In the pavilion at the shelter on the top of the mountain, Li Jinsi was reporting the situation in various places to everyone according to the regional distribution, when suddenly an ordinary-looking man came down from the mountain, walked directly behind Li Jinsi, handed over an envelope sealed with fire paint, and turned around to leave without looking back.

From the time the man entered the pavilion to the last departure, none of the shadow team members guarding the pavilion made a sound, and everyone in the pavilion was not affected by him, it was obvious that this team member was very familiar with Li Jinsi, and he often haunted Zhao Xing's side, otherwise he would not approach Zhao Xing so easily.

Li Jinsi picked up the envelope in his hand and surrendered his gaze to Zhao Xing. The information he read just now was the content that Zhao Xing could let everyone know on this occasion after Zhao Xing's nod, and whether the content in this envelope could be known to everyone present depended on Zhao Xing's meaning.

Zhao Xing bowed slightly towards Li Jinsi, signaling that there was no need to shy away from it, so that everyone could know the latest news.

Li Jinsi very skillfully tore open the envelope, took out the letterhead in it, opened it carefully in his hand, and then read it with an expressionless face: "Luoyang Urgent News, Taifu Yuan Kui asked to resign from the post of Taifu because of his advanced age and returned to the old Nanyang; the former Taifu Lu Zhi succeeded Yuan Kui as the Taifu, ranking above the Third Duke; the great general He Jin supplemented the post of Taiwei and gave up the post of the general and was succeeded by the former Yanzhou Mu Cao Cao; Sikong Zhang Wen conferred the post of Yizhou Mu, and the former Yuzhou Mu Liu Yan entered Luoyang to take over Zhang Wen's post. ”

Everyone quietly listened to Li Jin's thoughts about the information from Luoyang, and then their faces showed some doubts and puzzled looks.

Li Ru was the first to ask: "When Cao Cao became a general, is he still the pastor of Yanzhou?"

Li Jinsi nodded.

"Liu Yan took over Zhang Wen's position, will he continue to lead the Yuzhou pastor?" Li Ru asked again.

This time, Li Jinsi shook his head, and then replied: "The candidate for Yuzhou Mu has not yet been determined, but it is very likely that Liu Bei's henchman and veteran Han Rong will take over." ”

Li Ru habitually twisted his beard and said to himself: "This time Luoyang made such a big move, Liu Xuande actually fished out a hat of a state pastor, this is not his style of acting! and Yuan Shu in Yangzhou seems to be a little too honest?"

Pang Tong followed Li Ru's suspicions and added: "Liu Biao of Jingzhou is also a little sick, is Yuan Kui really willing to hand over the position of Taifu?"

Zhao Xing deeply sympathized with everyone's suspicions, and he suddenly burst out with a sentence: "Do you say that Liu Bei and Cao Cao secretly reached some agreement? Now that Cao Cao is a general, he also has the actual position of Yanzhou pastor, Liu Bei wants to be on a par with Cao Heizi, so he can only have a prime minister!"

Zhao Xing's half-joking, half-serious words, immediately reminded everyone. Although the position of prime minister has ceased to be set up since Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu, now that the imperial family is weak, and Liu Bei is the king of Zhongshan, he has Han ancestry, and it is not unreasonable to follow the example of the Duke of Zhou (Note 1) to help the emperor govern the world.

Lu Meng seemed to be inspired by Zhao Xing's words, and he frowned and said, "If Liu Bei is trying to become prime minister, he needs to obtain the support of all forces inside and outside the court. Now, judging from the distribution of positions among the officials in the court, Liu Bei has already won the support of the imperial court, and what he lacks is the support of Yuan Shu in Yangzhou, Liu Biao in Jingzhou, Sun Jian in Wuzhou, and Sima Shi in Yizhou, and I believe that new news will come from the direction of Luoyang soon. ”

Cao Cao has been hiding in Yanzhou for many years, and now he is finally unwilling to be lonely and wants to get out of Yanzhou. It seems that we have to be busy next, if my expectations are not bad, Liu Bei and Cao Cao want to integrate the forces of all parties to fight against us!" Zhao Xing said his thoughts.

