Wandering the Heavens

Chapter 383 New 3 Kingdoms 23

In view of this, for the sake of everyone's life and family, a young person from the royal family, with a humble family background, without political skills and ambition, and a recognized descendant of the Liu family, was chosen from the royal family to be the mascot.

This probability is lower than the probability that he would become emperor and all the princes would submit to him and hand over their military power and troops. Therefore, in order to deal with the embarrassment of the lack of the symbol of supreme power, everyone could only find different ways to curse Yuan Shao.

Yuan Shao had never been wronged like this before. He was so upset that he fell ill and never recovered. His sons were also eager to do so. When they heard that their father might not be able to get up, they began to plan to divide the family. Advisors and generals also began to look for suitable heirs and invest in them. As a result, the Yuan family, which was not very united to begin with, became in turmoil.

The Yuan brothers formed cliques and factions every day and took any opportunity to torture their brothers and those who depended on them to death. Ju Shou, Shen Pei, Xin Bi, Guo Tu, Gao Lan and Zhang Hequan were all destroyed by the three brothers. And these were the well-known strategists and generals. As for cannon fodder, there were even more of them, too many to count.

When the news reached Yuan Shao, his illness became even worse. Feeling that he didn't have much time left, he quickly called all three sons to him.

"Two years, two whole years. Do you know how I lived like this? Ahem..."

"Father……"

No matter how much the three unfilial sons quarreled, they had to consider the occasion. When they saw Yuan Shao coughing, they rushed over to help him, some to comfort him, some to bring him water, and took away all the work of the maids.

"What are you doing? Let me go!"

Yuan Shao felt extremely uncomfortable with his sons who came forward to show their filial piety. They were secretly mortal enemies and probably wished he would die sooner. What was the point of showing off how loving a father was to his sons?

After hearing all this commotion, a concubine came over to help Yuan Shao to calm down. The three brothers could only stand up and stand respectfully beside the bed.

"This man cannot be idle. Once he is idle, he will think about all sorts of things. Tell me, what on earth did I gain from living to this day and building such a large family business? I have ended up with a reputation of being dishonest and having no way of educating my children."

Yuan Shao watched his three sons speak slowly, and the three brothers became more and more frightened as they listened.

"You say, if I had been killed by Dong Zhuo when I opposed him in Luoyang, how great it would have been! I would not have so many troubles if I died, and I would have left a good reputation. Xiansi, do you think what your father said is right?"

Yuan Tan knelt down immediately after hearing this and said: "Father, why do you say that? Tan and my two brothers are in solidarity and have a friendly relationship with each other. We have not damaged your reputation."

"You are kidding! You killed or disabled all those counselors and generals! You have completely destroyed the connections and foundation that the Yuan family has built up over generations! The Zhang River has been dyed red with blood. Do you know how the women in Yecheng stopped their babies from crying? If they keep crying, the Yuan brothers will come! You, you are really promising!"

Yuan Shao suddenly jumped up from the bed and cursed, which scared his concubine.

"They came here for the reputation of the Yuan family, where three officials from four generations have been appointed as ministers, hoping to make a career in this chaotic world. But they didn't expect that I, Yuan Benchu, would produce a bunch of bastards, a tiger father and a dog son."

"Father, please calm down, father, please calm down!" Seeing that the old man was really angry, Yuan Shang and Yuan Xi quickly knelt down.

"Calm down? I can't calm down. Think about how glorious my Yuan family was in the past. But today, you three have dragged us into the dust. We will be infamous for eternity! We will be infamous for eternity!" Yuan Shao became more and more excited as he cursed.

"Father, I know I was wrong. I won't argue anymore!" The three brothers kowtowed and cried.

"Not fighting anymore? It's too late, too late, too late..."

Yuan Shao sat back on the bed and his voice became smaller and smaller, until he completely died.

Two years after the Battle of Guandu, Yuan Shao died of illness in Yecheng. As he died suddenly without leaving any words about his successor, Yuan Tan, Yuan Shang and Yuan Xi fought for this position. Eventually Yuan Tan was defeated and fled to Guanzhong, Yuan Xi occupied Yecheng, and Yuan Shang fled to Youzhou. The three brothers ruled their own territories and never had any contact with each other until they died.

Liu Biao of Jingzhou also died of illness at almost the same time as Yuan Shao. He still had not dealt with the relationship of succession at the moment of his death. He even considered giving the seal of governor to Liu Bei. Liu Bei knew that the Cai family of Jingzhou was in power and he could not do anything, so he had to give up.

The third opening begins in Jingzhou, where Cao Cao orders Xiahou Dun and Cao Ren to march from Nanyang to attack Xiangyang.

As for why Cao Cao sent troops to Jingzhou immediately after Liu Biao's death, the reason was that Liu Bei was here. The threat from the north no longer existed after Yuan Shao's death, so he felt relieved and bold to focus on dealing with Liu Bei.

When the enemy troops were approaching, Jingzhou was divided into two groups: the pro-war group and the pro-surrender group. Unfortunately, the Cai family, who actually controlled Jingzhou, only wanted to be the wife of the county magistrate and didn't care who became the county magistrate.

Cao Ren and Xiahou Dun entered Xiangyang basically smoothly. As soon as Cao Cao heard the battle report, he immediately packed up and came over. At the same time, he asked Cao Ren to lead the troops to attack Xinye, while Xiahou Dun stayed in Xiangyang.

At this time, Liu Bei had successfully recruited Zhuge Liang, and every day was peaceful. He had also trained an army of 10,000 people. When Cao's army was advancing triumphantly, they were also ready to fight.

Specifically, they burned the city. First, they moved the people out of Xinye County, and then placed flammable materials everywhere. They pretended to be defeated, lured Cao's army into the city, and then closed the gates and set fire to the city.

Don’t ask where they will live after burning the county town. They didn’t intend to come back at all. Instead, they wanted to go to Jiangxia to meet Liu Qi.

I still say that as long as someone is having trouble with Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, no matter who they are, I will help them.

So when Cao Ren led his troops into Xinye County, it rained heavily. The people waiting outside the city were so happy that they knelt down to worship him. Liu Bei and his men were in a bad mood. They had never planned to fight head-on. Now that Cao's army was intact because of the heavy rain, what should they do next?

"Military Advisor, if it rains heavily today and Cao's army enters Xinye unscathed, how should we respond?" Liu Bei looked at Zhuge Liang, who was sitting aside with a frown on his face.

"Brother, let me and my second brother lead the troops to charge into the city and poke a thousand transparent holes in Cao Ren!" Zhang Fei glanced at Zhuge Liang and stood up.

"Three generals, don't act rashly!" Zhuge Liang advised, holding up his fan.

"Don't act rashly. What are you going to do next? Didn't you say that the weather has been dry and there's no sign of rain recently? Why is it raining so heavily?"

Zhang Fei didn't trust Zhuge Liang in the first place, and now that he had made such a fool of himself in his first battle, he looked down on him even more.

"Third brother, don't speak nonsense. Rainfall is God's will. How can mortals guess God's will?"

When Liu Bei saw that Zhang Fei was about to do something bad again, he had to quickly stop him.

"My lord, we were originally planning to give up Xinye. Now we can only set off for Jiangxia as soon as possible to meet Liu Qi." Zhuge Liang had no choice. Since Cao's army was not damaged, any subsequent ambushes would be useless. He could only run away and move quickly before they could react to what he was going to do!

"Pass the order, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei each lead 3,000 men to guard the rear. Remember not to fight to the end, and find a way to delay the pursuing Cao army! The rest of the troops will follow me to protect the people to Jiangxia!" Liu Bei stood up and gave the order.

"promise!"