The third emperor of the Sui Dynasty

Chapter 955
The sound of cranes in the city of Chengdu, the capital of the Li and Tang Dynasties, permeated the tense and chilling atmosphere in the entire city of Chengdu, creating a suffocating depression. The spread of various unfavorable news caused panic in the whole city, and every family closed their doors. The business is closed, and the street is even more deserted.

The people in the city would not dare to go out unless they were desperate, and the young and strong in the city were afraid of being caught on the battlefield and fighting an inevitable battle, so they took refuge in the countryside early. This made the southwestern metropolis, which can accommodate a million people, like an empty city , Dead City, even if occasionally one or two people appear on the street, they would rush out and return home as if a catastrophe was imminent.

Fuxingfang and Taiji Palace in the north of the city are only separated by a palace wall, a street, and a square wall. In front of the side door of a mansion in the square, an old servant in Tsing Yi is rushing from the street, knocking on the door, The sturdy man dressed as a housekeeper opened a crack in the door, saw the face of the person coming, and quickly opened the door to let the old servant in Tsing Yi welcome into the house.

After closing the side door, the two walked towards the inner house together. The butler asked in a low voice while walking, "Mr. Yang, is there any news from outside?"

"An order came from above..." The old servant in Tsing Yi paused for a moment, then asked softly, "Is Patriarch Han there?"

"Yes, yes." The butler answered repeatedly.

After a short conversation, the two left the back house in silence.

The owner of this house is actually Han Zhi.

On the day of the Xuanwumen Incident, Han Zhi was lucky enough to escape, but Li Shimin, in order to appease the hearts of the people, listed the unpopular and hated Han Zhi as a thief who must be punished afterwards. However, the Sui army suddenly attacked and went to Li Shimin. Down to the civil and military officials, they all focused on the battle of the Sui and Tang Dynasties. How could they care about such a small person as Han Zhi?So he lives next to the Tai Chi Palace with confidence.

Although the Wu Chuan Division was disbanded, and some people became the souls of Li Shimin's sword, but Li Yuanji followed Han Zhi's suggestion and entered Shu early in order to seize the throne. Of course, his power is not as simple as Wu Chuan Division, and Han Zhi is Li Yuanji Li Yuanji's mastermind, after Li Yuanji's death, all these forces were under his control, and Heibingtai also secretly contacted him, which allowed Han Zhi to know everything about the world without leaving home, and he didn't have to be as busy as before. In less than a few months, they have grown a lot of meat.

"Master, Yang Gong is here." At this time, the housekeeper reported outside the study door. The housekeeper's name is Jiang Zhen, and he is also a soldier of the Black Ice Terrace. Responsible.

"Mr. Yang, please come in." Han Zhi hurriedly stood up to greet him. This "old servant" in Tsing Yi was Yang Ji, the son of King Wei Zhao Yang Shuang, and a close relative of Yang Tong's uncle. He did not dare to show off.

Yang Ji didn't talk nonsense, and directly handed a translated instruction to Han Zhi: "The higher-ups let us start to act."

"As expected of the Holy One, Li Yuan and Li Shimin will cry to death once such measures are implemented." After reading the instructions, Han Zhi had infinite admiration for Yang Tong who was far away in Luo County.He looked at Yang Ji with excitement in his eyes: "Mr. Yang, when will we start the plan?"

"Of course, the sooner the better," Yang Ji said with a smile, stroking his beard, "Your Majesty can think of what others dare not think of, and the idea of ​​using business as a magic tool is unconstrained, but if it can be done, it will be easy to win the hearts of the people in Sichuan." .It’s just that you guys are better than me at the way of business, so I’ll leave it to you to take full control of it!”

"Here!" Han Zhi responded excitedly.

As early as a year ago, Yang Tong saw that Li Yuan began to share the land equally and reward the land with military merits to win the hearts of the people and the army. He was a little worried that the people in central Shu would be steadfast in their hearts to the Tang Dynasty and would not recognize the rule of the Sui Dynasty, which would cause huge hidden dangers to future governance. Then they began to make secret arrangements in Yizhou, instructing the merchant caravans that conducted free trade with Li Tang to raise the purchase price of Shu brocade.

Shu brocade is a specialty of the Chengdu Plain. For a long time, it was used as currency. At its most glorious time, it was sold to countries in the Western Regions and farther away in Persia. Although the foreign sales dropped due to wars in the past few years. There are quite a few, but the clothes made of Shu brocade are still a symbol of nobles. The "merchants" of the Sui Dynasty suddenly raised the purchase price of Shu brocade, which immediately attracted the attention of the keen-sighted merchants in central Shu. The Silk Road also played a huge role at this time. Without the Sui Dynasty deliberately doing anything, the price of Shu brocade spontaneously increased, and the supply was in short supply.

