Wandering the Heavens

Chapter 372 New 3 Kingdoms 12

"Bofu, why do you smell like alcohol?" Zhou Yu pushed Sun Ce away and sniffed unconsciously.

"Ugh……"

Sun Ce glanced at his friend, not knowing where to start, so he could only sigh.

"Bofu, I have come from afar, won't you invite me into your house for a chat?" Zhou Yu asked.

"Please forgive me, Gongjin. Please come in!" Sun Ce hurriedly pulled Zhou Yu in.

After entering the room, Sun Ce asked Zhou Yu to wait for a moment while he went to get dressed and then came back to chat.

"Gongjin, I can't describe how I've been these days! After my father left, I followed Yuan Shu and made great contributions to his campaigns. But..."

Sun Ce raised the wine jug to pour the wine, his voice getting lower and lower, until he could not speak anymore.

"A real man stands between heaven and earth, how can he be inferior to others, let alone serve a lord like Yuan Shu who is content with a small fortune and is short-sighted." Zhou Yu picked up the wine glass and finished his words.

"Yes!" Sun Ce nodded, picked up the wine glass and drank it all.

"Recently I got news that Liu Biao of Jingzhou is in worsening health and he is wavering on his successor. The major clans in the state are fighting openly and secretly. I think this is an opportunity to break away from Yuan Shu. However, now we only have the old generals and a few hundred troops left by my father, so it's hard to accomplish anything great." Sun Ce said dejectedly.

"Bofu, even if you have troops in Jingzhou, it will be difficult to accomplish anything great!" Zhou Yu did not agree with Sun Ce's opinion.

Seeing that Sun Ce didn't understand, Zhou Yu patiently explained to him.

Since the campaign against Dong Zhuo, the princes have been attacking and annexing each other, but there are two places that are relatively peaceful, one is Yizhou and the other is Jingzhou.

Yizhou is located in a remote corner and has unique military defense conditions, so people can live in peace. The reason why Jingzhou is relatively peaceful is that the aristocratic families here have found a balance point to jointly resist the invasion of foreign forces. This balance point is Liu Biao.

It was obvious that Sun Ce did not have the conditions to do so, unless he could uproot all the aristocratic families in Jingzhou in a short period of time.

"So, Jingzhou is not feasible?"

After listening to Zhou Yu's explanation, Sun Ce's tone became even more depressed.

"Bofu, if you want to make a name for yourself, you still have to go to Jiangdong!"

Zhou Yu glanced at Sun Ce and picked up the wine jug to pour the wine himself.

"Please explain in detail, Gongjin." Sun Ce became interested.

Zhou Yu drank a glass of wine calmly before telling the story. The story started with Cao Cao taking advantage of the situation to attack Xuzhou and being severely punished.

At that time, Tao Qian sent people to ask for help everywhere. Liu Bei, under the command of Beihai Prefect Kong Rong, gathered more than 10,000 people to rescue Xuzhou. However, Cao Cao was defeated too quickly. When the reinforcements arrived in Xia Pi, Cao Cao had already crawled back to Yanzhou.

After the crisis in Xuzhou was resolved, Tao Qian handed over the post of governor to Chen Deng. In the delicate situation of the transition from the old to the new, Xiapi refused the request for reinforcements to enter the city. Liu Bei therefore dismissed the reinforcements and took his own 2,000 men south to join Liu Yao, who took advantage of the situation to place Liu Bei on the front line of the conflict with Yuan Shu.

This arrangement caused dissatisfaction among Liu Bei. In addition, his two sworn brothers, No-Brain and Unhappy, kept saying that Liu Yao was not good in this or that. The people under Liu Yao were also on guard against Liu Bei. A rift had already appeared between the two sides, and it was only a matter of time before they turned against each other.

So Zhou Yu's suggestion was to develop towards Jiangdong, bypass Liu Bei and attack Liu Yao, accelerating the breakdown of their relationship. What Sun Ce should do now is to find a way to get an army and go to Jiangdong to earn his first pot of gold.

After listening to this, Sun Ce was silent for a long time. Then he stood up and went back to the house without saying a word. A moment later, he came back holding something wrapped in silk cloth and placed it on the coffee table.

"Bofu, what is this?" Zhou Yu roughly guessed what it was.

"This is the imperial seal. I plan to use it to borrow troops from Yuan Shu to attack Liu Yao in Jiangdong! The imperial seal is just a dead object. Soldiers are the foundation of a business!"

