Volume 1 I Want to Be an Emperor Chapter 22 The True Enemy

  The Tianzi Dragon Qi skill is to condense the true dragon in the body, and the cultivation process even simulates a dragon's birth to growth to some extent.

  Dragon egg is an indispensable and even very important stage at this time.

  Only after going through this stage and hatching the young dragon can one be considered to have truly entered the threshold of this skill - if Liu Xuan was only standing at the entrance of cultivation before, then once he practiced out the young dragon, he could truly call himself a cultivator.

  By then, without mentioning anything else, that one move, Half Moon Slash, can be executed at will, no longer requiring the use of Overdrive to boost power before using it.

  At the same time, once you reach that stage, you can also master another more practical move - if Liu Xuan, who currently masters the aura and half-moon slash, is a super powerful general who can take the head of the commander-in-chief in the midst of thousands of troops as easily as taking something from his pocket, then once he can use that move, the so-called thousand-strong army will be no stronger than straw to him, and he can truly kill tens of thousands of soldiers like cutting grass.

  However, those are still a bit far away from Liu Xuan's current state. He has just condensed the dragon egg and needs more dragon energy to nourish the dragon egg in his body. The amount of dragon energy required and consumed is much more than the total amount he absorbed in the past twenty years. With the remaining dragon energy in this late dynasty, it is impossible for him to complete this stage.

  "In that case, we still need to think of a way to boost this last bit of declining dragon energy."

  Fortunately, during this period, Liu Xuan could not use the mysterious technique or any special moves, but he was also not afraid of any evil techniques that harmed people when he was warming up the dragon egg. The so-called "eggshell" played a protective role to some extent, and Liu Xuan, who had condensed the dragon egg in his body, was also protected by this dragon egg.

  To put it bluntly, he can't harm others, but others can't harm him easily either. To achieve this, one must be able to defeat him with overwhelming force in a direct confrontation, or possess far greater magical powers than Liu Xuan's to ignore the protection of the dragon egg and use magic to harm Liu Xuan.

  "With my current martial power, even without any magical techniques available, I'm afraid there's no one in the world who can defeat me. Moreover, now that I've ascended to the throne as Emperor, with sufficient troops and guards by my side, it's almost impossible for ordinary people to harm me! The only possible means is to use some sinister magic to secretly harm me, but under the protection of the dragon energy, I am immune to these tactics."

  After careful consideration, his safety is still nothing to worry about, it's just that without the help of magic, the contest with Dong Zhuo will likely be slightly unfavorable for a while.

  "It seems like I still need to endure for a while longer!"

  However, this was originally part of the plan, and even in Liu Xuan's plan, the conquest of Dong Zhuo was a 'major historical event' that could not be erased.

  For Liu Xuan, it was not about restoring the former glory of the Han Dynasty - in fact, the corruption and collapse of the Han Dynasty were irreversible. Even if Liu Xuan had more talent, he could not have established a powerful empire on this piece of ruins.

  It's like Liu Xuan wanting to build a high-rise building, but the foundation is already on the verge of collapse. No matter how capable Liu Xuan is, even if he manages to build the high-rise, it will still be something that can't withstand even a slight wind or rain. The real solution is to thoroughly destroy the original ruins and rebuild the foundation from scratch.

  So what he wants to do is actually to occupy the name of the master of the world first, and then wait for the Han dynasty to be completely destroyed, and then re-establish a new dynasty!

  In the final collapse of the Han Dynasty in history, the vassals' rebellion against Dong was a very crucial factor!

  In this campaign, the Kanto daimyos thoroughly realized that the Han court had no deterrent power at present. With their own troops, they could develop their own forces at will and even swallow up surrounding forces without looking at the face of the imperial court.

  This situation reached a peak after Dong Zhuo moved the capital to Chang'an - what is known as the simultaneous rise of various heroes occurred during this period. The warlords in Guandong, without any restraints, began frequent wars of annexation, and this situation continued until Cao Cao brought Emperor Xian to Xu City and stabilized the vassals.

  Liu Xuan hoped that they would fight, because only then would those who truly made the Han dynasty decline and many hidden villains emerge. Only when that time came, Liu Xuan would use the name of pacifying the chaos to exterminate these guys one by one, and he could thoroughly eliminate these hidden crises.

  As for these so-called hidden troubles of the dynasty, in short, there is nothing extraordinary: aristocratic families!

  These so-called big families, big clans have never put the interests of the country and dynasty in their eyes. In their eyes, their own family is the most important thing. Liu Xuan does not need the existence of these guys - what's more disgusting is that these guys think they are high above and can even decide who belongs to the world, which is not something Liu Xuan can tolerate.

  It's not that Liu Xuan can't accept a certain degree of cliques or small forces, but he can't accept these people putting their personal and even group interests above the entire dynasty. If every family is like this, what's left for him to rule?

