Really, despite the fact that Xiahou Mao has not been in office for a long time, and he has only been the guard general of Chencang for only a little more than two months, Liu Ba has been constantly dumping goods to Guanzhong during this time, recycling Shuzhong's five baht coins, and leveraging Xia Houmao helped a lot with the rising prices in Guanzhong.
In fact, a large part of Shu brocade and paper can be transported smoothly to the Central Plains and Hebei regions through Xiahou Mao's channels.
Xia Houmao, a good man! ! !
When Liu Ba talked about this person, he was also amazed. He was surprised that this person's bottom line was so low.
Knowing clearly that they belong to the enemy country, as long as they can make money and bring wealth to Xia Houmao himself, Xia Houmao will not care what impact these things will have if they flow into the territory of Wei. He will smuggle them if he needs to. As long as it doesn't delay him from making money.
Even Xia Houmao himself still occupies a certain share in such official "smuggling" activities and cooperates with Liu Ba to make money.
As for Liu Ba taking the opportunity to infiltrate Chencang Road and bribe the soldiers guarding Chencang Road, Xia Houmao didn't care at all.
This man even took the initiative to ask the white-glove merchants sent out by Liu Ba about military rations and weapons. Do you businessmen in Shu want to do this? When Liu Ba knew the news, he couldn't laugh or cry.
Forget about food and grass, I know you Cao and Wei are not short of it, but how dare you resell ordnance? !
Liu Ba initially thought that this was Xia Houmao's probing words, and the purpose was to test Xizuo's identity. He wanted to judge whether the Han Dynasty was purchasing large quantities of grain, grass, ordnance, and then judge the Han Dynasty's military trends. Liu Ba responded cautiously.
It was only later that I discovered that Xia Houmao didn't think that much at all. He just wanted to resell food, grass and weapons to make money for himself.
Especially the five-baht coin in Shuzhong, Xiahou Mao likes it very much. This kind of full copper coin can have 20 to 30% more purchasing power than the five-baht coin in Wei when placed in Yecheng, Hebei Province.
This amount of money coming in and going out is at least 50% more wealth for nothing. It's strange that Xia Houmao doesn't want to hold such a large amount of money in his hands.
In this way, Xia Houmao bought and sold unscrupulously in Chencang Road. Not only Shu brocade, salt, grain, paper and other items, but even Chencang Road's inventory of ordnance, Xia Houmao resold a lot to Hanzhong.
Anyway, where is his identity? The former general of the Wei Dynasty, the eldest son of Zhonghou Xiahou Dun, the son-in-law of Emperor Wu, and the brother-in-law of the current emperor of the Wei Dynasty, let alone Chencang Road, even in Chang'an, who dares to provoke him? !
Regarding this shortage of ordnance, I went back to report to Cao Zhen in Chang'an. He said that the ordnance was not well preserved and suffered serious wear and tear. He just asked Cao Zhen to transport another batch.
He, Cao Zhen, can't stop giving himself face just because of the "loss" of some ordnance, right? !
This was probably Xia Houmao's idea.
These tricks of Xia Houmao made Zhuge Liang and others dumbfounded and were simply beyond evaluation.
Is this still something a normal person can do? !
Although Xiahou Dun was not good at fighting, he was still a hero. With him sitting in the rear and calming the morale of the army, Cao Cao could fight in the north and south with peace of mind. How did such a thing come about? !
It’s like a tiger father and a dog son!
It's really problematic that such a number one person relies on his family status to become the employee of Cao Wei, the leader of Chen Cangdao, who is in such a key position.
After Liu Ba's narration, even Zhuge Liang would not take Xia Houmao seriously at this time.
But the problem is that even if Xia Houmao is a fool, is Cao Zhen stupid enough? !
Let's not talk about whether Cao Zhen knows Xia Houmao's character. Even if Cao Zhen doesn't know, Xia Houmao has no battle experience. Cao Zhen really dares to trust Chen Cangdao to him? !
Well, even if there is really a problem with Cao Wei's employment, even people like Cao Zhen like to favor his own family, but Zhang He, a veteran of Cao Wei, and Guo Huai, a Mesozoic with outstanding abilities, can't see the problem and don't even remind them. ? !
What Zhuge Liang was really worried about was that Xia Houmao was just a cover. He was appointed as the guard of Chencang Road just to gild him. The person who was really in charge of the defense of Chencang Road was not Xia Houmao at all.
Regarding this point, Liu Ba provided a piece of information - Xia Houmao did have a deputy general who followed Xia Houmao to serve as the guard general of Chencangdao.
This man's surname was Zhuge, his given name was Qian, and his given name was Zixiu. He was sent by Cao Zhen to assist Xia Houmao in guarding Chencang Road.
Sure enough, Cao Zhen is really not stupid. Although he doesn't know what Xiahou Mao's abilities are, Cao Zhen has been warned by Cao Pi and knows that Xiahou Mao is here to plate gold. Cao Zhen is not worried about leaving all the real war to Xiahou Mao. , one person was still released to assist Xia Houmao.
