Li Su rode a tall horse with a head and tail length of one zhang and a shoulder height of eight feet. Under the left and right escort of Dian Wei, Gan Ning and others, he landed on the pier on the south bank of the Han River and slowly pressed his bridle into the north gate of Xiangyang City.

To be honest, this is the first time Li Su entered Xiangyang City. When he launched an army to attack Yuan Shu in the Northern Expedition, he only passed by the Han River, which was considered to have passed by his gate without entering.

Although Liu Biao had already had a diplomatic tendency to surrender to Liu Bei, Xiangyang was his base after all, and foreign troops were not allowed to enter. It was not until Liu Bei's official ascended the throne that around the end of July that Liu Bei's direct troops were officially in the city to monitor, which could have given enough face to the Liu Biao faction.

From a distance, the city walls in Xiangyang were actually five and a half meters high, and the city towers were strong and brand new, especially the castles and perforations were built with bricks and stones, rather than directly rammed with earth. Li Su was also amazed at the grandeur of this strong city and the prosperity of the place after Liu Biao ruled for many years.

As we all know, the three cities with the highest standards for the city defense in the late Han Dynasty were Luoyang, Chang'an and Meiwu, which were designed according to the size of "the city wall is seven meters high and thick", and are equivalent to 16 meters high. There is no higher in the world.

As a city that flourished during Liu Biao's tenure, Xiangyang was built like this in just seven or eight years. The height of the city wall is equivalent to 13 meters. The key is that Chang'an, which had been disrepaired for years, did not even have any restoration in his early years (Liu Bei renovated it after he became emperor). No wonder he could withstand the fierce attacks of so many princes in history.

What surprised Li Su even more was that when he arrived at the city gate, he saw some people who were not necessary to appear among the local officials lined up to greet him.

"Liu Qi, the prefect of Nanjun, pays homage to the Governor-General of Jingjiao, the military affairs of Dianzhou." Liu Biao's eldest son Liu Qi actually came from Jiangling to greet Li Su. Next to him were the prefect of Xiangyang Kuai Liang and some other local officials.

Before Liu Biao became the governor of Jingzhou, the area where Xiangyang was located was not independent as a county, but part of the Nanjun.

But at that time, because Yuan Shu occupied most of Nanyang, in order to resist Yuan Shu, Liu Biao merged a few areas of Nanyang County north of the Han River and some areas of Nanjun to establish a new Xiangyang County. Since Liu Qi is now the prefect of Nanjun, he said that there is no official business and you don’t have to go so far to Xiangyang to visit him.

It seems that Liu Qi is indeed famously timid and trembling, fearing that he will be liquidated. But when he sorts, he seems a little negligent, and it means to put himself on the fire-

Li Su came to Xiangyang County to take office, and Xiangyang County's status in Jingzhou was higher than that in Nanjun. When Xiangyang Prefect was greeted, it was ranked behind Nanjun Prefect. Isn't this clear that Kuai Liang still regarded Liu Qi as the "young master", so he did not dare to rank the order of high and low in official positions.

Li Su still trusted Liu Qi's cowardice, so he immediately corrected it: "Just call him Sikong. Liu Fujun, since you are an official in the Nanjun County, you don't have to come here - today's etiquette order, who is in charge of these small matters, you have not personally inquired about these small matters."

Liu Qi was worried: "Abide by Sikong's teachings, but...the etiquette is inappropriate."

Kuai Liang also realized what Li Su was pursuing, and hurriedly said: "It was because his subordinates were negligent. Liu Fujun just followed the guests and came to Xiangyang and followed the arrangements of his subordinates. In the future, his subordinates would definitely follow the order of the court's ranks."

Li Su's heart moved and did not pursue it any more, but he became more and more suspicious: Kuai Liang is a person with good intelligence, so how could he make such a low-level mistake? Could it be that all the Kuai family members are not loyal to Liu Biao, but just obey on the surface? They secretly wanted to help outsiders find excuses to deal with Liu Biao's descendants?

Or... these people hope to fulfill their intentions and act smart, thinking that Liu Bei only gave Liu Biao preferential treatment in name, but in fact they always wanted to find trouble for Liu Biao and his descendants, and completely kill this potential opponent who was also a "prince of the Han clan"?

Li Su felt it was necessary to be wary of the random guesses of the people below.

Previously, when Li Su sued Liu Biao's support and reviewed personnel affairs, he suggested that Liu Bei transfer Kuai Yue, the younger brother of the Kuai brothers, to Chang'an to be an official, and his brother Kuai Liang stayed in Xiangyang to be the prefect of the reason was because Li Su knew history.

According to the original historical trajectory, among the two Kuai Liang and Kuai Yue, Kuai Yue seemed more active when Cao Cao went south and Liu Biao died of illness, and was almost the same as Cai Mao's. In contrast, Kuai Liang did not seem to be too suspicious of betraying Cao Cao.

Based on this foresight, Li Su transferred his loyal and suspicious younger brother Kuai Yue away and left Kuai Liang behind.

