Daxing Gongshan Pool Pavilion has long been frozen, and a pavilion by the pool is surrounded by curtains to protect it from the wind and snow.
In the pavilion, three people sat opposite each other.
Emperor Yang Jian of the Sui Dynasty sat high on the throne. He changed into a moon-white brocade robe and sat cross-legged on a thick cushion. His gray beard and hair were neatly trimmed. His tall and thin body was tall and motionless, and he had a kind of calmness and vitality. Powerful bearing.
Yang Guang, who was sitting opposite him, used a small roller to skillfully grind tea balls, salt cubes, spices, ginger, and garlic into gray powder. After washing it with boiling water, he dug out a small spoonful of mutton fat and a small spoonful of mutton oil. Milk goes in. Stir well and it becomes a bowl of tea soup.
After the foam had dissipated, Yang Guang handed the teacup to his father.
"Brother, don't give it to me, thank you." Yang Ji grinned at the sight and refused before Yang Guang soaked it for him.
"It's tasteless, and it's a waste of money for you." Yang Guang brewed a bowl for himself and took a sip happily.
Yang Jian put down the tea bowl and scolded Yang Ji: "If you don't come to see me when you return to Beijing, I'm really hurting you in vain."
"It's not that I don't want to come see my uncle. Actually, he's too busy!" Yang Ji's voice became weaker and weaker, making him feel guilty.
Seeing that he lacked confidence, Yang Jian leaned forward and asked, "Then tell uncle what you are busy with."
Yang Ji spread his hands and said helplessly: "Does getting into trouble count?"
"That's bullshit!" Yang Jian laughed so hard that he laughed and scolded: "You are an adult now, so stop being idle; after the new year, I will arrange a more interesting 'little' official position for you."
"I won't do it." Yang Ji flatly refused.
Yang Jian smiled and asked, "Why not?"
"Life is short, and having fun while you can is the right thing to do, uncle!" Yang Ji explained his reasons: "People work hard all their lives, just for enjoyment, right? Since I already have great wealth, why do I have to live so tired and hard? ?”
Yang Jian was so angry that he slapped his legs and said, "Just to put it mildly, you don't care about the rest of the royal family who work hard and are bullied, right?"
"That's definitely not the case." Yang Ji said quickly: "Only by closely uniting under the 'head of the family', we, the Yang family's children, can defeat all kinds of demons and monsters, and coexist with the sun and the moon, and the mountains and rivers."
"That's true." Yang Jian nodded with satisfaction: "During the time I was meditating in Yong'an Palace, I thought about many people and many things, but what I thought more about was the Sui Dynasty that was founded by myself. I found this There are still too many shortcomings in the dynasty that have not been dealt with properly. What do you think these shortcomings are?"
Seeing that Yang Guang was always sitting upright, Yang Ji kindly reminded him, "Brother, what is uncle asking you?"
When Yang Guang saw Yang Ji's calm expression, he thought he had the pearl of wisdom in his hand. He never expected that he was waiting for him and said angrily: "Father knows that I know. He is testing you now, not me."
"Really?" Yang Ji looked at Yang Jian awkwardly.
Yang Jian laughed heartily: "Your performance today impressed me. I want to see how capable you are."
"Then let me talk!" Seeing that Yang Ji couldn't avoid it, he had to say: "In the hundreds of years since the Yongjia Rebellion to the Sui Dynasty when we unified the world, the regimes of the Northern and Southern Dynasties have changed one after another, and there has never been a good start and a good end. The reason is that the military power was not unified in the hands of the emperor. Whoever the army supported at that time was the master of the world. When Yuwentai confronted Gao Huan, his strength was quite weak. When the Xianbei power in the Western Wei Dynasty was exhausted, he wanted to expand his troops. The generals in the army were given great power to recruit troops, and the powerful Eight Pillar Kingdom, Twelve Generals, and Twenty-Four Kaifu came into being in response to the situation, eventually forming the Guanlong aristocratic group that was extremely difficult to control. And since the founding of our country in the Sui Dynasty, Among the more than 60 generals, at least 50 were Guanlong nobles. Their children, disciples, and old friends were all over the Sui army, which also gave them bottom-up influence and control over various armies. After the descendants grew up, they continued to serve the descendants of these generals. This is one of the reasons. Second, most of the soldiers were from Guanzhong, and the generals and soldiers of Guanzhong accounted for at least 60% of the entire army. If the Guanlong nobles as a whole When you ask for rights from uncles and brothers, and you cannot afford them, they will inevitably explode. So I think the military issue is the most fundamental issue in our Sui Dynasty."
