Late Tang

(Thanks to Wuwei for the so-called reward, thank you!)

In mid-September, Dengzhou.

After the autumn harvest, the frost has begun and the weather is getting cooler.Even with the prosperity of Penglai City today, it can't hide the slight chill from the frosty white roofs and roads that get up early.

Coming out of the Prince's Mansion of Andong County, Li Jing rubbed his hands together and took a breath of steaming steam. There was a gloomy and solemn look between his eyebrows.

"You bastard, how dare you do that!"

Gritting his teeth and cursing in a low voice, the guards had already arrived in a carriage, and he waved his sleeve vigorously: "You don't need to drive, just walk."

Leaving the main street of Junwang Mansion, in front of it is the east-west main road of Xindengzhou City. There are neatly planned storefronts facing the street on both sides of the street, and even in front of the shops on both sides of the wide main road, there are specially designated stalls for those small traders. Rent a stall.Early in the morning, the stalls of various snack and refreshment shops on both sides of the street were already filled with mist, and it was a lively and joyous scene.

The new Dengzhou City has a population of 50 and a three-story city wall, but it does not adopt the traditional layout of the city. Although the streets are planned neatly, there are no square gates and walls.Although there are special markets, shops are built on the side of each street.Everywhere here is full of the charm of the commercial capital and the prosperity of the city that never sleeps.

Not long ago, Zhenhai Haijun Jiedu, Zhejiang Xidao Observation and Disposal envoy Gao Pian inspected the school Sikong, Tongping Zhangshi, Yangzhou Metropolitan Governor Shi, served as Huainan Jiedu Deputy Ambassador, Zhijiedushi, Jianghuai Salt and Iron Transshipment, He went to the south of the Yangtze River to recruit envoys, etc., and served three thousand households in the city.Immediately afterwards, the imperial court mobilized the festival commanders of the towns east of Luoyang and south of the Yellow River on a large scale.

In a blink of an eye, almost all of Li Jing's west side became Tian Lingzi and Lu Xie's people.

As soon as Gao Pian took office, he asked Li Jing for 100 million shi of grain.

The lion opened his mouth wide, a naked provocation!

Li Jing was willing to take a step back, but Gao Pian went his own way and did not accept Li Jing's goodwill.

In late August, Gao Pian sent troops in Huainan and along the coast to seize [***] shops and caravans in Huainan, seize merchant ships and goods, seal up shops, and confiscate goods.

Subsequently, Zhou Bao, the governor of Zhenhai in the south of the Yangtze River, also echoed Gao Pian's actions and began to check the caravan shops and goods in [***] in western Zhejiang.

Afterwards, the Probation Army, Taining Army, Tianping Army, Pinglu Army, Xuanwu Army, Zhongwu Army, and Lingnan Dongdao took action one after another.

Overnight, Li Jing and other merchants who depended on Li Jing suffered heavy losses.

Gao Pian has declared war on Li Jing!

Gao Pian not only disregarded Li Jing's goodwill, he extorted Li Jing, detained Li Jing's caravan personnel and goods, and intercepted Li Jing's business routes.At the same time, it also provided money, food and weapons to Wang Jingwu of Ziqing, so that Wang Jingwu, a lunatic, began to harass and invade the counties under Li Jing's jurisdiction on the Jihe line.

This is really deceptive!

Now that the situation in the southeast is changing rapidly, Huang Chao led the grass bandits to fight in the southeast. During this period of time, Gao Pian was busy fighting for power and attacking Li Jing. After sweeping Fujian, he left Fuzhou and turned to the southwest.

Just when Gao Pian dispatched troops to seize and seize the merchant ships and shops of the merchants in the [***] area, Huang Chao moved to the north and south of Wuling and controlled most of the Lingnan East Road. To more than one hundred thousand.

At the beginning of September, Huang Chao's army approached the city of Guangzhou in the south of Lingnan and surrounded it.

In the Tang Dynasty, especially in the late Tang Dynasty, Guangzhou was a place with a somewhat abnormally developed economy.

On the one hand, the land in the South of the Five Ridges is not as good as Huainan, West Zhejiang or even East Zhejiang. It is still a wild land full of miasma and history in the eyes of the Central Plains people. The degree of development is still low, and its own special products are not rich.Many officials of the Tang Dynasty often came here to serve as officials only when they were relegated to exile.

But on the other hand, due to the development of commerce and trade in the late Tang Dynasty, especially the unobstructed sea trade routes, Guangzhou has become an international trade center with frequent exchanges between Tianzhu, Persia and even Rome and food merchants due to its superior geographical location. Arab merchants had already made Guangzhou their transit point for trade in Asia.All kinds of exotic treasures from foreign countries entered the customs here, and then went north to Chang'an, Luoyang and other places, which greatly influenced the influential luxury goods market in the upper class of the Tang Dynasty.

The new route started in the Tang Dynasty, Guangzhou's sea and barbarian road was extremely prosperous.

According to historical records, set sail from Guangzhou, head south to Tuen Mun Port at the mouth of the Pearl River, then turn southwest, cross the Qizhou Ocean near the northeast corner of Hainan Island, reach the sea in southeastern Vietnam, and then go south to the mouth of the Mekong River on the Malay Peninsula. , through the Singapore Strait to Sumatra.

