In the southeast corner of the Imperial City, there is a piece of architecture.

Anyone who can live in the imperial city, if it is not a dignitary, it is a family of gate valves, most of its mansions are magnificent, high-walled courtyards, a few before and after, or even a dozen in, some are not less than Daming Palace, there are rockery ponds, there are carved beams and paintings, in addition to not being called a palace, all the furnishings are not worse than the palace, in fact, in the degree of luxury is often more excessive.

Take Jingzhao Gu's family as an example, because the courtyard of the dozen or so in the imperial city is a distance from the Qujiang River, the Gu family also dug an artificial canal, connecting the mansion and the Qujiang River together, the wharf is directly in the mansion, if you want to go out of the city, you don't need to go out of the house, you get on the boat on the wharf in the courtyard, turn into the Qujiang River along the artificial canal, and then enter the artificial canal dug by the government, out of the water gate, and you can go directly to your own manor outside the city through Weishui.

A gate valve like the Gu family, there are naturally a lot of tokens for entering and exiting the water gate.

In short, the architecture of the imperial city is either magnificent or magnificent......

However, in this southeast corner, there is a low courtyard in the area of Daming Palace, with blue bricks and white walls, which is similar to an ordinary farmhouse courtyard, but it covers a much wider area than those small courtyards.

This is the famous warden department.

No one would want to come to this area unless it was necessary, and the streets outside the entire Warden were as wide as the rest of the Imperial City, and likewise, like those streets, there were few pedestrians. However, outside the streets, there were many horse-drawn carriages going back and forth, and almost every carriage was accompanied by armor soldiers with swords on both sides, and in fact, it was not deserted. Outside the Warden Division, not only are there no pedestrians, but even a carriage is missing, and occasionally the carriage is mostly marked with the black unicorn logo of the Warden Division.

The unicorn represents auspiciousness, while the black unicorn, in the Tang Empire, represents the law.

In fact, the prison department is not the criminal department, nor is it Dali Temple, in fact, it represents the imperial power, is an extension of the will of the imperial power, of course, there is only one emperor, it is impossible to do everything personally, it is inevitable to find some people to help him.

If it is said that those civil and military officials in the court help him manage the world, just like his hands and feet, these people in the prison department will help him probe intelligence, monitor civil and military officials, and high-ranking lords, just like his eyes and ears. To a certain extent, the Emperor's reliance on the Divine Army is one of his legs, and the Warden is his other leg, one in the light and the other in the dark.

Of course, whether it is the Shence Army or the Warden Division, their directors are all eunuchs.

Yes, the emperor can only trust the eunuchs, compared to the high-sounding and dignified adults in the court, or only their own domestic slaves are trustworthy, these eunuchs have no descendants, they can only serve tightly around the imperial power, the emperor is their heaven, is their land, they cannot have their own will.

In order to suppress the Guo family, in order to restrain those high-ranking lords, starting from Xuanzong, he expanded the lecture hall in the palace, trained eunuchs from both civil and military aspects, deliberately let go of the suppression of eunuchs, and gradually let them participate in court politics. Among them, the eunuch group did not enter the Shence Army in a big way at the beginning, but the Warden Division, and only after controlling this powerful department in the dark can the emperor sleep well.

After the authority of the Warden Department was enhanced, the Shence Army was expanded, and there were only twelve guards, each guard was more than 4,000, and the few were 3,000, a total of 450,000 people, which can be said to be the elite of the Tang Forbidden Army.

The eunuchs entered the Shence Army, the powerful leaders and eunuchs served as the commanders of the guard, and the young eunuchs who came out of the lecture hall entered the Shence Army respectively and served as middle and low-level officers, this change was imperceptible, through a series of political exchanges and struggles, ten years after Yingzong ascended the throne, the Shence Army was basically in the hands of the eunuch group.

Several of the guards were not only eunuchs, but even most of the officers were eunuchs.

In the lecture hall, those eunuchs not only have to learn the scriptures, but also to practice martial arts, which are basic, but also to learn various military skills, practice the art of battle formation, the so-called internal exercises are so.

Every quarter, the young chamberlains of the palace were organized, led by the little eunuchs who had come out of the lecture hall, to conduct a large-scale parade, as they had done on the battlefield.

With military power in his hands and the assistance of the Warden Division, the emperor should sit back and relax.

However, there is a saying called Taia inverted.

In the emperor's view, the eunuchs have no descendants, so they have no self-will, so they can only unite around the emperor and change to the time and space where Du Rui is located, perhaps there is this possibility, after all, after all, there are several dynasties, although there are eunuchs who manipulate the authority, in the Han and Tang dynasties, they can even dominate the abolition of major affairs, however, after all, there is no eunuch with monstrous authority to seek usurpation.

Even if Cao Jixiang launched a rebellion, it ended in failure.

In that world, the power of the eunuchs all comes from the imperial power, Liu Jin was arrogant at the beginning, Zhengde only needed to hand out a piece of paper, and he could easily take him down, and he couldn't set off a little storm.