Just because of the deputy general’s surname, everyone present looked at Zhuge Liang.
Zhongshu Ling, don’t you have anything to say? !
Zhuge Liang was also embarrassed.
The origin of the surname Zhuge is actually very simple. He is Ge Bo, a descendant of Boyi during the Yin and Shang Dynasties. After the demise of the Yin and Shang Dynasties, one of his descendants migrated to the Langya counties to settle down.
Later, the descendants of this Ge family migrated from Langya counties to Langya Yangdu County. However, at this time, there was already a Ge family in Yangdu County. The two Ge families did not have the same ancestor and could not be regarded as one family. .
Therefore, in order to distinguish them, the Ge family that later moved from Zhuxian were called the Zhuge family.
Zhuge Liang is a descendant of the Zhuge family from this branch, and Zhuge Qian can be determined by his surname alone to be of the same clan as Zhuge Liang.
Because in this era, except for Zhuge Liang's Zhuge family, no one else has the surname Zhuge anymore.
But the reason why Zhuge Liang was embarrassed was that he really didn't know this Zhuge Qian.
It has been more than a thousand years since Zhuge Liang's ancestors migrated from Zhuxian County to Yangdu County. During this period, there were many cases of branching out and establishing new branches, and the kinship relationship between them was not necessarily that close. of.
Zhuge Liang's branch of the Zhuge family is descended from Zhuge Feng, the Sili captain of the Western Han Dynasty. If I have to say it, there is a common ancestor Zhuge Feng with Zhuge Dan's branch, and they are not far apart in time, so they can be counted among each other. They are relatives. But this Zhuge Qian, God knows which branch of the Zhuge family he is a descendant of.
But if you have to go back, the two of them can indeed be regarded as a family. After all, they all have a common ancestor, Ge Bo. But that was almost two thousand years ago.
The phrase "we were one family five hundred years ago" is just a cliché. Whoever believes it is a fool, let alone two thousand years ago. They were one family.
But if you don't know me well, you don't know me well. The other people present didn't ask you how familiar Zhuge Liang is with them, right? !
There are not two "Zhuge"s in one sentence. After all, they are also descendants of the clan. Reminiscing about old times or something, maybe this Chen Cangdao can be captured directly without fighting.
Or if it doesn't work, just pretend and leave the blame to Xia Houmao. Anyway, Xia Houmao is a real person in reselling military supplies and weapons.
Besides, Langya County is no longer under the control of the Wei State. Now Langya County is under the control of Soochow, with Zhuge Jin taking care of it. Zhuge Liang doesn't have to worry about Zhuge Qian worrying about his family and refusing to surrender, right? !
Zhuge Liang couldn't help it. These guys were a little hard to talk about.
The people present, except for Zhang Xi, came from a poor family and didn't understand the rules here. Fazheng, Huang Quan, Liu Ba, and Pang Tong, all four of them came from aristocratic families, but they were still trying to persuade themselves to do this. What kind of thing? !
For a big family, ensuring the survival of the family is the first priority, and it actually has nothing to do with your last name.
Zhuge Qian also has his own family. Since he chose to serve in Cao Wei, it means that Zhuge Qian's family has invested in Cao Wei. If they surrender to the Han rashly, then the interests of Zhuge Qian's family will definitely be suffered losses.
This is not something that Zhuge Liang, a so-called sibling with whom he has no contact at all, can persuade him to do this.
It is impossible for this group of people not to know this, but they still insist on writing this letter themselves, and they do not want to simply persuade them to surrender.
Zhuge Liang could have written this letter, it was just to reminisce about the past.
But with Zhuge Liang's current status, it seems abnormal to write a letter to a compatriot who is not yet well-known to reminisce about the past. This letter can be said to be a letter reminiscing about the past, but in fact it can also be said to be a letter of estrangement.
Once Zhuge Qian received the letter, it would be useless if he took it out, and it would be bad if he didn't take it out.
Take it out and show it to Xiahou Mao. Even if Xiahou Mao trusts Zhuge Qian on the surface, he will be wary in his heart.
But if you don't show it to Xia Houmao, then the problem will be more serious. If it weren't for a guilty conscience, why would you want to keep the letters privately, or the letters of a core figure of the enemy country? !
If Zhuge Liang were to imitate Cao Cao again and wipe out books, Zhuge Qian would not be able to explain it clearly.
Zhuge Qian is not Han Sui. Han Sui and Ma Chao are in an alliance. Even if Ma Chao is suspicious, he can't do anything to Han Sui. Zhuge Qian is Xiahou Mao's direct subordinate. Xiahou Mao wants to kill Zhuge Qian with just one sentence. It’s about words.
At that time, if Zhuge Qian didn't want to die, he had only two choices.
One is to surrender to the big man.
The other was to kill Xia Houmao and surrender to the Han.
Although it was a good plan, it was tantamount to letting Zhuge Liang design a trap for his own family members, which was somewhat shameless.
(End of chapter)
