Great Tang princess

Chapter 608 Preparations for Soaring

Early the next morning, after Li Yuechen got up and practiced yoga, he and Shangguan Wan'er went out early in the dark.

Today is the winter solstice, which can be regarded as a festival worthy of grand treatment in this era. The emperor will host a banquet for the ministers in the court, and the ministers will take the written parallel essays to sacrifice to the sky with the emperor early, praying for good weather and good weather in the coming year.

It would be fine if Li Yuechen came back secretly. Now that the whole court knows that the princess is back, it is necessary to participate in such an important event, otherwise it will not look good.

After entering the palace in a carriage, he arrived at the gate of Vientiane Shrine early, and saw that many ministers were already waiting here.

And almost all the ministers were chatting around the first few main ministers, and the group of people in the middle suddenly became the center of the courtiers.

Since the formation of the cabinet, the pattern among the ministers has become like this.

The reason is also very simple. Forming a cabinet is essentially equivalent to delegating power from the emperor, so now the people in the cabinet are the objects that other officials must pursue, and they are still the center of all courtiers.

Of course, Princess Xuancheng was the exception. Although she was only a minister of the household department, she was also a princess of the royal family. She didn't need to curry favor with anyone, and no one dared to trouble her.

On the contrary, there are many ministers around her who are also flattering her. After all, the household department is in charge of money and food, and there may be times when they need help.

When Li Yuechen came over, the ministers saluted after seeing him: "I have seen Your Highness!"

"Excuse me, everyone." Li Yuechen stretched out his hand from the thick animal skin cloak and waved it, and slowly came to the front of all the ministers.

It stands to reason that she is only the Minister of the Ministry of War and should not stand in front of Di Renjie, but she is a princess, so naturally there will be no problem.

Di Renjie also quickly came over to salute: "I have seen His Highness, I went back yesterday and took a photo to see with my wife. I am very happy, but I don't know..."

"Hey, don't come to me about this matter." Li Yuechen waved his hand and said in a low voice, "If you want to shoot, you can go and shoot casually when the studio opens in the future. Let me have a good rest before the year."

"Naturally!" Di Renjie saluted with a smile, "How dare you bother Your Highness."

Because Di Renjie had stood on the princess's side a few years ago and was a firm princess faction, the two of them were not as unfamiliar as the others, so they chatted a few more words while standing at the entrance of the main hall.

Then the main hall opened, the courtiers entered the hall to congratulate, and then the emperor brought the ministers to the altar in the palace and set up a formation to start offering sacrifices to the heavens. Li Yuechen thought it was a series of extremely boring operations.

Sacrifice in this era is actually very troublesome, not only the emperor recites parallel prose, but also singing, dancing, and various rituals.

After all the tossing, it was still almost noon. The emperor held a banquet in the hall, invited the ministers to eat and drink, enjoyed singing and dancing, and celebrated the winter solstice.

To say that the only thing that remains unchanged is the tradition of disco dancing. The ministers who were too drunk ran to the center of the hall to dance with the music, which was like a prelude to wrestling.

What is different from before is that now the emperor will not accompany them to dance disco, but will only sit on the dragon chair and watch.

Li Yuechen felt that this kind of atmosphere was quite good, and it could continue in the future.

After all, with the gradual development of civilization, personality still tends to be equal, including the royal family.

Although Li Yuechen thinks that the royal family will still be nobles in the future, this is more about the binding of responsibility, and does not require other people to kneel down when they see it.

Even Li Yuechen was thinking that when the country developed to a certain level, the kneeling and worshiping at such large-scale court gatherings on the first day of the new year could be cancelled, and the emperor could just salute normally.

Future royals are leaders, not rulers.

……

The whole process is over after lunch, and I have half a day off in the afternoon. Today's affairs are basically over.

When Li Yuechen came to Jixian Hall, Wu Zetian was already sitting in his seat drinking tea. It seemed that such a process was not an easy task for the emperor.

Li Yuechen, who entered Jixian Temple, took a futon and sat down very casually, just like returning to the princess mansion, grabbed the quilt in front of his mother and took a sip: "Mother, should the winter solstice sacrifice process be simplified in the future? some?"

Wu Zetian raised his eyebrows: "Since you were born, have you simplified things in this palace? If you continue to simplify, I'm afraid that all the sacrifices will disappear in the future."

"Forehead……"

Hearing his mother's response, Li Yuechen was immediately speechless, because from a certain point of view, this is indeed true.

