Chapter 242: Killing! [Subscribe]

Liu Deng was a general stationed in Wei County. He was thirty-nine years old and tall and thin.

He learned late at night that the Ma family had been attacked and the head of the family, Ma Huai, had been arrested.

How dare someone attack Ma in Wei County?

Liu Deng was quite surprised.

He immediately passed the news to his superiors through special communication channels.

In the early morning of the next day, Liu Deng received news from his superiors.

He then led his troops to the official post station.

At this time, the official post station had been surrounded by Ma's men.

The entire street was filled with Ma's private soldiers.

Xu Chu, who was arresting Ma Huai, was seen by the steward at that time.

After a little questioning, he found out that it was the work of the team of outsiders driving the car.

When Liu Deng came, Ma's men and the garrison in the county town joined together, and their momentum was great!

"What do other families say?" Ma's steward approached and asked.

Liu Deng said: "No matter who comes and breaks into Wei County to commit crimes, don't even think about leaving. This is our place."

The manager breathed a sigh of relief and said that as long as the other families were willing to stand together with the Ma family, that would be fine.

Only then did he express his guess: "The other party might be from Yanzhou..."

"Whoever comes must ask my soldiers in Wei County whether they agree or not."

Liu Deng came to the courtyard of the official post station, which was under martial law, and shouted:

"Everyone inside, let Master Ma out, otherwise I will order the troops to charge in!"

inside the house.

Xu Chu interrogated Ma Huai and said:
"Sending refugees to Wuhuan, which families were involved in the mass human trafficking? How did they send the people to Wuhuan after arriving in Youzhou?"

Ma Huai answered every question.

He lives a life of luxury and is afraid of suffering:

"To the northeast of Wei County, you have to pass between Wei County and Qinghe. In Qinghe, who do you think the governor of Caozhou will be?"

"Continue northwards, passing through Anping and Bohai counties, and passing through more than ten large counties. The number of families involved in the process is obvious to the governor."

“My Ma family is the farthest away from the Wuhuan people in Youzhou, and our profits are the smallest.

They are closer than me and do more than me, so you shouldn’t come to me.”

Pretty honest.

Cao Cao was willing to travel in person because he wanted to understand the situation in various parts of Jizhou.

Another hidden purpose was that he saw a strategic opportunity to attack Wuhuan and completely occupy Youzhou.

In history, Cao Cao was unable to cross the Yellow River immediately after the Battle of Guandu because Yanzhou had a weak foundation at that time.

He successively experienced such situations as Chen Gong, Zhang Miao's alliance with Lu Bu, the rebellion of the gentry, and Zhang Xiu's rebellion.

In the process of quelling these incidents and defeating Yuan Shao at Guandu, the PLA consumed a lot of its own resources.

After he took control of Jizhou, he spent several years building two canals, which enabled the rapid transportation of grain and sufficient logistical support to completely defeat the Wuhuan.

But now, every step Cao Cao took was prepared.

When he conquered Jizhou, Huang Zhong and Taishi Ci simultaneously marched north from Qingzhou, fought their way into Youzhou, and gained total advantage.

However, the Wuhuan people, with the help of the flexibility of their cavalry and the familiarity with the Han people from years of integration, firmly controlled the three counties of Youzhou.

It would be difficult for Cao Cao to completely defeat the Wuhuan in the short term.

However, these nobles were in contact with the Wuhuan and secretly trafficked in human beings, which gave Cao Cao a good opportunity.

Ma Huai thought that Cao Cao was coming to get rid of him, the Ma family.

In fact, rectifying the Jizhou gentry can only be regarded as one of Cao Cao's goals.

His hidden purpose is linked to the strategic plan, and he is targeting Youzhou!
At this time, Dian Wei held Ma Huai in his hand, strode out and opened the door.

Inside and outside the official post station, Ma's private soldiers and Wei County's garrison troops were numerous and aggressive.

