The third emperor of the Sui Dynasty

Chapter 866
Amidst the sound of firecrackers all over the city, the Li Tang Dynasty also ushered in the new year. Unlike previous years, Li Yuan also asked the court to organize a New Year celebration.

This is because Li Yuan, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, was in a good mood. The good mood stems from two aspects. The first is that this year’s winter is very cold. Judging from Li Yuan’s experience as an official in Honghua, Loufan, and Taiyuan, it is very cold under this kind of weather. You, Bing, Yong, and Liang in northern China have all become hardest hit areas, and many people will freeze to death in the icy winter.Judging from this year's snow situation and previous experience, Li Yuan believed that many people would die in the northern part of the Sui Dynasty. These heavy burdens were a great blessing to Li Tang, who occupied the warm Yizhou. More people died of cold and freezing. In this case, the national power of the Sui Dynasty and the energy of Yang Tong would be consumed in disaster relief, thus allowing Datang to gain more buffer time.

On the other hand, during the period since the Li Tang court entered Shu, Li Yuanji stared at Yizhou aristocratic families and local tyrants, turned over many old accounts, and then wiped them out.

It is undeniable that aristocratic families are more likely to produce talents than poor ones because they are inherently superior, but there are always dead branches in the big trees. Li Yuan, who is also from a family, does not think that the local family that occupies most of the rights, land and voice in Yizhou is a virtuous saint If it is really a big case of anger and grievance, even if the aristocratic family presses it down by virtue of its family power, it is impossible for this kind of grievance to be forgotten by the victimized people, so when Li Yuanji went to find the sufferer, someone immediately jumped out to testify, plus Li Yuanji Yuan Ji asked Wu Chuanzu to secretly fuel the flames, making the matter worse and worse, and the family ransacking and extermination of the family took place as a matter of course.This not only enriched Li Yuan's treasury, eliminated local powers, but also earned Li Yuan a good reputation.

Thinking about the incomparable wealth that the nobles of Guanlong put in Guanzhong, Li Yuan was both happy and regretful. If he had done this earlier, where would it be Yang Tong's turn to get those riches?If he got those riches, how could Datang, without the Guanlong nobles holding back his legs, fall into this situation?

The happy Li Yuan not only asked the court to organize a celebration, but even canceled the New Year's meeting, which made many people feel baffled. After all, this is the emperor's once-a-year opportunity to contact all local officials. Why did he give up?
Many of these people secretly speculated that Li Yuan's cancellation of the Yuanri court meeting and letting everyone reunite with their relatives was just an excuse. There are only a few dozen sheriffs. Instead of holding such an embarrassing court meeting that makes people lose confidence, it is better to take the opportunity to show the benevolence of showing compassion to officials.

Of course, no matter what the reason was, the officials still welcomed Li Yuan's cancellation of the New Year's Court Gathering, because they could properly hold the clan sacrifice and reunite with their relatives, unlike previous years when they came and went in such a hurry.More importantly, you don't have to rack your brains like in previous years to conceive anti-Sui articles, let alone impassionedly say nonsense such as returning to Guanzhong and regaining Bingzhou that you don't even believe.

It's the first day of the first lunar month. According to traditional customs, you can neither go out nor light a fire to cook.

Because of this tradition, the streets of Chengdu have also become deserted. There is not a single pedestrian on the empty street, and occasionally only patrol soldiers pass by.At this time, the sound of carriages and horses from a distance broke the quiet morning, and a carriage was slowly approaching from the south gate under the protection of dozens of guards.

The patrolling soldiers recognized that it was Prince Li Jiancheng's carriage, and they all lined up to salute. The carriages didn't stop and drove to the Taiji Palace in the north.

Sitting in the carriage, Li Jiancheng closed his eyes and rested his mind. He was ordered to negotiate with King Liao and had just returned from Luchuan County.

The New Year has no meaning for him at all, because for so many years, he has spent every day dealing with messy government affairs and summoning officials to solve problems.However, after he arrived in Chengdu from Xiangyang, he no longer has any decision-making power. He just deals with a lot of chores every day. Even ordinary decisions involving the county level must be decided by his father, and his brother Li Yuanji has no He's had a lot of fun, and now he is very popular with his father, who sent him to inspect the "world" and act as the emperor, a power that Li Jiancheng never enjoyed from the beginning to the end.

