Chapter 4: Cao Bao's Dilemma

A child, barely of school age, was actually asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

Before Cao Bao could react, Liu Feng turned, retrieved a wooden box from beside his seat, opened it, and presented it to him.

"Does the General know what this is?"

Cao Bao’s emotions had been thoroughly stirred by Liu Feng. Although the boy had abruptly changed the subject, Cao Bao was not angry; instead, he followed suit and replied, "I do not."

Liu Feng used his index finger to pick up a tiny pinch of snow-white crystals and placed them into his mouth.

"This is table salt."

"Table salt?"

Cao Bao was astonished. The salt of that era was usually colored; yellow salt was considered high quality, and there was even much brown salt that tasted bitter and astringent. Yet, the salt before his eyes was as crystalline as snow and as bright and white as jade.

Unable to resist, he mimicked Liu Feng, picked up a pinch with his finger, and placed it in his mouth. To his shock, the salt lacked any of the bitterness he was accustomed to, and its savory saltiness far surpassed anything he had tasted before.

Amidst Cao Bao’s utter disbelief, Liu Feng pointed to the box of snow salt: "General, this is Snow Salt. Though I am but a youth, I have been blessed by heaven with the secret method to refine it. If the General is willing to provide two thousand Danyang elite troops as a dowry, I am willing to offer ten percent of the profits from this Snow Salt as a betrothal gift to marry your daughter."

Danyang troops!?

The head that had been muddled by Liu Feng’s words finally cleared. So, this was the scheme Liu Feng was playing.

To Cao Bao, the Danyang troops were his lifeblood. While he lacked grand ambitions, he was no fool. He had always regarded the Danyang soldiers under his command as the foundation of his existence, his capital for survival. When Tao Qian had previously transferred four thousand of them to Liu Bei, it had already caused him immense pain; now, Liu Bei’s son had come to demand another two thousand. Whose foundation would these Danyang troops be in the future?

Cao Bao instinctively wanted to refuse, but as he pondered it further, the words wouldn't come out. He had no choice; what Liu Feng said was simply too accurate.

Xuzhou was surrounded by mortal enemies. Even if Cao Bao wanted to surrender, he had no one to surrender to. As for striking out on his own, that was merely courting death. Given the current situation, if Cao Bao wanted to survive, he had to serve Liu Bei; otherwise, once Xuzhou fell, he would certainly be the first to be sacrificed as a warning to others.

Unless he abandoned his Danyang troops and fled back to his hometown in Danyang to live as a wealthy man. But if he were truly willing to abandon the Danyang troops, why not use them as a bargaining chip to defect to Liu Bei instead? Compared to Yangzhou, which had already become a battlefield for the fierce struggle between Yuan Shu and Liu Yao, Xuzhou was far more peaceful and secure. Furthermore, having managed affairs in Xuzhou for many years alongside Tao Qian, Cao Bao had accumulated significant wealth and land.

The world was already in chaos. Not to mention the land that could not be taken with him, how much of his wealth could safely reach his hometown in Danyang? And even if he arrived, without his Danyang troops, what would he rely on to protect it?

On the other hand, Cao Bao was not like Cao Hong, the other bigwig in the Danyang faction. Because of his greed, narrow-mindedness, and jealousy of those more capable, Cao Hong’s reputation in Xuzhou had long been foul; he had offended nearly all the scholarly clans of Xuzhou. But Cao Bao was different.

The biggest issue between Cao Bao and Liu Bei was the succession of the Xuzhou Governorship. Whether in the *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* or the *Records of the Three Kingdoms*, Liu Bei’s succession to Xuzhou seemed as natural as water flowing, supported by the masses. But was that truly the case?

