Liu Hongcai did not agree to He Jin's alternative plan, and issued another decree, asking He Jin to personally dispatch. If he did not dispatch, he would be disobeying the decree, disobeying the emperor's order, and would be punished!
He Jin was very angry, but he had no choice. He was the emperor, and he could not control him in terms of justice and status, but he did not want to give others the leverage, so he discussed with Yuan Wei a plan to delay the war.
He Jin could accept the appointment, but he had to say that the troops under his command were too large to be used, and most of them were old and weak. He would need to recruit troops from other places and wait for the recruitment to be completed before going out.
On the other side, He Jin and Yuan Wei planned to pay Liu Yan to bribe Liu Yan to increase his efforts to destroy the Yellow Turban Army, or to tell the court that he could deal with the Xuzhou Yellow Turbans by himself and did not need the court to send reinforcements, so as to prevent Liu Hong from diverting the tiger from the mountain.
possible.
In short, a two-pronged approach was adopted, and he could not leave Luoyang no matter what, and he could not give Liu Hong a chance to cause trouble.
Seeing that his tricks were not working, Liu Hong was very anxious. He spent the last day of the fifth year of Zhongping in depression, and ushered in the sixth year of Zhongping in an even more depressed mood.
At the beginning of the year, Liu Hong got drunk from drinking a lot of wine, and because he was so hot from playing with his beloved concubine, he went out naked to "cool" in the cold night.
Such a suicide attempt was of course a desperate move. Liu Hong contracted the cold and became seriously ill. He lay in bed for more than half a month before he could recover.
After contracting the cold this time, Liu Hong felt that his body was not as good as before. Even after the symptoms disappeared, he often felt tired, didn't sleep enough, and felt weak.
The doctor told him not to drink alcohol, not to have sex with women, and to rest more and eat more light food to recuperate his body. It would take a year and a half before his body could recover as before.
But how could Liu Hong's body, which was accustomed to alcohol and sex, withstand the "torture" of quitting drinking and sex?
He went his own way, and the result was that he had many physical problems, and was forced to take medicine every day, but he was unwilling to follow the doctor's instructions to stop drinking, sex, and food taboos. As a result, his illness kept coming back and forth, but he never got better.
In fact, Liu Hong also has major emotional problems.
Because of his anxiety and sense of urgency, his psychological pressure is very high. He needs indulgent ways to relieve the pressure, otherwise he feels that sooner or later he will be driven crazy by the pressure of He and Yuan.
Since the beginning of the new year, Queen He tried to meet Liu Hong many times. Occasionally, Liu Hong relented and asked her to come to see her. However, when she met Queen He, she said how difficult it was for He and how he took the most credit, and asked Liu Hong what happened.
He was reluctant to attack Mr. He, and his words contained many complaints.
Liu Hong was furious and stopped seeing Queen He. He gradually lost control of his mood and became more and more irritable. In this situation, except for drinking and indulgence, he really had no other way to relieve stress.
He is also quite difficult.
At the end of the first month of the sixth year of Zhongping, Liu Hong asked Jian Shuo to ask Liu Bei again how the preparations were and whether it was time to set off. Then he finally got the news that Liu Bei was almost ready and would be able to set off in a few days.
Liu Hong was so happy about this that he drank a lot of wine to celebrate. As a result, he lay on the hospital bed unable to get up, and his body became increasingly weak.
When he was ill, Jian Shuo reported to him many times that He Jin and Yuan Wei were having trouble in private.
For example, they contacted officials from the DPRK and China everywhere, made friends with them, gave them gifts, and tried to win them over. Most officials in the entire court did not refuse He Jin and Yuan Wei's attempts to win over them, and even some officials from the Jinwen school accepted He Jin's offer in private.
bona fide.
Only a few ministers such as Lu Zhi, Xun Shuang, Fu Qian, Cai Yong, and Ma Rixi explicitly rejected He Jin's solicitation.
However, they were also opposed to abolishing elders and establishing young ones. They did not want to stand with Liu Hong, but they just did not want to get too close to He Jin, Yuan Wei and others.