Li Jiancheng knew that his father had tasted the sweetness of confiscating the house, and he was unwilling to stop there. He was determined to wipe out all the tycoons with a small scale, and then enforce the so-called rule of law.It is not that Yizhou cannot implement the rule of law at this time, but this degree must be mastered. Yang Tong's success is not only because of the rule of law itself, but also because he had good conditions. First of all, Jizhou and Youzhou, which have been plagued for more than ten years, did not There is an aristocratic family, and he has no resistance when he enforces the rule of law. Secondly, Yang Tong has strong military strength. Based on the principle that one thing more is better than one thing less, the princes of all walks of life are unwilling to provoke this invincible hero who has killed all over Liaodong. Therefore, he has good conditions to promote the rule of law, and the most important thing is that Yang Tong can achieve justice, not to mention absolute justice, but at least he has perfect laws and can lead by example from top to bottom. This is what Yang Tong can achieve. The biggest reason for credibility.

But the Tang Dynasty not only did not have such good external conditions, the key is that Li Yuan only focused on the benefits brought by the "rule of law", but he himself did not intend to abide by it at all. All the common people have to be cleaned up, which can indeed bring a lot of benefits to Datang at the beginning, and also serve the purpose of suppressing local tyrants, but these black apples have ruined Datang's reputation, not only to the local Tyrannical and powerful, the same is true for ordinary people. They are not pleasing to both sides.

What worries Li Jiancheng even more is that the targets of Li Yuanji also include lieutenant soldiers. Now the lieutenant soldiers are guarding the territory for Datang in the front, but the imperial court persecutes his family members in the territory.

Li Jiancheng decided to persuade his father no matter what, let him stop in moderation, and not continue this kind of destabilizing the country.

The carriage stopped slowly in front of Taiji Palace Miyagi, a guard stepped forward and opened the door, Li Jiancheng got out of the carriage, walked quickly to the inner palace, and said to the guard outside: "Please report to the Holy Majesty, just say that I have something to see .”

Not long after the guards entered, the younger sister, Princess Linhai, came out to greet her, and said, "Father just said why the elder brother didn't come back, but the elder brother came by himself."

Li Jiancheng smiled gently, "I brought some strange things from Luchuan, and I'll give you some later."

"Thank you, big brother." Princess Linhai thanked happily.She is the daughter of Li Yuan and Concubine Wan Gui, and later married Pei Ji's son, Lawyer Pei, who had never been married since his death in Daxing Palace, and was later regarded by Li Yuan as a princess who made peace with Tubo. After she got down, she had to be a widow again, so she was very grateful to the elder brother who changed her destiny. When she first heard that the elder brother was back, she immediately ran out to greet him.

Li Jiancheng suddenly said: "I heard that the father and mother intended to betroth you to Dou Min, is it true?"

Dou Min is Dou Wei's grandson, his wife died not long ago, Li Yuan intends to get closer.

"I don't want to marry him." Princess Linhai blushed, not because she didn't want to marry, but because her mother, Concubine Wan Gui, didn't want her daughter to marry into a wealthy family.

In fact, before Langri Zanpu, Li Yuan planned to find another husband's family for his daughter, even the direct descendants of the Dugu family, but Wan Guifei stopped him. Wan Guifei knew that Li Yuan was ungrateful, and sooner or later she would do something to the nobles of Guanlong and let her daughter Wouldn't it be the same as being a widow after marrying?As expected, the Dugu faction was uprooted by Li Yuan, and Li Yuan recently asked Li Yuanji to ransack the house everywhere. Concubine Wan Gui was worried that Dou would become the second Dugu faction, so how could she push her daughter to the fire pit?

Li Jiancheng laughed, and the brothers and sisters walked towards the palace together. When they arrived in the inner palace, Li Yuan's lineage had gathered together, including Concubine Wan Gui, Concubine Yin De, Yuwen Zhaoyi, Zhang Jieyu, and more than a dozen concubines and concubines. The children were all there, and what surprised Li Jiancheng was that Li Shimin also came.

"My son, I will see my father." Li Jiancheng hurriedly saluted.

"The emperor has worked hard!" Li Yuan smiled and said: "Since you are here, I will send someone to bring your wife and children, so that the whole family can have a good reunion."

Li Jiancheng hurriedly said: "Thank you, Father, but can you give me some time? My son has something important to report to Father, and it has something to do with the army."

Li Yuan originally didn't want to talk about official business today, but it's another matter if it's related to the army. After pondering for a while, he nodded and said, "Let's go to the study to talk, and Erlang will go and listen together."

"Here."

The father and son walked to the imperial study room at the back together. Li Yuan sat down and said to Li Jiancheng, "Your Majesty, you can talk now."

