"What are you transporting, there are already more than a dozen caravans back and forth, right?" Outside the brand-new railway station outside Ganzhou, a group of road repair workers from the railway brigade couldn't help but muttering curiously as they directed the prisoners of war sent from the western route to repair the road and prepare to lay sleepers. It is no wonder that in the last few days, almost all the convoys and caravans from the west have been transporting these boxes, and they are accompanied by special personnel of the National Guard, and the level of fully armed security makes these people wonder what the hell this is, they have already pulled a train, how can this still be? You won't rob other people's treasury, will you?

"Third child, you are well-informed, what is in here? In the past, if there were not enough people to transport things, wouldn't they call us over to help? A middle-aged man in a sheepskin jacket squatted in the railway brigade and looked at a thin companion beside him and asked. A relative of the companion he called "the third" was a deputy guard in the National Guard, so he was usually able to get some information.

The third child shook his head, glanced at him and said: "I asked, but even my brother-in-law doesn't know, and the order issued by their superiors is the first level, let's not inquire, if the above knows, you can't eat and walk around." ”

On the one hand, thanks to the fact that the National Guard has implemented the secrecy rules announced by Xuan Yingwei, on the other hand, these people who are talking about it are basically the basic employees of the railway brigade, they are all imperial industrial workers who are making up, and the bad old things are similar to the employees of state-owned enterprises in later generations, so they have naturally learned similar secrecy regulations. Besides, all the big boxes in this transportation are not even very clear to the members of the National Guard who are in charge of escorting them, starting from Jiaohe City, they have rotated to replace three groups of escorts, except for the core members of Wan Yi's personal guard and Xuanying Guard, who are responsible for the garrison, everyone does not know the inside story. And just in case, Xuan Yingwei even arranged inspectors and secret followers along the way to ensure that nothing went wrong.

In fact, it is no wonder that the level of secrecy is so high, and the large boxes transported from Jiaohe City are the gold and silver treasures and rare antiques that were seized in Jiaohe City. This is the century-old treasury of the Uighurs of the Ghochang and the wealth that most of the Uighur leaders in the city have looted over the years, and all of them have been seized by Hammud. After being counted by Tuobasi, it was packed and registered, and then sent to Ganzhou in batches, sent to the train and transported back to the Chang'an base camp. It can be said that the essence of the 100-year history of the Uighurs in Gaochang is in these big boxes, and once these riches are transported back to Chang'an, they will inevitably add another boost to the domestic economy, which is currently developing at an increasingly rapid pace.

After the first batch of gold, silver and jewelry crossed the Yellow River through Lingzhou on the long Hexi Railway and arrived in Chang'an, the person in charge of the money bank who came to receive it was immediately sent to the state treasury after counting, and the inventory list was immediately sent to the cabinet Cen Tianshi and Li Xuanqing.

"Your Majesty, this Western Expeditionary Army has made great contributions, up to now, we have received more than one million taels of gold, two million taels of silver, as well as a large number of gold beads, gold coins and silver coins, as well as many antique jade, gold and silver." Cen Tianshi laughed and said after finding Li Xuanqing with a thick list: "And according to the report sent back by Tuoba Siji, less than half of it has been shipped back so far, so it can be said that this battle has earned back all the military expenses of the Western Expeditionary Army." ”

Li Xuanqing was not much surprised by this, originally Xizhou produced gold and silver, and the basic currency of the ethnic groups in the northwest in commerce and trade was gold and silver coins, and the auxiliary currency was copper coins. Li Xuanqing didn't think it was too much to be able to seize so much, so when he heard Cen Tianshi, he was happy and smiled: "Sir, don't you feel distressed about allocating 100 million Tang coins to Liuqiu some time ago?" Sometimes fighting a war is also a way to make money, especially to rob other people's wealth. Moreover, when the Western Expeditionary Army entered the territory of the Uighurs of Anxi, the capture would definitely not be less than that of Gaochang, or even more. Compared with the Gaochang Uighurs, the entire Anxi Uighurs occupied the real Silk Road, and the wealth they gathered was also a real gift to our Datang. ”

"Yes, Yanqi, Qiuzi, Hetian, Shanshan and Shule, which of these places is not a rich place. If we add the treasury of Khotan, which was sent back to Khotan, our treasury revenue this year is at least more than double that of last year. With so much money invested in China, probably all the projects of the emperor's northern industrial belt can be opened, right? Mr. Cen laughed.