It's just that although Shu brocade is famous, it is a luxury product with low production volume. At this moment, merchants in central Sichuan are buying it aggressively, and then reselling it to Sui Dynasty merchants to make a difference in price, so that the inventory will soon bottom out.

Seeing that Shu brocade is highly profitable, and the price of Sui grain pouring into Shu is low and tastes good, the common people have no intention of serving the fields. The price of Shu brocade is still rising, but the common people are frantically producing Shu brocade, but they are unwilling to sell it. They only sell it when the price of Shu brocade is higher.At this time, Yang Tong launched the second wave of offensive, that is, to buy red thick wood, nanmu, teak, cypress, elm, camphor and other good shipbuilding materials from Yizhou at sky-high prices, which made many people Specially go into the mountains to look for century-old trees.

At the same time, people were asked to buy surplus grain from people's homes at high prices in the private sector. Seeing that the price of grain in the market was low and there was no worry about food shortages, the common people were willing to sell grain to earn the difference in the middle price.

And at the craziest time when the price of Shu brocade wood remained high, the output of the fields decreased, and the people had no food surplus, the Sui Dynasty suddenly cut off all business ties with the Tang Dynasty. The grain was not sold, and the wood and Shu brocade were not bought. Internally, a lot of Shu brocades that had been saved were put into the market. Except for the frenzied buying at the beginning, many merchants in the middle of Shu realized something was wrong, and then began to sell, causing the price of Shu brocade to fall again and again.

However, the food in the Sui Dynasty was lost, and because of the crazy Shu brocade and crazy wood, the land in the middle of Shu was severely under-produced, and the price of food was rising steadily. Triggered a wave of violent food looting.Some people began to go to the folks to collect grain, but it turned out that the common people had no surplus grain.

Seventy to eighty percent of the grain in Yizhou comes from the Chengdu Plain, and most of Yizhou relies on the grain and grass in the Chengdu Plain to support it. However, the people living in the Chengdu Plain all go to produce Shu brocade, go to the mountains to find trees, and have no intention of serving the farmland. Since you don’t bother to go When dealing with farmland, farmland will naturally feed you back with rich production capacity.

This also caused the price of grain to skyrocket from the initial price of more than 20 yuan per bucket to a consistent one in just two days, and the rise not only fell, but intensified.

This is why Yang Tong and Li Jiancheng agreed to trade during wartime when they signed the armistice agreement.

Li Shimin, who was in a state of desperation, knew that this was a conspiracy of the Sui Dynasty when he heard about it. Because of this kind of loss, the Tang Dynasty suffered too much. If the Sui Dynasty interrupted trade, the result would be even worse, so they had to take the method of drinking poison to quench their thirst and seek skins from tigers.

The evil results of this "free trade" finally exploded concentratedly when the Tang Dynasty was facing the most severe situation.

In order to learn more about the market, Li Shimin disguised himself and took a group of guards to Chengdu West Market.

- Pedestrians arrived at the West Market and went straight to the rice shop. Li Shimin was really shocked by the spectacular sight of the crowds. Everyone was holding empty rice bags and bulging money bags. They didn't line up, but only crowded and Noisy, almost everyone's face is full of anxiety and fear, the loud noise and abuse are earth-shattering, as if they can overturn the city wall
Although Li Shimin also thought that the increase in food prices would cause a certain degree of chaos, the situation in front of him was far beyond his imagination. Li Shimin was stunned and couldn't say a word for a long time.

Li Daosu, the King of Shunzheng who was guarding Li Shimin, saw a man who had bought a small bag of rice and was struggling to squeeze out of the crowd, so he whispered to Li Shimin, "Your Highness, how about I call that man here for questioning?"

"Okay!" Li Shimin, with a gloomy face, nodded slightly.

"You don't have to be afraid." Li Daosu led the man over and said, "This superior wants to ask you something, just tell the truth."

"Xiaomin sees the envoy!" Li Shimin's battle made the commoner very scared.

Li Shimin asked, "How long did it take you to buy rice? What's the price now?"

