(ps: There are still two updates today, and the second update is still at night.)

Time flies. Just in the blink of an eye, more than three months have passed since the Junzi Army moved to Wuxian County under the leadership of Tao Ying and Tao Ji. During these three months, the situation in the five counties of Xuzhou and the surrounding areas of Xuzhou has also changed.

A lot of changes have taken place.

The war temporarily stopped, and the five counties of Xuzhou that experienced the rebellion of Cao Jun certainly began to recover. However, due to the massive decrease in population, the lack of manpower and material resources, the recovery speed of the economy and people's livelihood was very slow, which in turn affected Xuzhou, which was severely damaged by Cao Jun.

The main force of the army has caused the reconstruction process of the main force of the Xuzhou Army to be difficult. The planned reconstruction scale has been repeatedly reduced. It is hard to know how long it will take to return to its pre-war heyday.

A weak branch will inevitably lead to a strong branch. The strength of Xuzhou's official army was sharply reduced. The large and small warlords and powerful bandits in Xuzhou naturally took the opportunity to expand. Zang Ba's team entrenched in Kaiyang took advantage of the great opportunity that Tao Qian was unable to suppress, and took the opportunity to expand the size of the team to

The strength of more than 15,000 people in turn overwhelmed the main force in Xuzhou; and on the Guangling side, the number one traitor of the Xuzhou Army, Zuo Rong, also took the opportunity to recruit rebels and increase his strength, gathering more than 10,000 rabble to dominate the Guangling area.

He also yelled extremely arrogantly, slogans of entering Pengcheng to capture Tao Qian and dedicating it to Cao Cao to protect Xuzhou. Tao Qian hated this traitor to the core, but his vitality was severely damaged and his strength was insufficient, so he had to suppress his anger and pretend to be deaf and dumb.

However, compared to Zang Ba, who is a wealthy man, and Zuo Rong, who is a strong man but a hard-working man, the person in Xuzhou who really makes things difficult for the Tao family and his son is our Uncle Liu Bei and Emperor Liu! As written in the book, our Uncle Liu Huang is in Xiaopei

It can be said that he worked diligently and loved the people, spread his kindness widely, had no offense with the people, and also lightened the corvee and paid low taxes. He tried his best to give the people of Xiaopei a chance to recuperate and recuperate. He quickly won the hearts of the people of Xiaopei and left the five counties of Xuzhou homeless.

The returnable refugees flocked to Xiaopei one after another. The soldiers, civilians, officers and soldiers of Xuzhou all expressed their hearts to Uncle Liu Huang, and the songs of praise for his virtues were heard on the boat road.

In contrast, after the Cao Bing Rebellion, Tao Qian and his son's shameless behavior of collecting grain and taxing the people of Xuzhou naturally made the people and gentry of Xuzhou extremely dissatisfied.

It became even more difficult to sleep and eat.

Tao Qian and his son have a hard time talking about good-looking people. In fact, our Uncle Liu Huang's life is not that easy, because in order to win people's hearts and spread kindness, the first prerequisite is money and food. Although Uncle Liu's team's money and food expenses are not very good.

Qian, the taken advantage of, paid the bill, but it was only enough to maintain food and clothing. If he wanted to further strengthen his strength, the economic foundation was definitely not enough. In order to win over the people, Uncle Liu wanted to engage in light corvee and low taxes. In the end, people were bought. Uncle Liu Huang

The money and food that can be collected in Xiaopei is very little. Without money and food, there is no way to raise a large number of troops. Therefore, in more than four months in Xiaopei, Liu Huangshu only expanded the army to 5,000, which was far from reaching the

Uncle Liu Huang’s hope.

There are two big problems that make Uncle Liu Huang sleepless. The first is the threat from Boss Cao. The reason why Tao Qian left Uncle Liu Huang in Xiaopei and supported him under extremely difficult circumstances was because of this.

In order to let Uncle Liu prevent Cao from returning to Xuzhou, he raised a guard dog for Xuzhou. Uncle Liu, who knew this well, was reluctant to abandon Tao Qian, the culprit, and was worried that Boss Cao would invade Xuzhou again and was pushed away by Tao Qian.

Going to the forefront and merging with Mr. Cao was a waste of the limited capital.

Fortunately, Uncle Liu Huang learned from careful investigation that Marquis Lu Wen, who had been beaten by the Three Stars of Taoyuan, was very successful. Relying on Chen Gong's advice, he defeated Cao's army in Puyang and almost cut off the black head of Boss Cao.

Therefore, for a while, Boss Cao should not be able to spare any time to trouble Uncle Liu and Tao Qian. In addition to suppressing some small groups of bandits and training for Tao Qian, Uncle Liu did not need to think about using his special skill to save lives on the battlefield. Throw

Tao Qian escaped from Boss Cao's knife and escaped.

