524 Sima Yi’s Struggle 1 (2/2)

Xu Huang: \”I can't trust Cao Mengde anymore, Senior Cheng. You and Mengde committed too many atrocities in the other world, but I already turned a blind eye and ignored it. To be honest, I still regret it even now. I shouldn't have worked for genocidal lunatics like you and Cao Mengde!\”

Xu Huang referred to the genocide incidents that Cao Cao and Cheng Yu committed during their early career in the other timeline.

The first major incident was the slaughtering after Cao Song, Cao Cao's father, was killed by Tao Qian's men. Not only Pengcheng City was burnt down, Lü, Julin, and Xiaqiu, people of these three cities were hunted and killed to the last man. Even dogs and chickens couldn't escape.

Cao Cao's infamous deed was not the only genocide in Xu Province.

In 194, Lu Bu robbed Cao Cao's cities when the latter sent out his troops to attack Tao Qian. At that time, Cao Cao fought losing battles against Lu Bu and Chen Gong one after another. Moreover, a famine broke out in Yan Province, which was the roughest time of Cao Cao's life.

Cao Cao was on the verge of surrendering to Yuan Shao to save his skin at that time, but Cheng Yu stopped Cao Cao from relinquishing his position.

In addition, Cheng Yu came up with an inhumane idea. He sent his troops to pillage villages, including his hometown, to replenish their food supply.

Killing innocents for food was terrible enough, but Cheng Yu went further. Some of the food that Cheng Yu had plundered were consisting of human meat of the townspeople.

And lastly, after Yuan Shao died, 80,000 former Yuan Shao soldiers gave up fighting and surrendered to Cao Cao. Yet, ruthlessly, Cao Cao killed them all.

This was the main reason why Liu Bei resisted Cao Cao to the very end as he was afraid that the latter wouldn't have let the former life had he been captured.

As for Xu Huang, he joined Cao Cao in the year 196 after his former lord was defeated.

In the previous life, Xu Huang had limited information about his lord, so he believed that he served the righteous liege. But after comparing Tong with Cao Cao, Xu Huang could see the great difference between the two.

Both Tong and Cao Cao committed some atrocities. Both regretted it and attempted to redeem themselves. However, Tong did a better job by not approving peasant slaughtering after he had done it once. Meanwhile, Cao Cao massacred more peasants and helpless soldiers a few more occasions before he stopped.

Tong overwhelmed and suppressed his adversary with his absolute military strength and economic power, but he rarely promoted wars. However, Cao Cao waged war everywhere to scare his enemies into submission.

Tong's semi-pacifism method won Xu Huang's heart.

Xu Huang: \”This conversation is going nowhere. I'm blocking you, now.\”

Xu Huang blacklisted Cheng Yu as he no longer wanted to continue the pointless chat. Since the latter didn't want to surrender, they could only be enemies.

'I would have been a fool if I betray the immortal emperor! The past is the past. This world has nothing to do with the previous life!'

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Chat messenger kept flashing as one more person wanted to have a word with Xu Huang.

Xu Huang opened the messenger to see who wanted to conspire with him in secret this time.

Sima Yi

'What now? Another bastard trying to backstab my emperor?'

Currently, Sima Yi was under the suspicion of masterminding, scheming with Te Langpu, and plotting a rebellion due to the Sima Clan's army size.

When Sima Fang was still alive, he always reported back to the court that he limited the troop size to 50,000 to optimize the military budget. But when Sima Yi took over Sima Fang's duty, he drafted more soldiers than necessary, which threatened the capital. Combined with his descendants' rebellion deed, all court officials didn't trust the Sima Clan anymore.

Sima Yi: \”Excuse me, General Xu. Please don't mind my overly-paranoid tone, but am I a marked man? Does Dong Bai want me dead?\”

Xu Huang was surprised that Sima Yi's tone seemed distressed and worried, which was different than his usual snarky attitude.

Sima Yi: \”Was it because I used to chase her highness Zhang Min's skirt? Can you tell me?\”

Although Xu Huang knew that Sima Yi was cunning in the other timeline, he pitied this world's Sima Yi as the latter had done nothing wrong. Everything was still a baseless suspicion.

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Suddenly, Sima Yi sent his messages to the public chat.

Sima Yi: \”I've completed my duty and occupied Xu Province. However, I would like to relinquish my position in advance after this job. I would like to retire from the political world for good.\”

This shocked Xu Huang even further as Sima Yi's tone was really desperate. From Xu Huang's point of view, Sima Yi looked like an innocent official who gave up after he was bullied by the higher-ups.

Sima Yi: \”I also wish to return all of my assets, land, and soldiers in my clan's possession. I hope that her majesty could pardon me for whatever I had done in the past. I'm willing to make my immortal oath I'll never harm the Han Dynasty or the royal family in the future.\”

Reading the messages, Xu Huang sympathized with Sima Yi. It seemed that the royal family was too excessive in their purge and harmed the Sima Clan, who was innocent in this political conflict.

Thus, Xu Huang chose to reply to Sima Yi using the private message option.

Xu Huang: \”What can I do to help you?\”