Chapter 4 4. Alliance of princes

Dong Zhuo was afraid of the power of the alliance of princes and fled all the way from Luoyang to Chang'an, so what happened to the princes? Speaking of the princes in the Eastern Han Dynasty, we need to mention a person named Liu Yan.In the fifth year of Zhongping, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty (AD 188), the Yellow Turban Uprising had broken out for four years, and the world was in chaos.Liu Yan suggested to the imperial court to send important officials from the central government to strengthen local leadership, and at the same time expand the power of local officials so that they can suppress rebellions in various places.The imperial court believed that Liu Yan's statement was reasonable, adopted his suggestion, and appointed Liu Yan himself as the shepherd of Yizhou.

Liu Yan never expected that his little suggestion would change the world pattern drastically.With power in their hands, the local government became more flexible and powerful in dealing with the Yellow Turban Army, and began to treat the imperial court in a big way.The centralized Eastern Han Dynasty government changed into the Zhou Dynasty government in the style of feudal feudal lords. When Dong Zhuo brought chaos to the capital, the princes of the world saw it and hated it.At this time, Qiao Mao, the prefect of Dongjun County, used the mouth of the three princes of the court to enumerate Dong Zhuo's crimes and "hope for righteous soldiers to relieve the country's crisis".So the princes formed an alliance to crusade against Dong Zhuo.

In the first month of 190 A.D., the local governors of more than a dozen states and counties responded to Qiao Mao's proposal and sent troops to attack Dong Zhuo.According to records, they are Yuan Shao, the prefect of Bohai, Yuan Shu, the post-prefect of Nanyang, Wang Kuang, the prefect of Hanoi, Han Fu, Mu Hanfu of Jizhou, Kong Ni, the governor of Yuzhou, Liu Dai, the governor of Yanzhou, Zhang Miao, the prefect of Chenliu, Qiao Mao, the prefect of Dongjun, and Shanyang. Prefect Yuan Yi, Jibei Minister Bao Xin, Changsha Prefect Sun Jian, and Cao Cao. There were thirteen princes who raised troops, instead of the eighteen in the novel. In addition, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei, who were wonderfully written in the novel, had not yet appeared at this time, and Cao Cao and Sun Jian, who were unknown at the time, stole the limelight.

The news that Yuan Shao took the lead in the uprising spread to the capital. Dong Zhuo first killed more than 50 members of Yuan Shao's uncle Yuan Kai's family in Luoyang City, and then called a group of ministers to discuss countermeasures, making it look like a large-scale military conquest. Shangshu Zheng Tai persuaded that the princes are actually rich and jaded, such as the sons of Yuan Shaogongqing, the dandy Gaoliang, the elder Zhang Miao and Dongping, who are pedantic and confused, and Kong Yiqing talks about high-spirited ideas and wars on paper. You are not your opponent at all in battle, Dong Xiangguo, you are not worth fighting for this group of trash, but the Qiang people in the northwest are brave and good at fighting, so you must take precautions, why don't you take your troops back to your hometown in the northwest?

As a minister loyal to the Eastern Han Dynasty, the purpose of Zheng Tai's remarks was to induce Dong Zhuo to relax his guard against the princes.Regrettably, his evaluation of the princes is right in every sentence, and it will be confirmed in the near future.Right now, these words moved Dong Zhuo.Dong Zhuo was just a paper tiger, he had a guilty conscience, and after hearing Zheng Tai's persuasion, he hurried down the slope to move his capital to Chang'an, so as to avoid the sharp edge of the princes.So what is the situation of the princes at this time? When the 100,000 allied forces of the princes reached Suanzao, they were no longer willing to advance.It turns out that although the coalition forces are numerous and powerful, they each have their own evil intentions and intrigues.They are afraid that their strength will be weakened in the war, and others will take the opportunity to snatch their territory. Therefore, when the enemy is in front of you, you look at me and I look at you. No one wants to be a rafter. .

