The third emperor of the Sui Dynasty

Chapter 863 A Joke

Qishan is one of the birthplaces of ancient culture, and it is the birthplace of the ancient Yan Emperor and the foundation of the Zhou Dynasty.The mountains in the territory have obvious ups and downs, the mountains in the deep mountains are steep, and the ridges in the shallow mountains are wide.

Among them is a mountain peak named Fenghuang Mountain, with a small mountain range in front of the mountain.There is a stone island at the end, extending to the bank of the Du River, shaped like a phoenix head and drinking water.Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty visited Renshou Palace, and it is said that Fengming got its name from this mountain.

In the southeast direction of Fenghuang Mountain, the mountain is thin and lush. A small stream flows down from the mountain and flows into a mirror lake. Because of the flowing water, the lake does not freeze.

The Zhougong Temple built during the reign of Emperor Wen is located here. Although this vast temple has been abandoned for a long time, the surrounding walls are still there, which can somewhat protect against wind and snow.

The team of assassins sent by Li Yuan to assassinate Yang Tong lived here temporarily. The leader this time was Li Yuan's cousin Li Xiaoji, who was named King of Yong'an County. Li Yuan reused it, and this matter is of great importance. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is the last chance for the Li Tang Dynasty to come back. He appointed Li Xiaoji, a cautious character, to carry out this operation, and sent Dou Gui's eldest son, Dou Fengjie, as his deputy.After the two sneaked into Guanzhong, they gathered the dead soldiers of the Li family who were scattered in various places, but they only had more than [-] people. It was too difficult to assassinate Yang Tong, so they planned to create chaos outside Chengtianmen on the day of Yuanri court meeting , Let the people watching the ceremony trample on each other, choose the opportunity to assassinate Yang Tong and the civil and military officials of the Sui Dynasty, but later found out that Yang Tong would go to Sanchouyuan to worship Yang Jian before the New Year's Eve, and saw that the Wugong County officials mobilized the people to clear the snow from the imperial mausoleum. Changed the original plan and planned to ambush Yang Tong in the middle.

But Daxing to Sanchouyuan are almost all plains, there are too few places suitable for ambushes, so far they haven't found a safe place, seeing that the day after tomorrow is New Year's Eve, Li Xiaoji really can't sleep.

At the moment, let people light the pine branches and try to choose a place to ambush.

Dou Fengjie looked at Li Xiaoji who was silently staring at the map, clasped his fists and said, "King Yong'an, the day after tomorrow is New Year's Eve, what do you think we should do now?"

Li Xiaoji looked at Dou Fengjie, and a look of helplessness flashed in his eyes: "If Yang Yu comes, the civil and military officials of the Sui Dynasty and the envoys of various countries will definitely not be able to avoid it. In order to protect these people, the Fifth Army of the Sui Dynasty is very likely to collectively guard them. As a small group of us, if we fight below, it is no different from sending us to death, so we must find a more suitable place to ambush, and then attack Yang Tong's car, but you also know that there are almost no places suitable for ambush in these places, and The snowfield is covered with white snow, and it is clear where we are hiding."

When Dou Fengjie heard the word 'white snow', his heart suddenly moved, "King Yong'an, why don't we dig a trench in the snow, push the snow outside the trench into a slope, and then hide in it, as long as it is integrated, The Sui army certainly would not have thought that there were people in the snow."

"This method is feasible." Li Xiaoji's eyes lit up, he took a few steps excitedly, then turned around and said, "But General Dou, didn't you see it? Even if we succeeded in the sneak attack, would we still be alive?"

"King Yong'an, what are these two thousand dead men compared to Yang Tong?" Now that he has said that, Dou Fengjie simply told what he knows: "Also, you see, these dead men only obey the orders of Wu Chuan soldiers. , which one really regards us as the leader? If the general's prediction is correct, this should be King Qi's idea. If we fail, do you think these people will not sue us?"

Li Xiaoji is not a fool either, knowing that Dou Fengjie intends to let these people die with the Sui army, the two of them just need to watch from afar, and after a long silence, said: "This is the only chance for my Great Tang to take Yang Yu's life." , no matter what, we must focus on the overall situation, and at this time we can't make extra troubles..."

"Enemy attack... ah~"

Before Li Xiaoji could finish speaking, a shrill scream sounded outside, breaking the tranquility of the entire temple.

Li Xiaoji's complexion changed, and he said sharply: "Go and see, what happened?"

"Hey~"

At this moment, two rockets shot up into the sky one after the other outside the temple, Li Xiaoji's expression changed drastically, "We were discovered by the Sui army, let's fight."

"Ah..."

