After Li Xian left Xiushanfang, he actually did not return directly to his palace, but went straight to a mansion not far from the south side of the palace, which also belonged to Li Xian, but it was purchased by Li Xian in the name of the pseudonym Li Qilang (that is, Li Qilang), not only Li Jingye did not know, even Li Zhan and Lin Cheng did not know, and even Ni Lai and others in the business group did not know, which can be said to be Li Xian's current first secret.

Of course, Zhang Wuchen, as Li Xian's absolute confidant, is naturally not among those who are hidden, and it is precisely because of this that Zhang Wuchen is loyal to Li Xian, although he has also been quietly wooed by Lin Cheng several times, he has not wavered in his loyalty to Li Xian in the slightest, but has told Li Xian all the details of his being co-opted.

Li Xian conducted an investigation with the eyeliner in the palace, and it didn't take much effort to confirm that this Lin Cheng was actually the eyeliner sent to him by the Empress Wu, but in order to avoid the suspicion of the Empress Wu, Li Xian did not move Lin Cheng much, but behaved more heartily, and at the same time asked Zhang Wuchen not to refuse the other party's wooing, and told the truth about some of his major actions, of course, some too secretive naturally to cover up or embellish.

When Li Xian brought a group of newly purchased Kunlun slaves and Silla maids to the south side of the mansion, he ordered those Kunlun slaves to gather together and asked Zhang Wuchen to secretly teach fists and feet, nominally to train sumo wrestlers and courtyard slaves, but in fact to secretly cultivate strength, so as to prepare for the use of extraordinary means to exclude political opponents in the future.

Of course, these Kunlun slaves are already old, and it is very difficult to learn internal skills and light skills, so their teaching is mainly based on actual combat.

But there was one exception, and there was a leopard's head over there. I don't know if this person is gifted or has a foundation, anyway, the internal skills can be learned as soon as they are learned, although the progress is far from being comparable to a genius like Li Xian, and even Li Xian's junior brother Wu Neng is far from it, but this person is born with divine power, supplemented by internal strength, and his combat effectiveness has doubled, becoming the first master under Li Xian except for Zhang Wuchen.

The eight Silla maids were only about ten years old, and all of them had not yet grown up, which was the best time to establish loyalty, which, according to the experience of Li Xian and his wife, was often able to make them die for Li Xian for the rest of their lives. Therefore, Li Xian naturally will not slack off, pay enough attention to them, and personally teach them light skills and hidden weapons, as well as various assassination techniques, the purpose is naturally very clear, that is, to train them into the most personal female guards.

Li Xian gave his female guards a very elegant name: "Rose".

Roses are beautiful, but they are eager but they can't be touched, otherwise they will be stabbed by the thorns on the branches.

After that, Li Xian continued to expand the number of people, through careful selection, the number of the Rose Guards was expanded to 30 in three years, and he used his connections to transform the household registration, and successively sent ten of them to the palace, placed them in some inconspicuous places, such as the Yeting Palace, and secretly gave money and silk to consolidate their loyalty.

Of course, in order to ensure safety, except for Li Xian, no one else knew who those rose guards in the palace were, and even the people in the guards, except for themselves, didn't know who else was lurking in the palace.

This is not that Li Xian does not trust his people, but he really knows the methods of the martial queen, and holds the purpose that if anyone is exposed, it will not affect others.

And at the same time that Li Xian was secretly developing his own strength, a major event occurred in the imperial court, that is, Zheng Rentai, the general of Zuo Wuwei, and Xue Rengui, the general of Zuo Wuwei, who were ordered to conquer Tiele Jiu, had a problem when they were crusading against Tiele.

First of all, Zheng Rentai, in the initial counterinsurgency victory, iron surrender after the lead army to plunder, caused the dissatisfaction of the Tiele departments, so the leaders of the departments rebelled again, but in view of the strong combat effectiveness of the Tang army, they led the army to flee, Zheng Rentai heard the news and was furious, ordered the general Yang Zhi to pursue, but the result was defeated by Tiele, Zheng Rentai angrily beheaded Yang Zhi, personally led 14,000 cavalry in pursuit, but did not expect to encounter a blizzard, trapped for several months, after the food was eaten up, he ate horses, and when the horses were eaten up, he ate people, When he returned, only 800 remained, and he was called by the Minister of Impeachment, "Since the beginning of the Holy Dynasty, there has not been a person who has been defeated today." ”

And Xue Rengui is different this time, although Xue Rengui bravely "set the Tianshan Mountain with three arrows", and then captured the three Ye Hu of the Tiele Department and returned, but he killed the pawns, accepted bribes, and robbed the local women for fear, and was called by the Minister of Impeachment: "Rengui is in prison, greedy and self-indulgent, although he gains something, he does not make up for what he has lost." ”

And this minister who participated in the impeachment is Yang Deyi, the doctor of Sixian who has already secretly taken refuge in the Empress Wu.

Gaozong saw the impeachment of the chapter, he was trembling with anger, he originally had high hopes for Zheng Rentai and Xue Rengui, hoping that these two could win face for themselves, but he didn't want to be slapped in the face by the Empress Wu, so he had no choice but to accept Empress Wu's suggestion, and use the right Xiaowei general Qi Bi He Li as the Tiele Dao pacification envoy, and the left general Jiang Ke as the deputy, re-appeased the Tiele Nine Division, and punished Zheng Rentai and Xue Rengui at the same time.

