Tibet.

Chapter 1280: Cleansing the Imperial Clan
The next morning, Prince Shou Li Mao, Prince Yi Li Xie, and Prince Chen Li Gui jointly wrote a letter to the emperor, stating that the current emperor was ill and unable to govern the country. They demanded that the emperor abdicate and strongly supported the regent to ascend the throne to revitalize the Tang Dynasty and return to prosperity.

After Prince Shou and others took the lead, the royal family suddenly woke up from their dream and wrote letters to support the regent to ascend the throne.

Immediately afterwards, the Ministry of Revenue began to check the manors in Guanzhong, reclaimed more than 500 imperial fields and manors, and made them official property. All tenants remained unchanged, signed new leases with the government, and were exempted from rent for one year.

The demotion order continued to be implemented, and all royal family members were demotioned by one level, and it was ordered that "any royal family member who has not made contributions to the country shall not be a duke or a prince, and below that, a county duke, and new members of the royal family shall not be granted a title."

In other words, not only did the royal family no longer have princes, they even no longer had county princes, and they could not be granted the title of duke. They were directly demoted to county dukes, and then the title was demoted one level every generation. Newly born members of the royal family were no longer granted titles.

The move of stripping the title and confiscating the land is very cruel. It does not mean that you will be fine if you change your mind and support the regent to ascend the throne. You participated in the conspiracy of rebellion. It is good enough that you were not arrested and exiled, but your property was confiscated. There will definitely be punishment. One of them is the confiscation of land. All the manors in Guanzhong will be confiscated and made official land to prevent them from training farmhands.

The second is to strip the title. There was an order to strip the title before, but because the royal family members strongly opposed it, it only targeted officials outside the royal family, such as Guanlong nobles, foreign relatives and important ministers, etc. They were all stripped of their king and duke titles, and the highest title was only county duke.

Of course, those who have made contributions to the country are exceptions. Although Li Dai is no longer a prince, he is also a first-rank duke. Prime ministers like Wei Jiansu, Li Mi, and Liu Yan are also dukes. Many of the generals who followed Li Ye in his campaigns were also dukes. These meritorious people will not be moved.
This time, Li Ye directly targeted the royal family, seized the opportunity of their rebellion and executed them with one stroke. Princes like Prince Shou, Prince Yi, and Prince Chen were all demoted to county dukes.

The Guanlong nobles also had a large number of manors in Guanzhong. Li Ye did not confiscate them directly, but instead adopted a replacement method, giving them the same land in Hebei and Central Plains. If they were unwilling to replace, the court would purchase them at the market price.

In a nutshell, private estates are not allowed in the Guanzhong area, mainly to prevent rebellion.

The fundamental reason why Li Yuan was able to easily capture Guanzhong and Chang'an back then was that a large number of farmhands were trained in the manors of the Guanlong nobles, who gathered together to form hundreds of thousands of people. With the support of both inside and outside, it was naturally easy to capture Guanzhong and Chang'an.

Like this time, Li Lin trained 8,000 farm guards, who were the elite selected from one-fifth of the 40,000 farm guards. Chang'an did not lock the city gates at night. If these 40,000 farm guards directly broke into Chang'an, the consequences would be unimaginable.

So, taking advantage of the rebellion of Li Lin and Li Yu, Li Ye took direct action and swept away all the manors in Guanzhong.

At the same time, the imperial court issued an edict that the number of farmhands in manors and mansions across the country should not exceed 50, and the number of mansion servants should not exceed 30. They were not allowed to possess heavy weapons such as crossbows and spears. Any violation of the ban would be regarded as rebellion. In special circumstances, it must be reported to the higher authorities and approved and filed by the Ministry of War.

In the Council of State, Li Ye briefly described the Battle of Hebei and the Battle of Youzhou to the prime ministers and assistant prime ministers.

Li Ye said slowly: "In fact, the battle of Youzhou is not over yet. There are still the follow-up of the Huihe people. Whether it is war or peace is still unknown. There is also the poisonous tumor of Eastern Liao Khitan, which must be eradicated in the next few years and Liaodong must be recovered. There is also Silla's betrayal and continuous expansion to the north, occupying a large amount of land in Andong Protectorate. These greedy small countries must also be severely taught a lesson, or even destroyed.

