Tibet

Early the next morning, Shou Wang Li Hao, Yi Wang Li Xun and Chen Wang Li Gui jointly wrote a letter, believing that the emperor was ill and unable to govern the world, and asked the emperor to abdicate. They also strongly supported the regent to ascend the throne, revitalize the Tang Dynasty and return to its prosperous age.

After King Shou and others took the lead, the royal family woke up from their dreams and wrote letters one after another to support the regent's ascension to the throne.

Immediately afterwards, the Ministry of Household Affairs began to inventory the Guanzhong manor, and took back more than 500 imperial fields and manors, taking them into government ownership. All tenants remained unchanged, and they signed a new lease with the government and were free of rent for one year.

The order of reducing titles continued to be implemented, and all royal clans were reduced by one level. It was also ordered that "any member of the royal family who has made no contribution to the country shall not be a Duke of the country or a king of a county. The following are county Dukes. No title will be awarded to a new clan." ’

In other words, not only did the royal family no longer have a prince, but they also no longer had a county prince. They could not be granted the title of Duke, but were directly demoted to the rank of County Duke, and then dropped one level every generation. Newly born members of the clan would no longer be granted titles.

The move of reducing your rank and taking over the land is very cruel. It does not mean that you will be fine if you support the regent's ascension to the throne instead. If you join the conspiracy to rebel, it is already good if you are not arrested and exiled, but your property is confiscated. There will definitely be punishment. If you take over the land, All manors within Guanzhong were confiscated and turned into official fields to prevent them from training villagers anymore.

The second is to reduce titles. There was a previous order to reduce titles. Because of the strong resistance among the royal family, it was only targeted at officials outside the royal family, such as Guanlong nobles, relatives and ministers, etc., who were all stripped of royal titles and dukes. The highest was only County official.

Of course, there are exceptions for those who have contributed to Sheji. Although Li Dai is no longer the king of the county, he is still a first-class Duke. Prime Ministers like Wei Jiansu, Li Bi, and Liu Yan are also Dukes, as well as the generals who followed Li Ye in the southern and northern campaigns. , many of them were also granted the title of Duke of the State, and these meritorious people were not allowed to move.

This time Li Ye directly attacked the clan and royal family, caught their rebellion, and cut them off with one stroke. Princes like Shou Wang, Yi Wang, and Chen Wang were all reduced to county princes at once.

For example, the Guanlong nobles also had a large number of manors in Guanzhong. Li Ye did not confiscate them directly, but adopted a replacement method, giving them the same land replacement in Hebei and the Central Plains. If they were not willing to replace it, the court would purchase it at market price.

In one sentence, no private estates are allowed in the Guanzhong area. This is mainly to prevent rebellion.

The fundamental reason why Li Yuan was able to capture Guanzhong and Chang'an so easily back then was that a large number of villagers were trained in the manors of various Guanlong nobles. When they gathered together, there were hundreds of thousands of people, and they cooperated internally and externally, so it was naturally easy to capture Guanzhong and Chang'an.

Like this time, Li Lin trained 8,000 villagers. These were the elites selected from 40,000 villagers. Chang'an did not close its gates at night. These 40,000 villagers rushed directly into Chang'an, and the consequences were simply unimaginable.

So taking advantage of the opportunity of Li Lin and Li Yu's rebellion, Li Ye took action directly and wiped out all the manors in Guanzhong.

At the same time, the imperial court decreed that manors and mansions across the country should not have more than fifty villagers and thirty mansion servants, and they were not allowed to possess heavy weapons such as crossbows and spears. Any violation of the prohibition would be regarded as rebellion, and special circumstances would need to be reported to each level. , approved and filed by the Ministry of War.

In the political hall, Li Ye briefly described the Battle of Hebei and the Battle of Youzhou to the prime ministers and assistant ministers.

Li Ye said slowly: "In fact, the Battle of Youzhou is not over. There are still Uighurs to follow. Whether it is war or peace is not yet known. There is also the Khitan cancer of Eastern Liao, which must be eradicated and recovered in the next few years. Liaodong and Silla have betrayed their faith and continued to expand northward, occupying a large amount of land in the Andong Protectorate. These greedy small countries must be severely punished and even destroyed.

