In March, the peach blossoms bloomed, and the weather was getting warmer day by day, but after a night, the flowers suddenly withered, and the spring cold was steep.

Early in the morning, Li Jing was about to enter the palace to meet the emperor, but just about to go out, Zhang Tai greeted him with a smile on his face, saying that the emperor had gone to the Qinghua Palace, and specially asked him to announce Li Jing's trip to the Huaqing Palace.

Riding in the gorgeous carriage assigned by the emperor brought by Zhang Tai, Li Jing only brought six disciples and a team of fifty silver spear guards to serve the festival army. In front of their chariots and horses, another hundred Jinwuwei soldiers were the leading escorts. Since Xianzong cut the domain, as a result, Wei Bo and Cheng Dejun sent assassins into Chang'an to assassinate the prime minister Wu Yuanheng directly on the street, the emperor ordered that all officials above the third rank have Jin Wuwei to open the road to protect Chang'an City. And as the prime minister, he naturally guards more.

Although Li Jing did not enter the political affairs hall, he also added the title of prime minister of Pingzhangshi under the Tongzhong Shumen, especially since he is still a big celebrity in front of the Son of Heaven, so the Jin Wuwei who opened the way for him directly reached one hundred sergeants.

Yesterday, the north wind suddenly howled overnight, and by the time dawn was already a white snowfall.

The carriage that came to pick up Li Jing was very large, Li Jing could sit ten people, and he could even drink tea in Li Jing. Now there are only Li Jing and Zhang Tai sitting inside, Huaqing Palace is at the northern foot of the foot of Lintong Li Mountain, about sixty miles east of Chang'an City, and it is the emperor's palace. The palace is most famous for its hot springs in the mountain palace, and the emperor often came to take a hot bath in spring and winter.

Qin Shi Huang once "masonry the stone from the Yu" in Lishan, and the Western Han Dynasty, the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and the Sui Dynasty also built a soup pond. In the eighteenth year of Tang Zhenguan, Tang Taizong ordered to build a palace here, and gave the name Tangquan Palace. In the sixth year of Tianbao, Tang Xuanzong changed its name to Huaqing Palace. At that time, the hall here was lined up, and the grand occasion was unprecedented. The lingering story of Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei here has been passed down to future generations. But after the Anshi Rebellion, the emperor rarely traveled.

The performance of the carriage is good. Li Jing and Zhang Tai sat inside and set out the game of Go, and the chessboard did not shake at all.

"It seems that this Huaqing Palace has not had the Son of Heaven for a long time, why did His Majesty suddenly come to Huaqing Palace?" Li Jing asked.

Zhang Taiqing smiled, and that smile was full of mockery, "It's not Tian Lingzi who instigated 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 got a strong foreign aid and Li Jing's influence. Now he is also rising, and now he has become the fourth eunuch in front of the Son of Heaven in Chang'an Palace.

However, the dumping in the palace is more powerful than the officialdom outside, and once you get to a certain position, even if you don't want to participate in the fight, you can't help yourself. thought that at the beginning, Tian Lingzi was just a little eunuch, but with 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 in a row. The left and right lieutenants of the Shence Army, Han Wenyue and Liu Xingshen, who were neither descendants nor elders, were ousted from power one after another. Subsequently, Tian Lingzi, who sat on the Privy Council, immediately co-signed Ximen Sigong, the leader of the Ximen clan's eunuch family, who had great influence in the Right Shence Army. Together, they also grabbed the position of the lieutenant of the Shence Army of their former ally Yang Fugong.

And now, Tian Lingzi is in full swing, and Ximen Sigong has pulled Yang Fugong to deal with Tian Lingzi again, and he has also been pulled into this alliance.

"Li Zhongshu has to be careful of Tian Lingzi, he has suffered a big loss these times, and he has lost four or five million huge fortunes, with Tian Lingzi's narrow character, he will never stop like this." Zhang Tai reminded.

Li Jing nodded, Tian Lingzi and him had already formed a mortal enmity, and now they were just hindering the emperor, so they were just kind on their faces.

"Does Duke Zhang know why His Majesty has delayed letting the armies return to the town?" Li Jing has always been a little puzzled by this, 34,000 soldiers and horses in the towns is not a small number, every time he stays in Chang'an, the imperial court has to provide the troops in each town with a day's food salary, and even has to pay a reward every few days. According to the current practice, as long as the army of each town returns to its own town, all the food and salary of the army must be borne by the town itself.

As long as the army of each town does not leave the town, it is supplied by the town itself. But as soon as you leave the border, as long as the court calls for it, then the food must be provided by the court, which is the rule.

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

Li Jing's heart moved, he knew that although the feudal towns in the Dao Guanzhong were not secession feudal towns, over the years, they had also begun to slowly learn from the feudal towns in the Kanto and Hebei provinces, and they had also begun to engage in the hereditary system of feudal towns. Even in the Shence Army, there are a large number of forbidden army families, and among the generations of serving the forbidden army, the son inherits the father's position, and the younger brother takes the brother's position. And what's more serious is that after the 12 guards of the Southern Ya of the imperial court are finished, now the 10th Army of the Northern Ya is almost abolished, and only the left and right armies of Shence are left. In the entire imperial court, the only soldiers and horses in their hands now are the 150,000 Shence army on the roster commanded by the eunuchs.

