Chapter 16 Great crises are always the result of multiple factors

Taiji Palace, Xiande Hall Li Jiancheng pulled Li Xiaogong, the king of Zhaojun, into the seat.

Li Xiaogong was polite, and seeing Li Jiancheng's sincere attitude, he had to accompany Li Jiancheng to sit down.

Li Jiancheng looked at Li Xiaogong and said: "King Zhao Jun, move to the king of Hejian County, this is to return what your father owes to you." Since I am in charge, I will give you justice. ”

Li Xiaogong looked at Li Jiancheng and nodded with a smile.

Zhao County in the Tang Dynasty was not only Zhaozhou, but also governed eight counties of Pingjiao, Luancheng, Yuanshi, Gauntao, Zanhuang, Baixiang, Lincheng and Zhaoqing. However, Hejian County has twelve counties under its jurisdiction, and Zhao County is far less than Hejian County in terms of population and jurisdiction.

Li Jiancheng thought for a while and said: "This time, I originally wanted to transfer your fiefdom with Uncle Huai'an, but I was afraid that Uncle Huai'an would go to my father to make trouble, so I compromised and dealt with it. The edict will come down in two days. You always have the soldiers with you, but for now, I have something else to send you. ”

Li Xiaogong waved his hand and said: "I don't know anything except to lead soldiers, and as an official in the court, I have to make jokes!" ”

Li Jiancheng said solemnly: "Don't be afraid, I mean that you will be the secretary of Honglu Temple, and you will also lead the general of Zuo Xiaowei, and take over the Jingzhao military power in Zheng Rentai's hands."

Li Xiaogong was stunned.

Li Jiancheng muttered: "I plan to disarm, what is your attitude towards this?" ”

Li Xiaogong smiled and said, "Actually, the minister was about to talk about this. The soldiers are expensive, not too expensive, Pharmacist Li thinks that the current army of the Tang Dynasty is not too little, but too much. ”

Li Jiancheng nodded in response and said, "Oh? ”

"Three days ago, General Chen urgently trained the 12th Army, presumably His Majesty also heard about it!" Li Xiaogong smiled bitterly: "Our Datang, there are too many unworthy armies, and there are too few armies that can pull out and fight tough battles." If you want to train your troops, you must train like the Anxi Army, the Dingyuan Army, and the Four Guards of the East Palace. If you want to defeat the Turks, the army must be able to run and fight. The unbearable army, like the current Twelve Guards, has nearly 200,000 troops in name, but no more than 50,000 soldiers can fight. ”

Li Jiancheng nodded again and again: "Very good!" Very good! Right now, there's something I need your help with.

Li Xiaogong got up and bowed and said, "It's all my own brothers, Your Majesty doesn't have to be polite, just give orders!" ”

Li Jiancheng sighed and said: "Doing this, it is a little unkind, I can only wronged you!" ”

Li Xiaogong is not stupid, and he guessed Li Jiancheng's intentions from the reaction of Li Jiancheng, a kind person.

Li Jiancheng wanted to disarm, and the resistance was not the Twelve Guards Army. Because Chen Ying had practiced martial arts in Longshou Mountain, he pulled out all the twelve guard armies, and as a result, all twelve arrived in one day, and as a result, there were still more than 30,000 men and horses who did not reach Longshouyuan until dark.

Chen Ying decided to dismantle all the more than 30,000 soldiers in the 12th Guards.

Li Xiaogong knew that Li Jiancheng exchanged the king of Hejian for the king of Zhaojun in order to compensate him. Li Xiaogong smiled faintly: "When the minister goes back, he will write to His Majesty, requesting that half of the palace guards be abolished, and suggesting that half of the soldiers in the world be abolished, the old and weak will be eliminated, and the elite will be selected." ”

Li Jiancheng was overjoyed when he heard this, and at the same time he was relieved in his heart.

……

Land, an eternal topic. Over the years, countless disputes and bloodshed, countless reforms and revolutions, countless wars from scratch, and countless dynasties from prosperity to decline have all revolved around this almost eternal topic. Before the rise of industrial civilization, land was almost the only basic resource in human society, the fundamental dependence of the continuation of human civilization, and the main culprit of people's cannibalism for thousands of years.

From a nomadic society to an agrarian society, it marked the first step of human beings from a primitive society to a civilized society. Because of the land, man began to have a stricter division of labor; Because of the land, human beings began to carry out more comprehensive institutional norms; Because of the land, the ethnic group is declining day by day, and because of the land, the state begins to appear.

No matter what kind of views historians hold, no matter whether the division of the evolutionary stages of human civilization in modern society is scientific or objective, whether it is the historians of the East or the West, they all affirm one point without objection that before the emergence of industrial civilization, any so-called recorded history of human political civilization is a history of land distribution and redistribution, and for thousands of years, land is the only driving force that promotes the development and progress of human civilization.

Every change of times is marked by the land; Every change of dynasty has a land as its content.

