Late Tang

Along with the urgent military situation at Babaili, the head of Wang Xianzhi, the leader of the grass bandit, was also sealed in a box with mercury and sent to the capital along with the courier.

After examining Wang Xianzhi's head, the imperial court immediately sent Wang Xianzhi's head to the Goujiling Vegetable Farm to display it to the public, attracting countless people in Chang'an to watch the appearance of the head of the thief who is now legendary in the capital and once gathered millions of grass thieves .

On the wall under Wang Xianzhi's head, there is a long notice posted, and special officials are chanting.This is a long list of rewards. In the twelve towns that encircled and suppressed the bandits, except Xue Chong of Tianping Town and Li Xi of the Taining Army who were dismissed and sent to Beijing for accountability, most of the other ten towns received rewards. Liu Ye and the Huainan Army had received only a little verbal commendation because of the delay in dispatching troops, and Song Wei, the recruiter, was promoted directly to Song Guogong, Taiwei, Shishu, and Tong Zhongshu.

This time, it can be said that Ziqing Town gained the most from this promotion, and Song Wei's status was extremely high. Although it was at the cost of going to Beijing to recuperate, this honor is also enviable to others.In addition to Song Wei, Ziqing's deputy commander Kang Chenghui was also directly promoted to Kang Guogong, promoted to Tianping Army Jiedu envoy, joined Zhongshu Menxia Pingzhangshi, and was also the governor of Yunzhou.Cui Yunqing, Sima Cui Yunqing of Ziqing Jiedu marching army, was promoted to be the Duke of Yiguo and the Jiedu Envoy of Taining Army, and he was also appointed as the governor of Yanzhou.

Li Jing, the Duke of Qi with the most reputation at the moment, was also born in Ziqing Town.Legend has it that Li Jing originally took the first place this time, but in the end the emperor took Li Jing as Song Wei's adopted son, and the son did not take the place of his father, so he attributed the first contribution to Song Wei.However, after Song Wei returned to Beijing, the position of Marshal Ziqing was also passed on to Li Jing. He was transferred to the Tianping Army, and Cui Yunqing was transferred to the Taining Army.Therefore, no one in the entire Ziqing Town has a higher prestige than Li Jing.

In addition, the other six towns also received a lot of rewards. Ximen Sigong, Yang Fugong and the six commanders all received a lot of rewards. Several of the eight people were not originally the Duke of the Kingdom, but this time they were also promoted to the Duke of the Kingdom .In addition, the six commanders all added the name of envoy, and all the officers and soldiers under them were promoted to rank.

The grass bandits were wiped out, and all the princes and princes in the court celebrated with each other. No one in the capital's nobles, princes, and wealthy businessmen held a banquet to celebrate, and even the ordinary people in the capital were all smiling.Although the Pang Xun Rebellion a few years ago was thousands of miles away from Chang'an, the chaos in the southeast still had a huge impact on Chang'an, and the supply of supplies was insufficient, making it even more difficult to live in Chang'an.Now that the bandits are wiped out, they are naturally rejoicing.

The emperor sent hundreds of messengers to convey the good news to all the states in the world, and announced the imperial court's rewards to the towns.Even when Zheng Tian proposed to the emperor to exempt the Kyushu in Henan Province from taxes for one year, the emperor immediately agreed.

The emperor's messenger galloped out of Beijing, and the nobles and princes in Chang'an, as well as the officials and powerful families in the local feudal towns, even thought this was a sign that the Tang Dynasty was about to revive.The Shatuo Hu tribe in Daibei was wiped out, the Nanzhao invaders were repelled, and now the grass bandit rebellion in the Central Plains has also been calmed down. With loyal officials such as Gao Pian and Li Jing, the revival of the Tang Dynasty is just around the corner. Many people even thought that after this war, at least 30 years of stability would be gained, and that the Qianfu Dynasty might even surpass the Xianzong era.

As the emperor's messengers continued to pass by, the feudal towns in various places even had to restrain themselves a lot.

On the second day after the emperor's envoy left the capital, Lulong Town, Chengde Town, and Weibo Town in Hebei, three old and powerful feudal towns that had never paid taxes to the imperial court for more than a hundred years, sent dispatches to Chang'an almost at the same time. The envoys brought their respectful memorials to the emperor, and each of the three towns donated 100 million coins to the emperor, and each added 20 stone grain!Although these belonged to the tributes of the feudal commanders, rather than formal tax payments, the whole world was still shocked by so many tributes at one time.

The three towns in Hebei were frightened. After seeing the defeat of Nanzhao, sweeping away Shatuo, and exterminating the grass bandits in a short period of time, they realized that the Tang army seems to be invincible, invincible, and unstoppable.The three towns are afraid, afraid that the imperial court will lead troops northward after the grass bandits are wiped out.

When people all over the world thought that the grass bandits might continue to quarrel for four or five years, just like the Pang Xun Rebellion, the grass bandits suddenly collapsed, which shocked the world, and also secretly shocked many people who had other ideas.

Like a huge wind blowing, after the three towns in Hebei donated a huge amount of money and food, the officials of the other forty or fifty towns in the country took action one after another.

Hebei, Hedong, Hexi, Hequ, Sanchuan, Shannan, Jianghuai, Southeast, Lingnan, Henan, all feudal towns acted quickly, and the envoys of the Jinzuo Academy of each feudal clan in Beijing rushed out of Beijing one after another, and soon brought back the take a stand.

It was not an important day for all towns to offer gifts to the emperor one after another, but there was an endless stream of officials offering gifts, and the gifts from each town were very generous, even heavier than the previous new emperor's accession to the throne.And almost all of them chose money and food, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions in each town, even compared with the taxes paid in the past few years.