From here it goes southeast to Java, northwest to the Strait of Malacca, across the Indian Ocean to Sri Lanka and the southern tip of the Indian Peninsula.Then along the west coast of India to the ports of Obola and Basra in the Persian Gulf, if you change to a boat and go up the Euphrates River, you can still reach the present Baghdad.At that time, this route could not only reach Mesopotamia from the Persian Gulf, but also reach Alexandria via the Red Sea to Egypt.Compared with the Xuwen and Hepu-Huangzhiguo routes in the Han Dynasty, the sailing time of this route has been reduced by three quarters.

Datang attaches great importance to overseas trade and adopts an open and encouraging policy.Foreign businessmen can trade freely in Datang, allowing them to freely transport goods into the port, and they can trade in various places or open shops.At that time, Chang'an and Guangzhou were facing each other from north to south, and both were important places for Sino-foreign trade, and Guangzhou's overseas trade had entered its heyday.

At that time, there were more than 20 countries in the South China Sea that had good relations with the Tang Dynasty, and the most closely related ones were: Linyi, Zhenla, Dandan, Panpan, Luoheluo, Chitu, Piaoguo, Baoli Buddha, and Luopodeng , Heling (Java), Persia, Dashi, Poli, India, Kubin, Shizi Kingdom, Daqin and other countries.These countries have trade relations with Guangzhou.

The foreign trade situation of Guangzhou Port can be said to be "accumulating treasures around the mountain" and converging precious goods. 80 people enter and leave Guangzhou Port a year to participate in trade activities. Guangzhou is a port where Chinese and foreign ships berth and world merchants gather.

Therefore, the Tang Empire set up a Shibo department here, which is equivalent to today's customs, and the eunuchs in the palace acted as the "shibo envoys" in charge to strengthen the management of this financial source.

The entire city of Guangzhou plus the resident and floating population of the counties under its jurisdiction amounted to nearly one million people. In the Fanfang in Guangzhou City alone, there were more than 50 Fan people all the year round.The entire city of Guangzhou has an annual population of [-].

Now, Huang Chao directly led [-] soldiers to Guangzhou, and broke into the money bag of the Emperor Datang.But Gao Pian, who was supposed to guard the money bag for the emperor, was grabbing Li Jing's money bag.

Bullshit!

Li Jing was very angry. Gao Pian was promoted to be the governor, and instead of doing business to fight Huang Chao, he came here bent on making things difficult for him.

The situation in the southeast is chaotic, and the situation in the north is also unpredictable.

In the half a year when Li Jing devoted all his efforts to developing Liaodong, the battle between the Diela tribe and the Khende Khan became more and more fierce, and the Diela tribe fought successively. up.The other ministries of Khitan who were waiting and watching were even ready to move, ready to stand on the victor's side.Under such circumstances, the Zhen [***] Staff Department even made a plan to dispatch troops, thinking that at this time it was just time to concentrate troops and send troops to western Liaoning from Shanhaiguan and Anshi to retake Yingzhou.

As long as Zhen [***] sends troops, the Diela tribe has only two options. One is to temporarily abandon Liaoxi and focus on taking advantage of the victory to defeat Khan Hende and truly control the entire Khitan.Another option is to temporarily let Khan Hende go, and turn around to defend Liaoxi with all his strength.

No matter how Diel chooses, the result is a good thing for Zhen[***].Diela defeated Chende, then Li Jing would be able to take Liaoxi.If Diel guards western Liaoning, then the split of Khitan will continue.

The town [***] had been resting and preparing for more than half a year. Both Anshicheng and Shanhaiguan had hoarded a large amount of war preparations, and the soldiers were also ready.But at such a time, Gao Pian came to make such a move.Moreover, Li Jing's tolerance was regarded as weak and deceitful, and he was aggressive again and again.

The western Liaoning strategy that had been prepared for more than half a year may be destroyed right now.

The town [***] is supported by commerce and trade. Among the 300 million people, 200 million live off the land, and they work in mines and workshops.The actions of Gao Pian and the others have made it impossible for Li Jing to ship out two-thirds of the goods.Li Jing could hold on for a short time, but it took a long time.The virtuous cycle of the entire town [***] may break, and the achievements of several years may be destroyed.

Rats and thieves, how dare you do this!

After hearing Gao Pian Bianben Jiali's behavior, Li Jing smashed the table in front of him with a fist.

Of course, Gao Pian dared to do this, because he actually knew his confidence and reason.Gao Pian suddenly met him, and the matter of becoming the king of the county can only be said to be a fuse.The real reason is that Dengzhou Town has risen rapidly and developed in the past few years, and almost all the rich merchants who cooperated with Li Jing have made a fortune.

The wages of avarice is death.

Dengzhou Town was already very rich, and now it is even richer. How could no one be jealous?Everyone was jealous before, but no one took the lead.

Now Tian Lingzi is planning behind the scenes, Lu is supporting Xiangguo and many princes and nobles, there is Gao Pian, a general who is jealous and jealous of Li Jing, and Zhou Bao and other commanders, an alliance against Li Jing Already composed.

Tian Lingzi has always wanted to deal with Li Jing, and those powerful families who participated in it are naturally envious of Li Jing's continuous wealth-making business, while Gao Pian's plot is to replace Li Jing , took over Liaodong, and he will take the credit for leveling Goguryeo and Khitan.

The same purpose united this group of people. (To be continued.)