Yuan Shao's current control of the territory is bounded by Huguan, divided into two parts: Jizhou and Bingzhou, when he was expanding aggressively, he was picking up the fattest place, so at the beginning of the third year of the first peace, it has become the strongest among the many forces north of the Yellow River.

The southern part of Qinghe County, Wei County, Zhao County and Julu County in Jizhou were all under the hands of Yuan Shao, and Taiyuan County and Shangdang County in Jizhou were also eaten by Yan Liang and Gao Gan under Yuan Shao's subordinates.

While stepping up his expansion, Yuan Shao, with his reputation as the "Third Duke of the Fourth World" and the "Lord of the Dong League", also extensively recruited and used talents in Jizhou, Yanzhou and Bingzhou, and its scale and speed far exceeded that of Liu Hegongzi, who was trapped in Macheng.

Yuan Shao's subordinates originally had strategists Feng Ji and Xu You, and last year they poached Guo Tu and Xin Ping from Han Fu, and these two came to Yuan Shao's tent and vigorously recommended to Yuan Shao Shi Tianfeng, who was living in seclusion in Julu's hometown at that time.

Yuan Shao knew Tian Feng when he was the lieutenant of Luoyang, and this time he personally wrote a sincere letter to Tian Feng, and asked his subordinates to send several carts of money to Tian Feng's family, and sincerely recruited Tian Feng for his own use.

When Tian Feng was originally serving as the imperial historian, he was dissatisfied with the dictatorship of the eunuchs, so he resigned and went home to live in seclusion. After Han Fu became the pastor of Jizhou, he asked Liu Hui to recruit Tian Feng, and at that time, Tian Feng also responded to Han Fu's solicitation and went to Gaoyi to do things, but because his personality was too upright and he didn't take into account Han Fu's feelings when he spoke, he was disliked by Han Fu, and soon found a reason to dismiss Tian Feng.

This time, Yuan Shao lowered his posture and sincerely asked him to go out of the mountain, and promised to ask him to serve as an important position in Jizhou in the future, so Tian Feng agreed to go to Yecheng to assist Yuan Shao. Tian Feng was disliked by Han Fu, but now he is favored by Yuan Shao, this strong contrast may also be the reason why Tian Feng is willing to come out to do things for Yuan Shao.

After Tian Feng came to Yecheng, he suggested that Yuan Shao continue to maintain good relations with Cao Cao in Hedong and Chen Liu, Zhang Miao, and other powerful forces, and focus on the strategy of annexing and annexing Jizhou. Yuan Shao deeply agreed with this, so he sent an envoy to cross the Yellow River south to contact Cao Cao and Zhang Miao, expressing the intention of everyone to continue to be "good buddies".

At that time, Cao Cao was still carefully managing the territory he had just obtained from the "unlucky ghost" Qiao Mao in Dongjun, and his strength was a big difference with the strong Yuan Shao, so he naturally promised to continue to treat Yuan Shao as a "leading brother". Zhang Miao had originally supported Yuan Shao as the leader of the Dong League, and he had no ambition for the land of Hebei, so he also expressed his support for Yuan Shao to unify the land of Hebei as soon as possible.

After Yuan Shao stabilized several neighbors on the south bank of the Yellow River, he once again put his mind on how to squeeze Han Fu's living space and force Han Fu to leave Jizhou. At this time, Tian Feng proposed to Yuan Shao that he should seize the time to take advantage of the calm period of the armistice between all parties to recruit more talents, restore the agricultural production of various counties, stabilize the territory already controlled, and easily refrain from using force against Han Fu.