"My son thinks that it is enough to deal with the powerful people in Yizhou. Now they should be stabilized. If this continues, the foundation of the Tang Dynasty will be shaken. My son begged my father to recall Yuanji." Li Jiancheng bowed deeply.

Li Yuan's face changed slightly, "Is the emperor against the rule of law?"

"Yang Tong has used facts to prove that the rule of law is the way to make the country rich and the people strong. Naturally, I will not oppose the rule of law. It's just that the situation in my Tang Dynasty is different from that of the Sui Dynasty, and I don't have such good external conditions as Yang Tong. My minister thinks that I am a big Don's scale is enough. There are some things we can't do right now."

"Why?" Li Yuan asked coldly.

"This is the list extracted by my son during this period. These are all people who have committed certain evil deeds." Li Jiancheng presented a list.

"Pei Ji's nephew Pei Xi, Dou Lukuan's second son Dou Lu Huairang, Xiao Yu's nephew Xiao Jing...Liu Wenjing's eldest son Liu Shuyi, eldest son Shunde's second son eldest Sun Jiaqing, eldest grandson Anye Gao Shilian's third son Gao Zhenxing...and Zheng Shanguo's son... ..." Li Yuan suddenly raised his head, looking at Li Jiancheng with cold eyes: "I see."

Only then did Li Yuan remember that many people who made mistakes here were related to Li Jiancheng, and said coldly: "I thought that the emperor was dedicated to the people, but now it seems that I have really let me down."

"Father, it's not for my son and minister!" Li Jiancheng said with emotion: "Father, this list includes almost all the family members of officials in the Tang Dynasty, and even the generals in the army. If you guard the pass, if you know that your relatives have been purged, our soldiers may be shaken."

There were many sons of officials in the army of the Tang Dynasty who served in the military, even Yang Tong could not avoid it, but he believed in meritocracy, no matter whose son it was, he had to start as a member of the army and then be promoted based on his military merits. It's different. Although important positions in the military depend on ability, the key middle-level military officers are not based on merit, but are determined by their background.

"The Son of Heaven is guilty of the same crime as the common people, let alone the sons of officials..." Li Yuan waved his hands and snorted coldly, "This is for the glory of the Tang Dynasty, not for a specific person. I believe the ministers of the court will understand."

"That's what you say, but the 'imperial court' sentencing is unfair!" Li Jiancheng said in a deep voice, "The 'imperial court' has punished these officials and eunuchs too harshly. People are chilled. But for ordinary wealthy families, they only confiscate their land or even lighter, while Li Shentong, Yin Ashu and other relatives and relatives, even if they bully the market, bully men and women, murder and violate the law, the 'court' doesn't care... The minister thinks that he must stop from now on, or truly govern the country according to the law, and if he continues to be treated differently according to his relatives... Sooner or later, the generals of the Tang Dynasty will be divorced from their father and emperor."

"Enough!" Li Yuan shouted angrily, took a deep breath, and said decisively: "I have a reason, you don't need to ask."

"No need to ask?"

Li Shimin looked like he had seen a ghost, and Li Jiancheng looked at his father in disbelief: "Father asked my son to revise the law and also manage the Ministry of Punishment. This matter should have been presided over by my son. Besides, the father wants to implement the rule of law. My son also agrees very much, but there should always be a rule of thumb for everything, and my son should collect more evidence and be more accountable. If there is no clear law and rules, how can we convince people? How can my son not ask questions?"

Li Yuan's face darkened, and he snorted coldly: "Since we want to suppress the tyrants, we naturally have to recruit a group of forces for our own use. When Yang Tong started to practice the rule of law, he was completely alone, he didn't even have any foreign relatives, he had no strength to So they can only show others that they are strict with self-discipline, fair and just, and serve the purpose of wooing ordinary people."

Li Yuan has so many relatives that he can't even count them.He wants to use the royal relatives to help him, as for Yin Ashu, he is Li Yuan's father-in-law, so naturally he will not deal with his family.

"Father, the sons and ministers also know this truth, but the civil and military officials are also ours. Soldiers want them to lead them, and politicians deal with them. If this continues, when the Sui army comes to fight one day, the border guards may fight back. Worry." Li Jiancheng sighed.

"Do you think that if we treat people with kindness, these people will keep their place and fight for our Great Tang?"

Li Yuan is by no means stupid, his heart is like a mirror, and he knows Datang's current situation better than anyone else.

