My father, Li Shimin, please call me Crown Prince

Chapter 174 Fang Xuanling: The Crown Prince can be deposed at any time
Wubenfang.

Fang Xuanling was drinking tea with his eldest son after dinner.

Perhaps because he was old and could no longer drink alcohol, Fang Xuanling began to like drinking tea.

"Father, it seems that the prince is really plotting a rebellion."

Fang Yizheng's tone was somewhat excited.

Because they now have enough clues to accuse the prince of treason.

"When will father report to His Majesty?"

Fang Yizheng saw his father sipping tea in silence, so he asked again.

"not now."

Fang Xuanling shook his head slightly.

Fang Yizhi was somewhat puzzled: "Isn't it that the fact that the commander of the imperial guards around your majesty colluded with the crown prince to rebel is not enough for your majesty to depose the crown prince?"

Fang Xuanling sighed: "If it was in the past, maybe it would be possible."

“But now, it’s hard to say.”

Fang Xuanling was hesitant at this time.

Some time ago, he used the relationship of his wife, Mrs. Lu, to arrange for the eldest son of the Fanyang Lu family to meet Helan Chushi.

In fact, he did not tell the eldest son of the Lu family too many things, but just asked him to make friends with Helan Chushi.

To a certain extent, Lu Zhijie was not clear about Fang Xuanling's plan.

This is where Fang Xuanling’s caution lies.

In this way, even if it was exposed, it would be difficult for Lu Zhijie to implicate Fang Xuanling.

Fang Xuanling did not know the extent of the prince's surveillance of Helan Chushi.

Therefore, when Lu Zhijie was asked to contact Helan Chushi, he was prepared in advance for the possibility of being discovered by the prince.

To a certain extent, Helan Chushi is just a bait in plain sight.

Helan Chushi was only a part of Fang Xuanling's plan.

If it succeeds, it will naturally be a good thing.

If it doesn't work, that's no big deal.

Sure enough, the prince then arranged for Helan Chushi to train troops outside the city, directly cutting off Helan Chushi's connection with Chang'an City.

As for whether the prince knew about the connection between Helan Chushi and Lu Zhijie, it was no longer important.

Because Helan Chushi had no time or opportunity to contact Lu Zhijie.

It was impossible for Lu Zhijie to run to Zhechongfu outside the city to find Helan Chushi.

Fang Xuanling still admired this point very much.

The prince's move was equivalent to directly cutting off Helan Chushi, and on the surface no one could find fault with it.

Helan Chushi is a Qianniu of the Eastern Palace, and he will attack Goryeo in the autumn of this year.

Being arranged to train troops outside the city is a reasonable thing no matter how you look at it.

However, Fang Xuanling's habit has always been to anticipate defeat before anticipating victory.

Helan Chushi is indeed a breakthrough point, but it is not the only breakthrough point.

After speculating that Li Anyan might be in collusion with the prince, Fang Xuanling began to investigate the details of Li Anyan.

Hou Junji colluded with the prince through Helan Chushi.

So who did Li Anyan go through?

In fact, this is not difficult to guess.

It is known to everyone that Du He is the prince's confidant.

Du He was the Shangcheng Fengyu and often on duty at the Taiji Palace. He was the only one who had regular contact with the guards around His Majesty.

Fang Xuanling only needed to chat with someone who was also the commander of the imperial guards, and he would get the news that Du He and Li Anyan were familiar with each other.

Then why did Li Anyan betray His Majesty and defect to the Crown Prince?

Just for the sake of following the dragon?

Fang Xuanling secretly launched an investigation into Li Anyan. For him, the prime minister, it was a very simple matter to investigate the situation of a commander of the imperial guards.

By bypassing Hou Junji's Ministry of Personnel, Fang Xuanling could easily obtain information about Li Anyan's family situation.

He was originally an official under the hidden Crown Prince Li Jiancheng, and he and Li Jiancheng were both married to Zheng from Xingyang. This relationship made him Li Jiancheng's close confidant.

After all, the supporters behind the hidden Crown Prince Li Jiancheng are the Five Surnames and Seven Families.