"Sir, after all the wealth over there in Jiaohe City is brought back, take inventory, pick those pearl antiques or something, except for the most core, most valuable and special value sent to the palace as the inner treasury, the rest will be auctioned off, and all will be exchanged for money to accelerate the five-year plan. By the way, to see if there is any cultural value and cultural relics value, if there is one, I plan to build a Tang Dynasty Royal Museum after a while, and send these and all the cultural relics we have collected before to be specially stored, and then open to the public at the right time. Li Xuanqing instructed Cen Tianshi to prepare to take out those jade antiques that were not very important and sell them directly, and on the other hand, he was affected by the bad taste of his previous life, and was ready to build a royal museum. However, this is a perfect match for Cen Tianshi, for things with cultural value and cultural relics value, as a traditional literati, Cen Tianshi himself is very interested, so he agreed with a smile, promised that he was ready to check it personally, and said that the cabinet would allocate special funds to build a majestic museum.

"Sir took the time to study the matter of establishing a province in the west with the cabinet, the General Staff and the Law Court, and settled this matter." Li Xuanqing received in his hand the opinion on the merger and management of Gaochang and Shazhou and other places signed by Tuoba Siji and Wan Yi, and said: "The opinions of the two of them are still worth considering, only Shazhou and other places in the northwest have the largest number of Han people, but Shazhou and Guazhou are not rich, and the area of the oasis is not large, and the land output is not much, so we should find a way to disperse the hundreds of thousands of Han people gathered in the two places, on the one hand, use the number of Han people to maintain the stability of Gaochang and other places, and dilute the status quo of the absolute dominance of a small number of tribes in Gaochang. On the other hand, it is also to promote the development of Shazhou and Guazhou, after all, the per capita land will increase when the population is small. ”

"What the emperor said is that I will arrange this matter immediately, and wait until the result of the discussion is reached, and then ask the emperor to decide." Cen Tianshi has also read this opinion, so he agrees with Li Xuanqing's words.

"After exchanging these gold and silver wealth into Tang currency, a part of it will be invested in the newly established provinces, and we have gained so many benefits of the Silk Road, how can we give back to the local people, otherwise it will not be conducive to the development of the empire." In addition to the investment of industrial and mining enterprises, the other three grassland provinces will also start to increase investment next year, and they will also need to find ways to change the nomadic habits of herders, so that those herders can gradually transition to a settled life, so that they can stabilize their rule and control the grassland population. We can find ways to subsidize those herdsmen, and in the name of the imperial government, they can purchase the cattle, sheep and horses they breed in a unified manner, so that they can gradually retract their hearts. Although this kind of sheep shearing can bring much-needed funds for the development of the empire, the northwest is not a colony in the future after all, and these will be the country's territory in the future, so after the occupation, it will need continuous investment. The northern steppe province has been established for a short time, and the main energy of the Tang Empire is no longer in the north, so the development is slow, except for the straight road, most of the area is still in the previous state, and the latest Tatar province has not even completed its own animal husbandry reform. If you want to control the grassland and eliminate the thousand-year-old disaster in the north, you must fundamentally change the living conditions of the grassland people according to the model of later generations, and change the nomadic life of chasing water and grass to a fixed point, so that the funds that need to be invested are very large, so before Li Xuanqing had no way to carry out grassland reform while implementing the five-year plan, he could only carry out a pilot project in the grassland area close to Fengzhou, relying on Fengzhou's strong industry and agriculture to absorb the grassland area as his own source of raw materials and industrial product sales market. However, there is no good way in the vast areas of other places, and even the control is not high, and from time to time it is necessary for the army to be dispatched to suppress the conflicts of those few tribes, for this reason, there are three battalions of cavalry troops stationed in the grassland area all the year round, and even in the northern part of Fengzhou, all the men and horses of this battalion and the grassland cavalry battalion that has been reorganized into the 52nd Corps are still stationed, just to prevent chaos caused by accidents in the grassland.

