I have to say that although the picture depicted by Xu You is not very legitimate, I have to say that the return on investment is really tempting - I won Yuzhou and half of Jingzhou without any bloodshed. What a great benefit!

Yuan Shao's greed for minor problems can't help but feel a little ready.

Even before the Battle of Changping, when the Han Shangdang prefect was at the prefect of the party and the party offered Zhao, Pingyuan Jun was even more eager to move.

Moreover, when Yuan Shu was finally beaten to the ground in history, he really considered the matter of "giving the seal to Yuan Shao and giving the emperor the title of Yuan Shao", but he was intercepted and killed by Liu Bei during the process of going north.

From this perspective, Xu You's suggestion is not impossible.

However, Shen Pei, who was standing aside, didn't want to express his opinion, but he knew too much about Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu brothers and couldn't help but interject:

"Yuan Shu is arrogant and he has worked so hard to join his lord to not even keep his original foundation? He is definitely unwilling to accept it. Even if he is desperate in the end, he must be hit hard by the princes of all sides on the battlefield and has lost most of the territory, and he has to recognize the situation.

I support Ju Jianjun's opinion. No matter what, I will support the King of Yan first, seek peace through war, and draw a clear line with Yuan Shu. Even if Yuan Shu comes to surrender in the future, it will be a failure to surrender, not a matter of negotiation with our army. Even if you take two or three counties in Yuan Shu, you will be divided up by Cao Cao and Liu Bei in the process, which will be a small profit."

Unfortunately, if Yuan Shao could give up the "small profits from two or three counties" just because of his words, then he would not be Yuan Shao.

Those are two or three counties! They are two or three times larger than the chips in the Battle of Changping!

As long as you fall into a protracted war with Yuan Shu, Hongnong, Nanyang, and Hedong County are located south of Zhongtiao Mountain and north of the Yellow River, which is under the jurisdiction of Han and Siam, which is bound to fall into the hands of Liu Bei!

Jiujiang County and Huainan County will definitely fall into the hands of Cao Cao or Sun Ce!

For other counties, it depends on whoever takes action quickly, and the military advancement will be smoother. By doing so, compared to all the territory that took over Yuan Shu, you should get at least five fewer counties!

Yuan Shao felt extremely distressed, he wanted more.

Yuan Shao: "It would be better to wait for two or three days. In principle, I agree with Ju Gong's suggestion. However, if Yuan Shu gives us a very excellent condition. If Yuan Shu's conditions are really as generous as Ziyuan's imagined, we will try it secretly. If far inferior to Ziyuan's expectations, of course, I will directly refuse and use military force to fight him."

Guo Tu, who had never spoken today, saw that his lord had made a decision, so he came out to express his support. At the same time, he gave a little repair to check for missing and make up for the existence of:

"The lord is wise! This method is a divine plan. However, you need to pay attention to the movements of other princes: for example, although Cao Cao nominally surrendered to the lord and helped the King of Yan together, Yan and Xuzhou were just vassals of the lord, and were not directly under the lord.

Now that the late emperor is killed, there is no master in the world. Beware that he thought the late emperor was revenge and refused to admit that Yuan Shu was avenging the late emperor, so he raised an army to attack Yuan Shu and seize Yuan Shu's territory..."

Yuan Shao sneered: "How dare he? Ah Man has been beaten to obey by our army for a long time."

When Ju Su heard this, he felt a little stern: Unexpectedly, Guo Tu had some knowledge besides flattering.

He didn't want factional struggles, so he affirmed Guo Tu's judgment: "My lord, you really can't be careless. Cao Cao had to lower his eyebrows and look down, because there was a lord in the world, and the lord and Liu Bei also reached harmony.

Now that the late emperor is killed, once Yuan Shu is attacked and destroyed, the lord and Liu Bei are already on the verge of arrows. As long as the lord and Liu Bei go to war, what pressure will Cao Cao worry about?

He could completely pretend that he was devoted to the public and the late emperor, and then, "Whoever truly avenges the late emperor will form an alliance with whom he will admit that the late emperor inherits it." At that time, how could the lord have the energy to free up his hands to deal with Cao Cao specifically?

Maybe the lord was anxious about Cao*. As soon as Liu Bei was elected as emperor, Cao Cao recognized Liu Bei as the emperor in order to check and balance the lord protect himself, and to harvest Yuan Shu's remaining territory to strengthen his power."