"What do you think?" Yang Jian's eyes showed a bit of disbelief.
"King Kong Nu's words go right to the core of the crisis of the Great Sui Dynasty. Our Great Sui Dynasty is nominally a Han dynasty, but from the perspective of the military, it is still a tribal dynasty, and a clan is a tribe. When these The combined efforts of the clans are enough to overthrow the Sui Dynasty! The child believes that the main problem of the Sui Dynasty is the Guanlong nobles who control the army." Seeing that his father had handed over the problem to their brothers, Yang Guang asked Yang Ji: "Vajra slave, what are you doing? How do you think this problem can be solved?"
Yang Ji said: "To form a new army with similar strength elsewhere to check and balance the Guanzhong Army, but it is so militarily aggressive that sooner or later the national power will not be able to bear it."
"The idea is good, and the concerns are reasonable." Yang Guang commented, and then asked: "What else?"
"Either lay off some soldiers from Guanzhong, and then supplement them with young men from You, Ji, Bing, Qing and other places. In short, we should try to reduce our dependence on Guanzhong."
"Both methods are to lure rocks from other mountains to attack jade. You have already mentioned the problems of the former; but there are also two big problems in the latter." Yang Guang said solemnly: "First of all, once the imperial court issues a disarmament order, it will immediately Touching the heartstrings of the Guanlong nobles, I am afraid that if a soldier is not dismissed, they will jump out to oppose; secondly, the four states you mentioned, You, Ji, Bing, and Qing, are the old places of the Qi Dynasty, and most of the brave men there are the rebellious Liuzhou. How can we trust the descendants of the town who rebel at the first sign of trouble?"
"I don't know much about the Guanlong nobles, so I don't dare to say too much, but I have other opinions on my second concern." Yang Ji stared at Yang Guang with a burning gaze and said in a deep voice: "I, the Sui Dynasty, rule the world. , Northern Zhou, Northern Qi, Southern Chen, and Western Liang no longer exist; although there are people in Qi who are hostile to the Sui Dynasty and disobey the imperial control, Guanzhong is not only there, it can even overturn the fate of a dynasty. If the people of Qi are broadly excluded, then Looking at them with a discriminatory eye is forcing the entire Qi region to rebel; if the enemy is broadly defined by region, I am afraid that only the royal family is not the enemy. And I think that although the folk customs of Qi region are strong, they are exactly the ones that can compete with the nobles of Guan and Long. A natural source of troops.”
Yang Guang suddenly woke up!
He grew up in a family of generals in the Northern Zhou Dynasty, so he was naturally hostile to the Northern Qi Dynasty. He even studied civil and martial arts with the motivation of annihilating the Northern Qi Dynasty. This hostility and rejection continues to this day.
But the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Northern Qi Dynasty, Southern Chen Dynasty, and Western Liang Dynasty were all replaced by the Sui Dynasty. Now he is the prince of the unified dynasty, and he will still be the emperor of this great empire in the future. How can he look at the people of the old Northern Qi Dynasty with the eyes of the past? Moreover, he worked hard in Yangzhou for nearly ten years under his father's orders, wasn't it to eliminate the hatred and estrangement between the people of the north and the south? If we continue to discriminate against the people of Qi Di, isn’t it an artificial barrier?
"My wise brother's kind words are thought-provoking, and my foolish brother has learned a lesson." Yang Guang bowed and said, "Keep talking!"
