Tibet

Ten thousand cavalry and five thousand inner guards arrived at Sizhuyuan in Huxian County before dark. They did not rush to approach the target, but first stationed in an air force camp in Huxian County and patiently waited for the time to attack.

The ten thousand cavalry were led by Zhuge Qingyun, a general of the Tiger Guards. He was a general of Xi Wanli, with excellent martial arts and led the cavalry to make many military exploits.

The five thousand inner guards were led by another inner guard deputy governor Zhao Jingnian. The two deputy governors of the inner guards, Xie Sen, led three thousand people and ten thousand cavalry to Fengxian County, and Zhao Jingnian was in charge of Huxian County.

Li Chenghua unified the command in Chang'an. Once Huxian County eliminated eight thousand rebels, she would immediately capture Li Lin's family.

Time gradually came to the fourth watch, and ten thousand cavalry and five thousand inner guards surrounded the manor.

The reason for choosing the fourth watch was that the opponent's training ended at the third watch, and the soldiers were very tired, so the fourth watch was the time when they slept the most, just right to attack.

In the night, more than 20 men in black climbed over the wall, and immediately more than a dozen mastiffs roared and pounced on them. The men in black were well prepared, raised their crossbows and shot, and the short crossbow arrows with poison instantly shot through the bodies of the mastiffs. In just a moment, more than a dozen mastiffs were all shot dead.

More than a dozen men in black jumped into the manor and ran towards the tents in the distance. These men in black were all highly skilled in martial arts and accurate in archery, and they quickly killed all eight sentinels.

Without sentinels, the manor became an undefended military zone. The manor gate opened, and five thousand internal guards rushed in, running towards the tent area two miles away.

At this time, the tents caught fire, and the men in black used torches to light one tent after another. The wind helped the fire, and the fire burned rapidly.

The sleeping soldiers were awakened one after another, frightened and panicked, and fled from the tents.

At this time, Li Zhen led hundreds of people to kill. He was seriously injured when the Helong Army attacked Bashu that year, and everyone thought he was dead.

This time he became the commander of 8,000 people again, and became more fierce.

He waved a 60-jin iron stick in his hand and led 300 soldiers to kill into the inner guards. Dozens of inner guards were caught off guard and knocked over by his iron stick.

Li Zhen shouted, "Everyone pick up weapons and fight them!"

The warriors who woke up ran back to get their weapons. At this time, 10,000 cavalrymen killed from three directions.

Li Zhen was shocked. He immediately realized that the situation was over. He turned his horse's head and fled. He happened to meet Zhuge Qingyun, the Tiger Guard. Zhuge Qingyun used a 40-jin goose feather broadsword, but he was good at using the hidden weapon meteor hammer, and he never missed, so he was called Meteor General by the soldiers.

Li Zhen roared and swung his iron rod to hit Zhuge Qingyun head-on. The attack was extremely fierce. Zhuge Qingyun dodged by turning his horse. The two horses crossed each other. Zhuge Qingyun waved his hand and a meteor chain hammer the size of a child's fist was thrown out, which was extremely fast.

Li Zhen was unprepared. "Drop!" The chain hammer hit him on the back of the head. Li Zhen screamed, rolled to the ground, and fainted immediately.

Zhuge Qingyun raised his knife and chopped off Li Zhen's head.

At this time, 10,000 cavalrymen were divided into 100 teams, interspersed and divided in the chaotic warrior team. Most of the warriors did not carry weapons and were frightened to kneel down and beg for mercy. Only Li Zhen's 300 soldiers were still fighting desperately, but they were also killed by the cavalry soon.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the fierce battle was over. These farmhands seemed to be well-trained, but in fact they had never been on the battlefield. Seeing the bloody killings frightened them, they all lay on the ground and shouted to surrender.

Li Ye had ordered that these farmhands should not be killed, but captured alive, and asked them to explain which farm they were transferred from, so that they would be the best witnesses.

A team of internal guards rushed to Chang'an with Li Zhen's head.

Li Ye only rested at home for one day before coming to the official residence. There were not many memorials left for him, most of which were reviewed and processed by his wife Dugu Xinyue.

There were only a dozen important memorials on the table, which had to be approved by Li Ye.

