After Li Ze left Wuyi, he did not go directly to Luoyang.

After Cao Xuan was defeated by Liu Chenglin in Changyuan, he retreated to Bianzhou. But he didn't hold out for long in Bianzhou, as Liu Ruyan took Xuchang, Tian Ping occupied Huazhou, You Yong and Liu Chenglin's two defense coalition forces approached Bianzhou, and Bianzhou was completely undefendable. After a little resistance, Cao Xuan led the remnants of the main force to retreat to Luoyang.

At this point, most of Henan has basically fallen into the hands of the Tang army. After the right guard led by Shi Zhuang broke through Shaanzhou, Luoyang had already shown a siege on three sides.

The Liang army, which was already becoming increasingly weak, under the command of the Luoyang defender Xu Fu, gathered 100,000 defenders, including Cao Xuan, and prepared for a decisive battle with the Tang army in Luoyang.

In this battle, the troops gathered by both sides exceeded 200,000 troops, which was a rare large-scale military confrontation in recent years.

He knows very well where his strengths are, going to Luoyang, the biggest function is to boost morale, such a large-scale war, he has never experienced, let alone commanded, he went early, but let the front-line generals tie their hands, ask for instructions on everything, report everything, but it is not beautiful.

He still remembers the joke he made when he ambushed Suning to assassinate his cavalry unit in Daqingshan, and since then, he knows that the confrontation between the two armies is far from being as simple as he thought. Although I have read a lot of military books, talking about soldiers on paper and actually commanding are completely different things.

Since you're not good at it, it's better to be a bystander, and when you need to cheer on the drums, it's good to appear on the battlefield at the right time.

What you have to do is to manage people well, use good people, and that's it.

So out of Wuyi, he went straight to Shandong, he was going to take this opportunity to take a good look at the territories that were newly under his rule, Shandong was the first stop, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, he had to go through it, and finally arrived at the real destination, Luoyang.

Anyway, hundreds of thousands of troops are facing each other, not to mention that they can be fought, and it will take a long time just for the military deployment of the two sides to fight wits and courage.

Shandong has been under the rule of Zhang Xunzhi for more than two years, and the momentum of development is still good. This made Li Ze quite satisfied with the former personal confidential secretary, and the people who came out of his side came down to do practical things, if he didn't do it well, his face would be dull.

And Zhang Xun also regarded Li Ze's inspection as a big test for himself, and after Li Ze left Qingzhou, he divided the escort army into two waves, one wave in front of the road, and one wave in the back, the front and back were separated by about ten miles, and there were only a dozen elite personal guards by their side, quite in the name of a private visit, which made Zhang Xun still a little worried.

But his objection was invalid.

"Don't worry, under the rule of your Governor Zhang, it will be difficult for the sky to be daylight, and someone will be able to attack me?" Li Ze said with a smile.

"I'm still a little worried." Zhang Xun said honestly: "Although Shandong has developed very well in the past two years, there are still bandits entrenched in the deep mountains and old forests who are reluctant to come out. Among them, some of them are used to being the king of the mountain and are unwilling to make money honestly, while some are afraid of the battles they have fought over the years and are willing to hide in the mountains. The latter kind of people are just fine, and the former kind of people are really some outlaws, who can do anything. ”

"How do you deal with these two types of people?" Li Ze asked with interest.

"There is nothing to say about the former kind of people, they can only be exterminated by force, but the places where they are located are mostly easy to defend and difficult to attack, and more importantly, it is difficult to find their people, as soon as the troops pass, they disappear without a trace, and as soon as the troops leave, they appear again. It's a real headache. For the latter kind of people, we just send people up the mountain to persuade them, and try to find some of their relatives and friends to persuade them to come down the mountain. "Chapter Follower.

Li Ze nodded, he knew that such some bandits with a stubborn nature were indeed difficult to deal with. It is not worth the dispatch of a large army, it is not cost-effective at all, and a small force cannot take advantage of it, and it is a headache to be disadvantaged.

