Chapter 365: Changes in the Sky
How much does it weigh?
The tallest of the ten elephants was about ten feet tall. Guo Jia roughly estimated that it weighed at least as much as twenty or thirty people.
"Even if you think these ten mounts are not enough to distribute to your generals, you don't have to cut them up and divide the meat, right?" Guo Jia looked up at one of the elephants again, with a bit of regret in his eyes. "I heard that this kind of elephant has thick skin and meat, and the quality of the meat is much better than ordinary ones. It probably won't taste good. Your Majesty should think about it..."
"Guo Fengxiao!" Qiao Yan felt more and more amused and embarrassed as he listened, so he quickly interrupted him.
She finally understood why Guo Jia was tricked by Xi Zhicai into coming to Leping.
Eight years have passed, and his way of thinking is still the same as it was back then.
"Who told you that I was going to divide the elephant?" Qiao Yan said helplessly, "I'm just asking you, given the weight of the elephant, there is obviously no scale that can accommodate its weight. How can we measure its weight?"
Guo Jia propped his head up with a fan and smiled, "I don't think you want to ask me this question, so why not write it in the April issue of Leping Monthly?"
When the monthly report is published, it becomes a perfect means of publicity.
As for whether she wanted to use this to publicize the Grand Marshal's attitude towards mathematics, to publicize that she had such a group of special elephant soldiers under her command, or to publicize that the war in Jingzhou was settled at an incredible speed, and even Jiaozhou, which had not been able to be considered to be under the control of the Chang'an court, also expressed its intention to surrender.
That is a matter of opinion.
For Qiao Yan, this might be more inclined to her assessment of her subordinates and students, but for Yuan Shao...
How to put it, calculating the interest on the returned grain and calculating the weight of an elephant may be equally difficult for Yuan Shao in a sense.
I can’t figure it out.
But when Qiao Yan really followed Guo Jia's instructions and recorded the incident of weighing the elephant in the Strange Stories column of Leping Monthly, and then promoted it with the printing of the April issue, the biggest blow Yuan Shao suffered was obviously the development of the war situation in Jingzhou and Jiaozhou.
The governor of Jiaozhou, Zhang Jin, did not reach a consensus with Yuan Shao on his march north to Jingzhou. When the war ended, Zhang Jin was intercepted in the area south of the boundary between Guiyang County and Lingling County.
Not to mention whether Yuan Shao could get effective support from others in this position, even if he had learned to place spies in various places, he would not have thought that such a sudden change would occur in the southern part of Jingzhou, a place that Liu Biao himself did not fully control.
But given that he was already at a disadvantage, he should have been happy to see the troops being dispatched in response to his request.
It was difficult for him not to think that if he could get people to support Zhang Jin in time, when he almost used his elephant soldiers to eliminate Liu Biao, would they really have the possibility to first take Jingzhou, connect it with Yuzhou, and then, with the help of this blockade line that separated the east and the west, retake Xuzhou and Yangzhou.
Unfortunately, imagination is just imagination.
As soon as Yuan Shao put down the letter in his hand and the Leping Monthly Report that arrived in Yecheng almost at the same time, he met Cao Cao's eyes.
This alliance, which was called back to Yecheng to listen to the emperor's orders, temporarily reached a deadlock in discussing the relationship between primary and secondary and the division of powers, so that Cao Cao had not reached an agreement on the pros and cons within more than ten days after he came to Yecheng.
Yuan Shao was already very unhappy about this, and now he got the news from Jiaozhou and Jingzhou, which made him feel even worse. At this time, he heard Cao Cao say, "It's a pity that I was not in Yuzhou when the war broke out."
Yuan Shao: “…”
What he said was clearly a pity, but to Yuan Shao it sounded quite sarcastic.
Why isn't Cao Cao in Yuzhou? It’s because I want to come to Yecheng to meet Yuan Shao!
Then we really cannot put the blame on Cao Cao's failure to rescue in time.
It is probably difficult to describe the depression in Yuan Shao's heart in a few words, but he also knew very well that after the response launched against him from Jiaozhou failed, the only one who could still be considered his ally was Cao Cao.
Under such circumstances, not only should he not break off relations with Cao Cao, he should even try to win over this ally more appropriately.
"Meng De, you are joking. Even if the news could reach Yuzhou in time and inform you, Shi Weiyan of Jiaozhou would have already sent troops to capture him before you sent out your troops." Yuan Shao replied calmly.
