Chapter 385: Central Plains in Turmoil

【In ancient times, epidemics were a warning from heaven and had to be treated with caution.

Although Cao Cao took Sun Quan's surrender letter and retreated gloriously at Ruxukou, the epidemic raging in Yecheng also exhausted the King of Wei of the Han Dynasty.

After the succession was determined quickly, the winners and losers of the succession dispute also surfaced.

For the Sima family in Henei, it was sad that the eldest son Sima Lang died of epidemics.

But the second son Sima Yi's bet on Cao Pi, the General of the Five Officials, was a great success, which also made the Sima family very happy.

In the 22nd year of Jian'an, Emperor Wu of Wei, who was over 60 years old, was old and no longer ambitious.

And the 38-year-old Sima Xuanwang stepped onto the stage of power struggle with ambition.

For the development of history, epidemics and time have always been the best accelerators. Starting from the 22nd year of Jian'an:

Xiahou Yuan was beheaded on the battlefield at Dingjun Mountain, and Guan Yu was defeated and captured and killed in Maicheng.

Zhang Fei in Langzhong was killed for his violence and lack of gratitude, and Ma Chao in Shuzhong vomited blood and died of depression.

Lü Meng in Jingzhou died after achieving success, and Zhang Liao in Jiangdu died while on the expedition due to illness.

Cao Cao in Luoyang City died of illness after selling incense and shoes.

Liu Bei in Baidi City entrusted his son to others before his blood feud was avenged.

These stars that embellished the Three Kingdoms fell one after another, and in the end only the long elegy floated in the autumn wind of Wuzhangyuan.

The Three Kingdoms had been decided and the overall situation was difficult to change, so Sima Xuanwang took the stage to sing his name.

After Cao Pi was made the crown prince, Sima Yi, whose brother died of an epidemic, gradually emerged.

Not only was he quickly promoted to the crown prince's middle son, but he was also called Cao Pi's "four friends" together with Chen Qun, Wu Zhi, and Zhu Le, showing the image of a close minister of the Wei king and the crown prince.

We all know what happened later. Sima Yi followed Cao's old ways and did it even more thoroughly.

This made the great-great-grandson Emperor Ming of Jin sigh after hearing about his ancestor's handwriting:

"If it is as you said, how can the throne last long?"

In the year before the 22nd year of Jian'an, the Southern Xiongnu Chanyu Huchuquan came to see Cao Cao because of his reputation, and was eventually forced to stay in Yecheng.

On the one hand, Cao Cao treated this Southern Xiongnu Chanyu with great courtesy.

On the other hand, he cleanly divided the Southern Xiongnu into five and moved them inland, both to enrich the population and to make them Han.

One of the left Xianwang thought it was good to be a Han Chinese, so he changed his surname to Liu and was named Liu Bao.

Liu Bao later had a son, Liu Yuan, who was the founding emperor of Han Zhao who completely opened the prelude to the Sixteen Kingdoms.

He was posthumously named Emperor Guangwen and his temple name was Gaozu. During his reign, he honored Liu Chan as Emperor Xiaohuai and built a shrine for Liu Banger to worship him in the standards of the three ancestors and five ancestors. It can be regarded as the orthodoxy of the Han Dynasty in a sense.

The Central Plains was in turmoil. The Five Barbarians trampled on the people with iron hooves and killed the famous scholars with swords. They used the Central Plains as a horse field to decide the ownership of the nine states, and finally divided up the last bit of the legacy of the late Han Dynasty and the two Jin Dynasties.

The war lasted for three hundred years, blood and fire flowed in the land of China, natural disasters, wars, famines, and epidemics continued to cycle, and the lives were trampled into dust.

Cai Wenji sang:

The sky is unkind and sent chaos and separation, and the earth is unkind and made me meet this time.

It is really suitable as the most authentic footnote of this era.

And peeling off the fog of the three hundred years of war, the source of everything can be traced back to the great epidemic in the 22nd year of Jian'an.