But now it seems that even if you just say and do, you can see that Kuai Liang is not absolutely loyal to Liu Biao and Liu Qi, otherwise he would not be so uncautious.

Are these two brothers both unfaithful?

Li Su rode on the horse slowly by herself. When he was in a high position and powerful position, the people next to him did not dare to disturb him at all when they saw him thinking about it. Instead, they felt a little uneasy and were all there to make up for it.

Li Su observed Kuai Liang for a while, and suddenly felt a sense of emotion, thinking of a possibility: "Is it because of time and age? In history, Cao Cao went south to Jingzhou ten years later. Kuai Liang is nearly fifty years old now. Could it be that he has lost his ambitions ten years later?

His younger brother Kuai Yue is a teenager younger than him and is about the same age as Cai Mao. Therefore, when Cao Cao went south in history, both of them were in their early forties and wanted to sell their owners for a favor and change their career? Fortunately, we didn't believe Yi Zhongtian's flattery of Liu Biao, saying that Liu Biao was so skillful in controlling the place. Now it seems that it is just a fight against the other."

Li Su thought this in her heart and had a deeper understanding of the previous internal situation in Jingzhou.

Most of the later generations who had a sense of Liu Biao at the level of Yi Zhongtian's explanation would be impressed by Liu Biao's clever trick of "killing the general thief and destroying Zhang Xian", and felt that Liu Biao would ride into the state and do such a big thing.

But now it seems that Liu Biao only relied on one of the factions to destroy the other factions, and the factions he relied on became stronger and could not be defeated at all.

In history, Liu Biao fell into extreme dependence on the Kuai family and the Cai family and became the spokesperson for their interests. To put it bluntly, the aristocratic family destroyed the powerful, but the aristocratic family itself became stronger. "Clan thieves" are powerful people, "local tyrants", and Kuai Liang and Cai Mao are the aristocratic family and "bad gentry".

This life was just a little better, because Zhang Xian was destroyed by Guan Yu when he was leading troops in Yidu, and he also killed Su Dai and Bei Yu. Then Liu Biao admitted Yidu and Wuling belonged to Liu Bei's camp, and Guan Yu handed over the prisoners of war who wiped out the three general thieves and warlords to Liu Biao to expand his army, which led to the development of Liu Biao and avoided the marriage between Liu Biao and the Cai family.

Therefore, the local forces in Jingzhou are equivalent to "there are fewer thieves killing than in the same period of history, but the Cai family can only appear as an olympic rich family, and the Kuai family is not as strong as the same period of history."

If Li Su wants to carry out the imperial examinations in the future and acquiesce to encircle the bid, it is estimated that the aristocratic families represented by Kuai and Cai can encircle 80% of the places, and the local thieves who have not killed them can encircle 20%.

And calculating the days and referring to the list of candidates, it should have been released. However, Li Su was in Chang'an before and didn't see it for the time being. After a while, he went to the city to settle down, and the answer will be revealed soon to prove whether Li Su's guess was right.

Li Su's mansion in Xiangyang City was renovated by Liu Biao's original Jingzhou Muslim temple. It was slightly renovated more than a month ago, mainly to change the storefront and some decorations that can show the owner's identity.

Kuai Liang is a local and has long been familiar with the arrangement of reception banquets. Li Su brought his staff and generals to drink with Jingzhou officials.

Li Su took advantage of the banquet to see the list of reference personnel for the imperial examinations sent by various counties and even Yizhou this year. Kuai Liang also helped him get it. Li Su glanced a few times and found that there were some young talents who left their names in history, but more of them were the candidates for the bidding of the aristocratic families, especially the trend of bidding in Jingzhou is the most serious.

The most typical aristocratic family in the list is led by several scholars named Kuai. Of course, it is not ruled out that there may be real talents and knowledge of the second generation of officials - such as Li Su, who has now become a Shaoqing in the court, saw Dong Yun.

There are also poor children who can name Li Su, but most of them are from Yizhou rather than Jingzhou, or they are limited to subjects such as "Mingsu" that are particularly professional and easy to conceal their strength.

For example, there is a man named Fei Yi who is similar to Jia Kui who Li Su met in Beichang. He also lost his father since childhood and became a cold branch, but the family itself has power.

Fei Yi's cousin's uncle Fei Boren is a direct descendant of a local family. He praised his legitimate son and praised the filial and honest man, and then asked his distant cousin to occupy a quota.

In addition to Fei Yi, Li Su also recognized a poor family named Li Fu, who was originally a powerful man in Shu, but was wiped out by Liu Yan in his early years and fell to the bottom.

In addition, as mentioned above, for subjects such as "Mingsuan", because outsiders are difficult to judge the true strength of a runner, even in places like Jingzhou, there are still families who are in a blatant way and bring in the "white-eyed wolf" who pretends to be a pig and eats a tiger.