He has always been unable to figure out Yang Tong's way. He can understand the suppression of the aristocratic family, and he also knows that the aristocratic family is a huge rock that breaks the backbone of the Sui Dynasty. If Li Tang wins the world, sooner or later he will go against the aristocratic family, because the existence of the aristocratic family is not good for any dynasty.

In this respect, he and Yang Tong have the same interests. When the handles of the knives were handed over by the big families, he had no reason not to use the knives. The wealth of the Guanlong nobles and the Guandong gentry filled the Tang treasury and used their land to buy people's hearts. In the long run, it was also for the stability of the Tang Empire.

Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin couldn't understand this point, because they were not emperors and were limited by their status, so they still couldn't comprehend that level of state.

However, although Yang Tong's running township schools, county schools, county schools, and promoting industry and commerce are also beneficial to the country, many emperors have also done it, and there is nothing surprising about it.Yang Jian also ran a school, but he also encountered extremely fierce opposition from the aristocratic family. In his later years, the Sui Dynasty was in a predicament where the emperor's energy was weak and the crown prince's authority had not been established. Abandoned school.After Yang Guang stabilized the government, he immediately set up a school again. Although his methods were more violent than Yang Jian's, he was not as crazy as Yang Tong.

Li Yuan used to think that Yang Tong was young and energetic, so he would develop these things recklessly, but if Yang Tong could not unify the world, he would definitely suffer backlash.

He even thought that even if Yang Tong unified the world, the aristocratic family would make a comeback in at most two generations, and then encouraged Yang Tong's successors to abandon the current strategy step by step.

But with the publication of "Ban Yue Tan of the Great Sui Dynasty", Li Yuan finally discovered that Yang Tong's ambitions were greater than those of Yang Jian and Yang Guang. The rules open the way, but win the support of the people in a way that benefits all people, reverse the views of the people step by step, and let the people hear the correct voice of the court.Unknowingly, the people are constantly crushing and erasing past concepts from their hearts.The interests of the people and the royal family are closely tied together and become inseparable allies.

Subtly, the people will think that everything is good for the emperor and the court, and all government orders are for the sake of the people. Damage to the interests of.The emperor and court were also victims.

If Yang Tong continued to carry out the idea that the enemy is the enemy, Li Yuan would not be afraid of the officials and generals who ruled against the Tang Dynasty. , it is very likely that, like the Dugu faction, they will do things like the seller seeking glory.Therefore, before the arrival of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Li Yuan had to clean up all the unstable people, and then fight one or two victorious defensive battles to stabilize the people of Yizhou. After that, he could slowly restore the people's livelihood like Liu Bei did. The Sui Dynasty engaged in a protracted confrontation.

His theory is only understood by himself, but Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin feel that the father is destroying the foundation. If the Sui army arrives, a rain of arrows may make the soldiers open the door and surrender obediently.

Seeing that his father, who had tasted the sweetness, was unwilling to give up, Li Jiancheng thought about it for a while, and found a way to meet his father's needs without shaking the country's foundation: "Father, my son is not against the rule of law, but also in favor of the rule of law, but I There are three major hidden dangers in Datang, which must be resolved as soon as possible."

"What hidden dangers?" The three major hidden dangers Li Jiancheng threw out successfully freed Li Yuan from the 'rule of law' dispute, and he immediately took advantage of the situation to ask.

"First, many local government affairs are mostly taken care of by small officials. Most of these people have inherited the positions of officials from generation to generation. As a result, the local financial power is controlled by these small officials from local wealthy families. These people deceive the local government and do evil. When I was dealing with government affairs, I found that some petty officials had set up the imperial tax system for profit. For example, the current tax system of the imperial court is ten tax one, but some daring petty officials dared to charge ten tax two or ten tax Third, even the second tax and the first tax. Most of the taxes paid by the people fall into the pockets of these small officials, but the people think that this is the imperial court’s excessive collection, so they dare not speak out. If such small officials are not eliminated, the final damage will be The interests of the people and the prestige of the imperial court! Moreover, this kind of people are lawless, a nest of snakes and rats, and they collude with each other to treat the official warehouse grain money as their own backyard, and eat and take whatever they want. In the second year of Wude, the imperial court asked people to open the local county granaries , as an annual inventory. As a result, officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs have not arrived at the place, and official warehouses in many places have caught fire. This is clearly because some people do not want the court to see an empty official warehouse. He is a scapegoat, relegated to the innocent Shangguan."

