Late Tang

(Thanks to ie, Yanlong Mietian, Happiness Blooms Like a Flower, David Charles, Mengmengmengmeng, and Fearless for their support!)

Almost overnight, the Tang Dynasty was almost full of wars and panic everywhere, as if it was about to be besieged on all sides.

Since he came to the throne, the life of the emperor Li Xuan has been going well.

The affairs of the DPRK and China were handed over to Tian Lingzi, Lu Xie and other important officials, and he rode horses and archery, played chess and ball all day, and his life was not easy.Especially at the end of the fourth year of Qianfu and the beginning of the fifth year of Qianfu, good news came one after another.

The Nanzhao King Chief Dragon passed away, and the new Nanzhao King finally ended the war between the two countries during the 18 years since Chief Dragon's reign.Cui Anqian led his army to defeat the grass bandits in the southeast, and wiped out the grass bandit leader Wang Xianzhi and the leaders of the rebels.Li Jing even led an army to attack, regaining Liaodong and Liaoxi in one fell swoop, defeating Bohai, Goguryeo, and Khitan, and even deterred and shocked Tatar and Xi.

The complacent Li Xuan even had a great ambition in his heart, and he began to have a strong interest in the political affairs of the court. He spent all day discussing the situation and arranging strategies, only waiting for Gao Pian to thoroughly wipe out the grass thieves in the southeast After that, they will personally conquer Liaodong, wipe out Khitan, Bohai, and Goguryeo in one fell swoop, and regain the old land of the Han Dynasty. Then, with the remaining prestige of this great victory, they will take over Li Jing's military power, cut down the vassal towns in Hebei, and get rid of the centuries-old troubles of the Tang Dynasty.Completely change the centuries-old illness of Emperor Tang Zong's Anshi Rebellion, create a revival of the Tang Dynasty, and continue the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty.

In this way, he will be raised for several years, save the country's financial resources, train the generals diligently, repair the combat readiness, and only wait for the recuperation to completely cancel the power in the hands of the local feudal towns, return the power to the royal court, and restore the majesty of the Tang Dynasty.

As long as the world is peaceful, the country is prosperous and the people are strong, when the time comes, Datang will mobilize the army again to restore the Western Regions, and even have another battle of Hengluo with the Dashi army to recover the humiliation of the past.

Li Xuan has almost seen that his future evaluation in history can be compared with Tang Taizong, and even not inferior to Qin Huang Han Wu.

Every time he thinks of these things, Li Xuan can't help but feel passionate and excited.

However, at the end of the fifth year of Qianfu, the situation in the world took a sharp turn for the worse.

The three towns in Hebei rebelled, and in a blink of an eye there were four more anti-kings in Hebei.

And after the news of the rebellion in the four towns of Hebei, misfortunes never come singly. Gao Pian, who had been victorious in the southeast, was suddenly frightened by Huang Chao's battle.

Huang Chao's [-] troops had already crossed the Yangtze River, passed through Gao Pian's defense zone, and fought all the way to the south bank of the Huai River.

However, Gao Pian Gao Shizhong, who was relied on by the imperial court as the pillar of Qiancheng, retreated to the city of Chang'an with [-] soldiers and horses in his hand, and waited and watched.

Li Xuan knew very well that Gao Pian didn't lose heart because of Zhang Lin's defeat, Zhang Lin was learning from Li Jing.

Li Jing had an army of 20. When news of the Hebei rebellion came out, the emperor sent someone to order Li Jing's army to enter the pass.As a result, Li Jing refused to listen to the order on the grounds that it was more important to destroy Goguryeo, and on the absurd reason that the general was out and the emperor's order would not be accepted.

Enduring the anger in his heart, Li Yan added to Li Jing the important positions of Marshal of the Northeast Army, Marshal of the Army of Hebei Province, and Commander of the Battalions of the Four Sides of Hebei, and returned the military power that had just been removed to Li Jing. , Li Jing finally agreed to send troops.Of course, on the surface, Li Jing accepted the emperor's order to send troops because he had already destroyed Goguryeo.

