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Just when the southwest land was filled with smoke, the states of the Central Plains were immersed in a quiet life that was rarely seen in more than ten years.

This relatively stable situation is due to the fact that the four major forces are divided and held each other, and they are wary of each other and contain each other, so that no one dares to act rashly and recklessly, and can only confront each other and stalemate.

In the Central Plains, the forces of Xiliang Li Li were in the middle, occupying Sili, Yuzhou, Xuzhou, half of Yangzhou and Nanyang County, completely cutting off the connection between Hebei and Jingzhou.

Since then, Li Li's forces have divided the Central Plains states into three parts: Li Li's territory is in the center, with Cao Cao of Jizhou to the north and Liu Biao of Jingzhou to the south.

Cao Cao, who occupies Hebei, owns the land of Jizhou, Qingzhou and Yanzhou, with nearly 500,000 troops, and is surrounded by water on one side, and adjacent to the territory of Xiliang Li Li on three sides. Therefore, as long as he makes a slight move, it will stimulate the sensitive nerves of the Xiliang Army, arouse the vigilance of the Xiliang Army, and provoke the contradictions and conflicts between the two armies, and a big war is imminent. It was because Cao Cao of Jizhou did not prepare for a full-scale decisive battle, and he did not dare to move lightly and did not dare to provoke the Xiliang army, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable.

It is precisely because of this that the hinterland of the Central Plains Sili and Jizhou are relatively calm. Long-term confrontation with each other, as long as you climb the camp or tower, you can clearly see each other's camp and sergeants. On the southern, northern, and western borders adjacent to Cao Cao and Li Li, all roads and passes were blocked by the Xiliang army, and there was no one in sight all year round, so that the roads were deserted, overgrown with wild grass, and many roads were washed away by the rain and were already impassable.

Compared with Cao Cao, Hebei, which is surrounded by him, Jingzhou is a different scene. In Nanyang County, which connects Jingzhou and Sili. There is an endless stream of business travelers coming from the south to the north, and the border cities in and out of the two places have become a distribution center for goods, and the market is extremely prosperous. There are many shops, and all industries are thriving. Look around. There is an inn or liquor store every fifty steps in the city, and the population is very dense, and tens of thousands of people pour into Nanyang County, resulting in an increase in the population of Nanyang County by nearly 100,000 in one year.

It is worth mentioning that about seventy percent of the people who went north from Jingzhou accounted for about seventy percent, and the remaining thirty percent were people from other states and counties under Li Li's rule.

It can be seen that although the states and counties under Li Li are not rich, they are stable and calm. The reason why many people moved into Li Li's rule with their families in tow. I just hope to live a peaceful life, even if life is hard, it doesn't matter, as long as I don't fight. Therefore, the move of many people into Nanyang County was only the first step, and after the registration was settled, they would move to other states and counties under Li Li's rule, of which the land of Sanfu was the choice of the majority of the people, followed by Liangzhou, then Shuozhou and Saiwai grassland, and then Sili, Yuzhou and Xuzhou.

People who have experienced war know that Yuzhou and Xuzhou and other prefectures and counties are relatively rich, but they are not very stable. At present, they are at the forefront of the outbreak of war. In the event of a war, these states and counties will be the brunt of the war, far less peaceful than the hinterland of Xiliang and the grassland of Hetao. Therefore, they came thousands of miles away to live in peace.

Speaking of which, the importance of Nanyang County is naturally highlighted.

Nanyang is the hometown of Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu and is known as the "Imperial Township". Before the advent of the troubled times, Nanyang County was under the dual jurisdiction of Sili and Jingzhou, nominally under the rule of Jingzhou, but in fact it has been subordinate to Sili. It has nothing to do with the history of Jingzhou Thorn or the state pastor, and it is almost impossible to intervene.

In troubled times. Nanyang County has changed hands several times, and Yuan Shu has occupied this place for the longest time. With the abundant manpower and material resources of the 36 counties under the jurisdiction of Nanyang. Yuan Shu forcibly recruited nearly 100,000 horses in Nanyang County, causing Jingzhou Mu Liu Biao to repeatedly want to recover Nanyang, but he failed due to many concerns. It was not until the Great War of Sili that Liu Biao saw the opportunity and unexpectedly sent troops to Nanyang to recover the whole territory in one fell swoop, thus bringing it under the rule of Jingzhou.

This is the first time in the more than 200 years since the founding of the Eastern Han Dynasty that Nanyang County has truly belonged to Jingzhou, and it is no longer superficial, but really included in Liu Biao's pocket.

But the good times didn't last long. Soon after the battle of Wancheng ended, with the establishment of the Yuan Alliance, Liu Biao initially thought that this was a good opportunity to expand his territory, so he happily sent troops to fight against Yuan Shu. Unexpectedly, Huainan Yuan Shu was not as easy to exterminate as he imagined, so that he mobilized 100,000 water and 6 armies, and fought continuously for half a year but it was still in vain, and the gains were very limited, which was quite thankless. Just in time for the Jingnan Explosion Rebellion, Liu Biao hurriedly borrowed the slope to get off the donkey, and immediately withdrew his troops without hesitation, getting out of the battle of Huainan.

However, what Liu Biao never expected was that Li Li suddenly sent troops to attack Wancheng and capture Nanyang in one fell swoop under the pretext that he withdrew his troops without authorization.

