People in the early Tang Dynasty: I compete with Wu Zhao for the throne

Chapter 1626 Chang'an is easy to take, but the world is hard to settle

The evening bell rings and people return home.

In fact, there were no civilians on the streets of Chang'an City.

With tens of thousands of troops attacking a city, even the most optimistic person would not think that the common people would not be harmed at all.

Therefore, early on, the people of Yongzhou Prefecture and Chang'an Wannian County had already returned home, and there was no one on the streets.

Liu Rengui and Li Xuan walked side by side, while countless cavalrymen on both sides quickly dispersed in all directions.

People quickly left the city gates, watchtowers, block gates, street intersections, and even the imperial palace at the core of Chang'an City.

Liu Rengui looked at the countless soldiers, looked at Li Xuan helplessly and said, "You didn't say before that you recruited 3,000 Qianniu Guards and 3,000 Jinwu Guards?"

Li Xuan shook his head slightly and said, "In Chang'an City, the Qianniu Guards are fine. The Jinwu Guards patrol the entire city, there are tens of thousands of them, and three thousand can barely keep things stable."

"General Cheng Chubi of the Left Jinwu Guard in Chang'an City is now guarding the palace gate, and General Cao of the Right Jinwu Guard has just been killed by an arrow. The group is leaderless, so you just need to take over." Liu Rengui looked up at Li Xuan.

Li Xuan hesitated for a moment and said, "Let General Cheng be transferred to the post of General of Right Jinwu Guard to suppress Right Jinwu Guard, and let Cui Ding be the Inspector General of Left Jinwu Guard to suppress Left Jinwu Guard."

"Okay!" Liu Rengui nodded.

Cui Ding was originally the Lieutenant General of the Left Jinwu Guard, and now there is no problem for him to be the Inspector-General of the Left Jinwu Guard.

"The Left Thousand Oxen Guard is easy to deal with. Zhou Qian will be promoted to General of the Left Thousand Oxen Guard. As for the Right Thousand Oxen Guard, Qiu Zhenmu will be transferred to General of the Right Thousand Oxen Guard." Li Xuan's expression became solemn, and then he said, "How will the funeral of the Prince of Beiping be handled?"

Li Jingjia, former General of the Left Thousand Oxen Guard and Prince of Beiping, was stabbed to death by Ma Sizong in the Qianyang Palace.

Although Xue Guwu was transferred to the position of General of the Left Thousand Oxen Guard, both Li Jingjia and Wang Jishan had a large number of cronies in the Left Thousand Oxen Guard and were difficult to control.

"It was just a hasty burial." Liu Rengui shook his head slightly.

When the Qianyang Palace coup occurred, not only Li Yi died, but also Li Jingjia.

"And his son?"

"Even though he's in prison, he should still be alive." Liu Rengui frowned slightly.

Li Xuan nodded calmly and said, "The key to the palace affairs is still the imperial guards."

"What are you going to do?" Liu Rengui stopped his horse, turned around and looked at Li Xuan, and said, "The Imperial Guard General Dou Ping is now in the palace waiting to surrender. What are you going to do?"

Li Xuan hesitated for a moment and said, "Dou Ping will be the prince's right guard commander first, and the others can be discussed later. As for the imperial guards, my grandson-in-law needs to transfer 1,000 right guards to the imperial guards, and all those above Langjiang must be replaced. There is no room for this. Sanlang's incident cannot happen again."

"The Imperial Guards have been suppressing the North Gate for sixty years, just following orders." Liu Rengui shook his head and said, "It's up to you, but this matter may need to be changed after the Crown Prince returns to the court."

If Li Chongzhao really returned to Chang'an, I'm afraid a group of people would immediately surround him.

The power in Li Xuan's hands will be quickly squeezed and eroded.

Li Xuan looked unusually calm. He nodded and said, "After the Crown Prince returns to the court, all of the 1,000 Right Guards of my grandson-in-law will be handed over to the Crown Prince, and he will be in charge of all matters. Then the Crown Prince will select 1,000 people from the royal family to join the Imperial Guard, and another 1,000 people from the Queen's family to join the Imperial Guard. Together with the people who are eliminated from the current Imperial Guard, they will form the new North Gate Imperial Guard."

"The forces of all parties are restraining each other." Liu Rengui nodded and said, "In this way, we can avoid the previous incident."

