The film and television world begins with the battle for the throne in Kowloon

Chapter 627 Li Shimin’s good intentions (Part )

In this era, canal repair is a job that can be done with your own eyes and is not difficult. As long as the manpower and materials are in place and the logistics can keep up, you can dig up stones step by step, fill them with sandbags, and fill them up along the riverbanks on both sides little by little. It is not a tricky job, it is all hard work.

Li Yan was only responsible for solving the various materials needed on the construction site and the logistics of the large team, and avoiding any chaos.

Wouldn't Li Yan live and eat on the construction site for seven or eight days in a row like Li Ke did?
Li Ke was clearly putting on an act for Li Shimin, to show that although he, the King of Shu, had no credit for the construction of the canal, he had worked hard.

What's more, the Zuotunwei Army is a powder keg that can explode at any time.

As the crown prince, he had a deep blood feud with them. If they were to get angry and kill him, that would be bad. Besides, after years of living a life of luxury, Li Yan could no longer endure hardship.

After arranging everything, Li Yan and Xue Rengui were ready to leave: "Changsheng, I will leave this place to you. You manage the Zuotun Guards well and make sure nothing goes wrong. As for the rest, just make sure the construction workers' work is carried out step by step and eliminate any interference. I will come back to take a look in a few days."

"Your Highness, you're just going to leave this big wound to me?"

"I don't know if it can be repaired within a month. If it delays your important event, how will I explain it to the court?"

Chang Sheng showed up at the East Palace today just to take the opportunity to come to the construction site and take over the Zuotunwei. He didn't expect things to go more smoothly than he thought. Before he could even open his mouth, the prince put himself in the position of the Zuotunwei Inspector General.

With Wu Qing around and Chang Sheng having the temporary mandate from the crown prince, they can completely control the army and do many big things. The easiest and simplest thing is to continue tampering with the canal and delay the crisis of the court until a major change occurs.

Li Yan patted Chang Sheng's shoulder, pulled him aside and whispered, "Don't worry, you can repair the canal slowly. If one month doesn't work, then two months will do."

"Uh?"

Chang Sheng was stunned, and asked in a dumbfounded manner: "Your Highness, the grain transport has been cut off, and the border areas and the capital are running out of food and grass. The court is very anxious. I heard that you even signed a military order in front of the emperor, promising to repair the road within a month."

"How can you be so careless? If you delay, something bad will happen in the court."

Li Yan smiled slightly, with a look of deep understanding on his face, and whispered: "Chang Sheng, you are not an outsider, I will be honest with you."

"My father told me that in order to deal with Jie Li, he secretly hid a batch of grain every year. Over the years, he has accumulated more than one million shi of grain in several granaries in the capital. If it doesn't work, let me take this batch of grain to deal with the situation."

"Think about it, with more than one million dan of grain, even if Luoyang doesn't send a single grain to Chang'an, Chang'an can be safe for three or four months. Besides, my uncles like Zhao Wang Li Yuanjing, Lu Wang Yuanchang, Feng Wang Li Yuanxiang, etc., all have countless farms and their families easily store more than 100,000 dan of grain."

"There are so many civil officials, military generals, wealthy families, merchants and tycoons in Chang'an City. It can be said that together, Chang'an City has more than several million dan of grain. When it comes to an emergency, we can use them as a pretext to squeeze out the grain."

Seeing Chang Sheng's astonishment, Li Yan casually said, "It's just that they saw that the Yongtong Canal was cut off, so they were unwilling to take out the grain. They wanted to hoard it and raise the price to sell it at a good price when the treasury ran out of grain!"

Of course Li Yan bullied Chang Sheng because he didn't know the inside story and was talking nonsense.

However, he felt that the facts would not be too different from what he expected. You have to know what time it is now, it is already the middle of the year. The war against the Turks will be launched at the end of the year. The confrontation between the two major forces will consume a lot of supplies.

At this time, the capital must have had a huge accumulation of money, food, armor, war horses, fodder and other supplies. How could there be a shortage of food?
In the original drama, Li Shimin casually released 400,000 dan of so-called grain for Li Chengqian to deal with, and he didn't care. This can only mean that Li Shimin didn't care. What he wanted to see was the prince's ability to handle things and test his ability to control the overall situation.

Li Yan, from the detached perspective of an emperor, thought that there were probably three reasons why he looked so weak:

First of all, Li Shimin was showing weakness to the enemy. It was because the war was going to start at the end of the year that he gave the Turks the illusion that he was self-sufficient at this time, which affected Jie Li's strategic judgment.

As the art of war says, when advancing, pretend to retreat; when attacking, pretend to defend. If Jie Li knew that the Tang Dynasty would launch a full-scale attack on the Turks in winter, he would definitely make preparations in advance, which would undoubtedly increase the difficulty of the Tang army's battle.

Showing weakness to the outside world would make Jie Li think that the Tang Dynasty was unlikely to launch a large-scale attack on the Turks when it could not protect itself, so that the Tang Dynasty could relax its vigilance. In this way, the Tang Dynasty could surprise the Turks and catch them off guard.

