Chapter 181 Dealing with the Aristocratic Family
Large numbers of cavalry patrolled the Luoyang area. Once they found any problems, they would immediately march to the border. If the situation was serious, they would simply give up capturing the enemy alive and just march in with the army to attack and wipe out the area. Not to mention the bandits, even some ferocious beasts with internal energy leaving their bodies would be killed directly.
There was even an unlucky beast that was about to break through the boundary and ran into Gao Shun’s trap camp. With the activation of the military spirit and the pressure of the cloud, it was directly hacked to death in just one minute. The whole army suffered no losses, which highlighted a relaxed and carefree situation.
Because of their poor speed, the Western Liang Cavalry were sent to Liangzhou to guard the border. The unusual movements of the Northern Huns in Liangzhou always made Guo Hao worried, so he sent Li Jue and others to Liangzhou early in order to consider the next plan.
I was too busy before, but now the Thirty-Six Kingdoms in the Western Regions should be sorted out. The small country of Wusun actually dared to play the middleman to make a profit . To be honest, if Chen Xi hadn't suddenly remembered this, even players like Guo Hao would have forgotten about the Silk Road.
Every year, Wusun purchased a large amount of silk from the Han Dynasty and shipped it to Parthia and Rome. The profits earned from this were more than dozens of times, making it almost a profitable business.
Now thinking about this, Guo Hao hurriedly sent the Xiliang Iron Cavalry back to Liangzhou, to garrison Liangzhou while trying to find out the foundation of the Western Regions.
Guo Hao and Chen Xi have no idea about the strength of the Western Region which has expanded tenfold. At least with a population of several million, there might be some strong men coming out of the Western Region.
After everything was almost arranged, Guo Hao took Chen Xi and others back to Luoyang.
There are more troubles waiting for them in Luoyang, and the aristocratic families are ultimately a problem that cannot be avoided.
It can be said that aristocratic families have been an unavoidable trouble since the Han Dynasty. From ancient times to the present, there have been less than a handful of people who have been able to suppress aristocratic families. In most cases, the emperor and the literati shared the world.
Guo Hao met with representatives of aristocratic families with the intention of using both carrot and stick.
This time Guo Hao really wanted to kill. The aristocratic families had caused trouble for him more than once or twice. This time, an aristocratic family actually tripped him up in the process of suppressing bandits. This touched Guo Hao's bottom line.
He had said before that he would kill anyone who dared to cause trouble during this period, but he didn't expect that there would be a family that was so ignorant of the consequences that it would provoke him.
"Have you found out clearly?" Guo Hao asked while sitting in the main seat.
Jia Xu stood up and took out a piece of intelligence. Ever since Guo Hao won the victory, a group of old ministers who pretended to be dead also started to work. In addition, with Chen Xi's overall control, his workload was sharply reduced for a while, and he looked a little more plump.
"We have found out that it was the Geng family, Cui family, Zhang family , Zhen family, etc. from Jizhou who did this. However, the arrangements were probably made before the great victory. After the great victory, there was no contact."
The aristocratic families in Jizhou are also old-established families. They were naturally dissatisfied with the fact that their forces in Luoyang were wiped out, and they made things difficult for Guo Hao in various places. However, after Guo Hao's great victory at Hulao Pass, all the aristocratic families began to play dead, and it was obvious that they wanted to get away with it.
After all, Guo Hao has always been relatively gentle in dealing with the aristocratic families, and they have extensive roots in Jizhou. Even the Yuan family, a top aristocratic family in the world, cannot do anything to them, so they are not worried about Guo Hao's reaction at all.
In their opinion, they had already surrendered, and what could Guo Hao do to them? It was impossible for him to send troops to defeat them.
Unfortunately, they underestimated Guo Hao's determination in the area of people's livelihood construction. Guo Hao would never allow anyone to cause trouble for him when Chen Xi was carrying out large-scale construction.
"Order Qu Yi to lead the vanguard, Gao Shun to lead the vanguard, and Lu Bu to lead the wolf riders to Jizhou. All the noble families involved in this matter will be slaughtered. Wenyou, you go in person. I'll leave the details to you."
Guo Hao thought about it and found that he had enough power at hand, and Bingzhou was about to be invaded by the Hu people, so it was also important to let Lu Bu and others return to Bingzhou to guard the border.
Chen Xi and Jia Xu each had important tasks to do and could not move, so he had no choice but to ask Li Ru to make the trip in person.
Although Xun Yu and others had already started working, they had just surrendered after all. Even if Guo Hao was relieved, these people could not command Lu Bu and others. In the end, he could only choose to let Li Ru go over and control the overall situation.