Not only the commanders of the towns paid tribute, but even the governors of the states also paid tribute to the emperor!

Even the surrounding countries, Nanzhao, Khitan, Bohai, Silla, Dongying and other envoys in Beijing have made a batch of gifts these days, and hurriedly presented them to the emperor.

In just half a month, Zhang Tai, who was in charge of collecting donations, reported to the emperor with great surprise that the donations from towns and local officials in this half month amounted to as much as 3000 million guan coins and more than 500 million shi in money and food.Among them, Zhen [***] offered 50 shi of good Dengzhou salt, plus imperial wine, spices, and gold and silver, etc., worth more than 300 million guan, and also handed over the previous 100 million salt, and added more For 50 guan, Zhen [***] sent 500 million guan to the emperor. Although many things have not been delivered yet, Li Jing has already sent the list.

Zhang Tai ranked Li Jing's name at the top, although he knew that many of Li Jing's products were overpriced.For example, the bulk price of Dengzhou salt to the outside world is only one hundred cash per bucket, but when it is sold to the imperial court, it is calculated at the standard official price of two hundred cash per bucket.Many other commodities, some are even much higher than the official price.

But no matter what, the figure of 500 million guan made the young emperor Li Yan smile very happily.Recently, he lost a lot of money in goose fights, but Tian Lingzi controlled the internal treasury, but he often only gave him tens of thousands, which made him very dissatisfied.It is Li Jing who understands the king's heart the most, not only leading troops to quell rebellions everywhere, but also a lot of expenses in the palace now rely on Li Jing's generous contributions.

Ranked second in the contribution list is Yang Fugong, who also contributed to the court.The contribution is the surplus of this bandit suppression. Originally, the imperial court pulled out 300 million shi of grain as the grain for this bandit suppression, and it was planned to be used for one year.But it has only been less than two months since the fight, and the thieves have been wiped out.

The rations drawn by the imperial court had not even arrived, and the rations of the towns were temporarily used by themselves. Yang Fugong gave the 300 million stone rations to the generals, and after filling their expenses, he took out a large sum as a reward .In the end, a full 100 million stone grains were left, all of which were dedicated to the emperor as Xianyu Jin.Although the rations originally belonged to the Tang Dynasty, the rations had already been pulled out. According to the old practice, each army could divide them.Now, as a military envoy, Yang Fugong directly donated the 100 million stone grains to the emperor.The 100 million stone grains, worth more than [-] million yuan, became the private property of the emperor's inner treasury.

More than 3000 million guan coins and more than 500 million stone grains, when converted, are almost the current tax revenue of the imperial court for two years.Over the years, except for the more than [-] states in the southeast, the imperial court has hardly received taxes from other states and counties.Relying on the tax and income from the southeast, such as salt, tea and iron, to maintain the operation.

Datang has more than 300 states, but only relies on more than 30 states. It can be said that it is very tense. Even the money and food in the southeast are transported to Guanzhong, all have to be transported by canals. The situation is quite bad.There are forbidden troops in Guanzhong, but there is no supply.There is supply in the southeast, but it is the weakest defense in the entire Tang Dynasty, and its military equipment is rotten.

The money and food from the southeast are used to supply Guanzhong, but they have to pass through the Central Plains. The neck of the entire Tang Dynasty has long been tied with a rope.This is also the reason why Chang'an was shaken as soon as Wang Xianzhi's troops approached Songzhou.

Now that the Central Plains has been settled, and the court has received so much money and food all of a sudden, even Tian Lingzi and Li Xuan feel unbelievable.

Li Jing has already returned to Qizhou, and led his army south a few days ago, together with Kang Chenghui, they defeated the grass thief's auxiliary army.There were no bright spots in those few battles. It was almost as soon as they appeared, just one shock, and the opponent was defeated.Especially after the Yizhou bandits were defeated and the news of Wang Xianzhi's death came out, all the grass bandits lost their fighting spirit.

Li Jing and Kang Chenghui defeated the bandit army, 15 auxiliary soldiers, beheaded 12, captured [-], and recaptured more than [-] young and strong population.

These days, the entire Qizhou has completely turned into a huge refugee camp. In several cities of Qizhou, almost 50 people have been resettled.Such a large population is also a heavy burden for Li Jing.

After Song Wei defeated the bandit army in Yizhou, killed Wang Xianzhi and captured Wang Jingwu alive, he did not continue to pursue Huang Chao, but withdrew his troops and returned to Qingzhou.

Wang Xianzhi's head was sent to Chang'an. On the tenth day after the Battle of Linyi, the envoys from Chang'an had already arrived in Qizhou and announced the emperor's imperial edict to Li Jing.

In addition to the imperial decree announcing the rewards for Li Jing and others, it also announced the disbandment of the various camps. The soldiers and horses of the twelve towns will return to their respective towns, and the newly promoted officials will also take up their posts immediately.

After holding the imperial decree with both hands, Li Jing still felt a little unbelievable.Earlier, Kang Chenghui told him that Marshal Song had recommended him to the imperial court to be the posthumous empress. He just laughed it off after hearing it. He never thought that the emperor would actually agree to such a proposal.

After he became a stayer in Ziqing Town, he knew about Jiedu affairs. What was even more amazing was that the imperial court transferred Song Wei to the capital, Kang Chenghui was appointed as the Jiedu envoy of the Tianping Army, and Cui Yunqing was appointed as the Jiedu envoy of the Taining Army.

This is not what surprised him the most. The most surprising thing was that Wang Jingwu was appointed by the court as the governor of Qingzhou and the deputy envoy of Ziqing Jiedu! (To be continued.)