Chapter 390 384. Disagreement
The owner of Yinkeng Cave, the father of Meng Jie, Meng Huo and Meng You, Master Meng, died.

In this era when the average life expectancy is less than 50 years old, it is considered very long-lived for the old cave master to live to over 50 years old.

At this time, Meng Jie was already in his thirties. Logically speaking, he was in his prime. It was reasonable for him to inherit the mantle of the old cave master Meng and continue to lead Yinkeng Cave.

But there are some problems here.

The mother of Meng Huo and Meng You, a native woman of Nanzhong, suddenly announced to the three brothers that before his death, Cave Master Meng had told her that he would pass the throne to Meng Huo, not Meng Jie.

One stone can cause a thousand ripples. Although Nanzhong does not have as many family rules as the Han people, the most basic rule of passing the throne to the eldest son rather than the youngest son is still consistent with the Han people. The eldest son has always succeeded to the throne, and if there are no children, the brothers are the next in line.

Now that Meng Huo's mother suddenly said this, there are naturally many people who question her. Meng Jie's benevolent rule has indeed won many supporters. Therefore, if Meng Jie really fights with Meng Huo, it is still unknown who will win.

Unfortunately, if Meng Jie did that, he would not be Meng Jie. Meng Jie naturally knew that Meng Huo's mother's words were suspicious of "falsifying the imperial edict", but for the sake of the peace of Yinkeng Cave and tens of thousands of brothers and sisters, as well as the stability of his own family, Meng Jie resolutely accepted this "last words".

Meng Jie handed over the position of the new cave master to Meng Huo without any reluctance, and he served as his deputy to assist his younger brother.

But what Meng Jie didn't know was that when Meng Huo heard Meng Jie's decision, his first reaction was naturally ecstasy, and then his second reaction was endless contempt. Meng Huo felt that Meng Jie was a complete idiot, who had been deceived by the Han people and had no brains at all. He threw away such a great opportunity and actually believed in the "last words" that had no credibility at all.

However, even though he despised him, Meng Huo had just taken over the power, so he still had to pretend to be nice to Meng Jie for the sake of face. What if he turned against his brother and he immediately rebelled?
However, Meng Jie did not think too much about it. He just continued to be a silent doer, managing all kinds of affairs of Yinkengdong in an orderly manner for his brother.

Meng Huo was also not idle. He used his marriage relationship with Zhu Rong to successfully persuade the Huoyun Cave and his Yinkeng Cave to unite.

The two caves that were originally ranked among the best in Nanzhongdu joined forces, and their pressure force was naturally not to be underestimated. Soon, with the support of his father-in-law, Meng Huo became more and more powerful, and began to recover and oppress some smaller caves around him.

Due to the great strength of the two caves combined, these small caves had no choice but to be forced to join and obey Meng Huo's orders.

Meng Jie was initially somewhat opposed to Meng Huo's actions, but Meng Huo immediately told Meng Jie that he did so in the hope that the fragmented Nanzhong could unite and be united instead of attacking each other. Meng Jie also thought it made sense, and since his younger brother was now the cave master, he stopped talking.

As Meng Huo's power grew like a snowball, he simply announced himself as the king of Nanzhong with more than 20 caves that submitted to him, and demanded that the other caves submit.

Naturally, there were people who objected, including the old hand Yang Feng. Yang Feng was a few years younger than Meng Jie, but a few years older than Meng Huo, so he was the first to disagree with the words of the yellow-haired waiter. In addition, Yinzhi Cave was also one of the top five large caves among the 72 caves in Nanzhong, so there was no reason for him to listen to the reasoning of Yinkeng Cave, which was similar to him.

However, there were not many cave dwellings like Yang Feng. Most of the small cave dwellings declared their surrender. Meng Huo finally stationed tens of thousands of troops outside the Yinzhi Cave territory and used force to subdue Yang Feng. At that time, Yang Feng did not know any Han people and had not seen the strength of the Han army. Therefore, without external aid, it was impossible for him to fight to the death with Meng Huo. He could only nominally surrender to Meng Huo, but privately he obeyed all kinds of Meng Huo's orders in public.

In addition to his strong external attacks, Meng Huo was also busy at home. With the help of his brother Meng You, he quickly figured out who in Yinkeng Cave supported Meng Jie, who was neutral, and who supported him.

Meng Huo quickly found various reasons to remove those who supported Meng Jie from their positions, and then replaced them with his own supporters, weakening Meng Jie's power in an invisible way.

Although Meng Jie saw it, after all, the entire Yinkeng Cave belonged to his brother, so Meng Jie was unwilling to say anything about it. He still worked diligently and took care of the affairs in the cave.

In the end, Meng Huo was successful after all. The 72 caves in Nanzhong at least nominally acknowledged Meng Huo as the king of Nanzhong. Although many powerful caves remained neutral in reality, neither accepting Meng Huo's guidance nor providing any support to Meng Huo, and were essentially independent, they still verbally regarded Meng Huo as the lord of Nanzhong. For example, the Bana Cave of King Mulu was such a force.

But since Meng Huo united the 72 caves in Nanzhong, there must be a next goal, right? Soon, Meng Huo learned that something had happened in Yizhou, that is, Liu Bei's entry into Sichuan.

In 211 AD, Liu Bei entered Sichuan. The next year, he fell out with Liu Zhang, and from then on, a battle lasted for more than a year in Sichuan.

The chaos in central Sichuan naturally caused the management of Yinan to become lax. Not only were all the generals transferred to fight Liu Bei, but troops were also transferred from Yinan to the front battlefields such as Chengdu and Badong.

The result was that Yinan was extremely empty, and Meng Huo, as a man with a keen eye for taking advantage of opportunities, naturally saw this great opportunity. He immediately encouraged the cave dwellings in the south to follow him and prepare to plunder Yinan.

After all, farming peacefully is not as fast as robbing and looting.

Meng Jie naturally knew about this. He could tolerate everything before, after all, they were all family affairs and internal affairs. But now that they were going to turn against the Han people, Meng Jie naturally couldn't sit still.

He and Meng Huo argued in the cave for several hours. Meng Jie believed that although the Han people were fighting among themselves, after the victory or defeat was decided, neither side would make it easy for him in Nanzhong.

Meng Jie has lived in Jingzhou for more than ten years and knows the nature of the Han people very well. To the Han people, their internal fighting is like a quarrel between brothers, but this does not mean that you foreign barbarians can ride on their heads.

Even more extreme, it is possible that both sides put aside their prejudices and destroy these barbarians first. Although Nanzhong is now unified and has a strong military force, Meng Jie knows that Nanzhong is just a showpiece. How can he gain any benefit if he really fights with the Han army?
Haven’t you seen that every time the Baiyue rebelled, they were subdued by the Han people? Our Nanzhong is not even as good as the Baiyue, so how can we defeat them?

(End of this chapter)