Just as the people were about to go around in the heart of the Central Plains, Liu Biao, the governor of Jingzhou, who was originally far away from the right and wrong, suddenly became ill, and he couldn't afford to get close to anyone.

Liu Biao was very sick this time!

If you want to talk about Liu Biao, he was able to operate in Jingzhou for many years and his life became more and more prosperous, so he naturally had some vision and strategy, and he was definitely not as cowardly as Lao Luo described in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

Liu Biao has a strong foundation now, and he has many wise men under his command. He also possesses the fragrant and delicious big fat piece of Jingzhou. It is impossible to say that it does not arouse people's "envious, jealous and hated".

Liu Biao himself knew in his heart that he was easy to attract jealousy, so he has been low-key in Xiangyang over the years, neither violating the orders of the court. If he said he would send troops, he would send troops. As for whether he would give up his troops, he would give up his troops. Anyway, he would spend too much money in Jingzhou. At the same time, he tried his best to maintain a relationship with the Sima family in Yizhou and Sun Jian in Wuzhou, and did not take the initiative to cause trouble. Even Zhao Xing, who was far away in the north, tried to keep people in secret contact and vigorously promoted trade exchanges between the north and the south, and did not want to make Zhao Xing have any objections to him.

Liu Biao was so hiding and looked weak and incompetent on the surface, but he was truly "making a fortune in silence", and gradually strengthened his strength. Now he has reached the point that makes Liu Bei and Cao Cao jealous.

As the saying goes, "Any man is guilty of being guilty of being a treasure." Although Liu Biao hides his family and does not want to expose his family's background, and strives to maintain a good relationship with all parties, how can he escape Liu Bei's plan? Don't forget that Zhuge Kongming, the first adviser under Liu Bei, went out from Nanyang, Jingzhou, and Zhuge Liang's first wife Huang Shuo is the daughter of a noble family in Xiangyang. This couple, who are so smart, knows Liu Biao's wealth very well. How could they not give Liu Bei some suggestions to seek Jingzhou?

Liu Bei and Cao Cao also had a lot of brains to squeeze out Liu Biao and take down Jingzhou. They thought of many ways, but they still felt that it was difficult to actually operate. At the beginning, they planned to give up the Sikong position that Zhang Wenkong had given to Liu Biao and "invite" Liu Biao from Jingzhou to Luoyang. Later, after thinking about it carefully, he felt that Liu Biao would definitely find a reason to make excuses and not accept it, so he did not implement this plan in the end, so he would not alarm Liu Biao, which would be unbeautiful.

Before Liu Bei and Cao Cao came up with the right strategy, Liu Biao discovered the smell of danger approaching and actually played the trick of "pretending to be sick"!

As wealthy families in Xiangyang, Cai Mao, Kuai Yue and others have always been trusted and relied on by Liu Biao. Cai Mao and Kuai Yue watched Liu Yan and Yuan Shu have been dismantled by the court and regained their territory, and their uneasiness has become increasingly serious.

If the court took Liu Biao away from Jingzhou and sent powerful characters to conquer Jingzhou, then the local wealthy families in Jingzhou such as the Cai family and the Kuai family would become an unavoidable stumbling block. If the people who came to Jingzhou were those who were superior, perhaps the Cai family and other aristocratic families could still turn smoothly; but if the people who came came were the fierce people who wanted to kill people and establish their authority and kill chickens to warn monkeys, then the Cai family and the Kuai family were the first to be affected.

Such an unpredictable ending was naturally not what Cai Mao and Kuai Yue wanted to see, so they tried their best to promote some words such as strengthening prevention in Liu Biao's ears to arouse Liu Biao's nervousness and vigilance.

In fact, even if Cai Mao, Kuai Yue and others did not let their ears go, Liu Biao himself saw the huge crisis of this big change in Luoyang. He worked hard in Jingzhou for many years. Why did he ask Liu Bei, Cao Cao and others to pick peaches?

The court did not say hello to Liu Biao in advance, and without saying a word, he classified Nanyang County under the name of "Ruyang King" Yuan Shu, which made Liu Biao very angry. However, because Yuan Shu was the prefect of Nanyang County, and the roots of the Yuan Shu clan were basically in Nanyang. In addition, Nanyang County is now connected to the territory of Cao Cao and Liu Bei, Liu Biao remained silent and admitted the fait accompli for demarcating Nanyang County from the northernmost part of Jingzhou.

Although Liu Biao did not have any dirty things with the court about Yuan Shu's return to Nanyang, it did not mean that he accepted it happily. Since he had expected Cao Cao and Liu Bei to attack him next, Liu Biao took the initiative and pretended to be sick and lay down without seeing anyone, and played the "dragging technique".

Don’t you want to take my military power and occupy my territory? Sorry, I’m sick, and I’m the kind of disease that is contagious and inconvenient to see guests. You can’t let me, an infectious patient, go around, right?

What! Do you want to be tough with me? Sorry, I am very ill, and there is no seriousness in the brothers around me. If the 200,000 troops in Jingzhou accidentally dealt with someone, that is not my sin, and I don’t know anything!

Liu Biao's illness did make Liu Bei and Cao Cao feel a little annoyed. They couldn't think of a solution for a while, so they seized the time to consolidate the territory they had obtained and put Liu Biao aside in Jingzhou for the time being.

In order to counter the pervasive infiltration of the Zhao Xing forces into the heartland of the Central Plains, Liu Bei carried out drastic reforms to some existing systems at the beginning of his tenure, hoping to integrate the Sili area, southern Jizhou, Yanzhou, Yuzhou and Yangzhou in the shortest time to form a unified pace and rhythm.

First of all, Liu Bei unified the tax standards for the accused areas. Although Yanzhou was Cao Cao's old nest, Liu Bei still achieved this goal through the hands of Xun Yu, Cao Cao's subordinate. The various local taxes in various places were all revoked and eliminated by Liu Bei. In this way, the burden on the people was greatly reduced, and Liu Bei also won a certain reputation.

In view of the huge influence of the Jin Dynasty's agricultural, soldiers, merchants and financial banks on the economy of the Central Plains, Liu Bei appointed Su Shuang and Zhang Shiping to follow the practice of the agricultural, soldiers, merchants and financial banks, and opened a money shop led by the central court in the controlled area, and handed over the military expenses sent to various places to the money shops for processing, requiring local governments to pay the taxes paid by the court to be traded through the money shops. In this way, Liu Bei's reforms in the economic field have strong financial support, and many originally difficult-to-achieve goals have become less unattainable.

While Liu Bei was reforming the internal affairs in the controlled area, Cao Cao was not idle either. He and Liu Bei had already agreed that internal affairs were led by Liu Bei, and even the Yanzhou area would have to act in a unified manner. Conversely, the military adjustments were dominated by Cao Cao, and even the Central Army and Han Rong and Zhang Fei under Liu Bei's subordinates would be managed by Cao Cao.

Lao Cao did have a military plan. He saw that the biggest problem between the Central Army, Yanzhou Army and Liu Bei Army was that it was poor command and difficult to coordinate, so he deliberately gathered the senior generals of the three armies and jointly formulated a set of codes of action. In the future, everyone will follow this code to dispatch troops and command operations. No one can act without authorization and affect the overall situation.

Although Liu Bei and Cao Cao's approach is not thorough and comprehensive, they have begun active attempts in their respective areas of responsibility. Once these small changes accumulate to a certain amount, they will cause qualitative changes.


Chapter completed!