The Warriors of the Three Kingdoms

During the recent period, Guo Jia has been at leisure, there is no war, just waiting, he has walked all the mountains and rivers near Linzi City, and is familiar with the nearby terrain.

"Your Majesty, Feng Xiao feels that this is not a problem at all."

"Huh? It seems that you have a solution?"

"There are ways, it depends on whether His Majesty wants to do it."

Guo Jia's words attracted the attention of everyone present.

Xu Huang was also very interested and asked Guo Jia directly.

"Mr. Feng Xiao, please tell me quickly, how should we go to Jizhou to fight the two brothers of the Yuan family."

Guo Jia smiled lightly.

"Hey, everyone, if the Yuan brothers don't fight, can't we let them fight? In the past few days, I have disguised myself and visited Linzi City."

"There are a lot of hawkers from Jizhou in this city. Their purpose is to buy some grain and then sell it to Jizhou. Jizhou must be in short supply of food."

"If we can disrupt the balance of the Yuan family brothers, are we afraid that they won't fight?"

Guo Jia has already started to deploy this matter these days, and now when Liu Zheng asked about it, he directly talked about it with Liu Zheng and others.

As soon as Liu Zheng heard Guo Jia's words, he knew that Guo Jia had figured out a way, so he immediately asked.

"Feng Xiao, how do we break the balance of the Yuan brothers?"

"It's simple, Your Majesty, the Yuan family brothers are not balanced. Yuan Xi is powerful and Yuan Tan is weak. The reason why they stopped fighting now is that both sides are running out of food and grass, so it is difficult to continue fighting, isn't it? It is a wise move, and secondly, we are afraid of our [-] soldiers."

"Nowadays, most of the sources of food and grass for the Yuan family brothers are from some big families under their command. Those families provide food and grass for the Yuan family brothers. If we can persuade these families not to provide food and grass for the Yuan family brothers, Yuan who has no food and grass Brothers, we can only continue to send troops to rob."

"In this way, they will inevitably fight again, and then we can take the opportunity to send troops."

"What Feng Xiao said is reasonable and a clever plan, but how do we know who is providing food and grass for the Yuan brothers?"

"Your Majesty, you only need to ask the Mi family to find out about this, and even if you don't ask the Mi family, let's ask Yuan Shang, he should know which family in Jizhou has the best business, and you can be clear , who is providing the Yuan family with military resources, we can clearly know who is providing food and grass for the Yuan family brothers."

"Okay, I'll let Xu Huang go and ask that Yuan Shang."

After Liu Zheng finished speaking, he looked at Xu Huang. Xu Huang quickly understood what Liu Zheng meant, and left immediately. He went to Linzi City to talk to Yuan Shang.

This matter did not make Liu Zheng and the others wait long.

In just half an hour, Xu Huang rode his horse back to Linzi city.

Then he brought news to Liu Zheng.

"How about it, Gongming, what did Yuan Shang say?"

"Your Majesty, Yuan Shang said that among the great families in Jizhou, the Zhen family in Zhongshan has always been helping the Yuan family."

"The Zhen family in Zhongshan."

After hearing the news, the people present frowned, as if they didn't know this guy very well.

Tai Shici, Guo Jia and the others all had dull faces, as if they hadn't heard much about this family.

But when Liu Zheng heard about the Zhen family, he was immediately surprised. During the Three Kingdoms era, the Zhen family was a small family name, and only one family was relatively famous.

Chapter 869 Zhongshan Zhen's Family

When Liu Zheng heard about the Zhen family, he remembered that there is also a big business family in Jizhou, the Zhen family.

During the Three Kingdoms period, there were several well-known large business households, such as the Mi family in Xuzhou under Liu Zheng, the Lu family in Jiangdong, the Chen Liuwei family, and the Zhen family in Hebei.

These families are different from those aristocratic families. Among the aristocratic families, most of them have backers in the court, or people with backgrounds. The worst thing is that they have no backers in the court. The ancestors must be a big man, but now the family is in decline. That's all.

But these families have no backing, and they are not mainly engaged in politics. Most of their families are in business.

The members of these families are mainly engaged in business, and they are all in business, and they are doing very well.

Even when they do a good job in business and earn enough money, they will start to think of ways to improve their political status and invest in those princes with potential.

The Lu family in Jiangdong invested in the Soochow Sun family, the Xuzhou Mi family invested in Liu Bei, the Wei family first funded Cao Cao, and the Hebei Zhen family invested in Yuan Shao.

Although Yuan Shao is a descendant of a big family of four generations and three generations, Yuan Shao himself did not receive much support from the Yuan family. Most of the Yuan family's wealth was left to Yuan Shu. After all, when Yuan Shao went north to Jizhou, Yuan's residence In the south, Yuan Shao's territory could not be touched at all.

And behind Yuan Shao there must be a powerful consortium supporting him, otherwise Yuan Shao would be impoverished if he couldn't stop a few wars.

Just like in the early days of Liu Zheng, there were no resources, and everything was plundered and robbed.

