The second volume sees the dragon in the field

Hexagram said: See the dragon in the field, and see the adult. "Elephant" said: See the dragon in the field, Depu Shi also.

The dragon (gentleman) came out of the latent state and began to appear on the earth, which was conducive to meeting the nobles and princes and spreading benevolence. It is a metaphor that the gentleman broke free from the oppressive situation and began to enter the social life, creating the conditions for making contributions to his career.

At this stage, Liu Hou is very consistent with this hexagram, and gradually came out of the hidden and dormant state, and began to establish his own team, building the material conditions and network foundation for making contributions.

However, this volume may be a bit boring, because it introduces a lot of technical stuff, and you can skip it if you don't like it. But these are essential chapters, which are the foundation for building the world in the future, and must be explained clearly.

Chapter 1: Planning to save Private Guan Yu

Originally, it would not take a month to travel, but Liu Hou and his entourage walked for 3 months, and finally arrived in Chengdu at the beginning of the twentieth year of Jian'an (215) and settled down. At this time, Liu Hou was already 8 years old, according to ancient customs, if you count the virtual age, Liu Hou is already 10 years old, which is considered a little adult.

Liu Hou calculated the time, it was not many years before his next crisis, Guan Yu's loss of Jingzhou, and he had to speed up his preparations so as not to be unable to change this history and make the good situation extremely bad.

Liu Hou is very insensitive to numbers, and he can't remember the specific years in which some historical events took place. Especially the current year is calculated by the emperor's name, which is more difficult to remember than the year of the Common Era. He only remembered the approximate time frame of the incident, and did not remember the specific time when Guan Yu lost Jingzhou. For this reason, Liu Hou asked Zuo Ci to do two things to ensure that he could intervene in this matter in time.

Liu Hou fooled Zuo Ci and said that he had calculated that Jingzhou and Guan Yu would have a catastrophe in recent years, Jingzhou would be lost, and Guan Yu would fall. Zuo Ci is now obedient to Liu Hou's words, especially after Liu Hou "calculated" that Pang Tong's "Luofengpo" had a catastrophe and Zhang Fei died within 10 years due to drunken whipping of soldiers, his calculation of Liu Hou can only be described by two words: awe.

He also pestered Liu Hou and asked him to teach him arithmetic, but Liu Hou said, "You are a mortal, and if you leak the secret of heaven, you will be punished by heaven, and you are an immortal as a teacher, so you can withstand the curse of heaven." The words flickered past. Although Zuo Ci was very dissatisfied with Liu Hou's practice of only allowing state officials to set fires and not allowing the people to light lamps, he was helpless.

The first thing Liu Hou asked Zuo Ci to do was to establish an intelligence-gathering organization and a fast intelligence transmission channel. Liu Hou's so-called intelligence collection agency is not to establish an intelligence network covering all aspects, let alone a Niu 13 agency like the Ming Dynasty's East Factory, West Factory, and even the later Mi State CIA.

He just asked people to keep an eye on Guan Yu's movements in Jingzhou. Because although he doesn't remember the specific time, the stories of "carelessly losing Jingzhou" and "crossing the river in white" are familiar.

He knew that Guan Yu lost a series of events in Jingzhou, the cause of which was that Guan Yu lightly advanced the enemy and transferred Jingzhou's military strength to attack Cao Wei, which gave Lü Meng an opportunity to seize Jingzhou.

Guan Yu not only lost Jingzhou, the intersection and convergence point of the three countries' politics, economy, military, and culture, but also caused a series of chain reactions. As a result, Zhang Fei and Liu Bei died one after another, and Shu lost 800,000 troops, and its vitality was greatly damaged, and it lost the capital to dominate the Central Plains.

Liu Hou asked people to keep an eye on Guan Yu, and as soon as he sent troops to attack Cao Cao, he would report it immediately. It's not that hard to do. Due to the special geographical location of Jingzhou between the three kingdoms, Liu Hou planned to develop commerce here, and sold industrial products to Wu and Wei through this channel, so as to earn a lot of money and grain from the two countries.

Therefore, before leaving Jingzhou, he asked Zuo Ci to set up a business in Jingzhou, intending to sell industrial products such as soap, paper, books, and even lime through Guò when the workshop in Chengdu was established.

Liu Hou was the one who figured out the name Guò and monitored Guan Yu's movements. Because Guan Yu sent troops to attack Cao Wei, it is impossible to keep it secret, and it will definitely be known to passers-by at that time, not to mention that this business name has an official*, which belongs to Liu Hou, the first princeling of Shu Han, and it is easy to enter and leave the county guard mansion freely, so he is not afraid that the people of the business will not hear the news when the time comes.

