In December of the twenty-sixth year of Jian'an, the news that Cao Pi had usurped the Han Dynasty and established his own country reached Hanzhong, and Liu Bei burst into tears.
There is a small misunderstanding here.
When the news of Cao Pi's usurpation of the Han Dynasty and his independence reached Hanzhong, there was also news of the murder of Han Emperor Liu Xie.
The news reached Hanzhong, and Liu Bei believed it without even thinking.
After all, Cao Cao's oppression of the Han Emperor was very serious in his early years. Princes, ministers, the emperor's concubines, and even the queen were killed at any time and abolished at any time.
Now that Cao Cao is gone, the only connection between Cao Wei and the Han Dynasty is also broken. Since Cao Pi has proclaimed himself emperor, isn't it normal to attack Liu Xie? !
Furthermore, from Liu Bei's perspective, he could not understand Liu Association's initiative to issue an imperial edict to Cao Pi.
The 400-year history of the Han Dynasty has passed into the hands of Liu Xie. Anyone with a little bit of backbone, for the sake of the past emperors, would not be able to do such a useless thing.
Therefore, Liu Bei almost subconsciously believed that it was Cao Pi who killed Liu Xie and established himself as emperor.
The emperor of the Han Dynasty was killed and the country was in ruins. Liu Bei, who had struggled for almost his whole life to help the Han Dynasty, could not cry sadly.
But Liu Bei can cry sadly regardless, but Zhuge Liang and others have no such intention now.
It is natural to be sad, especially for people like Zhuge Liang who cherish the Han Dynasty. When they hear the news of the emperor's murder, they will naturally be sad. Even people like Fazheng, Pang Tong, Liu Ba, etc. who no longer have much gratitude for the Han emperor will feel sad when they hear the news. News like this would also be disappointing.
But now that we’re done lamenting, we have to get down to business.
The biggest political banner of the Liu Bei Group is to support the Han Dynasty. Now that the Han Dynasty is gone, who should we support? !
If they silently recognized Cao Wei as the emperor, wouldn't Liu Bei's group become rebels? !
Without the support of righteousness, how can the rebels survive in this troubled world for a long time? !
Even if Cao Wei's orthodox status is not recognized, Liu Bei's group can only be a separatist regime inherited from the previous dynasty. This separatist regime is naturally not just enough. As time goes by, it will slowly become weak. Without the support of aristocratic families.
Therefore, what is urgently needed now is to once again establish a political banner for the Liu Bei Group. At the same time, this political banner cannot conflict too much with Liu Bei's previous political banner.
This matter is actually easy to handle. Whether it is based on personal interests or team interests, there is only one simplest way - to let Liu Bei become emperor and inherit the banner of the Han Dynasty.
On the one hand, the political banner of Liu Bei's group has not collapsed, and it is still supporting the Han Dynasty, but this Han Dynasty has been transferred from Liu Xie's lineage to Liu Bei's lineage.
This is not a big deal. After all, Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu is a descendant of Liu Fa, the son of Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty.
Now it is not a big deal to transfer from the lineage of King Ding in Changsha to the lineage of King Jing in Zhongshan.
Anyway, everyone is from the lineage of Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty. From a legal perspective, there is no big difference.
On the other hand, within Liu Bei's group, the only people who were truly inspired by Liu Bei's efforts to support the Han Dynasty and joined the Han Dynasty were probably only the group of people who raised troops in the early days of Liu Bei, plus Zhuge Liang.
The remaining people only want to be famous in troubled times, to survive the family, and to be rich and famous.
Now there is an opportunity to become a "Conglong hero". This opportunity is rare.
Therefore, it is in everyone's interest to persuade Liu Bei to succeed to the throne.
This is not determined by Liu Bei's personal will. Even if he does not want to proclaim himself emperor, his subordinates must let Liu Bei proclaim himself emperor for their own benefit.
What's more, Liu Bei has reached his current status, and he may not have the idea of achieving the emperor's career.
