After passing through the North Pass of Luoyang and the crossing, we went to the other side of the Yellow River and to the north of the Yellow River. The group of soldiers who were left on the other side to guard the armor and weapons immediately sent the armor and weapons over. The six thousand soldiers pretending to be a grain peddler were not fully equipped with clothes, armor or weapons.

The people crossed the river and immediately put on their armor and swords. At this time, even if the imperial army followed and killed them, they were no longer afraid.

Let’s talk about what happened in Luoyang City. Ever since Cao Cao and Li Mengxi took photos of each other in Luoyang City, Cao Cao was shocked. He was afraid that Li Mengxi had some secret means to harm Luoyang, so he didn’t dare to take it lightly. Cao Cao secretly sent people to investigate everywhere, and actually found it.

Exception.

In the area around Luoyang, and around the city of Luoyang, I don't know who planted many flags at roadside village entrances and other places in the countryside.

When I asked the people, they all said that this was a guide flag for the government to build roads.

But Cao Cao was familiar with government affairs. Where did the road construction come from? The imperial court had not taken care of the roads for many years. Besides, even if the roads were built, they would not build so many roads at one time. Even if they were building roads, they would not need any guiding flags at all.

There was something strange about it, and Cao Cao was alert. He collected the flags and took a look, and found that the material of the flags was paper coated with tung oil, which was good quality paper.

This time it was right. The only place in the world that has the best quality paper is the Julu Merchant Store. The Julu Merchant Store was opened by Julu people. Liu Bei and Liu Xuande were under the rule of Julu.

Looking at the unexplained twelve zodiac signs on the flag, Cao Cao was puzzled.

Cao Cao immediately sought help from others, and Cao Cao found Xun Ou, who was serving as Huang Menlang under He Jin.

Let’s first talk about why Xun or Xun Wenruo came to serve in the imperial court and why he became friends with Cao Cao. This was related to the imperial examination.

As mentioned before, Liu Bei proposed the imperial examination policy to the imperial court, and the imperial court held many imperial examinations. Many people, especially people from Yingchuan, started their official career early because of the imperial examination.

Also because of the imperial examination, talents were highly exposed. Anyone who passed the imperial examination was known to everyone in the city. Cao Cao was very smart. He always intended to make friends with those talents who stood out in the imperial examination, and established friendship with those talents early.

This is the cause and effect.

Cao Cao hurriedly found Xun or Xun Wenruo and showed Xun or Xun a paper flag.

Xun You saw the paper flags, and his first judgment was the same as Cao Cao's. If he could take out so much paper at one time, it must be Julu's handiwork.

However, Xun may also be confused as to why he, the giant deer, has put up so many flags.

To find out, Xun You and Cao Cao immediately went out of the city to investigate.

After leaving the city, we walked three to five miles, avoiding the main road, and headed back to the small road. Soon we came face to face with a flag. The flag was simple and crude. The flag was planted on the roadside. It was scrawled on the top of a hastily cut tree branch.

It was just a piece of paper, and a piece of grass was tied to the branch.

There was an old man squatting beside the flagpole. When Cao Cao and Xun Yu came over, the old man saw that Cao Cao and Xun Yue looked like officials, so he quickly came over and laughed and said, "I'm watching, and no one will touch it."

Cao Cao and Xun looked at each other, understanding each other tacitly.

After walking far away, Cao Cao looked back at the old man and whispered to Xun He, "This flag must be key, otherwise he would not have tricked the people into guarding it."

If you walk further, you will see a flag after walking about two or three hundred steps. The flags are similar. They are all a branch with grass tied to the branch, and then a piece of paper is stuck on it. The difference is that the flag on the flag is

The patterns are changing. The previous flag had an ox on the left and a tiger on the right. The second flag we saw now had an ox on the left and a rabbit on the right.

Further along the road, you will see the third flag, [Ox, Dragon], and the fourth flag, [Ox, Snake].

Seeing this, Xun may have been thinking deeply, and he vaguely noticed that these seemed to be arranged in order of the zodiac.

Xun was curious as to where he would go if he followed the path down.