It was impossible for Guo Hao to uproot the Jizhou family. He was just threatening. He felt relieved to leave the specific control to Li Ru. After all, Li Ru was not a devil and would definitely give him a satisfactory answer.
After seeing Li Ru off, Guo Hao fell into a state of doing nothing again. He could no longer stay in the Government Affairs Office, and he couldn't even get up to go to court. Moreover, he was too lazy to listen to what a group of old hands were saying in the court.
However, his negative attitude was unexpectedly praised by a group of Confucian bigwigs. This kind of hands-off boss is what these Confucian scholars who want to govern the country want to see most.
Although the eldest princess is in charge on paper, even a fool knows that Guo Hao is the one whose words have the most influence in Luoyang.
The court was very satisfied with Guo Hao. He respected orthodoxy but did not usurp power. He was dedicated to recommending talents and then leaving them alone. If there was a rebellion, he would immediately send troops to suppress it. Moreover, those who were in Luoyang could clearly feel that their lives were getting better and better.
Therefore, the entire Han Dynasty court's evaluation of Guo Hao was that he was a loyal minister, a typical loyal minister of the Han Dynasty.
Some great scholars would even use Guo Hao as a positive example when giving lectures . For a time, the great reputation of General Guo Hao was spread all over the thirteen states.
However, Guo Hao's only shortcoming is that he likes to suddenly put talented people in high positions. They had no objection to Jia Xu being one of the Nine Ministers, after all, he was the general's confidant, but it was too much for Chen Xi to be directly appointed as the prime minister. The subsequent appointment of Xun Yu and others was even more outrageous.
All the vacant positions were filled with talented people. If a group of people had not been transferred out to coordinate the construction of the engineering team, the struggle in the court would have begun.
Moreover, Guo Hao's criterion for selecting people was indeed based on merit, and they were all descendants of famous families. The old ministers could not object at all. Guo Hao even reused the commander of the rebel army, Ju Shou, and they really could not find any fault with him.
But a group of old officials also sadly discovered that everyone under Guo Haosai is a talent, and they can only use their age to blacken them, and they have no other way to deal with them for the time being.
Moreover, someone like Chen Xi is also the patriarch of a branch of the Chen family (crossed out), the patriarch of the Chen family. Even if they want to touch Chen Xi, they have to consider the impact.
What's more, they also realized the gap between each other. Xun Yu and others were not as good as him, let alone Chen Xi.
Chen Xi did not argue with them. He would go to court every week to report his plan to the princess, and then arrange a series of plans for each of them.
To be honest, they have to work overtime on every plan, and they have to be thankful if they can have one day off every seven days.
Moreover, Guo Hao attached great importance to the plan. All those who failed to complete it were punished, and some were directly demoted to teach in private schools.
In this situation of constant internal conflict, a group of old ministers became increasingly exhausted. Every week when they went to court, apart from impeaching Chen Xi, they would work overtime.
Speaking of this, Chen Xi's salary has been deducted until five hundred years later.
There was no way. Everyone was working, and only Chen Xi was enjoying himself every day. Basically every minister could see Chen Xi when they went to the brothel.
Although Chen Xi argued that it was all coincidence, as time went on no one believed Chen Xi anymore.
The reputation of "Romance Prime Minister" was extremely famous in Luoyang, and then Chen Xi was banned from entering the harem. Guo Hao didn't know about it until Chen Xi came to find Guo Hao to report the matter to the palace.
After all, compared with the Han Dynasty's role model Guo Hao, the romantic Prime Minister Chen Xi has completely lost his reputation.
Even though Guo Hao asked Xu Zijiang to give Chen Xi an evaluation of "a lone moon in the sky", it failed to change the atmosphere in Luoyang.
“So slow!”
Guo Hao looked at the deserted road and squatted on the ground counting ants out of boredom.
"There's nothing we can do. This road hasn't even been completed around Luoyang. They've already risked their lives to get here today." Chen Xi said with a wry smile.
The two of them were squatting outside Luoyang waiting for the representatives sent by the noble families behind the coalition. They had said they would come a long time ago, but ended up dragging it on until today. The roads in the Eastern Han Dynasty were so rubbish, and the official roads were a mess.
The group of people following Guo Hao and Chen Xi kept rolling their eyes. They really didn't want to come, but Guo Hao asked them all to come, and they had no choice. After all, it was Guo Hao who sent the Sun Cavalry to invite people out door to door. Not to mention them, even old ministers like Huangfu Song were pulled here.
