Chapter 254: The Weak’s Mindset
When a country is about to perish, monsters will surely emerge.
Yun Ce felt that he was one of those monsters.
He originally wanted to kill Han Qi, but later felt that it was truly pointless.
Emperor Liu Mu went mad because he had no emperor’s power, Grand Marshal went mad because he didn’t want to give the emperor power, and after the two fought a bloody battle in Chang’an, they clearly defeated the emperor but refused to kill him, insisting on letting the emperor act recklessly until he exhausted the imperial family’s last bit of prestige, only then would he ascend the throne.
That’s right, the Grand Marshal wanted to be emperor!
If he had simply beheaded Emperor Liu Mu with one stroke, sat his buttocks on the throne, and commanded the world so decisively, Yun Ce would still admire the Grand Marshal somewhat.
A person like that, even if not a hero, should at least be a hegemon, but now he had turned himself into a false gentleman.
It probably wouldn’t be long before the abdication, the most disgusting power transfer ceremony in the world, would appear in the Great Han, and moreover, the emperor would have to offer it three times, the Grand Marshal refuse three times, and only on the fourth time, after the emperor created an even more disgusting scene, would the Grand Marshal accept.
People’s hearts cannot be exposed to sunlight; seeing them would make good people lose the motivation to continue living.
It was this matter that made Yun Ce have some opinions about the current Great Han people, truly feeling that he was not one of them.
1 Even relatively better Tai Prefecture was like this, and worse Eastern Province and Hai Prefecture were not worth mentioning.
1 However, these two places still had to be visited, and the people who should be killed still had to be killed; he couldn’t just not patch things up because this world was too broken.
1 Yun Ce took three days to reach Haizhou City, and before entering the city, he saw Hai Prefecture Inspector Lan Jin on the flagpole outside the city. His appearance looked very good, evenly tanned, with salt applied very thoroughly; it seemed he had been drying for at least five days, still very fresh, without any smell of decay.
1 This was clearly the Cao Clan’s method of drying salted meat.
1 As the dry winter wind continually swept over Shi Lan Jin’s body, the moisture inside would gradually evaporate, and the fat under the skin would slowly fuse with the muscles…
1 Actually, death is already the greatest punishment for a person, but some people do things that make you involuntarily want to continue punishing them even after they die.
1 Shi Lan Jin was such a person.
1 He must have done some heaven-defying things in Hai Prefecture; otherwise, there wouldn’t be such treatment. After the Cao Clan occupied Pingzhou, they also hung Tan Shou’s corpse on a flagpole, but there were guards under the flagpole where Tan Shou was hung.
1 But there were no guards under the flagpole where Hai Prefecture Inspector Shi Lan Jin was hung.
1 Having guards meant worrying that others would steal the corpse, indicating that someone still cared about the dead Tan Shou.
2 No guards meant not worrying about anyone coming to steal the corpse, indicating that no one cared about Shi Lan Jin’s death.
2 The livelihood in Haizhou City had mostly recovered; at least, when Yun Ce entered the city, the shops that should be open were basically open, and there were pedestrians on the streets, though not many.
2 Many house walls still bore scenes from the military disaster, some burned houses had not yet been repaired, standing there miserably.
2 There were many households holding funerals, but they didn’t dare make a big fuss, just hanging a white cloth strip at the door, the family hiding inside, suppressing their voices in mournful crying.
2 In the Haizhou City Lord’s Mansion, Yun Ce found the busy Cao Kun.
2 “Originally, the three prefectures’ armies pressing on Qiu He Prefecture made me tense for a while. In the end, I decided to first repel one force, making the other two retreat knowing the difficulty.
2 Unexpectedly, the selected Hai Prefecture army had no power to fight back under Cao Ling’s assault. After defeating the Hai Prefecture army, we discovered that there wasn’t a single expert in the Hai Prefecture army.
2 I thought Shi Lan Jin was employing a stratagem of luring the enemy deep, which made me lead the army step by step cautiously, breaking through countless passes along the way, before arriving under Haizhou City.
2 It was here that we encountered a bit of resistance, but it was quickly swept away by me. After entering the city and capturing Shi Lan Jin, we learned that Hai Prefecture’s elites had basically all died in Chang’an.”
2 Yun Ce picked up the tea bowl and took a sip of water, saying, “Didn’t you encounter anything else?”
3 Cao Kun raised his eyebrows and said, “Shi Lan Jin’s rear residence was full of Gui Fang women; does that count?”
3 Yun Ce laughed, “Don’t you feel disheartened?”
3 “So, I salted him with salt, hung him on the flagpole to air-dry, and informed the people in Haizhou City that Shi Lan Jin didn’t want to be a good Han person and wanted to be a devil. Now, the people in the city are waiting for Shi Lan Jin’s corpse to be salted and then share it to eat.”
3 Having taken Hai Prefecture almost without bloodshed, Cao Kun was somewhat complacent, and even facing Yun Ce, the Heir Apparent of the King of Changsha, he had a bit of arrogance.
3 “The Cao Clan Army has split into two routes, one going to Eastern Province, one to Tai Prefecture. If things are really as Uncle said, with the three prefectures’ strength all consumed in that Chang’an turmoil, the two armies taking Tai Prefecture will make Eastern Province no problem.
3 From then on, the Cao Clan will exclusively occupy the Eastern Five Provinces.”
3 Yun Ce laughed, “It should be six provinces. He Tian probably won’t dare confront the Cao Clan anymore.”
3 Cao Kun grabbed Yun Ce’s hand and said, “Join the Cao Clan. After you come, the Cao Clan will fully support you expanding your forces north of the Great Wall and guarantee not to touch your territory.”
