Liu Ye then began to explain the situation in Xuzhou to Liu Qi.

Tao Qian's current situation is different from Liu Biao's.

When Liu Biao first served as the governor of Jingzhou, Nanjun in Jingzhou had a political gap period because Sun Jian had made a big move before Dong Zhuo's Northern Expedition. The governor Wang Rui was killed, and the governor of Nanjun Guo Yong abandoned his official position and fled.

It was controlled by Zhang Hu and Chen Sheng, two thieves and local clans, and it was the tiger-free monkey in the mountains who became the king.

When Liu Biao landed in Jingzhou, although his clan was causing trouble, there was no Nanjun governor to restrain him.

Liu Biao's response was very fast. After he entered Nanjun, he immediately followed the "Six Questions" and before the court appointed a new county guard, he joined forces with the Cai, Kuai and other tribes to seize military power and firmly controlled Nanjun. Therefore, he became politically influential.

In terms of status, no one in Nanjun at that time could compare with Liu Biao.

But in fact, the governors and county governors of various states are prone to friction due to the overlapping of powers. This is also an important reason why the Eastern Han Dynasty royal family established the governor's supervision system.

The emperor wants the governor and the governor to fight each other back and forth. The harder they fight, the more stable the place will be for the royal family.

Xuzhou, where Tao Qian is located, is actually in such a situation.

Tao Qian is still the governor of Xuzhou, not the pastor of Xuzhou. In terms of administrative power, Tao Qian is not qualified to make the governors and ministers of Xuzhou surrender to him. At most, he only has supervisory authority.

Xuzhou is a special place. There are feudal states everywhere.

Among them, the Prime Minister of Langya State, Liu Kui, the Prime Minister of Donghai State, Ji Lian, the Prime Minister of Pengcheng State, and Yuan Zhong, the Prime Minister of Pei State, these people... none of them are fuel-efficient lamps, and in terms of salary, the actual status of these people is higher than

Tao Qian is taller.

Tao Qian was actually at a disadvantage in Xuzhou at the political level.

In addition, there are many local clans and gentry in Xuzhou, especially the Xiapi Chen family, which is a well-known local family. Three generations of the family have repeatedly produced county officials, and they are a high-ranking family with two thousand stones.

There was also a San Gong named Chen Qiu who had a long-standing reputation.

There is also the powerful local Mi family, with a net worth of over 100 million and a large number of dependent households. They are extremely wealthy and almost monopolize most of the fields and trade routes in Donghai County. They are one of the few people in the Han Dynasty who can rely on the economic power of a single merchant.

power, and the super rich who influence county governance policies...

After Tao Qian entered Xuzhou, it was a real headache to face these local big brothers.

When it comes to political status, his 600-stone supervisor cannot compare with these state ministers. In terms of control over local scholars, he cannot compare with Chen Gui, the head of the Chen family. In terms of financial resources, he is far less than the Mi family of Donghai.

A prosecutor who is useless at everything, who in Xuzhou can obey him?

However, Tao Qian had served as both a central minister and a border commander for so many years. He was both civil and military. Even Zhang Wen, the captain, dared to mock him at a banquet. How could Tao Qian give in to these local snakes in Xuzhou?

Financial strength, political power, control over the nobility...am I not in any way better than you?

Okay! Then I’ll compete with you!

Let's compare our military strength!

Do you know Danyang Elite Soldiers? I’m talking to you with my fists!

Tao Qian had served as a border general, and his ability in commanding troops was excellent. He was also ruthless and ruthless. After arriving in Xuzhou, the first thing he did was to unite the outlaw Zang Ba from Xuzhou and his fellow countryman Sun Guan.

He defeated the Yellow Turban bandits in Xuzhou and expanded his own power with military exploits, which established Tao Governor's military status in Xuzhou in one fell swoop.

As soon as the Yellow Turban left, Tao Qian immediately asked Zang Ba and Sun Guan to serve as cavalry captains and let them lead troops to garrison at Kaiyang in the north of Xuzhou.

From a military point of view, Zang Ba's stationing in Kaiyang did bring certain constraints to Tao Qian, but the existence of his power caused the greatest threat to Langxie's Prime Minister Yin De and Donghai's Prime Minister Liu Kui.

Langya Kingdom and Donghai Kingdom did not have enough strong troops to support them in fighting Zang Ba, so they had to obey Tao Qian's orders and be at his disposal.

There is only one reason, and that is that among all the soldiers in Xuzhou, only the elite Danyang soldiers under Tao Qian are capable of defeating the Taishan generals head-on.

Due to the strong combat effectiveness of Danyang's elite troops, Tao Qian relied on this army to crush almost any powerful force in Xuzhou, and suppressed the entire situation in Xuzhou with his military power.

Danyang's elite soldiers performed martial arts on a small scale for three days and a large scale on five days.

Full of military deterrence.

At present, all the ministers and noble families in Xuzhou have to look at Tao Qian's face to speak...or rather, look at the face of his Danyang soldiers.

But it is a pity that just using military force to suppress the local nobles and powerful people will not have a long-term effect, because the powerful families and powerful people in Xuzhou are only suppressed, not eliminated. As long as Tao Qian relaxes a little, they will immediately turn against the guests.