But Li Xuan was not happy. Not long after Li Jing regained military power, although he had agreed to send troops.But now, nearly a month has passed, but Li Jing's army is still scattered all over Liaodong.The envoy he sent to urge again said that Li Jing was still mobilizing and gathering troops.

With Li Jing being so bad, Gao Pian, another "famous general" of the imperial court, also began to follow suit.When dealing with Huang Chao's Guan Jian, he retreated into the city of Yangzhou and gave way to the grass thief to go north to the Central Plains.

On the surface, Gao Pian claimed that Huang Chao was powerful, with a bandit army of 60.But in fact, the main reason was that he was afraid that when he fought Huang Chao, Li Jing's stationed in Sanwan Town [***] at the mouth of the Yangtze River would take the opportunity to disadvantage him.On the other hand, Gao Pian also learned from Li Jing, and wanted to preserve his strength, so he waited and watched.

However, since the news that Gao Pian retreated to Yangzhou and refused to send troops came out, misfortunes never come singly, and more bad news came.

Facing the northward movement of Huang Chao's soldiers and horses, the emperor accepted the proposal made by Prime Minister Lu Xie, and assembled the Central Plains soldiers and horses to defend against the Pinghe River in Sizhou, an important town on the north bank of the Huaihe River.This plan does seem to be more reasonable than allowing Huang Chao to break into Henan, or granting Huang Chao the title of Guangzhou Jiedushi.

After Lu Xie got up early in the morning, his eyelids kept twitching.As soon as he walked into the courtyard of the Jinzhong Political Affairs Hall, Prime Minister Dou Luzhen came out anxiously, "Zisheng, something is not right."

Lu Xie is 54 years old this year. He was a Jinshi in the middle of the year when he was 32 years old.He has been a censor and a county magistrate of Chang'an, and now he is serving as a scholar of the Imperial Academy, a servant of the door and a servant of the Ministry of War, a bachelor of the Hongwenguan University, and a peacemaker with Zhongshu Menxia.

After being reinstated as prime minister again, Lu Xie took full charge of the military and political affairs of the court. The first thing he did after he took office was to transfer the former prime minister Zheng Tian and Wang Duo to the east of Tongguan, Ru, Shan, Xu, Deng, Bian, and Hua. Zhou, Qing, Dagon and other states have all changed their commanders.

Without the two powerful opponents Zheng Tian and Wang Duo in the court, and the four prime ministers Dou Luzhen, Cui Hang, Yu Cong, and Li Wei, basically no one could challenge his position.Although the emperor is a little angry now because Gao Pian recommended by him to avoid the war, his status is not damaged.

"Doulu Gong, what happened?"

"Five days ago, the army in Yanzhou was in chaos, and the governor Wang Chengyan was chased away!"

"Three days ago, the army in Shanzhou was in chaos. Cui Jie, the envoy of observation!"

"It was three days ago again, the army in the river was in chaos, and Liu Mo was commander-in-chief one by one!"

After hearing three mutiny news in a row, Lu Xie's face turned pale immediately, and he cast a sullen look at Dou Luzhen.Dou Luzhen was already at a loss, while the other three ministers in the Zhengshitang, as well as the officials of the officials, cardinals, soldiers, householders, and the fifth house of Xingli, were unusually silent.

Military rebellion is nothing. Since the Anshi Rebellion, how many times has the imperial court not come for military rebellion?

For example, the Youzhou Army has had mutinies dozens of times in the past century, and Zhaoyi Town has mutinied more than 20 times. Even the towns in Guanzhong often have military chaos, and even the Shence Army sometimes has military chaos.

But the problem now is that the imperial court can no longer bear the mutiny at this time.

The four towns in Hebei have just rebelled, and the rebels are in full swing. But at this time, Huang Chao is heading north again, unstoppable.

The two most important generals of the imperial court, Li Jing and Gao Pian, are now holding heavy troops and waiting to watch.

Under such circumstances, within five days, there were three consecutive military riots, and the prime ministers and officials like Zhengshitang were shocked and cold.

