Chapter 32: Wang Situ

  The plan has changed, so some things need to be prepared carefully.

  Now the allied forces of the Eastern Wu have already killed to the Tiger Pass - in the Romance, the Shaoyang and the Tiger Pass became two passes, but actually it was just one place. In this world, although many big things are written according to the romance, these details are determined by facts.

  Dong Zhuo sent his general Hua Xiong to block the coalition's advance.

  Dong Zhuo originally wanted to send more capable people like Li Jue and Guo Si, but Hua Xiong, who had been defeated by Liu Chao with a single blow the previous time, felt that he had lost face in front of his lord, so this time he wanted to achieve merit and regain his position in Dong Zhuo's heart.

  As for Lü Bu? He actually took the initiative to ask for battle, but Dong Zhuo did not respond - at this time Lü Bu was the Hu Biao Zhong Lang Jiang, in charge of the Hu Biao army, equivalent to closely monitoring the emperor. The last time the emperor spoke out to protect Yuan Yi had already made Dong Zhuo realize that Liu Xuan, this emperor he had helped onto the throne, was not so obedient after all, so he became even more wary of him in his heart.

  In this situation, there were external concerns about the Eastern vassals and internal presence of old ministers like Taifu Yuan Wei. If Dong Zhuo was not careful enough, he might have been attacked from both inside and outside.

  After returning to the government office, he immediately called Li Ru, a strategist under his command, into the inner chamber for detailed discussion of this matter.

  "Now Yuan Shao claims to be the leader of the alliance, leading several dozen vassals from Guandong to attack Luoyang. If his uncle Yuan Wei joins forces with the old ministers in the court, I fear that things..."

  Dong Zhuo's intention was to eliminate the most pressing worry first, and among them, Yuan Shu was in the court, who he dreaded the most. If he were to lead an army to Tiger Trap to fight against the lords of Guandong, then this side of the imperial court must be stabilized.

  Li Ru disagreed, but he understood his father-in-law's temperament very well and could only say: "Although the lords of Guandong have formed an alliance now, they will not truly unite to fight us to the death. I think as long as we can exhaust their troops and supplies at Tiger Trap Pass, this so-called alliance will disperse."

  Dong Zhuo listened and suddenly came to his senses. What Li Ru said made a lot of sense - the lords of Guandong had dozens of routes, how could these people all be loyal ministers devoted to the Han court? If they were all loyal ministers, they would have risen up in arms to escort him when he entered the capital.

  After all these days, there are still people who widely spread the proclamation and responded accordingly. If they didn't respond, it would be inevitable that people would gossip behind their backs, damaging their reputation. That's why they brought troops to respond.

  Even among those with ambitions, it's not necessarily possible to break the tiger's cage. Do they have troops? Dong Zhuo also has a large army, when the time comes, on the battlefield, who will be afraid of whom?

  When it's hard to distinguish between victory and defeat, if you slightly offer some benefits in the name of the imperial court, these people will probably retreat. After all, their strength is based on the soldiers and horses in their hands. If they lose their soldiers and horses at Tiger Trap Pass, can they still protect their homes when they return?

  The Kanto heroes this time, first of all, each of them has revealed that they have troops at their disposal. As long as they are not fools, they will inevitably be wary of the surrounding heroes after returning - of course, there will also be those who want to take advantage of the situation to annex others and expand their own strength.

  In such a big environment, how can this group of people afford to spend money and risk their lives?

  Dong Zhuo suddenly burst out laughing: "I thought the heroes of this world were so numerous, but it turns out they're just a bunch of jesters!"

  Haha laughed loudly, without hiding it, and said directly in a loud voice: "However, that little emperor dared to disobey me, I must make him understand who is in charge of this court!"

  After a moment's thought, he asked Li Ru: "What about King Hongnong and Empress He of late?"

  Li Ru immediately understood what Dong Zhuo meant and echoed: "There have been guards who said that the King of Hongnong seems to have some grievances against the Prime Minister..."

  "The Emperor, after all, was helped to the throne by us, and it's not good to abolish him now. Since that's the case, let's just give him a warning for now!" As he spoke, his face was full of ferocity: "The King of Hongnong doesn't know what's good for him, keeping him will only bring disaster!"

  After Li Ru gave him a look, his son-in-law immediately understood and bowed to take his leave.

  At this time, Liu Xuan was in his own palace, listening to Xun Yu telling him all the words he had heard at Wang Yun's banquet.

  Originally, Xun Yu did not want the Emperor to know about this matter. To put it nicely, it was to eliminate the treacherous officials in the court; to put it bluntly, it was a group of ministers vying with Dong Zhuo for power and profit. Whoever won would have nothing to do with the Emperor - the real power would still be in the hands of the ministers, and the best thing for the Emperor to do would be to sit quietly on his throne like a statue.

  As for governing the world, pacifying the four directions, and reviving the Han dynasty, these tasks are naturally left to those renowned ministers whose names will be remembered for eternity. The emperor can still gain a reputation for knowing how to use people well, what a joyful scene it is!

  However, Liu Xuan would not accept this situation. Xun Yu also saw that Liu Xuan was not the kind of emperor who could tolerate being controlled by others. Although those officials were jubilant today, once Dong Zhuo was eliminated, it's likely that those old ministers wouldn't have a good ending either.

