Guo Shao took the things offered by Lu Duoxun and retreated to the Yangde Palace.

At this time, in the Yangde Palace, a woman in her thirties was holding an inkstone in both hands. When Guo Shao wanted to dip the ink, she could hold up the inkstone in time and reach for his hand. Because she always pays attention to Guo Shao's most subtle moves, she can judge when he needs something.

This woman was Li Shanggong, her long light red dress fell to the floor, covering the lower half of her body, and her legs were kneeling on the ground. Although she didn't dare to keep staring at Guo Shao's face, her eyes kept observing Guo Shao's expression. Guo Shao was very attentive, only looking at the picture in front of him and the crumpled paper next to him, ignoring everything.

Li Shanggong's arms were weak, and her knees were painful, but there was another feeling that made her very comfortable. She likes to look at Guo Shao's serious and focused face, and there is an aura on his body that makes Li Shanggong feel very good.

From time to time, she also carefully peeked at the things drawn by Guo Shao, there were lines of mountains and rivers, Li Shanggong didn't understand it very well, but she knew that Guo Shao was thinking about big things...... Anyway, it's completely different from the trivial things in the palace. She looked up to Guo Shao in her heart, and felt that he was very laborious and inexplicably compassionate.

…… At this moment, Guo Shao looked sideways at Li Shanggong, and was stunned for a moment and said, "Aren't you tired kneeling?" Get up. ”

Li Shanggong blurted out: "The concubine is willing to serve His Majesty in body and soul......"

As she spoke, her face turned red and she tilted her head slightly. Guo Shao followed her gaze, and there were three men standing next to her, Wang Pu, Li Gu, and Zuo You. But they were all serious, as if they hadn't heard anything and seen nothing.

Guo Shao put the brush on the inkstone and said: "It is not easy for Lu Duosun to make meritorious contributions, let him be a guest envoy, come to the cabinet study, and add an auxiliary minister; The guest provincial envoy Zan Jurun is a waiter of the Ministry of Reform, who is still the chief of the army, and he also came to the cabinet to add an auxiliary minister. ”

Zuo Yu hurriedly said: "Huh." ”

The other two were silent, because the cabinet was added by Guo Shao not long ago, and it has not yet formed a formal pattern, and now I don't know what the yamen is in charge of, anyway, the Privy Council and the political hall can't control it.

Guo Shao pondered for a moment, and then said: "I want Zuo You to change the waiter of the Ministry of Rites and the waiter of Huang Binglian's Supplementary Punishment Department." Li Gong (Li Gu) asked in the political affairs hall, if everyone felt that there was nothing wrong, they would do these things. ”

Li Gu said: "The minister obeys the order." ”

Zuo You hurriedly knelt on the ground and bowed: "Thank you, Your Majesty." ”

Guo Shaodao: "There has always been a shortage of people in the political hall, and the princes are overworked. It's also a good thing that the two of you usually help the prime ministers do something. ”

He added, "This picture needs to be repaired, and you will come back tomorrow." ”

When the three of them heard this, they bowed and said, "The ministers are leaving." ”

They walked out of the Yangde Palace, and when they walked to a corridor, Li Gu arched and said, "Congratulations to Zuo Shilang for his promotion!" ”

Zuo Yu hurriedly bowed: "Where, where." We should congratulate Huang Fuzheng (Huang Binglian), Huang Fuzheng is really promoted. Xia Guan was originally the Shaoqing of Taichang Temple, and he was the waiter of the Ministry of Rites, even if he was transferred to another position, where could he be congratulated by Li Gonghe......"

Wang Pu raised his head and said coldly in front of him: "It's just a matter of Tongping Zhang." ”

Zuo You suddenly stopped talking, and when he looked at Li Gu, Li Gu smiled and stopped talking.

The three of them continued to walk forward, Zuo You kept pondering in his heart, the emperor's understatement just now was really meaningful...... As Wang Pu said, Zuo You and Huang Binglian are auxiliary ministers of the cabinet and lead the six ministers, if they add another Tongping Zhangshi, what is the difference between them and the prime minister? The emperor seems to have arranged for both of them as prime ministers from the beginning.

Guo Shao really needs the prime minister.

After Feng Dao died, there were three prime ministers left in the court, Wang Pu, Li Gu, and Fan Zhen, and Fan Zhen still made the emperor unhappy from time to time. The prime minister can't just drag a person to get on it, and ordinary people can't control hundreds of officials.

To add a prime minister, a person like Zuo You, who is trusted by the emperor and is familiar with the constitution and government affairs in the cabinet, is indeed the best candidate.

Thinking of this, Zuo You's eyes became even more attentive. Still, he looked humble and serious, trying not to show his excitement. Zuo Youxin said: If you want to be the prime minister, of course, you must be happy and not show your color!

Worship the prime minister, and the world does what they dream of. Zuo You thought that he was a petty official a few years ago, but now he is in his twenties and has to pay homage to the prime minister, and the feeling of smoke from the ancestral tomb is difficult to describe.

At this time, Wang Pu suddenly turned around and said: "Today, the country is like the rising sun, and you want to become famous ministers in history, and it is a good time." ”

……

Taking advantage of the fact that the foreign ministers left the Yangde Palace, Li Shanggong got a bowl of white fungus and red date soup out of nowhere. She stirred with a silver spoon while gently blowing the soup.

Guo Shao was sitting on the couch and pondering, and he didn't do anything for the time being. But in the afterglow, he saw Li Shanggong in the back of the side, tasted the soup lightly, and then brought it up. Her cheeks flushed, and she quietly turned the bowl in a slight direction, and brought the place where she had drunk to Guo Shao.