The shrill screams and the sound of sharp weapons tearing muscles spread quickly like a plague.

In the panic of Li Xiaoji and Dou Fengjie, clay pots of kerosene were thrown in, and at the same time, rag balls filled with kerosene were lit and thrown in.

The fireball jumped over the fence and hit the dead soldiers in Muli. The dead soldiers shouted and ran away in all directions. The fireball rolled to the oily ground and the dilapidated temple. The fire quickly spread. Although the fire did not cause major losses, it did The inside of the temple was in chaos, and the dead men who were like headless chickens were also exposed from the darkness.

"boom!"

When Li Xiaoji and Dou Fengjie came out of a burning palace, they just saw the front wall being pushed down to the ground, and a Modao army in heavy armor stepped on the rammed earth wall that fell to the ground. Stepping towards the courtyard, every step is as dignified as a mountain.

Some dead soldiers shot with crossbows in their hands, and the dense rain of arrows shot at the Mo Dao army, but their armor was made of fine iron, and ordinary crossbows could not do anything with them within a range of fifty steps.

The arrows hit the heavy armor like a storm, but none of the Modao soldiers were shot down. They still walked forward step by step. Down.Immediately, heads were flying, torsos were torn apart, corpses were piled up on the ground, none of them was complete, stumped limbs and broken arms were everywhere, it was too horrible to look at.

They pushed forward step by step, lined up like a wall of steel, and wherever they passed, the ground cracked like waves, people's heads rolled around, and a group of dead men were killed, their hearts were broken, and the screams resounded through the night sky.

"King Yong'an, we are surrounded, retreat to the back hall!" Dou Fengjie had come to his senses from the chaos, he ignored Li Xiaoji, turned around and ran away under the guard of dozens of Dou's family soldiers.

Before he had gone a few steps, a crossbow arrow had already pierced through the air, piercing Dou Fengjie's head directly, and blood and brains splashed out.Dou Fengjie fell to the ground, twitched all over, and died on the spot.

Not far away, Yin Mingyue sneered, and hung the crossbow in her hand on the horse's back. She was the main commander of this operation, and was ordered by Yang Tong to come and wipe out the assassin team.

Yang Tong knew that these dead men who were serving for the Li family had lost their souls and sanity, and they were all cold killing tools, and they must not have the slightest bit of mercy. If it recurs, it may harm the children and grandchildren.

As the emperor of the Sui Dynasty and the head of the Yang family, how could Yang Tong allow the assassins to secretly stare at himself and his relatives all the time?So in order to completely annihilate this team of dead soldiers, he not only mobilized all the Asura Guards, but also handed over the Xuanjia Army to Yin Mingyue.

"It's just a woman, is there no one available for Yang Tong?" Li Xiaoji knew that there was little hope of escape, so he glared at Yin Mingyue and roared, "Attack, kill this woman for me."

"Kill!" Immediately, a group of messy dead soldiers passed the Modao army, and rushed towards Yinmingyue.

"Fire the arrow." Yin Mingyue's icy pretty face flashed a ruthless look.

"shhhhhh"

A puff of blood mist bloomed in the crowd, the dense crowd was like a plowed field, and the dead soldiers who were originally like a rainbow seemed to be poured with cold water in an instant.In order to avoid hurting their own people, the Sui army did not use crossbows at this time, but swung their swords forward.

"Kill them, leave no one behind!" With a roar, Wang Xiongdan rushed through the gap with a Mo Dao, setting off a bloody storm.

Behind him, Xue Wanbei, Qin Huaiyu, Cheng Chumo and other young generals and [-] Xuanjia troops instantly formed a conical formation headed by Wang Xiongdan, roaring at the chaotic dead soldiers.

Failed!
Li Xiaoji's mind went blank, and he still doesn't know what went wrong.

At this moment, Yang Qinfang, who was crouching on a corner of the wall like a civet, held a crossbow in her hand and was aiming at him. Seeing that the guards around Lee Xiaoji suddenly gave up a little space, she suddenly pulled the trigger, and fired a crossbow. The crossbow shot out of the string, and the arrow reached in an instant, piercing the back of Li Xiaoji's neck with a 'pop', and the arrow shot out through the neck.

But at this time, it was already a mess, and almost no soldiers of the Tang army found that Li Xiaoji was dead, and he was killed by well-equipped Sui soldiers, and his corpses were scattered all over the place.

. . . . . . . . .

At the same time when the Sui army was killing Li Tang's assassins in Phoenix Mountain, Yang Tong was also fighting with Zuo Shu.

In the dead of night, the Hall of Liangyi is as bright as beans.Yang Tong sat behind the table, holding his forehead while reviewing the memorial.However, memorials as high as mountains are not uncommon.

