On May 29, the 28th year of Zhenguan, the Tang Emperor Li Shimin died of illness in the Ganlu Hall at the age of 57, reigning for 28 years, and the temple name was Taizong. It is worth mentioning that on the third day after Li Shimin's death, the eldest grandson empress, who had been lingering on the sickbed, also followed him, and the two were buried together in Zhaoling.

On the day after Li Shimin's death, Li Zhi, with the support of the ministers, and the witness of Li Ke, Li Su and others, ascended the throne in the Taiji Hall and became the third emperor of the Tang Dynasty.

After Li Zhi ascended the throne, he immediately carried out all-round reforms to the Tang Dynasty, mainly to standardize legislation, crack down on the powerful, and put everyone under the deterrence of the law. In addition, Li Zhi also ordered the formulation of the "Commercial Law", which stipulates the rights and obligations of buyers and sellers in commercial activities, with the aim of providing a relatively level playing field for domestic industry and commerce.

In addition, Li Zhi also vigorously improved the social status of merchants and workers through public opinion tools such as laws and newspapers, and at the same time relaxed some domestic controls on all aspects to increase the freedom of the people. In agriculture, we have also vigorously learned from Daqi, and huge farms have been built in various places, in addition to the management personnel using Han Chinese, other simple agricultural labor is the use of slaves, and even some farms have introduced steam engines, which greatly saves labor costs, etc.

In fact, these series of measures have only one purpose, that is, to improve the industrial and commercial environment in Datang, so that domestic industrialists and businessmen can stay in Datang with peace of mind, instead of going to Daqi for various reasons, resulting in a large loss of domestic capital, and even the situation of industrial and commercial regression has been changed.

All reforms have been difficult from the outset. Even if it was personally promoted by Li Zhi, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, it was still the same as those diehards represented by the nobles who had accumulated a lot of wealth by virtue of their privileges. Seeing that his interests were deprived, he naturally launched a fierce resistance. Every day, a group of ministers in the court put pressure on Li Zhishang, wanting him to retract his life.

But Li Zhi's determination is obviously beyond everyone's imagination, he not only withstood this pressure, but even took the opportunity to beat out several diehards in the name of forming a party for personal gain, and even the eldest grandson Wuji, who has been quiet, was also involved, and the power in his hands was taken away by Li Zhi by taking the opportunity to take away half of it, Xu Jingzong, Shangguan Yi and Li Yifu, the three new nobles, are all eyeing the phase of the eldest grandson Wuji.

The eldest grandson Wuji originally considered Li Zhi's character flaws, thinking that he would not be able to withstand the pressure of the court and retreat. But he didn't expect Li Zhi's performance to be far beyond his expectations, which made the last extravagant hope of Changsun Wuji come to naught, coupled with Li Su's persuasion in the past, as well as Changsun Chong's influence on him, and finally after half a year of weighing, Changsun Wuji finally submitted his resignation to Li Zhi, and Li Zhi immediately approved.

The eldest grandson Wuji is a big banner of the diehards, and now even this big flag has fallen, which makes the diehards a big loss. The resistance to the reform was immediately greatly reduced, and even many diehards saw that the wind was not in the right direction and chose to surrender to Li Zhi in exchange for their own protection.

At the same time that Li Zhi was implementing reforms in the Tang Dynasty. After Li Ke and Li Su, Li Yun, and Li Zhen attended the funerals of Li Shimin and Empress Changsun, they also chose to return to China, among which Li Su, Li Yun, and Li Zhen did not make any big moves. The main focus is on domestic development, and there is also attention to the reform of Datang. If Li Zhi encounters any problems that cannot be solved, they will also come forward to help solve them.

In contrast, Li Ke is much busier. He and Irina lived in Chang'an for a while, and it was not until after Irina had a child that they returned to Rome by boat. At this time, Li Ke finally had time to start integrating Rome with Daqi, during which he also vigorously rectified the atmosphere of Rome, strengthened the exchanges between Rome and the Tang Dynasty, and so on.

Three years later, Lee's filial piety expired, and he also held Rome firmly in his hands. It was only at this time that Irina held a grand wedding with Li Ke as she wished, and brothers such as Li Su, Li Yun and Li Zhen, as well as princesses such as Qinghe, Gao Yang, and his son, also rushed to Rome to attend the wedding of Li Ke and Irina.

It was also after the wedding that Irina finally passed the throne of Roman Emperor to Li Ke justifiably. Li Ke, who became the Great Qi and the Roman Emperor, immediately merged the two countries and renamed it the Mediterranean Empire, and followed the example of Li Su's Great Qi and began to vigorously develop maritime trade and navy, and soon defeated the navy that Da Shi had just developed in the Mediterranean, and sat firmly in the position of the hegemon of the Mediterranean.

However, Li Ke was not satisfied with this, although the Great Eclipse in the south was defeated at sea, but the army of the Great Eclipse was still strong, and Li Ke wanted to recover the homeland of the Roman Empire, which needed to pay a considerable price, so he did not plan to move the Great Eclipse for the time being. Moreover, now Da Shi is surrounded by the Tang Dynasty, Tianzhu and Rome from the land, and the only sea route is cut off by Li Su, which is like a beast with broken limbs, no matter how sharp its teeth are, but it is useless if it can't bite people.