Many of Ma's private soldiers gathered around, holding sticks and even pickaxes.

Liu Deng, surrounded by many soldiers and horses, stared at Dian Wei.

"Release Master Ma! I want to see..."

On the opposite side, Xu Chu suddenly pounced over.

At Liu Deng's side, several personal soldiers drew their swords.

However, Xu Chu rushed forward directly, and with one fist he blasted away the obstruction of several personal soldiers, enlarging in front of Liu Deng's eyes.

"you dare……"

There was a crack.

Liu Deng flew backwards, his life was completely gone, and his frozen expression was filled with fear.

The other party didn't even say a word and killed the leader of the Wei army, Liu Deng.

Ma Huai also shuddered!

Outside the city, in the dense woods on both sides of the official road, the sound of muffled horse hooves could be heard.

After dawn, at the newly opened city gate, a group of defenders saw a cavalry unit whose horses were covered in black armor.

The knight on horseback was as tall as a steel mountain, and the spear in his hand was a specially made armor-piercing lance!

Twenty heavy cavalrymen followed Cao Cao's carriage from a distance.

The hooves of the twenty riders stepped on the road outside the city, raising a cloud of dust like a storm.

The whole city was shaking.

"Which side is attacking the city?"

"Fire arrows!"

The arrow broke through the air, landed on the armor, and then fell, making a crisp metallic sound.

The heavy cavalry rushed to the city gate, and before the gate could be closed, it was suddenly pushed open.

Several defenders swung their spears to stab the knights on horseback, but were immediately pierced through the chest and abdomen by the spears.

Twenty riders swept into the city like a whirlwind.

The gentry controlled the local areas, just like the local governments, which gathered together for their own interests and had no core cohesion. If they were not rectified, the central government would be in name only.

Then social contradictions will quickly accumulate, and eventually another great chaos will come. This is the experience of history.

In order to solve the problem of the gentry, Cao Cao deliberately started with Wei County and carried out a massacre to serve as a warning to others.

Twenty heavy cavalrymen destroyed the city and Liu Deng was killed.

His deputy general took over the command, but was soon killed by Xu Chu outside the official post station.

On this day, there was chaos in Wei County.

Ma Huai, the head of the Ma family, was hanged on the city wall.

Cao Cao, in the name of Jizhou Mu, sent a message to the surrounding areas of Wei County, accusing the Ma family of trafficking in people and seizing land. When checking the land in Wei County, it was found that one-third of it belonged to the Ma family, which was shocking.

The number of soldiers secretly raised by his clan numbered more than 10,000.

No wonder there were so many people outside the government post station at that time.

However, strangely, after Ma Huai's death, Ma's family was convicted and their property was confiscated.

More than half of the private soldiers that Ma had previously kept fled.

Many others are still waiting and watching, hesitating.

There were only a few hundred people who were truly loyal to the Ma family. Together with the defenders in the city, they were attacked back and forth by the twenty heavy cavalry and fell in a pool of blood.

The news spread to the neighboring Cui and Liu families of Qinghe.

The Xu and Yao families who were enfeoffed in Anping, Jizhou.

Even many Jizhou nobles who continued to move north were shocked when they heard it.

When they first heard the news, they were very angry.

But two days later, twenty heavy cavalrymen headed northeast from Wei County and entered Qinghe.

The Qinghe Cui family and several branches of the Liu family, which controlled several large counties, were massacred one after another, suffering the same fate as the Ma family.

"How dare he do such a thing? He is using force against my nobles. Who would dare to cooperate with him?"

"Without the nobles, he couldn't even collect food supplies in Jizhou..."

The Cui and Liu families of Qinghe met to discuss.

The person who spoke was Liu Yao, the head of the Liu family.

In the early years, Qinghe was the fiefdom of Qinghe King Liu Qing.

Later, Liu Qing's branch was cut off, and the fiefdom of Qinghe became a mere formality.