However, the woman Li Anyan married, Zheng of Xingyang, was only a concubine's daughter, while Li Jiancheng was a legitimate son.

After the Xuanwu Gate Incident, Li Anyan was recognized for his loyalty and was appointed as the fourth-rank General of the Left Tunwei.

The income of a fourth-rank official is mainly divided into three parts.

The annual allowance of rice is three hundred dan.

As for land, a fourth-rank official could own 7 hectares of land. The Tang Dynasty stipulated that fields were measured in steps. One step wide and steps long was one mu, and mu was one hectare, which is mu. The land could be rented out or cultivated by the official.

Salary: 3500 coins per month, food and miscellaneous expenses: 700 coins, a total of 4200 coins.

Rice was cheap in Chang'an, with a dou of rice costing only four or five coins. Seven hundred acres of land were rented out to tenants for cultivation, and after paying taxes, the annual income was only 20,000 coins.

After the rice salary was used to cover his daily needs, Li Anyan's annual income was only 70,000 coins.

In other words, even if all miscellaneous expenses were ignored, Li Anyan would need to save for twenty years to be able to buy a house near the imperial city of Chang'an.

But what Fang Xuanling found out was that at the end of the previous year, Li Anyan bought a house in Yongchangfang, near the Eastern Palace.

Fang Xuanling asked about the price of the house, which was more than two million coins.

Where did Li Anyan get so much money?

There is only one possibility, that it was given to him by the prince.

So in the incident two years ago, Li Anyan colluded with the prince through Du He.

The Prince's treasury does not have that much money to spend. After all, if he spent 70,000 coins, he would be impeached by Zhang Xuansu. Where would he get millions of money to buy people's hearts?

But don't forget that there are many treasures in the East Palace. Even a porcelain vase for decoration is specially supplied to the royal family. The chopsticks used for eating may be made of ivory tributed by vassal states. If put on the outside market, their value can easily be hundreds of thousands of coins.

It would be easy to make a few million just by selling some of the equipment in the East Palace.

In order to be cautious, Fang Xuanling secretly checked the treasury of the Eastern Palace.

Sure enough, in the records from the previous year, it was found that the prince was angry and smashed a set of glazed gold bowls, as well as various porcelain bottles.

A rough estimate would be millions of dollars.

This is exactly the case with Li Anyan’s situation.

Is it because Li Anyan is greedy for money?

So you are tempted by money?
Yes or no.

Li Anyan is a filial son. His old father is over 90 years old. Perhaps he wants to provide better living conditions for his father, wife and children.

Yongchangfang is close and can be reached by exiting Yanxi Gate, making it convenient for Li Anyan to visit.

The second is for the future of oneself and one’s offspring.

The prince is the future emperor. As long as he follows the rebellion, he will rise to the top and his descendants will also enjoy wealth and honor.

Considering all factors, it became very reasonable for Li Anyan to collude with the prince to rebel.

If we put ourselves in Fang Xuanling’s shoes, he would also be willing to do the same.

The prince has natural legitimacy. Under normal circumstances, he will be the future heir to the Tang Dynasty. For the sake of their future and future generations, few people can refuse the prince's recruitment.

With these situations in hand, it became a very easy matter for Fang Xuanling to accuse the prince of rebellion.

Fang Xuanling understood human nature, otherwise he would not have been able to recruit so many talents for Li Shimin.

Li Anyan’s weakness is obvious, that is his old father at home.

Through the pressure from his father, Li Anyan would inevitably give in.

Helan Chushi was then interrogated for treason. Given Helan Chushi's situation, Fang Xuanling believed that for the sake of his own future, he would definitely choose to report his father-in-law Hou Junji and the prince for treason.

At this point, the prince's rebellion could be easily confirmed.

In other words, Fang Xuanling is now only one step away from having His Majesty depose the Crown Prince and install the Prince of Wei as the Crown Prince.

But at this final moment, Fang Xuanling hesitated.

The human heart is a very complicated thing.

There is no doubt that Fang Xuanling was a loyal minister.

