On the corridor outside the Wude Palace, Li Shimin, the king of Qin, walked quickly towards the imperial study of the world with a pale face, the anger in his heart could not be concealed, and the eunuch who led the way in front of him was terrified, and he didn't know who caused the monstrous anger of His Royal Highness the King of Qin. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Just half an hour ago, Li Shimin received an urgent report from the garrison of Shangluo County, another fleet full of pig iron had been destroyed in Xiyang County, and all 300 soldiers who escorted the boat were wiped out, and only five boatmen escaped.

In just forty days, this is the second time that the fleet has been sunk, which makes Li Shimin how can he not be angry, the army was originally going to attack Xiyang County, but there was an accident in the state, which made his father change his plan, suspend the attack on Xiyang County, and stop pursuing the death of Dugu Huaien.

This series of passive decisions of the father made the Dugu family seriously dissatisfied, not to mention, and also endangered the existence of the Tang army in Jingzhou, which made the Tang army feel deeply frustrated.

Li Shimin is no exception, he is in charge of the eastern battlefield, whether Luoyang or Jingzhou is the area he is responsible for, and now his father has given up the Jingzhou strategy in order to merge the state, in Li Shimin's view, this is undoubtedly taking care of one or the other, being led by the nose of the Sui army, it is too passive, and this second shipwreck incident is enough to prove their failure to deal with it, strategic passivity.

Li Shimin waited outside the imperial study for a while, and a eunuch came out and said, "Your Highness, the Holy Lord has summoned!" ”

Li Shimin took a deep breath, restrained his emotions, tidied up his clothes again, and then walked into his father's imperial study.

To his surprise, there were actually many people in the imperial study, in addition to the eldest brother Li Jiancheng, there were Pei Lian, Liu Wenjing, Chen Shuda and Tang Jian, everyone looked at him with serious expressions.

This made Li Shimin feel a little uneasy in his heart, could something have happened again?

He walked forward quickly and knelt down to salute: "Sons and daughters meet their father!" ”

"The emperor is exempt!"

"Thank you, Father!"

Li Shimin got up and reported: "The son has important information to report to his father. ”

Li Yuan said slowly: "You want to talk about what happened in Xiyang County!" ”

Li Shimin was stunned, how did his father know?

But as soon as he thought about it, he understood that this must be an express report from the Shangluo County government, Li Shimin got a report from the garrison, and the government had to report the same thing to the imperial court, and it was obvious that the speed of the government's report was one step faster than that of the military.

This is not because the government is more efficient than the military, but because the government first caught a few boatmen who fled back to Shangluo County to report the news, and only told the news to the Shangluo County garrison two days after the interrogation.

This made Li Shimin a little dissatisfied in his heart, and his father called everyone to discuss why he didn't inform him, didn't he want to let himself ask about this matter again?

Li Jiancheng saw the displeased expression on his brother's face, so he explained to him: "We also just learned about what happened in Xiyang County, and we will notify our second brother to come to discuss after arranging the autumn harvest. ”

Only then did Li Shimin understand that they were discussing the autumn harvest, and the dissatisfaction in his heart subsided slightly, and he hurriedly said: "The imperial brother misunderstood, the younger brother is just worried that Jiangxia County has a large backlog of pig iron and blister copper inventory, if the shipping problem of Xiyang County is not solved, Chang'an's pig iron and copper will be out of stock again." ”

"How much pig iron and blister copper is backlogged over there in Jiangxia?" Li Yuan asked.

"Back to my father, there is a backlog of about five million catties of pig iron, and there are also one million catties of blister copper."

Li Yuan looked at Chen Shuda again, and Chen Shuda hurriedly said: "Last time, we used gold to exchange millions of catties of bronze to the big families in Guanlong and Bashu, and now there is no shortage of copper materials for coinage, but pig iron is really nervous. ”

"How are preparations for hematite progressing?" Li Shimin asked, Tang Jiandao.

"Back to Your Majesty, it's almost over, and it should be ready to mine soon."

Li Shimin was stunned, he was confused when he heard it, and hurriedly asked, "Father, what hematite?" ”

Li Yuan smiled slightly, "Didn't I tell the emperor?" ”

Li Shimin hurriedly shook his head, "Erchen has been training recruits in Yongxian County during this time, and he doesn't know anything about the situation. ”

"No wonder! Tang Xiangguo, you come and tell King Qin! ”

Tang Jian said with a smile: "God bless my dynasty, a month ago, the prospecting officials found a large iron ore vein in Yanchuan County, which was shallow and had high iron content, and at the same time associated with copper ore, the imperial court ordered the Yanchuan County government to immediately recruit thousands of laborers to prepare for mining, so that we have another source of copper and iron." ”

Li Shimin suddenly realized, isn't his father in a hurry to open up Nanxiang Road again, it turns out that he has found a new source of copper and iron, but ...... If you don't open up Nanxiang Road, what should Jingzhou do? Did you just give up?