Seeing that Xu You made Ju Su say everything he said about the credit, he was not willing to be outdone and quickly added: "The lord immediately sent someone to Aman's office to check Aman's attitude towards Yuan Shu, don't force him too far and it's okay.

In addition, what Chacai said also reminded one thing: the lord can send an envoy to Liu Bei's office to see how Liu Bei views the new emperor: is he eager to be the emperor immediately after the death of the late emperor, or is he willing to accept the order of the King of Yan and recognize that the King of Yan is the orthodox world. If Liu Bei does not become emperor, it doesn't matter if he retains his current official position and title."

After hearing the favor, Guo Tu couldn't help blurting out: "Liu Bei's heroes have reached this point, how could he not be called emperor?"

Xu You retorted proudly: "Although the possibility is not great, why not try it? You are afraid that you have forgotten that the former King of Yan, Gong Bo'an, Liu Bei, Li Su and others had great kindness to them. Otherwise, how could Liu Bei become an official with filial piety and honesty? Where did Li Su's talent come from? Shouldn't they repay the successor King of Yan?

Even if Liu Bei does not agree, we will not lose any loss when we try it. It can still undermine Liu Bei's benevolence and reputation. If Liu Bei is angry and kills the envoy, it will show that he is ungrateful and despicable to the former King of Yan."

Yuan Shao nodded slightly, and really felt that it made sense. He decided immediately: send envoys to Liu Bei and Cao Cao respectively, wait for Yuan Shu to come, and after the three-party reaction, he would make the most beneficial decision.

...

In the following days, there was constant news from Yuan Shao. On the fourth day after he held a meeting with the four great strategists, Hua Xin, who was forced by Yuan Shu, found Yuan Shao and said that he had something to ask for advice, involving "the late emperor left an oral order and the will." He wanted to see if Yuan Shao was willing to admit the will.

Of course, Hua Xin would not bring a formal will. It would be useless for Yuan Shao to detain him or kill him, because whether the will really exist depends on whether Yuan Shao is willing to believe it.

After some secret negotiations, Yuan Shao was shocked and angry and questioned Ju Su. Xu You: "The last emperor passed away and had no descendants. He should have chosen the virtuous among the kings outside the country to be the emperor. Yuan Shu actually wanted to steal our decision to support us!

Then, even if the King of Yan becomes the emperor in the future, is it that Yuan Shu is the first hero of "protecting the will and ensuring the throne" or I am the first hero of support? How about such rudeness, how about refuting the urgent attack?"

Yuan Shao had to be angry. Didn’t he support Liu He just to gain absolute control over Liu He? How could this great reputation be influenced by others!

Ju Su was also indignant and expressed his support, but Xu You raised some risks: "Lord, I think Yuan Shu did forged an oral order without evidence of death. But if we don't agree, he went to Liu Bei to fool him again? What if Liu Bei felt that he needed this order to fight against the King of Yan and proclaim himself emperor, wouldn't Yuan Shu have formed an alliance with Liu Bei?"

Ju Su directly retorted: "Xu Ziyuan! You are all shameless people like you at that time? How could Liu Bei form an alliance with Yuan Shu for this title and tolerate Yuan Shu's crime of monarchy, at least it is also a crime of harming the king?

Lord, I dare to guarantee that even if our army does not accept Yuan Shu's conditions, Liu Bei will definitely not accept the "noble decree" forged by Yuan Shu. I have worked with Liu Bei, and I know that he will not be vague about these things."

Xu You: "Ju Su! You actually said that you worked with Liu Bei so you know him very well. What do you mean?"

Ju Su: "I just talk about the matter! When I was an official in the same dynasty, the lord, Cao Cao and Liu Bei were also colleagues."

Yuan Shao waved his hand and said, "Okay! Needless to say, since Liu Bei could not accept it, we don't have to give Yuan Shu face. The King of Yan wants to be the emperor, so I can do it, so why do we need to leave an order!"

Seeing that Yuan Shao's reverse scale "the first to promote the merit of supporting the country" was touched, Xu You knew that he would definitely not be able to persuade him this time, so he said:

"Even so, I don't rush to express my opinion on the breakup first. I privately lie with the snake and even entered the country under the banner of escorting the envoy Hua Xin back, and deceived Yuan Shu's territory and disarmed the defenders of some counties on the border between the two sides."