It's just that the temperament here needs to be carefully controlled. People these days are all about face and reputation, and Liu Bei doesn't want his appearance to look too ugly.
No matter what Cao Pi did, he still made an abdication. Since ancient times, at least in Cao Pi's era, the so-called abdication was still very valuable.
Regardless of whether Yao abdicated to Shun or Shun abdicated to Yu, the monarchs who abdicated and accepted the abdication were all wise kings praised by history.
Although Cao Pi's move was just a cover-up, he found a pretty good excuse. Not only did he improve his own status, but he also praised Liu Xie, making Liu Xie at least nominally a "wise king".
As long as you don't delve into the core, this is a perfect excuse.
But Liu Bei has no such excuse now. Even when the news reached Hanzhong, things had changed, and Liu Xie had already been "died".
Therefore, Zhuge Liang's proposal was to have Liu Bei give Liu Xie a title, label Cao Wei a "regicide and treason", and then inherit the throne of the emperor in the name of a Han clan member and continue to raise the banner of the Han Dynasty against Cao Wei.
In other words, Liu Xie, the former emperor of the Han Dynasty, must be "dead" in order to give Liu Bei enough orthodox status.
But that's it. It doesn't matter if others don't know, but Zhang Xi knows that Liu Xie is not dead at all, and is still happily in front of his so-called "Yang Gong of the Great Wei Mountain".
When Zhuge Liang put forward this suggestion and discussed it with everyone, Zhang Xi didn't say a word. But afterwards, Zhang Xi went to Zhuge Liang in private and suggested that the name "regicide" should be removed.
After all, Cao Pi really didn't kill Liu Xie. If he charges someone like this, if Liu Xie is brought out later, what we say will be easily denied.
As long as Cao Wei denies one of our charges, he can blame all the charges on "false accusations", thus emphasizing his legitimacy as the Emperor of Zen.
Therefore, Zhang Xi's suggestion is that there is no problem in accusing Cao Wei of "tampering", but the charge of "regicide" should be removed first.
After listening to Zhang Xi's story, Zhuge Liang also felt dizzy.
Zhuge Liang did not doubt whether Zhang Xi's source of information was reliable.
Zhang Xi had his own source of information, and he didn't show it once or twice, and Zhuge Liang never investigated it in detail.
After all, these days, children from aristocratic families or poor families have their own network of connections, and Zhuge Liang also has it, and he will not let outsiders know about it.
Furthermore, Zhang Xi was not the kind of person who didn't know the importance of such a big thing that Liu Xie was still alive. He definitely couldn't make it up to fool himself, so Zhuge Liang believed it immediately.
Although I am glad that Emperor Han is still alive, under the current circumstances, this Emperor of Han is really better off dead.
Because this Han Emperor is no longer the Han Emperor.
If according to Cao Wei's statement, Liu Xie really gave the Zen throne to Cao Pi, then Liu Xie's current identity is just "Dong Yang of Shanyang of Wei Dynasty" and is no longer the "Emperor of Han Dynasty".
If Liu Xie continues to be regarded as orthodox, what will become of the political banner of the Liu Bei Group? !
Do you want to help "Yang Gong of Shangyang in the Great Wei Dynasty"? !
This is just a joke.
But if we really ignore the existence of Liu Xie and insist on charging Cao Wei with "regicide", it is indeed possible to give Cao Wei an excuse to quibble about the legality as Zhang Xi said.
Therefore, the fact that Liu Xie is alive not only hinders the legal basis of the Liu Bei Group, but also hinders the legitimacy of Liu Bei's proclaimed emperor.
Zhuge Liang was very troubled by this. After thinking about it for a long time, he finally had to adopt a more compromise method.
No one in Shu knows that Liu Xie is still alive, so let's pretend to be ignorant and give Liu Xie a title first and treat him as dead.