With doubts, Xun Huo and Cao Cao went all the way down. After passing more than 60 flags, they ended up at a village.

Xun or looked at the small village with scattered houses not far away. Xun or was wary of Dasheng. At this moment, he was somewhat convinced that someone was really planning a shocking conspiracy.

Xun or didn't dare to delay, so he quickly went to inspect elsewhere.

During the subsequent inspections, I followed the order of the flags without asking anyone for directions. As long as I followed the flags, I was sure to find a village. After passing the village, I followed the flags and I was sure to reach the second nearby village.

village, and then the third one. Xun You became more and more certain of his guess. This flag was a marching guide! Someone really wanted to rebel!

Things were urgent, so Xunhe took off his clothes, used his clothes as cloth, and drew a map of the roads and villages along the way, and clearly marked the route of the flags on it. After all, talents are talents, so Xunhe drew the map casually.

As for Xun Or's photographic memory, no one in Julu can match it.

Xun Or followed the map and walked with Cao Cao again, walking down the thirty-six villages. Xun Or finally discovered the hidden pattern in the direction of the flags. It seemed that, from weak to strong, the village where the flag arrived first must be the nearby village.

The smallest village among several villages, then the larger ones, and then the larger ones.

Xun might have thought to himself that if he wanted to plan a rebellion, he would first be weak and then strong. He would first attack and destroy the weak villages, plunder their grain, grass, cattle and sheep, and hijack their young and strong people, and then attack the strong villages in a massacre.

Xun may have been very sure that the Julu people who set up these many guiding flags were not only guiding flags, but also marching routes. The Julu people really had evil intentions.

The situation was critical, and Xun He and Cao Cao did not dare to delay, so they quickly got on their horses and ran back to Luoyang to report the matter to the general He Jin.

He Jin may not understand the seriousness of the matter, but he doesn't like Liu Bei and is happy to cause trouble for Liu Bei.

He Jin fully followed Xun Yu's advice and immediately sent troops out of the city to search along the road and pulled down all the flags they encountered on the road.

Without an inventory, you would not know that after two days, no fewer than 100,000 or more flags were collected from all over the countryside, an extremely shocking number. According to the inventory, the flags were distributed in almost every village in every township, county, and county around Luoyang, which is horrifying to think about.

But when I checked further, I couldn't find anything. Ordinarily, after planning such a big conspiracy and making so many detailed preparations, there should be manpower hidden somewhere for later action, but the officers and soldiers patrolled everywhere and couldn't find them at all.

There are signs of people and horses gathering.

The 6,000 elite soldiers brought by Li Mengxi and Zhang Fei had already left, leaving the building empty.

He Jin finally got the opportunity to attack Liu Bei. Before he summoned His Majesty, he followed Xun Yu's suggestion and arrested the shopkeeper of Julu Merchant Store for questioning in order to establish evidence of the crime.

A huge crisis fell on the little shopkeeper.

At the time of the inquiry, because of the friendship established between Julu Commercial House and officials of all sizes when they handed over the paper business, the shopkeeper would not be too embarrassed and would not be beaten into submission and could follow the normal procedures. This was an important guarantee.

During the interrogation, the interrogating officer asked the shopkeeper with a paper flag, "Did this come from your store?"

The shopkeeper took the paper flag and took a look. From the twelve zodiac signs and the quality of the paper, the shopkeeper judged at a glance that it was really his own handiwork. Although the shopkeeper didn't know the situation outside the city, he immediately guessed that it might be the military advisor and his friends.

arrange.

There was a sudden thought in the shopkeeper's heart, and his mind changed rapidly. He guessed that the arrangement of the military advisor and the others might have happened, or something else.

With other people's evidence in hand, the matter was already 80% certain, so he couldn't quibble. The shopkeeper nodded, "Yes, it belongs to my Julu Commercial House."

The official asked again, "Then why do you, Julu Commercial House, plant these flags everywhere? You summoned them from the ground up."

The shopkeeper was silent for a moment, thinking about countermeasures. An ordinary person would not be able to find a reason to defend himself, but this shopkeeper was different. Li Mengxi taught him many advertising methods.

