The first stage of the Yuzhou War was the confrontation period.

Yuan Shu needed to wait for the reinforcements from Lu Bu, Yuan Shao and other troops of his own, so when faced with Zhang Fei's provocation, he resolutely ignored Zhang Fei's provocation, hung up his no-war card, and defended the camp.

Liu Bei also needed to wait for the results from Dian Wei and Guan Yu, so he was not in a hurry and set up camp outside the city, where he and Zhu Zhi were at odds with each other.

The confrontation period is a long process, and both sides are waiting for the results of other battlefields to be released.

Compared with the tense atmosphere in the south, where a war is about to begin, the atmosphere in the north is a bit strange. It is calm on the surface, but secretly, there is an undercurrent surging.

In Yecheng, it rained heavily that day. It had been a month since Hou Xu and Taishi Ci sneaked into Yecheng. For fear of being recognized by acquaintances, Hou Xu stopped his business.

Recently, the Tingwei Mansion was recruiting people, and an old man and a young man went to apply. The heavy rain made few pedestrians on the street. Both of them were holding Qingzhou oil-paper umbrellas and stepping on wooden clogs, walking slowly on North Street.

On the bluestone board.

Since the puppet emperor of Jizhou was deposed, the original three ministers and nine ministers were very embarrassed.

Even the emperor is gone. What meaning do they, the former ministers of the Jizhou court, have to exist?

However, Yuan Shao himself was a party member. Faced with the old party members, he did not dare to kill them, so he could only spend money to support them first.

As a result, the reputation of the party members was very high. Although Wang Fen died, the residual influence he left in Jizhou still existed.

Secondly, he himself is a party member, or he rose to power because of being a party member. If he starts to clear out party members immediately after taking office, it will be a big blow to his own reputation.

It can’t be said that people are betraying their relatives, but they are definitely alienating their morals. After all, in the eyes of the world, you were born in this class, but in the end you betrayed this class, and this class is still the clear stream of the Han Dynasty, where the reputation lies. Yuan Shao dares to attack the party members, and he is waiting for the reputation.

Destroyed once.

Therefore, he could only put all the party members and elders in a cabinet, evacuate their power, and prevent them from intervening in military and government affairs. However, living and material conditions were still provided, and some demands were met as long as they did not involve power.

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that this is a waste.

As the leader of the Youth Party, Yuan Shao himself is almost fifty years old. As for the group of old party members, the youngest ones are nearly sixty years old, and the old ones are even over eighty years old. After they die of old age, they will

No one can be older than him in terms of seniority.

At that time, all party members' inheritance will belong to Yuan Shao. At the same time, as the fourth generation of the Yuan family and the leader of the aristocratic family, he has won the reputation of the Qingliu faction and the aristocratic family faction, and the support he will receive is bound to be indispensable.

Therefore, it can be said that Yuan Shao was playing the Luoyang Gongqing card by deposing the false emperor of Jizhou. He was playing the Party card by supplying Party members without offending them. He was playing the Party card by using the reputation of the Four Generations and Three Dukes to unite the major families.

Saga brand.

In addition, the ministers and generals under his command were mostly local factions from Yingchuan, Nanyang, and Jizhou, and the balance among various parties formed the huge structure of the Yuan Shao Group.

This is why Chen Mu believes that this is not a good time for the Northern Expedition.

Because Yuan Shao is now strong and powerful, internal conflicts have not emerged. Everyone has a common enemy for the time being, resulting in unprecedented unity among the Jizhou Group.

Once Qingzhou takes action, the best result is probably that both sides will suffer losses.

Therefore, he had to wait for a suitable opportunity, wait until the Jizhou Group's enemies began to be weakened, and wait until their internal conflicts began to break out.

Historically, Cao Cao only defeated Yuan Shao in the Battle of Guandu, but did not eliminate Yuan Shao at all.

Even if Yuan Shao was tricked and killed and 80,000 soldiers were surrendered, Yuan Shang and Yuan Tan combined still had more troops than Cao Cao and were stronger than him.

Even if Yuan Shao had not died of illness, the direction of history would not have been certain.

What Qingzhou has to do is to eliminate Yuan Shao, which is many times more difficult than the Battle of Guandu. Therefore, everything needs to be done carefully and planned step by step without making any mistakes.

Hou Xu stood at the door of Tingwei's mansion. Because it was raining today, there was no one on the street. Except for Ding Li who was doing the interrogation, he didn't meet any other acquaintances.

The official had already met the "father and son" last time, and had a neighbor's guarantee. In addition, there was indeed a "father and son" in the city, so he naturally did not have any doubts about them.

This is the benefit of identity swapping.

With Jizhou's current strict investigation methods against the Military Intelligence Department, if you don't have an identity, you will be found out soon.

This is not alarmist, nor does it mean how sophisticated Jizhou’s methods against spies are.

This is the current situation of society today.

Because this is not an era when a city has a population of millions or even tens of millions, but an era when a city has only a few thousand to tens of thousands of people.

Many people question why the population of a county in ancient times was so small, but what we need to know is that more than 90% of the people in the Han Dynasty did not live in the city, but lived in rural pavilions in the wild.

Except for capitals like Luoyang Chang'an, the cities at that time were very small. Even in Luoyang Chang'an, most of the people lived outside the city, and those who could live in the city were basically dignitaries.

This should be easy to understand.

