The Three Kingdoms: I asked you to save Guan Yu, not to destroy Sun Quan.

Chapter 551 Your Majesty, ascend the throne soon!

At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the Minister of the Imperial Secretariat was just a minor official under the Ministry of the Imperial Household. However, as time went by, the position changed. By the time of Emperor Guangwu, it had undergone a complete transformation and became the Vice Chancellor, second only to the Three Dukes, wielding great power and holding a high position.

After Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu ascended the throne, in order to weaken the power of the prime minister and strengthen the central government, he concentrated all the power of the Three Dukes in the Secretariat, turning the Three Dukes into honorary titles. As a result, the Minister of the Secretariat, who was in charge of the Secretariat, became a figure comparable to the prime minister.

Currently, the Minister of the Imperial Secretariat not only oversees all official documents and participates in the formulation of government decrees, but also controls the rewards, punishments, and performance evaluations of officials under the Imperial Secretariat, indirectly influencing the selection of court officials. This means that the Minister of the Imperial Secretariat controls both decision-making power and the power to appoint and dismiss personnel, both of which are real powers.

Moreover, the Minister of the Imperial Secretariat also enjoyed the special status of sitting in a special seat during court assemblies, and was known as one of the "Three Solo Seats" along with the Vice Minister of the Censorate and the Commandant of the Capital Region, which shows how extraordinary the Minister of the Imperial Secretariat's status was.

For a long time before that, the position of Minister of the Imperial Secretariat in the Han Dynasty was held by Xun Yu, Cao Cao's chief strategist. Liu Bei had to stand and report to Xun Yu, and this situation continued until Liu Bei became king.

After Liu Bei became king, he appointed Fa Zheng as Minister of the Imperial Secretariat. After Fa Zheng's death, Liu Ba succeeded him. This was a position that even Zhuge Liang had not obtained, which shows how much Liu Bei valued Liu Ba.

However, just now, Liu Bei dismissed Liu Ba from his position as Minister of the Imperial Secretariat simply because Liu Ba opposed his claim to the throne.

Liu Bei's purpose in doing this was simple. First, he wanted to send a signal to the outside world that he was going to declare himself emperor by dismissing Liu Ba, so that those who supported him would not worry and would continue to urge him to ascend the throne. When the time was right, he would naturally go with the flow.

Secondly, appointing Zhang Zhao as the new Minister of the Imperial Secretariat was a gesture of goodwill towards the former officials of Eastern Wu, telling the surrendered officials from Eastern Wu not to worry, that they would receive exactly what they were entitled to.

Finally, there was the matter of appointing Liu Ba as the governor of Jingzhou. Liu Ba's demotion from Minister of the Imperial Secretariat to governor of Jingzhou was equivalent to being demoted from a high-ranking official in the court to a local official. But don't forget that the capital of Jingzhou is Jiangling. In other words, Liu Ba does not have to leave Jiangling and can continue to stay by Liu Bei's side.

Liu Bei's arrangement was also meaningful. He wanted to tell everyone that his demotion of Liu Ba was about the matter, not the person, and anyone who wanted to use this to attack Liu Ba should give up that idea as soon as possible.

It must be said that Liu Bei's political skills became increasingly sophisticated, and every step he took had a special and profound meaning.

As expected, the news went wild among the officials, who began searching the world for auspicious omens. Some found a golden nanmu tree over two thousand years old deep in the Wuling Mountains, some found a mutated four-legged beast in Dongting Lake, and some found a stone tablet inscribed with "King of Hanzhong" in the Xiang River. Even more amazing was the discovery by Wang Fu, the governor of Yangzhou, and Deng Zhi, the prefect of Wujun. They found a giant turtle with a body length of over two meters in the sea. It had swum to the shore from the distant deep sea, and when it came ashore, it was carrying a stone tablet on its back with the four large characters "King of Hanzhong" inscribed on it.

When the news reached Jiangling, Guan Xing was stunned. He could understand the stone turtle carrying the stele being pulled out, but it was too far-fetched that Huang Chengyan's finless porpoise, the Xiangjiang stele, and the giant turtle stele were all engraved with the four characters "King of Hanzhong". He would never believe that these people had not colluded to give their testimonies.

While the people were frantically offering auspicious omens, Zhuge Liang was not idle either. He joined forces with Guan Yu to feign illness and retire, announcing to the outside world that they would resign if Liu Bei did not declare himself emperor.

This move had a somewhat coercive feel to it, but Liu Bei really had to be cautious about Zhuge Liang and Guan Yu joining forces to force him to abdicate.