At the heart of the feudal system established by the Western Zhou Dynasty was a hierarchical distribution of land ownership from top to bottom. Under the whole world, it is not the king's land; All the land in the world belongs to the Son of Heaven, and the Son of Heaven is the largest landlord in the world.

This is the ultimate landlord, and in general, anything that is too absolute is often the least affordable. Therefore, the actual land owned by the Son of Heaven was very small, only a little around the capital. Most of the other lands were distributed by the Son of Heaven to his family, ministers, and nobles in the form of "feudalization".

These family members, these ministers, and these nobles who were divided by the Son of Heaven are called dukes, marquis, uncles, sons, and men. And these royal ministers and nobles who accepted the division of the Son of Heaven are now called "princes" by us.

Under the princes, there are the scholars who are divided into feuds, and they are also scholars. In the beginning, the scholars were all the disciples of the princes, and they were also proper proletarians. The ideal of the scholar is to redistribute the land under heaven in a more rational mode and with a more scientific system, so that the limited land can protect the interests of more people.

As a result, there was Shang Ying's "twentieth class military merit title system."

Whether it is the 20th rank military lord system in the Han Dynasty, or the Cao Wei Tuntian system in the Three Kingdoms period, and the current government military system in the Sui and Tang dynasties, they are actually all variants of military lords based on the 20 military exploits of Shang Ying.

Whoever can distribute land in a more rational and scientific way is the will of the people.

The leaders of the peasant uprisings who shouted "equal land" countless times will never understand that the average is not always reasonable, and that only by allowing their soldiers to gain benefits through war, and only by making their people willing to obtain land through the army, will they fight for their lives to fight for the leaders.

Because the Qin Dynasty could not guarantee that the military lord could grant the land, the army of millions of tigers and wolves let Liu Bangbing enter without blood. The Tang Dynasty was also rewarded for the soldiers because of the lack of land, so the Anshi Rebellion, the Huangchao Rebellion, and the division of the feudal town.

Chen Ying knows very well that any dynasty. If the historical problems left over from the founding period cannot be properly resolved, then future generations will never be able to solve them.

The most intuitive problem faced by Datang is that Guanzhong is too small and the land is limited. With less than 40 million acres of land, even if we rely on the grain production of future generations, we can only feed more than 20 million people. However, only half of the land in Guanzhong was in the hands of the clan lords, and the rest of the land, except for the yeoman farmers, did not leave much land that could be disposed of to the government soldiers.

To maintain a standing army of 200,000 in the Guanzhong region like Datang, at least half of the land in Guanzhong is required.

What Chen Ying can do at present is to let Datang Guanzhong reduce the concentration of population, otherwise this thunder will explode sooner or later.

Therefore, Chen Ying took advantage of the opportunity of the food shortage to appropriately suggest that Li Jiancheng migrate the population outside the Guan.

Whether it is the reduction of government soldiers or the migration of people, in fact, they are all treating the symptoms, not the root cause. The easiest way to solve this problem is to move the capital. Move the capital to Luoyang or Yecheng, even Bianliang is stronger than Chang'an.

In the era when there were no railways and highways, the transportation of food and daily necessities alone would oppress the Tang Dynasty to exhaustion.

When Chen Ying returned to Chenjiabao, Xu Jingzong was waiting for Chen Ying with the dossier.

Xu Jingzong handed the thick file in his hand to Chen Ying, and said with a smile on his face: "Lord, the matter has been negotiated, we will lend a total of 1.5 million yuan to the grain merchants, and all their pledges are here!" ”

Chen Ying hurriedly glanced at it and found that the pledge on it had been severely suppressed.

Chen Ying smiled: "They should be drinking and carnival now? ”

Xu Jingzong nodded.

Chen Ying's mood was still very heavy.

Xu Jingzong was very puzzled and said: "Lord, we plan, we will definitely be able to buy the bottom of the grain merchants, and the price of grain will fall sharply, why are you worried?" ”

"This drought in Guanzhong, I don't know when it will be alleviated!" Chen Ying sighed and said, "No matter how high the price is, we can't let Gyeonggi run out of food; the second is to transport grain from Jianghuai to Beijing by water; Third, as much as possible, the people of Guanzhong will be transferred to the riverside areas where grain is easy to eat, so as to relieve the pressure on Gyeonggi's grain supply......"

Speaking of this, Chen Ying's eyes were fixed on the direction from Tongguan to Hangu Pass.

There was a severe drought in Guanzhong, and Weishui was not navigable. From Luoyang to Chang'an, more than 600 miles, all need to be transported by land, which is too expensive.

Chen Ying looked at Xu Jingzong and said, "Jingzong, you go down and rest!" ”

After Xu Jingzong left, Chen Ying lay on the soft couch with a tired face.

Time, Datang is most lacking in time now.

Seeing that autumn is coming, once autumn comes, Datang will not only have to face irreconcilable internal contradictions, but also bear military pressure from the Turks.

When it comes to war, Chen Yingzhen is not afraid. But the key point is that the border between the Tang Dynasty and the Eastern Turks is too long, and there are loopholes everywhere.