"These people have been entrenched in the local area and have been domineering for many years. They are backed by local tyrants and local ruffians, so they don't even look down on their superiors. Officials intending to implement imperial orders are also tried to stop them by these people. Some officials even Assassinated by them in the name of 'rogue bandits'; local officials hate such people very much. According to my son, the emperor simply targeted these petty officials for stealing rice. They are not within the imperial system, even if they are killed Absolutely, everyone will applaud."

A gleam flashed in Li Yuan's eyes, he felt that he had a new source of income, so he said: "I already know, let's continue."

Li Jiancheng continued: "Secondly, in addition to the Han people, there are also a large number of Qiang and Liao in Yizhou, and the Qiang and Liao are divided into countless independent tribes, so the situation here is quite complicated. However, Many people regard oppressing the Qiang and Liao people as a matter of course, and murders often occur. Some people deliberately force some tribes that are not strong to rebel, and then magnify the strength of the rebellious tribes by a hundred or a thousand times in order to be promoted by military exploits , when he puts down the so-called rebellion, then the meritorious service will naturally come."

"How to solve it?" Li Yuan nodded silently. The reason why he was retaliated by Liao Wang's three tribes was that Li Yuanji destroyed his village, so that he, who was defenseless, almost died in the Yangtze River.

"Treat them equally and treat them as citizens of the Tang Dynasty. Moreover, Qiang and Liao Qingzhuang are natural warriors. We can encourage them to join the army, gain power with military merit, and then move them in step by step, and slowly naturalize them. " Li Jiancheng said: "Just doing it this way will inevitably lose the interests of some soldiers, and I am worried that this matter will be difficult."

A look of cruelty flashed in Li Yuan's eyes, and he said: "My Tang Dynasty is now in dire straits, dying of illness, and I have to deal with difficult things. Moreover, the Qiang people and Liao people are poor and poor. They can even die for a bite, but they The pursuit is only food and clothing. Thinking of the Han people living in the rich land, there are too many simple ones. As long as the court treats them well, they will be the most loyal and brave fighters of the court. Judging from the current situation, these People are more trustworthy than Han officials, you have to step up communication with officials, the sooner the better."

"My son obeys."

"I'll think about it, you go out first."

"Here." Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin bowed and retreated one after another.

. . . . .

Looking at Li Jiancheng's leaving back, Li Yuan felt as if he had eaten a fly. He was extremely uncomfortable, and he paced back and forth in the imperial study in a state of distraught.He is a master of political power, and he also adopted methods such as transfer, promotion, and relegation to cut off the eldest son's power one by one, depriving the eldest son of local control, military power, and government affairs, and finally leaving the eldest son with nothing.But the eldest son always respected him and didn't care about his means, so Li Yuan appreciated and satisfied him very much.

But Li Yuan didn't like him very much recently, mainly because of the Zen position.

Under normal circumstances, it would be reasonable for Li Jiancheng to be dissatisfied with himself. Even if he hinted explicitly or secretly, it is normal, but instead of mentioning it, Li Jiancheng took it lightly. I feel that the eldest son's scheming is terrible.

Achieving great things does require scheming, but no father wants to see his son playing tricks on himself, and Li Jiancheng's abnormal indifference obviously violated this big taboo unintentionally.

There is also Liu Wenjing, Li Yuan values ​​Liu Wenjing's ability very much, but he doesn't like this person, and he doesn't like his eldest son getting close to him. Wuji, this is the uncle of the Sui Dynasty, but Li Jiancheng still regards him as a friend and a confidant... The existence of these two people makes Li Yuan even more suspicious that the eldest son's respect for him is false.

More importantly, the eldest son suddenly showed a relatively strong attitude today, which is completely different from the gentleness in the past. This made Li Yuan feel very dangerous. He felt that the eldest son not only threatened his throne, but even created a situation behind his back that could persecute him. The power of my Zen position is gone, if it is not the case, why didn't I care about it before, and it is so abnormal today?

Li Yuan didn't know that Li Jiancheng didn't care about the throne anymore, of course, even if Li Jiancheng said it, Li Yuan wouldn't believe it, their Li family risked their lives and family to rebel, isn't it for the throne?
If Li Jiancheng said that he didn't care about the throne at this time, maybe Li Yuan was so frightened that he immediately imprisoned him.

Li Yuan pondered for a long time, and immediately wrote a secret letter, sealed it and handed it to a confidant guard: "Give this letter to King Qi."

"Follow your orders!"

The guard saluted and left in a hurry, Li Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.

(End of this chapter)