[Faced with the 18 armies attacking him, Dong Zhuo, who was in Luoyang at the time, was not panicked at all. 】

[After all, with 100,000 Xiliang troops by his side, as well as Lu Bu, Xu Rong and other fierce generals, what's so scary about facing a bunch of princes' coalition forces with their own ulterior motives? ]

[Things really happened as Dong Zhuo thought. With the help of the powerful Xiliang cavalry, the so-called anti-Dong coalition suffered repeated defeats in the early stages of the war.]

[For example, Sun Jian, who aspired to conquer the world, was defeated by Xu Rong and escaped by hiding in the bushes, looking miserable.]

[Of course, Sun Jian is no pushover. ]

[After recovering from his shock, Sun Jian immediately reorganized the Jingzhou troops and then launched a surprise attack on the Xiliang Hu Zhen and Lu Bu's armies.]

[Since Hu Zhen and Lu Bu were not on good terms, the Xiliang army started to move out directly. After Hu Zhen's general Hua Xiong was killed by Sun Jian, the Xiliang army retreated across the board.]

【Seeing that the war was not going well, Dong Zhuo could only follow the example of Qin's defense of Hangu Pass, retreat to the Guanzhong Plain, move the capital to Chang'an, and burn down Luoyang. 】

[But what Dong Zhuo did not expect was that after entering Luoyang, the allied forces stopped advancing, and the allied forces stationed in Suanzao were drinking and having fun all day long.]

[The historical records show that these allied forces held banquets every day and had no intention of making any progress.]

……

"A common man should not make plans with others..."

In the hall, Cao Cao shook his head.

Thinking about some things now, it really makes people feel that fate is playing tricks on them.

These princes have hundreds of thousands of troops stationed there, hundreds of thousands!

He did not dare to launch an attack on Dong Zhuo, but instead led the troops to attack Dong Zhuo personally!
Everyone in the world said that Cao Cao was a treacherous hero, but what they did was not for their own selfish motives? What they did was even more shameless than Cao Cao!
Only Cao Cao is a traitor, but not these people?

If there were no Cao Cao, who knows how many treacherous ministers there would be in the world!
……

[The idealist Cao Cao was very dissatisfied with the current situation of the various princes standing still, and suggested sending troops many times, but no one paid any attention to him. ]

Cao Cao was angry at this time, and said, "If you don't fight me, I will fight you." So he led his troops to fight against Dong Zhuo himself. When Jinan Xiang Bao Xin and Zhang Miao saw that Cao Cao was going to fight against Dong Zhuo, they were moved and quickly sent troops to assist Cao Cao. 】

[When Cao Cao's troops reached the Bian River in Xingyang, they were ambushed by Xu Rong, and a fierce battle ensued.]

[Originally, Cao Cao was eager to fight and was full of vigor. He did not care at all when he encountered an ambush. He directly commanded his troops to attack Xu Rong frantically.]

[However, he never expected that Xu Rong's army was not only well-equipped and well-trained, but also had a lot of actual combat experience. Cao Cao's newly recruited soldiers were no match for the Xiliang army and suffered a great defeat.]

[Bao Xin was injured, Bao Tao and Zhang Miao's general Wei Zi died in battle, Cao Cao was also shot by a stray arrow, and Cao Cao's brother Cao Hong even gave his warhorse to Cao Cao, so Cao Cao was able to escape from danger overnight.]

[Cao Cao's battle was when he was eighteen. He was beaten like a minion in a martial arts competition among the princes.]

……

"It can be seen that Cao Cao was still loyal to the Han Dynasty at this time."

Zhang Liang commented.

Liu Bang nodded. …

[Although Cao Cao himself saw this battle as a disastrous defeat, there was one person who did not think so. Who was this person? It was his opponent this time, the fierce general Xu Rong from Xiliang.]

[Xu Rong thought that Cao Cao led a small number of soldiers, but they were able to fight together, which showed that the coalition forces of the princes were still very powerful. So he thought that Suanzao was not easy to conquer, so he led his troops to withdraw.]

[However, not all soldiers led by Cao Cao were the same, only Cao Cao himself was like this. Anyway, no matter what the reason was, Xu Rong was scared away. ]

[On the other hand, as time went on, the conflicts among the princes who had been harboring ulterior motives completely erupted. ]

[First of all, the young emperor Liu Bian had been executed, so the loyal officials of the Han Dynasty naturally recognized the new emperor Liu Xie. After all, the reason why these loyal officials of the Han Dynasty wanted to attack Dong Zhuo was because Dong Zhuo privately deposed and enthroned the emperor.]