But I have a principle. We must learn from the lessons of the Han and Tang dynasties. We must not engage in foreign wars at a loss. This is the only way to avoid the serious consequences of the Han Wu Emperor's foreign wars that led to a loss of national strength and public resentment. "

Wei Jiansu asked, "Why didn't Your Highness make a concerted effort this time to destroy the Khitan?"

Li Ye nodded, "That's a good question. The Khitan's territory is not just Songmo Dudufu. Their territory is already very large, including Yingzhou and other places in Liaodong, as well as the vast area in the north. We are not familiar with Liaodong at all. If the army rushes in rashly, it will be easy for the enemy to cut off our retreat and supplies. So I have arranged some Youzhou merchants to go to Liaodong. My scouts followed the merchants to sneak into Liaodong to understand the topography, river depth and width, whether the coast is convenient for landing, etc., to lay an intelligence foundation for our army to advance by land and water in the future." At this time, Zhang Li asked, "Your Highness, have you considered contacting other Liaodong forces, such as the Bohai Kingdom, to join forces to deal with the Khitans!"

Li Ye smiled faintly and said, "Prime Minister Zhang may not understand my strategic intention. My attack on Liaodong is not aimed at the Khitan. On the surface, we are attacking the Khitan, but in fact we are sweeping the entire Liaodong, destroying all the countries, establishing counties in Liaodong, and implementing the kingly way. All the Liaodong Hu people are the subjects of the Tang Dynasty, including the so-called Bohai Kingdom, which will no longer exist in the future."

Pei Zunqing said worriedly, "I'm afraid it's too far away, out of reach, and difficult for the court to control!"

Li Ye smiled and said, "So this is why I'm fully committed to developing technology. The steam engine I told you about last time, once it succeeds, it will be a big deal. If installed on a ship, it can travel thirty miles in an hour. It can travel day and night without stopping, and can sail three hundred and fifty miles in a day and a night.

We will use Youzhou as our command post. If there is any change in Liaodong, the army will arrive in two or three days. We can even take control of Yingzhou and make Yingzhou the seat of the Liaodong Governor's Office. If there is any rebellion anywhere, the steamships will arrive in one day."

Li Ye paused and smiled, "You may not understand why I value water transportation so much, because ships can directly transport supplies. For land transportation, you need to find camels and carts, and mobilize hundreds of thousands of people. Water transportation is not so troublesome, you can just get on the ship and go."

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. Traveling 350 miles a day without stopping was a bit scary! It would take only a few days to reach Jiangnan.

Li Ye added: "After we invented firearms, whether it was the nomadic army or the Hu people in the Western Regions, it was a kind of condescending suppression. Simply put, 300 of us could fight against 3,000 of the enemy. So on the one hand, we must strictly prevent technology leaks. On the other hand, we must constantly upgrade technology, increase mining, increase pig iron production, research ironware, research carts, and increase the population. So far, the most important thing is to increase the population. Ladies and gentlemen, I am working hard to increase the population!"

At this time, Li Xian said slowly: "Your Highness, regarding increasing the population, I have a suggestion!"

"Minister Li, please speak!"

"Your Highness, the population currently counted by our government is basically civilians, and slaves are not included in the statistics. However, the number of slaves is actually very large, at least several million. If we can release this group of people, our Tang Dynasty will increase its population by several million, which is equivalent to increasing the population for ten years."

Li Mi also said: "Li Shangshu is right. The court has also conducted an investigation and found that there are currently two types of slaves. One type has been freed from the control of the original owner and has become civilians. Most of them are civilians who fled to the south from Hebei and Central China. The other part is still controlled by wealthy families. The first part is easy to deal with. The local government can directly register them as civilians without worrying about their origins. The second part is to formulate various laws and regulations, especially to abolish slavery. It must be introduced as soon as possible."

Li Mi had always been a staunch advocate of the abolition of slavery, but because it involved the interests of too many people and Li Ye was constantly on the rise and needed support from all sides, the abolition of slavery was only discussed occasionally and was never implemented.

Now Li Ye's upward momentum was unstoppable, and coupled with the practical need to increase the population, Li Mi once again proposed the idea of ​​abolishing slavery.

Li Ye nodded slowly and said, "We can take it step by step. We can first notify local governments to establish household registration for northern refugees, grant them civilian status, abolish slavery, and consider it later when conditions are ripe."

(End of this chapter)