It took two months, in March of the third year of Yanxing (195), Chen Chong barely completed the financial inspection in Chang'an. However, some among the officials were not convinced and tried every means to confront the Sili Mansion, which caused many disturbances.
Guanglu doctor Zhou Zhong was born in the Lujiang Zhou family and was the son of former Taiwei Zhou Jing. He has served in the court for eighteen years. Before Chen Chong came, both the government and the public regarded him as a third official. After Chen Chong came to Lingtai for a long time, he went to the Chancellor's Office the next day and requested to become an official and go into seclusion on the grounds that he was old and frail, suffering from eye diseases and could not see things clearly.
He said this on the surface, but secretly he packed up his belongings early and said to the officials: "The Dragon Head seems to be rectifying the government, but in fact it is to use this as an excuse to eliminate dissidents and fight for power with the emperor. We are not the Dragon Head. If you don't return early, I'm afraid something will happen to you." Soon, similar rumors spread throughout Chang'an through the mouths of lower-level officials, saying that the Sili captain seemed peaceful, but in fact he had the ambitions of Wang Mang and Dong Zhuo, and was trying to seduce the Han Dynasty. Unruly.
When the news reached the palace, the emperor indeed had a change of heart, suggesting that Chen Chong's decree would be postponed. Chen Chong dismissed the order on the grounds that it had been issued and had not been changed. After receiving the document, he immediately led the crowd out of the palace and stopped Zhou Zhong's motorcade before leaving the capital. They found a thousand pieces of silk, fifty stones of pepper, five million baht, and two thousand gold cakes.
Because he had something to say first, Chen Chong presented the list to the emperor and announced it to the people of the city in Beique. Zhou Zhong was sweating profusely and kowtowed to Chen Chong again and again, begging for forgiveness. Chen Chong did not continue to investigate further, reloaded the checked property into the vehicle and allowed him to take up his official position. After this incident, the rumors about Chang'an disappeared immediately. As for the connection between them, we can only let future generations think about it.
But not long after, another scandal was exposed in Beijing. At the end of January, while walking in the West City, three officials from the Sili Mansion were suddenly kidnapped by city residents and disappeared mysteriously. When they reappeared, the three of them found their corpses burned in the south of the city and thrown on the official road. Only their respective official seals were left next to the corpses.
Since Chen Chong entered the capital, such a terrible death was the first time in Chang'an, which shocked both the government and the public. Chen Chong ordered Yang Xiu to be the chief officer to investigate the matter strictly. As a result, before any action was taken, two more rangers surrendered themselves to the government. It is said that they saw these three people oppressing celebrities and being greedy for money and dominating women on the pretext of checking their wealth. They saw injustice on the road, so they killed people out of justice. When the news spread, the people regarded him as a righteous man.
Chen Chong had seen this kind of trick many times. He openly asked Yang Xiu to interrogate the suspect, but secretly sent someone to search for the portrait in the Western Market and found out the real name of the surrenderer and more than ten related rangers. After sending people to arrest him, it was discovered that the rangers had killed him indiscriminately and buried more than twenty bodies. The witnesses and physical evidence are all there, and the person who committed the crime cannot deny it. Considering his family, he can only plead guilty before the law and admit that he was instigated by others. But they didn't know who ordered it. After all, its leader realized something was wrong beforehand and had already fled. Chen Chong had no choice but to sentence the relevant persons to death for murder and to be hanged in Hengmen.
After these two incidents, the government and the public were reluctantly calm, allowing Chen Chong to reluctantly implement the property inspection order. As for the amount of property inspection, it is difficult to write down here because of the huge number and variety. I can only briefly list them. In terms of rare treasures, Dong Cheng, the general of Jianping, has 100 pieces of Shu embroidery, Situ Chunyujia has ten corals, Sun Rui, the official of Guanglu, has eighteen stones of rhinoceros horn, and Liu Ai, the servant of the emperor, has thirty pearls. Dendrobium. The amount of money in the remaining acres is astonishing. After being listed in the North Palace, no one came up to say anything. It was not urgent to eliminate the officials and govern them.
But just when this political affair was finally coming to an end, Huangfuli, the governor of Yuzhou, reported to the court: "Yuan Shu led his army to enter the Chen Kingdom again and attacked Chen County, Xinping, and Ningping counties. It is said that there are millions of soldiers The army, with thousands of good generals and a company of more than a hundred miles, seems to be moving in full force."
