A Journey Through the Worlds of Film and Television.

Chapter 691 Jizhou

After defeating Yuan Shao's army of 100,000 in one battle, Lu Cheng sent out a cavalry to pursue Yuan Shao. At the same time, he asked Taishi Ci and Dian Wei to lead a troop each, change into the clothes of the Bohai soldiers, take some captured Bohai soldiers, and march in two directions, quickly trick the city open and capture the counties of Bohai.

Because Yuan Shao was defeated so quickly, the cities in the rear had not yet received the news before Taishi Ci and Dian Wei each captured a city.

Yuan Shao, who fled back to Bohai in a panic, had no time to respond before he received news of losing cities and territories in succession on both the east and west sides.

Bohai County is a populous county. Each of the eight counties under its jurisdiction has a population of over 10, with a total population of one million. Attacking each city one by one is bound to consume a lot of manpower and time.

However, Yuan Shao mobilized all the troops in Bohai this time, resulting in the defense of each city being unprotected. Now, those scattered Bohai troops were dispersed or captured before they could return to their respective cities.

The subsequent siege also progressed quite smoothly.

After Yuan Shao retreated back to Nanpi City, there were limited soldiers and horses left in the city, which were no longer enough to resist the Liaodong army.

Finally, under the persuasion of his advisers, Yuan Shao withdrew from Nanpi City in time, headed south, and went to join Kong Rong in Beihai.

After Yuan Shao escaped, Lu Cheng did not pursue him relentlessly.

Given Yuan Shao's character, after this failure, he would inevitably be unable to recover.

Moreover, the Yuan family has had three officials in four generations, and their students and former officials are spread all over the world. Their influence is still there, so there is no need to kill them all for the time being.

After Yuan Shao was defeated, Han Fu had already fled, and there was no longer any obstacle in Jizhou.

Generals such as Zhao Yun, Taishi Ci, and Zhang He sent troops everywhere and continuously captured one city after another.

Many cities surrendered directly, and many aristocratic families in Jizhou took the initiative to come and surrender. Some aristocratic families also moved out of Jizhou in advance and went to other places.

Lu Cheng also gave certain preferential treatment to those who voluntarily surrendered, and as long as they were not guilty of heinous crimes, they would not be punished for the time being.

Now that the world is still unsettled, it is not the time to turn against those aristocratic families, and we must not treat them harshly or suppress them, otherwise we will encounter many troubles in the future when we fight for hegemony over the world.

Before, in Liaodong, Youzhou and Bingzhou, Lu Cheng could deal with them easily because they were located in the north and there were fewer aristocratic families. But now he can no longer follow the previous methods. He needs to use a blunt knife to cut the meat and boil the frog in warm water.

To this end, Lu Cheng asked Zhen Yi, the head of the Wuji Zhen family, to come forward to appease those aristocratic families who had voluntarily surrendered to him. As for some of the talented and capable people among them, they would also be employed according to their abilities, but their room for advancement would be limited.

At the same time, Ju Su was also entrusted with important tasks by Lu Cheng and set an example for the aristocratic families in Jizhou.

After taking over the four counties of Changshan, Zhongshan, Hejian and Bohai, Anping, Julu, Zhao, Qinghe, Weijun and other places in the south also surrendered.

Throughout the winter, Lu Cheng was busy conquering and governing various cities.

In order to further expand in the future and for the stability of Jizhou, Lu Cheng directly moved his government office to Julu County of Jizhou, and stationed heavy troops in the south, southwest and southeast of Jizhou.

Compared with conquering cities, the work of governing cities is even more cumbersome.

Fortunately, Lu Cheng already had some capable officials under his command. In addition, the various colleges and military academies in Liaodong had also trained a group of capable grassroots officials. Soon, many officials were deployed in various cities in Jizhou to begin implementing new policies.

Jizhou has thousands of miles of fertile land and is a major grain-producing province of the Han Dynasty. The grain reserves are already sufficient. It is a pity that Han Fu has neither the talent for entrepreneurship nor the ability to maintain the status quo. He also has no good ministers or famous generals to assist him, so he easily handed over the huge Jizhou to others.

Compared with Liaodong, the weather in Jizhou is much better, the winter is shorter, and two crops can be grown in a year.

Throughout the winter, Lu Cheng asked Lu Su, Ju Shou and others to check all the land in Jizhou and re-plan it to prepare for the harvest and farming in the coming year.

After taking over Jizhou and occupying three states, with a population of nearly ten million under his rule, Lu Cheng has become the undisputed number one prince in the world.

Historically, during Yuan Shao's most powerful period, he occupied four states, Qing, Ji, You and Bing, and was said to have a million soldiers under his command, making him unrivaled at the time.

Although Lu Cheng has not yet taken Qingzhou, he has swept across the Xianbei, Fuyu, Goguryeo and other places in the north. Whether in terms of territory, population or military strength, he is no worse than Yuan Shao in his strongest period.

It takes time to digest so much land at once.

At this time, a large number of Yellow Turban remnants were entrenched in Qingzhou, numbering hundreds of thousands.

Later, the leader of the Yellow Turban Army, Guan Hai, led his troops to attack Beihai. Beihai State Prime Minister Kong Rong sent Taishi Ci out to seek reinforcements, which led to the help of Liu Bei and his three brothers.

It is for this reason that the three brothers Liu, Guan and Zhang became good friends with Kong Rong. Later, with the introduction of Kong Rong, they went to rescue Tao Qian of Xuzhou who was attacked by Cao Cao, which led to the story of giving up Xuzhou three times.

However, now that the three brothers Liu, Guan and Zhang have fled to Jingzhou ahead of time, the situation in Qing and Xu states is naturally different.

Just when Lu Cheng was attacking Jizhou, Dong Zhuo, who was far away in Chang'an, forced Emperor Xian of Han to issue various documents of enthronement and divided all the prefectures and counties under Lu Cheng's rule.

However, Dong Zhuo and Li Ru did not expect that Yuan Shao, who had been a prime minister for four generations, would be defeated so quickly and could not hold on for more than ten days or half a month.

By the time Emperor Xian of Han's edict reached all places, Lu Cheng had already taken over the entire Jizhou.

As for Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Cao Cao and others who were conferred titles, they did not dare to offend Lu Cheng at all.

Not to mention the brothers Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, Boss Cao's career is still in its infancy. He can't even protect himself, so how dare he become an enemy of Lu Cheng?

However, since Dong Zhuo and Li Ru had made their move, Lu Cheng had no choice but to follow suit.

After receiving the news, Lu Cheng immediately ordered Huang Zhong and Zhao Yun to lead their troops westward and approach Guanzhong.

After Dong Zhuo received the news, he wanted to ignore it, but he was afraid that Lu Cheng would send troops to attack directly next year.

Li Ru first sent Lu Bu, Li Que, Guo Si and others to lead 50,000 troops to confront Huang Zhong and Zhao Yun. He also sent people to contact the Southern Xiongnu, sending them some gold and silver treasures, and asked them to harass the north of Bingzhou.

With Zhang Liao and Tian Feng stationed in the north of Bingzhou, plus a powerful cavalry, Lu Cheng naturally has nothing to worry about.

However, Lu Cheng has already planned to fight the Xiliang army again in the spring of next year to let Dong Zhuo know how powerful he is. By then, he can find a new official position for himself. The governor of Liaodong should also be replaced...