With Cao Yu's surrender and Zhuge Liang's surrender, Cao Wei's regime has completely entered history.
However, the remaining forces of Cao Wei were not so easy to eliminate.
The remaining forces in the four northeastern counties of Youzhou are not of concern. The prefects of these four counties do not have many troops anymore. Moreover, the land in the four counties is barren, and there are no stubborn forces that can resist. It can basically be decided by passing on the message.
What is really more troublesome is Sima Yi who is entrenched in the east of Jizhou.
Sima Yi's character as a great Wei Chunchen is now fully established as he wished.
Even though Cao Shuang, Cao Yu and others had surrendered in Jixian, Sima Yi still stood firm on the eastern border of Jizhou, flying the flag of Cao Wei and carrying the imperial gift from the emperor of Cao Wei. He would not fight or surrender.
Of course, judging from the current situation, the eastern part of Jizhou is already surrounded by Ji Han on three sides. If Zhuge Liang wants to attack hard, it is not impossible. Even if Sima Yi can fight again, he will not be able to last for a year.
However, Zhuge Liang knew what Sima Yi wanted, and Zhuge Liang didn't mind giving Sima Yi what he wanted. Of course, the most important thing was that Zhuge Liang did not want to attack by force, which would increase the casualties of his soldiers and consume food and national strength.
Therefore, Zhuge Liang personally wrote a letter to Sima Yi, giving Sima Yi enough face in the letter. At the same time, he sent people to Sima's house in Wen County, Hanoi, and invited Sima Yi's eldest son, Sima Shi, and asked Sima Shi to personally send him a message to Sima Yi. .
By the way, after Sima Shi surrendered in Hedong County, he refused to serve as an official. When he returned to Sima's hometown in Wen County, Hanoi, he kept the Sima family behind closed doors. Everyone was really a fox.
But now, Zhuge Liang asked Sima Shi to send him a personal letter, which was actually for the outside world to see.
On the one hand, Zhuge Liang showed his magnanimity to the world, expressed his disdain for using Sima's life as a bargaining chip, and persuaded Sima Yi to surrender.
On the other hand, Zhuge Liang is actually telling Sima Yi that I, Zhuge Liang, will give you the face that Sima Yi wants, and even send you your eldest son. If you don't know what is good, then there is no need to talk about the rest of the matter.
Obviously, how could an old fox like Sima Yi not understand Zhuge Liang's subtext?
Moreover, now Sima Yi's character has been established. Now everyone in the world knows that Sima Yi is a loyal and pure minister who keeps the old master's integrity. Especially compared with Cao Shuang, the general of the Cao family, Sima Yi seems to be So loyal and unyielding.
Now if he surrenders again, no one will say anything wrong with Sima Yi.
This has earned Sima Yi enough reputation, and at the same time, he has accumulated enough capital for a comeback in the future.
You can just give it up when you see it. If you don't know how to advance or retreat, I'm afraid it will really become the kind of loyal ministers of the Wei Dynasty whose whole family is dying.
Therefore, after Sima Yi received Zhuge Liang's handwritten letter, he also wrote a reply personally and asked his eldest son, Sima Shi, to take it back to Zhuge Liang.
Sima Yi's move is also quite high.
He is now the persona of Great Wei Chunchen. If he leaves his eldest son like this, his persona of Great Wei Chunchen will be flawed.
On the contrary, Sima Yi continued to send Sima Shi back. Not only could he express his selfless qualities for the public, but at the same time, if there was any real disharmony, he could at least ensure that Sima Shi could still have a future in Jihan and prevent the whole family from having fun together. over.
After all, although Sima Shi did not become an official in Jihan, in theory, after he surrendered in Hedong, he was no longer a minister of the Wei Dynasty. Under the influence of the concept of loyalty and filial piety in this era, after he sent the letter, regardless of whether Sima Yi agreed or not , he must return to Jihan.
Otherwise, it is capricious and there is something wrong with one’s character.
As for the letter Sima Yi wrote to Zhuge Liang, it's actually not that important. It was just a letter to show each other's face.
It is true that Sima Yi put forward his own surrender conditions to Zhuge Liang in his letter, but none of these conditions came from Sima Yi's heart.
There are two conditions for surrender proposed by Sima Yi. One is to treat the emperor Cao Wei well, treat the Cao family well, and the Xiahou family well, and save the face of the Wei Dynasty. The other is to treat Cao Wei's soldiers well and allow these Cao Wei soldiers to disarm and return to their fields and return to normal life.
These two items are probably what Sima Yi deliberately brought up for the world to see in order to continue to maintain his image as a great Wei Chunchen.
And Zhuge Liang actually knew that. He didn't believe that Sima Yi, an old fox, was really so loyal and patriotic.
If he really wanted to be loyal to the emperor and patriotic, Sima Yi should appear in Jixian instead of staying on the front line of Jieqiao.
