Some of the markets in Chang'an are starting to be depressed, and the pace of pedestrians is much faster, there is much less laughter, and there are many more closed shops. Xing'er and Manniang are unhappy every time they come back from shopping. Because more and more shops are closed on the street. There were also more and more displaced people, and the exploitation of the court and eunuchs became more and more serious. The wealth was squandered by the emperor. When the eunuch Qiu Shiliang stepped down, he instructed his disciples and said: "Emperor, you can't let him be idle, you must often numb him with beautiful women's songs and dances and brocade clothes and delicacies, and you must change tricks every day, so that he has no time to think about other things, and we can do what we want to do with confidence and boldness." At the same time, he should not be allowed to study as much as possible, and even more so he should not be given the opportunity to get close to those scholars, so that he would see the demise of the previous dynasty, and once he worries about the future of the country, then we will be alienated and reprimanded. The young successor to the throne grew up in such an environment of "changing tricks every day", but he knew that he was blindly playful and had fun with the eunuchs and elites in the palace. The closest eunuch of the Emperor was Tian Lingzi. When Xizong was still the king of Jin, Tian Lingzi was the eunuch of the small horse workshop of the Jin Palace, and the relationship between the two was very close, and they had already begun to lie down together. After Xizong ascended the throne, he immediately promoted Tian Lingzi to lieutenant of the Shence Army, entrusted him with all political affairs, and affectionately called him "Father". And for a eunuch who is physically handicapped but suddenly has great power, power can only stimulate his greater desires. Tian Lingzi was pampered and arrogant, and in order to completely control the power of the court, he tried his best to encourage Xizong to have fun. For example, the Emperor gave money to musicians and servants at every turn, and the amount was huge, in the tens of thousands, which led to the lack of the treasury. When the treasury ran out of money and could not make ends meet, Tian Lingzi induced Xizong to confiscate the property of wealthy merchants (including foreign and domestic merchants) in Chang'an, and if the merchants resisted slightly, they would immediately send them to Jingzhao Mansion to be killed. At this time, the emperor was even more powerful than bandits and robbers, not only robbing openly, but also dying if the robbed person was a little unwilling. The entire Chang'an City fell into chaos, and everyone was in danger. However, "below the prime minister, the jaws dare not speak". In this way, relying on Tian Lingzi's bad idea to get a lot of money, so as to fool Xi Zong to continue playing.

The wealthy merchants in Beijing were looted, and Tian Lingzi wanted to attack the goods of wealthy households and Hu merchants outside Beijing. At this time, the transfer of salt and iron, which had a good personal relationship with Tian Lingzi, made Gao Biao hurriedly write a letter to stop him, saying: "The 'thieves' in the world (referring to the rebel armies such as Huangchao) have swarmed, all out of hunger and cold, and the only rich family Hu Shang has no ear. Tian Lingzi felt justified when he heard it, so he stopped the act of forcible seizure.

However, this practice has seriously hurt the economy of the central Tang Dynasty, causing the already fragile fiscal revenue to drop sharply, so that the combat power of the central forbidden army of the dynasty has also plummeted, and the deterrent effect on the feudal towns that were already outside the central government has also been greatly weakened. However, Xi Zong ignored this and only immersed himself in various games and sports. He is good at riding and archery, sword and spear, arithmetic, music and rhythm, proficient in gambling, likes to juju, cockfighting, gambling geese, has a lot of hobbies, and never gets tired of it, and even sometimes practices juju for two or three hours, and even forgets to eat, so anxious that the eunuchs and maids around him are circling. Li Jie knew all this was happening, but he was powerless to change anything. Even if it is difficult to protect itself, how can it be possible to solve the crisis of the empire.

Li Jie didn't go out much during this time, after more than ten days of intensive training, he was already able to swing weapons on horses, and after learning some horse moves with Qin Fang, Li Jie began to train hard. Li Jie has been training all May, and his body is getting stronger day by day. And what he didn't know was that in a valley in the northeast of Chang'an, a horse team of 2,000 people, infantry of 3,000 people and 500 archers were also training hard, and the big Li character on the big flag in the center of the camp was fluttering in the wind, and Qin Fang stood on the platform and watched the soldiers in training. "Dangdangdang" three crisp metallic sounds sounded, and the soldiers ended their training. "Who gave you food"". His Royal Highness King Shou" "Who dressed you on" "His Royal Highness King Shou" The shouting stopped. Qin Fang turned to a group of young generals behind him and said, "The cavalry and infantry will first practice according to what we are familiar with, and the archers will practice according to what I told you, as for how to increase the effect of bows and arrows, you can figure it out for yourself." Although we don't know what Shou Wang thinks and how to do it, we have to be prepared, understand? Several young generals all gave up their hands "No".

