Chapter 107: The Master of Inside and Outside
Early in the morning, Black Bear walked out of the dormitory with a wide scarf around his waist.

Walking barefoot on the polished wooden floor, I felt that there were no electronic toys like mobile phones now, otherwise life was similar to the previous life.

Outside the bedroom is the study planned by Zhen Mi. The walls are made of overlapping logs, and a layer of wooden wall panels is nailed on the inside of the wall.

The wall panels were cypress and the floorboards were shade-dried pine, cut very neatly.

Therefore, the gaps between the joints are very small, and even if there are gaps, they will be filled and smoothed with mortar mixed with lacquer.

This suspended two-story moisture-proof pinewood building is really exquisite.

Only now did he notice that there were bookshelves in the study, with some official documents piled up in piles and classified labels on the bookshelves.

When he came out, Zhen Mi, who had just finished washing up, was sitting sideways at the table organizing his bookcase. After Zhen Mi sorted the scattered bamboo slips in the bookcase, she was weaving them with thread.

Black Bear kept many random notes on the bamboo slips, which he would often look through. He would throw away the useless ones and keep the important ones.

Seeing her serious expression, Black Bear had an idea.

Approaching the desk, he reached out and grabbed Zhen Mi's long hair, rubbing it in his hand and playing with it: "How about you be my Tiger Fang Chief Clerk?"

"Concubine?"

"Well, I can't trust anyone else."

Black Bear was sitting at the table, reading a scroll of bamboo slips compiled by Zhen Mi. These were various thoughts he had written down in the afternoon of the decisive battle. More than twenty bamboo slips were compiled together.

There are simplified Chinese characters, capitalized first letters of Pinyin, and full Pinyin.

He wrote down some of his most important experiences on paper and carried them with him.

Zhen Mi lay on her back with her head resting on his legs, and both of them looked at each other from a strange perspective.

She was a little confused: "Wang Can and Wang Zhongxuan are both famous in the world, and have been in charge of Jingzhou's secrets for several years. Now that he is following you, can't he be the chief clerk?"

"You and I are not the same kind of people as him."

Black Bear pinched her chin and ears with both hands and said indifferently: "He and Liu Biao did not get along well. Before I came to Jingzhou, he had to pretend. With his noble and self-willed character, he must be very depressed."

"Liu Biao is not willing to turn against me for the time being. That's why Wang Can dared to run away with me. During this trip, he won over more than 300 scholars. Even if such a person is willing to yield, how can I dare to use him?"

Hei Xiong then briefly explained the root cause of the conflict between Wang Can and Liu Biao. Zhen Mi suddenly realized what she had heard when she was in Hebei was that Liu Biao married his daughter to Wang Can's cousin Wang Kai.

It turns out that he is not a cousin, nor a cousin, but a clan brother.

If they were cousins, then since they were both grandsons of Sikong Wang Chang, it would be reasonable for Liu Biao's daughter to marry either of them.

If they are cousins, they have a common grandfather, namely Sikong Wang Chang; if they are brothers, they have a common great-grandfather, namely Taiwei Wang Gong.

If Wang Can did not lie to Hei Xiong, then Wang Kai, who married Liu Biao's daughter, could at best be a descendant of Wang Gong's brother.

Zhen Mi was stunned. It was hard for her to imagine Liu Biao's thoughts: "How could he despise Wang Zhongxuan so much?"

She is a woman, and she has four married sisters in her family. When it comes to marrying someone, if the family background is suitable and the other person has good character and talent, then he or she will be an excellent match.

What are you looking at?
Seeing that Black Bear was surprised, she immediately said, "In the past, He Jin recruited Wang Zhongxuan's father Wang Qian as the chief of the shogunate and wanted to marry the two families. At that time, Wang Zhongxuan was twelve years old, and his father Wang Qian flatly refused. He Jin was greatly embarrassed and had to apologize to Wang Qian."

"It would have been great if Wang Qian had died early. If there had not been Dong Zhuo's rebellion, he would have been one of the Three Dukes."

Zhen Mi knew the genealogy of noble families in various places. This was common sense to her. She said to Black Bear, "If nothing unexpected happened, Wang Can should have been a third-generation duke. With his talent, the Shanyang Wang family should have been a third-generation duke for four generations. But what about Liu Biao? Who in the world knows who his father and grandfather were?"

Seeing Black Bear in deep thought, Zhen Mi said, "Without Wang Chang's support, how could Liu Biao be where he is today?"