After giving up the hard bone of the Great Food, Li Ke turned to develop in the direction of Europe, he first advanced by land and sea, and soon conquered the Lombard Kingdom on the Balkan Peninsula, so that the city of Rome, which had been lost to barbarians for nearly two hundred years, returned to the hands of the Romans, but at this time this group of conquerors should be called Mediterranean.

After recovering the Balkan Peninsula, Li Ke finally connected the original Eastern Empire with the territory of Daqi, and the transportation of the entire empire was more convenient. And Li Ke did not stop his footsteps because of this, he began to lead the original Romans and his Han army together, began to launch a counteroffensive against the barbarians in the north, with the help of superior forces and advanced weapons, the northern barbarians were not the opponents of the Mediterranean Empire at all, and they were destroyed one after another, and countless barbarian prisoners of war became emerging white slaves, which also greatly promoted the development of the slavery industry in the Mediterranean Empire.

However, Li Ke soon encountered a strong opponent, that is, the Frankish kingdom during the Merovingian dynasty, at this time the Frankish kingdom was in the early stage of the Pepin era, the power of the kingdom was controlled by the emperor and the palace minister respectively, and the imperial power faction and the palace minister faction fought endlessly, and violent conflicts would break out from time to time.

Although the Frankish kingdom is fighting endlessly, he is the most powerful kingdom of the barbarians after all, and the land area is not much smaller than the Mediterranean Empire, so in the face of this strong enemy, Li Ke also changed his strategy, he took the method that Li Su gave Li Shimin to the other side of Goguryeo, and sent elite troops into the interior of the Frankish kingdom to carry out an endless harassment war, and as a result, it took several years to drag the Frankish kingdom to the Jedi, and the entire kingdom collapsed, at this time Li Ke easily occupied the vast territory of the Frankish kingdom.

The fall of the Frankish kingdom made the Mediterranean Empire finally eliminate the troubles of the northern henchmen, and the country also ushered in a relatively stable period of development, especially with the strengthening of exchanges with the Tang Dynasty and the Great Qi, more and more Han people were willing to come to the Mediterranean Empire for development, which made the proportion of Han people in Li Ke's country rise in a straight line, which in turn increased Li Ke's rule over the empire.

Perhaps it was to see Li Ke's extraordinary front in Europe, Daqi and Tianzhu, who had been dormant for several years, also began their journey of conquest, in which Li Su chose his goal in the Americas, after these years of development, he has immigrated nearly 500,000 Han people in Central America, and there are nearly a million American natives who have been attached, so Li Su based on these people, officially included Central America into the territory of Daqi, and began to send troops at the same time, and expanded outward, all the Americans who did not want to belong to it, all were included in the conquest.

Compared with Li Su's conquest of the Americas, Li Yun and Li Zhen also opened Tianzhu's African strategy, Tianzhu's military development is more inclined to the army, but under the influence of Li Su, Tianzhu's navy also has a certain strength, so it is very easy to achieve a cross-sea battle, with the support of naval warships, Tianzhu sent 300,000 troops to Africa, which is mainly composed of Tianzhu people.

This army did not land at Hafengjiao, which was occupied by Tianzhu and Daqi, but chose to land at the southernmost tip of Africa, mainly because Li Su told Li Zhen and Li Yun that under the fertile land of South Africa, it is rich in gold, iron, copper, diamonds and other minerals, and occupying it there is equivalent to Tianzhu having an endless treasure trove.

It is precisely because of Li Su's guidance that Li Yun and Li Zhen's invasion of Africa is mainly based on plundering mineral deposits, especially the huge reserves of gold in South Africa, which is their main target, but they want to mine mineral deposits, and naturally need a large number of miners, which also directly led to the extremely developed slave trade in South Africa, and countless slaves from the Mediterranean Empire, Daqi and other places were transported here, and then became a dry skeleton in various mining disasters or diseases. Hundreds of years later, South Africa was nicknamed the 'Grave of the Miners', and the number of miners who died on the land was so numerous that it was impossible to count them.

In the tenth year after Li Shimin's death, Li Zhi's reform in Datang finally achieved initial results, and after several years of stagnation, Datang's domestic industry and commerce finally regained its vitality and began a new round of rapid development, among which the textile, steel, porcelain and other industries developed rapidly, and even began to catch up with the pace of Daqi in a short period of time.

The original merchants who settled in Daqi saw the changes in Daqi, and also returned to their hometowns to build factories, which further promoted the development of Datang industry and commerce, and even later there was a return tide in Datang, and the people of Daqi who originally settled in Daqi began to return to their hometowns to live, after all, for the Han people, the fallen leaves have been carved into their bones, even if the conditions of their hometown are poor, they are more willing to return to their hometown to live.

However, as Li Shimin predicted before his death, in the process of the gradual development of the four empires of the Tang Dynasty, the Great Qi, Tianzhu and the Mediterranean, there will inevitably be some frictions between countries! (To be continued......)