Of course, Yuan Shao could listen to this suggestion. After all, it was a waste of money to take advantage of it. He ordered Xu You to arrange the matters that needed to be transferred to the army. Ju Su was responsible for the responsibility.

Yuan Shao's army immediately mobilized and held Hua Xin for a short while. During this period, the envoy sent by Yuan Shao to Cao Cao also came back, bringing Cao Cao's attitude.

Cao Cao made it clear that he absolutely did not believe that Yuan Shu was "trying to take back the emperor from Dong Cheng, resulting in the emperor being killed by Dong Cheng". Cao Cao also said that all this might be done by Yuan Shu, and even the account of his eldest daughter being pregnant and killed suddenly in the palace was to Yuan Shu!

Seeing that Cao Cao was so determined, Yuan Shao realized that "if he accepted Yuan Shu again, he might have an excuse to vote for Liu Bei", so he gave up his younger brother even more devotedly.

I have to say that Yuan Shao really made a very wise decision this time.

At least from the result, he was quite wise. As for the decision-making process, he was really shameless to show it out - it was entirely because of the forced interests of all parties, and finally he was forced into a fairly stable decision. It was not that Yuan Shao himself wanted to do this from the beginning.

In addition, as early as February 21, when the envoy sent by Yuan Shao to test Cao Cao's attitude had just left Cao Cao's capital, Dingtao, and before he could return to Yuan Shao's headquarters, Yecheng, Cao Cao's army took the lead in launching an attack on Yuan Shu.

Cao's army sent troops from Jiyin and Xiaopei to attack Suiyang, a waterway hub connecting the east and west lines of Yuan Shu's army, trying to cut off the land east of Yuan Shu's army from the core area of ​​Yuan Shu's rule, thus occupying the Huaibei area east of Suiyang.

Yuan Shujun had to defend on the spot in Suiyang, and the surrounding troops also had the attitude of assisting in defense towards Suiyang.

It was at this critical moment that Yuan Shao had to rush to escort the "Envoy" Hua Xin back to Luoyang, and along the way, pretending to be a smile on his way and took the opportunity to sneak attack some Yuan Shujun's county towns.

Because Yuan Shu had not exposed his malice to him, and Cao Cao and Liu Bei had already started attacking him, the main force was insufficient fortifications for the area bordering Yuan Shao, and the main force was transferred to other directions to assist in preventing and plugging the leaks.

At the same time, because the Yin area in Henan was ruled by Yuan Shu for less than ten days, and after the capture of Luoyang, Yuan Shu did not have enough time to distribute his troops to various counties to garrison, which led to the guards in most areas of eastern Yin in Henan, which were still troops left by Zhu Jun's period, but they were nominally surrendered to Yuan Shu.

Such a rule was extremely unstable. After Yuan Shao came to attack, the soldiers of the Henan Yin area east of Xingyang and Chenggao surrendered to Yuan Shao twice without bloodshed. Yuan Shao advanced to Chenggao's Sishui Pass (Hulao Pass) before he was barely blocked by the direct troops of Yuan Shujun who had reacted.

But Yuan Shao's army did not hold back at all. Since he could not break through Xiong Pass for the time being, he continued to quickly enclose land along the mountain of the Baguan of Luoyang, crossed Songshan from Zhongmu, attacked Yangcheng, and approached Xu County, the capital of Yingchuan County.

It was not until the vicinity of Xu County that Yuan Shujun completely stopped the defense and entered a confrontation with Yuan Shao.

...

Yuan Shao used his unfair martial arts style to "not tear his face off the surface, but sneak attacked him first in secret" to play. In just a few days, he almost picked up a territory of many counties from his younger brother.

At the same time, Yuan Shao sent him to Chang'an to ask whether Liu Bei was willing to recognize the King of Yan as the envoy of the emperor, and Yuan Shu sent him to Liu Bei to test whether Liu Bei wanted to "send the throne to Liu Bei when the late emperor died", and then he arrived in Chang'an.

However, during this period, Liu Bei was not idle. Although he knew that the news of the emperor's murder was later than Yuan Shao, he was earlier than Cao Cao.
Chapter completed!