Chapter 666

It stopped as if the fire had been extinguished.

Seeing this, Guo Tu looked up toward the city tower.

He saw that Shen Pei's brow was already covered in fear.

What did he see?

Yes, the soldiers on the city tower were actually engaging in mutual slaughter!

And that portion of soldiers who struck first were less like soldiers and more like dead soldiers raised by some great aristocratic family in Jizhou.

Below the city tower, Tian Feng's face was filled with sorrow.

There is a good saying in later generations:

"Let the fellow Daoist die, not the poor Daoist."

The hundred or so dead soldiers standing on the city tower were precisely from the Tian family behind Tian Feng.

Although the number of those hundred or so dead soldiers was not large,

they were quite close to Shen Pei's position at this moment.

Actually,

Tian Feng did not want to betray the Jizhou aristocratic families as a whole.

Previously, even when he was forcibly forced to surrender by Gu Yi, he was still "in the Gu camp but his heart was in the Yuan camp."

Moreover, Tian Feng actively wanted to pass some intelligence from Gu Yi's side to the Jizhou aristocratic families.

It was just a pity that

the messages Tian Feng sent out were all ones Gu Yi deliberately wanted him to deliver.

In other words,

Tian Feng had been helping the Yuan camp in the wrong way.

And this time,

Tian Feng actually didn't really want those dead soldiers of the Tian family to turn against them either.

But if those dead soldiers didn't turn,

once Gu Yi broke through Ye City, the Tian family would be wiped out.

What?

Tian Feng has a stubborn temperament but is a rare talent, so one must kiss his ass and blow smoke up him?

Sorry,

for this kind of stubborn person, Gu Yi has plenty of ways.

He is not that kind of spineless protagonist who bows and scrapes to get someone's service.

In Gu Yi's view, that kind of behavior is idiotic.

Furthermore,

rather than saying Tian Feng has a stubborn temperament,

it is better to say that it is a persona Tian Feng deliberately created.

As everyone knows,

in this era of the late Han, some talents would stop at nothing to show off and build momentum for themselves.

The most classic example is the "Yuedan Review" created by Xu Zijiang.

In fact, behind the Yuedan Review, the person who gained the most fame was Xu Zijiang himself.

And those who were evaluated by Xu Zijiang—

those who received top-tier evaluations were usually young aristocratic masters whose family backgrounds were already top-notch.

Those who received mid-tier evaluations were the newly rich who had risen in the last few decades, or those whose ancestors had done quite well.

As for those who received bottom-tier evaluations, they were generally just making up the numbers, were fallen commoners, or had some background but not much.

This is a typical marketing tactic.

But even knowing it was a marketing tactic, everyone still endlessly pursued Xu Zijiang.

Why is that?

It is similar to later generations:

if everyone else possesses a certain item and someone doesn't, they will appear quite alternative.

This is not because of a competitive psychology at work,

but because of the actual situation.

The general social trend will never change because of one person.

Unless it is a shift of a group of people that causes the entire trend to change.

The "famous scholar effect" of the late Han period arose precisely because of this.

Building momentum became a necessary thing in the circle of literati.

And speaking of Tian Feng here,

although Tian Feng was a high-ranking member of the Jizhou aristocratic families, his family background still could not compare to the "Celestial Dragon" Ju Shou.

At this time, the positioning Tian Feng needed to play naturally had to be different from Ju Shou's.

Ju Shou was the chief steward of the Yuan camp.

Tian Feng needed to act as someone who charged to the front.

This "charging to the front" does not refer to charging on the battlefield,

but rather when facing various affairs within the Yuan camp.

Tian Feng's positioning should be to do his utmost to prevent the Yuzhou aristocratic families of the Yuan camp from obtaining actual benefits.

This led to the fact that Tian Feng and Guo Tu, Xin Ping, and others were destined never to be able to pee into the same pot.

Their relationship was irreconcilable.

Besides this, the Jizhou aristocratic families of the Yuan camp were far stronger than the Yuzhou aristocratic families of the Yuan camp.

Besides "daily attacks" on Guo Tu, Tian Feng

also needed to act as the role of "remonstrating" with his lord, Yuan Shao.

This so-called "remonstrance," rather than helping Yuan Shao, was more about maintaining the interests of the Jizhou aristocratic families in the Yuan camp.

After all,

Tian Feng was not Wei Zheng or Hai Rui.

He was not that upright and selfless.

Tian Feng's thinking was exactly the same as Ju Shou's.

For example, the most classic strategies like "three-year fatigue of Cao," "splitting forces to harass," and "opposing the enfeoffment of sons"—

think about it and it's terrifying; one is more of a trap than the other.

Is this planning for the lord to win the world?

This is clearly further sidelining the lord and playing the lord like a monkey!

In the end,

Tian Feng and Ju Shou were in the same boat, so there is really no need to over-praise them.

If one were to talk about people in the Yuan camp who truly considered Yuan Shao,

it would probably only be the few veterans like Yan Liang, Wen Chou, Chunyu Qiong, and Xu You.

But the fate of these few people is not worth mentioning.

The remaining civil and military officials of the Yuan camp prioritized the interests of their own factions and their own interests.

The lord's interests—sorry, they need to be ranked behind these.

And this is also one of Yuan Shao's greatest tragedies.

Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Ce, and others all had iron-clad confidants by their sides whom they could trust and share life and death with.

When it came to Yuan Shao, one was more of a trap than the other.

How could this not lead to Yuan Shao being indecisive?

"Listen to both sides and you will be enlightened; listen to one side and you will be in the dark."

Living every day amidst countless schemes, Yuan Shao naturally could not easily trust this group of strategists under his command.

And nowadays,

Yuan Shao has quit,

and Shen Pei is left alone to guard Ye City. ===== CHAPTER 667 =====