3 Yun Ce continued laughing, “Resisting the devils is the responsibility of every Han person; I can’t be the only one at the forefront.”
3 Cao Kun shook his head, “Do you think the Cao Clan will casually trust someone and give them full support without demanding any return?”
4 It had to be admitted that Cao Kun’s mind was truly broad. No matter what the result would be in the future, for now, being willing to give unconditional support was already impressive.
4 At least, this person valued resisting foreign invaders more than fighting for power.
4 “In Tai Prefecture, I killed one Gui Fang thousand-man general and a hundred hundred-man generals.”
4 What kind of person was Cao Kun? As soon as Yun Ce finished speaking, he stood up and said to Cao Ling, “Flying Bird, send a message to Cao Ting: be careful of Gui Fang people mixed in the Eastern Province army.”
4 Seeing Cao Ling leave in a hurry, Yun Ce sighed and said, “The Cao Clan truly has deep foundations. One Cao Ting can resist a Gui Fang thousand-man general and hundred-man generals.”
4 Cao Kun laughed, “The Cao Clan has no fewer than thirty thousand clan kin and sons. I heard your two wives are both pregnant?”
4 Yun Ce laughed, “In another two months, the Yun Clan will have three clan kin and sons.”
4 Cao Kun laughed loudly, “Even someone as lofty as the High Priest can only lament helplessly in the current chaos. Someone as brilliant as you, Yun Ce, clearly took Tai Prefecture with just one man and one horse, but in the end brought nothing away, leaving still one man and one horse.”
4 Yun Ce smiled bitterly, “And lost a hundred taels of gold.”
4 “Eh, you didn’t touch Han Qi’s gold?”
5 “No, after learning the truth, I was heartbroken and abandoned the guesthouse bought for fifty taels of gold, and even spent fifty taels of gold in Tai Prefecture’s brothel.”
5 Cao Kun laughed heartily, “So, this trip was a big loss?”
5 Yun Ce laughed along, “Yeah, a big loss, and earned a belly full of frustration.”
5 Cao Kun slapped Yun Ce’s shoulder familiarly, saying, “You and I can never be enemies in this lifetime.”
5 Yun Ce glanced at Cao Kun’s big hand on his shoulder and laughed, “I’ll go home right now, shut the door and not come out, and next year give birth to five hundred sons to show you; anyway, I have many women at home.”
5 Cao Kun looked at Yun Ce and chuckled, “I’ll wait and see. Until you produce thirty thousand sons, you can only watch me conquer cities and seize territory, showing off everywhere.”
5 “Don’t forget, as your Cao Clan conquers cities and seizes territory, aren’t you afraid of being surrounded and attacked?”
5 “Conquering one city at a time would indeed draw a group beating, but conquering three prefectures at once, the various prefectures in the East will only fawn upon the Cao Clan.”
5 Quantitative change leads to qualitative change; this saying is always reasonable, and it applies to the Cao Clan as well. Indeed, as Cao Kun said, seizing a few cities in Lingzhou drew countless strong enemies, but now, the Cao Clan took Tai Prefecture, Hai Prefecture, and even Eastern Province all at once; those who should be afraid are now the strong enemies.
5 Don’t think that because Great Han people learned the stories of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States from King Huo Huo Qubing, learned the great story of the First Emperor unifying the world, and even knew essays like 《On the Fall of Qin》 summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of Qin, and knew that the six states perished not due to weapons and armor, not due to strong mountains and rivers, but due to bribing Qin.
6 Now, putting them in the position of the six states, facing the powerful Cao Clan, their choice is still the same as the six states: bribe Cao, and there won’t be any second choice.
6 They might even do it worse than the six states.
6 Li Shimin said that using history as a mirror, one can know prosperity.
6 It’s just knowing prosperity; once they know it, they absolutely won’t change it, only choosing the currently most comfortable path to follow, and history has long told people that bribing Cao will be the best choice for muddling through.
6 Yun Ce thought it was pretty good; having a powerful Cao Clan that refused to surrender to the devils unify the East would be a good thing for the Great Han. At least, once the devils come south, the Cao Clan would bear the brunt.
6 People with such thoughts weren’t just Yun Ce; people like Wu Tong in Chang’an thought the same.
6 But this view had appeared twice before: once when Great Wall Grand Governor Zhao Shu abandoned the Great Wall defense line, letting strongmen nibble it away bit by bit; the previous time, everyone felt that rather than letting the corrupt Great Wall Garrison serve as the empire’s second line of defense, it was better to let strongmen guard it, who could hold out longer than Zhao Shu’s Great Wall Garrison.
6 Now, it was the same: rather than letting Tai Prefecture, Hai Prefecture, and Eastern Province be held by three empty, useless inspectors and then infiltrated by devils, better to hand them to the powerful Cao Clan to manage.
6 It sounds very reasonable and pleasant to say.
6 In reality, every dynasty before its fall has such clever choices, and the more such clever self-destructive choices, the faster the dynasty falls.
7 Every incident, every matter, actually tells everyone that the Great Han Empire currently has no better choice than constant concessions and constant retreats.
7 If, if these things happened during the six hundred years of King Huo’s rule, whether Zhao Shu or the Cao Clan would have long been captured by the army to Chang’an, paraded through the streets, and then torn apart by five horses in public.