But Yuan Shao can't do it. He is the descendant of the fourth generation and the third prince, so he has to take his reputation into consideration. Liu Zheng has nothing to take care of these reputations, so he was able to develop to the level he is today.

Knowing that it was the Zhen family who supported the Yuan family behind the scenes, Liu Zheng decided to go talk to the Zhen family first.

Don't go to talk to the Zhen family, you can't go there blatantly, otherwise, if the Yuan family brothers find out, I'm afraid Liu Zheng won't have a chance and walk back to Xuzhou.

After discussing with Guo Jia and others, Liu Zheng and Guo Jia made up their minds.

If you want to go to the Zhen family, talk to the people of the Zhen family, and go with the army, it is definitely not possible.

Therefore, Liu Zheng must have an identity, pretend to be a merchant, go to Jizhou, and only bring a small number of people.

Since on the one hand, the army cannot be dispatched, so Liu Zheng can only let the Jin Yiwei around him pretend to be some servants, and then go to Jizhou disguised as a businessman.

At the same time, Tai Shici and Xu Huang were asked to temporarily withdraw their troops from Qingzhou to the boundary of Xuzhou.

In this way, on the one hand, it can give some signals to the Yuan brothers in Jizhou to prove that Liu Zheng's troops have withdrawn.On the other hand, it is also good for Liu Zheng and those who are going to Jizhou to reduce some resistance.

Just like that two days later.

Liu Zheng took Guo Jia, Dian Wei and other hundreds of guards in Jinyi and quietly left the camp for Jizhou in the dark.

From Qingzhou to Jizhou, the journey is not too far away.

However, they didn't use too many horse costumes and pretended to be businessmen, so they could only rely on walking for the most part, and the distance traveled in a day was limited.

It took less than half a month to arrive at the border of Jizhou from Qingzhou.

Of course, this is also to bypass Yuan Jun in Jizhou.After all, this place is now at war. Although the two brothers have stopped fighting, the local atmosphere is still in a period of war.

There are a lot of people around him, and if he appears in a crowded place, it is easy to attract the attention of others.

In order to avoid these situations, he deliberately took the paths that no one took.

After all, it is not a good thing to be caught by either Yuan Tan or Yuan Xi.

A few days later, he showed up in Zhongshan Kingdom with his troops.

Zhongshan Kingdom actually existed very early.

In fact, the earliest country was not established by the Han people, but by the Xianyu people. The country got its name because of the mountains in the city.It has gone through three stages of development: Rongdi, Xianyu, and Zhongshan. At each stage, it is regarded as a serious threat to China by the countries of the Central Plains. stage.

Later, in the Han Dynasty, both the Western Han and Eastern Han established the Zhongshan Kingdom.

In the Western Han Dynasty, in the third year of Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, the eastern part of Changshan County was divided into Zhongshan Kingdom, and the prince Liu Sheng was named the King of Zhongshan.This Liu Sheng is the ancestor that Liu Bei often talks about, the descendant of King Jing of Zhongshan Liu Sheng.

Later, when Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty, the Zhongshan Kingdom was abolished. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu, canonized his son Liu Mao as the King of Zhongshan. In this way, the Zhongshan Kingdom existed again, but Liu Mao was passed down more than ten years ago. Zhongshan State was removed again, and it is now called Zhongshan County.

When he went to Zhongshan County to meet with these people from the Zhen family, Liu Zheng had asked his Jin Yiwei to find out about the situation of the Zhen family in advance.

The Zhen family is considered a relatively large family in Zhongshan.

Of course, the so-called big is just that the scope of business is relatively large. It does not mean that his family is a famous family in the whole Jizhou, but it has many servants like the Mi family and occupies a larger area. There is no backer in the court.

The Zhen family relied on strong financial resources to develop the family, and now they want to change.

What Liu Zheng heard was that the current head of the family was named Zhen Yan.

That is, the second brother of the famous Luoshen Zhen Mi in history.

The Zhen family only made a fortune in Zhongshan County decades ago. The previous head, Zhen Yi, was the magistrate of Shangcai County. Later, he returned to Zhongshan and gradually expanded the family mainly by doing business.

The ancestors of the Zhen family were actually high officials in the imperial court. During the time when Wang Mang usurped the Han, he used to be the chief minister, but now that so many years have passed, the family has fallen a little bit.

Zhen Yi is not very suitable for officialdom, so after resigning from office, he devoted himself to doing business at home and spread the business of Zhen's family throughout Jizhou and Youzhou.

Although the wealth of the Zhen family cannot be said to be incomparable, it is definitely among the best in Jizhou.

After Yuan Shao occupied Jizhou, it was because of the support of the Zhen family that Yuan Shao was able to have no financial worries in a short period of time.

And in the same way, it is precisely because the Yuan family protected the Zhen family on the bright side that they were able to continue to grow in the short few years, and in a short time not only managed their business in Youzhou, but also went to Karasuma in the north. The Xianbei and other places expanded.

The entire northern business, including salt and iron, and horse sales, is covered by the Zhen family.