They all rolled their eyes when they heard Chen Xi's speech. You know, the cement and asphalt Chen Xi prepared were already very convenient, but it still took a lot of time to build the road. It was not because of anything else, but because of Chen Xi's standards.
All the roads were built with twelve parallel lines. How could the progress not be slow? However, Chen Xi was not a devil. He only required that there be twelve parallel lines around Luoyang, and the other places would have the conventional four or six parallel lines.
Chen Xi initially used high-strength cement and strictly controlled the quality standards, but later he found that it was completely unnecessary. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the maximum cargo carried by these horse-drawn and ox-drawn carts was no more than two tons, which could not damage the road surface at all.
Then he just started using ordinary cement, which has a strength similar to the inferior version of modern low-quality cement. If it is used to build roads like this now, it will be useless.
"Zichuan, have you figured out how to deal with these noble families? If not, I will use my own method."
Guo Hao said nonchalantly that he brought so many people here today to wait for the representatives of the aristocratic families not out of respect, but to kill them to scare the monkeys.
He was very dissatisfied with Huangfu Song and his friends' previous indecision, and the fact that they knew about the situation but did not report it made Guo Hao have a worse impression of Huangfu Song. Before Li Ru left, he asked him to deal with these fence-sitters.
Originally, Li Ru planned to deal with these fence-sitters himself, but unfortunately he was sent to Jizhou, so he could only entrust the matter to Guo Hao.
Guo Hao's voice was very low, but it sounded like thunder to the ears of the waiting people.
Huangfu Song, in particular, wanted to bang his head against the wall. Why was he so obsessed with the idea of being a fence-sitter? He knew best how elite the troops under Guo Hao were. Besides, Xu Rong was guarding Hulao Pass, so the chances of the aristocratic family returning to Luoyang were basically zero.
So no matter whether Guo Hao wins or loses, he holds the power of life and death in Luoyang. As a result, he is so obsessed that he actually wants to be a fence-sitter and wait for death.
Now he also understood that Guo Hao kept him because he valued his abilities, but a warning was inevitable. It seemed that the one being killed to scare monkeys was monkeys like him.
Huangfu Song, feeling bitter in his heart, could only remain silent, silently thinking about how to restore his image in Guo Hao's heart. After all, they had a great time talking to each other in the past, but now they were like strangers.
"Let's see what kind of explanation they can give. Although I don't want to admit it, these aristocratic families are the elite of the Han Dynasty after all. It would be a waste to kill them all." Chen Xi sighed. He hadn't figured out how to deal with it.
He did not want to acknowledge the identity of the head of the Chen family, but this was an identity he had to bear. Even his divine talent could not change it under the circumstances.
"Forget it. I was planning to kill them all." Guo Hao said with resentment. He was not a broad-minded person.
Chen Lin, who had offended him before, had been arranged by Guo Hao to be the editor-in-chief of the newly established news department because of his good writing skills.
It sounds like a good job, but Guo Hao asked Chen Lin to write five articles every day until the end of this year. At first, Chen Lin thought Guo Hao was very tolerant. But after Chen Lin finished writing all the articles he had written before, he almost went crazy.
He is the editor-in-chief and has work to deal with every day. Chen Lin simply does not have enough time to do other things. He lives a life of going to and from work all day long. Apart from going to work, he writes articles every day.
There was no other way. He didn't dare to bet on the consequences of not finishing the writing. Guo Hao sent a team of Sun Riders to collect the manuscripts every day. No matter how Chen Lin looked at it, he felt that the Sun Riders were planning to kill him.
Moreover, Chen Lin did not dare to write anything else. Apart from the serious articles every day, all other manuscripts were used to flatter Guo Hao. There was nothing he could do because Sun Rider liked his manuscripts praising Guo Hao very much, so he was forced to write such manuscripts.
After all, Guo Hao didn't read the articles he wrote. The one who was responsible for reviewing them every day was Sun Rider. The basic requirements were that the sentences were fluent and the number of words met the requirements. As for the depth of the content, there were no very high requirements.
Chen Lin worked so hard every day to write articles that her hair fell out in clumps. However, no one dared to help Chen Lin. After all, they all saw her miserable condition and they didn't want to put themselves in danger.
"Here they come." Guo Hao finally spotted a convoy at the end of the road.
"Go and intercept them all for me. They are still leisurely strolling on the road!" Guo Hao was a little unhappy. These noble families were so arrogant. Not only did they come here to apologize, but they even dared to leisurely stroll on the road in carriages.
The Sun Riders moved immediately. As Guo Hao's personal guards, they were not afraid of the aristocratic families or anything like that. They just did whatever Guo Hao ordered them to do without any hesitation.