But that can't be helped. It is really difficult for people who have adapted to the fast-paced future to bear the various complicated rules of this era.

Just as he was about to say something, he saw Zhang Chengxin walk in suddenly: "Sage, report from the hidden guard."

Wu Zetian nodded slightly, Zhang Chengxin waved his hand, came in with a young eunuch, and handed a secret letter to Shangguan Wan'er next to him.

There is also a reason for this, because she also works as the emperor's secretary, so the work reports of the hidden guards are also sent to Jixian Hall on weekdays.

She didn't take it seriously, and after taking it, she took out the secret guard's code-breaking card and deciphered the information inside.

After lowering his head for a glance, his expression was a little puzzled, and he raised his head and said, "Your Majesty, the secret guards of Yizhou have sent a message that there may be some changes in Tubo."

"Huh? Let me see!"

Wu Zetian hadn't turned into a beast yet, Li Yuechen spoke first, got up quickly and came to Shangguan Wan'er's desk.

After receiving the secret letter she handed over, he looked down.

Now it is said that the dark guards have spread all over the country, but in fact it is not that exaggerated, they just have strongholds in important cities across the country.

Although in Li Yuechen's plan, the future dark guard should be an organization like the Central Intelligence Agency of the Tang Dynasty, but for now it is still far away.

The Tubo side has not yet infiltrated, and currently only has a few strongholds in border areas such as Yizhou, so pay attention to matters there.

This secret letter introduced that the number of Tubo merchants in Yizhou City has suddenly increased a lot. There is no doubt about it. After all, glass, tea, soap and toilet paper here are all products that are very popular with foreign merchants. It's not impossible for someone to make a fortune out of it.

But this report said that many businessmen were secretly inquiring about the situation of ironware, and it seemed that they wanted to smuggle metal.

This aroused the vigilance of the hidden guards. After all, metal is the first thing that people think of is weapons!
So the members of the hidden guards over there continued to stare at the investigation situation while sending this report back.

After reading it, Li Yuechen handed the secret letter in his hand to his mother, and sat down by himself, pouring himself a cup of tea.

Wu Zetian glanced roughly, then leaned back on the chair back in a comfortable posture, raised her head and asked, "What do you think of Chen'er?"

"Actually, it's not unexpected." Li Yuechen replied, "Tibetan's resources are too scarce. Such a country is destined to be unable to achieve self-sufficiency. If it wants to develop, the only way to expand is to expand outward."

"Then you want to send troops?" Wu Zetian asked.

If it was before, she would not have thought of sending troops as an option at the first time, but now that the country is peaceful and the people are safe, the finances are abundant, and it is a good time when martial virtues are abundant, war has become the simplest and most efficient first choice.

However, Li Yuechen shook his head slightly: "When I was young, my aunt once said that when the heavens rule a country, one should not raise troops for no reason. At this time, Tubo is still in the stage of probation, and sending troops at this time is not justified."

Hearing her daughter's answer, Wu Zetian glanced at her very appreciatively, then nodded slightly.

Although I had expected my daughter's answer, I was still pleasantly surprised when I heard her say that.

After all, Li Yuechen was born in the army. Although she has abundant martial virtues, Wu Zetian didn't want her to think about solving everything through war.

Not to mention that she also invented a series of war weapons such as grenades, artillery and airships.

In particular, she has always regarded this daughter as the best heir to the throne, and the dragon chair is not suitable for a war madman to sit on.

Fortunately, her daughter's performance has never let her down, and it is still the same to this day.

So she picked up the teacup and asked, "Then how does Chen'er think it should be resolved?"

Li Yuechen thought about it for a while, and said slowly: "Although Tubo has ideas, it will definitely not dare to go to war in a short period of time. It just so happens that Shouli and Shouyi will graduate next year. I plan to let them build another one in Yazhou." A new army will be stationed and trained for a long time to adapt to the plateau climate."

"But in this way, Tubo is afraid of your prestige, so how dare you take the initiative to attack?" Wu Zetian took a sip of tea.

However, Li Yuechen just shook his head slightly: "As I said earlier, if Tubo wants to develop, it must expand outward. Otherwise, there will be a shortage of domestic materials, and sooner or later a huge conflict will break out, followed by civil war. In order to avoid this situation, even if you know it is not The enemy will definitely take the initiative to provoke."