  Xun Shuang has already fallen deeply into it, and it's probably hard to get out now. But he and his nephew Xun Yu haven't thoroughly fallen in yet, so they can still escape for the time being.

  What's more important, Xun Yu saw that among the old ministers in the court who wanted to break with Dong Zhuo, not many could achieve anything - these people may be good at intriguing and fighting on the court, if in a peaceful year, they might have succeeded, and even manipulated the emperor.

  But now they have already become a chaotic world, their methods are even more vicious, and in the end, they may not be able to withstand that sword.

  If Liu Xuan knew about Xun Yu's judgment of those people, he would probably immediately raise his evaluation of Xun Yu by several levels, because Mr. Xun Wenruo's judgment has been proven correct in "history".

  As for Xun Yu, this Xun Gongda is not incapable of seeing the problem, but currently he can only rely on a few people, and he is unclear about Liu Xuan's character and means, so he does not look favorably upon this young emperor. In this situation, he will choose to get close to the many old ministers in the imperial court who are also from the scholar-official class, which is also understandable.

  Now that his uncle had reminded him, Xun Yu immediately understood that his young uncle thought Liu Xuan was a rare wise ruler, or the kind of emperor who could truly control the court and hold great power. Now he wanted to stand on the side of the Emperor.

  Although he still had some doubts in his heart, he was quite confident in his uncle's vision. So when Liu Xuan asked him, he didn't hide anything and directly told him about today's events.

  "So, Wang Situ is planning to collaborate with the Guandong Allied Army in a pincer movement?"

  "Yes!"

  Liu Xuan listened for a while with disdain: "Inside and outside, what can he respond to? Is he relying on the two hundred Tieqi of Huangfu Yi?"

  Although the officials of the court all have their own family soldiers guarding their residences, how many can they add up to? I'm afraid they can't even control a single city of Luoyang. If you really want to control Luoyang and drive out Dong Zhuo's troops, at the very least, you need to control one route of regular garrison troops in the capital, or at the very least, the guards at the city gates can be used to cope with it.

  Xun Yu's face also turned uncomfortable after hearing Liu Xuan's words. He recalled that at today's banquet, both Taifu Yang Biao and Sishu Wang Yun believed that as long as Dong Zhuo was eliminated, the enemy would collapse without a fight. With the name of the Emperor to intimidate the minor officials, it was certain that no one would dare to jump out and confront the entire court.

  To put it simply, he tried to intimidate people with grand righteousness, but Wang Yun overlooked one thing - in this chaotic era where the truth is already apparent, grand righteousness isn't as valuable as he thought.

  Liu Xuan remembered that in the original history, Wang Yun had made this mistake. After Dong Zhuo was killed, Lü Bu quickly pacified the internal chaos of Chang'an with his troops, but Wang Yun thought it was because the bandit leader was eliminated and the enemy army collapsed on its own - at that time, most of Dong Zhuo's generals were stationed outside and did not organize their troops to create chaos in the first place.

  After taking control of the power, he really thought that relying on the orthodox name of the royal family could make the world surrender. He directly rejected the request for pardon from the northwest army and eventually led to the northwest army counterattacking Chang'an, re-controlling the court, and himself ending up with a tragic death.

  At that time, Wang Yun had many options - to pardon the crimes of all or some of them, or even to let Huangfu Song, a man with a reputation in the Western Liang army, win over those soldiers, but Wang Yun did not adopt any of these.

  Perhaps thinking that standing on the side of justice makes one invincible, but unexpectedly the Northwestern Army doesn't care about your so-called justice. Since you want to take my life, I'll take yours first.

  Someone once commented on this period of time, saying that Jia Xu played a very important role at this time, because it was his plan that caused the Han Dynasty to completely collapse and opened the curtain for the heroes to compete for hegemony.

  If you really want to find the root cause, Wang Yun is the root cause of all this. If he had changed his approach a little bit, the world could have been stable for a few more years.

  With such an impression, Liu Xuan's evaluation of Wang Yun was not high. Moreover, Wang Yun's killing of Dong Zhuo was not really for any great righteousness, but rather for the sake of contending for power.

  Never thought that Wang Yun would come up with this again, Liu Xuan did not want him to make a fuss and ruin his own plans. He had no choice but to instruct Xun Yu: "Gong Da, go out of the palace and invite Wang Sikou in, saying that I have something to discuss with him!"

  Liu Xuan rarely used the self-appellation "Zhen" in his daily life, but once he did, it was equivalent to issuing an imperial decree. Xun Yu personally received the order and took advantage of the palace gate not being closed yet to leave directly.

  But before they could move, Liu Xuan spoke again: "Also summon the Hu Ben Zhong Lang Jiang Lü Bu and the Yu Lin Zhong Lang Jiang Cao Cao."

  Xun Yu was shocked and called Cao Cao, who could still understand that it was just to make Wang Yun understand the power in the hands of the Son of Heaven, don't be reckless. But what's the point of calling Lü Bu in?

  As he walked out of the palace, he thought to himself and by the time he reached the gate, he understood: "Your Majesty wants to bring the Hu Ben army back under his command?"

  The reason is not hard to think of, but because it's too unbelievable, Xun Yu didn't consider this aspect at first. When he thought of this point, the originally scattered details were suddenly connected together.

  "This young emperor... can he really bring prosperity back to this crumbling world?"