Everyone agreed with Zhao Xing's statement, so they followed Zhao Xing down the mountain and deployed measures to deal with such a major change in accordance with their usual division of responsibilities.

Li Jinsi, who was mainly in charge of intelligence work, gave a death order to the shadow team members in the Luoyang area, asking them to find out Liu Bei's intentions as quickly as possible, and sent urgent reports to the shadow organizations in Jingzhou, Yangzhou, Yizhou, and Wuzhou, so that they could keep an eye on the latest movements of these forces.

Li Ru, who mainly assisted Zhao Xing in commanding and mobilizing troops, immediately sent warning signals to troops in key directions such as Jizhou, Qingzhou, and Xuzhou in accordance with Zhao Xing's instructions, and demanded that the troops in these places strengthen their vigilance to prevent the new general Cao Cao from making a surprise move after taking office.

Chen Qi, who mainly assisted Zhao Xing in handling internal affairs, informed the Crouching Tiger Equipment Institute and some other factories specializing in the production of equipment and military supplies for the National Protector Army to prepare to increase production, and in the event of a large-scale war, they would carry out production at full capacity day and night.

Pang Tong, as the army division of the Crouching Tiger Legion guarding the mainland of the Jin State, immediately consulted with Xu Huang and urgently summoned important high-level generals such as Li Jinwu, Hu Che'er, Tian Yue, and Zhao Gang to adjust the defense deployment of the area bordering the Jin State and Sili to ensure that there were no problems with the defense of the Jin State.

Lu Meng is still studying in the Crouching Tiger Martial Arts Hall half of the time, and half of the time is following Zhao Xing's side for apprenticeship, which is a veritable "intern", Zhao Xing did not arrange a specific division of tasks for him, so after the news from Luoyang came, he was still observing Zhao Xing's response on the sidelines, which was also a rare opportunity.

After a few more days, the expected bad news came back from Luoyang again. The emperor personally put forward the idea of reinstating the prime minister at the court meeting, which was supported by most officials above the court, and everyone "unanimously recommended" the emperor's uncle Liu Bei as the prime minister to assist the Son of Heaven in handling the court affairs.

In order to appease the Yuan family, the imperial court actually named Yuan Shu a king of Ruyang, and assigned several counties in the area of Runan to Yuan Shu, in exchange for Yuan Shu's original territory in Yangzhou. In this way, the role of replacing Yuan Shu as Yangzhou Mu has been replaced by a ruthless role that Zhao Xing did not expect, he is Yanren Zhang Yide!

It seems that Zhao Yun in Qingzhou and Zhang Liao in Xuzhou are particularly jealous, Liu Bei and Cao Cao secretly discussed, and even divided the entire Yuzhou into two halves of the north and south, the northern Yuzhou adjacent to Yanzhou was directly defended by Cao Cao, and the southern Yuzhou near Yangzhou was garrisoned by Zhang Fei, and the generals such as Chen Dao, Pan Feng, and Wu Zhen under Liu Yan were all returned to the imperial court, in fact, they were under Liu Bei's dispatch.

In this way, Liu Bei and Cao Cao initially realized the plan of uniting Sili, Yanzhou, Yuzhou and Yangzhou, and now only Liu Biao of Jingzhou, who has an unclear attitude, and Sun Jian, who is actually in an independent state, need to be won over and resolved. As for Yizhou, which is far away in the southwest, even if Liu Bei doesn't send someone to contact, the Sima family, who was forced into a corner by Zhao Xing, will secretly take the initiative to cooperate with Liu Bei.

Note 1: The Duke of Zhou was the title of the Zhou Dynasty, and the one who won the title assisted the King of Zhou in governing the world. The first generation of Zhou Gong in history was surnamed Ji Mingdan (about 1100 BC), also known as Shudan, the fourth son of Ji Chang, King Wen of Zhou. Because the fief was in Zhou (now Qishan North, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province), it was called Zhou Gong or Zhou Gongdan. He was an outstanding politician, military strategist and thinker in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, and was revered as the founder of Confucianism and one of the ancient sages most revered by Confucius in his life. There are many sayings of Zhou Gongzhi in history. The more famous is the interpretation of dreams by Zhou Gong mentioned in the Book of Changes.