Chapter 351 The Five Barbarians invaded China, and this thief was the instigator! I give you a task, exterminate the Sima clan!

Liu Bei looked down at Yuan Tan. Although he could not see the changes in Yuan Tan's eyes clearly, he could guess how reluctant Yuan Tan was to surrender to him.

This kneeling was also very reluctant.

But these are not important. What is important is that Yuan Shao's eldest son actually knelt in front of him and expressed his intention to submit in front of the whole world.

This is enough.

"Xiansi, please don't be polite. Please get up quickly."

Liu Bei smiled and waved his hand, motioning Yuan Tan to stand up.

Yuan Tan immediately lifted his knees off the ground. When he stood up and looked up at Liu Bei, he immediately suppressed all the anger in his heart and faced Liu Bei with an almost flattering smile.

Liu Bei was approachable and courteous to Yuan Tan, and he comforted him.

As for other generals under Guo Tu, Liu Bei appeased them one by one and held a banquet for them.

After a few rounds of drinks.

Liu Bei put down his wine glass and asked curiously:
"Xiansi, you disguised the Wei army as the Qin army and attacked our Hongnong County, trying to trick me into attacking Qin first."

"This plan must be said to be a brilliant one."

"If my Prime Minister Xiao Jinglue hadn't seen through it, I would have fallen into your trap and led the whole country's army to attack Qin."

Hearing Liu Bei's words, Yuan Tan and Guo Tu were shocked and looked at the same time at the left side of Liu Bei's steps, where the scholar was sipping wine without saying a word.

Yuan Tan naturally recognized him. He was Xiao Fang, the Prime Minister of the Great Chu State.

Just as Liu Bei said, Yuan Shang's plan of instigation was indeed seen through by this legendary strategist.

"Prime Minister Xiao is truly worthy of his reputation for foresight!"

Yuan Tan bowed to Xiao Fang obsequiously and began to flatter him with admiration.

Xiao Fang just smiled faintly.

Liu Bei then asked, "I am just curious, who came up with this strategy for Yuan Shang?"

After hearing this, Yuan Tan understood what Liu Bei meant.

He put down his wine glass, bowed and replied:
"Reporting to the king, this strategy was not devised by Tan and others, but by Yuan Shang."

"According to Tan's informants in Yecheng, this plan was not proposed by Ju Shou and others. It seems that a man named Sima Yi proposed it to Yuan Shang."

"This man must be a descendant of the Sima family in Henei, the son of Sima Fang. He was appreciated by Yuan Shang more than half a year ago and was taken as a confidant."

Sima Yi!
A name that was extremely familiar to Xiao Fang, but quite unfamiliar to Lao Liu, finally rang in his ears for the first time.

After Liu Bei pondered for a long time, he turned his suspicious eyes to Xiao Fang:

"I do know about Sima Fang, but how could this man have such a resourceful son?"

"I have rarely heard of this Sima Yi."

However, Xiao Fang's mouth corners slightly raised.

In this world, no one knows Sima Yi better than him.

In history, he was the only person in the State of Wei who could rival his brother-in-law Zhuge Liang.

He commanded the most powerful Yongliang Army of Wei State, but adopted the tortoise tactics and lived until Zhuge Liang died of old age.

If you want to say how smart this guy is, that's not necessarily the case.

Compared with Jia Xu and Guo Jia, his intelligence is still three points inferior.

The key point is that Sima Yi has two major strengths.

One is able to hide, the other is able to endure.

Needless to say, he hid his ambition so that no one could know about it. The Gaopingling Incident deceived many old ministers of Cao Wei, who thought that he only wanted to overthrow Cao Shuang and rectify the government, so he won the support of the old ministers.

As a result, after tricking Cao Shuang into surrendering, he turned around and betrayed his loyalty, not only killing all three clans of Cao Shuang, but also monopolizing military and political power in one fell swoop, transforming himself from a loyal minister into a powerful official.

Not to mention the endurance, Cao Cao died, Cao Pi died, Cao Rui died...

He outlasted three generations of Cao Wei kings, his arch-enemy Zhuge Liang, and his colleagues Cao Zhen and Chen Qun, and waited until there was no more rivals inside or outside the country, until the day when no one could check and balance him and he could do whatever he wanted.

"Your Majesty, Henei County faces Luoyang across the river to the south, and to the east it can reach Liyang along the north bank of the Yellow River. It is an important place."

"I ask the king to send a detachment of troops to the west to take over Henei County, so as to eliminate the threat to our Luoyang and Liyang flanks."

Xiao Fang suddenly put down his wine glass and gave Liu Bei some advice.

His reason for attacking Henei County was naturally reasonable and Liu Bei had no way to refuse.

"Jing Lue's words make sense. Hanoi County should indeed be taken first."

Liu Bei agreed with this and immediately issued an edict, ordering Ling to lead 5,000 elite troops to advance westward along Liyang and take over Henei County.

Ling Tong gladly accepted the order, bid farewell to Liu Bei immediately, and left.

Just as he received the imperial edict and stepped out of the mansion, Xiao Fang left the table on the pretext of going to the toilet and chased him out of the mansion.

"Public performance, wait a minute!"

When Ling Tong heard the voice, he turned around and saw that it was Xiao Fang. He quickly bowed and saluted:

"What else do you want, Prime Minister?"

Xiao Fang pulled Ling Tong aside, glanced around, and said in a low voice:
"Gong Ji, the king ordered you to recover Hanoi County. I will assign you an additional task."

"The Sima clan lives in Wen County, Hanoi. When you take over Wen County, wipe out the Sima clan for me."

"Remember, I will exterminate the entire Sima clan, leaving no one alive!" Ling Tong was taken aback. He obviously did not expect that Xiao Fang would assign him such a bloody task.