The second problem that worried Uncle Liu Huang came from Tao Qian and his son, or to be precise from Deputy Director Tao Yingtao. Previously, Tao Ying was so lucky that he took all the credit for retreating from Cao Cao, which made the soldiers and civilians in Xuzhou turn to Taomen, which had already greatly affected them.

Having messed up Liu Huangshu's benevolent and righteous plan, Tao Ying has now created a Gentlemen's Army that is not subject to the influence and control of others. His ulterior motives can be imagined. Judging from the fact that Tao Qian fully supports Tao Ying in establishing a Gentlemen's Army,

This old and immortal cunning man must have been preparing for his death. Uncle Liu Huang has seen a glimmer of hope for his ambition to become a hegemon, but he may have been nipped in the bud.

At the very least, if Tao Ying shows talents that satisfy Tao Ying, Uncle Liu means that Tao Qiansan can't give up Xuzhou. To be precise, Uncle Liu means that he can't get Xuzhou through gentle means.

.

In mid-July, Uncle Liu was so worried that he once again welcomed his old friend Mi Fang in Xiaopei City. Mi Fang, at the request of his brother Mi Zhu, sent Uncle Liu the number of acres of farmland and estimated grain production in the five counties of Xuzhou this year.

Count so that Uncle Liu Huang could talk to Tao Qian based on the amount of money and food in Xuzhou and get as much money and food as possible from Tao Qian, the culprit. However, due to the war and the sharp decline in population, the autumn grain harvest situation in Xuzhou this year is definitely not optimistic, so Mi Zhu

The brothers privately estimated that even if Uncle Liu Huang forced Tao Qian to jump into the Yellow River, he probably wouldn't be able to extract much money from him.

To Mi Fang's surprise, Liu Bei's attention was not on the top-secret information sent by their brothers. He finally got rid of Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, two troublesome people. As soon as he got the opportunity to talk privately, Liu Bei immediately went straight to the point and told Mi Fang.

Asked: "How is the situation with Mr. Tao Ying? Is there anything unusual happening recently?"

"Reporting to Mr. Xuande, Tao Ying's son is still like that. He has been hiding in Wu County to train troops and has never returned to Xuzhou." Mi Fang respectfully replied: "Tao Ying's son has designated the twenty miles around Wu County as a restricted area, prohibiting the common people.

They came and went at will. In order not to cause trouble to Xuande Gong, Mi Fang and her brother did not dare to send people to sneak into Wuxian County. Therefore, they did not know much about the situation in Wuxian County. They only noticed one anomaly, that is, Tao Ying's child training was consuming arrows.

There were so many that the dog thief Cao Hong sent fifty more arrow-making craftsmen to Tao Ying, as well as a large amount of arrow-making materials."

"A lot of arrows are consumed?" Liu Bei frowned and thought to himself, what is Tao Ying doing? Does he want to build an army of horse archers? But on the battlefield, a team of horse archers without infantry support cannot determine the outcome.

What's the effect?

After thinking about it for a moment, Liu Bei asked Mi Fang again: "How is Master Tao Ying's governance in Wu County? Has he imposed benevolent governance on the people of Wu County?"

"Don't worry, Mr. Xuande. Tao Ying's performance in governance is not that much better than his father's." Mi Fang smiled and replied: "From what Brother Mi Fang has collected, Tao Ying's performance in governance can only be considered mediocre at best."

However, he did not allow a large number of people to defect to him like Xuande Gong did, nor did he reclaim wasteland and develop people's livelihood like Xuande Gong did. However, he did not condone the sergeants to harass the people like the two thieves Cao Bao and Cao Hong, so there was no Wu Wu.

The people of the county went to Pengcheng to file a complaint, which embarrassed Tao Qian and his son. However, Mi Zhu believed that this was also because the population of Wu County had dropped significantly, and there were only less than 150 households left in the entire city, so Tao Ying restrained the soldiers not to harass the people.

Easier."

Liu Bei remained calm and secretly scolded Mi Fang for being as stupid as a pig. He thought that Tao Ying's son had only taken over Wuxian in early April. How could he have time to reclaim wasteland and develop people's livelihood like me? Moreover, Tao Ying's son's administration could not be compromised, which happened to be

It shows that he is prudent and pragmatic, not greedy for success, not aggressive, and makes no mistakes. In the eyes of Mr. Tao Qian, I am afraid that such a son is the most suitable successor, right?

Unable to get any more information about Tao Ying from Mi Fang, Uncle Liu had to turn his attention to Tao Qian and asked Mi Fang: "Zifang, how is Mr. Tao's health lately? Has his condition improved?"