  As soon as some decrees threaten the interests of these groups, they will immediately think of ways to destroy them, and what losses the country will suffer as a result. They never consider this.

  These situations have almost run through the history of all dynasties in the Central Plains, and although Liu Xuan is not particularly familiar with this situation, he also knows how frustrating it is. What he needs to do now is to destroy these door-to-door families from the root.

  Once Liu Xuan started doing these things, his reputation would be ruined - in history, emperors who opposed these aristocratic families were all labeled as foolish or tyrannical rulers without exception.

  However, Liu Xuan didn't care. The fundamental reason was that Liu Xuan had the immortal cultivation method in his hands, and he could truly achieve immortality. Those aristocratic families, no matter how powerful they were, would be completely destroyed as long as they opposed him. At the same time, these aristocratic families' greatest reliance - their control over the transmission of knowledge - made them the main providers for any dynasty's officials. Therefore, even if any ruler realized the harm caused by the aristocratic families, they were still powerless to do anything about it.

  This point posed no threat to Liu Xuan, as long as he could initially control a region and recruit some truly loyal talents, then he could also let these talents have endless lifespan.

  The scholar-officials cannot infiltrate the imperial court with their own trained talents, then they are no different from a group of mad dogs barking wildly.

  Returning to the current situation, the world's chaotic trend has already formed. Although these aristocratic families are detestable, they are indeed the smartest and most farsighted group of people in this era. They must have seen that the Han dynasty is declining, and changing dynasties has almost become an inevitable trend.

  When the heroes rise together, it is the time for these aristocratic families to place their bets - small families will wholeheartedly choose a lord they think is worth assisting; while large families will have more choices, and they may even place bets on several lords at the same time.

  The most famous one is the Zhuge family - the three families of the Zhuge clan, during the later Three Kingdoms period, all three kingdoms had members of the Zhuge family, no matter which kingdom unified the world, the Zhuge family could continue to pass on, only they did not expect that in the end they would be usurped by the Sima clan.

  Similar is Xunshi, but Xunshi's annotations are earlier and all the selected ones are northern vassals, so in the end they all belong to the Cao Wei family.

  Liu Xuan hoped that these people would all jump out, and then he could properly and justifiably capture this group of 'treacherous officials'.

  It was with this intention that he let Yuan Shao off lightly at first, because Yuan Shao came from the powerful Yuan clan, and the Yuan clan had a reputation for producing three prime ministers in four generations. Many scholars throughout the land were connected to the Yuan family, and once the east of the pass fell into chaos and various heroes rose up, the Yuan family would inevitably occupy an extremely important position, and countless scholars would flock to join them.

  To put it bluntly, Yuan Shao is a huge bait left by Liu Xuan. He hopes that Yuan Shao can become the strongest warlord in Guandong like his previous life, and thus lure out more aristocratic families.

  Only then would Yuan Shao be worth killing!

  As for whether he can defeat Yuan Shao?

  Liu Xuan had never thought that he would lose, as long as everything went smoothly. At that time, Liu Xuan would have at least occupied the land of Guanzhong and possessed countless elite soldiers and war horses. He also had various cultivation methods to enhance his generals' strength and quality in his hands. Even with some small tricks, he could guarantee a steady supply of food and grass. If such an overwhelming force that had already exceeded human understanding still couldn't destroy Yuan Shao, then Liu Xuan might as well find a place to hide and never come out again for the rest of his life.

  It can be said that Liu Xuan had already considered his future development direction before he truly ascended to the throne, and the reason why he chose Guanzhong was simple - this region had fewer aristocratic families, compared to places like Guandong, Jingzhou, and Yuzhou in the Central Plains where one could easily run into a member of a powerful clan. Because Guanzhong was always under threat from foreign tribes such as the Xiongnu and Qiang, few clans had taken root and developed here.

  Another point is that the quality of soldiers in the Kansai region is extremely good, in other words, if you want to popularize the practice of martial arts and improve the combat effectiveness of soldiers, the soldiers trained here have an innate advantage.

  It was for these reasons that Liu Xuan ultimately chose this direction of development, so he not only had to let Dong Zhuo continue to be arrogant, but also had to think of ways to make the vassals discuss Dong and move the capital to Chang'an as they did in 'history'.

  "However, Cao Cao is now serving in the imperial court and I have him under control. He won't flee from the capital again because of assassinating Dong Zhuo. Who knows who will issue a decree to capture him?"

  After some thought, I think such an opportunity to gain fame should be noticed by many clever people, right?

  "If all else fails, send someone to secretly visit a certain daimyo in the Kanto region and give them a little nudge! I'm sure those daimyos won't let slip an opportunity to gain fame like this!"