Volume 3: The Land of Jingchu Chapter 334: Discussion on Donglai
Finally, thanks to Jian Yong's efforts, Lu Su made an offer on behalf of the General's Mansion.
After all, Jian Yong was only an aide to the Xuzhou Prefecture. Even though Liu Bei gave him a lot of autonomy, there were some things he could not decide on.
Bai Tu was also not allowed to talk to him. After being pressured openly and secretly by Bai Tu, Lu Su and Jian Yong met once in the name of "official business".
As for the meeting with Bai Tu, nominally Jian Yong was visiting the General's Mansion on behalf of Xuzhou Prefecture to congratulate the New Year.
After Lu Su "made an offer", he also hinted to Jian Yong that if the negotiations could not be reached this time, or Guan Yu did not withdraw his troops within the deadline, then there was no need to send anyone to negotiate again!
The price of the General's Mansion was not excessive. Although Jian Yong acted embarrassed and even indignant, he did not continue to pester Lu Su after he remained unmoved.
After all, in terms of conditions, the General's Mansion still made concessions.
On the first day of February, Lu Su will go to Huang County on behalf of Bai Tu. If Xuzhou Prefecture agrees to the conditions of the General's Mansion, Lu Su will shake hands with Guan Yu and swear an oath in Huangcheng.
Afterwards, the main force of the Xuzhou army in Qingzhou needed to withdraw from Donglai County, including Guanyang County of Beihai County, which was adjacent to the hinterland of Donglai County.
The General's Office will also give up Qucheng, Yexian, Dangli, Luxiang and other counties, and only retain the four counties of Huangxian, Muping, Dongmu and Changyang on the eastern coast of Donglai.
In addition, two ports and water forts were built in the Chengshan area of Huang County and the Changguiting area of Changyang County. After the completion of the markets near the ports, they were all opened to Qingzhou and served as places for transactions between the General's Mansion and Xuzhou Prefecture.
After completion, the navy will be stationed only at the port in the General's Mansion. The size of the garrisons in other counties of Qingzhou will be controlled and will not exceed that of normal hinterland counties. In addition, Qingzhou merchant ships can go out to sea and dock at Changgui Port.
At the same time, Xuzhou was also not allowed to station troops in Donglai County and the area east of Jiaodong County in Beihai County, and both sides left a buffer zone for each other...
Although Jian Yong could not guarantee it, especially when he just proposed the conditions, he showed dissatisfaction, but after two days of negotiations, when he felt that the general would not give in, Jian Yong still hinted before leaving that he could convince Liu Bei.
After all, if the situation really gets deadlocked, even the Prime Minister's Office will only add fuel to the flames - after the Prime Minister's Office's victory in Yanjin, although it was the most prominent at the time, it was far from comparable to Xuzhou Prefecture's victory in Qingzhou, but... in terms of the actual expansion of territory and people, Xuzhou Prefecture gained greater benefits.
Qingzhou is far less prosperous than Jizhou. The Yellow Turban Rebellion caused serious , and the young and old people who were included in the Yellow Turban Rebellion were all taken away and incorporated by Cao Cao a few years ago. In terms of potential and foundation, it is not as good as Xuzhou after it was harmed.
However, the Prime Minister's Office gained only a few counties in Jizhou, with a population less than a quarter of Jizhou, while Xuzhou Prefecture gained most of Qingzhou.
Of course, the number of captives obtained by the Prime Minister's Office is unmatched by that of Xuzhou Prefecture, so in a short period of time, its strength increase is not as good as that of the Prime Minister's Office.
Jian Yong understood it very well - he just listened to Sima Lang's hints before...
What's more, Liu Bei is still thinking about something big, which, if successful, will change the current situation in the world. Generally speaking... Xuzhou Prefecture does not want to create trouble and fall out with the General's Mansion at this time.
Similarly, the reason why Bai Tu handed the matter over to Lu Su was that he wanted to get it done, and he took into account the "historical compatibility" between Lu Su and Guan Yu.
In history when there was no white rabbit effect, when Lu Su served as the Grand Commander, Jiangdong and Guan Yu, who was stationed in Jingzhou, maintained a relatively good relationship without much friction.