Just when Chen Ying was about to fall asleep in a daze, suddenly a pair of soft hands pressed on Chen Ying's swollen forehead and gently massaged it.

Chen Ying felt so comfortable that he was almost about to moan.

At this moment, a voice sounded behind Chen Ying.

"In fact, to solve the food crisis in Guanzhong, apart from the three strategies mentioned by Fang Xuanling, there is no other better way to solve the food shortage in Gyeonggi......"

When Chen Ying heard this voice, he was immediately shocked.

Sure enough, Chen Ying got up and turned around, looking at the eldest grandson Wujian with a panicked face, not knowing when he appeared in the study.

Chen Ying shouted coldly: "What did you say? ”

Ai Ai, the eldest grandson, said: "Time is really urgent, and the grain storage in Gyeonggi is likely to only last until the middle of next month, and we have to fight for it every hour, and if it drags on for a day, I don't know how many people will starve to death in Gyeonggi." At present, during the drought in Guanzhong, the concubine thought that she should immediately organize people to dredge the eight rivers, widen the river, and improve the navigation conditions from the eastern capital Luoyang to Gyeonggi...... In addition, it is necessary to immediately build large granaries in Luokou and Liyang to prepare for grain storage. The grain and grass transported by water are in Luokou Cang, and the grain and grass from Jinhaifang are stored in Liyang Cang. Anyway, Luokoucang is only 700 miles away from Chang'an, so it is much easier to change boats or cars and horses to Chang'an by land......"

Hearing the words of the eldest grandson, Chen Ying was secretly surprised in his heart.

He didn't expect that the eldest grandson Wujian would have such a layer of knowledge. No wonder Li Shimin was extremely wise when the eldest grandson Wujian was alive, but after the untimely death of the eldest grandson Wujian, he began to fall out again. I'm afraid that half of Li Shimin's credit is because of the masterpiece of the eldest grandson.

"That's it!" Chen Ying knew that this was not a letter to solve the problem, he had to go to Li Jiancheng to meet Li Jiancheng, stop the entire imperial court and other things, and concentrate all the resources that could be mobilized on the three things of widening the Weihe River, building a grain transportation road, and building a grain storage warehouse.

Making such a decision, of course, there are political risks, and in the same way, to do great things, you must have the courage to make a decision.

Chen Ying pondered for a moment and said, "Okay, I'm going to play the chapter!" ”

The Gyeonggi grain shortage is not just a shortage of 10,000 or 20,000 stones, but a shortage of millions of stones. Gyeonggi was responsible for solving the problem of feeding nearly 150,000 troops and more than 50,000 war horses of the 12th Guard.

Three million grain would require 300,000 carts, 600,000 mules and horses, and 300,000 coachmen to transport it. For a river boat with a capacity of 200 stones, 3 million grain requires 15,000 boats, 30,000 to 60,000 boatmen, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of additional pullers, lined up in a long line of nearly 1,000 miles in front and behind.

A major crisis is always formed by the concentrated outbreak of multiple factors.

……

In the Qi Palace, Chang'an City, Li Yuanji walked to the backyard with a black face. Seeing that Li Yuanji's face was not good, Uncle Xie leaned over and asked, "His Royal Highness King Qi, what happened?" ”

Li Yuanji's face was as gloomy as water, and he said with an indignant face: "Li Xiaogong, the king of Zhaojun, went to the table in the morning and asked for the removal of his royal guards, and suggested that half of the soldiers in the world be abolished, the old and weak should be eliminated, and the elite should be selected. ”

Uncle Xie scolded angrily: "This King Zhao Jun, is he crazy?" ”

Li Yuanji scolded: "What does Li Xiaogong know? His Majesty was confused, and he followed the blind coaxing! ”

At this moment, Yu Wenhua smiled and said, "Isn't it better?" ”

Li Yuanji was stunned for a moment, and suddenly realized.

Immediately, Li Yuanji looked at Yu Wenhua and said, "Have you found out about the grain?" ”

Yu Wenhua nodded and said: "It has been figured out, this batch of grain is the grain collected by Tongli Qianzhuang last year, a total of one million stones!" ”

Li Yuanji exclaimed in surprise and said, "A million stones? So much? ”

Yu Wenhua smiled faintly: "Is it more than a million stones?" Even if there are two million stone grains, they can't fill the stomachs of the people in Guanzhong! ”

Li Yuanji frowned and said, "We will eat all this batch of grain, I'm afraid it's not easy!" ”

Li Yuanji is not unaware of settling accounts, and now the price of grain is close to 90 yuan of rice, and 1 million stone of grain needs almost 900,000 yuan.

Yu Wenhua sighed and said, "It's not easy, but it's not impossible." Now that we have borrowed 1.5 million yuan from Tongli Qianzhuang, we can completely take down this grain! ”

In fact, every time the grain is put in. Only about one-third of what the Guanzhong Grain Merchants Group can get in their hands, if they follow this trend, Guanzhong will have to transport at least two million stone of grain before their money can be exhausted! ”