has only fifteen direct troops in his hands, and the rest are all small princes who have taken refuge in him, such as Sun Jian, Liu Xun, Yan Baihu, Xue Li, etc., it is difficult to achieve the unification of orders. Ma Chao does not have this kind of problem, as long as he gives an order, he will command hundreds of thousands of troops like an arm, and the mobilization of grain, grass and materials is just a matter of one sentence.

At the same time that Yuan Shao sent troops to Lingbi, he also sent people to urge the small princes from all walks of life who had taken refuge in him to send them to Shouchun as soon as possible. And during this time, Yuan Shao was not busy in vain, and the powerful families in Yuzhou and Yangzhou did not support Yuan Shao's crusade against Ma Chao, not to mention the money and food they donated, there were millions of domestic slaves and private soldiers alone.

Yuan Shao cared for the miscellaneous and kept the essence, eliminated the old and weak, and left 600,000 people to be trained by Wen Chou, Lu Yi and others, and called it Hu [***]. As long as the army is trained, it can wave millions of troops to the north to crusade against Ma Chao.

Cao Ying saw that Yuan Shao had made a move, and Ma Chao returned to Luoyang alone, so he put his mind at ease and set out to exterminate Lu Bu with all his might and recapture Yanzhou.

In August 193 A.D., coinciding with the Han Dynasty in the Central Plains and Guanzhong region, there was little timely rain since the spring ploughing, the seedlings withered one after another, and the locust plague broke out, and the harvest was reduced by at least more than 50%. Ma Chao's sphere of influence was the most influential, with Guanzhong, Sili and Jizhou as the most, Yanzhou, Yuzhou, Qingzhou and Xuzhou were all affected, and the people ate the already small surplus grain, and in the event of natural disasters, they could only peel the bark of trees and dig grass roots to satisfy their hunger, and they were miserable.

After Ma Chao rushed back to Luoyang, he set out to promote education, and in this disaster year, he could only temporarily run aground, and the people had no food to eat, so how could they bother to read and write? After several years of development, he hoarded a large amount of grain and grass in Bingzhou and Jizhou, but although he had a lot of grain, he was unable to help the people of the world.

The most hateful Guanzhong failure completely disrupted his plan against Shuzhong. However, it was said that Pang De, Fa Zheng and others sent 100,000 troops to attack Zhang Lu in Hanzhong, Han Sui led 50,000 troops to attack Mianzhu, and Xu Shu sent an envoy to Nanban to make a rebellion against Liu Yan. This plan has been half successful, and the Zhurong Department of Nanban and Wuxi Man have responded to send troops. Liu Yan was too busy dealing with Nanban and Han Sui to take care of Pang De.

Pang De sent troops from Dasanguan through Wuzhangyuan, and the momentum was like a bamboo in March, even under Wudu, Xiabian, Yinping, Jigu and other cities, in Dingjun Mountain, Zhang Lu's private soldiers were broken, and the troops were close to the hinterland of Hanzhong. (To be continued.) )