In a world of great strife, not taking the initiative to fight is tantamount to committing suicide slowly.
If Cao Cao wants to avoid being annexed by other princes and participate in the subsequent struggle for world hegemony, he must restore Yanzhou to its vitality as soon as possible, and this will require a large number of talents to govern Yanzhou.
However, the Yanzhou family was too weak and could not provide so many talents, so Cao Cao had no choice but to rely on poor families.
Cao Cao was born into a noble family, so he was naturally afraid of offending the noble family. However, after discussing with Cheng Yu, Xun You and Bigan for a long time, Cao Cao came to another conclusion, that is, Yang Guang started this pioneering work. Even if Cao Cao imitated it, the noble family would not
I will never hate him as much as Yang Guang.
As expected by everyone in Cao Wei, although Cao Cao implemented the imperial examination after Yang Guang, its impact was much greater than Yang Guang's imperial examination. However, because Yang Guang was in front of him to attract hatred, the family did not transfer the hatred to him.
On the contrary, it attracted many children from aristocratic families to defect to him.
Chen Qun, Mao Jie, Lu Qian, Dong Zhao, Jiang Ji, Xiang Chong, Jiang Qian, Yang Xun, He Kui, Li Tong, Yan Ming, Zheng Hun, Linghu Shao, Kong Xiu, Han Fu...etc.
Many civil and military elites, either from aristocratic families or from poor families, all gathered under Cao Cao's command because of the imperial examination.
Among the civil servants, the most outstanding talents were Chen Qun, Mao Jie, Lu Qian, Dong Zhao, Jiang Ji, and Xiang Chong. Chen Qun in particular was a member of the "nine-grade Zhongzheng system" in the official selection system of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
As well as the main founder of Cao Wei's law "Wei Lv".
As for the generals who came to submit, there was only one super first-rate master, Li Tong, and the rest were either second-rate or first-rate. However, for Cao Cao, who was thirsty for talents, having these people was already very good.
Cao Cao gained a large number of talents by opening up schools and recruiting scholars, and he also knew how to make good use of people, dispatching talented talents to various places, and at the same time started business with the Qin army.
Yanzhou, under the blossoming of business and politics, has developed extremely rapidly as a result, and its vitality has gradually recovered. Of course, it is definitely impossible to fully recover.
After unifying Yanzhou, Cao Cao launched an all-out construction mode, and even gave up the fight for Jianghuai.
Although Cao Cao also coveted the Jianghuai granary, his family was not rich enough and he did not have enough confidence to compete with Zhu Yuanzhang.
In addition, Yanzhou is the place of the Fourth War, and there are no princes around it to mess with. If we expand our strength so quickly, it will only arouse the vigilance of the princes, and ultimately they will end up being strangled together.
Therefore, since he is destined to lose Jianghuai, Cao Cao might as well keep an open mind and sit back and watch Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhao Kuangyin, and Yuan Shu fight among themselves.
Seeing that Cao Cao did not intervene in the Jianghuai War and was carrying out various construction projects in Yanzhou, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately saw that Cao Cao was strong on the outside and cadre on the inside, and wondered whether he should deal with Cao Cao first?
Since Zhu Yuanzhang had already sent troops to Jianghuai, using troops against Cao Cao was equivalent to fighting on two fronts. Naturally, he could not commit such a military taboo, so he could only wait until he captured Jianghuai before turning his guns.
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang still wanted to join forces with the Ming Dynasty in Jizhou to send troops from Jizhou, Qingzhou, Xuzhou, and Jianghuai. The troops would be divided into four directions to attack Yanzhou at the same time. Cao Cao would be able to take care of his head but could not, and he would definitely be defeated by the Ming army.
The battle resulted in complete destruction.
Cao Cao, who was concentrating on building Yanzhou, didn't know that he had been targeted by Zhu Yuanzhang. If Zhu Yuanzhang's plan could really be implemented, even if he had an army of 200,000, it would be impossible to resist the Ming army without external intervention.
Three-way attack.
Of course, Qin Hao was already preparing to incorporate Ming Ting, so Zhu Yuanzhang's plan was destined to fail, and Cao Cao also saved his life because of Qin Hao.
Although Cao Cao temporarily gave up on Jianghuai, he would not give up the opportunity to profit from it. He thought of selling military supplies to Yuan Shu and receiving several times the income from Yuan Shu in terms of money and food, thus feeding back into the construction of Yanzhou.
Anyway, Yuan Shu is probably so poor now that he only has money and food left. Jianghuai's military strength will definitely be inexhaustible. It is better to use it in exchange for supplies to fight against Zhu Yuanzhang.
But there are only a handful of people who are willing to support Yuan Shu. After all, he attacked Nanyang and offended Qin Hao to death, and Qin Hao now represents the orthodoxy of the Han Dynasty. Yuan Shu has been labeled as a traitor. Helping Yuan Shu is tantamount to being in trouble with the Qin army, so there is no way
No prince dared to provide support to Yuan Shu.
Although the relationship between Cao Cao and Qin Hao was good, they did not dare to help Yuan Shu openly. They could only conduct transactions secretly in exchange for precious construction resources for Yanzhou.
Although the deal between Cao Cao and Yuan Shu was to take advantage of the situation, he was the only one who was still willing to help Yuan Shu. Therefore, Yuan Shu had to be the scapegoat no matter whether he wanted to or not.
In order to develop the internal affairs of Yanzhou, Cao Cao also took great pains, even at the risk of offending Qin Hao, to obtain money and food from Jianghuai Yuan Shu.
In addition, Cao Cao also did another crazy thing, which was to set up a gold-touching school captain to rob tombs and use the grave goods of the dead in exchange for money and food needed for development.
In fact, as early as the outbreak of the Yanzhou War, Cao Cao had set up a gold captain.
At that time, Cao Cao was under the siege of the four major princes of Yanzhou and the five forces of Li Zicheng. After being completely cornered, Cao Cao could even do such things as using human flesh as military rations, so what else could he do?
Not coming out? Tomb robbing is already considered low-level.
It is said that the first tomb stolen by Cao Cao's Captain Mojin was that of Liu Wu, King Xiao of Liang in Mangdang Mountain, Yongcheng.
Liang Xiaowang Liu Wu was the son of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty and the younger brother of Emperor Jing. He had a land of 300 miles and could be said to be extremely wealthy. However, the biggest regret in his life was that he did not reach the Ninth Five-Year Plan.
Since he could not "fulfill his dream" in this world, Liu Wu planned to complete it after his death, so he built a huge mausoleum so that he could enjoy the emperor's pleasure after his death. The towering shape of his mausoleum and the richness of the burial materials were simply breathtaking.
The reason why Cao Cao was able to persist in shooting Li Zicheng and even unifying Yanzhou despite almost running out of oil was largely because he robbed Liu Wu's tomb and relied on the rich burial objects in Liu Wu's tomb.
I went through the most difficult period of my life.
Of course, once news of tomb robbing comes out, the Taoist defenders will definitely criticize them, and even Qin Gong Qin Hao will be 'alarmed'.
Seeing that Qin Haoxian's envoy came to hold him to account, Cao Cao also knew that the matter was serious, so he could only temporarily disband Mojin Xiaowei to avoid the limelight first, and wait for the limelight to pass, depending on the situation.
Now that Cao Cao has unified Yanzhou, Qin Hao will definitely not offend him for robbing tombs. After all, there are many tomb robbers in troubled times, and Cao Cao is not the only one to do this. Many princes have a team dedicated to tomb robbing.
Team.
Feeling confident, Cao Cao resumed his old business, this time targeting the tomb of Huainan King Liu An.