In the novel, Guan Yu went to the meeting with Lu Su alone, while in history, "going to the meeting alone" means that Lu Su asked Guan Yu to station his troops a hundred steps away from each other in front of the battle, and the two of them went forward to talk one-on-one...
In the end, he explained the pros and cons to Guan Yu and reached an agreement on the issue of confronting Cao Cao. During the period when Lu Su was in charge of "confronting" Jingzhou, no war broke out between the two sides.
It was this consensus that enabled both Sun and Liu to accumulate strength after the Battle of Chibi, laying the foundation for the future Three Kingdoms.
It was not until the hawkish Lu Meng took over that he changed his mind and joined forces with Guan Yu when Lu Su was in power, and advocated attacking Jingzhou, and he soon found an opportunity...
Bai Tu calculated that for a general like Guan Yu who had a strong subjective initiative, the orders from his elder brother Liu Bei alone might not be enough to restrain Guan Yu. Moreover, Liu Bei was far away in Xu Du, and there was a high probability that he would leave some "flexibility" when issuing orders.
In contrast, it would be better to let Lu Su shake hands with him and swear an oath - this ritualistic behavior can better inspire Guan Yu's "righteousness" and thus restrain his behavior.
If it was Gan Ning who signed the oath of alliance with Guan Yu...
Given their personalities, they might end up messing things up!
Jian Yong said goodbye to Bai Tu before the New Year. It was unknown whether he was really in a hurry or still had some dissatisfaction with the General's Mansion.
However, Bai Tu was still very considerate and gave him several hundred kilograms of pork and sauces to take away as a gift to Xuzhou Prefecture and Liu Bei.
The New Year's Eve banquet at the General's Mansion this year seemed a little deserted, so Bai Tu specially invited the two old ladies of the Sun family and the families of many other frontline generals to the banquet at the General's Mansion.
The two old ladies understood Bai Tu's "broken promise". Although they had some resentment, they were also against Sun Ce and Zhou Yu. They even suspected that they were not doing their best on the front line in order to "escape marriage"!
If the war in Jiangxia continues to go badly next year, the two old ladies will probably be the first to report to the Privy Council that the frontline generals have an improper attitude in combat...
Lu Su specially prepared to set off for Qingzhou after the Chinese New Year - last year, the Privy Council, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Personnel... were all very happy. It was obvious that the projects of our Ministry of Civil Affairs were the foundation of everything, so why didn't they understand?
This year you have learned a lot and learned some lessons!
Lu Su asked himself that the Ministry of Civil Affairs was also very powerful last year, but it was overshadowed by the Privy Council and the Ministry of Works. This year... not only did he have the merit of promoting the essence of Shennong, but also the progress of large-scale projects in various places, and the index of road and bridge construction assigned to various counties have also greatly increased. However, other departments have been stuck in bottlenecks. It is finally time for him to be proud.
For this purpose, Lu Su even wrote a special manuscript, praising the Ministry of Civil Affairs at the New Year's banquet. At the same time, he did not forget to encourage other departments with sincere feelings, which made the heads of other departments speechless.
…
Compared with the "open and secret struggles" in the General's Mansion, the New Year's Eve banquet of the Xudu court can be said to be "harmonious".
Because Cao Cao returned victoriously, the anti-Cao voices in Xuchang were silenced.
Wang Fu, the captain of the Yue cavalry, and Wu Shuo, the counselor, were both stripped of their posts and thrown into prison on charges of slandering the prime minister!
If Cao Cao had not been concerned about Liu Bei, he would have even wanted to deal with Dong Cheng and others as well. Unfortunately, Dong Cheng had become timid recently and could not find a suitable excuse. Cao Cao was also worried that Liu Bei would disobey him for the sake of the royal dignity.
However, at the New Year's Eve banquet, Cao Cao not only secretly regarded himself as the host of the banquet, but also in the second half, when the ministers toasted Liu Xie and shouted to Yuan Ni to retreat, Cao Cao pretended to be drunk and stood up to raise his glass...