Cen Tianshi is very clear about the meaning of Li Xuanqing's attention to the grassland, relying on the previous battles that Chen Fan fought in the grassland in the past two years, the internal tribes did not dare to have objections after seeing the re-strengthening of the Central Empire and began to gradually cooperate with the civil affairs officials of the empire, and the grassland was officially incorporated into the imperial territory on the political map, but to this day, the three provinces of the grassland are not national guards, but regular field troops, in addition to guarding against the Yaks from further north, More importantly, it is necessary to suppress the internal turmoil of large and small tribes to prevent the emergence of grassland chaos and affect the industrial development plan of the north. Therefore, it is very important to increase investment in the grassland area to divide and disintegrate the living conditions of the grassland people based on the tribe.

"Okay, it seems that the news of our Ministry of Finance making a fortune is known to the world, and someone is planning to rob the money." Li Xuanqing originally planned to say something, but when he saw that Xu Tianxiang and several people outside the hall had already come together, he knew that these guys were also worried about this huge amount of money. However, there is nothing surprising that after all, it is captured by the military, and how to use it The military has the right to participate in the distribution, although it cannot directly distribute benefits to all army soldiers, but it is still necessary to improve all aspects of the army and even determine new strategic deployments.

"Chen Fan, why are you here too? Aren't you in Mukden? Cen Tianshi couldn't help but smile when he saw that Chen Fan was also beside Xu Tianxiang and Yang Tiancheng: "It seems that you can't sit still." ”

"Okay, I know what you want to say, it's the end of April now, and the strategy of your two departments can indeed be launched, but Mr. Cen and I have one condition." After Li Xuanqing saw everyone sitting down, he continued: "The strategy of the Three Koreas and the plan to recover the Tibetan area can be approved at the same time, but after all, this is the capture of the northwest side, and you also know that so much wealth is actually the accumulation of the Silk Road over the past hundred years, and we will need to return it sooner or later, after all, those places are our land, so how much money you spend will have to earn me back in the future." ”

Li Xuanqing's words made everyone happy, and even Hu Xiaosi, who had nothing to do, laughed and said: "Your Majesty, you are too refreshing, before coming to Tianxiang, they discussed for a long time how to persuade you and Mr. Cen, I didn't expect it to be so easy?" ”

"Where is it easy, Xiaosi, didn't you hear the emperor say that you have to earn as much as you spend? How do we know how much money is in these two places? Hey, no, others don't know about it, don't you know? Xiao Si hurriedly gave me all the information about the treasury in these places that you had heard, and I will distribute it when I go back. ”

After a few people were giggling, Xu Tianxiang waited until everyone gradually quieted down and said: "Chen Fan is in charge of Sanhan, and the General Staff in Tibet plans to start the division plan, all the way from north to south. Xue Yang was put in charge in the north, and the Third Corps was mobilized to form the Northern Corps with four battalions stationed near Yuanju. In the south, starting from Nanzhao and Qiqi and other places, set off along the tea horse road and other roads into Tibet, but the commander of this southern front corps has not yet been determined. ”

"Which ones did you choose over there?" Li Xuanqing nodded and asked.

"At present, it is mainly Chen Yu, Qian Ning and Xue Wanli. But at the moment, all three of them basically have other tasks. Chen Yu was training marines and rainforest combat units, Xue Wanli was in Tatar Province, and Qian Ningli was planning to be transferred north to join Chen Fan's Sanhan. Yang Tiancheng took over and said: "I originally planned to let Hou Chun go to the southern front, but Hou Chun is also in charge of the war department now, and he can't get away." ”

"Let Chen Yu go over, the training of the troops in the rainforest will be handed over to others, and I think it's okay for Chen Mingzheng of the Marine Corps to let him be responsible for it independently." Li Xuanqing directly clapped his head and said: "Among the three of them, Chen Yu is more familiar with Nanzhao and Qi Qi, and he was more suitable in the past. ”

After Li Xuanqing decided on the candidates, what remained was the military budget for this time, but these could not be implemented for the time being, at most it was only the transfer of reserve materials and combat troops, and the military budget still needed to wait until all the seizures of Jiaohe City arrived in Chang'an, and they could not be allocated after being converted into Tang coins by the Qian Zhuang side and put into storage. But looking at the eyes of everyone present, Li Xuanqing also knew that he was afraid that the war in the empire would never stop this year and next year.

"Well, it's not bad to use the army to shear sheep." Li Xuanqing's heart moved.