Chapter 52 1. Cao Cao stationed in Jingzhou

On the evening of September 13th in the thirteenth year of Jian'an, Cao Cao personally led 7,000 tiger and leopard riders to Jiangling City. Zhang Yun, Deng Yi and other Jingzhou officials came out of the city to welcome the surrender. But Liu Pan, Huang Zhong and other naval divisions learned that Jiangling City had fallen in the middle of their rescue, so they had no choice but to withdraw their troops and return to Changsha County for a future plan.At this point, almost all of Jingzhou Jiangbei, except Xiakou City, fell into Cao Cao's hands. According to Cao Cao's previous thinking, he should have assembled the army non-stop and divided into two groups from the Han River and the Yangtze River to attack Xiakou City, where Liu Bei and Liu Qi were defending. Civil unrest of varying degrees broke out in various counties and counties, and the two large counties in the hinterland of the north of the Yangtze River, Bian County and Dangyang, were even more dissatisfied.

Cao Cao himself knew very well that this was the serious consequence of tigers and leopards killing many innocent people indiscriminately on Changbanpo.This situation disrupted Cao Cao's military deployment of "spreading all efforts, dividing the troops into two groups, and attacking from the north and the south".He had no choice but to suppress his anxiety, temporarily put aside Liu Bei, Liu Qi, Zhuge Liang and others who fled to Xiakou, and tried to gain a firm foothold in Jingzhou and Jiangbei first, so he couldn't wait to start the reception of Jingzhou counties and counties. and settled down to work.Especially for those Jingzhou overseas Chinese households who were scattered by tiger and leopard riders in Changbanpo, Cao Cao secretly ordered his generals to pay special attention to them.Among them, I don't know how many Liu Bei's soldiers took the opportunity to lurk or escape, and they would cause a lot of trouble to their military logistics supply line at any time.Therefore, they must be carefully screened and guarded against.As for the skeptical and fearful Jingzhou nobles, if they are not comforted in time, they will be in even greater trouble if they are bewitched by others and stir up a mutiny.Cao Cao immediately appointed Han Song and Yang Xiu as special envoys in charge of pacifying the civilians in the 28 counties of the three counties in Jiangbei.

After arranging civil affairs, Cao Cao finally freed his hands and turned his attention to military affairs.He asked Cao Ren, Jia Xu, Xia Houyuan and other confidants, with the assistance of Cai Mao, Zhang Yun and other Jingzhou local generals, to start the purge and reorganization of Jingzhou's Jiangbei, land and water armies.There is a proverb: "Sharpening a knife is not the same as chopping firewood." Cao Cao believed that the day when Jingzhou's Jiangbei, land and water armies and the Southern Expedition King's Army brought by him were successfully integrated, it would be the time when the whole territory of Jingzhou was finally settled.

In order to coordinate military and political affairs in the middle, Cao Cao moved his prime minister's shogunate from Xiangyang to Jiangling in the fastest time, and by the way, he also moved all the former Jingzhou Mu Liu Cong's family here.Xun You was right in advising Cao Cao not to visit Liu Cong at Liu Zhai in Xiangyang. Later, Cao Cao learned from the eyeliner he sent—that day, Liu Cong’s favorite general Wang Wei actually carried his lord behind his back. An ambush was set up on the road between Mufu Yatang and Liu's house, ready to attack and assassinate Cao Cao.Fortunately, Cao Cao did not drive to Liu's house in person in the end, which avoided a catastrophe.Thinking of this, Cao Cao was secretly afraid.It seems that even though Liu Biao is dead, their Liu clan is still deeply rooted in Jingzhou.At any time, a second Wang Wei would suddenly attack him under the banner of "helping the old master out of the tiger's mouth".Therefore, it is also necessary to hold Liu Cong by his side as a hostage, and to strictly control Liu Cong's old subordinate, General Yan.

According to common sense, Liu Cong, the young master of Jingzhou, has already disarmed and surrendered, so the four counties of Wuling, Lingling, Changsha, and Guiyang in Jiangnan of Jingzhou should also be able to "go down without laboring". However, the development of things is far from imagination as simple as that. The first is Liu Pan, the prefect of Changsha. He is naturally a die-hard anti-Cao faction, and he has been sharpening his sword and preparing to attack again.Cao Cao has no illusions about him, and is determined to use all means to kill him.At this time, Kuai Yue and Han Song felt that they had an opportunity to show their faces, so they pretended to offer Cao Cao a clever plan after exhausting their brains.They secretly contacted Han Xuan, the Chancellor of Changsha County, to assassinate Liu Pan as soon as possible.Cao Cao also agreed that after the matter was completed, not only would Han Xuan be promoted to the position of prefect of Changsha, but he would also be given the title of Marquis of Guannei.After Han Xuan received Cao Cao's promise, he was overjoyed, and hurriedly wrote him a private letter, expressing that he would "seek the opportunity" for Liu Pan, a guy who disobeyed the emperor's orders and didn't know current affairs. He really "conspired" Liu Pan, but Han Xuan didn't say it clearly, so Cao Cao naturally couldn't press him.

Just because the tough bone of Changsha County is stuck in the confidant of the south of the Yangtze River, Zhao Fan, the prefect of Guiyang County, Liu Du, the prefect of Lingling County, and Wei Tao, the prefect of Wuling County, all maintained a wait-and-see attitude. Cao Cao's surrender, they were like a lion, asking for a lot of money, and the conditions they offered were ridiculously high.Liu Du of Lingling County actually asked Cao Cao to confer him the title of "County Marquis", but he didn't know that Cao Cao was the only one in the entire Han court of Xudu who was ever conferred the title of "Wuping County Marquis".At the same time, they secretly communicated with Liu Pan, Huang Zhong, etc., for fear of offending Liu Pan, the fearless and desperate Saburo, and causing huge troubles for themselves.

Regarding these local tyrants in Jiangnan in Jingzhou, Cao Cao also knew very well that if his master Jiu Jiu could not cross the Yangtze River, these people would not surrender happily. He is also eager to dispatch tens of thousands of troops to kill Jiangnan right away, but the Jingzhou navy has to be cleaned up before it can be used. Second, the threat from Liu Bei and Liu Qi in Jiangxia County is still there; third, the work of appeasement of the civilians in the hinterland of Jiangbei in Jingzhou is still not over, all these make him dare not rashly weaken his military wings in Jiangbei.

Therefore, during the interval between reorganizing the army and reorganizing the navy, he remembered the strategy of "the people of Chu governing Chu, and using Chu to control Chu" that Xu Du made at the military meeting of the prime minister's mansion before his expedition to the south, and handed it over to Mao Jie and Sima Yi. Go all out to implement it, absorb as many Jingzhou celebrities scattered in the grasslands as possible into your own shogunate and Jingzhou's Mufu, and use these Jingzhou locals to control the entire Jingzhou for yourself.