Loyal to Your Majesty, loyal to the Tang Dynasty.

He also wanted to see a prosperous and long-lasting Tang Dynasty in the future.

Right now, no matter from which angle you look at it, the Crown Prince is more suitable to be the Crown Prince than the King of Wei, and is more suitable to follow Your Majesty and lead the entire Tang Dynasty towards prosperity.

The prince's achievements are really dazzling. Making bamboo paper benefits students all over the world.

Military Academy, a place that strengthened the military power of the Tang Dynasty.

The curved plow brings benefits to all people in the world.

Honeycomb coal enriches the imperial treasury.

Repair the canal and benefit the people of Chang'an.

One thing after another, all the events indicate that the prince is pushing the Tang Dynasty to a new peak.

It may be the most powerful and strongest peak in history, even not inferior to the Qin Emperor and Han Emperor.

I really want to appeal to His Majesty and depose the Crown Prince.

To cut off the peak that the Tang Dynasty might have reached.

Do you really want to bury the future of the Tang Dynasty with your own hands?

Whenever he thought of this incident, Fang Xuanling felt like a sinner, a sinner of the Tang Dynasty.

Every time I come out of Suzaku Gate and return to Wubenfang.

He could hear the people of Chang'an singing praises to the prince's kindness.

As the summer gets hotter, ordinary people can now afford the sweet rice cakes that were once only enjoyed by saints.

On the streets of Chang'an, the air no longer had the stench of previous years, but instead seemed to have a hint of sweetness.

Poor students gathered in groups of three or five, with rosy complexions and cheerful conversation. They no longer had to save money and become starving just to buy a book.

Although he did not see the scene outside Chang'an City, Fang Xuanling could imagine that the people of the Tang Dynasty were pulling the curved plow, easily pushing away the soil, and farming with smiles on their faces.

When the sun sets, you no longer have to feel exhausted like in previous years.

Should such a prince really be deposed?

If I depose the crown prince, will I become a sinner for all eternity?

So, Fang Xuanling hesitated and wavered.

At this final step, I didn’t dare to take another step in.

"Father?"

Fang Yizheng looked at his father who had been silent for a long time and asked with some confusion.

Fang Xuanling came back to his senses and sighed, "Wait a little longer."
-
East Palace, backyard.

Several guards were helping Li Chengqian put on Ming Guang armor.

Ming Guang Armor is the most representative armor of the Tang Dynasty.

Only high-ranking generals or the elite troops of the Tang Dynasty were qualified to wear it.

The chest and back of the Ming Guang Armor are equipped with polished metal round guards, which can effectively resist attacks from cold weapons such as swords, bows and crossbows.

Under the sunlight, the round guard will reflect dazzling light, with a strong visual impact.

However, the production of Ming Guang Armor requires superb skills, and there are strict requirements in every link from metal smelting, forging armor plates to leather processing and armor plate weaving.

Generally speaking, making a set of Ming Guang armor is complicated and time-consuming, usually taking more than two hundred days.

However, the set of Ming Guang armor that Li Chengqian is wearing now only took forty-five days to make.

The first is modular production.

After the standard craftsmanship dimensions were established, each component of the Ming Guang Armor was crafted individually. The time that originally took a craftsman to complete the entire process was broken down into more than a dozen steps.

Because there are standard sizes, each craftsman only needs to create according to the size he is responsible for.

Finally assembling it can speed up the overall progress.

In this aspect alone, the time of Ming Guang Armor is at least shortened by almost half.

Even if there are no improvements in other aspects, the original time of more than 200 days can be shortened to about 100 days.

The second biggest difficulty in making Ming Guang Armor is steel.

After the blast furnace was built and honeycomb coal was used, the production of high-quality steel became easy.

However, at this point, forging becomes a problem.

Manual forging is time-consuming and not only slow, but also has unstable quality that varies from person to person.

When Li Chengqian was thinking about a solution late at night, he thought of the hydraulic forging hammer.

The hydraulic forging hammer can be produced without the technological advances of later generations.

