Anyone else would never have tolerated Fu Jian, a mere upstart Di, putting on airs here, but Liu Cheng genuinely admired the pride within the fellow.
His resentment and disdain toward the aristocratic clans south of the Yangtze, Yan's hegemony, the literati of Jingzhou, and even Huan Wen's policies in Guanzhong, combined with his barely discernible ambition and excellent handling of specific practical matters, vaguely reminded Liu Cheng of himself five or six years earlier.
That appreciation had even reached a point that could be called indulgent trust.
It was a kind of psychological compensation.
Who had never been young?
Perhaps Huan Wen had felt something similar when he looked at him back then?
Of course, there was one essential condition: the General of the Guards, far away in Shouchun, did not have to pay the price for that ambition. There was only one true master of Guanzhong: our Duke Huan. Besides, anyone who claimed Huan Wen did not know the Di people might waver with the times was seriously underestimating the breadth of his vision.
During their last discussion about settling Yao Xiang's former followers, Huan Wen had made himself quite clear in response to Liu Cheng's warning: they could not condemn people for presumed intentions, or people's hearts would fall into turmoil.
Enough digression; returning to this exchange in March, it amounted at most to finding amusement amid hardship. They were just talking big. And although Liu Cheng spoke casually, as though he could wipe Fu Yan out with a flick of his wrist and was only holding back for the sake of the bigger picture, that was hardly the case.
In reality, ever since Fu Yan, the senior general under Murong Ke who had once traveled with Liu Cheng, had arrived with twenty thousand core Xianbei troops,