In fact, this is a conspiracy. Now there are plenty of martial arts here, but they don't provide any assistance to Tubo. In this case, there are only two choices.

Either bow his head and proclaim himself a minister, the Tubo emperor abdicated, and then merged into the territory of Dazhou.

Either start a war and eliminate part of the population to relieve internal pressure. Even if you can't win, at least you can divert conflicts and prevent civil war.

Thinking about it differently, if Li Yuechen himself were the emperor of Tubo, he would definitely choose the latter. After all, as an emperor, he would definitely not want to hand over all his power easily.

In fact, she's been doing that since the last war.She had also thought that such a day would come, but it was nearly ten years earlier than she had imagined.

But it seems understandable, after all, she has never been to Tubo in this era, and her understanding of it is limited to written records.

Written records are the easiest to exaggerate or embellish them, which are far less intuitive than video materials.

Wu Zetian gently turned the teacup in his hand, a little puzzled: "It takes time to establish and train the new army, how can Chen'er ensure that they won't do anything during this time?"

"Speaking of this, my mother is an amateur, hehe!" Li Yuechen suddenly laughed.

My mother is a strategist, she is good at tactics, and she has extremely precise control over people's hearts and human nature, but she has a shortcoming in war, and she almost knows nothing about it.

Seeing that his daughter dared to despise him, Wu Zetian had a dark face and said with a crossed face, "Don't play around, speak up!"

Li Yuechen also knew that jokes should not be taken too far, so he immediately explained: "I don't know, a war can be roughly divided into three stages: strategic deployment, intelligence planning, and final execution. This idea, since asking about ironware, is most likely due to the scarcity of weapons and armor, which is not enough to fight immediately. Therefore, there is still a long time to deal with it."

Speaking of this, she had a confident smile on her face: "Take a step back, even if he dares to start a war suddenly, with the strength of our country at this time, he can destroy him in the shortest time!"

This is not a joke, as long as Tubo dares to attack now, even if Li Yuechen does not bring his own army, he can completely beat them back.

As long as she drives an airship over there and sends them a wave of aerial bombardment, with her own ability, she can kill them even if she just brings the government soldiers from Yizhou.

But that's all. The soldiers in the inland can't chase and hit the plateau. This is the most troublesome thing.

Therefore, Li Yuechen had to station soldiers on the border and live and train in the plateau for a long time, so that they could adapt to the climate there, so that they could chase after them when wars broke out in the future.

After listening to her explanation, Wu Zetian nodded slightly: "Okay, then I will follow your arrangement."

Li Yuechen brought her a teapot and refilled her with some water: "Aniang, why not write a letter to Tang Sui at this time, asking him to pay more attention, and cooperate with each other after Shouli and Shouyi pass next year..."

Tang Sui is currently the top leader on the border, and his ability is quite good. If Tubo really dares to do something now, it will be no problem for him to lead the local frontier army to defend for a period of time.

Li Yuechen will naturally solve the rest.

Wu Zetian nodded to show that she understood, she didn't care about this matter, it was up to her daughter to handle it.

……

There was nothing else to do in the afternoon, so Li Yuechen took it with him in Jixian Temple to chat with his mother.

But Wu Zetian seemed to be more interested in cameras, and asking her when she could take more photos made Li Yuechen feel that his biological daughter was not as attractive as a camera.

But my mother couldn't disobey her thoughts, so she had no choice but to promise her to take her to take pictures tomorrow. Tao Guangyuan took pictures, so I will go to Jiuzhou Pond to take pictures tomorrow.

Only then did Wu Zetian change the subject, and began to listen carefully to what she said about Qingdao, which made Li Yuechen say in his heart that he was really his real mother.

In the evening, I was having dinner in Jixian Temple. While I was eating, Zhang Chengxin suddenly came in and said that a hang glider had landed and sent a letter.

Li Yuechen took it over and took a look. It was the group of Japanese envoys who went back last time who brought Tang... It should be said that the envoys from Zhou came over and planned to formally start their study abroad life in Dazhou.

After asking his mother's opinion, Li Yuechen wrote a letter after eating, asking Qingdao to send them over by airship, which would save a lot of time on the road.

At the same time, I couldn't help but think that next year is a brand new year, and it will also be the beginning of the country's official take-off. After all, there are several big plans waiting.

Originally, I planned to solve them one by one, but now that I have encountered one piece, let's go hand in hand!
(End of the seventh volume)
(End of this chapter)