Chapter 59 imperial dream

Cao Cao rested for a whole year in the 15th year of Jian'an. Except for publishing the famous "Rang County Self-Ming Ben Zhi Ling", he did not do any major things. At the beginning of the 16th year of Jian'an, the "Shang Yao Rebellion" occurred in Bingzhou.Cao Cao sent Xia Houyuan and Xu Huang to crusade.In March, Cao Cao suddenly announced that he would start war against Lu, the leader of Wudou Mijiao who ruled in Hanzhong. Hanzhong refers to the southern part of Shaanxi Province today, with the Qinling Mountains and the Daba Mountains as the boundary, forming an independent geographical block, where Zhang Lu practiced his Taoist ideal of founding a country.Cao Cao's declaration of war against Zhang Lu was like a butterfly flapping its wings in North America. Zhang Lu, who was named, didn't react too much. On the contrary, other separatist forces were caught in a tornado.

First of all, the small warlords entrenched in the Guanzhong area, when they heard that Cao Cao was going to attack Hanzhong through their territory, they immediately jumped up as if they had been stabbed in the ass by a needle.They formed an alliance, and under the leadership of Han Sui and Ma Chao, they entered Tongguan and challenged Cao Cao.For the next year, Cao Cao devoted himself to dealing with these fierce Xiliang troops. The second butterfly effect of Cao Cao's attack on Zhang Lu was to facilitate Liu Bei's entry into Shu. Here we must tell the story of Yizhou from the beginning.

Yizhou is located in the southwestern border of the empire. It is the largest state among the thirteen states and can be divided into three blocks: the north, the middle, and the south.The northernmost part is the Hanzhong Basin, which is long and narrow from east to west, and the Han River flows through it from west to east, connecting with the Xiangyang area of ​​Jingzhou.The central part is the Bashu Plain, which is equivalent to today's Sichuan Province and is the essence of Yizhou.The south is the south central area including today's Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the West Yunnan Rift Valley.At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Han culture had just entered this area. In the eyes of the northern empires, this was a standard "barren land" and "a land outside the culture".

The Bashu Plain in the center of Yizhou can be divided into two regions, "East and Bashu". The Bajun County in the east is roughly centered on Jiangzhou (today's Chongqing). In the mountainous area, to the east it follows the Yangtze River through the Three Gorges and connects with Jingzhou. As for the Shu land in the west, the Chengdu Plain is the center. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were three counties: Shu County, Guanghan, and Qianwei, known as the "Three Shus". Chengdu City is located at the junction of Shu County and Guanghan County.Along the Fujiang River to the north is the famous ancient Shu Road, passing through important passes such as Luocheng, Mianzhu, Fucheng, Zitong, and Jiameng, and directly entering Yangping Pass in Hanzhong.This area is not only economically prosperous, but also the place where Han culture first took root.The great writer Sima Xiangru and the philosopher Yang Xiong of the Western Han Dynasty both came from Chengdu, which shows that the cultural level here is no less than that in the Central Plains.

In addition to cultural development, the economy of the Bashu region reached a fairly high level in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. In addition to the development of agriculture on the fertile plains, the mining of well salt, medicinal materials, and various minerals injected considerable wealth into Bashu. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the total population of Yizhou reached 7 million. "The Book of the Later Han The Fifth Lun Biography" has a saying: "The land of Shu is fertile, the people are rich and solid, and the historians have as many as tens of millions.That is to say, the land of Shu Kingdom was fertile and fertile at that time, and all the officials were rich and well-off. Even the small civil servants in charge of financial management in the government had tens of millions of property in their families. They had brand-new cars, fat horses, and exquisite clothing. , Luxurious life, they are naturally prominent because of their large assets.

To put it bluntly, this is a very rich place. However, although the culture is developed and the economy is rich, Yizhou is a marginal area after all for the northern empire. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were very few people who were born in Yizhou and became Sangong, Jiuqing or generals, and they were slightly more remote. It's just Jiaozhou, which is very different from Jingzhou, Yanzhou and other places where high-ranking officials and prominent families can get two thousand shi for one vote. In addition, probably due to relatively good public security in Bashu, it is rare for aristocratic families to raise family soldiers. On the contrary, in the southern and central regions, the aboriginal-based aristocratic forces posed a considerable threat to the subsequent Shuhan regime.

