The news of the Sui Dynasty's troubles soon spread to Xiangyang, which made Li Yuan move the idea of opening a branch to take scholars, and discussed with Li Jiancheng and the ministers in the political hall.

At this time, Li Yuan said: "Everyone, Yang Tong can open a science and get scholars, but my Datang has not moved for a long time, resulting in all the talents in the world being owned by the Sui Dynasty, I just thought, can't I Datang?" ”

Since Yang Tong raised his prestige outside the territory, recovered and merged states, and the Great Sui Dynasty gradually became stronger, the attraction of various forces to the talents of the poor family was not as good as before, that is, because Yang Tong was the enemy of the Shi clan in the world, the Kwantung Shi clan and the southern Shi clan came to defect one after another, and the arrival of these people did strengthen the momentum of the Li Tang Dynasty. What's worse is that these scholars are obviously also worried that Li Yuan, like Yang Tong, will suppress the scholars. As the number of official positions occupied by the scholars increased, they united with the Guanlong nobles to squeeze out and suppress the Han scholars.

He now somewhat understands why Li Jiancheng said that he couldn't win Xue Ju in a battle, so he truce to promote the imperial examination, if the officials of the Han scholars are less than forty percent, Li Tang is not only difficult to compete with the Sui Dynasty militarily, but also constantly weakened in terms of autonomy, take the current Li Tang Dynasty as an example, even if he Li Yuan wants to return to the Sui Dynasty, few of these big men are willing.

Take the Tu clan as an example, there are many outstanding children who died at the hands of the Sui Dynasty, and now they are donating more than ninety percent of their property, why? Naturally, it is hoped that the Li Tang Dynasty will defeat the Sui Dynasty and one day be able to take revenge and obtain high returns.

There are a lot of such families in Li Tang, especially after Yang Tong assassinated Li Mi officials and cleaned up a lot of scholars who abused him by the way, there are even more people with such thoughts, so even if Li Yuan really wants to return to obedience, it is no longer possible, I thought that it was a good thing for many scholars to return to Tang, but now it seems that Li Jiancheng had expected it back then.

Therefore, Li Yuan's idea was to take advantage of the purge of the Guanlong nobles to assign the vacated positions to the Han scholars, so that the court could be balanced. The key is that Li Yuan's Li Tang Dynasty has been hit hard, he hopes that the local people will be stable, and he wants the people under his rule to promote the good of the Li Tang Dynasty in various places, so the imperial examination has become Li Yuan's best choice.

"Father, never allow." Without waiting for everyone to send their opinions, Li Jiancheng spoke out against it: "Father, Yang Tong has made the imperial examination deeply rooted in the hearts of the people over the years, and there are thousands of scholars making trouble, it can be seen that the imperial examination is not handled well, it will arouse public anger at the lightest, and the world will be turbulent at worst, so it can be seen that the imperial examination is not open if you want to." ”

Li Jiancheng did advocate the opening of the department before that. He believes that Yang Guang was able to make the Taiyuan Wang clan, Xingyang Zheng clan and other scholars have to bow their heads, and the key is in the imperial examination.

Han Shi regarded the imperial examination as embarking on the road to Qingyun, in order to protect their rights, they naturally united to confront the famous family, and there was no need for Yang Guang to persuade the famous family to give in, and he didn't need to worry about the Kwantung family, he knew that the person who could fight against the famous family was not him Yang Guang, but the thousands of Han sons of the Great Sui. If he hadn't cleaned up the Guanlong nobles and carried out big projects everywhere and lost the hearts of the people, how could there be any troubled times?

Seeing that the Tang Dynasty was following Yang Jian's old path, Li Jiancheng was anxious and suggested that his father and emperor should fight for world dominance and use the war to reduce the control of the Guanlong nobles over the army; On the one hand, he imitated Yang Dong and used the imperial examination to balance the large number of official positions occupied by the Kwantung scholars, anyway, there was Yang Tongla's hatred, and even if there was a certain amount of turmoil in the Tang Dynasty, it would not be too serious.