"The land of Guanzhong is the foundation of the Guanlong nobles, and they control the army. The capital of the country is here. It's a bit like dancing with wolves. Not only can they not use their hands and feet, but they are also easily controlled by others."
In order to successfully replace the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Yang Jian made a lot of promises and benefits to the various nobles of Guanlong. After the Yang family was promoted from the Guanlong nobles to the royal family, they became the common struggle of the Guanlong nobles just like the Yuwen family of the Northern Zhou Dynasty. object. But such words would hurt the country and the emperor's face, and would offend the emperor if he were not careful. Therefore, even if he was favored by the emperor again, Yang Ji did not dare to tell the source of the further strength of the Guanlong nobles, but ignored it. .
"You are right." At this time, Yang Jian sighed: "The world has been divided for too long, the founding of the Sui Dynasty was too short, and there are anti-Sui forces everywhere, so I have always wanted to move the capital to Luoyang, so that I can achieve great power in the Central Plains The strategic significance of controlling Guanzhong to the west, looking to Qidi in the north, and looking to the south in the south can also enable the court to escape from Guanzhong controlled by the Guanlong nobles. However, the army is firmly in their hands, and there is no other army of comparable size to compete. Before. You can’t even mention the matter of moving the capital, do you understand?”
"I understand, kid!" Yang Guang felt that his father was too cautious. If it were him, he would just give an order. Anyone who dares not to obey will be destroyed. If the entire Guanlong nobles do not agree, then Northern Qi, Nanchen, The power of Bashu was drawn into Guanzhong to achieve the purpose of destroying the old forces through bloody conflicts; if the power of the entire world is used to deal with the forces of Guanlong, will they still lose?
If compromises are repeated, the Sui Dynasty, which is plagued by tiger breeding, will most likely become the second Northern Zhou Dynasty.
How was the Northern Zhou Dynasty destroyed?
After the death of Yuwen Yong, who had offended too many people, the Northern Zhou emperor was incompetent, and the royal family had no one who could take charge of his role. Therefore, when the Northern Zhou Dynasty faced the dilemma of a weak leader and a strong minister, the Guanlong aristocracy was ready to take action, even if the father did not act on behalf of the Zhou Dynasty. , there will also be others standing on behalf of Zhou.
The Guanlong nobles are now stronger than before. When his father and he were in power, the Guanlong nobles might not dare to take action, but what will happen in the future? If future generations are as incompetent as the royal family in the Northern Zhou Dynasty, they will not be able to suppress the ambitious Guanlong nobles. Therefore, the best way is to start a civil war when the emperor has strong control, and annihilate all the forces that can influence the fate of the dynasty in the war.
Although he also knew that the people in various places did not have a strong attachment to the Sui Dynasty, which made it very dangerous to implement this crazy strategy, but if this civil war ended quickly, the loss would be only one Guanzhong. In exchange, at least the Sui Dynasty enjoyed hundreds of years of peace and prosperity for the country. No matter how you look at it, it is a cost-effective approach.
But he didn't dare to say this.
"My nephew also understands." Yang Ji also understood Yang Jian's helplessness and found that he, the emperor, was subject to constraints everywhere, the most obvious one being the food shortage incidents that occurred in Guanzhong from time to time.
The reason why Daxing City was repeatedly short of food and the reason why Yang Jian led officials and people to eat in Luoyang many times was not that there was really no food in Guanzhong, but that the Guanlong nobles occupied more than 80% of the fertile land in Guanzhong, so that all the self-produced food in Guanzhong was concentrated. It was in the hands of the Guanlong nobles; these people were still in control of the salt, grain, cloth and other materials that entered the capital through the Guangtong Canal.
Therefore, whenever the imperial court issues a decree that is not beneficial to the Guanlong nobles, they often object in the court first. If it is still not wasted, they will control the grain and not sell it, artificially creating a grain shortage, causing starvation in Guanzhong. When the situation gets serious, they will let private soldiers disguise themselves as bandits and bandits to cause trouble in the local area.