However, a group of relatives who were related to Liu Qing inherited some of the Liu family's resources, and they are now the Qinghe Liu family.

Cui Shi had an alliance with Liu Qing during his reign as king.

The two sides then advanced and retreated together.

Jizhou changed its king's flag from Yuan to Cao, and was occupied by Yanzhou.

For the gentry, the impact is actually not that big.

After hundreds of years of operation, their family influence involves every aspect of Qinghe.

They even have the final say on how many cows Qinghe has and how many plows are needed to plow the land.

When Cao Cao came to power, he also used them to command and control the local areas.

Now that Cao Cao dares to deal with them, they dare to call on the entire Qinghe to act at the same time, either openly or secretly, to resist Cao Cao.

With their reputation, they could also call on more nobles to refuse to support Cao Cao.

This will create huge resistance to Cao Cao's control of Jizhou.

If Cao Cao wanted to eliminate the gentry, he would be the first to suffer losses, or even suffer greater losses than the gentry.

They knew that Cao Cao had used the gentry to deal with the gentry in Yuzhou before.

So this time, as soon as Cao Cao occupied Jizhou, they immediately surrendered and did not give Cao Cao any chance to deal with them.

But this time, Cao Cao actually used killing methods directly against the gentry.

At the end of June, Cao Cao defeated the Ma family and marched straight to Qinghe.

Twenty heavy cavalrymen defeated many noble families in succession.

Compared with the heavy cavalry that were armed to the teeth and like a steel barrier, the private soldiers raised by the nobles were not much different from the ordinary people who had not received training.

What's more, with Dian Wei and Xu Chu, they will kill the leader first when the war starts.

If they could advance smoothly along the way, twenty cavalrymen would be able to sweep across the local counties.

By July, Cao Cao had passed through twelve counties and killed twelve aristocratic families.

Every time a family was killed, the heads of the nobles would be hung and the county and county would be informed that they had kept private soldiers, enslaved the people, and occupied land privately.

There is another point in Cao Cao's proclamation that is worthy of attention, which is to call on people from all over the country who were forced into slavery by the gentry to expose the gentry.

Those who have the courage to expose the truth can get a piece of land of their own.

Cao Cao was calling on the people in disguise to fight against the local tyrants.

But he was relatively covert in his approach, pushing it only in a few local counties in order to test the reactions of all parties.

Otherwise, if you take too big a step, you might end up hurting yourself.

If all the nobles in the world united, Cao Cao would not be able to bear it.

Fortunately, he now has a fairly solid foundation.

The Xun family and the Chen family in Yuzhou, the Yu family in Jizhou and other families stood firmly with him.

After Cao Cao killed his way forward and wiped out the gentry one after another, the attitudes of some of the gentry changed and turned into fear.

The nobles who had previously firmly resisted Cao Cao also began to wait and hesitate.

Because while Cao Cao was bloodily exterminating the gentry, at the same time he was also bringing in some gentry from his father-in-law's family, the Xun family, the Chen family, and even Zhang He and Gao Lan who came to serve him.

He gave up the interests of the aristocratic families that he had wiped out and distributed a portion of them to the aristocratic families headed by Yanzhou.

The nobles who were close to Yanzhou would gain benefits, while those who opposed Yanzhou would be eliminated.

In essence, it is a means of winning over some and suppressing others.

But this time, Cao Cao was far more bloody and fierce than before in Yanzhou and Yuzhou.

The reason is that his foundation is becoming more and more stable, and he no longer needs to be so cautious and worry about being stabbed in the back and having his foundation shaken.

"In the past, we had to use tricks over and over again because we were not strong enough. If we were strong enough, we could just push forward. There would be no need to be timid and waste time beating around the bush."

This is what Cao Cao said when he discussed with Jia Xu.

In Youzhou, Huang Zhong, Taishi Ci and Le Jin all received new orders.

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(End of this chapter)