This time Li Xian was forced to return to the court, although he killed Helan Minzhi, and also added a fire to the contradiction between the prince and the martial queen, which can be regarded as a mouthful of evil in his chest, but his loss is definitely not small.

First of all, the imperial court wiped out all the merits of his trip to Tubo on the charge of killing and surrendering, and came to offset the merits and demerits, in addition to the suggestion of the Empress Wu, he was also relieved of his position as the governor of the Anxi Metropolitan Protectorate, and reappointed him as the governor of the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion of the Metropolitan of Bingzhou, because the state is a place of non-war, and at the same time, there is another long history responsible for specific affairs, so his current position is still equivalent to a fictitious position.

Of course, the same situation was true of Xue Rengui, another general who went out to fight with him, but in view of the unstable situation in Goguryeo's hometown, Xue Rengui was still transferred to the capital of Andong to protect the capital and continue to guard Liaodong.

However, it is gratifying that Tang Xiujing and Xue Rengui's son Xue Ne have been promoted because of their great achievements.

Tang Xiujing served as the Sima of the Anxi Protectorate under the Zhengwupin, and awarded the title of General Dingyuan (Sanguan, Zhengwupin). Xue Ne was promoted to the rank of Zizhou Thorn Shi (Zheng Si Pin) and awarded the title of Zhongwu General (Sanguan, Zheng Si Pinshang).

In addition to Tang Xiujing and Xue Ne, dozens of meritorious soldiers in Li Xian's palace were also awarded official positions for meritorious service, but most of these soldiers were transferred out of the Zhou Palace, which made Li Xian feel very angry, and the combat power he had cultivated with great difficulty was dispersed by the Empress Wu like this.

Fortunately, Li Xian's loyalty to the guards under his command is still relatively reassuring, and I believe that after years of co-optation and hard training, especially the fighting affection that has gone through the test of life and death together, these soldiers are still full of loyalty to him.

Of course, Li Xian also knew that if he wanted to continue to gain their loyalty, he needed to continue to win them over without interruption. In fact, for those palace guards who kept leaving because of meritorious service or other reasons, he did not relax his pull, except for the material. I often find them for a small meeting when they have free time.

But no matter what, the departure of these guards is still quite depressing for Li Xian, who has been relieved of his military power, after all, he now has no proper name to recruit new guards, and in order to prevent him from continuing to cultivate cronies, Empress Wu allocated some soldiers from Qiu Shenji's command to fill the vacancy of the palace guards, and most of these soldiers were Qiu Shenji's cronies before, and it is not easy to win over and transform.

And another loss brought by Li Xian, or something that was not good for him, was that the Wu Chengsi brothers finally made a comeback.

Not long after Helan Minzhi was killed, Empress Wu announced that the Wu family's nephews and their families would be exempted from the crimes, so that they would end the surname of "Vi Clan" and restore their original surname, and ordered Wu Chenghei to inherit the title of Duke of Zhou, and also appointed him as Shang Yuan Fengyu (from the five grades). Although it seems that the grade is not high, it can definitely be regarded as a step up to the sky for Wu Chenghe, you must know that in the Tang Dynasty, the five-rank officials were considered to be a noble class, and they could enjoy privileges such as shadows, exemption from family service, and commutation of sentences, which was the dividing line between ordinary officials and middle-level officials. There are many people who struggle for a lifetime to achieve such a level, such as Tang Xiujing, who fought with Li Xian for many days and fought dozens of bloody battles before he obtained the five-rank official, and Xue Ne quelled the Goguryeo rebellion, fought more than 50 times, destroyed more than 30,000 enemies, captured more than 100,000 prisoners, and made great contributions to fighting the rebellion, only one rank.

What's more, Wu Chengsi is still a Beijing official, and he has a natural promotion advantage, unlike Tang Xiujing and Xue Ne, although the position is not low, they are all assigned to serve in the frontier, unless they make military achievements, it is not easy to be promoted again.

In addition to Wu Chengsi, Wu Sansi and Wu Yizong and Wu Youji, who had disappeared at the beginning, also appeared, Wu Chengsi was appointed as Zuo Jin Wuwei Zuo Si Rank (Zheng Liupin), awarded the court doctor (Wen Sanguan, from the fifth grade), Wu Yizong and Wu Youji were appointed as the prince's personal guard captain and Yiwei school captain, becoming the East Palace military attache under the Zheng Liupin, the purpose is obvious, is to disgust the prince Li Hong, to form a supervision and restraint effect on him.

The Wu brothers are worthy of being the gentlemen of the gentlemen, and they are also worthy of being villains, once they gain power, they immediately become rampant, and after they regain power, they immediately visit the crown prince Li Hong and the king of Zhou, Li Xian.

They first went to Li Hong to show off their might. Because there is a tradition in the Tang Dynasty, all new officials take office, they must invite colleagues to participate in the banquet, called the roasted tail banquet, because Wu Yizong and Wu Youji are in the East Palace, so they invite the prince and below the East Palace officials to come to the banquet, the prince Li Hong was reluctant to go, but because these two people are the nephews of the Empress Wu, it is inconvenient to refuse, so they have to endure the nausea to go to the banquet, who knows that these two guys actually borrowed wine at the banquet to go crazy, saying that they are both the prince's subordinates and the prince's cousin, In the future, the affairs of the East Palace will be their business, and they hope that the prince and his colleagues in the East Palace will treat them as the masters of the East Palace, rather than as guests.