Generally speaking, Bashu is a place with rich economy and weak politics.The local aristocrats are rich but powerless, and the entire area is intertwined with aristocrats, ethnic minorities, and religious forces. The lack of overwhelming power makes the rule of foreign regimes more complicated. The "two herd regimes (Liu Yan, Liu Zhang)" at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty were built on this complex foundation. In the first year of Zhongping in the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 184), the Yellow Turban Rebellion in the East reached its climax. Yizhou people and horse ministers also took the name of Yellow Turban and gathered more than 100,000 people in the Sanshu area.Zhang Xiu of Berkshire used the "five buckets of rice" to gather congregants in Berkshire, Hanzhong and other places, rebelling against the Han and standing on his own, and the whole Yizhou fell into anarchy.

Liu Yan was originally from Jiangxia, Jingzhou. After Liu Yu, the son of Emperor Jing of Lu, King Lu Gong, his blood and family background are obviously more reliable than Liu Bei.After the young Liu Yan practiced at the grassroots for a period of time, he was worshiped as a doctor, and later he was promoted as a virtuous founder, an official to Taichang, and in charge of royal etiquette.Liu Yan is a man who is good at speculation and has ambitions. He sees that the Eastern Han Empire is exhausted and something will happen if he stays in Luoyang, so he wants to find a distant place to be sent abroad, as the emperor who is beyond the control of the king of heaven and Lao Tzu.

At first, Liu Yan wanted to escape to Jiaozhi, the corner of the world.However, his good friend Dong Fu, who was from Guanghan in Yizhou and served as a servant at the time, told him that Yizhou had the spirit of the emperor, so he changed his mind and suggested to the empire: "The current governors of the state are only supervisors, with too little power. Unable to deal with large-scale disturbances, the central minister should be appointed as the state shepherd to hold the real power to coordinate cross-county issues. The lower official, Liu Yan, is willing to set an example and go to Yizhou to quell the rebellion for the empire."

The imperial court admired Liu Yan's courage, so he appointed him as the envoy of the supervising army, led Yizhou pastor, and went to the riotous Shu land to take office.Dong Fu also resigned from the central government and went to Yizhou with Liu Yan. Another follower of Liu Yan was Zhao Wei, who was in charge of Taicang at that time, and he was born with a common surname in Anhan County, Brazil County.Different from Dong Fu, who was purely a famous talker, Zhao Wei was a powerful figure in Yizhou. His return to his hometown set off a turbulent wave in Sichuan. That year was the sixth year of Zhongping (189 A.D.). When Liu Yan first entered Yizhou, Bashu and Shu were still under the control of Mijiao forces. He could only temporarily station in the west of Jingzhou to try to stabilize the chaos in the state.Not long after, Liu Yan successfully recruited Zhang Xiu and Zhang Lu, the two leaders of Wudou Mi Road, and stabilized Berkshire.