"As for the court, Lu Shishu was the Minister of Personnel appointed by the previous emperor, so he can be the Minister of the Secretariat; Cui Xiang, the Palace Attendant, has the Cui, Lu and Zheng families behind him, so it is not easy for others to deal with him; Li Yiyan has long been the Minister of the Secretariat, and is a third-rank official in the Secretariat, so no one will interfere, and he may even make a further move up." Li Xuan paused slightly.

Liu Rengui nodded subconsciously. Li Yiyan was really a smart man. Not long after the emperor passed away, he chose to retire.

Later, he was not involved in the death of Zhongzong and other events, and stayed quietly at home.

Now that he has been appointed as the Secretary of the Central Secretariat again, no matter whether it is Pei Yan, Liu Rengui, or Liu Shenli, the position will all be his.

Li Xuan said calmly, "Mr. Zhang is the Minister of Personnel. He was originally the Prince of Yong's left son, so he has supporters. Yun Hongyin is a student of Prime Minister Zhao. If he is the Minister of Revenue, Prime Minister Zhao's people will support him. Anxi Protector Wang Fangyi is the Minister of War. At that time, the Wang family of Taiyuan should also be revived. Xiao Siye is the Minister of Justice. Why would he ask to be the Minister of Dali Temple? It's his grandson-in-law's business."

Liu Rengui narrowed his eyes, looked at Li Xuan and said, "Are you trying to restore the political situation during the time of the previous emperor?"

Li Xuan smiled and said, "The political situation during the time of the previous emperor was the most involved with all the states in the world, and it was also the most stable."

It was a whole system, including Liu Rengui, Hao Chujun, Liu Shenli, Xue Yuanchao, Li Yiyan, Zhao Renben, and Zhang Da'an.

Li Zhi relied on this system to govern the country for several years.

But by now, these forces have long been replaced by new systems.

Li Xuan now wants to subvert the system created by Empress Wu, so naturally the best way is to bring back the older system.

Only in this way can the world be most stable.

There is a saying that goes, "A family tradition remains unchanged for three years after the father's death." There is some truth to this saying.

Governing a big country is like cooking a small fish.

Li Xuan knew what was going on.

The final result of violence and corruption is that after several years of stability, the whole country will be in chaos.

With the precedent of Wang Mang, Li Xuan was very cautious.

"It can only be said that Minister Wei and Supervisor Wei are the Wei family's business." Li Xuan breathed a sigh of relief.

"In this case, the Wei family has Wei Daijia, Wei Hongji, Wei Hongmin, and Wei Siqian. In this way, they will not send more people to the central government. If there are more, the court and the public will rise up in opposition." Liu Rengui nodded. After all, there was the precedent of Empress Wu, and all officials in the court and the public would be extremely cautious.

……

"The only thing left is Chang'an City." Liu Rengui rode slowly on the street, looked around and said, "Although Yongzhou Prefecture and Chang'an Wannian County are trying their best to stabilize the situation, the entire Chang'an City is the most uneasy."

Li Xuan nodded and said, "Is it their opinion that the soldiers under Sun Xu's command should not enter the city in large numbers?"

"Wei, Du, Wang, Yang, Pei, Dou, Xue, etc." Liu Rengui looked at Li Xuan and said, "Among the officials in Chang'an, there are almost no officials above the rank of assistant minister or junior minister among these noble families, but there are countless doctors and deputy ministers."

"It's okay." Li Xuan looked at the entire Chang'an City and said calmly: "It's up to them to deal with the doctors and the assistants. I don't want to make any trouble, but I do want to make some trouble with the district leaders.

The head of a rich ward was transferred to a poor ward, the head of a poor ward was transferred to a rich ward, and those close to the palace were transferred to those far from the palace. In this way, order was restored.”

Liu Rengui looked at Li Xuan in surprise.

The most important thing about this change is that more things will happen.

When there are too many things to do, you will be too busy to take care of other things.

Li Xuan can just place his own people there.

Therefore, this kind of mutual exchange has always been done for a special purpose.

Liu Rengui nodded and said, "In this case, there will be no major events, but the Queen still has some influence in Chang'an."

"My grandson-in-law knows what's going on." A hint of ruthlessness flashed in Li Xuan's eyes.

"Finally, it's about Sanniang. Where is Sanniang now?" Liu Rengui looked at Li Xuan with a little concern.

He knew that Liu Jinyu had withdrawn from Luoyang to Yangzhou, but after he went to Yangzhou, there was no news of him.

After all, Empress Wu's army was conquering Yangzhou, so it was inevitable that the news would be cut off.

"Sanniang is in Wuzhou now, and her grandson-in-law has returned to Chang'an. So tomorrow, let Sanniang set off from Wuzhou, go through Hongzhou and Tanzhou, return to Shuzhong, and then return to Chang'an from Shuzhong." Li Xuan nodded slightly.

