Guan Yu's death was a heavy blow to Liu Bei, who was advancing all the way in the military. Therefore, he had to stop his pace of going north, and at the same time he was always thinking about attacking Wu and taking revenge. Fortunately, the law played a decisive role at this time. He urged Liu Bei not to act rashly and should observe the situation calmly, so he stopped Liu Bei from advancing.

But at the same time, Liu Bei had to face a fact that he was extremely reluctant to see, that is, Fa Zheng, whose physical condition was declining, could not last long. Many imperial doctors gathered to diagnose him and believed that Fa Zheng could not last for the first half of the year, which made Liu Bei anxious. For this reason, he often visited Fa Zheng and asked about military and national affairs.

Although Fa Zheng was terminally ill, he knew very well that Liu Bei's determination to attack Wu had not changed, so he said to Liu Bei: "The king had previously advocated attacking Wu, probably not just to regain Jingzhou, but to help Guan Yu take revenge, right?"

Liu Bei, who has always used a smart and powerful person like Zhuge Liang to defend himself, has no reservations about Fa Zheng:

"Xiaozhi, only you know me best. In today's world, I have three-legged tyrants. Although I seize Yizhou and occupy Hanzhong, the tiger is drifting from the west, I know very well that it is unwise to continue to attack Cao Wei. Sun Quan is relatively weaker than Sun Quan. Now Sun Quan takes the initiative to tear up the alliance, seize my city and kill my general. I can use this as the name of starting a military command to completely annex the Eastern Wu, and then go north."

After listening to Liu Bei's words, Fa Zheng recognized some of the contents:

"Compared with Eastern Wu, Cao Wei is indeed weaker in strength. However, no one in today's world has the power to destroy the country, and even lord, you are no exception. If you fight Sun Quan for a long time, it will definitely give Cao Wei an opportunity to take advantage of it. At that time, it will be difficult to take into account the situation from beginning to end."

Liu Bei also understood this truth in his heart: "What should I do?"

Fa Zheng replied: "In the opinion of the lower class, the main targets of Cao Wei's future attacks are Jingchu and Wuyue, rather than Bashu, where mountains and ridges are piled up and terrain are complex. The lord should not act impatiently, and should be patient and wait for the opportunity."

Speaking of Fa Zheng’s own situation, Liu Bei couldn’t help but feel sad:

"I originally wanted to entrust all my funerals to Xiaozhi, but now your body is..."

Fa Zheng smiled faintly and said, "Life has its own number of days, and non-humans can decide whether the king is still dealing with the military advisor Zhuge..."

Although Fa Zheng has not finished speaking, it has already reached Liu Bei's heart. He held Fa Zheng's hand and said:

"To be fair, Zhuge Kongming's talent is above me. If I were alive, this person would not have any unfair intentions. But if I went one day, could A Dou (Liu Chan) suppress him?"

Fa Zheng pondered for a while and looked at Liu Bei's eyes and said, "Cao Pi has Sima Yi and Lu Xun is by Sun Quan. After Chen Ruo's death, the only capable ministers in Shu can compete with him. Zhuge Liang is the only one who guards the king's foundation. I have observed him for a long time before but I can't see what he is thinking. Such a person is certainly dangerous, but the king must use it. According to my ministers, Zhuge Liang should not act against him, nor would he pose a threat to the prince and prince. If the king is still doubting him, I suggest that two people can use it, one is the prefect of Hanzhong Wei Yan and the other is the auxiliary general of Han Li Yan. These two may play a role."

After hearing Fa Zheng's words, Liu Bei slightly put away his guard against Zhuge Liang.

Soon, Fa Zheng died of ineffective treatment of illness and was 45 years old.

Fazheng's death was the second major blow to Liu Bei after Guan Yu. He cried for several days, and finally he barely recovered from his normal mood under Zhuge Liang's consolation. After that, Liu Bei personally posthumously named Fazheng as Yihou and said emotionally to the ministers:

"I have filial piety and straightforwardness, and now that he has gone, I feel my wings are broken..."

After hearing this, Zhuge Liang, who was standing aside, knew very well that Liu Bei's words were actually for himself.

In order to disrupt the Wei State before Cao Pi had enough time to completely control the situation in Cao Wei, Zhuge Liang secretly sent Liao Hua to incite the former Han Sui army to rebel. As a result, Qu Yan colluded with Zhang Jin, Huang Hua and others to rebel, and attacked Wudu fiercely. The prefect Wuqiuxing came to an emergency.