When he opened his mouth, no one could tell from his words how much regret he felt about the failure of the Jingzhou rebellion.
"In the final analysis, Zhang Ziyun should be blamed for this matter. How dare he be so sure that he could successfully pass through Liu Biao's blockade and head north without having someone contact you in advance? Qiao Yeshu's message was transmitted quickly, so he should have known about it."
Qiao Yan did not hide the contribution of his subordinates in this matter. After acknowledging that Shi Xie, the prefect of Jiaozhi County, had made the right choice, he also wrote down the role played by Fa Zheng in the memorial sent to Chang'an. Naturally, this was clearly known by Yuan Shao's spies stationed in Chang'an City.
However, if Qiao Yan were to say, instead of doing such a thing, he would have been better off placing the informant when he sent Tian Feng to Bingzhou as an undercover agent.
Doing it now would only cause more trouble for myself.
For example, Fa Zheng's lobbying trip from Yizhou to Jiaozhou seemed to have no extra gains, except for letting him know that she had a strong foresight about the changes in Jiaozhou and had made just the right arrangements for summoning Fa Zheng.
Yuan Shao even had to admit that the selection through examination was indeed effective, and Fa Zheng was a competent talent sent there for this purpose.
"You mentioned that the news is coming quickly, but I have something I want to ask you." Cao Cao suddenly interrupted Yuan Shao's thoughts.
Yuan Shao said: "Meng De, please feel free to speak."
"I heard that Benchu has asked people to start researching the method of sending messages by carrier pigeons. Do you have any experience with this?"
It would have been fine if Cao Cao didn't mention this matter, but he got angry when he mentioned Yuan Shao.
He originally thought that with the changes in Yangzhou and Xuzhou, it was great news for him that Qiao Yan had exposed the news that she had sent messages via pigeons in order to explain how she was able to rush to Yangzhou as quickly as possible to deal with the situation in Yangzhou after Sun Ce's near death.
This not only means that he can intercept the message that Qiao Yan may send from Jizhou by having someone intercept carrier pigeons, but also means that he can imitate Qiao Yan's method of sending messages and have people in Chang'an and other places get the news and send it to Yecheng as soon as possible.
But it was already March when he learned the news. Within the month from March to April, he had asked his subordinates with vacant positions in Yecheng to select pigeons for breeding. However, he soon learned from people who had raised pigeons that pigeons recognize places rather than people.
In other words, this creature is not so magical that it can follow the scent of its owner from one place to another, but can only rely on induction to fly back to the place where it has been raised for a long time.
So the problem is, he has to send a living pigeon to Chang'an City first before he can let it fly back to Jizhou.
But after Qiao Yan told the outside world about the purpose of carrier pigeons, does he really have a chance to do the former?
Absolutely not!
Therefore, the carrier pigeons at this time are the most beneficial to Qiao Yan, because the territory she controls at this moment has reached an extremely terrible state in terms of depth from north to south and width from east to west. If she only relies on horseback carriages to send messages, it is difficult to ensure that the messages can be delivered in time, so she needs to make up for it by sending messages by pigeons.
This is just like the mule, which is neither tasty to eat nor a pity to throw away for Yuan Shao!
Not bad, mule.
A few years ago, based on the news Yuan Xi brought back from Chang'an, he used a considerable number of mares in that year's war horse breeding plan to produce mules.
But by last year he had discovered that the horses produced that year were already capable of going to the battlefield, but the mules produced could only be used for carrying loads in farm work and were far from being able to be used to transport military supplies.
Even after another year, it still did not meet his expectations.
Between "it still takes time to wait for the mule to grow" and "he was actually tricked by Qiao Yan", Yuan Shao has already quite cleverly leaned towards the latter.
But he only realized at this moment that he had been deceived, just like he only knew about the enemy's dispatch of troops after Zhang Jin had been sent to Chang'an. What can he do to save the situation?
Obviously not.
All he could do was to put on a brave face in front of Cao Cao, saying that he had found the right person to raise pigeons and had gained some experience. He would pass on his experience to Cao Cao after raising the first batch of pigeons.
Then came the news that Qiao Yan received in Luoyang half a month later.
"Yuan Benchu is appointed as the general, Cao Mengde is appointed as the general of chariots and cavalry... General Yuan finally can't sit still anymore!" Qiao Yan shook her head. She didn't feel very optimistic about Yuan Shao's promotion at this moment, and the further ties with Cao Cao through promotion.