Liu Hong was worried on the bed.
"As a Taiwei, Lu Zhi has the power to open a mansion, but he cannot fight against Yuan Wei and He Jin. As a result, He Jin and Yuan Wei are so powerful that they cannot be contained. He is really incompetent. If I had known this, I would have been better off.
Recall him at once and make him a captain!"
Liu Hong's words were not angry words, he was really dissatisfied with Lu Zhi.
As a Taiwei with the power to open a mansion and the inheritor of "Zuo's Spring and Autumn Annals", Lu Zhi himself also had a strong attraction for scholars all over the world. Many scholars wanted to join Lu Zhi's sect and become his disciples.
, working hard for him.
But Lu Zhi didn't like too many people taking refuge in him. He was worried that if too many people took refuge in him, his followers would be mixed, and some people would rely on his reputation to do bad things, ruining his reputation.
Lu Zhi believed that since he wanted to become the leader of the Ancient Literature School, he must have an impeccable reputation, so he valued reputation more than anything else. He adopted an attitude of preferring those who lacked to those who failed, and the selection process was extremely strict.
He must have both talent and moral character. The selection criteria are directly close to those of Liu Bei. He must have both ability and moral character. He must have both moral character and talent.
But are there many such people?
At the beginning, many people wanted to join Lu Zhi's disciples with strong enthusiasm, but soon, this enthusiasm was blocked by Lu Zhi's high demands.
From the time Lu Zhi started recruiting disciples, until the ancient literature school split and Lu Zhi lost power, Lu Zhi only recruited a dozen disciples in total, and he had no disciples at all. It was not easy to recommend anyone, and in the end he simply stopped accepting anyone.
Visit him.
There were some officials whom he valued and promoted because of their ability, but most of them were serving as county magistrates in other places, because Lu Zhi believed that talents who were useful to the country should go to local places to practice and hone their administrative skills, and then return to Luoyang to share the king's worries.
Therefore, overall, the number of officials in Lu Zhi's mansion is far less than that of Yuan Kai's Situ mansion.
Therefore, Lu Zhi could not compete with Yuan Wei in terms of political power. Although they both belonged to the Three Gongs, Yuan Wei could mobilize much more manpower and material resources than Lu Zhi.
In Liu Hong's view, with your status, why can't you further expand your strength and fight against Yuan Wei?
As long as Lu Zhi has some personal power, Liu Hong doesn't need to bother Liu Bei so much.
"In the final analysis, there is only one person I can trust. The others are either too selfish or have strange behavior. They can be trusted, but their abilities are insufficient..."
"Don't worry, Your Majesty, Liu will be back soon."
Jian Shuo could only persuade Liu Hong, comfort Liu Hong, and make Liu Hong feel at ease.
Liu Hong was silent for a while and suddenly thought of something.
"Although I recalled him, I can only compete with the army in terms of the He family, the Yuan family, and the court. They are not very powerful. The Yuan family and the He family can open mansions, but they don't have the qualifications. How can they fight against them?"
Where's the He family and the Yuan family?"
Liu Hong planned to appoint Liu Bei as a representative of the Liu family.
He felt that as long as Liu Bei was managing power in the court, no matter what happened, even if Liu Bian became emperor, he would not be easily influenced by the He family and the Yuan family.
The clan of the Han Dynasty had representatives, and the clan had power, so relatives and scholars could not bully the emperor, and the emperor had helpers.
However, Liu Bei only held the position of Shangshu Pushe in Luoyang City before. He had power but no status and could not win over to build his own political power. Now Liu Bei's power is mainly concentrated in Liangzhou and Yizhou, and in Luoyang
This power is lacking.
On the contrary, the Yuan family and the He family were powerful in Luoyang and had many minions. Liu Bei had just arrived. If he was not prepared, he might suffer a loss.
Jian Shuo did not know much about these matters and could not give Liu Hong a good adviser. Liu Hong had no one to discuss with.
In his depression, Liu Hong finally remembered the Shi Changshi who he had neglected for several months, as well as Zhang Rang and Zhao Zhong.