Secondly, it stimulated possible internal crises and hidden dangers. Objectively speaking, the effect was very good. After the prince's actions, the problems of the Zuotunwei Imperial Guard were exposed, and the power of the old Eastern Palace was completely eradicated.

For the next war, the internal hidden dangers were cleared, and the dangerous situation of being attacked from both sides and being in a dilemma was avoided at the critical moment. If the situation was really as chaotic and dangerous as it seemed on the surface, Li Shimin couldn't even get off the ground, had trouble walking, and the army of the commander of the capital was frequently in turmoil, then it would be a bit difficult for him to stabilize the situation, so why would he fight against Jie Li?

Are you kidding me?
You have to know that this was only the third year of Zhenguan, and only three years had passed since the ninth year of Wude when Jie Li's 200,000 cavalry army approached the border. Li Shimin dared to launch a large-scale counterattack against Jie Li. It can only be said that Li Shimin's leadership and rule over the Tang Dynasty were very strong and powerful, and the domestic situation was also very stable.

As the saying goes, one must first stabilize the country before fighting foreign enemies. Internal problems have basically been resolved by him, so he has the energy to launch foreign wars.

During this period, Li Yan has been thinking about some problems that were not revealed in the drama, but he discovered them through clues when he was immersed in this environment. This is the third and most important reason.

At this critical juncture, Li Shimin handed over the task of mobilizing money and grain in the border areas to Li Chengqian, not just to support him, suppress Li Ke, and establish the authority of the crown prince. In the eyes of the iron-blooded emperor Li Shimin, these were not worth mentioning.

In fact, Li Shimin had a deeper consideration, which was the upcoming war between Tang and Yang.

As an emperor, Li Shimin sent all the capable troops in the country to the front, but the interior was very empty. If someone caused trouble inside, it would be easy to suffer a dangerous situation of being attacked from both inside and outside. Therefore, in order to stabilize the rear, he had to stay in Chang'an in person.

But if the army is sent to the front line, it will easily get out of control. If it is defeated, the Tang Dynasty will be in danger of extinction; if it wins, this unprecedented great achievement will be given to the ministers, which will make it more likely that the generals will have too much military power and too high prestige, leading to the terrible consequence of being unable to get rid of the power.

At that time, in order to maintain the stability of his country, Li Shimin had to do something like killing the running dogs after the cunning rabbit died, and eliminate a number of military generals who had made great contributions.

Li Shimin, who was also a general, really couldn't bear to do such a thing.

Zhu Yuanzhang was an ordinary commoner of humble origin and had limited knowledge. Only after he had conquered the country did he realize the harm of arrogant and powerful generals. But by then the mistake had already been made and there was nothing he could do. For the sake of the stability and continuation of his regime, he had to remedy the situation afterwards and send these generals to the guillotine one after another.

In order to eradicate the root of the problem and completely eliminate the hidden dangers, they also carried out large-scale punishments, exterminating all nine generations of the clan and killing them all.

Li Shimin came from a powerful and aristocratic family in Guanlong, and was born in the Sui and Tang dynasties after three hundred years of chaos. He had seen some things almost since he was a child. He naturally knew what the outcome would be for the generals who had everything going smoothly until the end.

Either he would seize power by force like him, and the country would change hands. Or he would just follow the example of Emperor Gaozu of Han and abandon his father after his rabbit is dead!

He could not bear to see these originally obedient generals forced to a place of glory that did not belong to them, and then discard them after they had served their purpose, so he wanted to learn from Emperor Wen of Sui and intended to let Crown Prince Li Chengqian lead a war against the Turks.

The prince obtained such unparalleled glory, killing two birds with one stone.

It not only prevented the generals from becoming ambitious, but also added a lot of merit to the prince, who was always regarded by the court and the public as being too gentle and honest but lacking in ability and prestige, thus laying a solid foundation for the stable inheritance of the country.

After much thought, Li Shimin took great pains to entrust the matter of money and grain turnover to Li Chengqian. It was both an experience and a test.

If after this incident, it is proven that the prince is still capable, then in the war between the two countries, Li Chengqian can be sent to the front line. Even if he does nothing, as long as he appears at the front line, the unparalleled achievement of destroying the Turks will naturally fall on the prince.

Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty accumulated high prestige and merits because he participated in the battle to destroy the Southern Chen Dynasty. Later, he was able to successfully replace Yang Yong and become the new crown prince.

Li Shimin was trying to build momentum for Li Chengqian and accumulate qualifications, which was a good intention.

After thinking it through, even Li Yan was secretly amazed. It must be said that Li Shimin was truly one of the rare wise and holy rulers in the thousands of years of Chinese history. In Li Yan's opinion, his ability, wisdom and pattern were not inferior to those of the First Emperor, and even surpassed them.

It's a pity that Li Chengqian was such a hopeless person that he messed up even the small test before the war, and almost let the Zuotunwei Army cause chaos in Chang'an, and he missed the best opportunity of his life.

Li Yan now thinks that Li Chengqian is really stupid and only knows how to be filial. Why would he build a palace at such a critical moment?

You should do your job well first and then talk about filial piety. This is really putting the cart before the horse!

(End of this chapter)