Several years ago, Yuan Shao had wanted to be promoted to the rank of general so that he could compete with Qiao Yan.
However, first, Yuan Shu and he had a quarrel over their family backgrounds, and then Qiao Yan's relentless pressure left him no time to make such moves, so he was unable to make such progress for a long time.
Now it has become an imperative.
"I think it's not just Yuan Benchu's wish to show off his more prominent status in the direct confrontation with the prince, it's also the instruction of the emperor of Yecheng," Guo Jia commented.
The remaining influence of Xuzhou and Yangzhou had not yet ended, but Jiaozhou had already turned to the Chang'an court without warning.
Yuan Shao was panicked and was eager to form an alliance with Cao Cao to fight against him. Could it be that Liu Bian, who was sitting on the throne of the emperor in the court in Yecheng, was not panicked?
Even though it was Yuan Shao who had fought with Qiao Yan in the past few years, Liu Bian could not stay out of the situation.
If the Chang'an court finally won the war to pacify the world, most of these officials in Yecheng would have a chance to be pardoned again, and even get official positions based on their talents and background, but the emperor would not have a second one!
The blood relationship between him and Liu Yu had faded to a certain extent, so once he became the emperor who was forced to step down, whether he could safely return to the position of King of Hongnong was an unpredictable problem.
And after tasting the power and wealth of being an emperor, he was absolutely unwilling to go back to being just a member of the Liu clan.
Yuan Shao wants an official position, and also wants to promote Cao Cao? Then give it to me!
As a great general, Yuan Shao was bound to fight to the end for the survival of the Yecheng court, and he worked hard to ensure that Liu Bian remained on the throne of the emperor.
This appointment completely tied Yuan Shao and Liu Bian into a community of interests.
However, even so, neither Yuan Shao nor Liu Bian chose to follow the example of the Chang'an court and restart the position of Grand Marshal, completely raising Yuan Shao to a position equal to Qiao Yan.
Regarding this point, Guo Jia did not think that this was a concession made by Yuan Shao because he felt inferior to him.
This is more like... to make Da Sima's existence the only unreasonable thing.
"I think you should be more careful."
It is easy to dodge an open attack but difficult to guard against an arrow from the dark. Faced with the gap in armed forces, there will always be people who choose to use shady tactics.
The reason why Qiao Yan is restrained now is only because of the limitation of time, not because he is not strong enough to lead an army to destroy Yuan.
If he wanted to help Liu Bian fight a comeback, he only had one chance -
Let the Grand Marshal Qiao Yan step down, and then let the forces that had been gathered around the Chang'an court scatter and collapse.
Qiao Yan smiled and replied, "Feng Xiao, this day has never been far from us, so why should we be careful?"
This is Yuan Shao's last chance.
It’s also... the last chance for some people!
At the end of April in the fourth year of Jian'an, Zhang Jin, the governor of Jiaozhou, violated his duties and went north to attack Jingzhou, resulting in the death of Zhang Yun, the captain of the Jingzhou navy, and the casualties of Jingzhou soldiers. Under the judgment of Liu Yu, a decision was made and Zhang Jin was executed.
In the same month, the candidate for the new governor of Jiaozhou was decided based on Qiao Yan's advice.
When Shi Xie and Xu Jing were analyzing the future of surrendering to Chang'an earlier, he also considered what kind of commission Qiao Yan would make to him.
Xu Jing concluded that this might put him in a higher nominal position than before, but with lower actual power.
But what was a bit surprising was that Shi Xie's position as the governor of Jiaozhi County remained unchanged, and he was even conferred the title of Marquis of Wanghai by the court. Both his status and actual power increased rather than decreased.
The actual power has also increased, because there is a special Jiaozhou governor in Jiaozhou:
Lu Kang.
Lu Kang must bear some responsibility for Sun Ce's death as he knew about it but did not report it.
This arrangement of reappointing him after resigning as the prefect of Lujiang but throwing him into Jiaozhou was tantamount to asking him to make meritorious contributions while serving his sentence.
But before Lu Kang took office, Qiao Yan had someone send a letter to Shi Xie.
The letter said that he had heard that Shi Xie treated famous scholars with kindness, and hoped that the two of them would get along well after Lu Kang arrived.
Lu Kang is already quite old, and because his daughter works under Qiao Yan, she doesn't want Lu Kang to have health problems due to being in a position that is too different from his previous environment, so she will let him stay in Nanhai County for a long time to recuperate, and ask Shi Xie to take care of several counties west of Jiaozhou.
