As a military general, he stayed in Wu County for such a long time and finally resumed his position in the army.
Naturally, the grievances I suffered before are no longer that important.
The key... He was originally responsible for the failure of the marriage, but after Zhang Zhao came to power, he not only exempted him from guilt, but also helped him reinstate his official position.
Then... Sun Quan, Zhou Yu, etc., he doesn't care.
He only cares about his official position and whether he can inherit his uncle Zhu Zhi's legacy and bring their surviving Zhu family to a glorious height.
Zhang Zhao told Zhu Ran a lot, including the instructions to target the following Kan Ze in the army and make Kan Ze suffer, but Zhu Ran directly agreed without any objection.
After Zhu Ran left, Zhang Zhao put down the pen in his hand, raised his head, closed his eyes and rested.
——
Could Zhang Zhao not know that his actions had overshadowed the trust of the people in Jiangdong?
He is not stupid. He has lived for decades, worked hard in the officialdom, and is called the elder by hundreds of officials in Jiangdong. These all represent his wisdom and rich experience.
If there wasn't a greater benefit waiting for him, how could he make such a move?
In fact, he adjusted the salt price because he had some bad premonitions.
"Zhantang? Lu Qinghou?"
For the umpteenth time, he wrote these two names on paper.
Since Zhantang left Jiangdong with Sun Shangxiang and others, Zhang Zhao mobilized all his efforts to go to the north to inquire about the background of the names Zhantang and Lu Qinghou.
The results obtained can be imagined.
Zhantang seemed to have disappeared, evaporating from this world out of thin air.
but…
Zhang Zhao knew, and was even very sure, that this person must be somewhere in the world, continuing his unpredictable itinerary in great comfort.
The reason why he is so concerned about Zhantang's whereabouts is because Zhang Zhao understands that if such a person cannot be used by him, and once the other party becomes his enemy, the consequences will be unpredictable.
Just because he appeared in Kuaiji for just half a month and brought down Chen Fuan, who the Zhang family had been unable to deal with for more than ten years, Zhang Zhao knew that no matter how hard he tried to guard against this person, it would not be too much.
and…
In view of the low-price refined salt that appeared on a small scale in Jiangdong a few months ago - it is inappropriate to say that the price of refined salt is low, and the high-quality refined salt costs ten yuan or one tael. Their sudden appearance made Zhang Zhao extremely vigilant, so he
There were also more than one meeting held within the aristocratic family.
There are two main directions. One is to strictly investigate the origin of those refined salts - in the north, or in other words, areas other than Jiangdong, a salt industry change that lasted a long time and had a great impact occurred a few years ago.
Although Jiangdong blocked all news, Zhang Zhao, as a senior member of the aristocratic family, naturally learned about the matter immediately——
Since the end of last year, Jiangdong's export of refined salt has been severely affected. Many salt merchants who once established good cooperative relations with Jiangdong have completely lost news since the end of last year.
In order to understand the situation, the aristocratic family sent out many of their own salt merchants, both to reopen the market for refined salt and to spy on intelligence.
As a result, none of the salt merchants sent out could come back without exception.
At that time, Zhang Zhao knew that except for Cao Cao, no one would be able to control the news to this extent. Also because he knew that his opponent was Cao Cao, Zhang Zhao knew even more clearly that in the next time, Cao Cao would definitely try his best.
Methods to spread the salt industry revolution to Jiangdong.
He didn't even need to do anything, even if he just let the news flow into Jiangdong, it would be enough to trigger riots in various counties in Jiangdong.
The people are like sponges, they can tolerate gradual oppression.
As long as... life is tolerable, I will grit my teeth and endure it.
But once there is huge pressure that exceeds their tolerance for a moment, this will cause them to immediately start rioting.
For example, the Yellow Turban Rebellion was a string that the people had been tightening because in his later years, Emperor Ling allowed his powerful ministers to play around with the government and sell their official positions, which eventually broke and opened the way to resistance.
So Zhang Zhao was under a lot of pressure.
As for the origin of refined salt, Zhang Zhao could only infer that it was created by a man named Yi Xiaotian who was close to Cao Cao.
After all, apart from him, Zhang Zhao really couldn't think of anyone else around Cao Cao who could change the entire industry pattern involving people all over the world in the blink of an eye.
With this assumption, another direction of investigation by Zhang Zhao and others was to find the person who took over the batch of refined salt within Jiangdong.
After all, with the extremely tight blockade on the river, it would have been impossible to quietly release such a large amount of low-priced refined salt into the markets of various regions without the help of an insider.
This must be premeditated.
——
These are the reasons for Zhang Zhao's premonition.
He even felt that no matter how tightly they defended themselves, one day the salt industry on which they relied for survival would collapse overnight.
Maybe people like Kan Ze would think that Zhang Zhao was desperately trying to kill the goose that lay eggs to squeeze out the last bit of money from the people.
But this is actually the last chance for Zhang Zhao and others to save themselves.
If they don't have sufficient reserves when their foundation is destroyed in a blink of an eye, they will most likely be slapped to death on the ground.
certainly…
These days, this is not the only thing that bothers Zhang Zhao.
It should be said that this second thing is the most important thing - before Lu Xun was defeated and surrendered, Zhang Zhao and others only temporarily controlled most of the power in Jiangdong.
And to take complete control, you must seek help from others.
Yes - contacting Liu Bei, re-forming an alliance, and seeking help from the other party to help him successfully remove the obstacles to his rule in the region are what Zhang Zhao worries about the most.
However, as of today, the preliminary preparation work has basically been completed.
Just waiting for an extremely sincere letter of alliance to be sent to Jingnan, everything fell into place.
To this end, Zhang Zhao worked countless days and nights, discussed several rounds of countermeasures with Gu Yong and others, and changed their own conditions again and again.
I am afraid that I will suffer a loss, and I am also afraid that the other party will not agree.
It can only be said that diplomacy has always been a very tedious task. Only by pooling our collective wisdom can we achieve perfection.
——
finally…
When Lu Xun showed no reaction, the alliance letter written by Zhang Zhao was loaded on the boat and slowly sailed towards Jiangling.
Similarly, Liu Bei, who had been keeping his generals on hold, had been waiting for this alliance letter for a long time.
Even before Zhang Zhao wrote the alliance letter, Liu Bei already knew his choice under the advice of Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong.