The moment he learned that Nanyang had fallen into the hands of the Xiliang Army, Liu Biao was furious, and he cursed Li Li and the Xiliang Army in a fit of rage. At that time, he wanted to send troops to take Nanyang County back, and give Li Li back the color, so that Li Li could see the strength of the Jingzhou army, and let him know that he Liu Jingsheng was not easy to bully. However, just when the army was about to come out after the assembly, Liu Biao repented again, he was worried that he would not be able to defeat Li Li, but instead caused the Xiliang army to attack Jingzhou in a big way, so the gains outweighed the losses.

In this way, Liu Biao retreated. He swallowed this evil breath alive, sat back and watched Li Li occupy Nanyang, was stunned, and acquiesced to this fact.

As everyone knows, the negative impact of Liu Biao's move is very great, so big that Cheng Dù, who he didn't expect, regretted his intestines.

In the three years that Li Li was elected as the leader of the Yuan League, at least more than 100,000 people fled from Jingzhou under Liu Biao's rule, more than half of them fled to Sili, Yuzhou and other prefectures and counties under Li Li's rule, and the rest fled to Xichuan. And this is just the beginning, after more than a year, tens of thousands of people fled Jingzhou and entered the prefecture and county under Li Li's rule, but Liu Biao had no choice but to lament in vain.

After all, there are no steep passes to defend between Jingzhou and Nanyang County, and the terrain is relatively flat, so the border cities or checkpoints cannot stop the people who want to flee at all; As long as these people insist on leaving, no matter how the Jingzhou army stops them, they can't stop their migration, and sooner or later they can flee Jingzhou and go away.

If the flight of a large number of people from Jingzhou made Liu Biao very distressed, then the endless flow of business and trade between Jingzhou and the prefectures and counties under Li Li made him sad and unable to sleep at night. It stands to reason that he is a pastor of Jingzhou, and he is fully capable of ordering the blockade of the trade road from north to Nanyang, and strictly prohibiting the passage of business travelers. But in fact, it was not so simple, and he couldn't stop the transaction and circulation of merchants between the two places at all, because it involved the vital interests of the major families and merchants and gentry in Jingzhou.

At present, the Western Liang Army not only formed a three-sided encirclement of Jizhou Cao Cao, but also formed a clamping trend on Jingzhou, blocking the trade routes to the north and east of Jingzhou. Not only that, south of Jingzhou is the territory of Sun Ce in Jiangdong, and there is a feud between Liu Biao and Sun Ce, and Sun Ce's father Sun Jian died at the hands of Liu Biao, so they have long been cut off from each other. In the west, Liu Zhang and Jingzhou in Yizhou are also suspicious, as early as when his father Liu Yan was alive, because Liu Biao revealed that Liu Yan secretly hid the emperor's ambition and formed a grudge. Since then, although the forces of Jingzhou and Yizhou have drunk the same river water, they have never interacted with each other, and have gathered heavy troops on the border to confront each other for a long time.

Since then, if the Jingzhou family and merchants do not trade with the merchants under Li Li's rule, they will be trapped and have nowhere to go. Once Liu Biao ordered the blockade of the checkpoint and strictly forbade trade with the merchants under Li Li of Xiliang, it would be tantamount to cutting off the financial routes of the major families and merchants in Jingzhou, and Yan zhòng would damage their vital interests. If this is the case, it will inevitably cause strong dissatisfaction among the scholars and merchants in Jingzhou, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is full of complaints, which will lead to immeasurable consequences, and even directly endanger the foundation of Liu Biao's leadership of Jingzhou.

It is under this general environment that even though Liu Biao intends to resist the infiltration of the counties and counties of Jingzhou under the command of Li Li of Xiliang, he is unable to do so, so he can only sit back and watch the people under his rule continue to flee to Xiliang; Seeing the Xiliang caravan swaggering into Jingzhou, calling the major families and merchants in Jingzhou brothers and making big deals, they were helpless and powerless to stop it.

In contrast, when Li Li imposed a complete blockade on the prefectures and counties under Cao Cao in Jizhou, the major caravans and merchants under Li Li were not affected. Except for Jizhou, Qingzhou and Yanzhou, they can enter all the prefectures and counties under Li Li at will, and they can enter Jingzhou and Jiangdong and even Yizhou relatively freely, and no one dares to embarrass them when they travel through most of the world. In addition, under Li Li's rule, there were also the Western Regions Passage and the Saiwai Trade Route, which could bring goods from the Western Regions and the steppes into the states, and vice versa; Over time, not only did the merchants themselves benefit a lot, but they also promoted the circulation of goods and benefited the people of the states.

It has to be mentioned that so far, the news of the Xiliang Army's advance into Yizhou has not spread, and the spread is still limited to both sides of the Yangtze River, and only a very few people really know this news, such as Liu Biao of Jingzhou and Sun Ce of Jiangdong, as well as Wu Zhongchen under the account. That's all.

Pressure is motivation.

In the face of the increasingly severe situation, it is impossible for the princes of the three routes, such as Cao Cao of Jizhou, Liu Biao of Jingzhou, and Sun Ce of Jiangdong, to remain unchanged, so under this seemingly calm situation, there are countless undercurrents hidden, and all the princes are actively operating, showing their magical powers, and doing everything they can. It's just that the tactics they implement are extremely subtle, and their actions are extremely hidden, and they have not yet been exposed to the public eye.

And Jiangdong Sun Ce's table xiàn is undoubtedly the most eye-catching. Taking advantage of the relative stability of the situation in the world, in order to consolidate his dominant position, he removed more than seventy percent of the officials in each county and carried out a comprehensive purge of the Jiangdong family and the scholars. It's a big move

――――――To be continued―――――――――――――――― (To be continued)

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