The first year of Xingping, spring.
In the Yamen Office, after the morning meeting, Cao Cao left Zhang Han alone to discuss, using special favors to show the achievements of his farming strategy. Why is this? Because of poverty.
Cao Cao couldn't reward more gold, silver and cloth. After all, raising the army and benefiting the people all require money. Zhang Han's achievements will be beneficial to the people for who knows how many years. If there is no war, this policy can be continuously discussed. It's as simple as one plan and one strategy.
It is a pioneering work, so it is not enough to give it a perfunctory pass. You must take care of your face. The reward should let others see Cao Cao's broadmindedness and show his love for talents.
So now I can only be nice to Zhang Han. When talking about feelings, there is no need to talk about money.
In Zhang Han's words, it was "a vain attempt to get his prostitution for free."
"Bo Chang, when my father comes to Yanzhou, the family will have enough money to give him, and then we can discuss his merits." The ladle returned, but it was still necessary to comfort Zhang Han with kind words to avoid Zhang Han's feeling of injustice.
"Your father?" Zhang Han suddenly raised his eyebrows, and some fragmented memories came to his mind, and he said in a stunned tone: "Lord, where did the old man come from?"
"Xuzhou Langya."
Zhang Han was silent for a moment and said, "How about the family property?"
"Probably, quite a few... My father came with his whole family to flee to Yanzhou. At first, it was too dangerous for Chen Liu to challenge Dong, so he asked him to sell some of his family property and flee away. My younger brother Cao De serves around him, and there are many other clan members. There are more than a dozen concubines of my father." Cao Cao told Zhang Han the situation as usual, and obviously did not regard Zhang Han as an outsider.
Zhang Hanxin said that Mr. Cao "has an old heart and wants to be well-organized." The family tradition is indeed the same.
He also wanted to ask if any of these concubines were women who were taken in after they were married, but after thinking for a while he still didn't ask.
"In this case, how can we come to Yanzhou from Xuzhou? If the old man comes alone, he may be able to come, but it is completely different if he brings his family property. The people themselves are innocent, and they will be guilty if they hide jasper. The property of the Cao family comes from this. In the eyes of ordinary people, this is gold, silver, jade, and wealth, and they are even tempted to plunder it."
"Not to mention Tao Qian? Or Tao Qian's general?"
If I remember correctly, it seems that the old man of the Cao family will die during this trip, which aroused Cao Cao's desire to attack Xu. Moreover, he did not care about the life and death of the people for revenge, but only wanted to attack Xuzhou in anger and quickly!
If you want to burn out the war in Xuzhou without losing food and grass, without being trapped by the people, there are not many ways, the most effective is to massacre the city.
But if you do this, the name of benevolence and righteousness that you have been operating in this year will no longer have anything to do with it.
"You mean, Tao Qian will harm my father?" Of course Cao Cao understood what he meant. The slaves raised by his father might be able to resist the ordinary mountain bandits, and he also invited Ying Shao from the Taishan garrison to go and deal with them. , I have been traveling for several days, and I don’t think anything will happen.
But if Tao Qian had the intention to plot, it would be different.
In the eyes of ordinary people, these are just family property, but in the eyes of Tao Qian and his subordinates, it is different. Once these Cao family properties enter Yanzhou, they will be military supplies for attacking Xuzhou.
If they were to change places at this time, could he get the news and watch them leave the country safely, go to Yanzhou, use grain and grass military supplies to expand their armaments, accumulate grain and grass, and then attack Xuzhou?
Absolutely impossible, we will definitely find ways to obstruct it. In troubled times, there is no shortage of thieves and bandits. Although there are few Langya, there are many Taishan counties. Xuzhou is inherently uneven. There was a man who was proclaimed emperor last year, and he has gone through a great war. Tao Qian's government cannot spread throughout the country. All the people, at least, cannot live in peace and quiet.
In this case, what should I do if I want to prevent this?
Well, I will order a group of elite soldiers to pretend to be bandits, or I will directly send troops to plunder and declare to the outside world that they are bandits. It doesn't matter whether the people die or not.
But the sword has no eyes, and after learning some truth, he had to kill the person.
"Bo Chang's words were shocking. It is indeed possible. If Tao Qian wanted to rob property, it would be fine. But if my father was killed because of this, it would not be the way of a son of man."
"I need to send troops immediately to Xuzhou to greet them. Before that, Bo Chang went to the military camp to ask for help before he came here. After that, he asked Bo Chang to lead Qingzhou's elite cavalry to Xiaopei to station temporarily, and lead Xiaopei's troops to threaten the eastern part of Xuzhou. There is no need to attack, just Just wait until Tao Qian sends an envoy to discuss it."