This uses water as the power source. As long as there is a stable supply of water flow, it can continuously generate a large impact force to drive the forging hammer for forging.

Compared with manual forging, the hydraulic forging hammer has greater impact force and can shape and process steel more powerfully.

The production of a hydraulic forging hammer is not complicated. A water reservoir is made, and a device similar to a water wheel is added. Water flows down from a high place to hit the blades or water buckets of the water wheel, making the water wheel turn.

The edge or specific position of the waterwheel is connected to a transmission mechanism that converts the kinetic energy of water into mechanical rotational motion.

After conversion and transmission by the transmission mechanism, the hammer is driven to perform reciprocating motion up and down.

When the hammer rises to a certain height, it has a certain potential energy.

Then, under the action of gravity and the transmission mechanism, the hammer falls rapidly and strikes the steel placed on the anvil.

The hydraulic forging hammer is of great significance. With this thing, combined with coal-fired blast furnace steelmaking,

This means that Li Chengqian can continuously and quickly produce large quantities of stable and high-quality steel.

Not only armor, but also swords and other aspects can be mass-produced.

Each part of the armor, such as the breastplate, back armor, shoulder armor, arm armor, and leg armor, can be quickly formed by a hydraulic forging hammer.

The next step is nail polishing, nail braiding, leather processing and other aspects.

Li Chengqian thought of the sewing machine.

Li Chengqian was naturally familiar with sewing machines. He had one at home when he was a child in his previous life, and he had one in prison when he grew up.

The power source is continuously provided by human pedaling.

Although it is foot-driven, it can save a lot of effort.

The principle is to use a wooden tool, similar to a spinning wheel, which is driven by foot movement to continuously provide a power source.

So the foot-operated grinder could be made.

Polishing the nail tips is a delicate job, and polishing takes a long time, but with a foot-operated grinder, polishing the nail tips becomes simple.

Li Chengqian put on his Ming Guang armor very quickly, thanks to the help of several guards.

After some activities, I feel more flexible.

Although it looks similar to regular Ming Guang armor, there are still big differences if you look closely.

The design of the joints of the armor has been optimized, and more flexible connections are used at the shoulders, elbows, knees and other joints, allowing people to move more freely when wearing the armor.

The armor parts are detachable and use snaps instead of traditional ropes and belts, allowing soldiers to put on and take off the armor more quickly.

This is especially important for marching.

In later film and television dramas, in order to show better effects, when shooting soldiers marching, they are usually shown marching in full armor.

However, in reality, in order to better maintain the physical strength of the soldiers.

When soldiers are marching, they do whatever is comfortable for them and basically do not carry any weight.

It was either hauled by horses or carried by auxiliary soldiers.

Usually one combat soldier is accompanied by two auxiliary soldiers to help carry armor, swords, quilts and other items.

In such a situation, if an ambush occurs, it will obviously be difficult to respond.

This is why ancient armies would be easily defeated and have almost no resistance when they were ambushed during long marches, because the enemy was ambushing in full armor while they had nothing.

The enemy will not give the soldiers a chance to wear armor.

Without armor on the battlefield, even the most elite troops will see their combat effectiveness drop significantly.

Therefore, being able to put on armor quickly is crucial for the army.

"That's right. From now on, the Mingguang armor will be made according to this standard."

Li Chengqian's satisfied words meant that Ming Guang Armor would be produced on a modular assembly line in the future.

A large number of high-quality Ming Guang armor will be produced continuously.

The Tang Dynasty soldiers wearing Ming Guang armor will become the strongest Great Wall.

However, it is still difficult to achieve mass production.

After all, the Eastern Palace has limited craftsmen, so currently they are working on creating this standardized process.

Real large-scale manufacturing requires recruiting more craftsmen and building a Tang Dynasty arms factory.

In addition to the Ming Guang armor, there is also the Mo Dao.

With the help of hydraulic forging hammer, it becomes easier to forge the Mo Dao.

In this era, what does it mean to have a large number of elite cavalrymen wearing Ming Guang armor, holding Mo Dao and carrying powerful crossbows on their waists?
(End of this chapter)