Joining Cao Cao to Resist Liu Bei

That was only a casual mention for now. It was impossible to settle it directly; in the end, Liu Bei still needed to consider it himself.

In private, Wang Xuan mentioned Princess Wannian to Liu Bei.

She was Emperor Ling's daughter and should have been around fifteen or sixteen now. In the future, that would definitely mean at least three years in prison and the death penalty at most, but in the Han Dynasty, this... probably wasn't much of a problem!

Although Liu Bei was already thirty-two.

As for Wang Xuan himself, wasn't he already with Mi Zhen? Well, Bu Lianshi had also come to Linzi, and Cai Yan... it was somewhat regrettable. As for Zou Shi... ahem, she didn't exist.

By this point, half a year had passed since the Battle of Jieqiao, and Yuan Shao had finally more or less cleaned up the mess Gongsun Zan had left behind.

Over the course of half a year, Gongsun Zan had retreated step by step, relocating more than six hundred thousand people from Jizhou—one-tenth of its total population. On top of that, he had taken along a large amount of newly harvested autumn grain, as well as more than five hundred thousand people and their autumn grain from the two most prosperous commanderies in Youzhou.

An area the size of four commanderies had been turned into something like a deserted wasteland. Now, countless disputes caused by this had to be dealt with every day, and Yuan Shao was furious.

To be honest, after fighting Gongsun Zan for more than a year, their combined losses hadn't been as great as those of the final half-year. Gongsun Zan had retreated cleanly enough, but he had dumped such a huge mess on Yuan Shao, along with Liu Yu, that hot potato. If