Chapter 88 New Appointment [Seeking Follow-up Reading]

Yanzhou, also known as Yanzhou in ancient times, was one of the Nine Provinces, located between the Yellow River and the ancient Ji River.

Chenliu is located in the southwest of Yanzhou. It is the largest county in Yanzhou, with 17 cities under its jurisdiction and well connected in all directions.

The most important thing is that the population is abundant, reaching millions.

The Yellow River Basin, where it is located, was the most economically developed region during the Eastern Han Dynasty.

The Yangtze River Basin in the south had not yet entered a highly developed stage and had a small population.

A large population means more tax revenue and more sources of soldiers.

Yanzhou had five counties and three fiefdoms, all of which were populous counties.

Including Chenliu County, Dong County, Taishan County, Shanyang County, Jiyin County, Jibei Kingdom, Rencheng Kingdom, and Dongping Kingdom.

Cao Cao arrived at Chenliu County, the seat of Chenliu government, with his troops raising dust and a majestic aura, and directly presented the transfer order.

The former prefect of Chenliu had already received a quick notification from the Secretariat, with the emperor's imperial seal, ordering him to be transferred to a nearby county to continue serving as prefect.

It took the former county magistrate three days to hand over the power to Cao Cao, inform all officials in the county, and the civil and military officials, and then leave.

Cao Cao was appointed as the prefect of Chenliu County, in charge of the county's military and political power.

Chenliu County is Kaifeng in later generations.

His hometown, Qiao County, is located in Yuzhou to the south.

The Chenliu Prefecture Mansion is a four-courtyard building with an ancient flavor, white walls, green tiles, and shaded by grass and trees.

There were rockeries and flowing water in the mansion, and the wooden window frames were covered with gauze. It was considered the finest mansion in the area.

Although it was not as good as Cao's Mansion in Luoyang, after Yu Qing arrived here, he and Diao Chan commanded the servants and worked hard for several days to make the Prefect's Mansion look brand new.

After arranging the prefect's residence, Yu Qing began to take Diao Chan out on a carriage to observe the various things in her territory. When she came back at night, she dressed up beautifully to seduce her husband and prepare to work hard for the position of the first wife.

Bao Xin traveled along the way and became familiar with Cao Cao.

His hometown is also in Yanzhou, located in Jibei State within the state.

He stayed in Chenliu County for two days, communicating and discussing with Cao Cao, and a preliminary alliance relationship was formed.

Two days later, Bao Xin returned to Jibei State, hundreds of miles northeast of Chenliu.

Because Dong Zhuo caused chaos in Luoyang.

Bao Xin has his own judgment on the situation in the world.

When he returns to Jibei, he will also recruit soldiers and horses, which is the same direction as Cao Cao.

After Cao Cao took over Chenliu County, he also started to get busy. Many things needed to be done and a lot of planning and arrangements were required.

He was bold and took big steps. He recruited soldiers without much hesitation and quickly understood and controlled the situation in the county.

Before he arrived in Chenliu, Xun Yu, who had arrived earlier, also showed up.

He first came to Chenliu and mobilized the power of the Xun family of Yingchuan to conduct a survey here for several days to understand the situation.

Xun Yu and Jia Xu joined forces and immediately began to make arrangements with all their strength.

Replacing the local army with Zhang Liao's troops and taking over military affairs was bound to cause friction in the process, but Cao Cao meant to do it as quickly, swiftly and decisively as possible.

It doesn't matter if the process is simple and rough, because every second counts.

Now is not the time to take a slow approach. We must take control of Chenliu in the shortest possible time.

While Cao Cao was sorting out the forces of all parties and trying to take control of Chenliu, a series of changes also took place in Luoyang after he left.

First, Zhu Jun and Huangfu Song's troops took over the defense of the city and the palace.

Dong Zhuo's last batch of Liang Province soldiers also came to Luoyang after the arrival of his generals, Hua Xiong, Xu Rong and others.

Li Ru's death made Dong Zhuo feel more and more that there was a shortage of civil officials.

To some extent, this also forced him to rely on some people to help him handle political affairs.

He summoned Wang Yun, Cai Yong and others to the court, and appointed He Yong, Wu Qiong, Zhou Bi and others as captains of the city gates to assist him in defending Luoyang.

Dong Zhuo often asked for advice from several people, asking them how to govern the country.

However, the continuous increase in troops and horses also made Dong Zhuo's confidence and ambition swell again.

On the one hand, he tried hard to win over famous scholars such as Wang Yun and Cai Yong, and wanted to establish good relations with these famous scholars and civil officials.

On the other hand, more brutal means were used to suppress the rebels.

After the troops arrived, Dong Zhuo became extremely ferocious and ordered his men to launch another city-wide looting of Luoyang.

Zhu Jun and Huangfu Song's troops went to war against them.

In Luoyang city, hundreds of houses were burned down and the fire lasted for several days.

Those in the city who did not pay taxes and levies had their heads chopped off and hung outside their gates. No one was allowed to remove their heads, and the whole city was filled with a foul stench.

Zhu Jun and Yuan Wei joined forces both internally and externally, forcing Dong Zhuo into a corner. Dong Zhuo killed many of the Queen Mother's close attendants and sent the bodies, along with a letter, to Zhu Jun, threatening him that if he led his troops to continue to fight against him, he would kill the Queen Mother.

If the empress dowager was killed because of him, this pressure immediately made Zhu Jun hesitant.

By mid-October, Lu Zhi was dismissed from office.