In June, Li Jie entered the palace because he found out that he was being watched again, and he knew that it was Tian Lingzi's person. He has been out of Tian Lingzi's control when he leaves the palace, which is afraid that Tian Lingzi will be afraid that someone will use him, so he has to do something, looking at the Xizong who was interested in Keju, Li Jie was speechless. But you can't change him, and you can't change him. You need money to run away, you need money to build your own army, and you need money to develop the economy, when you can't use those unnatural means to make money for the time being, it is the most important thing to get it from his cheap brother, he made a poker and brought it into the palace, and started his career as a gambling king, "Brother Huang, little brother, I studied a kind of fun, is Brother Huang interested?" "Well, this kid is very smart, and after losing 200,000 pieces of silver, he learned to poker. And the jewels and jade that the Emperor Zong rewarded became dead in a blink of an eye. And because of his plaything, Tian Lingzi took back the people who were spying on him. Li Jie doesn't care about this, anyway, it's too obvious to spy on him, have you put out the dishes you sold when they are about to rot?

Xue Liang came back, came to the study to report to Li Zhuo, he was very careful all the way, tried to rest during the day and hurried at night, walked for twenty days before rushing to the cottage, when he took out the silver and said that this was given by His Royal Highness King Shou, the whole cottage was boiling. Although the silver is not too much, this is the silver given by the Prince of the Tang Dynasty! And Xue Liang also made a new count of the cottage personnel, with a total of 4,800 young and strong soldiers, and 5,700 old and weak women and children. However, the shortage of weapons is relatively large, and only nearly 3,000 people can be provided. He appointed one of his former captains to temporarily lead them, and appointed several captains to train the soldiers, because he knew that Li Jie needed people. Five hundred young men were carefully selected, and Xue Liang took them back to Chang'an. They were very careful all the way, hiding and resting during the day, and they hurried desperately at night, and finally came to the vicinity of Chang'an, Xue Liang let them rest, and he hurried back to the palace non-stop. Xue Liang kept a heart, did not rush into the house, but waited far away, until Xing'er and Manniang's carriage passed by, he shouted Manniang, the surprised Manniang tears welled up, Xue Liang went for more than a month, she was worried for a month. Xue Liang jumped into the carriage and entered the palace. Seeing Xue Liang who suddenly knelt in front of him, and learned that he had nearly 5,000 people, Li Jie was overjoyed, although the combat effectiveness of these people would not be too high, but Li Jie believed that with his own existence, this army would soon have strong combat effectiveness. Xue Liang arched his hand, "Your Highness, there are still five hundred strong people outside the city, I don't know how Your Highness will arrange it?" Li Jie heard that it was difficult, the goal of 500 people was too big, and if he entered the city, he would soon be discovered. Looking at Li Jie Xing'er who was turning in a circle, he walked out, "Stop, I'll go by myself" Li Jie called Xing'er, walked towards the nurse's room, and walked to the door, Li Jie hid outside the door and leaned out half of his body, looked at the nurse who was embroidering a handkerchief and asked, "Nurse, Xue Liang brought five hundred young men and don't know how to arrange it!" The nurse slapped the table and stood up, "Don't hit me!" Li Jie jumped into the courtyard at once, "Your Highness, don't you know that there are 3,000 acres of land in the east of Chang'an City!" "Damn, I am still a big landlord!" The nurse ordered someone to call Yang Gui, the head of the palace, Yang Gui came in and knelt down and kowtowed, "Slave maid see Your Highness, madam, I don't know what is the matter with calling slave maid" The nurse said, "Yang Gui, you tell Your Highness about the property of the palace." Yang Guiyi arched his hand, "Your Royal Highness, the palace has a Huangzhuang with 3,000 acres in the east of the city, and a Huangzhuang with 2,000 acres in Luoyang, and there are 18 shops in the city, including three grain stores, seven restaurants, and the rest are cloth shops. It's the same with the Luoyang store." Li Jie thought for a while and said, "All the industries in Luoyang are sold, here, except for the grain store, all the rest are sold, don't worry about it being processed in half a month here, Luoyang should be done as soon as possible, the sooner the better." And tomorrow take me to Huangzhuang to see. Okay, it's all right." Yang Gui kowtowed, "The slave and maid will let people deal with it immediately, and the slave and maid will retire." Li Jie returned to the room and told Xue Liang, "You rest for one night, and tomorrow you and I will go to the Huangzhuang outside the city, and then I will arrange the five hundred people in the name of Zhuang Ding." Xue Liang and his sister left, "Haha, no one is competing with me for stars tonight."

At dawn the next day, Li Jie took Xue Liang in a carriage led by Yang Gui to Huangzhuang in the east of the city. He knew there wouldn't be too many days like this. It was almost noon, and the convoy arrived at Huangzhuang, and the eyes were full of green. Someone had already gone to inform the steward of the Huangzhuang, and the steward took someone to greet him at the entrance of the village, and probably asked about the situation, Li Jie said, "This year's rent is all free, and I will arrange another 500 people to come. "The person in charge immediately asked people to arrange it. After lunch, walking in the field with Xing'er and Manniang, Li Jie saw that the yield was not too high, and the yield per mu of the Tang Dynasty was generally about 300 catties, which was a low yield. Li Jie is very confident that if it was a peaceful time, he would greatly improve the productivity and living standards of the farmers in the Tang Dynasty, but now he can only watch. for great calamity is coming.