Relying on the grain and grass collected from the mainland to sell to the grasslands to obtain horses, and then sell the horses from the north to the Central Plains. In the past ten years, it has grown rapidly and its wealth has skyrocketed.

However, the life of the Zhen family has not been good recently.

8 Chapter Seventy

After Yuan Shao died, the three brothers of the Yuan family fought for power, which also affected the Zhen family.

From the beginning, the Zhen family planned to support Yuan Shang who became the young master, after all, Yuan Shang was in the right position.

However, Yuan Shang didn't have much strength himself, and he was quickly defeated in the competition with Yuan Tan.

The Zhen family did not participate in the Yuan family's struggle.

I have been sitting on the mountain and watching the tigers fight, waiting for things to calm down before choosing to join the winner.

It's just that Yuan Tan failed to gain any advantage in the competition, and was quickly defeated by Yuan Xi.

Yuan Xi already occupied the entire Youzhou, and the Zhen family's territory is in Zhongshan, which is very close to Youzhou.So the Zhen family could only slowly submit to Yuan Xi as a last resort.It was precisely because of the support of the Zhen family that Yuan Xi was not short of money and food in a short period of time.

Yuan Xi's attitude towards experts is very different from Yuan Shao's.

Because Yuan Shao still cares about his reputation to some extent, he usually doesn't press too hard on the Zhen family, and most of the time he just discusses with the Zhen family in a friendly manner.

But Yuan Xi was different, he was in urgent need of money and food, and often pressed the Zhen family every step of the way.Once the Zhen family resisted, it would incur Yuan Xi's anger.

Especially at the beginning, the Zhen family did not choose to support Yuan Xi, but chose to support Yuan Shang.

This caused Yuan Xi to be even more angry with the Zhen family. He often vented his anger on the Zhen family, plundered the Zhen family's money and food, and even directly recruited soldiers from among the Zhen family's private soldiers.

Just some time ago, they continued to send people to the Zhen family, wanting to ask for [-] shi of food and grass from the Zhen family.

Even the Zhen family, which is as rich as a country, can't stand Yuan Xi's constant demands.

So the members of the Zhen family are also worried recently.

You can't offend Yuan Xi, after all, Yuan Xi is now the actual controller of the entire north.

Zhongshan County, Wuji County.

It is close to Changshan County, and it is also the home of the Zhen family.

The head of the family, Zhen Yan, is dealing with the grain and grass that the Zhen family has recently transported from nearby states and counties. A few days ago, Yuan Xi ordered him to raise [-] shi of grain and grass. handle it seriously.

The third brother Zhen Yao came in from the outside.

"Second brother."

Zhen Yao yelled at the Patriarch Zhen Yan, interrupting Zhen Yan's thoughts.

"Third brother, you are back. How is the food?"

Because of Yuan Xi's words, Zhen Yao was recently ordered by Zhen Yan to raise food and grass in nearby counties and counties. Now that Zhen Yao came back, Zhen Yan thought that the food problem had been resolved.

"Second brother, how can we get [-] shi of grain? Even if we buy it from the nearby counties, it is now in chaos and everyone is short of food. If we want to gather [-] shi of grain and grass, it will not be done in a short while. thing."

"Our Zhen family can't get it out, why don't we ask the eldest sister's husband's family?"

Although Zhen Yi died early in his life, he left behind seven children.

The eldest son died early, and there were two sons and four daughters. The eldest daughter married the Zhang family, a big family in the neighboring county.

Although the Zhen family didn't have that much food in storage, the Zhang family definitely had some.

Zhen Yan wanted to send this idea to the Zhang family next door, but Zhen Yao shook his head right away.

"Second brother, I'm afraid it's not that easy. The Zhang family was also bullied by Yuan Xi. The Zhang family supported Yuan Tan. Yuan Xi didn't directly deal with the Zhang family because of the great fortune of the Zhang family. At this time, he couldn't protect himself. Well, where will they help us?"

When Zhen Yao said this, Zhen Yan could only sigh.

"Oh, that's true. I'm afraid that the Zhang family is also being asked for food and grass by Yuan Xi. This Yuan Xi's second child is really shameless. I thought that even his father, Yuan Shao, would give us some face. I didn't expect him But he did this to us aristocratic families."

"Yuan Xi, I originally thought he was the most incompetent among Yuan Shao's three sons, but I didn't expect that he was the one with the biggest heart. He was so quiet that people ignored his existence. I didn't expect him to become a blockbuster. , and directly united with those Karasuma people, and gained the confidence to fight for the head of the family."

"If I had known, we should have taken refuge in him directly, so we wouldn't have ended up in this situation, alas."

"Who said it wasn't? If we had known that Yuan Xi could become powerful, we would of course support him with all our strength, but it's too late to say that now."

"However, third brother, you don't have to worry too much. A few days ago, I sent a few stewards in the family to go to Qingzhou and Bingzhou to buy grain and grass. There must be news soon. Yuan Xi didn't Say when we will give him the food, let's hold it first."