The Supreme Call of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 328 Liu Xiao raises the butcher knife
The small horse-drawn cart, which is Liu Bei's current state, has expanded into the territory of three states in one go. Not only are there not enough civil servants and generals, but even the army is also stretched. A part of the army, after all, has more than tripled the area it governs. The north faces Cao Cao and Liu Xiao at the same time, and internally they have to deal with the conflicts between the various ethnic groups in Shanyue and the prominent families. What's the difference? Even the population is even less than that of Bingzhou. Of course, apart from Jiaozhou, Yangzhou, that is, the population of the six counties in the east of the Yangtze River is not much stronger than that of Jiaozhou. The population and talents cannot be compared with the Central Plains, and it is far behind Jingzhou.

However, yes, it’s better than nothing. Now Liu Bei can only do his best to fight and move around, inviting famous people everywhere to increase his strength. Especially in the six counties of Jiangdong, several big families have many figures—the Lu family Lu Ji, Lu Xun, Zhang Zhao, Zhang Hong from the Zhang family, Gu Yong from the Gu family, and Zhu Huan from the Zhu family were invited by Liu Bei to join Liu Bei's camp. In addition to these people, together with Lu Meng, Ling Cao and others The generals also joined Liu Bei's army one after another, which strengthened Liu Bei's forces to a certain extent, so that he would not lose sight of the other.

But even so, Liu Bei's power growth is still not as fast as Liu Xiao's power growth.

Liu Xiao has not only obtained Zhuge Liang during this period of time, the former also dug out Liu Bowen, plus Guo Jia beside him, it can be said that each of the three is a great talent, and the four prefectures of Youji, Qingzhou and Xu have their own talents. Fang Xuanling, Xun Yu, Xun You, Zhou Yu and others are sitting in the township. Even if these people are prime ministers, they have enough money to govern a state.

For more than half a year, Liu Xiao did nothing else, but put his energy on rectifying the powerful and opening up business routes.

From Youzhou, Jizhou to Qingzhou, Xuzhou, each prefecture has a lot of prestige and powerful families. After hundreds of years of development, the trees have grown deep and deep roots, and even the large-scale wealthy families have nearly ten thousand people. Even ordinary powerful families, The population is close to a thousand, and not only do they control a large amount of land, they also control a lot of private soldiers. Each of these private soldiers has only the owner in their eyes, and no imperial court. In a word, whoever gives them food, they will work for whoever , it can be said that every powerful gentry is a miniature imperial court, independent of the imperial court's control, especially now that the world is in chaos, the imperial court's control over the local area is too weak, almost equivalent to no control, which makes these families one step closer Sitting bigger and more difficult to control.

The most terrible thing is that not only did these families get bigger step by step and got rid of the control of the court, they even began to infiltrate every corner of the court through the elite children of the family in their hands. Almost every position has the children of powerful noble families figure.

The reason why Xiangyang was taken by Liu Bei so quickly is that although Cai Mao controlled Xiangyang City, he couldn't control these tycoons, let alone the family forces occupying various positions in Xiangyang City Defense. He was stabbed mercilessly in the back, and the knife was fatal, killing without blood. Cai Zhong, Cai Hekong controlled tens of thousands of elite forces, Xiangyang City was impenetrable, and still could not keep Xiangyang City. In the end, they could only end up defeated. The wind blew away.

As someone who has been there, although Liu Xiao is not proficient in history, he also knows the destructive power of gentry tyrants to the rule of the court. In all dynasties, no emperor or ruler wants to have hidden dangers of instability under his rule. These famous families are hidden dangers. , although they have provided the country with a steady stream of talents, they have also monopolized the knowledge and culture of this era, making the class division more and more serious, and even those inferior people and even Han officials are not seen by them. It even gradually gained the power to change the dynasty. Once these tyrants unite, let alone Jizhou alone, 3 private soldiers tall enough to turn the whole Jizhou upside down!

As soon as Liu Xiao took office, he tidied up the powerful and prominent families in Qingzhou, which made the power of Qingzhou gentry weak to the extreme. However, after cleaning up the Qingzhou gentry, he fell into continuous war. The land of one state has fought against Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Lu Bu and even Liu Bei one after another. Although he has conquered a large area of ​​land and occupied the land of four states, he has no energy to deal with these powerful things.

Now that the war is finally temporarily over, you can free up your hands to attack these tyrants.

Cracking down on tyrants, Zhuge Liang has now begun to take on the duties of prime minister, presiding over the revision of laws and regulations, and strictly enforcing laws and regulations. Almost every one of these tycoons is glamorous on the surface, and they have done a lot of nasty things behind their backs. It is said that the current Liu Xiao just sees which one is not pleasing to the eye, so he will clean up whichever one first, and he will never be greedy for too much. After all, if he suppresses a large area at once and provokes these tyrants to form a group to resist, it will be no small trouble.

When Liu Xiao cleaned up the six or seven tyrants in one go, these powerful gentry finally felt something strange. An enemy was in a catastrophe, and Liu Xiao stabbed him with a knife and let the blood out. Now it's all right, let it go, let it go, it has been put in a large area, and soon the butcher's knife will come to him...

However, by the time they realized it, it was too late. After all, every state and county has a limited number of powerful nobles. Even Jizhou has a large population, with a population of 400 million, and only a dozen or twenty strong nobles. It’s just a family, a real giant, but there are only six or seven families. After a mess of knives, a large area was chopped down, and the rest wanted to resist. When they saw teams of cavalry patrolling back and forth in front of their houses, These people are all numb.

These Jizhou cavalry are all elites who have killed many people and shed blood over the years. If my family really wants to make a move, they will mobilize their horses. It was a family of generations of hairpin tassels reduced to ashes!

Bear with it!
These powerful people in Jizhou could only watch helplessly as Liu Xiao was rectified step by step, constantly depriving them of their power and wealth - they were not allowed to raise private soldiers or retainers. If the family had a population of more than a thousand, they must be separated and forced to do so. The plundered land must be turned over and handed over to the imperial court for farming. Of course, in return, the money, food, taxes and levies of the corresponding year will be exempted.

Liu Xiao now farms millions of acres, and his treasury has become full again in just one year. Even without the money and grain paid by the powerful, there is no fear of shortage.

(End of this chapter)