"Father, has the plan for Xiyang County stopped?"

Li Yuan said lightly: "I know that the emperor is good at military affairs, but Xiyang County does not have to rely on military solutions, Zhang Xuan sent people to attack the Danshui fleet twice, and sent people to assassinate the Tang envoy, the purpose of which is to provoke a war between us and Wang Shichong, but we all agree that it is not appropriate to turn against Wang Shichong now, we must concentrate on solving the crisis of merging states with national strength, and then clean up Wang Shichong when we turn back." ”

Li Shimin was extremely disappointed in his heart, opening up the Nanxiang Road, Jingzhou was once the national policy of the Tang Dynasty, since it was a national policy, it should be persevered, how could it be abandoned because of the discovery of a new iron mine, is the meaning of Jingzhou only pig iron?

........

Li Shimin came out of the Wude Palace, the initial anger was gone, he only had disappointment and frustration in his heart, just walked down the steps, but heard someone behind him seemed to be calling him, Li Shimin turned around, but saw that it was Liu Wenjing running towards this side, he stopped.

Liu Wenjing panted and ran forward, "Your Highness, please slow down, Weichen has something to say." ”

Li Shimin looked at Liu Wenjing, nodded silently, and the two slowly walked towards the corridor side by side.

"Weichen can understand that His Royal Highness is unhappy about the suspension of the Nanxiang Dao strategy, but Your Majesty is not unaware of the importance of Nanxiang Dao, but Your Majesty also has unspeakable hardships."

"What's the problem?" Li Shimin asked puzzled.

"The main thing is that the national strength does not support us in fighting on two fronts."

Liu Wenjing sighed and said: "Wang Shichong ordered his nephew Wang Ren to lead 30,000 troops into Xiyang County, obviously he didn't want to make concessions on the Nanxiang Road, if the two broke out a war to seize Xiyang County, it would mean that the Tang and Zheng two families had a big war broke out, once Zhang Xuan supported Wang Shichong from behind, and Xiao Mo also took the opportunity to attack Jingzhou, the Tang army would fall into a protracted war, and the Sui army was fighting with us to merge the state, fighting on two fronts, and our national strength could not afford to consume." ”

"Is it just because of the lack of national strength?"

Liu Wenjing shook his head and said in a low voice: "I heard Chen Xiangguo say that the nobles of Guanlong are also putting pressure on Your Majesty, asking Your Majesty to concentrate their forces to keep the annexed state, and if the annexation is lost, they will stop supporting the Tang army's money and grain." ”

Li Shimin was a little puzzled, Dugu Huaien died in Luoyang, it stands to reason that the Guanlong nobles should put pressure on their father to destroy Wang Shichong first, how did it become a priority for merging states?

Liu Wenjing understood Li Shimin's confusion and explained: "The Guanlong nobles have a large number of granges in the south of Bingzhou, and once the Sui army captures Bingzhou, it will seriously threaten his vital interests, so they collectively wrote to the Holy Lord to ask for the preservation of the Merger, and did not hesitate to cut off money and food aid as a threat, everyone understood the difficulties of the Shengshang, so they did not persuade the Shengshang, but supported the Shengshang's decision, suspended the strategy of opening up Nanxiang Road, and concentrated their forces to keep the Bingzhou. ”

Li Shimin didn't speak for a while, he couldn't have imagined that his father's abandonment of Nanxiang Dao was the result of pressure from the Guanlong nobles, and he finally understood his father's helplessness.

After a moment of silence, Li Shimin asked again: "What about the inventory of Jiangxia pig iron and blister copper?" How to transport it back to Chang'an? ”

"Chen Xiangguo came up with a plan, in Xiangyang County directly into armor, mint copper coins, there is no need to transport to Chang'an, if there is excess refined copper and pig iron, you can take the land transport, from Jingling County through Dangyang County into Yiling County, we used to take this land route to Yiling County Tang Army transported tens of thousands of stone grain, experience and transport convoy, and then from Yiling to the Three Gorges water transport into Bashu, anyway, the south also needs resources, Jiangxia County produced copper and iron is used to support the south."

Li Shimin shook his head, instead of avoiding the Nanxiang passage, it is better to reach a compromise with Wang Shichong, the two sides share the Jiangxia mine, and then Wang Shichong will ensure the safety of the fleet.

But Li Shimin also knew that if Dugu Huaien's knot was not untied, and Wang Shichong did not give an explanation to the Tang Dynasty, it would be difficult for the two sides to reach a compromise.

At this time, a eunuch rushed over and saluted Li Shimin: "His Royal Highness the King of Qin, the Holy Lord asks you to return to the imperial study quickly." (To be continued.) )