These diseases that coexist with humans and continue to grow together have intervened in human history with the most arrogant attitude.

And kicked over the direction set by those kings and generals, pushing history into a fast lane that no one knows.

And we all know that the power of the epidemic is by no means limited to this. 】

Listening to the sigh of the young voice in the light curtain, Ma Chao felt unbelievable at the first time.

How much weight did Xiahou Yuan have? He died in Dingjun Mountain... Could he enter Hanzhong?

You know, two months ago, Lord Xuande captured Xiahou Yuan and his nearly 30,000 troops, and the casualties were only more than a thousand soldiers.

If such a Xiahou Yuan could enter Hanzhong, Ma Chao felt that he should be able to ride into Chang'an without any problem.

Moreover, Guan Yu was defeated and fled to Maicheng?

This general was famous for his victory in Jingxiang, who could underestimate him? Who could make him lose?

And then he didn't feel sad for even a second for the news of Zhang Fei's death. The next thought that came into Ma Chao's mind was:

"I... died of depression?"

When the old things were mentioned again, Liu Bei's eyes were a little dazed, and Kong Ming stopped shaking his feather fan and sighed softly.

Only Zhang Fei was the least emotional.

Although he could empathize with his elder brother and admire the military advisor's support for the general.

But as long as he thought about the cause of his own death...

Zhang Fei could immediately wake up, his mood was as cold as before the battle, and there was no ups and downs.

However, looking at Ma Chao's confused and shocked expression at this time, Zhang Fei felt a little more balanced.

"Does Mengqi want to know about these things?"

Needless to say, Ma Chao immediately nodded like a chicken pecking at rice.

So Zhang Fei's mood really improved, and he grinned with two rows of white teeth flashing, and Ma Chao was frightened.

And the words that came out of it were like the biting cold wind in the cold winter:

"Okay, how about two thousand horses?"

With just a few simple words, Ma Chao's mixed thoughts were completely dispelled, and his most simple feelings for Zhang Fei regained the upper hand, and he said viciously:

"Two thousand horses? Then I might as well vomit blood and die right now!"

This kind of sigh was very luxurious for Pang Tong. After all, if it was calculated according to the history books of later generations, he estimated that his tomb and temple would have been covered with dust at this time.

So he pondered in his heart and sighed about the successive usurpations of the Wei and Jin dynasties:

"Epidemics are rampant, life and death are unpredictable, meritorious officials live extravagantly, and powerful officials secretly harbor evil intentions, which seem to be not man-made disasters."

The epidemic in the 22nd year of Jian'an seemed to have dealt a particularly heavy blow to Cao Pi, but he eventually became emperor.

But he could still cross the river and destroy his own bridge, saying that the abdication due to virtue was just a lie, without caring at all about how he came to power.

It seemed natural for the powerful officials under his command to have some thoughts.

Pang Tong still remembered that the "Luoshui fart" that later generations joked about was also affected by the epidemic.

After all, it was a luxury to die peacefully, and no one cared whether the so-called oath was kept.

Fa Zheng's ancestral home was in Guanzhong, and he knew more about the rebellion of the Xiongnu and Qiang Hu. At this time, he was also a little sad:

"The means of Cao thieves to divide the Xiongnu tribes are understandable, but I never thought that the disaster of the epidemic would benefit the Xiongnu."

Because it is easy to think that the Xiongnu people have the habit of raising horses, and they can ride horses and flee.

What about the Han people? Most of them who left their hometowns with their families would find it difficult to escape the epidemic.

After completely dispelling the fire of Yiling in his heart, Liu Bei found it difficult to evaluate Liu Yu for a while.

Although his ancestors were Xiongnu, what he did was better than many of Liu's children.

So Liu Bei could only turn to praise:

"I have heard about the talent of Cai Bojie's daughter for a long time. Now I hear the sighs of the younger generation, and I know that she is talented."

Kong Ming and others nodded silently. After all, seriously speaking, who really wants to be born in this chaotic world?