His father was worried about annoying the Guanlong nobles and many Kwantung clans who supported him, and planned to take the imperial examination after pacifying the world to gather talents from all over the world, but the Li Tang Dynasty not only did not pacify the world, but instead made the territory smaller and smaller, and it was even difficult to survive. However, Li Yuan wanted to carry out the imperial examination when the army of the Guanlong nobles had not yet been cleaned up, which simply shocked Li Jiancheng.

Even a stable Great Sui Dynasty is not enough for Yang Guang to toss so much, and if Li Tang, who is in danger, engages in the Guanlong aristocracy while using the imperial examination to engage in the Kwantung Shi clan, he will be finished immediately. Therefore, when Li Jiancheng heard his father's words, he was almost stunned.

"Didn't you advocate for a bachelor's degree before? Why oppose it now? Li Yuan was a little puzzled.

"Father, how can this be the same? In the past, my Tang Dynasty had a solid foundation, and its momentum was the same, even Yang Tong was also very inferior, and now my Tang Dynasty is different from heaven and earth compared to the beginning. At this time, if we open a branch and move the interests of officials in various places, this will not only not help the stability of our Tang Dynasty, but will cause great turmoil. ”

"Holy Lord, Weichen agrees with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince." Xiao Yu stood up at this time and saluted: "The imperial examination is not an easy task, it is related to the interests of too many people. Yang Tong obviously failed to deal with the entanglement of interests this time, which led to the Shizi riot. As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning, my Datang has never opened a department, if I start it rashly, I am afraid that there will be more entanglements that will not be noticed. If the Holy Lord has the intention to hold the imperial examination, then he must start preparing now, and he will hold it again and again, and only when he is well prepared can he be beneficial and harmless. ”

"That's it, let's put aside the imperial examination for the time being." Although Li Yuan was extremely uncomfortable in his heart, what happened in the Sui Dynasty also made him realize that the hasty opening of the imperial examination would only bring endless trouble, and if he was not careful, the imperial examination would become the last straw that overwhelmed the Tang Dynasty.

What makes him feel even more depressed is that the people he relies on have shown a trend of frustration and decadence, and they have all lost the 'vitality' when they entered the Guanzhong, and what he needs most now is to use a big victory to boost the downturn of the Tang Dynasty, and even want to agree to Li Shimin's request, abandon the Hanshui defense line, raise the troops of the Li Tang Dynasty, and take the initiative to launch a big war against the Sui Dynasty. However, Xiangyang still has the big trouble of the Beizhen Army, and the counterinsurgency has been in a stalemate.

Li Yuan also understands the difficulties faced by Li Shimin, who is responsible for annihilating the Beizhen Army, last year's fiasco in the Eastern Expedition made the morale of the Tang Army low, if Li Shimin rashly fought against the Beizhen Army comparable to the Xiaoguo Army, once it failed again, the Tang Army may collapse, and what made Li Shimin even more embarrassed was that not only to annihilate the Beizhen Army, but also to win easily, the Tang Dynasty could not afford a bigger loss, and on the premise that there was no six or seven percent certainty, Li Shimin did not dare to let go, and the Beizhen Army was a helpless lone army, At this time, it is better to send a small force to harass it, try to destroy its food and grass, and when it falls into a situation where there is no food to eat, it will collapse internally. Therefore, Li Yuan agreed with Li Shimin's suggestion and was not in a hurry to fight a decisive battle, and the decadent situation of the court's powerlessness and resignation to fate also made Li Yuan almost go crazy.

finally thought of using the imperial examination to reverse the decline, but the Luoyang Shizi riot poured a basin of cold water on him, Li Yuan couldn't help but let out a long sigh, and changed the topic and asked, "What is Yang Tong's recent movement?" ”

"Yang Tong has already returned to Luoyang, except for the necessary soldiers and horses, the other armies have begun to withdraw from Huaiyang, and many of them are marching in the direction of Nanyang and Nanjun. After Qin Qiong and Zhang Zhenzhou annihilated Lin Shihong, they led an army of 100,000 to assemble in Dongyang and prepare for a decisive battle with Meng Haigong and Feng An's allied forces. It seems that it is intended to unify the south, and the battle of Sui and Tang should not be launched in a short time. Liu Wenjing replied.