The last part of the imperial guards under his control attacked the palace, but were defeated by Dong Zhuo's troops.

Lu Zhi followed Cao Cao and left Luoyang at night.

Taiwei Cui Lie was unable to handle the situation on his own and was subsequently dismissed and demoted several levels to become the city gate lieutenant.

The good news is that Wang Yun surrendered to Dong Zhuo on the surface, and took the first step to cooperate with Dong Zhuo on behalf of the nobles. Dong Zhuo was quite satisfied with this, thinking that his method worked. So he took over the power of the emperor and appointed Wang Yun as the Grand Coachman, replacing Yuan Ji.

Yuan Ji was immediately beheaded in the court in order to force and intimidate the Grand Tutor Yuan Wei.

He also appointed the great Confucian scholar Cai Yong as Sikong Jijiu and treated him with great courtesy.

Wu Qiong, He Yong and others gained more and more trust from Dong Zhuo.

The two men made suggestions several times, urging Dong Zhuo to adopt a conciliatory policy and show goodwill to the world.

Dong Zhuo then issued an imperial edict, appointing Yuan Shao as the governor of Bohai to show that he had forgiven the past and was magnanimous.

Before this, Yuan Shao drew his sword and confronted Dong Zhuo, and after leaving Luoyang, he fled to Jizhou, where his life was not easy.

Han Fu, the governor of Jizhou, was also a former official of the Yuan family.

While he treated Yuan Shao warmly, he was also wary of Yuan Shao's reputation and background, fearing that he would pose a threat to him.

Yuan Shao was not only living under someone else's roof, but was also sidelined.

The situation had only improved slightly until he was appointed as the Governor of Bohai.

In October in Luoyang, the fighting was fierce and cruel, both open and covert.

During the same period, Dong Zhuo, whose power was growing, had no more scruples and began to desecrate the palace.

Princesses of the royal family and concubines of the previous emperor all became his targets.

Historical records state that there was a palace where the princess lived. Dong Zhuo broke into the palace at night and climbed onto the bed, but the princess did not dare to resist or cry.

Dong Zhuo also gave some of the remaining concubines of the previous emperor to his generals, and led the generals to cause chaos in the palace.

A few days later, Dong Zhuo also sent a secret letter to Huangfu Song.

At this time, Huangfu Song had led his troops to the northern border and launched a surprise attack on the invading Wuhuan.

When the Wuhuan were about to lose, Dong Zhuo sent a secret letter, asking Huangfu Song to give up his military power. Otherwise, he would kill the queen mother first and then punish the emperor.

Huangfu Song did not respond and the matter came to a temporary end.

Time flies and it is late autumn at the end of October.

Chenliu County, the prefectural government office.

After nearly a month of adjustment and familiarization, Cao Cao has straightened out the various forces and factions in Chenliu.

He clearly had Xun Yu under his command, who was in charge of planning all matters.

In secret, Jia Xu built an intelligence system and investigated all parties.

There was also a man named Xi Zhicai, who was pulled over by Xun Yu and became Cao Cao's personal adviser, the kind who would ask for advice whenever he encountered problems.

After Zhang Liao took over the defense of Chenliu, he annexed the original local army, selected elite troops from the entire army, and disrupted and reorganized it.

At the same time, the Yuan family horse farm that had been taken over earlier transported a batch of horses to Chenliu.

Three hundred men were initially selected from the entire army, each with three good horses, to become the first batch of elite light cavalry under the command of Ba Fu.

A force of three hundred people is not enough to formally establish the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry.

But the first batch of light cavalry selected was to prepare for the establishment of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry.

Under Cao Cao's command, there were also captains of cavalry, cavalry, infantry, and crossbowmen, who were appointed by Cao Chun, Cao Ren, Cao Hong, Xiahou Dun and others.

In Chenliu County, a population census was started again in order to familiarize themselves with the number of people under the jurisdiction, and to continue to select strong men and stockpile soldiers.

At this time, the world was already full of rebel forces after the Yellow Turban Rebellion several years ago.

There were countless rebel armies such as Heishan, Huanglong, Baibo, Zuoxizhangba, Pinghan, Daji, Yuanzai, Leigong, and Fuyun, which rose up in the mountains and valleys.

The leader of the rebel army had a loud voice, so he called himself Thunder God.

Those who ride white horses call themselves White Riders.

Those who move lightly are called Feiyan. Those with thick beards are called Yu Digen, and those with big eyes are called Damu Shenjun.

Most of these rebel armies recruited refugees and formed their own forces.

The largest gatherings had 20,000 to 30,000 people, while the smallest gatherings had 6,000 to 7,000 people.

Over the past few years, various forces have risen and fallen, some have been destroyed, and some have continued to grow and expand rapidly.

The world is in chaos.

Cao Cao, Jia Xu, and Xun Yu saw that the empire was about to collapse, so they were eager to develop a strong force to protect themselves and those they needed to protect.

Even Xun Yu, who had the ambition to revive the Han Dynasty, believed that he should first control a force before he could achieve anything after experiencing the invasion of Luoyang by Dong Zhuo's troops.

Otherwise it's all empty talk.

A group of people gathered together, worked hard, and did their best.

By the night of late October, the lights in the prefect's study were bright.

Cao Cao's civil and military officials gathered together to summarize the achievements they had made during this period.

Occasionally, laughter could be heard coming from the study.

The whole country was in turmoil, but when Cao Cao was in charge of Chenliu, good things happened one after another in his little piece of land.

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(End of this chapter)