As soon as one letter arrived, within the remaining six days, more than ten military reports were delivered to Chang'an. Each military report represented the fall of a county. Chang'an and Yingchuan are nearly a thousand miles apart, and the messenger works day and night, changing horses one after another, and it takes five days to arrive. Who knows how many counties were lost during this period?
In fact, on the sixth day of March, Yuan Shu successfully recovered thirty-five counties in Yingchuan, Chen, and Liang counties, and restored all Yuzhou.
The main reason why he was able to achieve such results was because Yuan Shu's timing was extremely clever. Last autumn and winter, the Han army fought fiercely with the Gengcang army for several months. At this time, some of them returned to Bingzhou with Liu Bei, and some rested in Henan. There were only about 10,000 Han troops left in Yuzhou. In the past few years, during spring plowing and autumn fighting, the soldiers had long been accustomed to resting in spring and were not prepared for battle. As soon as Yuan Shu's army arrived, Huangfuli received the news of the defeat on the front line before she could order her troops. The morale of the Han army was not strong. After hearing about the defeat, they naturally had no choice but to lose again and again, and were directly forced back to Henan by Yuan Shu.
After recapturing Yuzhou, on the tenth day of the third month, Yuan Shu moved his army to Yangdi. Sun Xiang was sent to lead troops to the Shenyuan Pass for surveillance, and then a three-foot high platform was built in front of the city. All tribes in Yingchuan were gathered in front of the platform to reward all the officials and generals under his command. In the warm spring breeze, Yuan Shu, wearing a golden armor and stomach, stood on the high platform, watching the military flags fluttering like waves and the heads of people moving back and forth. He was a little intoxicated for a while. He then laughed with Yang Feng beside him and said, "General, what do you think of my subordinates?"
It turns out that Yuan Shu's troops were not limited to the two states of Yu and Yang. Years ago, he reached a peace agreement with the Baibo Army, so before going on the expedition, he bribed the Baibo Army with a heavy sum of money in exchange for Yang Feng and 50,000 Xuzhou men to accompany him on the western expedition.
Yang Feng looked at the endless army in the audience, and his mood was agitated for a moment. Yuan Shu had nearly 150,000 infantry and cavalry this time. Including the Xuzhou army, there were nearly 200,000 troops. Looking around, there were few others who could compare with him. When he was in Bingzhou, he had only a few thousand men under his command. How could he have imagined that he would be as majestic as he is today, towering over thousands of people and standing alongside the Yuan family?
But when he thought about the war, he was wary, so he said: "If Liu Bei leads his army here, it will be difficult to compete with Yuan Gong." What he thought was that if Chen Chong came here, the outcome would be unpredictable.
Yuan Shu heard what he had not finished saying, and showed a look of worry on his face. He drew out his sword, pointed it in the direction of Luoyang, and then said slowly: "When I was in Wancheng, I occupied Jingyu, and I ordered Sun Wentai to go north to attack Dong and recover the eastern capital. What kind of feat was it? Even Chen Tingjian and Liu Bo'an had to do it. I am the leader of the alliance. The inscription on the recovery of Luoyang at that time is still placed in Nangong! No matter who comes out to fight with me, they will all come back defeated!"
After that, he ordered the troops to beat drums, and the sound was like thousands of waves, resounding throughout the nine heavens and nine earth. The scholars who came to watch the ceremony all turned pale and trembled. When the sergeants and soldiers shouted in unison, some even fainted on the spot. This made Yuan Shu laugh out loud and seemed extremely proud. He asked Yang Feng again: "Is there such power under my command?" , conquering Guanzhong and regaining the two capitals must be easy. If one day I really conquer the world, will I be able to become the emperor of the Zhong family?"
How could Yang Feng expect him to say this suddenly? I thought that at this time, I was just taking advantage of the absence of Liu Chen's main force. He had not even seen the shadow of Jinyang Bafu, let alone conquered Guanzhong and hijacked the emperor. As a result, the person next to me was already thinking about several years in the future. But what does this Zhong family emperor mean? Yang Feng didn't know what to say for a moment, so he simply pretended not to hear and continued to watch the scenery below the stage.