"Reporting to the envoy, Xiaomin came here yesterday afternoon, and he only bought a bucket of rice until now. The price of grain has now risen to [-] yuan per bucket of rice, which is [-] yuan. And he may not be able to buy it yet." He glanced at Li Shimin. , The commoner whispered tremblingly again: "This money is still Yanhuang Tongbao from the Sui Dynasty, or equivalent banknotes."

"If you buy it with Kaiyuan Tongbao from our Datang, how much is it?" Li Shimin continued to ask.

"This..." The commoner hesitated to speak.

Li Shimin frowned and said, "Just say it straight, I don't blame you."

"Reporting to the envoy, no one is willing to accept 'Kaiyuan Tongbao'." The voice of this person was even lower.

"You don't even accept money from your own country in the imperial capital, these damn profiteers," Li Shimin couldn't hide the anger in his heart after hearing this, and cursed bitterly, without turning his head in a cold voice Said: "Let's go back!"

Li Daosu hurriedly led the soldiers to urge the horse to follow.

After returning to the Yiqiu Palace in the back garden of the East Palace, Li Shimin felt uncomfortable looking at everything, walked around a few times, and shouted angrily: "Quickly call all the ministers to come to the West Pool Court to discuss important matters!"

"Here." Li Daosu hastily arranged staff again.

After about a moment, Dou Gui, Chen Shuda, Xiao Yu, Dou Lukuan, Zhao Cijing, Yin Kaishan, and Yuwenshi who were working in the imperial city rushed to the West Pool Courtyard of Yiqiu Palace to meet "Jia".

Dou Gui is the minister of the Ministry of War, Chen Shuda is the minister of Nayan, Xiao Yu is the minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and Dou Lukuan is the minister of the Ministry of Officials.Zhao Cijing is currently Minister of the Ministry of Punishment, concurrently in charge of Yushitai and Dali Temple, coordinating the important tasks of the three laws, and replacing Li Shentong who was dismissed tragically; Yin Kaishan is now the minister of the Ministry of Justice, replacing Liu Wenjing who has been executed by Li Yuan; The current Zhongshu Ling, he just became a prime minister yesterday, replacing Pei Ji who had been executed by Li Shimin.

Qixiang saw the broken porcelain pieces scattered on the ground mixed with some wet tea leaves, Li Shimin, who was sitting in the main seat, had a livid face and angry eyes, obviously extremely angry.

Without waiting for everyone to salute, Li Shimin waved his hand and said angrily, "Tell me why Kaiyuan Tongbao is not used in our Great Tang Emperor's Capital, and its value is not even as good as a piece of paper money in the Sui Dynasty. Why?"

Of course, the seven prime ministers who looked at each other could not see that the country was about to perish. The people and businessmen were afraid that Kaiyuan Tongbao was worthless, let alone that they had already exchanged [-]% of their money into Yanhuang Tongbao and banknotes.

Xiao Yu is the Secretary of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and he is the one to answer this question, saying ambiguously: "Your Highness, Yanhuang Tongbao has appeared in our Tang Dynasty since it was launched on the market; with the prosperity and development of commerce in the Sui Dynasty, our dynasty has always been a buyer, but they A Kaiyuan Tongbao is not allowed to circulate, so my merchants in the Tang Dynasty can only exchange Kaiyuan Tongbao for Yanhuang Tongbao at a discount. Killed a lot of people who melted money privately, but repeated prohibition."

"That's because you didn't kill too little before, and you didn't kill hard enough!" Li Shimin said through gritted teeth, "From now on, anyone who dares to melt money into copper without permission will be executed everywhere, not only them, but also those who dare to use Sui money." , also—beheaded by the law.”

Qixiangjin didn't dare to say anything, Li Shimin stared, "Don't you want to?"

"The minister waits to obey the order!" Li Shimin was on fire, how could the seven prime ministers dare to object?So they agreed one after another, thinking to wait until Li Shimin's anger passed before trying to persuade him.

Li Shimin also said: "Jingzhaoyin Zheng Shanguo was unable to stabilize grain prices, so he was dismissed on the spot, and Xiao Yu, Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, was appointed concurrently as Jingzhaoyin."

"I obey!" Xiao Yu hesitated for a while, and suggested: "I beg your Highness to allow me to use the Changping warehouse to bet on the price of grain."

"That can't be done. There is a shortage of food in the official warehouse. If the army runs out of food, we will be defeated." Li Shimin flatly refused.

Xiao Yu tried hard to persuade: "Since ancient times, food has been the most important thing for people. Once the price of food is inflated, there will be riots. Now the price of food is so high that ordinary people's annual income cannot be exchanged for a month." Food for food, if the price of this food is not suppressed, the people may change, Your Highness!"