Guo Shao pretended not to know, but when he raised his eyes and looked at her face, he saw Li Shanggong pretending to be nothing, but his face was flushed.

The woman was in her thirties, but she was making small gestures. However, Guo Shao was not disgusted, but felt very comfortable and relaxed. Although it is a master-servant relationship, getting along day and night has the same feeling of being taken care of by his sister at home, which makes Guo Shao very useful.

Li Shanggong is not very beautiful, and it seems that the palace maids don't like her very much. But Guo Shao looked at her very pleasing to the eye...... In fact, after being familiar with a woman, as long as it is not too ugly, appearance is not particularly important.

Guo Shao picked it up, looked at the thin white and delicate bowl, there was a faint carmine remaining, and put the position to his mouth and took a small sip. Then when she paid attention to Li Shanggong, she pursed her lips and tried her best not to laugh.

Guo Shao didn't break it, picked up the sterling silver spoon and stirred it twice in the bowl, and found that the dates inside had been peeled and touched, which was really not easy, and it was very fine.

White fungus soup, something that Guo Shao was originally familiar with, can be drunk casually for three or two yuan a bowl on the roadside in later generations! But here, proper luxury, it is said to be more expensive than gold.

He immediately said, "Call the people in the palace, don't give me this kind of thing in the future." No matter how expensive things are, you can't grow a few catties of fat after eating, and there are still many places where the country has to spend money. ”

Li Shanggong was slightly aggrieved and said, "Your Majesty...... The concubine is in accordance with His Majesty's will. ”

She added: "Although the concubine doesn't understand what His Majesty is drawing, she feels that Your Majesty is hard...... I feel sorry for Your Majesty. With that, he put his head over and looked at the picture.

Looking at what he said, Guo Shao almost fell in love with her.

…… Guo Shao didn't tell her what she had drawn, just looking at the things on the picture. A map centered on the Hexi Corridor with a scale is inaccurate, as the information Lu Duosun brought back is not detailed.

On the west side is the Western Regions, which is roughly the area of "Xinjiang", in which there are many forces, the larger ones are the nine surnamed Wuhu, the Khotanese Tocharians, the Xizhou Uighurs, the Qarluq, the Turgish and other tribes. There is only one name, and Guo Shao has never seen them, so he basically doesn't know who they are...... Only the Uighurs had some idea, and the Uighurs were the same as the Uighurs who threatened the Tang Dynasty in the early Tang Dynasty.

The Hexi Corridor is the passage leading to Longyou and other places in the Western Regions, and it is also the richest area with abundant water and grass. It is surrounded by mountains on the north and south sides, and the desert on the north side is rarely inhabited; To the south is the Qilian Mountains. To the south of the Qilian Mountains, the west is the Tubo Achai tribe, and the east is the Tubo Tusi Ma tribe.

The majority of the Han population in the Hexi Corridor benefited from the expansion of the military tun that began during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, but the Han regime only occupied the western Gua and Sha areas, that is, the Guiyi Army. The central region was occupied by the Uighurs, called the Ganzhou Uighurs; Liangzhou in the west is controlled by the two tribes of Tibet, the Liugu Department and the Zheqi clan.

The corridor goes east into the Wusheling Ridge, which is Longyou. The Yellow River Hetao "several" shaped area.

In the western part of Longyou, the Central Plains Dynasty has completely lost this area, and the Tubo Tuosi Ma Department and the Party are active in the meantime, and only the Lingzhou Shuofang Jiedu in the north has the "Western Set" Yinchuan Plain.

Further east, south is Guanzhong, which is the territory of Dazhou. To the north is Xiazhou and other places, the territory of the Li family of the Dangxiang Tuoba clan, and then to the north is the "East Set" area in the south of Yinshan, which has entered the territory of Liao.

A lot of the information is very sketchy, but Guo Shao has done a good job of filling in the gaps in the western part of the territory.

Now he could at least get a rough idea of what was going on to the west of his country...... The situation is a mess!

In addition to the various barbarian tribes with intertwined and complex forces, even the internal northwest feudal towns are also semi-independent, such as the Zhe family in Guanzhong, the Feng family in Lingzhou, and the Tiangao Emperor Yuan, it is difficult to say whether he will be edicted or not, anyway, he nominally accepts the official gift from the imperial court; Only Wang Jing's father and son in Qinzhou, although they were also feudal towns, but they fought side by side with Guo Shao, and they were very supportive of Guo Shao's regime.

"Alas!" Guo Shao threw the brush on the inkstone, reached out and rubbed it at his temples, and closed his eyes.

Not only are the forces complex, but the relationships are also very complex. He thought about it for a long time, and finally grabbed two threads from this mess: it was his temporary goal for the northwest.

First, expand the war horse.

Second, it is necessary to prevent rebellion in the western region and contain the armed forces that restrain the state at a critical moment.

He thought about these two goals, and soon thought of the land in Xiazhou...... The foundation of the Western Xia Dynasty!

Guo Shao opened his eyes and remembered that Wang Pujin had dedicated the files of Xiazhou and other four states, so he found them on the table and looked at them. He knew the general direction, probably the southern part of the Yellow River Loop and south of Ordos, where there might be plains, plateaus, hills and ravines, and other terrain.

This land must be a huge hidden danger, and in history, neither the Northern Song Dynasty nor the Liao Kingdom could do anything about them. Hanging over Guanzhong's head, the threat to Da Zhou is also great.

Guo Shao decided to learn as much as possible about the party area in Xiazhou before making a decision.

...............................