"It would be best if the prince also departs from Yangzhou as soon as possible." Liu Rengui looked in the direction of Yangzhou and said softly, "Yangzhou is not that safe."

"Yes!" Li Xuan nodded, raised his head and looked forward. The Suzaku Gate was in front of him.

……

The crescent moon is like a hook, and the torches are held high.

From Suzaku Gate to Taiji Gate, the white-clad cavalrymen lined up and waited.

Under the Taiji Sect, the gray-haired General Cheng Chubi of the Left Jinwu Guard, the heavy-eyed General He Ji of the Left Qianniu Guard, the General Dou Ping of the Imperial Guard, and a group of generals all stood solemnly on the right side of the city gate.

Lu Yuanfang, Huang Rensu, Yuan Jiazuo, Dugu Qi, and all officials above the rank of Yuanwailang in various departments in Chang'an were all on the list.

Li Xuan rode his horse and calmly walked to the front of the crowd along the palace road. He held the late emperor's will high in his hand and said loudly: "Follow the late emperor's will and quell the rebellion."

"Your Highness, I accept your order. May the late emperor be blessed with boundless happiness."

Everyone knelt down and responded in a deep voice.

They all knew that Li Xuan had received the late emperor's will, but no one had known the contents of it before.

Today, Yun Hongyin read out the contents of the late emperor's will outside the city. Almost at the same time, someone rushed to tell the contents of the will to all the ministers in the court.

None of the ministers thought about checking the imperial edict, but were instead pondering the contents of the will.

In fact, there is no need to think about the form of many things. Just thinking about the content can already figure out the truth or falsehood.

Just like the edict before them, although the content inside sounds quite strange, in fact they can all hear that this edict of Emperor Gaozong was not actually written by Emperor Gaozong alone.

Or to be more precise, it was dictated by Emperor Gaozong and written down by the Secretariat.

Therefore, the first part is more formal, and only the latter part, which involves offering sacrifices to the nine springs, is the true last words of Emperor Gaozong.

It sounds like it's being stitched together, but it is indeed a formal will.

Especially the content of the will, which is completely in the style of Emperor Gaozong.

Li Xuan was relieved of all his posts in Fanzhou, including the post of Pacifier of Luoshui Road and General of the Right Guard.

He was allowed to be the Grand Marshal and also the Vice-Chancellor, but he was only actually appointed as the Chief Academician of the Imperial College.

As for the matter of the Grand Marshal setting up a government office and commanding the military power of the world, that was just talk.

As long as the emperor returns to Chang'an one day, the sixteen generals of the guards will immediately pledge their loyalty to the emperor.

As long as Li Xuan has no intention of treason, this power will ultimately be nothing but an illusion.

Of course, the prerequisite is that the world is stable.

This was also what Emperor Gaozong meant. He used Li Xuan to pacify the world, and after the war, he deprived him of his military power, leaving him with only a position of Imperial College Chief Academician, a third-rank official in the Secretariat.

Although he was still a prime minister, he was only the last one among the prime ministers.

Powerful, but not heavy.

At this time, it is easier to work.

This is what the emperor was thinking.

It maintained orthodoxy and protected Li Xuan.

Li Xuan rode on his horse and looked at everyone, nodded calmly and said, "Everyone, please stand up."

Li Xuan looked at Dou Ping and said, "General Dou, please transfer to the position of the Crown Prince's Right Guard Commander. When everything is settled, you can be transferred to Andong Province as a general. When Your Majesty comes of age, I'm afraid the matter of conquering Silla will be put on the agenda again."

Dou Ping heaved a long sigh of relief and said, "Yes!"

Li Xuan turned to look at Liu Rengui and said, "Please tell us in detail what we have agreed on. I am going to see the Prince of Yongping. These things have nothing to do with him. Just rest assured."

"Thank you, Your Majesty!" All the ministers present bowed to Li Xuan at the same time.

Li Xuan raised his head and looked in the direction of Taiji Palace, and said softly: "Tomorrow, all officials above the ninth rank in Chang'an will be summoned to Taiji Palace to read out the late emperor's will. After that, I will sit in the Political Affairs Hall to manage the affairs. The Liangyi Gate will be closed, and the harem guard structure will be opened after the emperor returns. Tomorrow, I will announce the Eastern Expedition to Luoyang and the order of the world."

"We obey your command." All the ministers bowed at the same time.

(End of this chapter)