After the news reached Luoyang, Cao Pi fell into a dilemma. At this time, Zhang He was going to station Chen Cang to guard Wei Yan. Xu Huang and others were in Luo, but they didn't have time to dispatch troops to rescue him. At this time, Sima Yi recommended to Cao Pi that the general stationed in Jincheng Hao Zhao could defeat the bandit army, so Cao Pi ordered Hao Zhao to assist the prefect of Jincheng Su Ze to quell the rebellion together.

Hao Zhao lived up to expectations and adopted a strategy of joining forces to attack one by one, quickly quelling the rebellion in Hexi.

Afterwards, Cao Pi was very satisfied with Hao Zhao's performance and praised him very much:

"In the future, Hao Bodao will definitely be an iron wall barrier that hangs across the west of my Great Wei!"

After Fa Zheng's death, Liu Bei reported from Guan Yu's remnants who fled back to the CD, saying that Guan Yu was trapped in Maicheng one after another, and had sent envoys to Shangyong to ask Liu Feng and Meng Da for support, but the two did not respond in any form, nor did they send troops.

After learning about this, Liu Bei was extremely furious. He immediately sent a document to question why Liu Feng and Meng Da were reluctant to save him.

Seeing that Liu Bei had lost his mind, Zhuge Liang hurriedly dissuaded:

"Meng Da held heavy troops in his hand and occupied Shangyong, and the land of Xincheng. This man was arrogant and proud of his achievements. At this time, the king should focus on appeasement. Even if he wanted to deal with him, he should make a long-term plan.

But Liu Bei disagreed and sneered:

"What? Mencius still wants to rebel? I don't understand that he doesn't have the courage!"

Seeing that Liu Bei's idea had been decided and could not be changed, Zhuge Liang had to give up persuasion. He knew very well that Liu Bei had not adopted his opinion many times, not only because of his hidden distrust of himself and his heart, but more importantly, Liu Bei could not emerge from the frustration that suddenly fell from the peak of huge victory, so his mind changed drastically, and Fa Zheng died again, and no one said anything was useful.

After the rebuke document conveyed Shangyong, Liu Feng put all the responsibility on Meng Da's head in order to protect himself, and repeatedly bullied Meng Da on this ground, and even openly robbed Meng Da's drums and music, making Meng Da feel that he would only die if he stayed here, so he wrote a letter and sent someone to Liu Bei, and then led more than 4,000 troops to join Cao Wei.

After Meng Da's surrender was sent to Luoyang, Sima Yi believed that Meng Da's surrender would not only cause another major blow to Liu Bei, but more importantly, Meng Da was familiar with Shangyong and the troops in Xincheng were stationed. While Liu Bei and Liu Feng had no time to react, they quickly sent troops to recover the three counties of Shangyong under Meng Da's guidance.

At this time, the leader Xiahou Shang also wrote a letter saying that Liu Bei appointed Liu Feng to garrison some of the troops in Shangyong. In addition, the mountains and roads are high, they must not have expected that Cao Wei was sending troops to attack, and as long as they were unintentional, they would catch them off guard.

The two of them had a coincidence and soon received the consent of Cao Pi. He ordered Xiahou Shang and Xu Huang to overcome all obstacles and go straight to Fangling under Meng Da's guidance, and threatened Shangyong. Liu Feng was caught off guard. Not only did he lose the entire new city, but the Wei army also encircled Shangyong in two directions.

At this time, Liu Feng's situation was already very unfavorable. The scouts he sent to ask for help from CD were also intercepted and killed by Xiahou Shang's men. Later, Meng Da sent someone to persuade Liu Feng to surrender, but he refused.

After the news that Liu Feng had persevered in surrender reached Luoyang, Cao Pi was afraid that Liu Feng would have 20,000 troops in his hands, and Shangyong City was easy to defend but difficult to attack. If the war continued to be anxious, it would inevitably lead to Liu Bei. By then, the matter would be out of control.

However, Sima Yi did not agree with this concern. He said to Cao Pi confidently:

"Please rest assured. The two brothers Shen Dan and Shen Yi under Liu Feng's tent were originally forced to surrender to Liu Feng. Today, when I saw my cavalry in the Great Wei Dynasty, I would definitely rebel at the right time. This battle will be decided soon."