But I have a principle. We must learn lessons from the Han and Tang Dynasties. Foreign wars cannot be conducted at a loss. Only in this way can we avoid the serious consequences of the national power deficit and public dissatisfaction caused by foreign wars during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. "

Wei Jiansu asked: "Why didn't Your Highness just go all out and destroy the Khitan this time?"

Li Ye nodded, "This is a good question. The Khitan's territory is not just the Songmo Governor's Mansion. Their territory is already very large, including Yingzhou and other Liaodong areas, as well as the vast area in the north. We are not familiar with Liaodong at all. If the army rushes in rashly, it is easy for the opponent to cut off its retreat and supplies, so I have arranged for some Youzhou merchants to go to Liaodong. My scouts will follow the merchants into Liaodong to understand the topography, the depth and width of the river, and whether it is convenient to go along the coast. Landing, etc., to lay the intelligence foundation for our army to advance on land and water in the future.”

At this time, Zhang Li asked: "Has Your Highness considered contacting other Liaodong forces, such as the Bohai Kingdom, to join forces to deal with the Khitans!"

Li Ye smiled lightly and said: "Zhang Xiangguo may not understand my strategic intention. My attack on Liaodong is not aimed at the Khitan force. On the surface, we are attacking the Khitan, but in fact we are sweeping the entire Liaodong and destroying all countries. , establish counties and counties in Liaodong and implement the king's rule. All the Hu people in Liaodong are our subjects of the Tang Dynasty, including the so-called Bohai Kingdom, and will no longer exist in the future. "

Pei Zunqing said a little worriedly: "I'm afraid it's too far away and beyond the reach of the whip, and it will be difficult for the court to control it!"

Li Ye smiled and said: "That's why I put all my efforts into developing technology. The steam engine I told you last time will be a big deal once it is successful. It can travel thirty miles in an hour when installed on a ship. It can sail day and night, 350 miles a day and a night.

We use Youzhou as our command base. If there is a change in Liaodong, the army will arrive in two or three days. We can even attack Yingzhou and use Yingzhou as the seat of the Liaodong Governor's Office. If there is a rebellion anywhere, steamships can kill it in one day. "

Li Ye paused and laughed again: "You may not understand why I value the waterway so much, because ships can transport supplies directly, while the land route requires camels and carts, and hundreds of thousands of people must be mobilized. The waterway is not that troublesome. Get on the boat and leave.”

Everyone looked at each other in shock. It was a bit scary to travel three hundred and fifty miles a day and sail non-stop! You can reach Jiangnan in a few days.

Li Ye added: "After we invented firearms, whether it was against the nomadic army or the barbarians in the Western Regions, it was a condescending suppression. To put it simply, 300 of us can fight against 3,000 of the opponent. So on the one hand, We must strictly prevent technology leakage. On the other hand, we must constantly upgrade technology, increase mining, increase pig iron production, research iron tools, research carts, and increase population. So far, the most important thing is to increase population. Everyone, I We are working hard to increase the population!”

At this time, Li Xian said slowly: "Your Highness, regarding increasing the population, I have a suggestion!"

"Li Shangshu, please speak!"

"Your Highness, the population currently counted by our government is basically civilians, and slaves are not included in the statistics. But in fact, the number of slaves is very large, at least several million. If we can release this group of people, , will allow us to increase the population of Datang by several million at once, which is equivalent to increasing the population by ten years.”

Li Mi also said: "Li Shangshu is right. The imperial court also conducted an investigation and found that there are currently two forms of slave status. One has escaped the control of the original owner and has become a civilian. Most of them fled to the south from Hebei and the Central Plains. The other part of the common people is still controlled by wealthy families. The first part is easy to handle. The local government can directly register their place of origin as civilians, regardless of their origins. The second part is to formulate various laws and regulations, especially the abolition of slavery, which must be done as soon as possible. Introduce it as soon as possible.”

Li Mi has always been a staunch advocate of the abolition of slavery. Because it involves the interests of too many people, and Li Ye has been moving upwards and needs support from all aspects, the abolition of slavery has only occasionally come up and has never been implemented.

Now that Li Ye's upward progress has become unstoppable, coupled with the realistic need to increase the population, Li Mi once again proposed the idea of ​​​​abolition of slavery.

Li Ye nodded slowly and said: "Step by step, we can first notify the local governments to establish household registration for the northern refugees, grant them to civilians, and then consider abolishing slavery when conditions are ripe."