Less than half an hour later.
"Congratulations to Mr. Lang for making another great contribution. This Liu Qi is indeed the person hiding behind the scenes!" Black Teeth Changzhi said with excitement on his face.
"Sure enough, it's this guy!"
Wang Wenzuo gritted his teeth and sighed: "I thought this guy was not a simple guy when I was in Xiawang Temple, but I didn't expect him to be such a giant bandit. If I had known that, I would have killed this guy with one knife, which would have eliminated today's disaster." !」
"Hahaha!" Hei Te Changzhi said with a smile: "Mr. Lang's words are a bit exaggerated. You are not a Bodhisattva, how can you predict the future?"
"Yeah, you know it's hard to buy a lot of gold!" Wang Wenzuo shook his head: "Changzhi, cut off this guy's head and seal it with lime. Later, send someone to Jin Mansion and ask Brother Renshou to send it to the palace. Go inside and say that this person is one of the masterminds behind the scenes!"
"Yes!" Hei Te Changzhi responded, but did not leave immediately. Instead, he lowered his voice and said, "Mr. Lang, based on what I saw, why don't you investigate strictly first, and then report it to the police when you have some clues?"
"Changzhi, we are military ministers, not jailers! Although we kill people, we kill enemies with bows and arrows, not prisoners with bare hands." Wang Wenzuo said in a deep voice: "When I returned to Chang'an this time, I didn't want to cause trouble. Everything happened because I had no choice but to do it. If I had known earlier, I would rather stay in Baekje than wade into this muddy water!"
____________________________
Daming Palace.
As dusk fell, only a ray of dark red light shot into the hall through the window panes, dyeing everything in the hall an ominous dark red. Li Zhi was leaning on the brocade couch, his eyes were slightly closed, his chest was rising and falling slightly, and he seemed to have fallen asleep. Queen Wu sat beside the couch, holding her husband's right hand in one hand and a round fan in the other, shaking it from time to time, as if waiting for Li Zhi to wake up. At this time, a palace maid came in from the outside. She knelt down seven or eight steps away from the brocade couch, raised her hands above her head, and presented a silk letter. The queen raised her eyes slightly, and the eunuch on the side walked over with a silent pace that only a feline could have, took the silk book and forwarded it to Wu.
"Wang Wenzuo has led the troops to quell the riots in the West City and killed the person behind the scenes, who is from Hebei!" A flash of joy flashed across Wu's face. She put the silk book into her sleeve and asked in a low voice: "First of all, Where is the level?"
"It's right outside!"
"What about Liu Weili?"
"Still under pursuit!"
"Okay, get a pen and paper!" Wu took the brush and after thinking for a moment, quickly wrote two lines of words on the paper. She then took her family's seal and used it to seal it: "Send it quickly and give it to Wang Wenzuo!"
"My slave obeys the order!"
Li Zhi's eyes flashed twice, as if he was awakened by the movement just now. Wu quickly returned to the brocade couch, leaned close to Li Zhi's ear, and asked in a low voice: "Your Majesty, what do you think?"
"It's okay!" Li Zhi opened his eyes, and there was unconcealable fatigue in his voice: "How is it outside now?"
"The Western Market has been pacified!" Wu took the bowl from the palace maid and stirred the buttermilk inside with a spoon while whispering: "Wang Wenzuo made it!"
"Wang Wenzuo?" Li Zhi frowned: "Where did he get the troops? Didn't I already issue an edict prohibiting all armies from leaving the camp?"
"It's the part that followed him to Beijing!" Wu whispered: "He also killed a bandit leader in the West City. People around Liu Weili identified him and found that the bandit leader had conspired with Liu Weili and was from Hebei! "
"Oh?" Li Zhi's brows widened: "Part 1? That shouldn't exceed a hundred people, right? It's good to be able to put down the riots in the West City and behead the thieves so quickly, it's really good!"
"Yes! Two days ago, the Ministry of War said that it was too fast to promote him to the fifth rank. After all, he was still a fire chief a few years ago, and said that he should be suppressed. Now looking at me, the fifth rank is still a bit low. Well, a talent like this should be directly promoted to the third and fourth grades and stay with the Emperor of Chang'an to serve him!"