Yuan Shao asked Tian Feng why he did this, and Tian Feng explained: "Gongsun Chan is as interested in occupying Jizhou as the general, and his soldiers and horses are not less than ours, and he is more superior in cavalry. ”

Yuan Shao said: "I can send an envoy to persuade Gongsun Zan to send troops with him to attack Han Fu, and then divide the territory that Han Fu now occupies." ”

Tian Feng shook his head and persuaded: "If the general and Gongsun Chan attack Han Fu at the same time, Liu Yu, who is entrenched in the northwest of Youzhou, will send troops to aid Han Fu like last time, how will it end at that time?" ”

Yuan Shao heard Tian Feng's words and was immediately silent.

Tian Feng then suggested: "Recently, I heard that Zhang Fei, the righteous brother of Liu Bei under Gongsun Zhan, broke into the territory controlled by Liu Yu and killed a county commander and more than a dozen county officials, which will inevitably further intensify the contradiction between Gongsun Chan and Liu Yu. The general can send an envoy to meet Gongsun Chan secretly, promising Gongsun Chan that no matter what happens to Youzhou, we will not intervene, and we will not send troops to capture the territory that Gongsun Chan now controls. After Gongsun Chan and Liu Yu fought, the general could personally lead a large army from Zhao Jun and Julu to threaten Han Fu at the same time, at that time, Liu Yu and Gongsun Chan were unable to take care of Han Fu, so they could take it lightly! ”

After listening to this plan, Guo Tu on the side nodded and praised: "Mr. Yuan Hao's plan is clever!" The lord only needs to make Gongsun Chan realize that the biggest threat to him is always Liu Yu, and sooner or later Gongsun Chan will not be able to bear it and take the lead in making a move against Liu Yu. ”

Yuan Shao also felt that this plan was very good, so he sent Xu You as an envoy to Nanpi to lobby Gongsun Zhan.

When Xu You came to Nanpi, Liu Yu's envoy Gongsun Ji had stayed for more than a month. Xu You didn't know the relationship between Gongsun Ji and Gongsun Zhan, and he was worried that Gongsun Ji would find out his intentions, so he avoided Gongsun Ji everywhere.

Seeing this, Gongsun Zhan asked Jian Yong to accompany Gongsun Ji to Xindu to pass the time, so that Gongsun Ji could explain to Liu Yu when he returned to Jicheng. When Gongsun Ji came, he brought two letters from Liu Yu, one of which was for Gongsun Zhan and the other for Liu Bei.

After Gongsun Ji left, Xu You then expressed to Gongsun Chan that Yuan Shao wanted to develop in Jizhou and was unwilling to meddle in the affairs of Jizhou and Youzhou.

Gongsun Zhan was deceived by Yuan Shao once last time, so he was a little suspicious of Xu You's true purpose, but he couldn't see what was hidden in it for a while, so he told Xu You that he knew about it, and thanked Yuan Shao for his kindness. Anyway, Yuan Shao didn't let himself do anything this time, so Gongsun Zhan felt that it didn't seem bad to accept Yuan Shao's proposal, and naively thought that it was only a matter of time before Jizhou returned to him.

After Xu You paid the account, Gongsun Zhan discussed the matter with his subordinates Guan Jing, Zou Dan, Liu Weitai and others, and everyone couldn't say why, and they all felt that Yuan Shao's show of weakness might be related to his preparation for a large-scale march and annexation of the state.

The dog-headed military advisor Liu Weitai proposed to Gongsun Zhan that after Xu You returned to Yecheng, he reminded Yuan Shaoduo to pay attention to the "Notice of Recruiting Talents" issued by Youzhou, so as to prevent talents in the territory from running to Jicheng to help Liu Yu, and then add trouble to Gongsun Zhan.

Although Liu Weitai is just a divination master, but this time he is really crooked to prevent Liu He with the heart of a villain, Gongsun Zhan feels that he must not only strictly prevent the talents in his own territory from pouring into Jicheng, but also reach an agreement with Yuan Shao, and the two families will work together to block the talents south of the Yellow River from passing through Jizhou to Youzhou.

The next day, when Gongsun Zhan saw Xu You again, he put forward a vicious proposal to implement a "talent blockade" and "material blockade" on Youzhou, which was agreed by Xu You on the spot.