For example, a county has a total population of 80,000, of which 70,000 are people living in villages and pavilions outside the city, engaged in agricultural work such as farming and growing vegetables. The other 10,000 live in the city, a small part of them are powerful nobles, and the rest are large

Some are handicraft workers and business people.

In this way, the officials who manage the city only need to be responsible for the 10,000 people living in the city, and do not need to be responsible for the 70,000 people living in the wild.

Yecheng is the seat of Wei County. Wei County has fifteen counties and a total population of four to five million, most of which are scattered in various counties and rural areas. There are only a few tens of thousands of people living in Yecheng.

Fewer people means it is easier to manage and become a mature society.

If you walk around the city without an identity, do you think you will be caught out on the second day after entering the city?

So it's not that the ancients didn't know how to use spies, but that spies need a complicated environment to cover up. Hiding a catfish at the bottom of the turbid Yellow River is different from hiding a crab in a clear stream.

Fortunately, Chen Mu had made arrangements a long time ago, and Hou Xu successfully entered the city as Lao Zhoutou. Now he is no longer an easy-to-find crab, but an ordinary pebble at the bottom of the stream, which can be seen everywhere.

Tingwei's Mansion is not big, just an ordinary house with three entrances and three exits. The front hall is a garden. Following the corridor and entering the deputy hall, Hou Xu and Tai Shici saw Zhao Gong who came to interview them.

There are not many people in Zhao Gong's house. As he gets older, he also feels that his body is not as strong as before, so he needs to recruit a few loyal servants to serve him.

Ordinary powerful families often do not recruit people from outside. They hire Zhuangzi from their own manor. But Zhao Gong belongs to the Party. The foundation of the Party in Jizhou cannot be said to be deep or shallow, but in the end it is worse than

Those powerful families that have been passed down for generations cannot be tolerated, so there is this need.

Hou Xu and Tai Shici were lucky. They had only been dormant for a month before they encountered such a thing. Originally, they had even planned to take the risk to visit the house in a while. Now that they can sneak in more covertly, it is naturally the best.

Zhao Gong sat at the banquet and watched them come in. He saw that Hou Xu was older and had a loyal and honest appearance, and nodded slightly. He also saw that Taishi Ci was young and strong, and must be a good worker, and he was also very satisfied.

"I've met the master's house."

The two of them bowed at the same time.

"Sit down."

Zhao Gong stretched out his hand and motioned for them to sit aside and talk.

Hou Xu and Tai Shici looked at each other and said with a smile: "Master, actually we are not here to be servants."

"Um?"

Zhao Gong looked at the housekeeper on the side.

The steward was surprised and said, "Didn't you say that before?"

"Before was before."

Taishi Ci took out the dagger from his arms and clamped it around the butler's neck: "We just found an excuse to enter the house."

Seeing this scene, Zhao Gong subconsciously touched the sword on his waist, but soon he remembered that this was his home, and he only took the sword with him when he went out. How could he have a sword at home?

"Mr. Ziqian, don't panic, we are old friends, aren't we?"

Hou Xu looked at him with a smile.

Zhao Gong frowned and looked carefully at Hou Xuchang's face, which was more than ten years older, full of wrinkles, and his temples had turned white. In his mind, the memories seemed to have returned to what he saw on the banks of the Luoshui River more than ten years ago.

That yellow turban bandit.

"Who are you?"

"Mr. Ziqian, remember me?"

Hou Xu smiled and said: "At that time, you were still Zhao Buwei."

"It turns out to be Mr. Hou."

Zhao Gong said in surprise: "I remember that my husband was captured by the court and later sentenced to death. I didn't expect that my husband actually escaped?"

At that time, Hou Xu devised a plan to escape from Zhao Gong, but soon they heard that he had been captured by the eunuchs, and the person who designed it was none other than Chen Zigui, the so-called savior of the party and a partner in justice.

Xun He once inquired about Hou Xu's whereabouts and found out that he was imprisoned in Luoyang Prison, which was located in the palace and was where major criminals were imprisoned by Tingwei. It would be difficult to escape and reach heaven.

Unexpectedly, Hou Xu survived.

Hou Xu smiled and said: "Eunuchs, as long as you give me money, let alone my humble life, they will sell it even to my biological parents."

This is scolding the eunuch for being unfilial. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, this was a very vicious curse.

However, Zhao Gong nodded with deep understanding: "That's right, Mr. Hou is right. As long as you give money, there is nothing that those eunuchs can't sell? Won't the Han Dynasty be sold by them in the end?"

Hou Xu said disapprovingly: "This is a bit serious. In the Han Dynasty, it was Dong Zhuo who did it alone. The eunuchs caused the trouble, but it was not as harmful as Dong Zhuo."

"Sir, are you here to argue with me?"

Zhao Gong's lips moved slightly, then suddenly smiled bitterly and said: "No, you are here to seek revenge on me, right?"

Hou Xu shook his head: "My husband and I have no grudges in the past, and we have no grudges recently. How can we seek revenge?"

Zhao Gong thought for a while, he didn't handle things quickly back then and fell into Hou Xu's plan. He didn't kill or capture any of their people, and it was in vain. There really couldn't be any enmity between them.

Thinking of this, he pointed at Tai Shici and asked, "In that case, what does Mr. Hou mean by this?"

"I'm just afraid of causing unnecessary trouble."
To be continued...