After that, he quickly persuaded Liu Bei to proclaim himself emperor and re-establish the political legitimacy of Liu Bei's group, so that they could continue to adhere to the banner of "supporting the Han Dynasty" and grasp the great cause.
As for whether Liu Xie was alive or not, it was a joke. Liu Bei had already proclaimed himself emperor. The aristocratic families in Shuzhong and Jingzhou had already accepted this fact and enjoyed the dividends brought by Liu Bei's proclaimed emperor. They were just a "Great Wei Shanyang" Does everyone care so much whether "Mr." is alive or not? !
There can't be some people who are so naive that they don't want the glory and wealth in front of them. They must let Liu Bei step down and let Liu Xie come back to power, right? !
This is the method that Zhuge Liang came up with, and after several secret discussions with Fa Zheng, Pang Tong, Zhang Xi, Zhang Fei, Huang Quan, Liu Ba and others, this method became the consensus of various families and political circles in Shu.
The most important thing now is to quickly persuade Liu Bei to proclaim himself emperor and reestablish the Han Dynasty.
In order to prevent Liu Bei from showing unnecessary "kindness" and thinking about Liu Xie, Zhuge Liang and others decided after discussion that Liu Bei must not be told whether Liu Xie was alive or not.
Not only could they not tell Liu Bei, but they also had to insist in unison that Liu Xie was definitely dead.
At the same time, Zhuge Liang also advised Liu Bei that now that the war has subsided, the lord should not stay in Hanzhong for a long time and should return to Chengdu to take charge and stabilize the people.
In a simple sentence, Liu Bei was tricked into returning to Chengdu to prepare for becoming emperor.
Zhuge Liang actually considered the possibility of letting Liu Bei directly proclaim himself emperor in Hanzhong.
But there are two problems.
One is that Hanzhong is in ruins. After the Hanzhong War, Cao Cao moved most of the population of Hanzhong away. Even after the Liu Bei Group's two or three years of hard work, with the labor efficiency these days, what can be done in two or three years? !
Let Liu Bei claim the title of emperor in Hanzhong, but he can't even afford a decent palace. How shabby is this title of emperor? !
On the other hand, the aristocratic families in Shu disagreed.
Since Liu Bei wants to proclaim himself emperor, the aristocratic families in central Shu must hope that Liu Bei will proclaim himself emperor after returning to Chengdu. The biggest benefit of proclaiming emperor in Chengdu will definitely be for the aristocratic families in central Shu.
And Zhuge Liang must also consider that Liu Bei's base is indeed in Shu. Without the support of the aristocratic families in Shu, even if Liu Bei becomes emperor, he will not be able to secure the throne.
Therefore, Zhuge Liang had to consider the requests of the aristocratic families in Shu.
It doesn't matter whether Jingzhou is Jingzhou or not. In fact, a small half of Jingzhou is the territory of Jiangdong and Cao Wei. Strictly speaking, that side is considered the front line and is not a qualified rear area.
If you put such an important place as the imperial capital on the front line, if it falls, the political impact will be too great.
After many considerations, Zhuge Liang had to admit that Chengdu was currently the most suitable place to become the imperial capital in Liu Bei's territory. Liu Bei must first be allowed to return to Chengdu.
But Liu Bei really didn't think that much. He also wanted to go back to Chengdu. During the Northern Expedition, Liu Bei still remembered Zhuge Liang's letter of apology.
After running Chengdu for so long, those shameless aristocratic families actually dared to launch a soft confrontation against the general mobilization order. This made Liu Bei very worried about the situation in Chengdu.
Liu Bei has been stationed in Hanzhong for these years, and Liu Bei is not too reassured about the aristocratic families in Chengdu. Now that the war has stopped temporarily, it is not impossible to return to Chengdu and sit in charge for a while.
But when Liu Bei just returned to Chengdu, he received a memorial from Xu Jing - asking the King of Hanzhong to succeed the emperor, revive the Han Dynasty, and defeat the unfavorable ministers.
(End of chapter)