[Now that the previous emperor has died, according to the normal succession, it is indeed time for Liu Xie to take the throne. These loyal officials of the Han Dynasty can only accept this reality.]

[So these princes who had gained enough prestige discussed it and led their troops back. ]

【At this time, Cao Cao and a series of other people realized that the current situation has shown that it is impossible for the Han Dynasty to revive if it stays with these pests.】

[In addition to being extremely corrupt, the aristocratic families are also very indifferent to the court and have a strong sense of independence. The state power does not matter to them. As long as they can continue to suck blood and continue to exploit the people, everything else is acceptable.]

[Cao Cao had only 5,000 soldiers, but he was able to fight for several days, while the allied forces of the princes, with more than 100,000 soldiers, could not advance. This made Cao Cao very disappointed. It was at this moment that Cao Cao naturally had the confidence to defeat the aristocratic families.]

[What a bunch of bullshit aristocratic families, what powerful people, they are nothing but paper tigers. ]

[When everyone was surprised that Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao in the Battle of Guandu, in fact, the balance of victory and defeat had already begun to tilt towards Cao Cao at this moment, and the chaos in the world began. ]

[Some people may ask, didn’t the chaos in the world begin with the Yellow Turban Rebellion? Why did it only start now? ]

【Because the chaotic times we are talking about are not only about the political situation, but also about people's thoughts. Although the Yellow Turban Rebellion itself has a strong religious color, even Liu Bei, who was a weaver and shoe seller at the time, did not agree with the Yellow Turban Army's idea of ​​replacing the blue sky with the yellow sky. Everyone just treated the Yellow Turban Army as a copy to exchange for a civil servant position in the Eastern Han Dynasty. After all, the Eastern Han government at that time still retained the last dignity of a centralized dynasty. 】

【After the turmoil caused by Dong Zhuo's separatist rule, people of all classes at the time had realized that the Eastern Han emperor was no longer a good person and that things were about to change. Confucianism was no longer effective at this time. This is what we call the collapse of faith.】

[In addition to the need for a new order, people also need a new guiding ideology for governing the country and the army, and Cao Cao especially needs it. But the problem is that Cao Cao is not a god, and no one is a god. He could not write Das Kapital out of thin air in that era, so Cao Cao could only learn from history and cast his eyes on the ancient books with a history of thousands of years in the Han Dynasty to find the wisdom of the ancients. ]

[It is obvious from Cao Cao's later performance that in addition to "Records of the Grand Historian" and "Book of Han", Cao Cao must have also seriously studied "Zuo Zhuan", "Han Fei", "The Art of War", "Book of History", "Spring and Autumn Annals", "Yi Zhou Shu" and so on.]

[The history of the Zhou and Qin dynasties had a significant impact on Cao Cao, but the problem is that even the books from the past were 700 to 800 years old. It was difficult to read ancient books. Cao Cao couldn’t read them either, and he didn’t have a teacher to teach him.]

[This is like reading classical Chinese in the past. Cao Cao at that time probably woke up every morning and said, "Oh, what do you think and feel?" This sentence expresses the author's feelings. It must be very painful. ]

[But after a period of research, Cao Cao felt that he understood, at least he had figured out one thing. Although after the establishment of the Han Dynasty, Confucian scholars belittled the Legalist thought, because the Legalists believed that human nature is evil, they should adopt the policy of fooling the people and weakening the people to facilitate the ruling thought.]

[This does not conform to the mainstream values ​​of the Eastern Han Dynasty, where powerful people and the emperor ruled the world together.]

[In addition, Cao Cao also discovered a bug, which is that the Confucian thought that promotes the goodness of human nature makes the powerful people always be amiable and kind. For the people who can't survive and rebel, they are too lazy to even issue a policy of ignorance, and directly give them physical elimination, under the euphemism of eliminating the mob. Moreover, the history books will not regard these people who can't survive as human beings, and they are too lazy to even record their life and death. ]

[The nobles and powerful families rewarded the generals who had eliminated these common people with merits, and they also maintained their rule, and everyone was happy. ]

[As for the people who couldn't survive and rebelled, they didn't bother to care]

【But Cao Cao felt that things shouldn't be like this.】(End of this chapter)