As Sun Ce spoke, he untied the silk cloth, and an exquisite wooden box appeared in front of the two men.

"This is the Sun Bofu that I, Zhou Yu, know!" Zhou Yu nodded and smiled.

Sun Ce just smiled slightly and opened the wooden box, and then the smile froze on his face. In the wooden box was not the jade seal that took his father's life, but an animal statue of unknown material.

This animal seems to be a dog, but also a wolf. Its fur is distinctly black and white, and its blue eyes look silly. Is it chasing its own tail in circles?

"This..." The expression on Zhou Yu's face also froze.

Sun Ce grabbed the statue and looked at it from left to right. He had seen with his own eyes in Luoyang that his father put the jade seal into a wooden box, sealed it and never opened it again. How come it had turned into a statue that looked like a wolf and a dog?

"Where's the jade seal?"

"Brother Bofu, there is a note." Zhou Yu said, pointing at the lid of the wooden box.

Sun Ce put down the husky statue, hurriedly took out the note from the lid of the wooden box and unfolded it.

"Listen to my advice and you will live longer. This immortal, through Huang Gai's mouth, has made it clear how dangerous it is. However, you have lost your mind in the lust for power and have forgotten that you are the ministers of the Han Dynasty. I have taken the jade seal and returned it to the emperor of the Han Dynasty. Don't worry."

There was also a row of small characters below that wrote the time the letter was left, which was the night they got the imperial seal.

"Father, if you were still alive, what would you do?"

After reading the note several times, Sun Ce sat down on the table listlessly, letting the note slip through his fingers. The ambition that had just been helped up by Zhou Yu was killed by a statue and a piece of paper.

Zhou Yu also fell silent. Now that the world was in ruins, local military and political officials who nominally respected the imperial court were attacking and annexing each other. The aristocratic families were also looking for suitable warlords to cooperate with. Naturally, the Zhou family set their sights on Sun Ce, the son of Sun Jian. However, they did not expect that their great cause would be hit by a sudden blow before it even began.

"Hmph!" Sun Ce suddenly swept the wooden box statues to the ground and bowed to Zhou Yu, "Gongjin, this evil God doesn't look down on my Sun family, so I, Sun Ce, don't recognize his God either! I will find a way to borrow troops from Yuan Shu, and I ask Gongjin to help me achieve my great cause!"

"Bofu has such lofty ambitions, Gongjin will follow him until death!" Zhou Yu also hurriedly returned the greeting.

In September of the second year of Xingping, Sun Ce brought his younger brother Sun Quan to Shouchun as a hostage to borrow troops from Yuan Shu and attacked the six counties of Jiangdong. He was unstoppable all the way. Liu Yao ordered Liu Bei to send troops to retake the places captured by Sun Ce.

Liu Bei was unmoved. Liu Yao was also a ruthless man. He directly sent someone to give Liu Bei the seal of the Governor of Yangzhou. As soon as the messenger left the house, Liu Bei slit his throat.

Damn Yuan Shu bullied me, and you Liu Bei said you were a descendant of Emperor Gaozu but also bullied me. We are all descendants of the royal family. I'm going to go downstairs and complain to my ancestors right now!

Liu Bei refused to accept the governor seal sent by the messenger and asked the messenger to send it back to Qu'a. After all this, Sun Ce took Qu'a. Yuan Shu sent Ji Ling to cooperate with Sun Ce to besiege Liu Bei. The three brothers' struggles of the past two years were in vain, and they could only flee to Jingzhou by boat to seek refuge with Liu Biao.

Liu Biao accepted Liu Bei, and then trouble came. Yuan Shu sent troops to attack Jingzhou in the name of pursuing Liu Bei. The second major melee officially began. Cao Cao saw Yuan Shu fighting on multiple fronts, and under Guo Jia's suggestion, he sent more troops to the front line, almost putting all his chips on the line to avenge the original stab in the back.

Revenge is easy, but Cao Cao got into big trouble as soon as he went out. He still couldn't change his bad habit of riding in a luxurious carriage to go to war. While chewing an apple, he saw the wheat fields on both sides and issued an order, saying that the troops should walk carefully, and if they stepped on the wheat fields, they would be beaten.

After the military order was issued and they had walked another five or six miles, a pheasant suddenly flew towards Cao Cao's carriage. The horse, which had never seen the world, dragged the carriage away from the team and plunged into a wheat field on the side of the road.

The generals, counselors and guards who followed Cao Cao were all dumbfounded. How would this end?