After a moment of stunned silence, Ling Tong hurriedly whispered:

"The Prime Minister wants to deal with the Sima clan. Could it be related to Sima Yi working for Yuan Shang and making plans to deal with our Great Chu?"

"This man is an enemy of our Great Chu, so he really deserves to be killed. But is the punishment of exterminating his entire clan too heavy? I am afraid that the king will..."

What Ling Tong meant was that given Liu Bei's kindness and magnanimity, he might not necessarily exterminate the Sima clan.

He himself didn't quite understand why Xiao Fang had such great hatred towards Sima Yi and his family.

You know, in today's world, there are many aristocratic families who bet on both sides.

Even within the Xun clan, Xun Yu worked for Cao Cao, while Xun Chen worked for Yuan Shao and his son.

After all, you can't put all your eggs in one basket.

Most of the princes turned a blind eye to this unspoken rule and tacitly accepted it.

You want to exterminate the entire Sima clan because of Sima Yi, which seems a bit against the rules...

Xiao Fang admitted that his extermination of the Sima clan was indeed intended to vent his anger.

The main problem is that this tribe of people is so disgusting and hateful.

Not to mention how Sima Yi, a loyal minister, turned into a powerful minister and laid the foundation for his descendants to usurp the Wei Dynasty.

But the Jin Dynasty founded by your grandson Sima Yan is the most corrupt and evil dynasty among all the dynasties that unified the world in thousands of years.

As the founding emperor, Sima Yan, you just unified the country and then you let your horse go and indulged in extravagant spending and pleasure.

The key point is that you made a stupid son the crown prince and chose a vicious woman, Jia Nanfeng, as the crown princess.

In order to check and balance the Jia family's external relatives, you conferred titles of kingship on a large scale, and ordered your brothers, nephews, and nephews to be crowned kings and divide the land, giving them powerful armies, and you called it protecting the emperor.

As a result, your checks and balances went to waste not long after your death. The eight Sima kings fought for supreme power and killed each other fiercely, wiping out all the elite Chinese soldiers and giving the Hu people an opportunity to take advantage.

Eventually, the Hu Yi took advantage of the situation and your Sima family fled to the south to live in peace, but you handed over the entire north to the Northern Hu.

The Five Barbarians invaded China, the country was in ruins, the land of China sank, and the Han people in the north experienced the cruelest dark period of 300 years, where they were treated worse than dogs.

The instigator was Sima Yi, and those who fanned the flames were Sima Yi's descendants.

The Sima family is the sinner of China, it is not a pity for them to die a hundred times.

How could Xiao Fang not hate such a heinous clan? How could he not exterminate the clan and eliminate a major hidden danger for China?

Of course, history has changed. Sima Yi and his descendants should not have the opportunity to wreak havoc on China and commit those heinous crimes.

Xiao Fang's verdict on the Sima clan may be based on a presumption of guilt.

So what? Just based on the disgusting things that your Sima family has done in history, what does it matter even if I presume you to be guilty?

But of course, I couldn't tell these things to Old Liu Ming, nor could I tell Ling Tong.

As Ling Tong said, given Liu Bei's benevolence and magnanimity, he could kill Sima Yi, but he might not agree to exterminate the Sima clan.

That's why he had to hide it from Lao Liu and assign this task to Ling Tong in private.

"Everyone in the world knows that Your Majesty is the ruler of heaven. Recovering Hebei, rebuilding the Han Dynasty, and unifying the world are what people want."

"This villain Sima Yi wanted to go against the will of Heaven and offer advice to Yuan Shang, intending to plot against the king and save the pseudo-Wei from destruction."

"How can we not kill this stubborn and rebellious traitor?"

"I am exterminating the Sima clan because I want to use their blood to warn those powerful Hebei families who are still supporting the Yuan family!"

"I want to let them know what will happen to those who continue to be loyal to the Yuan family and stubbornly resist our Great Chu King's teacher!"

"The king exterminated the Kuai and Cai clans back then, and the purpose of exterminating the Sima clan today is the same."

"Kill the chicken to scare the monkey!"

Xiao Fang's voice was stern and his murderous intent was as strong as iron. He gave Ling Tong a perfectly reasonable explanation.

The hesitation in Ling Tong's eyes gradually dissipated, as if he understood Xiao Fang's deep meaning.

To put it bluntly, it is to establish authority through killing.

According to what Xiao Fang mentioned, when Liu Bei conquered Jingzhou, he did indeed exterminate the Cai and Kuai clans. One reason was to establish his prestige, and the other was to win the hearts of the Jingxiang heroes who were suppressed by the Cai and Kuai clans.

Since we were able to exterminate the Cai and Kuai clans back then, why can’t we exterminate the Sima clan today?

This is very reasonable.

"What the Prime Minister said makes sense. According to what he said, the Sima clan must be exterminated!"

Ling Tong's eyes were determined, but he said:

"However, I feel that it is not right for me to send troops to exterminate the Sima clan without the king's explicit instructions."

There was a hint of cunning in Xiao Fang's eyes, and he sneered:
"It was you, Ling Gongji, who conquered Hanoi, and it was you who destroyed the Sima clan. As for how to destroy them, it is up to you to decide."

"For example, you could say that when you captured Wen County, the Sima family led their private soldiers to resist and refused to surrender, so you led your army to attack the Sima family and killed all of his Sima family members... You get the idea, right?"

Xiao Fang stopped there.

Ling Tong rolled his eyes a few times, and suddenly understood, and happily bowed:

"I understand now. I know what to do now."

"Please rest assured, Prime Minister. Within five days, I will make sure that the Sima clan disappears from Henei County!"

(End of this chapter)