In just a dozen breaths, Cao Cao already had a countermeasure. Even when he summoned Xi Zhicai, he must have given an order. As for what Zhang Han was, it was hard to ask again. He just reminded Cao Cao of his guess. As for how Of course it is his decision to give the order.
The role of his own part should be to act together with Cao Zihe and generals to lead the elite cavalry to garrison Xiaopei and threaten Xiapi and Pengcheng.
After receiving Cao Cao's order, Zhang Han turned around and immediately called Dian Wei, ordered five hundred fine cavalry, and set off for Xiaopei.
After Xiaopei was placed in the hands of Cao Cao, it had already followed the Yanzhou government decree and settled tens of thousands of Qingxu villagers here. They were quite familiar with Zhang Han and were grateful to him.
After all, it was the farming order presented by Zhang Han that allowed them to live in peace and not be treated like "animals".
Therefore, when Zhang Han came, officials had already informed his troops in advance and publicized his achievements. There was no need to go into too much detail, and he could simply tell the story about his achievements in farming.
Therefore, when we arrived at Xiaopei, there were already many people outside the city to greet him, while merchants, petty officials, and people with lofty ideals were waiting at their residences in the city to visit and make friends at their leisure.
However, Zhang Han had no intention of wasting his time here. Not long after he arrived in Xiaopei, he took Dian Wei to set up camp, and mobilized more than two to three thousand local troops to station 20 miles west of Xiaopei and stationed along the river, waiting for Xuzhou The reaction over there.
"Sir, Mr. Cao asked us to stay here. Do you know why?"
After Zhang Han heard this, he thought that Dian Wei was still eager to learn. He actually knew why he came to ask his lord, so he nodded to Dian Wei with a face full of joy, then took a deep breath, turned around, and said with his back to him: "I have no idea."
Dian Wei: "..."
If you don’t know, you don’t know. How can you pretend to be an expert who knows everything?
"Does Dian need to lead the troops to fight?"
"There's no need to worry," Zhang Han said in a deep voice, "I just fulfilled the duty of an advisor and informed the lord of the hidden dangers. The purpose of sending us here is to threaten Xuzhou and attract Tao Qian's attention. As for what will happen next, we should wait for the opportunity."
"In the past few days, we can just wait for news. Since the Lord did not convene a discussion, but made a decision, he should have his own sense of discretion."
"Oh," Dian Wei breathed a sigh of relief, as if he was using his patience to restrain his desire. He also wanted to use this battle to gain fame and make a comeback, but it seems that the time has not come yet.
…
Xuzhou, Tancheng.
A military newspaper was delivered to Tao Qian. Last winter, Tao Qian occasionally caught wind and cold. He was often weak and achy. After he recovered, he kept coughing. When the snow melted in spring, it got even colder and he fell ill.
It was just a little better now. I heard that Cao Cao's father and his family were passing through Xuzhou a few days ago, so I went to invite him to entertain him. It was a grand reception, and I wanted to make the whole country know about it.
In this way, the world would know that he had no intention of neglecting him, and he later sent a general to escort him for a while.
Only one day later, news came from the camp stationed at the border that Cao Jun was camping in Xiaopeixi, so he immediately called Pengcheng guard general and Diannong captain Chen Deng.
"Yuanlong, do you know what Cao Mengde means?"
Tao Qian has become much thinner, his hair is gray, and he feels "withered", as if he is already dead.
"My lord, I would like to know why you suddenly invited Cao Cao's father to a banquet before? In the past, he took refuge in Xuzhou for a long time, and you never went to make friends with him. We have no friendship."
Chen Deng asked calmly in front of Tao Qian's bed.
"That's because I had misunderstandings with Cao Mengde last year. I decided to make friends with his father, just for the sake of good relations between the two families and no more war... so that the people of Xuzhou can avoid military chaos and have peace."
"But he immediately placed his troops outside my territory. Alas, I don't know what he meant..."
Seeing Tao Qian's pitiful look, Chen Deng sighed secretly. If he remembered correctly, Tao Gong's illness would not be so serious.
Moreover, Chen Deng sent out to investigate and came back to report that Mr. Cao had at least 60 carriages and horses, all of which were filled with gold, silver, food and baggage, as well as hundreds of slave servants.
It was so huge that it might have brought with it all the family property accumulated by generations of Cao family members.
The most important thing is that Cao Cao's subordinate Zhicai sent him a secret letter. He made it clear that Tao Qian wanted to harm Cao's father and hoped that Chen Deng would intervene to save him.
This route of secretly delivering messages was forged last year when Cao Cao sold him a favor.
"In that case, I'll go to Xiaopei and ask," Chen Deng bowed and turned around.