The words of these two guys immediately aroused the dissatisfaction of some colleagues in the East Palace, and at that time, Yuan Sigu, a doctor of Taichang, stood up and said, "The two generals should pay attention to their identities and words, how can they talk nonsense in front of the prince?" ”

As a result, the two of them actually beat Yuan Sigu with their hands, and then walked away, which made Li Hong angry, when even if he instructed the imperial history to write to the emperor, Gaozong was furious after seeing the case, and even if he wanted to punish the two arrogant people, he was intercepted by the Empress Wu, and under the pretext that they were drunk and messing around, they just reprimanded the two of them, and asked them to apologize to the prince, and even gently exposed the matter.

The final result was naturally that the two became more and more proud, and although the prince Li Hong was disgusted in his heart, he had no choice but to ignore them as if they were two mad dogs.

After the Wu brothers slashed the prince's face, they became more and more proud, and then locked their eyes on Li Xian's mansion, so one day, the four brothers went to Li Xian's Zhou Palace, begging Li Xian for wine.

Of course, they begged for alcohol and leave, mainly because they wanted to play a prestige and repay the hatred of being beaten by Li Xian.

Li Xian had heard of the arrogance of the Wu brothers a long time ago, and he was holding back a lot of energy in his heart, wanting to find an opportunity to teach them a lesson, and now that he saw them coming to the door, he was naturally in the middle of it.

When the four of them came to the gate of Li Xian's mansion together, they first encountered a closed door, and the guards in front of the mansion blocked them from entering, saying that they had to report to the king of Zhou first, and the king of Zhou agreed that they could enter the mansion.

As a result, these four Tai Sui actually beat the guard severely, and then forcibly wanted to break into the mansion!

This result naturally aroused the anger of the upper and lower groups, and thirty or forty palace guards surrounded these four guys in the center, not letting them leave, and even their personal guards were knocked to the ground.

Although Wu Yizong is relatively small in this group, he is the most arrogant, directly shouting Li Xian's name, asking Li Xian to come out and repel such a slave who does not know how to respect and inferiority, otherwise he will kill someone.

Wu Yizong didn't know how angry Li Xian was at this time, and when he saw Li Xian really appear, he looked impatient, and shouted at Li Xian: "Seventh brother, it's not the junior brother who said you, these minions in your house are also supposed to be disciplined, and they don't even distinguish between dignity and inferiority, and even a few of our brothers dare to stop us, who are we?" It's the cousin of the seventh brother, the nephew of the current queen, not to mention in the seventh brother's mansion, but in the prince's east palace, which slave dares to meddle in the affairs between our brothers casually? ”

"Oh?" Li Xian was furious when he heard this, but on the surface, he said lightly: "Brother Yizong is right, these slaves in the Little Wang's Mansion should really be in charge, wait for me to discipline them well, and be angry for your brothers." ”

Then Li Xian glanced at those palace guards, glared at them and said, "You wait for a few things that are really hateful and unlucky, how did this king tell you at the beginning?" All the soldiers in my house are brothers, but if one person is wronged, what should everyone else do? Hmph, now that the brothers have been wronged, you don't even dare to return your hand, can you still be considered brothers? I'm really blind, I even asked you to be my palace guard, but it's not too late, wait until tomorrow, and send all of you to feed the dogs! When did you learn to teach righteousness, and when did you come back! ”

Wu Yizong was very proud when he heard Li Xian reprimand those guards at first, and secretly thought, "What is Li Xian's house? Isn't he still a master who bullies the weak and fears the hard? At the beginning, the two brothers had no official positions and let him bully them, but now that all four of my brothers are officials, he still shows weakness to us? ”

But the more he listened to it, the more he felt that it was not a taste, and his feelings Li Xian was not angry for them, but because he thought that the guards under his command did not take action to vent their anger for the beaten brothers, and the four brothers who were guarding them all said this, which was really equivalent to a loud slap in the face to them.

"Li Xian, what do you mean?" Wu Yizong, who reacted, suddenly sank his face and asked coldly.

But seeing Li Xian smiled faintly: "It's not very interesting, it's just that the foolish brother saw that these minions were not angry, and scolded them to relieve their anger, hehe, brothers, don't be angry, Xiao Wang will send them to feed the dog, when they learn to be their brother bitten by a dog, immediately rush up and bite the dog again, for their brother to vent his anger, I will let them come back." ”

"You, huh, you're good! Balls! We'll see you later, hehe. Wu Chengsi and the others looked at Li Xian, their faces turned red suddenly, and they said coldly, and then turned around and prepared to leave.

But suddenly Li Xian shouted: "What did I just say? Do you really want to get a dog? ”

Then I saw those guards come forward in a dream, surrounded the Wu brothers and beat them violently, so scared that the Wu brothers no longer cared about their demeanor, spread their legs and ran.

At this time, Li Xian's thick laughter came from behind them: "Four brothers, why do you have to leave?" Xiao Wang hasn't invited you to drink yet, and the hospitality is not good today, please don't laugh at it......" (To be continued.) )