"This..." Mi Fang hesitated for a while, then whispered: "I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint Mr. Xuande. Mr. Tao's condition has improved recently. My brother speculated that it may be related to the weather. There has been rain in Pengcheng area recently.

Normally, the climate is relatively humid, so Tao Fujun's asthma has improved a lot, and even if it attacks, it is not as severe as in winter."

"Zifang is really good at joking. Tao Fujun's condition has improved, and it's too late for Liu Bei to be happy. How can Zifang say that he has disappointed Liu Bei?" Liu Huangshu laughed, but he was extremely depressed - how could old Tao Qian's condition improve?

Really? It turns out that if you don’t die in old age, you are a thief!

"Mi Fang has said something, please forgive me Mr. Xuande." Mi Fang also realized that she had made a mistake and quickly apologized. Then Mi Zhu hesitated for a moment, looked at the people around her, and then lowered her voice and said: "Mr. Xuande, Mi Fang

I have always had a plan to bribe Zhang Hang, Tao Qian's most trusted doctor, so that when Duke Xuande needs Tao Fujun to pass away, Tao Fujun will be able to pass away."

Liu Bei's eyebrows moved slightly and he began to consider the feasibility of Mi Fang's idea. He thought that if Tao Qian died suddenly and Xuzhou was leaderless, there would be great chaos. As a guest, he would rely on the full support of the Mi Zhu family, the richest man in Xuzhou, so he would naturally have

This is a great opportunity to fish in troubled waters. But this idea is also extremely risky. Once the plan is exposed, the good reputation that he has worked hard for many years will be destroyed in one day!

Seeing Liu Bei's hesitation, Mi Fang encouraged him in a low voice: "Mr. Xuande, Mi Fang thinks this plan should be feasible. Mr. Xuande can think about it. Mr. Tao has no legitimate son yet, and he has twice proposed to give Xuzhou to Mr. Xuande.

If Mr. Tao Fu died suddenly and his two sons, Tao Shang and Tao Ying, succeeded to the throne, Mi Fang and her brother would forge another document, claiming that Mr. Tao Fu had left Xuzhou to Duke Xuande in his suicide note.

Wouldn’t Duke Xuande be able to take charge of the five counties of Xuzhou?”

Liu Bei still didn't speak, just calculating nervously, while Mi Fang whispered again: "Don't worry, Mr. Xuande, Mi Fang has already thought about it carefully. Once Tao Qian died, Mi Fang brothers naturally fully supported Mr. Xuande in taking over Xuzhou; Chen Gui and his son have always been

It is ambiguous. Even if he does not assist Xuande Gong, he will not stand with Tao Shang and Tao Ying. Langya Zang Ba has no ambitions and only wants to separate one side. Xuande Gong has a good relationship with him and only needs a few words.

, promising Zang Ba to conquer Langya forever, Zang Ba will definitely support Xuande Gong to take over Xuzhou! In this way, Chen Zang, the three major forces in Xuzhou, will get the second one, the Chen family will be neutral, and Tao Shang and Tao Ying will have a chance.

Even if you have great skills, you won't be able to stir up any trouble."

Liu Bei still didn't speak, and after a long time he said quietly: "What about Cao Bao? Did Zifang miss him?"

"There is nothing to worry about when Cao Bao is a child." Mi Fang said with a smile: "Although Cao Bao is named the first general of Xuzhou, he has low abilities, incompetence in using troops, and poor command of the army. How can he be worthy of being the opponent of Xuande Gong? Besides, this man is slippery and good at

Yu is sitting on the fence and taking advantage of the situation. Seeing that Xuande is so powerful and has a beautiful wife and concubine for his glory and wealth, he will naturally make a wise choice."

Liu Bei began to be tempted, but his face remained calm, and his emotions and anger were truly invisible. Mi Fang waited for a long time without seeing Liu Bei's decision, and couldn't help but said anxiously: "Xuan De Gong, this opportunity must not be missed, and it will never come back again!"

Mr. Xuande, you have missed a good opportunity by refusing to take over Xuzhou twice. You have also given Tao Ying the opportunity to become famous all over the world and win the hearts of the people in Xuzhou. Now Tao Qian is obviously training Tao Ying as his legitimate son!

If the delay lasts for a long time and Tao Qian suddenly establishes his legitimate son and passes Xuzhou to Tao Shang or Tao Ying's younger son, it will be difficult for Duke Xuande to take Xuzhou again!"

"Zifang, your last sentence is right." Liu Huangshu finally spoke and whispered in a hoarse voice: "Mr. Tao Fu has not established his legitimate son, but before you act, what should you do if Mr. Tao Mansion suddenly establishes his legitimate son?"