As for the channel for rapid transmission of information, Liu Hou's first thought was carrier pigeons.

Legend has it that when Chu and Han were fighting, Liu Bang, who was chased by Xiang Yu and hid in a waste well, released a pigeon for help and was rescued. When Zhang Qian of the Western Han Dynasty and Ban Chao of the Eastern Han Dynasty successively sent envoys to the Western Regions, they used carrier pigeons to deliver news.

After Liu Hou settled down in Chengdu, he immediately asked Zuo Ci to train carrier pigeons that could transmit messages between Jingzhou and Chengdu. The training of carrier pigeons is not a day's work, the kind in later film and television works, where to take out a pigeon and throw it, fly wherever you want it to fly, and let whoever you want to receive it The plot does not exist in reality.

The pigeon can only fly back to its fixed loft, at first only a short distance away from home, release it and let it fly home, and after a few attempts to familiarize itself with the distance, gradually extend the distance, if this is the case, all the way to a longer distance.

In order to avoid accidents such as getting lost and being eaten by birds of prey if the distance is too far, it is often necessary to release multiple carrier pigeons at the same time, and even set up a transfer station in the middle of the way, and change pigeons to fly at the transfer station.

But Liu Hou doesn't have to worry about this, the benefits of the superior are here, he only needs to move his mouth and give orders, and naturally there are countless people who break their legs to carry out the order.

In this era, natural resources are abundant, birds of prey are abundant, and pigeons are fast to transmit, but no one can really guarantee that they will arrive safely every time. Liu Hou wanted to find a few eagles, geese and other birds of prey to use, but it was really difficult to find strange people who could train eagles, so he could only use carrier pigeons.

In order to ensure that the information would be conveyed, Liu Hou took great pains to instruct the people of the firm to send letters through the post station at the level of 800 miles at the same time as the carrier pigeons were released. Zuo Ci communicated with Jingzhou Post Station that if the firm sent an urgent letter of 800 miles, it must be delivered in accordance with the requirements of the letter in the army.

Zuo Xianweng's name is not ordinarily loud in Jingzhou, and the people at the post station are naturally full of promises. In this way, the two channels were delivered at the same time, and Liu Hou would be able to receive the news of Guan Yu's dispatch sooner or later. In ancient times, the speed of war was very slow, and it took a few months to fight at every turn, and it would take half a month to do so, Liu Hou calculated that even if he received a message through the guò post station channel, Liu Hou should be able to rescue Jingzhou if he set off immediately.

The second thing Liu Hou asked Zuo Ci to do was to ask for military power for himself. In the end, the rescue of Jingzhou must be implemented in a military operation. Even if you know the news, how can you rescue Jingzhou without soldiers? Could it be that Liu Hou is really a fairy, can he scatter beans and become a soldier? Or is it like the fantasy novel depicted, waving a feather fan, and the canopy is in ashes?

Liu Hou planned with Zuo Ci and taught Zuo Ci some words to persuade Liu Bei, so Zuo Ci came forward to Liu Bei to ask for military power.

Soon, the two big flickers began to face each other again:

"Uncle Liu Huang, today I want to talk to you about the future development direction of the little boy."

Knowing that Zuo Ci asked to see him, Liu Bei put down a bunch of political affairs and ran out to meet him. Because Zuo Ci will surprise him every time he comes. Full of anticipation, he couldn't help but be disappointed when he heard Zuo Ci say such a sentence straight to the point. It can also be seen that as one of the three giants in the world, he attaches great importance to his family and relatives, and Cheng Dù is really not very good.

"Oh, I don't know what Zuo Xian Weng has to say? Is it that the dog is stubborn and does not listen to the teachings? ”

"No, no, your son is talented, and the military strategy I gave has been slightly successful. Congratulations to Uncle Liu Huang, he has another general to command the army, and the little boy already has the ability to lead an army. Zuo Ci arched his hand and congratulated.

"Thanks to Zuo Xianweng's careful teaching." Liu Bei was very happy to hear that his son was promising, and hurriedly thanked him.

However, on paper, I finally felt shallow, and I never knew that I had to do it. The young man has learned a lot of theoretical knowledge, but he has always lacked practical experience. In the long run, it is inevitable that he will become Zhao Kuo who can only talk on paper. Zuo Ci brought out all the famous sentences of Lu You that Liu Hou told him.