"Hahaha!" Li Zhi laughed when he heard this: "Awu, I know what you are thinking. Wang Wenzuo is indeed a capable minister, and he is loyal and diligent in handling errands. But if he stays in Chang'an, it will harm him. He will do the same." There are so many things. Think about why few people
Want to issue an edict to ban all armies from leaving the camp? Could it be that so many soldiers in Chang'an couldn't suppress those thousands of thieves? After all, Wang Wenzuo was able to do what he did, wasn't it because he had no worries about being involved in Chang'an? If you leave him in Chang'an for three or two years, he will be stuck in this quagmire and disappear from everyone! "
After hearing what Li Zhi said, Wu was speechless for a while. As Li Zhi said, the reason why Wang Wenzuo was able to kill everyone in Chang'an and perform extraordinary feats repeatedly was due to his personal talents and luck, but the biggest reason was that he was an outsider and had conflicts with various factions in Chang'an City. None of the forces are involved, so there is no worry in acting, and the superiors can trust him.
Take this incident as an example. With the strength of the various armies stationed inside and outside Chang'an at that time, the rioting mob could be suppressed with just a little finger. However, the emperor Li Zhi suspected that there was a shadow hidden behind the scenes. If foreign troops were mobilized to suppress it, it would be too counterproductive. However, he was afraid of giving people an opportunity to mobilize a trustworthy army like the Imperial Guard.
Therefore, no one could move the 100,000 troops inside and outside Chang'an City. They were restrained by each other. They all squatted in the camp and watched helplessly as the mob outside burned, killed and looted. Then Wang Wenzuo led a hundred cavalry rampage and achieved great success. But if Wang Wenzuo stayed in Chang'an and became an official under the command of the Forbidden Army and Donggong Liu, just imagine what he could do now? Isn’t it just the same as squatting in the camp and waiting for the edict?
"Alas!" Wu sighed: "Your Majesty is saying that I am short-sighted. I finally saw a useful talent, so I wanted to stay and put it to good use, but I didn't think too much about it!"
"But this incident is indeed a lesson!" Li Zhi said solemnly: "I thought that Chang'an was already the most important place in Mount Tai, but I didn't expect that it would cause such a chaos. After everything calms down, we must take care of it! "
"What do you mean, Your Majesty?"
"Ah Wu, don't you think there are too many people in Chang'an?" Li Zhi glanced at Wu: "A few days ago, several ministers in the Political Affairs Hall said they would send tens of thousands of evil young men to Anxi. I was still a little hesitant at first. I don’t think it will damage the foundation of Guanzhong, but now it seems that my husband has given it careful consideration!”
"Yes! It is a good thing that Guanzhong's population is increasing, but in Chang'an City there are idle people, and there are at least hundreds of thousands of people who live in food and rice. Sooner or later, trouble will arise!" Wu agreed: "Just take advantage of this opportunity to Driving some of these people out will not only reduce the pressure on water transportation, but also enrich the household registration in border counties. It can be said to kill two birds with one stone!"
In a few words, Li Zhi and his wife decided the fate of tens of thousands of people in Chang'an City. It turns out that since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, it has adhered to the policy of "Guanzhong nationalism", that is, taking the Guanzhong area as the homeland and the Guandong Jiangnan area as the conquered area. In order to ensure the local military, political, and economic advantages over the newly conquered areas, the Tang government consciously migrated people to the Guanzhong area and restricted the outward migration of the Guanzhong population. As a result, a large number of "narrow villages" appeared in the prefectures and counties in the Guanzhong area. That is to say, the population is densely populated and it is impossible to allocate corresponding land to farmers according to the rent system.
The reason why the Tang government did this was very simple - under the system at that time, the number of registered people determined the government's tax sources and military sources. The more people in Guanzhong, the more it could maintain its military and political advantages over other regions. The Tang Empire's The more stable the rule will be. But the consequence of this is that the per capita land of farmers in the Guanzhong area is much lower than that of farmers in Jiangnan, Hebei and other areas with more per capita land. However, they have to bear the same taxes, labor, and military service. Naturally, they are much poorer than the farmers in these places. few.