Inspiration suddenly came to him, and the shopkeeper felt confident after a moment. He bowed his hand to the official and said, "This is the flag planted in the business house and in the countryside, it is advertising."

The official was confused, "...what is advertising?"

"If you advertise it widely, it's advertising." The shopkeeper replied in a neither humble nor overbearing tone.

The official was alert and asked again, "Tell me, what secrets do you have that you want to tell the public?"

The shopkeeper shook his head, "There is no secret, and it comes from a detailed source."

"I have paper to sell in Julu Merchant House, but people in Luoyang City can know about it, but not outside the city.

How many people can there be in Luoyang City? How many are outside? How much can you make by just selling paper to people in the city?

People outside the city didn't know that I had paper in Julu Commercial House, so they put paper flags everywhere so that everyone could see it. After that, everyone knew that I had paper in Julu Commercial House, and more people came to buy it."

It was so reasonable, and there was nothing wrong with it. Legally speaking, it was completely justified. The Han law did not say that you should not scatter papers randomly.

The interrogating officer was speechless.

At this time, a voice came from the side, "Let me ask you, why are the zodiac pictures you drew on the paper?"

The person who asked the question was Xun Or, who was watching from the sidelines.

The shopkeeper turned his head when he heard the sound, and grinned disdainfully at Xun You, "People are so ignorant that if they don't draw anything on it, how will they know what paper is for?"

It was very reasonable and the logic was correct. Xun You was silent for a moment and then asked, "Just draw a picture. Why the peanut zodiac sign?"

The shopkeeper looked at Xun You like a fool, sneered, and said angrily, "If you don't draw the zodiac, just draw the stars in the sky, will the people understand?"

Xun You frowned and asked again, "An inspector found that the paper flags erected in your store are in order and clearly point to various villages. If it is an [advertisement] as you mentioned, do you think the advertisement needs to guide the path?"

The shopkeeper's expression changed for a moment, then returned to normal immediately, "Don't slander me. When will I show you the path? How did you know that?"

Xun You snorted coldly, tit for tat, "Yousi inspected along the road and found out!"

The shopkeeper's face remained unchanged and he refused to give in at all, "It's just a coincidence! If the twelve zodiac signs are scattered all over the place, how many pairs can you make?"

Xun You scolded angrily, "This is not a coincidence! Yousi has collected flags everywhere, and the flags are like this everywhere! This is obviously intentional!"

When the shopkeeper heard Xun He say, "Yousi collects flags from all over the country," the shopkeeper laughed and said, "You are slandering!"

Turning his head, the shopkeeper saluted the interrogating officer and said, "Please bring the physical evidence up, sir. If it is in order or not, we will know after checking it!"

Xun Or suddenly realized something and his expression changed slightly.

Xun or's resourcefulness is certainly extraordinary, but when it comes to flags, especially the twelve zodiac flags, Xun or is far inferior to the shopkeeper of Julu Commercial House.

The twelve zodiac signs first appeared in the rebel army, for the purpose of organizing troops. Since ordinary people did not know the written language and could not understand complex patterns, the common people all knew the twelve zodiac signs, so the twelve zodiac signs were used.

On the way to the Yellow Turbans, the shopkeeper was in charge of the flags at that time. Every time the flags were put up, they were in a mess. This was still during the march, and there were well-organized troops like this. Therefore, when I heard Xun or said that the army had put away the flags,

When I came up, the shopkeeper immediately caught the flaw.

The interrogating officer had already sent someone to fetch the flag, and the shopkeeper looked calm and steady.

Xun or Zizhi and other officials brought the flags. The flags must be in disorder. As seen during previous inspections, the flags set up by the Julu people were not straight all the way to the end, but were angled according to the strength of the village. The official

When the sergeants went down to collect the flags, they must have collected them randomly along the way, which made the flags must be in chaos at this time.

Xun or then thought that he could go back immediately to pick out the flags and hand them over in order, but by the time he realized it, it was already too late. The interrogating officer had already gone to collect the physical evidence.
To be continued...