Li Yuan smiled bitterly, Meng Haigong and Feng An's coalition army was as high as 250,000, Qin Qiong and Zhang Zhenzhou only had 100,000 people, but Yang Tong was as stable as Mount Tai, and did not send troops south, but continued to send troops to the Sui and Tang borders, which shows that Yang Tong did not take the coalition army in his eyes, and when he left Luoyang again, I am afraid it will be the time for the Sui and Tang wars to break out.

"Shengshang, the counties of Jingbei account for too many of our troops, and we defend everywhere, but the defense seems weak everywhere, if the Sui army completes the layout and launches an attack from all sections, we will not be able to defend it. When Fang Xuanling sent an envoy to Xiangyang, didn't he ask us to exchange Jingbei for a one-year truce? According to Weichen's opinion, he simply promised them that they would move the capital and people to Yizhou as soon as possible, and resist the Sui army by virtue of the dangers of mountains and rivers. In the past, he and Dugu were afraid that the war would affect their interests in Yizhou, and they opposed moving the capital, but when he decided to be completely loyal to the Li Tang Dynasty, his mentality changed, and he hoped that Li Tang would preserve his vitality, defend against the danger, and then play with the Sui army.

Li Yuan was speechless when he heard this, it was not easy for him to move the capital at this moment.

It's okay to move the capital, but moving people is not a trivial matter, not to mention the cost of moving people to eat food and grass, how many people died on the way? Moreover, with such a desperate approach, once the danger of mountains and rivers was difficult to resist the Sui army, he didn't even have a deep place, so he could only resist Yang Tong. What's more, there are still 30,000 rebels in Xiangyang, and when they are not destroyed, didn't moving the capital give them the opportunity to raid? In addition, there are many troops on the Hanshui defense line, if they withdraw, everything will be chaotic, how could the Sui army let go of such a good opportunity? There is also the upcoming Tubo cavalry, which is good at fighting in the plains, and when it comes to Yizhou, where the mountains and rivers are crisscrossed, ten percent of the combat strength will be cut in half, so do you only let them defend the plains of the land of abundance?

Speaking of which, it was still Dou Liang who didn't know what was going on at the beginning, and he was in charge of Dugu and opposed the relocation of the capital, if only the Dugu faction opposed it before, he would now be in Chengdu.

Glancing at Dou Liang, Li Yuan shook his head and said: "It's not what it used to be, Yang Tong used to fight with Li Mi, for fear of being attacked on both sides, so he had to make a truce with us, but Li Mi didn't cause him any trouble, and he was annihilated so quickly." My Datang has become one of the few enemies of Yang Tong, and sooner or later the war will happen, how can he bring up the truce again at this time? ”

When Dou Liang heard this, he didn't say anything more.

Li Yuan changed the topic and said: "In today's situation, Yang Tong is no longer comparable to my Tang Dynasty, so it is better to ......"

A guard rushed over with a solemn face: "Holy Lord, the big thing is not good!" The North Town Army has sent troops! ”

"What the hell is going on?" Li Yuan frowned and asked in a deep voice.

"Back to the saint, early this morning, the Beizhen Army quietly led the army to Gucheng County through the fog. The defenders were not prepared, and the county seat was broken by Dugu Yanyun, and the garrison of our army in Gucheng County suffered heavy casualties, Li Xiaotong desperately fought out of the encirclement, and fled to Yincheng County through the fog, and now Dugu Yanyun has led the army to threaten Yincheng County, General Liu Hongji sent people to send letters in succession, asking the saint to make a quick decision. The guard finished his sentence in one breath and gasped hard.