At the same time, Jia Long, a handsome hero of Shu County, used hundreds of people to attack and kill Ma Xiang, the Yellow Turban "Son of Heaven" who commanded 100,000 troops, and restored the order of Shu County. So Liu Yan was able to enter the land of Shu generously.He moved the state government to Mianzhu, appointed Jia Long as the school lieutenant, Dong Fu as the school guard of the Guanghan State, Zhang Lu as the governor, Zhang Xiu as the other minister, and Zhao Wei as the accountant Sima, and formally ruled Yizhou. The purpose of Liu Yan's entry into Yizhou was to establish a peach blossom empire of his own, and he had no interest in the war between the Central Plains Kwantung Allied Forces and Dong Zhuo at the same time.Liu Yan's attitude was: You just hit yours, and don't spill blood on me. In the second year of Chuping (AD 191), Dong Zhuo withdrew from Chang'an to the west, and found that there was such a neutral Fangzhen in the rear, so he issued imperial edicts from time to time, asking Liu Yan to send money and food, and bring some local specialties along the way.It's a pity that Liu Yan didn't like him at all. Seeing that Liu Yan had such an attitude, Dong Zhuo's nose was crooked: What's the matter?Don't think that Lao Tzu, Emperor Shan Gao, can't cure you! Dong Zhuozhi Liu Yan's method is: frequently send envoys to harass Liu Yan. As a result, Liu Yan did even better. In order to avoid being harassed by Dong Zhuo, he sent two religious leaders, Zhang Lu and Zhang Xiu, to lead troops into Hanzhong in the north, kill Su Gu, the prefect of Hanzhong, destroy the inclined valley across the Qinling Mountains, and then Declaring to the outside world that the rice thief has broken the way, he will not obey the imperial edict.The meaning is very clear: if I don't go out, you don't even want to come in. The above is external. Internally, after implementing the state lock-up policy, Liu Yan started his iron-fisted regime. He killed more than ten Yizhou tyrants, including Wang Xian and Li Quan, with the intention of consolidating his regime.But such behavior soon aroused the dissatisfaction of other wealthy families in Yizhou. First, Ren Qi, the prefect of Qianwei, rebelled. Jia Long, who had made great achievements before, also rebelled under Dong Zhuo's lobbying. Faced with the strong counterattack of the local forces, Liu Yan had left two hands: At that time, a large number of refugees called "Dongzhou warriors" poured in from Chang'an and Nanyang, and Liu Yan had an attempt to organize them into "Dongzhou soldiers" premeditatedly. ", became his secret weapon to restrain the Bashu aristocrats.On the other hand, the ethnic minorities who migrated from Qinghai and Xikang were also recruited by Liu Yan as private soldiers, known as "Qingqiang". With the assistance of Dongzhou soldiers and Qingqiang, Liu Yan successfully extinguished Jia Long and Ren Qi's rebellion and ensured his dictatorship in Yizhou. After this internal victory, Liu Yan's move to proclaim himself emperor became more and more obvious.He began to mass-produce utensils and vehicles of emperor's specifications in Mianzhu.His neighbor, Liu Biao, the newly appointed governor of Jingzhou, couldn't stand it, so he made a small report to the central government. At that time, Liu Yan's three sons, Liu Fan, Liu Dan, and Liu Zhang, were all serving in the court of Chang'an. The second elder brother sent Liu Laosan back to Yizhou to persuade Liu Yan, but Liu Yan had already eaten the weight and made up his mind. He didn't care about the life and death of his two sons. . During this period of time, the situation in the north became more and more chaotic. The princes of the Guandong attacked each other. In Chang'an City, Dong Zhuo was killed, Lu Bu was expelled, and Li Jue and Guo Si became the heads of the empire. In the first year of Xingping (AD 194), some courtiers in Chang'an launched a great national salvation plan, calling on the western princes to send troops to serve the king. The protagonist of this "jihad" was Ma Teng, but because Liu Yan's eldest son Liu Fan was also one of the initiators of the plan, Liu Yan broke the isolation policy and sent school lieutenant Sun Zhao to lead 5,000 troops to Chang'an for support. In March of that year, King Qin's army was defeated in Changpingguan in the first battle, Ma Teng withdrew to Liangzhou, Liu Fan died in battle, and his second child, Liu Dan, was executed by Guo Li's government.At this critical moment, a friend of the Liu family, Pang Xi from Henan, who was Yilang at the time, risked his life to escort the rest of the Liu family, old and young, out of Chang'an and into Shuzhong. Liu Yan, who lost his two sons at once, was heartbroken. It happened that another "sky fire" (probably caused by lightning or meteorites) happened at that time, and all the emperor's vehicles and palace built by Liu Yan in Mianzhu were burned down. Liu Yan felt from the bottom of his heart that this was the retribution for his vain attempt to become emperor. The depressed elderly Liu Yan moved the state government from Mianzhu to Chengdu, and died soon after.The nobles in Yizhou, headed by Sima Zhao Wei and Wang Shang in Zhizhong, jointly supported Liu Zhang to take over the position of father's military supervisor and Yizhou Mu. Since then, Liu Zhang, who is known as "gentle and benevolent", is doomed to face many challenges he does not want to face.