After listening to Liu Ye's explanation, Liu Qi probably had an idea.

The rumors Liu Ye mentioned are actually roughly consistent with the historical situation.

On the surface, those wealthy people in Xuzhou obeyed Tao Qian, but in fact, they were not honest at all in private.

For example, Chen Gui and Chen Deng's father and son are extremely active in public affairs...

For example, the Mi brothers were too generous to outsider Liu Bei...

Tao Qian himself was also criticized by the Book of the Later Han Dynasty and the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms for alienating sages, appointing villains, betraying people, and so on.

Considering the particularity of the current situation, there may be some secret manipulations by the Xuzhou nobles, which may have revealed wrong information to future generations.

In fact, the treacherous villain Cao Hong, who was appointed by Tao Qian, was just the main general who led the Danyang army for him.

Later, in order to support Liu Bei in his rise to power, Tao Qian directly gave Liu Bei 4,000 Danyang elite soldiers. For Liu Bei, these 4,000 Danyang elite soldiers were also his trump card for taking control of Xuzhou in the future.

It can be inferred from this that the Danyang elite soldiers in Tao Qian's hands caused tremendous psychological harm to the local wealthy people in Xuzhou.

…

After talking to Liu Ye, Liu Qi suddenly felt enlightened.

He probably understood Tao Qian's true purpose of bringing his troops to Danyang County.

He is not here to help Yuan Shu fight at all!

He came here to recruit troops in order to continue to consolidate his rule in Xuzhou!

Danyang's elite soldiers are the lifeblood of his foothold in Xuzhou. The more Danyang soldiers there are, the more stable Tao Qian's stay in Xuzhou will be!

So that’s it.

Liu Qi narrowed his eyes and began to make secret calculations in his mind.

Through Tao Qian's incident, he seemed to have thought of something,

Tao Qian came to recruit Danyang soldiers... which might also be helpful to him.

Just as Liu Qi and Liu Ye were discussing, suddenly, there was a loud shout of murder coming from outside the tent.

The sound quickly became louder, and at the same time it became more and more chaotic. At first it was only faintly heard, but soon it became a situation where people were besieged on all sides, and the shouts of death became louder and louder.

Liu Qi stood up suddenly, frowned and said, "Someone has robbed the camp!"

Liu Ye was also startled when he heard this, but he quickly calmed down.

"Fanglang!"

Following the sound, Liu Ye pulled out his sword with a gloomy look on his face: "I am willing to do my best to help the Lord."

Seeing Liu Ye's heroic performance, Liu Qi's favorable impression of him skyrocketed.

"Don't worry, Ziyang, our army's officers and men sleep in separate groups every day. When we were in Runan, I asked the officers and men to sleep in their armor. Even if the other army came to rob the camp, they wouldn't be able to take much advantage of it!"

At this moment, Dian Wei opened the curtain and hurriedly entered the account.

"Master Fu, Tao Qian's army robs the stronghold at night!"

Liu Qi said calmly: "Have the soldiers gotten up yet?"

Dian Wei said with certainty: "Zhang Sima, Wei Wenchang, Mancheng, Shamoke, Yangzhan Cenlang and others have already led their troops to defend against the enemy!"

Liu Qi was quite satisfied after hearing this.

"I will also fight in person!"

…

The shouts of death and the sound of horns resounded throughout the Nanman camp.

With the arrival of Tao Qian's army, the atmosphere in the camp suddenly became fiery, like a pot of boiling water, scorching hot, with people shouting and horses neighing, and the soldiers of the Nanman camp who had just fallen asleep were cursing.

They rushed out of the military tent and quickly gathered together to confront the enemy troops who came to attack them.

Liu Qi, Dian Wei, and Liu Ye rushed out of the tent. He flew on Lu Ma and personally led his troops to the Chinese army to sit down and command the soldiers of the three armies to defend the enemy at the gate of the camp.

When Liu Qi came out of the tent, the first thing he saw was a patch of red dots, which looked particularly eye-catching in the night.

Obviously, those should be the torches lit by the enemy outside the camp gate in order to burn down their own fortifications.

This red dot moved very fast, moving back and forth alternately outside the camp, sometimes tight and sometimes loose, which made people dizzy.

A sneer appeared on Liu Qi's lips.

"Send the order, the enemies in the stronghold will have their own infantry to fight, but the elite soldiers from the crossbow battalion will aim at the torch-bearers outside the stronghold and shoot hard!"

"Wei!" The messenger quickly ran to the front line.

Liu Qi turned to look at Dian Wei and said, "Dian Jun, you go to the front line to help defeat the enemy. You don't need to worry about me."

Dian Wei was quite hesitant: "Master Fu, the enemy troops are robbing the camp, and someone may come to attack Master Fu in the end..."

"Don't worry, what can Tao Qian's Xiaoxiao do to me? Just go and if anything happens here, I will take care of it."

"Wei!" Dian Wei responded loudly, then he held a halberd and a shield, and rushed towards the front line to kill them.

…
To be continued...