Do not forget, Tao Qian himself had two adult sons. According to the tendencies of the various warlords at the end of the Three Kingdoms period, these two sons likely each had their own supporters. It was much like how the Yuan Shao family’s outside Henan clans supported the eldest son, Yuan Tan, while the local Hebei clans fully supported the younger son, Yuan Shang. It was the same with Liu Biao: the supporters of Liu Qi were the outsider clans led by his vassal Liu Bei, while the supporters of Liu Cong were the local clans led by the Cai and Kuai families. Even Cao Cao could not escape this law; after declaring himself King of Wei in Hebei, the Henan clans who had transitioned from angel investors to outsiders supported Cao Pi, while the Hebei clans, who had made a magnificent transformation from the conquered to the local faction, supported Cao Zhi.

From this law, it can be deduced that Cao Bao likely supported Tao Qian’s eldest son. Meanwhile, the local Xuzhou clans—such as Chen Deng and Mi Zhu, who likely supported the younger son—decidedly abandoned him after Liu Bei entered Xuzhou, jumping ship at light speed to support Liu Bei instead.

Had it been anyone else, this might not have been accomplished. The mere process of establishing mutual trust could have taken a long time; such political cooperation would have been impossible to achieve in just a few months. But Liu Bei was different. There were very subtle and critical underlying factors at play.

The most important person in all of this was Lu Zhi. Lu Zhi was Liu Bei’s teacher, a key figure who became the cornerstone of mutual trust between Liu Bei, Chen Deng, and even the majority of the Xuzhou scholarly clans.

Lu Zhi had two teachers. One was named Chen Qiu, who held the rank of one of the Three Ducal Ministers during the reign of Emperor Ling, serving as the Grand Commandant. He was the biological uncle of Chen Deng’s father, Chen Gui. This connection made Liu Bei and Chen Deng distant fellow students.

Lu Zhi’s second teacher was the great Confucian Ma Rong, and Yuan Shao’s fourth uncle was named Yuan Wei. Yuan Wei was the patron who nominated Dong Zhuo, the actual controller of the Yuan family, and the mastermind who directed the Luoyang Incident and pulled the strings from behind the scenes to purge the Ten Eunuchs. Yuan Wei’s wife was the legitimate daughter of Ma Rong, making him Ma Rong’s official son-in-law. This connection made Liu Bei and Yuan Shao distant fellow students as well.

Tao Qian was a traditional ally of Yuan Shu, and his stance had always been anti-Yuan Shao. Therefore, Yuan Shao would be very happy, or even take the initiative, to help facilitate Liu Bei taking over Xuzhou, thereby making him an ally. This would not only turn Xuzhou from an enemy into a friend, but also weaken the power of his mortal rivals, Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shu, while simultaneously limiting the expansionist ambitions of his unruly little brother, the widow-maker Cao. It could be called a divine move, achieving three things at once.

As for Liu Bei? He only needed to part ways peacefully with Gongsun Zan to obtain the vast territory of Xuzhou—how could he refuse? This is why Chen Qun considered Xuzhou a great whirlpool and urged Liu Bei to stay in Yuzhou to develop, rather than go to Xuzhou to get involved in such a mess. However, Liu Bei could not bear to give up such a grand foundation and, disregarding Chen Qun’s objections, took over as the Governor of Xuzhou.

It was precisely because of so many internal and external factors that Liu Bei was able to easily part ways peacefully with Gongsun Zan, take over the assets of Xuzhou, and in the next moment, form an alliance with Yuan Shao—the mastermind behind Cao Cao, whom he had just been fighting to the death.

All of this was something Tao Qian’s sons could never have achieved.

Liu Bei had the military force, the local landlords of Xuzhou represented by Chen Deng had the grain, and the local commercial tycoons represented by Mi Zhu had the capital. It was because these three had money, grain, and soldiers, and were colluding together, that they so easily inherited Tao Qian’s "dying wish" and temporarily suppressed the dissatisfaction of everyone else.

But this was only temporary, and this dissatisfaction was accumulating rather than disappearing. What made Cao Bao most awkward was that all of Xuzhou knew he had always supported Tao Qian’s eldest son, and after Tao Qian died, the entire Danyang faction had rallied around him. This gave Cao Bao more worry than joy; after all, could Cao Bao himself not be aware of what kind of group the Danyang faction truly was?

It was nothing more than a gang of bandits.