As expected, three days after Liu Feng refused to persuade him to surrender, Shen Dan and Shen Yi secretly contacted Meng Da. The two sides agreed that Shen Dan would open Shangyong's east gate while the night was dark and let Cao's army enter the city.

It was not until the city shouted and killed everyone was everywhere that Liu Feng woke up from his sleep. However, the situation was already hopeless. In order to avoid being captured and humiliated by himself, Liu Feng left the defenders in the city and fled back to the cd on his own.

After escaping back to CD, Liu Bei was deeply furious at his defeat and lost city:

"You rioters! You didn't help Guan Yu when he was dead, and later shirked responsibility and bullied Meng Da, so that he defected to Cao Wei! Today he lost the strategic location of Shangyong again, and what are the faces he has to come back to see me!"

For ordinary people, Liu Feng had committed so many crimes and should have been executed long ago. However, he was the adopted son whom Liu Bei had adopted for many years, so although Liu Bei planned to punish him more severely and would not tolerate him, he did not have the intention to murder.

However, Liu Bei's failure to impose Liu Feng's punishment made the two people uneasy, one was Zhuge Liang, and the other was the crown prince Liu Chan. Although Liu Chan was already the prince, he knew that his prestige was far behind Liu Feng, who had made many military achievements and was quite prestigious in the army. Moreover, he was brave and strong. If Liu Bei took his credit and was not arrogant after his death, he would definitely be respectful and posed a huge threat to himself. It would be very difficult to control him.

For this reason, Liu Chan specially visited Zhuge Liang in the name of asking about politics, hoping that he could help him in this matter.

When the old man informed that Liu Chan was visiting, Zhuge Liang was playing chess with Huang Yueying in the house. There was no one next to him but there was a baby girl sleeping soundly in the wooden shaker where there was no one next to him.

After listening to the old man’s report, Huang Yueying smiled slightly:

"It seems that the 'mediocre' prince in our mouths is hidden very deeply..."

Zhuge Liang also smiled and said with a smile: "Mediocre talent? Liu Chan, who is indulging in pleasure in front of everyone on weekdays and neglects government affairs, is a person who likes to hide things in his heart, but this does not mean that he is a mediocre talent with no ideas."

After saying that, Zhuge Liang put down the last black spot and turned his head and said to the old man:

"Go and report back to the prince, and I will arrive soon and ask him to the front hall later."

The meeting between Liu Chan and Zhuge Liang was extremely secretive, and no one knew what they were talking about.

The next day, Liu Bei summoned Zhuge Liang to discuss state affairs and asked Liu Feng about his handling of the matter:

"Military advisor, what kind of punishment do you think is more appropriate?"

In fact, when Liu Bei asked Zhuge Liang this question, he actually intended to give him a step forward so that he could find an excuse to release Liu Feng at the right time. However, what he did not expect was that Zhuge Liang only gave him four words:

"Eliminate evil things..."

Although these four words are very short, they are extremely shocking to Liu Bei. He stared into Zhuge Liang's eyes for a long time, full of doubts and confusion:

"Liu Feng made a big mistake, but he will not die if he is guilty..."

Zhuge Liang shook his head and said, "I know that Liu Feng and the king have been called father and son for many years. Although they have no blood relationship, they have family affection. The king cannot bear it. But please imagine: There is a crown prince in the country now. Although Liu Feng is an adopted son, he has the status of the eldest son. He has followed the king to fight in the east and west for many years, especially after Yangping and taking over Shangyong, he has established a foundation in the army. Moreover, this man is arrogant and has a strong personality. He does not accept anyone except the king. He is quite concerned about the wind of Yun Chang. If such a person waits for hundreds of years, the crown prince will probably find it difficult to take over his reins..."

On the surface, what Zhuge Liang said makes sense, but Liu Bei is not a person who is easily deceived. After listening to Zhuge Liang's words, he pondered for a while and opened his mouth and said something puzzling:

"It seems that Gong Si finally found a good helper..."

The wise Zhuge Liang quickly understood that Liu Bei's words had basically broken the fact that Zhuge Liang and Liu Chan had some private contact, but they were not just said it on the surface.

Shortly after Zhuge Liang left, Liu Bei secretly ordered Liu Feng to be killed because he knew very well:
Chapter completed!