What's more, the three places involved in this military chaos are all close to the capital.

Yanzhou, under the envoy of Shuofang Jiedu, is located in Longyou, on the Lingyan Road from Guanzhong to Lingwu.And Shanzhou, just to the east of Tongguan, is the frontier guarding Tongguan, the gateway to the Middle East of the Guanzhong.

The Hezhong Army is just to the north of Shanguo, across the Yellow River.Not only does it control the water transport of the Yellow River between the east and west capitals, but it is also the passage between Guanzhong and Chang'an, Xijing and Beidu.In particular, the two salt ponds in Hezhong are not only the source of salt supply in the south of Guanzhong Mountain in the Central Plains, but also provide the imperial court with a salt tax of about 200 million guan every year.

For today's imperial court, 200 million yuan is very important.What's more, the river not only has salt benefits, but also geographical advantages. It is an important military town between Chang'an, Luoyang, and even the northern capital Taiyuan, protecting the three capitals of the Tang Dynasty.

But at such a critical time, military riots broke out in Shanguo and Hezhong successively, and the two ministers appointed by the court, Cui Jie and Liu Mo, were driven away by the local army leaders.

It's really a leaky house, but it's raining all night!

Yanzhou Inspector Wang Chengyan and Shanzhou Observer Cui Jie both had political voices, but they were eventually expelled by the military leaders of the two places because of their seriousness.

Since the Anshi Rebellion, the imperial court and local vassals have played games, barely maintaining a balance.The imperial court was unable to reduce the feudal vassals, and had always relied on promoting the vassal states, using the imperial court's stationed Jiedu envoys and local vassal states to clamp down on the vassals and towns.

Although it has not been possible to completely eliminate the feudal towns, it is precisely because of these measures under the two-tax-three-point system that it is the foundation to finally maintain the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty for more than a hundred years.Under these strategies of the imperial court, except for the three towns in Hebei, the generals of each town were generally appointed by the imperial court.

At the same time, it not only increases the power of the subordinate states, but now, the subordinate states have the financial power of the two taxes and three points of the two taxes in the state.On the contrary, Yajiang and other military leaders in the feudal town often only control the Yacheng and Yabing, and some also control the soldiers outside the town.

In most feudal towns, the interior of the feudal towns is actually not unified. There are Jieshuai sent by the imperial court.Even in some feudal towns that are well controlled by the imperial court, even the position of governor is occupied by officials sent by the imperial court.

This balance is delicate and often broken.Sometimes if the officials sent by the imperial court are too impartial and strict, they may violate the interests of local military leaders. If the conflicts are fierce, military chaos will often break out.This kind of thing is very common, it happens several times a year, and the court usually calms down.In most cases, the imperial court has the upper hand. In the past, the imperial court was even willing to take advantage of these military disturbances to attack those local military leaders and strengthen the imperial court's control over the localities.

But now, at such a juncture, if one doesn't handle it well, it might get out of control like Hebei.

In particular, the two feudal towns of Hezhong and Shanguo are not far from Hebei, and they are only separated by one or two towns.Once they expel the officials sent by the court from the military chaos and rise to direct rebellion, it will be troublesome.

Lu Xie turned around in his mind, and soon decided on a solution.This time, Guan Jian was appeasing rather than suppressing. Therefore, although Cui Jie, Wang Chengyan, and Liu Tiao had good official voices, this time was not the time to find right or wrong.

"Demoted Wang Chengyan as Sihu of Xiangzhou, ordered Niu Conggui to Yanzhou to comfort him." Although this incident was obviously the fault of the Yanzhou army leader, in order to appease these soldiers, Lu Xie had to deal with Wang Chengyan, and then appease Yanzhou. state army. "

"Release Cui Jie to Sima of Huaizhou, and use Yang Shun as the observer of Shanguo during the incident!"

"Use Dou Jing as Hezhong Jiedu envoy and Hezhong Xuanfu Zhizhi envoy!"

After issuing several transfer orders in a row, Lu Xie sighed in his heart, hoping that his handling would calm down the military chaos in the three places. (To be continued.)