Not to mention the distance, let’s talk about the five people from the Mingsuan Department that the prefect of Xiangyang, Kuai Liang, mentioned this year. One of them could be seen at a glance as a clerk of the Kuai family, and the other four should be accompanied by the runners.

However, among the four people who ran with him, Li Su discovered a young man who was famous for his good mathematics in history - Yang Yi from Xiangyang, who was only seventeen years old this year. Li Su estimated that he also pretended to be bad at math like Sun Zi and Jia Kui, and deceived Kuai Liang.

After reading this list, Li Su couldn't help laughing. One was that he felt that the food appearance of aristocratic families in Jingzhou was indeed worse than that of the north and Yizhou. On the other hand, he felt that people were not as good as God's calculations. There were still three or five real talents and knowledgeable fish that missed the net.

Kuai Liang was at the table to toast the generals brought to Li Su. Seeing Li Su sneering slightly as he looked at the list, he thought Li Su had objections to the recommendation list of Jingzhou officials.

Kuai Liang gave a wink and asked a few of his relatives present to come and toast, wanting to be familiar with Li Su, and explain a little.

Kuai Liang poured wine for Li Su happily, saying, "Sikong is not very familiar with the scholars in the county of this state? His subordinates do not avoid relatives. This year, there are indeed several tribe members taking the exam. At that time, Sikong will be asked to do his job in public, which just confirms the family education of the Kuai family in our Nanjun."

Li Su smiled slightly: "You are polite to Kuai Mansion. By the way, who is this?"

Kuai Liang introduced attentively: "The son of Kuai Jun is the champion this year. Originally, when Liu Jingzhou was in office, he planned to be a filial and honest person. But later, we heard that Liu Jingzhou intended to surrender to His Majesty and advised him not to be too hasty. This year, he would follow the advice of his superiors and follow his advice.

Now, if your Majesty has a new policy, he will change his imperial examination. His subordinates do not avoid relatives, so they will let their children participate in the grand ceremony and take the exam together. They will be fair to other students in their talent studies, so that they will avoid doubting them from outsiders."

Li Su nodded, seeing that Kuai Jun was still wearing some accessories for auspicious clothes, it seemed that he had just married, so he asked casually.

Kuai Jun thanked the superior for his concern and told the truth: "The student got married a few months ago and had just gotten married. Zhujing was the orphan left by the king's envoy."

Li Su reacted for a while before blurting out: "Wang Lang?"

It turns out that in history, the Kuai family and the Wang Lang family will be married in the future, but Kuai Jun married not Wang Lang's younger daughter but the eldest granddaughter. It seems that the two families have had a long time ago.

Now Wang Lang died early in this life, and even his youngest son Wang Su (195) was not born, so the lineage of Wang Su-Wang Kai/Wang Yuanji has completely evaporated. The Kuai family and the Wang family can only find Wang Lang's younger daughter when they get married.

After Li Su's mind turned around, he nodded subconsciously. Kuai Liang introduced him to a relative: "This is Kuai Qi, a clan brother, who has been knowledgeable in Jingxiang for a long time. Before, because Zhao envoy was busy with military affairs, the envoy of Lu was delayed from returning north from Jiaozhou, so he entrusted Liu Fujun (Liu Qi) to elect the candidates for the envoy of Lu this year's talent in Jingzhou, and his younger brother was also among the five candidates to take the exam."

Kuai Qi looks much older than Kuai Jun, and is probably thirty years old. Li Su thought about it and this man was Zhuge Liang's eldest brother-in-law in history, and it seems that he is also an important figure in the Kuai family, otherwise he would not have given him the most valuable Maocai exam quota.

However, Kuai Qi should have followed Kuai Yue to join Cao Cao in history and helped Cao Cao rule the Shangyong area. Therefore, when Liu Bei sent Liu Feng and Meng Da to attack Shangyong after the Battle of Hanzhong, Kuai Qi, as a general of Wei, resisted Liu Bei's army and was killed by Meng Da.

"The people who take the exam in this subject are really mixed with all kinds of ingredients... Do you follow the gentle attitude when you were in the North Field of Chang'an and fully recognize their bidding behavior. Or do you choose a few typical cases that jump very well and choose a very outrageous person, and kill a chicken to warn the monkey?"

Li Su temporarily fell into deep thought.

Fortunately, before he set off, Liu Bei gave him great decision-making power. Liu Bei secretly told him:

We cannot force the rebellion of aristocratic families who may become loyal and loyal because of radical business, and we cannot force the scholars who fled to Jingzhou to avoid the war to return to Cao Cao and Sun Ce's territory.

However, for those who are really not strong in their will and will move their interests a little, you don’t have to be polite. As long as Li Su is sure to put Sun Ce’s support force in to make dumplings and clean them up completely, Liu Bei will not blame Li Su for forcing one or two traitors to a family.

Li Su's physical eyes looked pretty kind to Kuai Liang, Kuai Qi and even Cai Mao.

In fact, his inner thoughts had changed into the look of the doctor looking at the mouse, and he was picking and choosing.
Chapter completed!