The same is true of Wei Zhongxian, Chongzhen took the position, and after a few confrontations, he had to leave the field gloomily, and then he was forced to commit suicide.

However, in this world, there is martial arts.

The Grand Master is equivalent to a nuclear weapon, with strategic deterrence.

After Taizong, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty no longer has anyone to become a great master, but the Du family also has a supporting force, those who are close to each other are not iron, once the wind and rain are blowing, even if there are in-laws, these gate valves will decisively abandon the Du family, at the beginning, the Kwantung rebels arrived in Chang'an, and those gate valve forces took the attitude of sitting back and betting on both ends.

The backstage of the Du family is the Huashan faction.

The Huashan faction was founded by the ancestors of the Du family, and the Xuanzhen Temple of Chang'an City is only a branch of the Xuanzhen Temple of Huashan. The ancestor of the Gu family was also born in the Huashan faction, and now he is living in seclusion at the Mojian Peak at the top of Huashan Mountain, and he does not see outsiders.

At the beginning, the reason why the Queen of Heaven was able to manipulate the government and force her son to abdicate was very simple, this Queen of Heaven was also born in the Huashan faction, and she was a very rare female grandmaster in history.

The rebellion of Yan Zhao Zhuzhen is related to the retirement of the great master of the Gu family.

Not only did he clearly say that he would not stand for the Gu family, but he also said that the affairs of the red world were no longer related to him, and he only wanted to pursue the way of heaven, that is to say, he would no longer stand for the Du family.

Well, then again.

In the tenth year of Tianzheng, Yingzong realized that something was wrong.

Indeed, he used the eunuch group he created to suppress the power of the court, and also forced the power of the Guo family to no longer entrench in Chang'an, but was forced to go away to Hedong, and even, the emperor's power not only had an impact on Jiannan Road, but also extended his tentacles into Hebei, and now Feng Li, who is stationed in Handan, has publicly stated that he stands on the emperor's side, and even allowed the eunuchs to enter the Jingbian Army as a military supervisor.

However, Youngjong found that power was shifting to others.

Yes, the eunuchs still obey his will, but sometimes his will does not work very well, and if there is a conflict with a certain person, the eunuchs will only obey that person's orders.

This person is Liu Qianfan, whom the eunuchs call the ancestor.

Although the lecture hall was founded and developed by Yingzong Li Zhen's father, Xuanzong, presided over the daily affairs of the lecture hall, arranged various civil and military teachings, and even invited those disabled officers from the army to teach those little eunuchs the way of battle.

Yes, eunuchs are house slaves, and it is impossible to fight with house slaves.

Since it was found that the power had been transferred, and the group of eunuchs who originally served the imperial power had their own will, then, Yingzong should find a way to eradicate the backbone of these eunuchs, as long as Liu Qianfan was killed, the eunuchs were leaderless, and they could only surrender to the emperor's will, prostrate under the emperor's dragon chair, and serve around the imperial power.

However, Yingzong had no way to eradicate Liu Qianfan.

It's not that I don't want to, but I can't.

Next, it was a difficult run-in process, in some minor conflicts, and finally achieved a common understanding, that is, mutual alliance, the eunuch group will serve the emperor's will, and at the same time, the eunuchs will also expand their power within the emperor's allowable range. This is so because they know that if they fight each other, they will only lose both.

Now, Liu Qianfan has basically withdrawn.

He lived in seclusion in a small courtyard in the Daming Palace, which was very quiet and rarely came out to pay attention to government affairs.

The reason why he came out to see Xue Zhuo last time was because Xue Zhuo brought the book, and for that book, he had stayed in Jiannan Dao for a year and never found it, so he left Xue Zhuo there.

However, the eunuchs knew who their power came from.

Therefore, they are all submissive to Liu Qianfan, called the ancestor, every month on the fifteenth day of the first day of almost all the high-level eunuchs will go to the small courtyard to kneel, while reporting the latest world events, while listening to Liu Qianfan's orders, although, Liu Qianfan every time he closes the door, just said that he knows, he still dare not slack off tomorrow, still like this.

An Tai, the head of the Warden Division, is Liu Qianfan's ironcore.

One of his Liu Qianfan's personal disciples, if he didn't have this identity, he would not have been able to take over the post of Warden Division.

At this time, he was holding Erlang's legs with his eyes closed, listening to the report of his subordinates, his legs trembling slightly, as if he was listening to his favorite song, and he looked like an old farmer enjoying the farm.

"Oh?"

Antai snapped open her eyes.

At that moment, his momentum was completely different, no longer like an old farmer, but a fierce tiger, which made people dare not look directly.

"You say this again......"

"No!"

At the foot of the stairs, three feet away, a prison guard dressed in black and wearing a small red hat was half-kneeling on the ground, and in front of him, a volume of manuscripts was placed, and now, the manuscript was slowly unfolding.

He flipped back the page, then continued reading the manuscript.