However, Zhuge Liang still made a good gesture. Not only did he agree to all Sima Yi's requests, but he also sent people to spread the contents of the two people's letters to help Sima Yi establish his character as a loyal minister of Wei. If you want a reputation, then I will give you enough. reputation.
Reputation has its advantages, but it also has disadvantages.
Needless to say the benefits, Sima Yi created such momentum in order to obtain sufficient conditions for the Sima family to gain a foothold in the Han court in the future.
But the disadvantage is that what Zhuge Liang is doing now is to put Sima Yi up high and make it difficult for him to get off. He must maintain the character of this great Wei Chunchen for the rest of his life.
And when Sima Yi had to maintain his character as a great Wei Chunchen for the sake of his own reputation, it was equivalent to Sima Yi cutting off the opportunity to enter the Han Dynasty. Otherwise, what kind of great Wei Chunchen could he be? !
Although Zhuge Liang didn't know what it meant for an idol to collapse his house, it didn't stop him from using it like this. Now Sima Yi doesn't want to be the great Wei Chunchen even if he doesn't want to.
The two old foxes combined have 1,600 tricks, but after all, Sima Yi still couldn't defeat Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of the Han Dynasty.
On the one hand, Sima Yi is now weak and Zhuge Liang is strong. No matter how cunning Sima Yi is, he will not have the confidence.
On the other hand, Sima Yi could endure it. He could accept the temporary setback and wait for an opportunity to make a comeback. Even Sima Yi could accept that he could not join the Jihan officialdom. But as long as his two sons still had such an opportunity, with the Sima family's With his rich heritage and the support of the Hedong family, Sima Yi believed that his Sima family would definitely have a place in the future Han Dynasty.
Therefore, Sima Yi finally ordered the entire army to disarm their weapons and equipment, and took his second son Sima Zhao to Jixian County in person to ask Zhuge Liang to surrender.
With Sima Yi's surrender, the largest remaining force of Cao Wei was pacified, and Youzhou and Jizhou were also completely pacified.
Later, Zhuge Liang took advantage of his power and transferred Wei Yan, the governor of the state, as the governor of Youzhou to guard the border and guard against Goguryeo.
As for the governor of Bingzhou left by Wei Yan, Zhuge Liang appointed Wang Chang to take over.
Although Wang Chang's qualifications are slightly insufficient, his ability is really favored by Zhuge Liang. At the same time, Wang Chang has the support of the Wang family in Taiyuan, which is very suitable for stabilizing the state and guarding against the Southern Huns.
As for the governor of Jizhou, Zhuge Liang chose Deng Ai to be the governor after weighing back and forth.
Actually, in Zhuge Liang's view, neither Deng Ai nor Jiang Wei are good candidates to serve as governor of a state, especially in Jizhou, a gathering place of Hebei's aristocratic families. Both of them have a common flaw - they both They are not very good at handling the relationship with the aristocratic family.
These two people are the kind of people who have sufficient martial arts and can defend one side without any problem, but they are not enough in martial arts.
There is a saying that the performance of these two people in civil affairs is not as good as that of Wei Yan.
Jizhou is different from Youzhou. Although there are big families in Youzhou, they are much smaller than those in Jizhou. With Wei Yan's ability, as long as he has military power, it should not be a problem to suppress those Youzhou families.
However, there are many big families in Jizhou, and Zhuge Liang only managed to clarify the relationship after three years of guarding. If someone from the Hebei family is appointed as the governor of Jizhou, then the situation in Jizhou may change again, and the court will not be able to directly control it.
Therefore, Zhuge Liang was really helpless. He really had no suitable candidates available and could only choose between Jiang Wei and Deng Ai. Since Jiang Wei was inferior to Deng Ai in terms of qualifications and military prestige, Zhuge Liang could only let Deng Ai first. He served as the governor of Jizhou and achieved stability for a while.
The only thing left is to wait for Zhuge Liang to return to Chang'an before making plans.
In this way, after basically arranging the affairs in Jizhou, Zhuge Liang officially returned to the court and returned to Chang'an in May of the 16th year of Yanxi.
Following Zhuge Liang back to Chang'an, there were not only the civil and military officials who surrendered from Cao Wei, Cao Yu, Cao Shuang and others, but also our great Wei Chunchen, Sima Yi.
Obviously, Zhuge Liang did not intend to let Sima Yi return to Wen County to continue to hide his capabilities and bide his time.
Since he chose to be a pure minister of the Wei Dynasty, Zhuge Liang will definitely let him continue to be a pure minister. What can better reflect the value of being a pure minister than guarding the old master? !
Moreover, as for Sima Yi, an old fox, Zhuge Liang always felt that he would not be able to rest assured unless he was watching under his nose.
(End of chapter)