Yuan Shu did not continue to speak to him. On the high platform, he marched one by one. The warriors from the two states in the procession lined up, saluted to the platform, and then received their rewards from the attendants below. Seeing the vitality among the soldiers in the audience, Yuan Shu was deeply satisfied. Since Sun Jian's death, Yuan Shu recruited Sun Jian's remaining troops, but he did not know how to mobilize the army. As a result, the number of officers in the army became increasingly scarce as time went by, and he suffered repeated defeats. But since last year, Yuan Shu, in the name of Zhao Wen and Yangzhou Mu, has promoted and recruited a large number of young talents in the two states, such as Sun Jian's son Sun Ce, his descendant Sun Hao, Lujiang Zhou Yu, Wu Jun Gu Yong, Langya Zhuge Jin, the famous Confucian Zheng Tai's younger brother Zheng Hun and others are all outstanding among the young people. In addition, in addition to the recruitment of Qiao Rui, Ji Ling, Zhang Xun and other capable generals in Runan, the atmosphere of the army has been completely renewed. Yuan Shu therefore privately told his eldest son that even if Sun Jian was alive, he could not do better.
After the reward was completed, Yuan Shu ordered Shi Yiguan to recite the Western Expedition in public. In the article, Liu Bei and Chen Chong were regarded as enemies of the DPRK, and their seven major crimes were listed:
Chen and Liu raised troops from Dongping to fight against the moth thieves. When Julu was completely victorious, Chen Chong went to the front to intercede for the thieves. Liu Bei released the yellow scarf privately and left behind. He really did not know loyalty, justice, filial piety, and brotherhood. As a result, a false dynasty emerged in Shandong, and the world was in chaos. So far, it still cannot be settled. This is sin one.
Chen Liu was in Bingzhou and was ordered by the late emperor to quell Xianbei. First, there was the defeat of Sangqian, and then there was the chaos in the household, which resulted in the loss of troops and generals, humiliation of the noble order, and unworthy conduct. This is sin two.
Chen Chong was the pastor of Bingzhou and participated in the discussion against Dong. However, when the battle came, he stopped at the north of the river and could not go south to Mang Mountain. He joined forces with Sun Jian to conquer, and as a result, in the battle of Guangcheng, the victory of defeating the captives was almost defeated, and Dong Zhuo escaped by chance. This is sin three.
Liu Bei was the governor of Taiyuan, and together with half of the elite troops in northern Xinjiang, they marched straight to the east of Hedong and reached Pu Ban. However, they hesitated when something happened and hesitated to use their troops. Huangfu Song defeated them one by one, resulting in the complete defeat of Dong's campaign overnight and the dispersion of the allied forces. This is the fourth crime. .
Later, by luck, Chen Liu took charge of Chang'an and took charge of the government. However, he was in a high position and did not cultivate virtue. He was close to Ren Yuanxian and oppressed the clan, which made Liu Yu live in seclusion and Gongsun harmed the people. This is sin five.
This year, Chen Chong's new policy has intensified its efforts, infringing on the three divisions and suppressing and abusing officials. Zhou Zhongcang is in panic, and Sangong is in desolation. The emperor is suspected of losing his handle, and it is difficult for the artifact to be preserved and eliminated. The new and old ambitions are hidden and restored. This is sin six.
In addition, the Han Dynasty governed the country with loyalty and filial piety. Chen Shi, the Duke of Taiqiu, made his reputation known to the world. He loved his descendants, especially Chen Chong. However, when Chen Shi passed away, Chen Chong returned to his hometown for a day, and he went to Xihe for power. He really could not serve the world. example. This is sin seven.
After reciting the seven sins, Shi Yiguan sighed again, thinking that even the bamboos of Nanshan could not bear the sins committed by the two of them. Then he compared Yuan Shu to Qi Huan and Jin Wen, who killed the rebels and established the Han Dynasty. He ordered the superiors and subordinates to return to their positions. The sins were deserved and the wise men ruled.
When Sun Ce in the audience heard this and looked at Yuan Shu's calm acceptance from a distance, he couldn't help but laugh. He thought to himself: It's ridiculous that a bunch of flies want to achieve great things. Then he stepped on his feet and looked around, observing the situation of the military base, and thought: If I want to make achievements, what should I do?