But after all, Gaozong still took into account the merits of these two people, and did not adopt the suggestion put forward by Empress Wu to behead Zheng Rentai and degrade Xue Rengui, but dismissed Zheng Rentai.

However, this Yang De did not have any good results, and in less than a month, Gaozong took advantage of Xu Yuanshi's son Xu Tiantian to exile him to Tingzhou (now Xinjiang) for the purpose of hunting and shooting.

It can be seen that the power struggle between Gaozong and Empress Wu at this time has become more and more intense.

Just when Gaozong and Empress Wu were fighting for power and profit, Li Xian habitually did not make any attempts to favor both sides, and the old fox Li Ji also did not say a word, and learned to enter Xu Shu in Cao Ying, completely with a posture that had nothing to do with himself.

However, for Li Xian, the rules of the morning and dusk provinces still have to be observed, so as long as Gaozong and Empress Wu are in Luoyang, Li Xian will go to the palace in a regular manner to kowtow in the morning and evening, and occasionally tease the eighth brother Li Xulun, who was fostered by his nursing mother in the palace hall.

This day was November 25, and the next day was Li Xian's birthday, so Empress Wu left him in the palace for a while to discuss celebrating Li Xian's birthday.

Li Xian also attached great importance to such an opportunity to invite merit and buy people's hearts, and discussed with the Empress Wu for a long time, and finally said goodbye to the Empress Wu tiredly.

But as soon as Li Xian walked out of the hall gate, he heard a strong wind stabbing towards him, and he couldn't help but feel a pang in his heart, and hurriedly flashed sideways, but he waited for the moment when the other party rushed into the main hall, and immediately turned back and shouted at Wu Zetian: "Mother, quickly dodge, there are assassins." ”

"Huh?" When Empress Wu heard Li Xian shouting like this, she was also terrified, but fortunately, she had always been calm, but she was not confused, but she was slightly panicked, so she stabilized her mind and hurriedly dodged to the side, shouting at the guards outside the hall to escort her while dodging.

However, the assassin also seemed to know that whether today's matter could succeed only in this moment, and if it was delayed for a while, there would be no chance after the guards outside the palace arrived, so it also came very quickly, but in an instant, he came to the front of the Empress Wu, and the long sword rolled up a strong wind, and went straight to the front door of the Empress Wu.

Seeing that the Assassin's sword was about to stab him, even though the Empress Wu had always been calm, the Assassin couldn't help but lose his complexion, his face turned pale, and he forgot to dodge in a panic.

At this moment, only a gust of wind was heard, followed by the sound of "dang", and then Li Xian's voice was heard: "Mother, quickly dodge." ”

Then she felt that she was being pushed aside by Li Xian, and then before she could react, she heard a slight sound of swords entering the flesh, and then she heard Li Xian shouting: "If you want to kill my mother, kill me first." ”

"Xian'er!" Empress Wu's hearing was extraordinary, and she immediately heard that Li Xian's voice was a little weak, and she looked at Li Xian, but saw that Li Xian's chest was red, and she couldn't help but change her complexion, and shouted urgently.

I saw that Li Xian's face was pale, and his teeth were clenched, but he also pretended to be calm, and said with a smile: "The child is fine, mother doesn't need to worry, mother leaves quickly, just delay for a moment, and the armor outside the palace will arrive and kill this assassin on the spot." ”

At this moment, I only heard that the door of the temple was knocked open, and then a team of guards broke in, and first two people went to protect the queen.

"This palace is fine, it's just a little frightened, quickly, quickly, protect my son, the others will come forward immediately, capture this assassin, this palace will definitely try the mastermind behind the scenes." When Empress Wu saw that the guards were coming, she glanced at Li Xian with concern, and saw that Li Xian had been protected by one of the guards, and another guard had stopped the bleeding for him, and her heart suddenly settled down, so she regained her cold nature and ordered the guards to come forward and capture the assassin.

Although the Assassin was so good, how could he defeat the stubborn Guard? Although the Assassin knew that there was no hope for tonight's assassination, he reflexively tried to escape, but the door of the temple was blocked by the Armor, and the Assassin forcibly engaged the Armor, only to be wounded in an instant.

"Hey, want to escape? When I'm a Tang soldier, it's so useless? The previous general, Qiu Shenji, stared at the assassin, sneered, drew his horizontal knife, and slashed at the assassin first.

The assassin had seen the power of Qiu's deeds, knew that his strength was inferior to the other party, and now that he was injured, he would definitely not be able to resist this knife, but the enemy was not dead, how could he be willing to die like this?

The assassin had no choice but to continue to retreat, and after he retreated a few steps and dodged the general's attack, his eyes suddenly saw the injured Li Xian on the side, and suddenly came to the idea, not to retreat but to advance, and to stab at the general, when the general dodged and dodged, he suddenly floated to Li Xian's side, lifted Li Xian up, and then put his sword on Li Xian's neck, and shouted in a deep voice: "Don't come, otherwise I will kill this person." ”