"Xiao Xiangguo's words are very true. If the people have no food, civil uprising will be inevitable." Chen Shuda also got up and saluted: "In fact, the food that was bought maliciously did not leave Shu County, and almost all of it was caught in the hands of big merchants. Now we can first use official grain to stabilize grain prices, and at the same time find those big merchants and force them to sell grain to the court at a lower price."

Li Shimin said coldly: "Since the soaring price of food is caused by profiteers, you can order the profiteers to lower the price of food, and those who don't obey will be executed immediately. Official food cannot be moved."

Xiao Yu sighed and said: "Your Highness, if there is a big killing ring, the chaos will only add to the chaos."

Li Shimin said lightly: "Xiao Xiangguo, do you think killing profiteers will cause chaos in the world?"

For a moment, Xiao Yu didn't know where to start to answer, and after a long while, he said: "Your Highness, killing will only make the situation more serious, the hearts of the people are terrifying!"

Li Shimin sneered and said: "Since ancient times, who among the troubled people can achieve great things? Did Chen Sheng and Wu Guang achieve success? Did Zhang Jiao achieve success? Did Wang Bo, Zhang Jincheng, Gao Shida, Dou Jiande, Zhai Rang, and Li Mi achieve success? None of them Therefore, the fall of the Qin Dynasty, the fall of the Han Dynasty, and the chaos of the Sui Dynasty have nothing to do with the people. The so-called people's hearts are simply loose sand, and the chaos of the people is nothing to worry about, and the chaos of the nobles is fatal. The Sui Dynasty during Yang Guang's period is a living example .”

Xiao Yu said loudly: "Your Highness..."

"That's enough! There's no need to discuss this matter, it's settled." Li Shimin could no longer listen patiently, interrupted Xiao Yu with a wave of his sleeves, and said impatiently: "You'd better waste your precious time here. Time, it is better to find a way to stabilize food prices."

Xiao Yu looked at Li Shimin in a daze. Compared with Li Yuan and Li Jiancheng, he felt that Li Shimin was more violent, domineering, and arbitrary, which made him seem to see Yang Guang who did not listen to persuasion in the past.But what Yang Guang owns is a complete Sui world, and Li Shimin, even a few incomplete counties are about to fall, so what qualifications does he have to be a dictator?
It is said that a friend in adversity sees a true friend, and the "true love" here can actually be said to be "true temperament"; could it be that Li Shimin's performance in front of him is his true self?
At this moment, Xiao Yu was not only disappointed with Li Shimin, but also desperate.

For a while, everyone was silent, and their thoughts were different.

. . . . . . .

Suddenly, the sound of silk and bamboo orchestras came from a distance, and the melodious sounds wafted into my ears, and there were bursts of seductive and charming smiles of women, and Qi Xiang's expression suddenly became very weird.

Is this the palace?

Those who didn't know thought they were in a brothel.

After a while, I heard a man singing with a full voice...

"..." Everyone's faces turned dark when they heard this.

This obscene song can be as obscene as a brothel woman.What was even more unacceptable was that the voice belonged to Li Yuan, His Majesty the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty.

Qi Xiang was not good at making any strange gestures, but he was already extremely embarrassed in his heart.Li Yuan, however, seemed very happy, sang three songs in one go, and then laughed triumphantly.

After a while, there was the tinkling and crackling sound of the pipa, and Li Yuan, who imitated a female voice, sang in a voice that looked like a slaughtered pig.
Li Shimin stood up abruptly, turned around and took two steps, but stopped again, panting with heaving chest, eyes glaring at the tall palace wall.

His place is the East Palace Yiqiu Palace West Pool Yard, and there is only one wall separated from here by the Miyagi Yuen Shanshuichi Pavilion. When he sang there, the voice naturally came to this side.

It took a long time to calm down the anger, and when he turned his head and saw Qixiang looking at him, he couldn't help but said angrily again: "Don't you have to do anything?"

"The ministers will leave." At this time, Li Yuan's singing like a pig on the verge of death was heard, interspersed with the blissful voice of male and female / acacia.Qi Xiang held back the laughter that was almost gushing out, blushing and immediately dodged away in embarrassment.

Li Shimin didn't pay attention to Qi Xiang any more, nor was he embarrassed by the bewitching male and female voices, and stared at the tall red wall with naked eyes.But the look on his face was full of doubts, thoughts, and inquiries.

(End of this chapter)