This means that in name, Lu Kang was the governor of Jiaozhou and Shi Xie was the prefect of Jiaozhi County, but in terms of authority, Shi Xie was the governor of Jiaozhou who was recognized by the court in Chang'an.
The letter also mentioned that with the encouraging progress made in Zangke County, Yizhou might be able to open up a long-term trade route between northern Yizhou and Jiaozhou in the near future, and hoped that Shi Xie could support it.
Shu brocade and paper from Yizhou would be transported to Jiaozhou via this route.
At the same time, all kinds of goods in Chang'an would arrive in Jiaozhou via Jingzhou.
These two trade routes will first reach the western part of Jiaozhou, which is presided over by Shi Xie, and it is hoped that he can provide sufficient support.
This sounds like an exchange after giving Shi Xie power, but in Shi Xie's view, this is also a concession to him.
The goods from the Central Plains reached his hands first after arriving in Jiaozhou, which was equivalent to giving him the exclusive right of distribution.
Since the Grand Marshal was so kind, of course he had to return the favor.
When Qiao Yan instructed him to establish good diplomatic relations with Funan and further expand the size of the elephant army, Shi Xie immediately made a very serious promise in his reply.
Shi Xie had no idea that such a response should be addressed to the emperor rather than to Qiao Yan, but perhaps this old fox, who was nearly sixty years old but still energetic, had already realized it, but had no intention of delving into the issue.
Even though he could still hear a lot of rumors in Jiaozhou that were caused by Jiaozhou's surrender, he did not take them to heart.
However, it was not just the rumors that were ignored, but also Zuo Ci and Yu Ji who disappeared after Zhang Jin's defeat.
Because these two Taoist masters were in Zhang Jin's army, they were captured after Shi Xie's troops suddenly launched a counterattack against Zhang Jin. The former escaped with his extraordinary "magic magic", while the latter was taken to Chang'an along with Zhang Jin.
But on the eve of Zhang Jin's execution, Yu Ji disappeared from the prison.
There has been no news of these two people since then.
But in May and June of the fourth year of Jian'an, even the issue of whether the Grand Marshal had committed any usurpation was temporarily ignored by most people, so who would pay attention to the whereabouts of these two people?
In May, the drought in the Central Plains had become increasingly severe.
Even Qiao Yan, who had been thoroughly prepared for the drought, had to follow what Cheng Yu had reported to her earlier and plant drought-resistant sesame in the areas where the land was most dried up. She had to abandon the grain crops that were originally supposed to be planted and rely entirely on the material accumulation from previous years to maintain the stability of grain prices, not to mention in places like Jizhou and Yanzhou.
But the most troublesome thing is definitely not the drought!
It's not even a locust plague, for which the response strategy has already matured!
But it is - a pandemic.
A major epidemic caused by drought.
The scope of the war in the fourth year of Jian'an was actually quite small.
At best, there was the encirclement and suppression of the Shanyue in Yangzhou, the end of the North-South confrontation in Xuzhou, the several battles in which the Jiaozhou soldiers went north to attack Jingzhou, the clashes on the border of Jizhou and Youzhou, and the common frictions in various places.
Compared with the historical situation in which Li Jue and Guo Si were still wreaking havoc in Chang'an, the current situation is much better.
But even so, the people suffering from drought cannot be taken care of completely.
In this vast land of Central Plains, many people died of famine.
When these people who starved to death were not within the scope of Qiao Yan's care, the bodies were often not disposed of in a timely manner, and then these rotten bodies polluted the land and rivers.
"Mr. Yuanhua has been stationed in Liangzhou for several years, and has been very effective in preventing some diseases from being introduced from the Western Regions. Mr. Zhongjing started writing Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases, which systematically describes various epidemic diseases. In June, the four books of agriculture, industry, medicine and poetry were printed, and the book on medicine was further improved as a book on emergency prescriptions. Because of the Chiyang Medical College, government-run medical offices have been established in various places. "
"I thought the trouble we would face this year was just to dig the well a few feet deeper, so why is there still a major epidemic?"
When the infectious disease had already spread, Qiao Yan simply could not come up with a definite solution to the problem like digging a well or a canal. The only thing he could do was to race against death.
But she could defend the territory she managed, but not the rule of Yuan Shao.
It can defend against places where there are towns, but it cannot defend against those remote and poor areas where it is extremely difficult to even notify them!