"What a treacherous Dugu Yanyun, at this time, do you still want to cooperate with the Sui army?" Li Yuan was shocked and angry, and stood up with a slap on the table.

The Sui army is now already sweeping, Li Yuan has built the Hanshui defense line with heavy troops, and the Yincheng County guarded by Liu Hongji is an important node, if the Beizhen army breaks Liu Hongji, the Sui army on the other side will continue to cross the Han River and besiege Xiangyang City.

"Holy!" Liu Wenjing frowned and said: "That Dugu Yanyun, I'm afraid he wants to take advantage of the fact that the imperial court is now focused on pacifying the rebellious people and is unable to conquer, take the first step and occupy Yincheng County, so as to force the imperial court to make concessions." Otherwise, it will be in harmony with the Sui army. ”

"I don't have a lot of ability, but I don't have a small appetite. Since they dare to tear their faces and make a move to the imperial court, I don't want to drag it down with the Guanlong nobles. Li Yuan snorted coldly: "Pass my military order, order Liu Hongji to choose the opportunity to attack the Beizhen Army, order Dou Cong to lead the army to send troops from Xiangyang, and order Zhang Shigui to send troops from Junyang to attack the Beizhen Army together, no need to scruple, give me a hard beating!" ”

"Whoa!" The guard nodded in agreement and went to give the order.

Liu Wenjing's heart moved, and he smiled: "Shengshang, the Sui army has not yet reached the momentum of encirclement, if we can hit the Beizhen army hard in this battle, our army can not only annihilate the internal thieves, but also take this opportunity to kill Nanyang, if we can take this opportunity to occupy Nanyang County in one fell swoop, these three armies can unite with the Lingling army and attack the Xinye Sui army left and right." At the same time, the King of Jin can enter Nanjun, and the odds of victory are very great. ”

Li Yuan's eyes flickered and he didn't say anything, this is also the strategy that Li Shimin set for him at the beginning, originally he was worried about the prestige of the Sui army, so he finally took the Guanlong nobles to open the knife, seeing that the Sui Dynasty destroyed Li Mi, and the Beizhen army rebelled, so he didn't dare to move again. Since Liu Wenjing also had this intention, and it was difficult for the army on the Hanshui defense line to retreat, why should he hide it? If he can take the opportunity to eat Yang Shanhui's Xinye Sui army and occupy Nanjun, he will not only have bargaining chips with the Sui army, but also boost morale and move the capital in a victorious posture, so that he can also go convincingly. Of course, the key to this battle is to quickly deal with the Beizhen army, and then give him a heavy blow to the Sui army who is sitting on the mountain watching the tiger fight.

"Pass the order, let Xiaogong be ready to cooperate with the battle, let the people prepare the army, and once the Beizhen army is annihilated, immediately kill to Nanjun." At this moment, Li Yuan finally showed the courage of the emperor and continued: "All the prime ministers, perform their duties, let the imperial court prepare to move the capital, and at the same time transport a dry of materials into Badong, giving the Sui Dynasty a trend of moving the capital, so that the Sui Dynasty thinks that we dare not fight with the Sui army and is forced to move the capital." ”

"Whoa." Everyone retreated.

When the prime ministers retreated, Li Jiancheng saluted and said, "Father, the sons have a little idea about the imperial examination. ”

"Say it!"

"Father, the son thinks that the risk of the imperial examination is indeed relatively large, and it will inevitably touch the interests of many people, didn't the father find out that except for Liu Xiang, in fact, he is all against it for the sake of opposition?" Li Jiancheng pointed out that it was naturally Dou Liang and others.