In fact, many memorials were written more than a month ago. Yang Tong doesn’t blame them for coming late. It’s because the current territory of the Sui Dynasty is too vast, and it’s inconvenient to transmit information. Through the post station, or the officials who went to the DPRK to report their duties were brought to the center.

What makes Yang Tong even more puzzled is that Da Sui has started to lack people again, because he has obviously felt that he has been much busier than usual recently, and many things that he didn't have to worry about before are all in his hands, which has taken up a lot of his daily martial arts training time. few.

It is also understandable. After all, the Sui Dynasty has recovered the four prefectures of Qingxu, Jingyang, Qingzhou, Qingzhou, and Xuzhou. The four counties of Qingzhou govern 36 counties, and the five counties of Xuzhou govern 22 counties. county.All these things add up to sixty counties and 120 six counties.

There are so many county guards, general guards, county officials, county criminals, and county officials; so many county magistrates, county officials, county lieutenants, and county officials need to be reappointed. How can the court have so many skilled people?The only way is to withdraw from the three provinces, ten ministries and nine temples. If these middle and low-level Beijing officials leave on a large scale, the center will naturally not have enough personnel.

Moreover, after these officials took office, they started to implement the current administrative orders of the Sui Dynasty from the beginning, and at the same time they had to deal with the tyrants, big and small, of the thieves. It is conceivable that there are so many problems.

Yang Tong also finally understands why most emperors are keen to be foolish emperors, and it's no wonder you don't get bored with the memorabilia like hills pouring in front of you.

In fact, judging from Yang Tong's current perspective, reviewing memorials is not as difficult as imagined, because these days are not as complicated as later generations. Just concentrate on analyzing, the key is to endure this boring and lonely.

However, the busy days also made Yang Tong feel fulfilled. Since Cen Wenwen, Bing Yuanzhen Mazhou, Yang Zen Master, Yin Hongzhi, Yang Siyi, Liu Ji, etc. were able to manage one area in each town, Yang Tong clearly felt that he had a great love for Qing, The four prefectures of Xu, Jing, and Yang are gradually increasing their control power, and they will have to digest this year's gains in the next two or three years.

This is also one of the reasons why Yang Tong was not in a hurry to regain Yizhou. He was worried that no matter how big the territory was, he would not be able to control it.

A country that cannot be controlled is not considered your own country. After all, no matter how big the country is, if the grassroots is unstable, it is just an illusory castle in the air. Let Li Yuan take control, but this side is stable, and there are more reserve officials with sufficient experience. When they take office, they can use their political experience to get the localities on the right track.

After years of training, Yang Tong knows exactly what he wants to do and what he needs.What he has to do is to solidify the Great Sui Dynasty, and what he wants is a Great Sui world that belongs to him completely, not the emperor in name.

After the beginning of the new year, let’s temporarily ignore Li Yuan in Yizhou; Li Shimin’s troops in Dangchang County should be wiped out immediately, because Li Shimin is different from Li Yuan and Li Jiancheng. He didn't dare to let go of his hands and feet, but Li Yuan's current order is probably like farting to him. Without Li Yuan's restraint, Li Shimin, a guy with a lot of gambling, is very likely to take risks and make Da Sui lose his control over the whole control of the situation.So even if this variable cannot be eliminated, he must be beaten back to Chengdu, so that their father, son, and brother can continue to love and kill each other to the end.

According to Han Zhi's private letter, Li Yuanji won over some local officials because he entered Sichuan first, and because he bloodyly cleaned up the nobles in Guanlong and the powerful in Yizhou, which enriched the empty treasury of the puppet Tang court and made all the officials happy. The salary was also settled, so officials in the court also began to speak well of Li Yuanji.

The accumulation of strength and prestige has made Li Shiyuan more and more coveted about the throne. Now he basically doesn't care about political affairs, and is all about wooing military and political officials.

This result also let Yang Tong breathe a sigh of relief. The situation in the puppet Tang Dynasty is developing as he expected. If there is a palace change between Li Yuan's father and son and brothers, then he will have a way to let Li's father and son and Li's clan live in the court. In the change, the death is almost complete, saving a lot of trouble in the follow-up.

It wasn't until late at night that Yang Tong finished reviewing all the memorials and entered the main hall. The icy snow wind was blowing, and his mind was cleared. Looking around, the snowflakes under the lights were shining brightly.

"Report to Your Majesty, Ling Shangshu urgently seeks an audience." After a while, a guard hurried over and bowed to report.

"Xuan!" Yang Tong knew it was good news!
(End of this chapter)