However, as Shandong's development is getting better and better, these people's lives are getting more and more difficult. In another two years, it may disappear. Speaking of this, Zhang Xun became excited again: "The life of the people under the mountain is getting better and better, and the people who are willing to go up the mountain to be bandits are basically gone, and they have no source of soldiers." Even the original ones, there are more and more people who secretly escape down the mountain, like the largest group of bandits entrenched in Liangshan, according to the latest intelligence, they now only have a thousand people left. We have designed a lot of stuck points around the area, but whenever they have any signs of going out of the mountain, they can send a message immediately. And now, the civil defense in various places has also become more and more perfect, a large number of retired soldiers have been organized to carry out a certain amount of military training in the agricultural slack, once there is something, they can be a village, a town and a county of rapid assembly, Liangshan bandits have gone down the mountain many times, but they are concentrated in the time when we have just occupied the whole of Shandong, in the past year, they only went down the mountain twice, attacked our two villages, but under the resistance of the militia in the village, the rapid support of the surrounding villages and the rapid attack of the county garrison, They all went away in big defeats. ”

"Life is better, naturally no one wants to be a bandit." Li Ze smiled, but he thought that Liangshan had really been a good place for bandits to entrench since ancient times, but I didn't know if there would be a hundred and eight heroes of the Liangshan faction in the future. However, as long as the new dynasty built by himself can be passed on forever, there is a high probability that these heroes will become law-abiding good people.

"Therefore, the economy and people's livelihood still come first." Zhang Xun nodded and said: "Everyone yearns for a peaceful life, but if you want to live such a life, you must first have money." ”

"Very well-said, Shandong has a governor like you, and I think the time is not far off for them to live a really good life." Li Ze stroked his palms and sighed.

"If you want to reach the living standard of the people of Wuyi, you need at least ten years of operation." Thinking of the prosperity of Wuyi, Zhang Xun shook his head.

"Take your time, once this world is truly peaceful and the people are truly enlightened, the energy they can burst out is unimaginable. And the government only needs to do a good job of active guidance, and that's it. Li Zedao: "The prosperity of Wuyi is because it is now our political center, and it can be regarded as a commercial center, where a large number of rich people gather, money comes easily, and the standard of living naturally improves quickly, but the real root is still in the crops harvested by a knife, or in those workshops that work several shifts day and night, or in the merchants who come and go from the south to the north, or on the fleets that sail to foreign lands without fear of wind and waves, and also in the sound of Langlang reading in those schools." ”

Li Xiang said very well. If you want the building to withstand the storm, you have to build a solid foundation. Zhang Xundao: "The minister is willing to ram this foundation to incomparably solid for Li Xiang. ”

Li Ze patted Zhang Xun's shoulder and nodded.

"Conquering this world is just the first step. Governing the world is the real problem, and it is even more difficult to maintain the good momentum. Li Zedao: "Zhang Xun, I think you are also very clear now, I, Li, have made up my mind to stand on behalf of Tang, because I think that I can better govern the world and make the people live a better life." ”

"Li Xiang should have made this decision a long time ago." Zhang Xun smiled: "This is the responsibility entrusted to you by God. ”

"I never doubted that I could easily dominate the world, but as the pace grew faster and closer, I became more and more distressed. Which of the founding emperors of the past dynasties was not wise and martial? Didn't that one recuperate immediately after ascending to the top? But in the future, it is always impossible to avoid the tragedy of generation after generation, and eventually the dynasty embarked on the road of collapse, since the Han Dynasty, there is no such historical cycle that can be avoided, how can we achieve long-term peace and stability, so that it will be passed on forever? Li Zedao.

Zhang Xun opened his mouth, and many answers flashed through his mind in an instant, but all of them were denied one by one, those answers have been experimented with in all dynasties, but they can't change this ending. He had never thought of such a far-reaching question, and for a moment, he couldn't even answer it.

Seeing that Zhang Xun became dumb, Li Ze smiled: "You don't have to answer this question right away, think about it, we still have decades to think about it and do it in the future, the same question, I also asked the heads of the Yixing Society like Yang Kai and Cao Zhang, and I also assigned them relevant tasks." This time, I will also ask Chen Wenliang, Xu Xiang and others, you are the backbone of the next new dynasty, you are all a new generation of senior officials who have received years of education in Wuwei Academy, or, can you give me a new answer, like your father, Cao Xin, and those in power of the older generation in Wuyi, they can't give a solution to this problem. ”

"Li Xiang, I will think about this seriously." Chapter Follower.

"In all dynasties, every founding emperor has thought about this problem, but in the end it has not been solved, and I hope that we can finally solve this problem." Li Ze took a deep breath.

Zhang Xun didn't echo it, he only thought about this question superficially, and felt that the topic was too big and too difficult.

Li Ze turned his head to look out the window, there were still golden wheat waves undulating in the wind, but there were very few heads in the field.

Zhang Xun also noticed this and explained: "Li Xiang, the mutual aid group organized by the Yixing Society can only help harvest one place at a time. But rest assured, the support group will definitely hurry up and help complete the harvest of autumn grain. ”