Lu Bu's safe return made the second year of Xingping finally reach the end of the year. Although it seems that these two things have nothing to do with each other at all, in fact, it is indeed because Cao Cao sent Lu Bu back that Ma Jia'an had a lot of life. As a result, at the end of the second year of the Han Dynasty, there was no earth-shattering news.

At the end of October, the Ma family sent an unprecedented envoy to visit the Cao family. The two families did not exchange any national affairs this time, and it seemed that they were just casual visits. But even so, such a small move by the Ma family made people from all walks of life in the Han Dynasty come alive.

What the famous family interpreted from this is that the Ma family and the Cao family may rebuild, and they should think more about the Cao family's soft power.

What the merchants saw was that the Ma family took the initiative to have political contacts with the Cao family in Yanzhou, which showed that they would no longer care about the influence of the Ma family, so that they could sell the Ma family's goods to Yanzhou in exchange for countless amounts of money.

And for those people at the bottom, that is, there will be no war between the Ma family and Cao Cao in the short term, and they can live this Spring Festival comfortably and with peace of mind.

However, it is clear that the Ma family will not let all strata in the world fully interpret its intentions. After visiting the Cao family, the members of the Ma Jiali Department did not return to Chang'an directly, but went all the way east and continued to visit Liu Bei in Xuzhou. In this matter, the Ma family did not tell the world too much, but Liu Bei in Xuzhou made a big fuss about it.

With this episode, it is easy to think that the Ma family will visit Jizhou again, but the Ma family is so unreasonable. After Xuzhou, the Ma Jiali Department killed a horse gun and visited Zhang Lu in Hanzhong again. General Yuan, who is now in the limelight in the Han world, chose to ignore it.

Running around all the way, it seems that in the winter of the second year of Xingping, only the Ministry of Rites of the Ma family is very busy. In addition, the entire Ma family really fell silent until the end of the year.

Finally, the day before the first day, the official office began to seal, the princes and big names began to seal the pen, and the entertainment and leisure activities of the whole people officially began.

However, this year's Chang'an is different from previous years. In the past, only Chang'an City on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month would be Jinwu couldn't help it, but this year it has started from the first day, and for a whole month, the merchants are almost crazy. Moreover, the announcement said that Weiyang Palace will be officially opened on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and Ma Chao also found a hundred elders from Chang'an to come to Weiyang Palace to watch singing and dancing. Of course, you have to be 70 years old to be there.

Finally, in the sound of firecrackers, every family in Chang'an City drank and feasted, laughed and laughed, and people gathered together to celebrate the New Year. It wasn't until midnight that they worshipped their ancestors and went back to sleep.

And on the third day of the first lunar month, the mansion of the hussar general.

The door of the house is lit up with lights, and the snow in front of the door is covered with thick firecracker shavings, which is a new year atmosphere.

Ma Chao wore a newly worsted sweater and a thick brocade robe, carried gifts, and took his family to Jia Xu's old fox's home to pay New Year's greetings.

As soon as he entered the door, Ma Chao found that Jia Xu was still pretending to be sick as always, and when he saw Ma Chao coming, he said that he felt that he was losing both qi and blood this year, and he was afraid that he would not survive next year. And Ma Chao just pouted and replied: "Old fox, you said last year that your lungs were yang deficiency and your liver fire was too strong, why did you change sex again this year?" ”

"Ahem, it's not because the old minister is weak........

"Okay, don't pretend, you've been at Ma's house for so long, and you don't plan to renew the strings or anything, and it will save you from being old and hard, and I have to come to comfort you every year........"

The atmosphere in the room was lightened by this little conversation. And after everyone exchanged pleasantries, Ma Chao and Jia Xu unnaturally talked about business, only to see Ma Chao crossing Erlang's legs, and said very casually: "Old guy, now that the Ma family is getting stronger and stronger, you need to be more and more careful in your movements." Do you think what I did at the end of the year is okay? ”

"It's just a make-do, but Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Yuan Shao and others want the attitude of the Ma family. Although you have gone a little too far, on the big picture, it is still reasonable. Jia Xu and Ma Chao are not polite at all, the two have been teachers and friends for so many years, and they have long had a tacit understanding with each other, but the courtesy of the monarch and the minister is becoming weaker and weaker.