Xu You can see clearly, like Gongsun Zhan's suggestion that harms others and benefits himself, Yuan Shao will definitely not obstruct it.

The two families reached an agreement, and Xu Yu returned to Yecheng with good news, and soon various negative rumors about the eldest prince Liu He spread wildly in the territory controlled by Yuan Shao. Not long after, Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan issued an order at the same time, strictly prohibiting scholars from all over the world from going to Youzhou through Jizhou for any reason, and the reason they gave was that they could not let the scholars of the world be deceived by Liu He!

Yuan Shao's chief strategist Tian Feng was very disgusted by this kind of subordinate, and repeatedly suggested that Yuan Shao should not maliciously slander Liu Yu and his son, and smear the reputation of Liu Yu's father and son, but Yuan Shao shirked it with the excuse of "I don't know the way" and "I don't know".

In early March, Gongsun Ji returned to Jicheng from Xindu in a leisurely manner, and did not bring back any happy news to Liu Yu, but brought back a lot of negative rumors about his son Liu He.

When Liu Yu heard that someone had slandered his son for having an affair with his concubine, his face was so angry that his face was blue and his lips were purple, and he almost turned his back on the spot.

Liu Yu didn't believe such a nonsense rumor, but felt that the intentions of the rumor-monger were too vicious, and he actually took such a despicable and shameless means to hit his son's prestige, and at the same time to drive a wedge between him and his son.

Don't drive Zhao should have jumped up and stomped his feet and scolded at that time, correcting Liu He's name one by one, refuting these rumors out of nothing, for fear that Liu Yu would mistakenly believe this slander. Qi Zhou also echoed in unison, expressing his strong support for Liu He, and resolutely did not believe these false rumors.

The biggest reaction was the cavalry captain Xian Yufu, he took out his waist knife, put the blade on Gongsun Ji's neck, and asked: "Gongsun Ji, my lord sent you to meet Gongsun Zhan and Liu Bei this time, so that you can reprimand their practices, not for you to return to Jicheng with these vicious rumors!" ”

Liu Yu forcibly suppressed the resentment in his heart, and waved his hand to stop Xian Yufu: "Cheng Bi Duwei, don't be so rude to Gongsun!" Quickly put away the knife, don't hurt Gongsun Cheng. ”

Just when everyone in the council hall was in a heavy mood, suddenly the guards at the door reported loudly: "Lord Qiyu, Captain Xian Yu and the four of you are outside the mansion to ask for a meeting!" ”

But it was Xian Yuyin and Han Heng, who went to Liaodong, who rushed back to Jicheng with Liu Zheng, Li Min and Tai Shici.

If Xian Yuyin came alone, he would naturally enter the council hall directly with his identity, but this time he was going to bring Liu Zheng, Li Min and Tai Shici, who the guards had never seen, to meet Liu Yu, so he asked the soldiers to report at the gate of the mansion and waited for Liu Yu's reception.

When Liu Yu heard this, his heart moved, and he suddenly remembered that before he went south to Jizhou last time, he seemed to rush back in a hurry, and as a result, he achieved his son's reputation. This time, Xian Yuyin was entrusted by his son to go to Liaodong, and at this juncture, he returned safely again, will he bring back some surprises?

"Please invite the lieutenant to enter the mansion!" Liu Yu gave an order to the guards outside the door.

After a while, Xian Yuyin and Han Heng, who were excited, walked into the conference hall with Li Min, Liu Zheng and Tai Shici.

"Li Min of Caomin Hedong, meet Master Taifu!"

"Grass people Beihai Liu Zheng, meet Master Taifu!"

"Caomin Donglai Tai Shi Ci, meet Master Taifu!"

Without waiting for Xian Yuyin to signal, Liu Zheng and the others bowed to Liu Yu, who was sitting on the main seat.