Then she asked, "Does Wang Zhongxuan have a family?"

"No, when I was stationed in Wanshan, I never saw him with any women, not even maids."

Zhen Mi was immediately furious, her eyes were round and her eyebrows were raised: "Wang Zhongxuan is the only one left in the Shanyang Wang family. Liu Biao is really ruthless."

During these years, Wang Can did not marry and had no children.

Obviously there were concerns. Hei Xiong suspected that if Wang Can really left a bloodline to the Shanyang Wang family, then Wang Can might have died of illness.

Black Bear listened and analyzed silently, and then said: "Now that Wang Can has left, Liu Biao can sleep peacefully. Otherwise, if he continues to waste time like this, when Liu Biao dies, Wang Can will definitely take revenge."

As long as Wang Can did not leave any descendants, it would be difficult for Liu Biao to kill him, and Liu Biao had many concerns.

After Liu Biao dies, who in Jingzhou can suppress Wang Can?

Look at this time, when Wang Can fled, he took away nearly a hundred scholars from Jingzhou and more than two hundred scholars from the north.

Now is the period when Wang Can's fame and influence are expanding rapidly. If he can survive Liu Biao's death, even if Wang Can is a commoner, he can still influence many officials.

Seeing that Zhen Mi seemed very interested in the gossip between Wang Can and Liu Biao, Black Bear asked again: "How about being my chief clerk?"

Zhen Mi frowned and said, "I am afraid that people will laugh at me."

"What's so funny about this? I heard that during the Shang Dynasty, Guifang and Baidi invaded, and Fuhao was the general who led the troops to fight and had a good record."

Black Bear raised his hand and patted the bookcase beside him: "Now the population is increasing, some things cannot be known to outsiders. Who else can I trust in this world except you?"

Seeing her deep in thought, Black Bear continued, "When the follow-up population arrives, you can select a hundred women to be your guards. They don't have to fight in the battlefield, but can help Li Feng treat the wounded. Women are attentive, and if they save one more wounded soldier, we can recruit one less new soldier."

Seeing her eyebrows and expression dancing, she still said: "This, I..."

Black Bear lowered his head and looked at her with a smile without saying anything. Zhen Mi immediately asked, "What is my name then?"

"You only need to take care of the receipt, filing, and destruction of documents. You don't need to interact with anyone."

Black Bear forced a smile and said, "There are two paths before us now. One is to rely on Wang Can's scholars and ask them to govern the army and the people for us. The other is Zhang Jue's path."

At this moment, Zhen Mi sat back down, the smile on her face completely gone: "My dear, do you not like scholars?"

"If the scholars were good, there would be no Wang Mang usurping the Han Dynasty, and there would be no chaotic world today."

Black Bear looked at her and said, "The powerful use their estates to make money and oppress the people. I want to gather the people and build various estates. I want to be the only powerful person."

"Establish a Taiping Heavenly Kingdom."

“I hope that the people under my rule can be well cared for when they are young and well cared for when they are old.”

"There are too many exploitations in the world. Instead of the current situation, I might as well exploit them myself."

Zhen Mi remained silent, but Hei Xiong sighed and said, "I thought Liu Biao and Wang Can were men of pure morals, but after these days of contact, I found that they were vulgar people who were obsessed with power struggles." If scholars are the carriers of cultural dissemination and development, then various classics are the source of culture.

If it can end the chaos, Black Bear doesn't mind sending all the scholars to hell.

A new culture can be born from the ashes.

The earth will continue to rotate regardless of who is around.

After a long while, Zhen Mi asked, "My dear, do you want to be the only king in the world?"

The powerful people in various places today would have had a similar status as the ancient kings if they were placed in ancient times.

In terms of life enjoyment and the power to oppress his subordinates and slaves, he even surpassed the ancient kings.

In her opinion, outside Luodu, there are nameless kings of all sizes.

"Well, I want to ignite these people and take them to sweep across Guanzhong!"

Once the subsequent population arrives and the population of the three counties of Wuguan Road are added, they can be mobilized in the Taiping Dao way and a sweeping offensive can almost be launched.

Not only do we sweep away the enemy, but we also roll up our own troops and pack them up for the battle like a mat.

They will migrate to wherever they are conquered.

The Qingzhou soldiers under his command have rich experience in dealing with such matters.

It took four to five months to complete the preaching and mobilization, accumulate black and white magic power, and then go out of Lantian in the twelfth lunar month to attack the leaders of all parties, paralyzing and delaying the mobilization of the other side.

