Human nature was simply like this: people could not bear to see others doing badly, nor could they bear to see others doing too well.
With Lu Bu's wife and children arriving, an inharmonious atmosphere arose within Tan County.
On one side, Lu Bu's family was reunited. On the other, the wives and children of the officers and generals had been scattered apart.
How could the men not resent such a situation? Yet even with resentment in their hearts, they did not dare voice it.
Lu Bu's powerful intimidation cowed the generals, leaving them afraid to speak a single word against him.
Yet one man was an exception: Lu Bu's brother, Wei Xu.
After Wei Xu's defeat that day, he had gone to Tan County and joined Chen Gong, Wei Yue, and the others.
Because he had lost the vital stronghold of Xiapi, every day he spent in Tan County was torment.
This continued until Lu Bu arrived in Tan County.
The moment Lu Bu entered the city, his first order was to have Wei Xu bound and dragged away for execution.
Fortunately, his younger brother Wei Yue pleaded for him, and he was spared, his sentence changed to eighty back-caning strokes.
One had to know that back-caning in the army was extremely harsh. An ordinary man might be beaten to death after merely thirty or forty strokes.
Though Wei Xu was a battle-hardened general, if he took eighty back-caning strokes, even if he did not die, he would lose half his life.
He hurriedly begged for mercy, but Lu Bu refused to relent and forcibly ordered the punishment carried out.
After some fifty strokes, Wei Xu fainted dead away, and only then was he spared.
Yet from that day onward, he lay bedridden for more than half a month,