Late Tang

In March, the peach blossoms are blooming, and the weather is getting warmer day by day, but after one night, all the flowers suddenly wither, and the spring is cold.

Early in the morning, Li Jing was about to enter the palace to meet the emperor, but just as he was about to leave, Zhang Tai greeted him with a smile all over his face, saying that the emperor had gone to another palace, Qinghua Palace, and specially asked him to announce that Li Jing was going to Huaqing Palace .

Sitting in the gorgeous carriage brought by Zhang Tai and assigned by the emperor, Li Jing only brought six disciples and a team of 50 guards with silver guns to serve as Jiejun.In front of their chariots and horses, another [-] Jinwu Guard soldiers guarded the front.Since Emperor Xianzong cut down the vassals, Wei Bo and Chengde troops sent assassins into Chang'an to directly assassinate Prime Minister Wu Yuanheng on the street, the emperor decreed that all officials of the third rank and above had Jinwu guards to clear the way for guards in Chang'an.As a prime minister, he naturally guards more.

Although Li Jing did not enter the Zhengshitang, he still had the title of Prime Minister of Tongzhong Shumen, especially since he was still a big celebrity in front of the emperor, so the Jinwu Guard who cleared the way for him directly reached [-] sergeants.

Suddenly yesterday night, the north wind howled, and at dawn, there was already a vast expanse of white snow everywhere.

The carriage that came to pick up Li Jing was very big, Li Jing could seat ten people, and even had tea in Li Jing.Now there are only Li Jing and Zhang Tai sitting in it. Huaqing Palace is located at the northern foot of Lintong Li Mountain, about [-] miles east of Chang'an City, and is the emperor's other palace.The most famous of this other palace is the hot spring in the palace on the mountain. In spring and winter, the emperor would often come to take a bath in the hot spring.

Qin Shihuang once "built stones to build a universe" in Lishan, and Tangchi was also built in the Western Han, Northern Wei, Northern Zhou and Sui dynasties.In the 18th year of Tang Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong ordered to build a palace here, and named it Tangquan Palace.In the sixth year of Tianbao, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty changed its name to Huaqing Palace.At that time, there were towers and palaces here, and the grand occasion was unprecedented. The touching story of Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei here has been passed down to later generations, but the emperor seldom visited after the Anshi Rebellion.

The performance of the carriage was very good, Li Jing and Zhang Tai sat in it and played Go, the board did not shake at all.

"It seems that the Huaqing Palace has not been visited by an emperor for a long time. Why did His Majesty suddenly come to Huaqing Palace?" Li Jing asked.

Zhang Tai Qingqing smiled, and the smile was full of sarcasm, "It's not that Tian Lingzi instigated him in front of His Majesty." Zhang Tai was originally just a middle-level eunuch in the palace, but since Zhang Chengye followed Li Jing, he also because of this With a strong foreign aid and the influence of Li Jing, he is now constantly promoted, and now he has become the fourth eunuch in front of the emperor in Chang'an Palace.

However, the courtship in the palace is more powerful than the officialdom outside. Once you reach a certain position, even if you don't want to participate in the battle, you can't help yourself.Back then, Tian Lingzi was just a small eunuch, but relying on his close relationship with the emperor, he first won over Yang Fugong, the leader of the Yang family, the largest eunuch family in the palace, and joined forces to kill Yizong's four sons at the beginning. Han Wenyue and Liu Xingshen, the left and right lieutenants of the Shence Army who made Li Yan, the fifth prince who was neither a descendant nor a long-term son, were kicked out of power successively.Afterwards, Tian Lingzi, who was envoy to the Privy Council, immediately co-signed Ximen Sigong, the leader of the Ximen eunuch family who had great influence in the Right Shence Army, and at the same time snatched the position of lieutenant of the Shence Army from his former ally Yang Fugong.

But now, Tian Lingzi's power is on the rise, and Simon Sigong has drawn Yang Fugong to deal with Tian Lingzi again, and he has also been drawn into this alliance.

"Li Zhongshu has to be careful of Tian Lingzi. He has suffered a lot these few times, and even made him lose a huge fortune of 500 million. With Tian Lingzi's narrow personality, he will never let it go." Zhang Tai reminded.

Li Jing nodded, Tian Lingzi and him had already formed a deadly enmity, and now they are all hindering the emperor, so they are just being kind.

"Mr. Zhang, do you know why His Majesty has not allowed the troops to return to the town?" Li Jing has always been a little confused about this matter. The [-] soldiers and horses in the towns are not a small number. Every time they stay in Chang'an, the imperial court will have to supply them. The daily food salaries of the troops in each town even had to be paid every few days.According to the current practice, as long as the troops of each town return to their own towns, the food and salaries of all the troops must be borne by the towns themselves.

As long as the troops of the towns do not leave the town, the towns themselves will supply the troops.But once outside the border, as long as the imperial court summons, then the food must be provided by the imperial court, this is the rule.

"Didn't Li Zhongshu find out that the officials in Chang'an and Guanzhong have been transferred frequently recently, even the Jiedu envoys of the towns in Guanzhong have been transferred several times, and the soldiers and horses of the towns in Guanzhong have even been transferred to several places?" Zhang Tai asked with a smile. .