"The purpose of the imperial examination is to select officials for the imperial court, which is the most fundamental interest, and my Tang Dynasty has a lot of power, unlike Yang Tong's pure, and it will inevitably be very resistant to opening a branch to take scholars, so I denied your idea at the beginning, and said that before the unification of the world, the imperial examination will not be carried out, so as to ensure the interests of the Guanlong nobles, the Guandong scholars, and the southern scholars, so as to obtain their full support. But now, the Guanlong aristocracy, the biggest opposition group, has turned against the imperial court, and it doesn't matter whether they oppose it or not. That's why I had the idea of opening a science and taking a doctor. Li Yuan sighed and said, "I never thought that the Tang Dynasty had reached this point, and they were still scheming with the imperial court. ”

Li Jiancheng didn't want his father to have a grudge against the prime ministers at this time, causing the monarch and ministers to be suspicious, so he said: "Father, the opposite is right, it can't be said that they are selfish, but my Tang Dynasty is now in a state of weakness, and if there is another rebellion of scholars, it will be a big disappointment." It's just that they didn't think deeply about the problems that existed in the imperial examination, and this person gave people a sense of selfishness. ”

"The emperor has a point." Li Yuan was moved by his son's words, and his words went straight to the root of the problem, which made Li Yuan suddenly enlightened, he nodded approvingly, and asked again: "How do you plan to open a department?" ”

Li Jiancheng arched his hand and said: "Although Yang Tong's imperial examination, although countless people participate in it every time, the officials he directly appoints each time are only 100; There are also some people who can choose to go to the army as civilian officials to help the army keep accounts and pay them; And the vast majority of scholars will enter the Sui Dynasty Academy to study. During the three years of studying, not only was the food and lodging free, but also the compensation was four buckets of rice and three yuan per month. For the children of poor families, not only does it not cost money to study, but they can also support their families, and if they save money, they can take home more than half of their money and food, which has a huge attraction. ”

Li Yuan understood what Li Jiancheng meant, and said with a smile: "You mean to say that as long as there are not many people who are out of office, just serving as some adjutants who have no actual power, this will not touch their interests, and naturally no one will oppose the imperial examination, isn't it?" ”

"Exactly." Li Jiancheng said: "Not long ago, Shimin and Xiaogong wrote a letter, saying that many children of families who originally served in the army were afraid of death and could not endure hardships, so they resigned from their posts for various reasons, resulting in a serious shortage of Chinese personnel in the army. So they asked their sons for civilian personnel. The family does not look at the military Chinese position, but it cannot be left unmanned, we appoint Han Shi to serve in the army, what reason do they have to object? If they oppose it, then let their children do it. ”

"The emperor has a good idea." Li Yuan said approvingly that the purpose of his imperial examination was to let the people under his rule publicize him and praise him, and as for what position Han Shi should hold, it was not within his consideration.

Li Jiancheng came up with the employment of people, and before satisfying his wishes, he neither let him go back on his word, nor touched the interests of various family lords, and he could also solve the troubles of not having a civilian position in the army, which can be described as killing multiple birds with one stone.

Li Jiancheng said with a smile: "As long as everyone's interests are guaranteed, Erchen thinks that the imperial examination can be held." However, it is necessary to communicate with them in advance, lest they be afraid of the imperial examination like a tiger and deviate from the imperial court. ”

"The emperor's suggestion is very good, so let's do it." Li Jiancheng untied a knot in Li Yuan's heart, which made his mood much better. Li Yuan looked at the humble and respectful eldest son, and said with emotion: "I am old, and everything has not gone well all these years, I am exhausted, I don't have the energy to take care of everything, the emperor will take the initiative in the future, don't always be like this without his own opinions." ”

As the crown prince of the Li Tang Dynasty, Li Jiancheng was in an embarrassing situation where his father was worried and suspicious, and his brother was a thorn in his side, so he has been hiding his personality and being obedient everywhere all these years. Most of them carry out their father's instructions, and even if there are arguments, they are on the facts, and rarely take the initiative to have their own opinions. Because of this, he won Li Yuan's trust.

"Whoa." Li Jiancheng responded respectfully.