Last year, many areas were not equipped with the corresponding equipment for well digging. This year...
After starting with the three states of Xuzhou, Yangzhou and Jiaozhou, even if these three places were not completely affected by the disaster, it was impossible to implement all the publicity in every village and pavilion.
She felt that it was because she had failed to unify the world quickly that the epidemic in the territories ruled by Yuan Shao and Cao Cao spread to her area along with the migration of population across the border.
She also thought that perhaps she was expanding her territory too quickly, which made it impossible for her to record every citizen in the territory.
But what is even more hateful are the powerful families guarding the fortress!
She has done her best to stabilize the grain prices in various counties, but when the wealthy families who own the land feel that their fields have reduced production, they do not rely on their accumulation of previous years to make ends meet, but without hesitation raise the knife of cutting wages to those hidden households that rely on them for existence!
"Wen Ruo, I thought I had been giving them concessions, compromising, and checks and balances so that they would remember that I was the one who made the rules, but it seems I was wrong."
After working non-stop for several days, the people infected with the epidemic in Luoyang were gathered together, and Xun Yu's face was full of fatigue. He even almost fell asleep when he finally got a chance to rest, but he was awakened by Qiao Yan's sudden words.
When he looked at this Sima who had a lot on his shoulders, he saw that the anger on the other's face that had risen at first because of the news had now turned into a torrent that seemed calm on the surface, with only a devouring vortex hidden in his eyes.
"I now understand that some things must be broken. Even if it means risking criticism and opposition from many people, only after breaking them can there be a chance for rebirth."
Xun Yu instinctively felt that Qiao Yan was not in the right mood at the moment, or that her extreme attitude at the moment was not doing any good to her already dangerous situation.
But as soon as he uttered the word "Your Majesty", he was interrupted by Qiao Yan.
"Wen Ruo, did you see the couple who came to escape today?"
"In the capital, which is only a dozen miles away from us, the owner of the fort allowed his subordinates to starve to death in order to save food, and buried the bodies at random. The disasters that followed were brought to Luoyang by the unbearable hermits, and were found to be amiss by the medical officers patrolling the surrounding area, and were directly sent to the unified jurisdiction."
"If we were just a little slower, Luoyang, which we managed to keep stable, would have to face disasters again. But should we blame them for this?"
"It is obvious that some people who have already enjoyed great wealth disregard the law and regard selfishness as normal. Because of the high-ranking officials and the protection of their families, they do whatever they want. But the world is not at peace yet, how dare they do this!"
Xun Yu sighed. He also understood the logic of what Qiao Yan said.
Even if he himself belongs to such a class, he would never be indifferent in the face of such a straightforward and naked transaction of life.
Every registered record of Luoyang citizens had passed through his hands, and every instruction for settling the people's livelihood had been carefully considered by him. He understood better than anyone that one person's opinion was more important than a thousand pounds.
But even if Qiao Yan wanted to make trouble, he would never...
Not now.
"I know what you want to persuade me." Qiao Yan said first, "I don't have the capital to be so willful. I know exactly what those people in Chang'an say about me, even though I haven't been there for several months."
"Because of the natural disaster, they dare not say it so bluntly. They can only say that I have worked hard to deceive the people in Luoyang and have completely controlled the rules of this place. Within three years, this place will definitely be my private property. By then, I can change the name of Leping Hou to Luoyang Hou!"
She stood in front of the window for a long time. Xun Yu looked at her back and saw that she did not show any sign of being overwhelmed. Instead, she looked more and more upright like a pine tree, intending to provide shade.
"Let's save the people first. We have to wait until the water surface calms down temporarily before we can replace them."
He didn't know if it was Xun Yu's illusion, but he felt that there was another meaning in Qiao Yan's words. However, as long as the disaster was not resolved, he would not have any free time to think about it.
The spread of the epidemic did not show signs of easing until the autumn winds arrived, leaving only the aftermath that could not cause any major waves.
When the autumn harvest came, even though everyone knew that this year's harvest was 30% less than last year, they all breathed a sigh of relief.
They had successfully survived another year.
For most people, this is already the best outcome.
But it seems that this year's twists and turns have not ended with the storage of grain and the lifting of quarantine.
But just one month after the autumn harvest ended——
On the 23rd day of the 10th month of the fourth year of Jian'an, the celestial phenomena suddenly changed, and a red gas penetrated the Purple Palace. 1:,n,
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