"Well, it's a bit too much. However, after the first month, I estimate that the Han world will be an era of turbulent chaos. I want to know, when Yuan Shao entered Yanzhou, what should the Ma family do? ”

"Hanzhong, isn't it enough for you to be busy?"

Ma Chao and Jia Xu stared wide-eyed, and they both understood each other's meaning. But on both sides, neither of them is convinced by the other's point of view.

"Wouldn't it? Old guy, you let the Ma family stand by and watch when the magnificent era begins? ”

"Then what do you think I went to great lengths to shift the Ma family's focus to Hanzhong?"

"Tell me, that's not true."

"I'm sorry, if the Ma family goes to fight in the sky at this time, they will probably fall to their death......."

Ma Chao lowered his head in a dejected manner, and after a long period of time, he said leisurely: "After fighting Hanzhong, you don't still want the Ma family to plot Shuzhong, right?" ”

"Shuzhong is full of talents, the country of abundance. If the Ma family gets it, it can become the first prince of the Han Dynasty. At that time, the Kanto region will be full of fragmented and tired princes, and the Ma family can win the world in a war, so why not? ”

After listening to Jia Xu's rhetorical question, Ma Chao was silent again - in fact, he knew very well that Jia Xu's big strategy was indeed very reasonable and perfect for the Ma family. However, it is impossible for the resourceful old fox to break through the limitations of history and see the impact of his strategy on the entire Han nationality.

During the Three Kingdoms period in history, the world was in turmoil and the population plummeted. At the time of the Yellow Turban Uprising, the population of the country was about 50 million, and after the Yellow Turban Uprising and the Three Kingdoms War, the national population remained only 1.4 million after the Red Cliff War. The Yellow Turban Rebellion was in 184 A.D., and the Red Cliff War was in 208 A.D., and in just over 20 years, the population was less than 3 percent of the original population. The prestige of the heroes of the Three Kingdoms is truly built on the accumulation of corpses. Cao Cao has a poem describing the scene at that time: "The head is hung in front of the horse, and the woman is carried behind the car", "The white bones are exposed in the wilderness, there is no rooster crowing for thousands of miles, there are more than 100 people, and the thought breaks people's intestines".

The unrighteous war of the Three Kingdoms, the princes of the Ma family, the Cao family, and Yuan Shao, were active in this troubled era, in essence, they were all executioners of the Han people, and they quickly slaughtered the population of the Han people with one battle after another. It was not until the later Jin Dynasty that the five chaos in China drove the entire Han people to the Yangtze River valley, and the so-called first 'ethnic integration' in history was completed.

The great fusion of bullshit!

History textbooks use such beautiful and praising words, and lightly characterize the massacres of Han people, rape Han women, and burning Han houses by other ethnic groups, but who can know how many flesh and bones of the Han people were used to pave the so-called gradual sinicization of those ethnic groups?

Through the first two years, Ma Chao's consciousness will definitely not rise to this point. But as the power of the Ma family became more and more huge, Ma Chao also had a sense of responsibility for the entire history: Jia Xu's old fox's conspiracy was actually an area that the Ma family had developed southward and conquered Hanzhong, Shuzhong, Nanban, and Jiaozhou in recent years, and the princes of the Central Plains would not care too much about it. Let them fight each other on the land of Kanto, send all the population into the meat grinder of the battlefield to devour, and when the Kanto region is already uninhabited for hundreds of miles, the Ma family will be invincible and invincible when they go out of Kanto again!

Such a rough outline is indeed the most perfect for the Ma family. But for the entire Han nationality, it is the most vicious and cruel. In this way, the Ma family will have to use the country's population of only a few million to fight with all the barbarian peoples in a few decades. The results of the battle can be imagined, and even if it can win, the entire land of Shenzhou will still be deserted.......

Therefore, on the first day of the third year of Xingping, Ma Chao slowly stood up in Jia Xu's room and said: "I can't let me and my descendants become sinners of the Han nationality!" ”