The first one was the budget for the construction of the new city, which involved a cost of 400,000 strings of cash, while the previous estimate was about 300,000 strings of cash, but now it has increased by 100,000 strings of cash, mainly because there are many additional projects.

The second one was the Tang Straight Road, which was also a project that Li Ye paid the most attention to.

A straight road from Chang'an to Beiting and Anxi, the entire length is about 3,000 miles, four times the length of the Qin Straight Road, and it is expected to cost 2 million strings of cash and take five years to build.

This is a huge project that Li Ye had considered when he was appointed as the governor of Helong. The project is not difficult, but it mainly requires too much manpower.

But this is different from the construction of the Grand Canal and the Great Wall in the Sui Dynasty. The construction of the Grand Canal in the Sui Dynasty not only did not pay a penny, but also required people to bring their own dry food and endure extraordinary labor. The people's physical strength could not withstand such labor intensity, so there were many deaths.

Li Ye's Tangzhi Road was built for a fee, and laborers were hired for money. A large amount of animal power was also used, and even tens of thousands of elephants were involved, which greatly reduced the intensity of human labor.

The key is that it is of great significance. Once the construction of Tangzhi Road is completed, the original journey of two or three months will only take one month to reach Anxi, which of course greatly enhances the court's control over Anxi and Beiting.

So after Li Ye proposed the idea of ​​Tangzhi Road in October last year, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Households and the Ministry of War jointly sent people to explore along the way and negotiate with the government along the way. It took more than half a year to finally complete the investigation and come up with a complete plan.

Li Ye carefully read the memorial. The plan in the memorial was that the court would unify the design, and each state would construct in sections, supervised by the court. The biggest cost here was labor wages. According to the calculation of 50 coins per day for ordinary workers and 100 coins per day for craftsmen, if 20 people were hired, it would cost 1.2 million strings of cash a year, and there would be hundreds of thousands of stones of grain supply.

If calculated like this, 2 million strings of cash in five years would not be enough, at least 5 million strings of cash would be needed.

Li Ye paced back and forth in the official room with his hands behind his back. It cost 5 million strings of cash to build a Tang Straight Road, just to reduce the two-month journey to one month. Is this cost-effective?

But then again, the Qin Straight Road was not a dedicated military road at the time. In fact, it was more of a commercial road and a civilian road. The same would be true for the Tang Straight Road in the future.

Moreover, the Tang Straight Road was not just a road from Chang'an to Anxi, it was also a local road, such as Lanzhou to Weizhou, Liangzhou to Ganzhou, etc. This kind of short trip of one or two days would use more money, and the original two or three-day journey would be compressed to one day.

In addition, this high-level road will greatly promote the development of small towns and counties along the way. No checkpoints or tax offices are allowed to be built along the way, which is the greatest blessing for caravans.

‘If you want to be rich, build roads first! ’

At this moment, Li Ye made up his mind to build it. For the control of the Western Regions by the court in the future, this expressway must be built and put into actual operation as soon as possible.

At this time, the staff at the door reported: "Your Highness, Li Dutong of the Internal Guard urgently wants to see you!"

"It is probably the news from Huxian County!"

"Let her in!"

After a while, Li Chenghua hurried in and bowed, "Your Highness, I see you!"

"Go ahead! What's the news?"

"I received news from Huxian County that 8,000 farmhands have been wiped out, and most of them were captured alive. In addition, the enemy leader Li Zhen was killed in the fierce battle, and his head has been sent to the Internal Guard!"

Li Ye nodded, "What else? News from Fengxian County."

"Your Highness is right, their target is indeed Qiaoling, and the officials guarding Qiaoling have been captured by them Hundreds of people have broken through the passage in Huanqiao Mausoleum. Our men have been closely monitoring. Once the other party succeeds, we will go out to arrest them. "

Li Ye said slowly: "Li Yu must have an army, so he is so eager to get money. The people in Qiaoling want to capture him alive, they must know where the army is?"

"I obey your order!"

Li Ye pondered for a moment and said: "We can take action on Li Lin, but only move him, and do not move other clan members, as if nothing happened."

Li Chenghua nodded, "Are you going to arrest Li Lin?"

Li Ye shook his head, "Just send him to death with poisoned wine, and all his descendants!"