……

"Xun Yu is a man of great talent and loyal to the Han Dynasty, but why did he serve a thief?"

Liu Bei sighed.

To be honest, he didn't expect at that time that his one thought difference would indirectly help Cao Cao become stronger.

A million Qingzhou troops, more than 200,000 elite soldiers, such a good source of troops, but they fell into Cao Cao's hands.

However, this was not illegal. At that time, everyone thought that Cao Cao would support the Han Dynasty. Who could have thought that the Han Dynasty would be replaced by the Cao family?

However, from the affairs of the Qingzhou Army, we can also see Cao Cao's talents and his ambitions.

One million Qingzhou troops and one hundred hungry bandits. At that time, only Cao Cao was willing to treat them as human beings and only Cao Cao had the ability to feed them.

It can be seen that Cao Cao's success was by no means accidental.

……

【Cao Cao is known for his love of talent, but he always fails to promote talented people. 】

[As for Xun Yu, he directly appointed him as the executive deputy of Cao Cao, giving them real power. At the same time, Cao Cao also wanted to use this method to improve the relationship with the gentry, which had already fallen to the bottom. ]

[After Cao Cao recruited a million Qingzhou soldiers, he soon realized a truth: taking too big a step can easily lead to failure.]

[After resting for a winter, Cao Cao found that he really couldn't feed these 22 million people. All the stored food had been eaten up, and it was impossible to grow new food immediately. This period of shortage was the most uncomfortable. If he wanted to survive, he could only rely on robbing. ]

【Who should we rob then? 】

[Just when Cao Cao was in a state of panic, Cao Cao's father Cao Song and his family came to Cao Cao for help.]

[Those who are familiar with the Three Kingdoms are probably familiar with what happened later. Cao Song and his family were killed in Tao Qian's territory in Xuzhou. Some say he was killed by bandits, while others say he was ambushed by Tao Qian. Anyway, no matter how he died, it doesn't matter.]

[In this way, Cao Song's death gave Cao Cao a reason to send troops to Xuzhou, and Cao Cao soon sent troops to Xuzhou to attack Tao Qian.]

[In fact, even if Cao Song had not died, Cao Cao still needed to conquer someone to feed the more than 100 million people in Qingzhou. According to Cao Cao's character, it is very likely that soon after he recruited these 100 million people, he realized that some extraordinary means were needed to supply military supplies, and he had already made psychological expectations. ]

[As the saying goes, if my neighbor stores grain, I store guns. My neighbor is my granary. It’s just that the Xuzhou incident gave Cao Cao a very clear goal.]

[Before leaving, Cao Cao entrusted his son and family to Zhang Miao and Chen Gong, saying that if anything happened, he would leave it to the two of them.]

[Of course, the expedition to Xuzhou went relatively smoothly. After a winter of rest, the Qingzhou soldiers had more than 30 strong troops. With Cao Cao's military ability, he trained these people to be very strong, and their combat effectiveness was definitely not low.]

[As for Tao Qian in Xuzhou, he neglected defense and spent all his resources on building wonders.]

[After all, Tao Qian's two neighbors are the idealistic Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, who is a senior official for four generations. They are both respectable people. It is impossible for someone to rob him, right? ]

[The result was that Cao Cao conquered many counties in Xuzhou at a very fast speed, and his purpose was not to conquer them, but to rob. ] [The Han Dynasty was founded on military power, and all the men were strong-willed. Looting would naturally lead to resistance, and resistance would lead to killing. This looting soon turned into a massacre. ]

[In the early feudal era, the massacres were mainly carried out to plunder population and resources. Cao Cao's troops carried out massacres in four major cities in Xuzhou. All men were killed, and obedient women were assigned to soldiers. Food was used as military pay, and human flesh was still a high-quality source of protein. ]

[It is hard for us to guess what Cao Cao was thinking at this time, but in the famine years of feudal society, there was only so much food, and there would always be people who starved to death. There would always be people who would die.]

[If it was the 100 million refugees from Qingzhou who died, then no one would speak for them. These million refugees had no voice, and they would be dead if they died, because the gentry and nobles who held the pen were not among these million refugees.]

[But if Xuzhou was massacred, it would definitely be recorded in history books, because the group of people who controlled the pen were in the city.]

[But we are not trying to whitewash Cao Cao’s actions, because massacring a city is a very bad thing in itself, and it happened countless times during Cao Cao’s life.]

[It can be said that Cao Cao had a habit of massacring cities, which was a very inhumane thing to do.]

[The reason I mention this is that no matter how fair the historical records are, they always have subjective intentions in them. A person's perspective on history or events cannot transcend his or her own class.]

[Those who can record history are never the common people, but the powerful class. If you damage the interests of the nobles, you will definitely be scolded.]

[If you help the nobles and gentry and help them gain benefits, then the history books will write about how you are a benevolent and wise ruler.]

[Just like Zhang Jiao who asked the Han people to die, everyone likes Liu Bei and Cao Cao in the Three Kingdoms, but who has ever taken a look at Zhang Tianshi who truly pleaded for the people of the world? ]

[I don’t know whether the Heavenly Master’s talisman water can cure diseases, but I know that in that era, Heavenly Masters were very few people who were willing to leave their class and take a look at the people.]

【But we still have to say that Cao Cao's massacre of the city was a very bad thing. 】

[If you think about it carefully, if it was the million Qingzhou soldiers who died, would anyone record them in history? ]

[It will still be like those people who joined the Yellow Turban Army because they couldn't survive. In the history books, they are just recorded as traitors, and Cao Cao's killing them is his own great achievement.]

[Anyway, for Cao Cao, since I can only feed so many people, it is better to let those who survive be those who obey me, Cao Mengde. ]

[Someone will always die. Those who die will not be the powerful class like Cao Cao. Those who die will be either the soldiers of Qingzhou or the people of Xuzhou. This may be the reason why it is often mentioned in history that when a country prospers, the people suffer, and when it perishes, the people suffer, because the ruling class does not regard the people as human beings at all.]

[However, after experiencing this incident, the nobles of Yanzhou were completely furious. ]

[Cao Cao doesn't follow the Confucian way. He doesn't enforce the rule of law and robs the people from the nobles. Now he has even started to massacre the city. Is it necessary to be loyal to such a person? Is there a future for following such a lord? ]

[The powerful have long disliked Cao Cao, and now they finally have a reason to rebel. ]

[Zhang Miao rebelled against Cao Cao under Chen Gong's persuasion and welcomed Lu Bu. Under the coercion of the powerful people in Yanzhou, all eight counties in Yanzhou rebelled, and only three cities did not rebel. Cao Cao's foundation was in danger at this time.]

【But at such a critical moment, a man stood up. 】

[With his own strength, he was able to turn the tide and save the collapsing building.] (End of this chapter)