The imperial capital of Hanjing, Ziwei Palace, Imperial Book Garden. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

"Teacher, are we really going to take over this prince?" In the plum garden in the imperial garden, the plum blossoms are just right, and the dark fragrance floats. The emperor specially asked the eight kings to enjoy the plum together.

Walking in this plum garden, the kings had different thoughts.

Just now in the imperial study, the emperor has announced that in three days, he will hold a canonization ceremony for the eight heroes of the king's title at Zetianmen, and give them the king's seal and the territory map. And he then announced that Li Shentong, the king of Huai'an, and Li Daozong, the king of Jiangxia, would be demoted to the rank of prince of the county. These two are already in the Tang Dynasty, except for the emperor's son, the only two remaining princes are now all demoted to county dukes.

Three days later, the Tang Emperor will canonize sixteen princes at one time.

Li Chao and other eight meritorious heroes of King Qin, as well as the emperor's eight princes. The emperor already had eleven princes, but the second prince Li Kuan and the ninth prince Li Ming were killed, and there were eight more in addition to the crown prince.

This time, the emperor intends to crown these eight princes. Among them, Li Tai, the king of Wei, will be renamed the king of Jin, and the other seven princes will all be crowned county kings. Including Li Ke, who had been sealed before, Li Ke was named the king of Changsha County at the beginning of Wude, and later changed to the king of Hanzhong County, and then Zhenguan was crowned the king of Han at the beginning.

This time, the emperor wanted to change the title of Li Ke to the king of Hanyang County.

This series of news made Su Dingfang and them a little puzzled. Although Li Ke is not a descendant, he has already been crowned a prince before, but now he is going to be demoted to the king of the county, why is this.

However, in this way, there will only be sixteen princes in the entire Tang Dynasty, two kings, fourteen county kings, and half of the kings with different surnames and half of the kings of the clan.

Li Chao and the other eight kings with different surnames will receive a fiefdom, and these eight clan kings will also receive a fiefdom. Even their feudal kingdom is similar to Li Chao's feudal kingdom, and it is not an independent kingdom.

"Dingfang, this matter is basically settled, but you should also see it, in fact, this prince is just a favor and no expense, for Your Majesty and Datang, this prince is just a little more famous, but there is nothing to gain. Even if you are crowned king, you do not have the right to govern the people, nor do you have the right to command the army, and even the collection of taxes belongs to the imperial court, and we can only get one-third of the tax revenue. The land, mines, mountains, rivers and rivers in the fiefdom were all owned by the imperial court. ”

Such a feudal state is actually equivalent to an empty prince, that is, one-third of the fiefdom tax income. That fiefdom, apart from this income, actually has nothing to do with them.

It is precisely because of this that Li Shimin changed Li Chao's feudal state this time, after all, Liuqiu was originally the territory of the Li family, and after it could not be changed to a feudal country, the benefits and benefits of the Li family were reduced.

However, for the fiefs given to the kings, Li Shimin once again played the essence of profiteers. With a stroke of his pen, he drew a large part of the Heishui River basin in the upper reaches of the Red River to the west of Jiaozhou, Vietnam, the imperial court, which was regarded as Li Chao's fiefdom of the Yue Kingdom.

The specific size is not measured anyway, it is the Heishui River basin in the upper reaches of the Red River, and the south is bounded by the Zaozai Mountain and the Ma River. In fact, it is not within the boundaries of the Tang Dynasty at all, and it should be regarded as Lu Zhenla's territory.

In later generations, this territory belonged to Vietnam, and the southern boundary was the border with Laos. The place is definitely more than 300 miles, but this kind of territory that is still in the hands of others, Li Shimin is still very generous, draw more points, draw more points, take mountains and rivers as the boundary, draw a few strokes on the map, okay, that is Li Chao's Yue Kingdom.

As for the fact that this place is still someone else's territory, Li Shimin said that when Datang frees up his hands, he will knock down this land to Li Chao.

Before that, in fact, this fiefdom was a pie in the air.

If the fief is not beaten down for a day, in fact, Li Chao, the king, will have no tax income for a day.

The imperial court didn't even need to give Li Chao a share of the king's salary, because the king relied on the tax income of his own fiefdom.

Li Chao is not surprised by Li Shimin's methods. In general, at least there is still a prince, although it is a bit false, but the prince is also a king after all, and it is still quite valuable, after all, it shows his status in the Tang Dynasty.

Su Dingfang is not much better than Li Chao, his fief is in the Monan grassland, in the north of Yinshan. On one side is the Yin Mountain, and on the other side is the desert. However, what is better than Li Chao is that now that the Turks have perished, Su Dingfang's fief can be taken over. But that place, except for herding cattle and sheep, really has no future. The fiefdom of two hundred miles can't actually raise many cattle and sheep.

In the long run, if Li Chao can really get his own fiefdom, it is actually quite valuable, after all, it is located in the parallel basin of the Red River, Heishui River, and Ma River, which is the upstream area of the Red River Delta, and there are rivers leading directly to the sea.

As long as Li Shimin is willing to authorize Li Chao, Li Chao himself has a way to knock down this fief, after all, this place is the territory of the Tang Dynasty on three sides, and the south of this fief is still a high mountain range.

The only deficiency is that this place has no access to the sea, and the eastern coast is Jiaozhou, which is directly under the jurisdiction of the imperial court. The mouth of the river is blocked, which is not an ideal place, and it is subject to people.

"What are you talking about?"

Qin Qiong and Cheng Biting Jin turned back.

Li Chao smiled and said, "Let's talk about the fiefdom." ”

Qin Qiong stroked his beard, "Actually, don't take this fiefdom too seriously, Your Majesty has given us the title of king, which is already a great honor." As for the king, the symbolism is greater, and the meaning is as good as you understand. ”

Qin Qiong's fief was in the north of Yanshan, at the junction of the Datang River and the Xi and Turkic people, and the emperor allocated a piece of 200 li to Qin Qiong.

As for Cheng Yanjin, his fiefdom is drawn in Longnan, not far from Qinghai Lake, close to the Hehuang Valley, but it is considered a grassland, not a river valley suitable for growing grain in the Hehuang Valley.

However, Qin Qiong and Cheng Yanjin didn't really take the fiefdom seriously, in their opinion, if the emperor gives a king, it is already over-sealed, and if you give a fief, can you really take it seriously?

Therefore, even if the fiefs assigned to them by the emperor are all on the four sides, most of them still belong to the territories of other countries, and they are all barren lands such as grasslands and mountains, but there is nothing to say.

Crowned king, incomparably glorious.

Cheng Biting Jin said with a smile, "I can't believe it so far, I really became a prince, my old Cheng family ancestor has accumulated eight lifetimes of virtue, and now the grave is smoking." ”

Li Chao smiled on his face, but he was thinking in his heart that everyone's values are different. They felt that the empty prince was already extremely precious, but Li Chao really wanted to get his own fiefdom.

Fiefs are worth a lot more than a title.