As soon as the weather got a little warmer, they swept the people out of Wuguan Road, occupied the area near Chang'an, and started farming.

As long as you complete a round of farming and harvesting, it will be your turn to counterattack.

We must now determine the future course, otherwise we will definitely have to pay the price in the future for coveting the manpower and technology of Wang Can and his group of scholars.

Zhen Mi felt uneasy when she saw that Black Bear was going to take the Taiping Road route.

As they are doing now, blending in among various separatist forces and disguising themselves as separatist forces under the rule of the Han court is actually very advantageous.

If we really mobilize the army and civilians in the way of the Taiping Dao to march into Guanzhong, we would see enemies everywhere.

Zhen Mi thought about it and still advised: "My dear, you have just obtained the Tiger Tooth General Seal. If you use it to enter Guanzhong, you can get the support of some of the people in Guanzhong. If you act like the Taiping Dao, the people in Guanzhong will rise up to resist and every step will be difficult."

"I know, but this will restrict the potential of our army. I must go all out and race against time with Cao Cao."

Black Bear looked at Zhen Mi and said, "Hebei is experiencing a severe drought this year, and there is also a locust plague. If the locust plague cannot be suppressed and they lay many eggs, there will be locust swarms next year even if there is no drought! Even if Yuan Shang has the ability of Sun Wu and Han Xin, what can he do without military rations?"

The drought in Hebei is not important. What is important is the locust plague revealed in Yuan Shang’s letter.

History has extremely high inertia, especially natural disasters and climate changes.

If Hebei were to suffer from successive droughts and locust plagues starting from this year, even if Yuan Shao were still alive, the people of Hebei would abandon him!

It is better to surrender to Cao Cao than to let the whole family starve to death.

This cannot be decided by Yecheng alone; it is a test for many cities in Hebei.

As long as a few cities choose to surrender, the dam will be broken.

We can't take our time, we have to capture Guanzhong before Cao Cao unifies Hebei!

Otherwise, the scholars in Guanzhong would fight to the death, and Cao Cao would intervene strongly.

When Zhen Mi heard about the locust plague in Hebei, she was immediately speechless and asked, "Does Hebei have no chance at all?"

Seeing that Black Bear was silent, Zhen Mi sighed and said, "That's fine. I will do my best to help you achieve peace."

"Well, then you and I can live in the sunshine and reunite with our loved ones."

Black Bear tried to comfort her, but Zhen Mi said, "No matter how close they are, how can they be closer than my own child? Please take more concubines to expand the clan."

Zhen Mi had no expression on her face at this moment, and calmly analyzed: "From now on, the only people my husband can trust are his clansmen and relatives."

If you really want to establish the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, don't even think about getting reliable talents from outside.

Seeing her serious look, Black Bear said, "Please help me choose. I don't want girls from powerful families or wealthy families. You can adopt orphans. After we conquer Shang County, I will allocate cloth and food to you every month. You can use these to raise orphans."

Zhen Mi raised her lips upon hearing this and asked, "What kind of woman does my dear like?"

In her eyes, this kind of thing was like selecting a few servants to help Black Bear dress and take care of his daily life.

If the other person's birth is low enough, even if he or she gives birth to a concubine's eldest son in advance, he or she is still like a beast of burden in her eyes.

While she was serving Liu, she witnessed many of the disputes within Yuan Shao's inner court.

"It would be best if she was a girl from a commoner family, the same way you would find a maid. A widow with a child would also be fine."

There was no emotion on the black bear's face. The population needed to grow. After living a second life, he had already seen many things clearly.

He doesn't mind changing the surnames of the children he plans to have now or even giving them to other people to raise in the future.

What he had seen and heard in this chaotic world made him not care much about these minor details.

The most important thing is that people can survive.

Looking at the bloodline of Ying Zheng and Temujin's eldest son with my current experience, it seems meaningless.

Even if there are disputes, they are political disputes.

After thinking for a while, Black Bear said, "How about this, you recruit a maid first, and then we can decide the master-servant relationship, so that we can avoid disputes in the future. I will be in charge of the outside affairs, and you will be in charge of the inside affairs."

"As you wish, my lord."

Zhen Mi smiled widely, her eyes sparkled, and she was extremely happy.

Her status has been truly recognized.

Moreover, they will be infinitely close to equality.

　I will update three times a day starting tomorrow. I will try my best to keep it up. If I feel tired, I will update twice.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)