"Well, it's shallow on paper, and I never know that I have to do it. Zuo Xian Weng said it so well! The truth is indeed this truth, I don't know what solution Zuo Xianweng has? Liu Bei nodded his head and agreed with Zuo Ci's words.

"The solution is very simple, that is, let the little boy lead a team of soldiers and horses, conduct more drills and exercises, and within a few years, he will naturally be able to accumulate enough experience in commanding troops."

"Well, reasonable, reasonable. Zuo Xianweng: Your training method for actual combat exercises is indeed very effective, and our army has found that it can indeed improve its actual combat experience very quickly after applying it over the past few years. Then let Adou lead the troops and accumulate some actual combat experience. ”

Liu Bei remembered the actual combat drill conducted by Liu Hou and Sun Shangxiang, which was indeed very effective, of course, he attributed all the credit to Zuo Ci, so he was very convinced of Zuo Ci's education method.

After all, it is still in troubled times, and if you train a successor, in addition to internal affairs ability, military ability is also essential, so Liu Bei has no resistance to Adou leading the troops. Changing the emperor in peacetime is a taboo and suspicious, and Li Shimin is a good example.

So, Liu Bei summoned Zhao Yun and ordered him to draw 500 soldiers and horses to Liu Hou's commander.

Zuo Ci saw that it was only 500, which was far from Liu Hou's requirements, no, he had to continue to fool. I saw that his eyes rolled and he counted on his heart.

"Uncle Liuhuang, I don't know if I've heard that Emperor Gaozu in the past asked the Marquis of Huaiyin how many soldiers he could bring, and the Marquis of Huaiyin replied, 'The more the merrier'." Zuo Ci said an allusion to "Han Xin leads the troops, the more the merrier".

"Oh? This allusion is well known to passers-by, and I have heard of it. Liu Bei asked puzzled.

"What the poor road taught to the little boy is also the method of the commander, so the more the little boy leads the army, the better. 500 soldiers may be a little insufficient. ”

"Oh? Then, according to the immortal Weng's opinion, how many soldiers and horses should be given? ”

"The little boy is still young, you can let him bring 5,000 soldiers first, and then increase it according to the situation in the future." Zuo Ci remembered Liu Hou's explanation, at least 5,000 soldiers, otherwise there are not enough soldiers in Dongwu, how to rescue Jingzhou?

As soon as Liu Bei heard this, cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Do you think soldiers are so easy to raise? When he first entered Sichuan, he brought no more than 10,000 people, and after a few years of piecing together, the left and the right were closed, not counting Guan Yu's garrison in Jingzhou, and his current Sichuan people and horses are not enough 100,000.

is as strong as Zhao Yun and Ma Chao, who were respectively named General Zhenyuan and General Pingxi, and usually only led 5,000 troops, and then allocated troops according to the situation during the war. Originally, it didn't hurt to want to play with Liu Hou*, but who knew that as soon as this old Taoist opened his mouth, he wanted to give 5,000 soldiers to a little kid to play at home, and "first ask for 5,000, and then increase the situation in the future". Could it be that this old way is actually an old ignorant who doesn't understand the world?

"Uh...... This, Zuo Xian Weng, this ......" beads of sweat the size of beans appeared on Liu Bei's forehead, and he became stammered.

Fortunately, people are also heroes who dominate the world, and even Cao Cao has been fooled. When he talked about heroes with Cao Cao, Cao Cao said: "The heroes of the world are only the kings and the ears." And Liu Bei used the thunder to cover up Cao Cao's doubts, which shows that he is impatient. So, Liu Bei also rolled his eyes and had an idea:

"Zuo Xianweng, the party is undecided today, and the people are displaced. And the grain and grass for raising soldiers are all requisitioned by the people, and they really don't want to scrape the people's fat and ointment. As he spoke, as he spoke, Liu Bei gradually entered the state, took out his best tricks, and his eyes began to moisten.

"The common people are miserable...... Bei really couldn't bear to ...... "Liu Bei is worthy of Liu Bei, Ma * things are related to people's livelihood, and he shows his "benevolent" side.

"Stop, stop, Uncle Liu Huang, listen to me, listen to me." As soon as Zuo Ci saw that he was coming, he immediately interrupted him. I thought, "Here it is again, I always use this trick, but fortunately, the little boy has already taught me how to deal with it." ”

"Uncle Liu Huang, you don't need to pay a copper plate for raising soldiers, we will solve the food and salary ourselves."

When Liu Bei heard this, he immediately stopped the tears that were about to fall, and his expression returned to normal, worthy of being the lord of Sichuan, and he won the essence of Sichuan opera's changing face.