? Or, when Tao Fujun was dying, he designated a son to inherit Xuzhou - Tao Gongzu treated Liu Bei with great courtesy and kindness, and Bei tolerated taking away his father and son's inheritance? "

"Xuan De Gong, Xuzhou is the land of the Han Dynasty. He is a relative of the emperor. He has the right to take it. Why should he give it to the Tao family?" Mi Fang became anxious and raised her voice and said: "Besides, Xuzhou is a place of four wars. There are enemies everywhere, so there is no way to rule it."

The Lord of Chaos cannot live here! Xuande Gong is a man of great benevolence and righteousness. Does he want to watch the five counties of Xuzhou be destroyed in the hands of Tao Shang and Tao Ying, causing the lives of Xuzhou soldiers and civilians to be ruined and blood flowing like rivers?!"

"The public statement is wrong." Liu Huangshu shook his head and said calmly: "For the sake of preparation, Mr. Tao Shang has a benevolent and filial nature, a profound knowledge, and unparalleled talent and virtue. He should be regarded as his heir by Mr. Tao and inherit Xuzhou. Therefore, I think that Mr. Tao and his son

Zhong should submit a petition as soon as possible and ask Lord Tao to confirm Mr. Tao Shang as his legitimate son, so that he can fully assist Mr. Tao Shang in inheriting his great cause."

"Xuan De Gong, are you kidding me?" Mi Fang almost jumped up, "Let our brothers persuade Tao Qian to make the pottery merchant his heir. What will you do, Xu De Gong?"

"It's just tiring to talk to stupid people." Liu Huangshu complained in his heart. Seeing that Mi Fang really didn't understand his good intentions, he could only ask in a low voice: "Zifang, in your opinion, who is more difficult to deal with, Tao Shang or Tao Ying?"

?”

"Of course Tao Ying's son is difficult to deal with." Mi Fang replied without thinking: "Tao Ying's son is loyal on the outside but treacherous on the inside. He is deeper than the city, scheming and ambitious, far more cunning than his elder brother. And Tao Shang

A child who is pedantic, stupid, and as stupid as a pig or a dog is far easier to deal with than Tao Ying's child."

"In this case, why did Brother Zifang prevent Lord Tao from establishing Master Tao Shang as his direct descendant?" Liu Bei said gloomily: "Since ancient times, abolishing the eldest son and establishing young master is the way to cause chaos. Lord Tao Mansion established his eldest son Tao Shang.

As a direct descendant, Mr. Tao Ying can understand Tao Gongzu's painstaking efforts - if Mr. Tao Ying is not satisfied and intends to tamper with him, he will be prepared to raise an army to attack and eradicate the rebellious ministers for Mr. Tao Shang!"

After being stunned for a long time, Mi Fang's poor brain cells finally worked in place. She waved her hand excitedly and said happily: "I understand! Xuande Gong wants the two young brothers Tao Shang and Tao Ying to fight each other and kill each other.

Reap the profits!"

"Idiot!" Liu Bei cursed in his heart again, then shook his head and said: "No, Bei never meant this. Bei just felt that Master Tao Ying, as his younger brother, took charge of the military, and seemed to have the intention of bullying his brother. He saw injustice on the road.

So draw your sword and help."

"Mi Fang understands Mr. Xuande's clever plan." Mi Fang was overjoyed and quickly raised her hands and said, "Please don't worry, Mr. Xuande. After Mi Fang returns to Xuzhou City, she will immediately report the matter to her brother and let him act according to the plan."

Liu Bei nodded slightly and said calmly: "Then we have to worry about Mi Biejia and Zifang. Zifang can recruit more Xuzhou civil and military officials to cheer. If Tao Mansion doesn't allow it, Zifang and Mi Biejia will still have to distinguish themselves based on their age.

I would like to advise you not to let Lord Tao abolish the elders and establish younger ones, which will bring disaster upon yourself."

Mi Fang smiled evilly and nodded, and agreed with understanding. After Liu Bei paused, he added: "Zifang, just now you said that Mr. Tao's most trusted doctor Zhang Hang and Zhang Zhang, since Mr. Tao's condition is gradually getting worse,

When Zi Fang was free, he still had to walk around frequently to keep abreast of Tao Gongzu's condition - by then, if Master Tao Ying was dissatisfied with his brother being made heir by Tao Fujun and did something stupid, Tao Fujun's condition would probably

It’s getting worse.”

Mi Fang was confused again and asked with confusion: "What does Mr. Xuande mean by this? Can you enlighten me?"

"Zifang, take this back to Zizhong." It was really rare for Liu Bei to explain to Mi Fang again, so he just said calmly: "He can understand and seize the opportunity."
Chapter completed!