Let me talk about Yuan Shao, the leader of the coalition army.Yuan Shao was promoted as the leader of the alliance. Firstly, it was because of the glory of the "four generations and three princes" in his family. Four generations of his family have held the positions of "three princes".The second reason is that Yuan Shao was smart, eloquent, and good at handling interpersonal relationships. He had a lot of contacts with celebrities and scholar-bureaucrats at that time, and he was very popular. In addition, he was born with a good-looking talent.All these things made Yuan Shao a temporary choice.

But Yuan Shao has his own appearance, isn't he the one who recruited Dong Zhuo?Knowing that Yuan Shao raised an army, Dong Zhuo killed all of Yuan Shao's relatives in Luoyang, but Yuan Shao was still afraid of Dong Zhuo's strength and dared not go to war with him. It can be seen that Yuan Shao is really a sheep-like tiger skin. Besides, Jizhou Mu Han Fu, when Qiao Mao wrote to Han Fu asking him to send troops, Han Fu actually took the letter and asked his subordinates, Dong Zhuo and Yuan Shao were going to fight, should we help Dong Zhuo or Yuan Shao?His adviser Liu Zihui immediately pushed back and said, we raised our troops for the country, how can we ask whether it is for Yuan Shao or Dong Zhuo?One sentence made Han Fu's face flushed, and he asked again, what should we do?Liu Zihui came up with an idea and said, "The weapon of a soldier should not be the leader", which means that you should not be the first bird, but stand still and observe other people's movements first.This useless idea is quite in Han Fu's mind. What Han Fu is most afraid of is that others will take the opportunity to rob him of his territory.

When Yuan Shao escaped from the capital with a knife, he arrived at the territory of Han Fu in Jizhou.Dong Zhuo was about to hunt down Yuan Shao, and several famous people in the capital who had good friends with Yuan Shao went to persuade Dong Zhuo, saying, Yuan Shao is young and ignorant, and accidentally offended you, an old man. There are officials all over the world, why don't you appoint him as a prefect, so that he will be grateful to you.As soon as Dong Zhuo heard the truth, he appointed Yuan Shao as the prefect of Bohai. After Yuan Shao fled to Jizhou, Han Fu immediately became nervous.Yuan Shao is here, he is still the prefect of Bohai Sea, isn't he here to steal my territory?So troops were sent to guard Yuan Shao, and Han Fu released him only when the coalition forces were established and Yuan Shao became the leader of the alliance.Han Fu is such a guy, how could he attack Dong Zhuo?

Most of the other figures in the allied army were like this. They sent troops to challenge Dong out of sympathy. Compared with the 9-year-old little emperor in Chang'an, it was more important to preserve their own strength.Therefore, this coalition army is blindly watching, and no one is willing to charge forward. The only ones who are really willing to serve the country are Cao Cao, who is known as a traitor in Chinese history, and Sun Jian. When Dong Zhuocai entered the capital, he also knew how to attract talents and appointed Cao Cao as the captain of Xiaoqi.What kind of person Cao Cao is. With his keen political vision, he has long seen that following rebellious officials and thieves like Dong Zhuo can only bring disaster to the country and the people, and bring about their own destruction, so he left Luoyang and planned to flee back to his hometown.

When he ran to Chenliu, Cao Cao stopped because he was sponsored by a man named Wei Zi in Chenliu.It has always been a Chinese tradition for local consortiums to fund their favorite heroes and take part in national politics.The Three Kingdoms era was no exception. Whether it was Cao Cao or Liu Bei, if they had the strength to raise troops and become the overlord, they were all sponsored by consortiums. With the sponsorship of Wei Zi, Cao Cao recruited 5,000 soldiers and horses in the local area, and publicly raised the banner to attack Dong Zhuo.In conclusion, among the princes of all parties, Cao Cao was the first to take the initiative to attack Dong Zhuo.