While forcing the emperor to abdicate, Zhuge Liang also spread the false news that Emperor Liu Xie had been murdered by Cao Pi. None of the important officials of Shu Han who received the news verified it, and they all tacitly chose to believe it. When they mentioned Liu Xie again, they all referred to him as the late emperor.

Seeing that the atmosphere was ready, Guan Xing made his move. He personally went to the army and found more than a dozen rank-and-file soldiers, asking them to write a letter in the most sincere tone, hoping that Liu Bei would ascend the throne. Then he had others sign it, and only after the letter had been signed on more than a hundred rolls of cloth did he go to see Liu Bei.

That morning, Liu Bei could no longer bear the heavy workload of government affairs and prepared to go to Zhuge Liang's tent to invite Zhuge Liang back to his post. However, as soon as he stepped out of the tent, he saw Guan Xing kneeling outside the tent with Zhang Bao and Jiang Wei, who had already returned from Wushan, as well as Xia Tong, Mi Wei, Zhao Tong, Pan Zhu, Zhu Yi, and others.

Not only that, Guan Xing was also holding a folded white cloth in his hand, and behind him were dozens of wooden boxes. When he saw Liu Bei come out, Guan Xing immediately shouted loudly: "Your Majesty, what I am holding is a petition from the soldiers of the army asking Your Majesty to ascend the throne and continue the Han dynasty. Please take a look."

Liu Bei's expression changed slightly. He quickly walked to Guan Xing, took the white cloth, unfolded it, and read: "Your Majesty, I am Zeng Aniu, a man from Kuaiji..."

The piece, nearly a thousand words long, was written in a way that resembled scribbles, with incoherent sentences and numerous typos. However, it conveyed a very sincere meaning. It first briefly described how difficult life was under Sun Quan's rule, then recounted how his family's life changed after Liu Bei unified Jiangnan, and finally expressed his wish that Liu Bei would ascend the throne and lead ordinary people to a happy life, making his family's life better and better.

The next section contained the signatures of other soldiers, their names filling every corner of the entire white cloth.

The white cloth was over ten meters long, but Zeng Aniu's letter didn't even fill a meter; the rest was filled with the names of ordinary soldiers. Liu Bei, looking on in astonishment, asked, "Anguo, did the soldiers write this themselves?"

Guan Xing nodded and said, "How can we entrust this kind of thing to others? We must write it ourselves."

Liu Bei said excitedly, "Good, good, good! These ordinary soldiers who were originally illiterate can now write articles. It seems that the literacy classes you set up in the army are very effective. With such a reserve force, I no longer need to worry about those damned aristocratic families in the Central Plains."

Previously, he had some reservations about becoming emperor. His biggest concern was, as Liu Ba had worried, that hastily declaring himself emperor would make him look down on by the gentry of the Central Plains, thus losing their support. But now…

With his soldiers growing so rapidly and having such a large talent pool, what use did he need the Central Plains gentry? Whether they supported him or not was up to them; if they didn't, he could just wipe them out.

The biggest advantage of the aristocratic families was their monopoly on education, which meant that if a monarch wanted to use talent, he could only select from the aristocratic families. But now this monopoly has been broken by Guan Xing. Guan Xing has cultivated enough talent in the army, giving Liu Bei more choices. Naturally, the aristocratic families are no longer so important to Liu Bei.

Although the quality of these lower-level talents cannot compare with that of the aristocratic families, their sheer numbers make up for it. If the best of the best are selected and trained for a few more years, I don't believe they can't replace the aristocratic families.

Furthermore, the talents he cultivated himself were far more loyal than those recruited from outside, so Liu Bei naturally felt more at ease using them. So to hell with the Central Plains gentry, you don't want to serve me because you think I, Liu Xuande, am from a humble background of weaving mats and selling shoes, I don't want you either.

Liu Bei put away the cloth, folded it up again, and placed it in Guan Xing's hands. He said solemnly, "Go back now. I will go find the strategist first, and then go to the army to reward these loyal soldiers after I have met the strategist."

After saying this, he led Chen Dao past Guan Xing and headed to Zhuge Liang's tent. Guan Xing waited for him to leave before getting up and instructing, "Unfold all the petitions and hang them on the tents, on the houses, and even on the city walls, so that all the people in the city can see the voices of our rank-and-file soldiers."

The group carried the wooden boxes and split up to work. Soon, the city was filled with banners from the lower-ranking gentry requesting Liu Bei to ascend the throne. The city officials were dumbfounded when they saw the densely packed names.

That damn Guan Anguo, you're really something else!