But in fact, there are no 150,000 Shence troops at all, even those soldiers who are really registered, and only a small number of them are real soldiers. Among them, a large number of them are the children of the powerful families of officials in the Guanzhong area of Chang'an, even if they have a name on the military register, they do not enter the military camp for training at all. There are many more parts, which are the so-called famous military registrations. The so-called famous military status is a characteristic of the army after the Tang Dynasty.

After the Middle Tang Dynasty, the imperial army's army was divided into two categories, one was the forbidden army, and the other was the army of the local feudal towns. The forbidden army was supported by taxes from the imperial court, while the local army was left to the feudal towns themselves.

Income from farmland, miscellaneous taxes, commerce, and taxes constituted the entire revenue of the feudal town. The army of the feudal town was raised more and more, and it was no longer enough to rely solely on taxes, so the localities began to camp fields, but the fields could only be used for military rations, and they could not get more of them. To equip these, you have to rely on commercial income. The so-called commercial income refers to recruiting those businessmen who can do business and issuing them military status, so that they can do business in the name of the army, and they can get a lot of convenience, and even the army will provide the capital, and the army will get a large part of the profits.

The local area can also be farmed, but the forbidden army completely relies on the imperial court to supply, these years, the imperial court only left dozens of states are still supplying taxes to the imperial court, and most of the rest have raised their own army. The southern reins continued to war, the military expenditure was very large, the emperor was extravagant and wasteful, and the military expenditure of the forbidden army was also very limited, and he was often in arrears. Many of the forbidden soldiers began to do business, one was to recruit those merchants into the army, and then let them do business, and the other was simply the sergeants who went out to do business.

In Chang'an City, there are many Shence soldiers who open all kinds of business.

The Shence army that controls the land of Gyeonggi has rotted like this, and the emperor naturally knows the way, but he has no way to solve it. Because he couldn't afford to supply the army, he had to come like this. Otherwise, there is a high risk of a mutiny.

But now, the soldiers and horses of the eight towns and three tribes are stationed on the bar, which seems to be not much, but they have exterminated the prestige of the Shatuo army, and even the momentum of the parade. Therefore, the government affairs hall and the emperor have not let them go now, preferring to provide for them, and the reason is that the imperial court is taking advantage of their power to deal with the increasingly out-of-control Shence army in Gyeonggi. In fact, their method is to treat the symptoms but not the root cause, change the envoys of moderation, change the officers, and even eliminate a group of businessmen who have become famous in the military.

The imperial court acted very quickly this time, and in a short period of time, it had already carried out a large-scale exchange of the generals in several sections of more than a dozen prefectures in Gyeonggi, and carried out a major cleanup of the Shence army. Although this touched the interests of many soldiers of the Shence Army, with the soldiers and horses of the Eight Towns on their side, no one dared to be a head bird for a while.

"Is this Your Majesty's idea or the idea of the Political Affairs Hall?" Li Jing asked.

"This was first proposed by Tian Lingzi, and after His Majesty agreed, it was handed over to the political hall for execution." Zhang Tai replied.

Hearing that this was actually proposed by Tian Lingzi, Li Jing was also a little surprised. However, after a brief moment of surprise, he quickly understood the crux of the matter. Although Tian Lingzi is now in control of the Shence Army, he actually doesn't control it for long. The Shence Army is in the land of Gyeonggi, which is intertwined, and it is not so easy to master. And this time, through this big move, it is indeed to remove some of the rot of the Shence Army, after all, the Shence Army has combat effectiveness, which is more beneficial to Tian Lingzi. This second, Li Jing didn't need to think about it to understand that Tian Lingzi must have planted a large number of his own people into the Shence Army through this big move, so as to strengthen the control of the Shence Army.

Thinking that he was unknowingly used as a knife by Tian Lingzi, Li Jing was a little depressed. The more this is the case, the more Li Jing now hopes to leave Chang'an as soon as possible.

In the afternoon, the carriage arrived at the Huaqing Palace at the foot of Lishan Mountain.

After arriving, the emperor directly sent a decree to Li Jing and gave Li Jing a soup pool to bathe in.

In such weather, it is really comfortable to soak in a hot spring. Lying in the pool, Li Jing is now thinking about the situation in Dengzhou. Not to mention Dengzhou, even the situation in Yan and Yi is not optimistic. Gongsun Lan had already reported to him the latest movements of the Grass Army, Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao had already united with Wang Jingwu, and they had just defeated Xue Chong of the Tianping Army, and then defeated the Li Department of the Taining Army.

The union of the grass army and Wang Jingwu is not a good thing. Although they had never acted together before, they had finally joined forces, and they had defeated both the Tianping Army and the Taining Army. It is conceivable that once Yizhou is lost, their next target is likely to be Ziqing, in case the Pinglu army can't stop them, then these grass thief rebels will never let go of Dengzhou, the richest in the north.

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