After the allied forces rose up, Cao Cao also pulled his team over, and Yuan Shao also awarded him the title of General Fenwu.Many people in the coalition army saw Yuan Shao's strong soldiers and horses, so they regarded him as the No. Ah, if you are not such a person, even though you are powerful for a while, you will not escape perishment in the end (referring to Yuan Shao), you are the hope of the world! Right now, Dong Zhuo abandoned Luoyang and fled, which is a good opportunity for the coalition forces to catch up and beat the dog in the water. However, Yuan Shao and others are just blindly afraid and dare not send troops.Cao Cao tried his best to persuade these useless people: The rebel army we formed has already united, so why do you doubt it?Besides, now is the best time to eliminate Dong Zhuo. If Dong Zhuo was still in the capital of Luoyang and had the emperor in his hand, it would not make sense for us to fight him, but now he has burned down our capital and hijacked our emperor. The world is shaken, and the hearts of the people are scattered. At this time, when we send troops, why worry about the world not being settled by a single battle? However, no one listened to Cao Cao's words. After playing the piano to the cow for nothing, Cao Cao sighed, "Well, if you don't fight, I will fight myself."Cao Cao took 5,000 troops and chased westward. Only his good friend Zhang Miao sent a small army to accompany him westward out of sympathy.But Cao Cao's strength at this time is really weak, where is Dong Zhuo's opponent?After chasing to Xingyang, Cao Cao met Dong Zhuo's general Xu Rong. After the two sides fought, Cao's army was outnumbered and defeated. Cao Cao himself was hit by a cold arrow and almost died.At the critical moment, Cao Hong, Cao Cao's cousin, said to Cao Cao: "The world can live without me, Cao Hong, but it cannot live without you, brother." After saying that, he gave up his horse to Cao Cao, and Cao Cao saved his life. When Cao Cao fled back to Suanzao with blood and bruises all over his body, what were the 100,000 coalition troops of Suanzao doing? "Hichijijiu high-level meeting, do not try to make progress", that is to say, eat and drink with public funds every day, and sing about wine.Cao Cao couldn't bear it anymore, and said sadly and angrily: "Today's soldiers are moving with righteousness. If they doubt and do not advance, they will lose the hope of the world and steal it. You are ashamed of you!" Cao Cao didn't hear what he said clearly, but with the help of alcohol, he blushed a little. In this way, the 100,000 coalition troops were anticlimactic, raised their troops aggressively, and returned home in despair, without firing a single arrow from beginning to end.Cao Cao expressed his grief and indignation in "A Journey in Haoli": There are righteous men in the Kanto, and they raise troops to fight against the gangsters.In the early days, when I met with Tianjin, my heart was in Xianyang.The army is not in the same strength, hesitates and walks wildly.Snobbery makes people fight, and heirs kill each other.The title of Huainan's younger brother is engraved in the north.The armor is full of gnats, and all surnames die.The bones of the dead are exposed in the wild, and there is no rooster crowing for thousands of miles.Living people leave behind one hundred and one, and the thought of it breaks people's hearts. Cao Cao came from a humble background, and his strength in the Suanzao coalition was almost the smallest.The princes of all parties in the coalition army are all stronger than Cao Cao, and all of them have more capital than Cao Cao to become heroes who sweep the world. However, why is it that the most inconspicuous Cao Cao dominates the Central Plains in the future? The jujube party can be said to be the character promotion meeting of the Three Kingdoms drama. Except for Liu Bei, all heroes from the late Han Dynasty appeared together.When all the princes only knew how to protect their strength and fight for territory, only Cao Cao stood up and was willing to fight against a strong enemy with a weak body.The fate and development of the heroes at the end of Han Dynasty also wrote a footnote in this appearance.The one with the world in mind owns the world, and the one who only fights for territory can't defend it. The one who is not afraid of powerful enemies subdues them one by one, and the one who dares not make progress is walking towards the end step by step. There is an old Chinese saying: A hero does not ask where he came from.As a hero, background and strength are not the most important, the premise is that you must have the potential of a hero.