Li Jing's heart moved. He knew that although the feudal towns in Guanzhong were not separatist feudal towns, they had slowly learned from the feudal towns in Guandong and Hebei over the years, and they also began to practice hereditary feudal towns.Even in the Shence Army, there have been a large number of clans of the Forbidden Army, who have served in the Forbidden Army for generations.What's more serious is that after the imperial court's Twelve Guards of Nan Ya were finished, now the Ten Army of Bei Ya was almost abolished, leaving only the left and right armies of Shence.The entire imperial court now has the only soldiers in their hands, the 15-strong magic trick army commanded by the eunuchs.

But in fact, the Shence Army does not have 15 soldiers at all, and even those soldiers who are actually registered, only a small part of them are real soldiers.A large number of them are the children of powerful families of officials in the Guanzhong area of ​​Chang'an. They have a name in the army book, but they don't train in the barracks at all.There is even more part of it, which is the so-called military registration.The so-called name-changing military status is a characteristic of the army after the mid-Tang Dynasty.

After the mid-Tang Dynasty, the army of the imperial court was divided into two categories, one was the forbidden army, and the other was the army of local feudal towns.The forbidden army is supported by the imperial court with taxes, while the local army is managed by the feudal town itself.

Farm income, miscellaneous tax income, commercial income and two tax income constitute the entire income of the feudal town.The army in the feudal town grew more and more, and it was no longer enough to rely solely on tax collection. Therefore, the local area began to camp, but the camp could only be used for military rations, and the excess could not be produced.To equip these, you have to rely on commercial income.The so-called commercial income is to recruit those businessmen who can do business and give them military registration, so they can do business in the name of the army, which can bring a lot of convenience, and even the army provides capital, and the army gets a large part of the income.

Fields can still be camped locally, but the forbidden army relies entirely on the imperial court for supplies. Over the years, dozens of states with only things left by the imperial court are still providing taxes to the imperial court, and most of the rest have raised their own troops.However, Nanxuan continued the war and spent a lot of military expenses, and the emperor was extravagant and wasteful. The military expenses of the imperial army were also very limited, and they often owed their salaries.Many forbidden soldiers started to do business. One was to recruit those merchants into the army and let them do business, and the other was simply for the sergeants to go out and do business directly.

In Chang'an City, there are many Shence sergeants running various businesses.

The Shence Army that controlled the Gyeonggi land was so rotten, the emperor naturally knew about it, but he couldn't solve it.Because he couldn't afford the money to contribute to the army, that's all he could do.Otherwise, it is very likely to trigger a mutiny.

But now, the soldiers and horses of the eight towns and three tribes are stationed in Bashang. It seems that there are not many, but they have the prestige to destroy the Shatuo army, even during the military parade.Therefore, the Zhengshitang and the emperor have been refusing to let them go now, preferring to offer them up. The reason is that the imperial court is using their power to solve the Shence Army that is getting out of control in Gyeonggi.In fact, their method is to treat the symptoms rather than the root cause, replace Jiedu envoys, replace military officers, and even eliminate a group of businessmen who have changed their military status.

The imperial court's action this time was very quick. In a short period of time, it has carried out a large-scale exchange of Jieshuai generals in several festivals in more than a dozen prefectures in Gyeonggi Province, and conducted a major cleanup of the Shence Army.Although this touched the interests of many Shence Army officers and soldiers, but with the soldiers and horses of the eight towns, no one dared to be the leader for a while.

"Is this His Majesty's idea or the Zhengshitang's idea?" Li Jing asked.

"This was first proposed by Tian Lingzi. After His Majesty agreed, it was handed over to the Political Affairs Hall for implementation." Zhang Tai replied.

Li Jing was also a little surprised to hear that Tian Lingzi had proposed this.But after a brief surprise, he quickly understood the crux of the matter.Although Tian Lingzi is now in control of the Shence Army, he didn't actually control it for long.The Shence Army is deeply rooted in Gyeonggi, and it is not so easy to grasp.And this time, through this big move, it is true that some of the rot in the Shence Army was cut off. After all, the Shence Army has combat effectiveness, which is more beneficial to Tian Lingzi.The second thing, Li Jing knew without thinking that Tian Lingzi must have used this big move to place a large number of his own people in the Shence Army, so as to strengthen his control over the Shence Army.

Li Jing felt a little depressed when he thought that Tian Lingzi had unknowingly taken the knife back.The more so, the more Li Jing hopes to leave Chang'an as soon as possible.

In the afternoon, the carriage arrived at Huaqing Palace at the foot of Mount Li.

After arriving, the emperor directly sent an order, and first gave Li Jing a soup pool for Li Jing to bathe in.

In such weather, soaking in a hot spring is really comfortable.Lying in the pool, what Li Jing was thinking about now was still the situation in Dengzhou.Not to mention Dengzhou, the situation in Yanzhou and Yizhou is not optimistic.Gongsun Lan has already reported the Cao army's latest move, Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao have teamed up with Wang Jingwu, they have just defeated the Tianping army Xue Chong, and then the Taining army's Li family.

The combination of Cao Jun and Wang Jingwu is not a good thing.Although they got close to a battle before, they had never acted together. Now, they finally joined forces and defeated both the Tianping Army and the Taining Army.It is conceivable that once Yizhou falls, their next target is likely to be Ziqing. If the Pinglu Army cannot stop them, then these rebels will never let go of Dengzhou, the richest state in the north.

In any case, Li Jing couldn't let them succeed.Today, he will ask the emperor to return to Dengzhou. (To be continued.)