The five surnames and seven hopes are not a whole, although the seven great families are closely related, but each is a separate individual, and there are even rankings between each other, among which the Boling Cui clan is the first to beat the Qinghe Cui clan, ranking first, and the last is the Taiyuan Wang clan, and the Taiyuan Wang clan has been going downhill over the years, in fact, if it is really about strength, it may not be as good as some big families outside the five surnames and seven wangs, but because of habits, people still think that Taiyuan Wang is one of the seven wangs.

However, although the Taiyuan Wang family is one of the five surnames and seven wangs, it has no status within the seven wangs, which can be seen from the marriage, such as the Qinghe Cui family and the Longxi Li family and the Fanyang Lu family; the Li clan of Zhaojun and the Boling Cui clan; Fan Yang Lu and Xingyang Zheng; Longxi Li and Fan Yang Lu.

These families are generations of marriages, but only the Taiyuan Wang family is excluded, although there are occasional marriages, such as Wang An's wife Mrs. Wang, is from the Qinghe Cui family, but this situation is rare, Taiyuan Wang family in the seven hopes, there is no fixed marriage object, there are many Wang women are married to other families, such as Wenxin's nominal mother, and later Li Zhi's queen Wang, are from the Taiyuan Wang family.

The reason why the Taiyuan Wang family has fallen to such a point is not because the talents in the clan are withering, on the contrary, the Wang family is the clan with the most people in the Seven Hopes, and even in the era of the Tang Dynasty, the surname Wang is also the largest surname in the world. Not only is it not worse than any other nobleman, but it is even stronger.

But with so many talents, why is the Taiyuan Wang family ranked last in Qiwang? For this issue. Li Su also specially consulted Wang An. But Wang An showed a wry smile after hearing this, and it could be seen that he still had some feelings for the Taiyuan Wang family.

After Wang An's explanation, Li Su finally understood the reason, in fact, the reason for the decline of the Taiyuan Wang clan is actually related to the population of the clan, because there are too many people in the Taiyuan Wang clan, although there are no exact numbers, but there are at least hundreds of thousands. And that's not even counting the more distant side branches.

With such a huge population, there is no way to manage it at all because of the ancient management method of clans, so the Taiyuan Wang clan seems to be a whole, but in fact it has become a very loose clan, except for the Wang family's long house and other branches close to the blood, most of the other Wang clan people have no binding force at all. And so it goes. The clansmen that the Taiyuan Wang clan can manage are actually very limited. It's less than the other six in Qiwang.

In addition, after the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin spared no effort to suppress them, among which the Taiyuan Wang family was the most unlucky, because Taiyuan was the birthplace of the old Li family, and the power here was also the strongest. The income was greatly reduced, and even the financial problems appeared, which forced the vigorous development of industry and commerce among the clans.

Wang Guo is in charge of the commercial operations of the Taiyuan Wang clan, and he knows this situation best, and according to him, an internal ghost, the Taiyuan Wang clan's financial income now accounts for more than sixty percent of the industrial and commercial alone. And most of them are related to the emerging industries created by Li Su, such as coal, cement, canned food, etc., which account for the majority of Wang's industry.

After figuring out the situation in the Taiyuan Wang clan, and then having Wang An, a strategist, it is naturally easy to think of a plan to win over and divide the Taiyuan Wang clan, first Wang An took the initiative to show goodwill, and then Li Su gave the Taiyuan Wang family a promise, in fact, this promise is very illusory, that is, as long as the Taiyuan Wang family reveals the latest news to Li Su at any time in this action to suppress industry and commerce, then Li Su will vigorously support the Wang family in the future, as long as their Wang family's talents will be given priority.

This promise doesn't seem to be of much benefit to the Wang family, after all, Li Su is just a prince, and no matter how short of people he is, he won't need much. However, Wang Tong didn't think so, because in his opinion, among all the princes of the Tang Dynasty, Li Su was the most likely to inherit the throne, if he waited until he sat on the throne, and then gave priority to hiring the talents of the Taiyuan Wang family, then the power of the Wang family would definitely rise, even if it was not as good as the Cui family, but it would definitely not always be at the bottom.

Of course, just such an illusory promise, not enough to impress Wang Tong, in addition to Li Su also gave Wang a lot of business concessions, these are real profits, although now Taiyuan Wang's finances have improved, but there is still a lack of money everywhere, for the benefits sent by Li Su, Wang Tong really can't bear to push it out, and finally agreed to do Li Su's internal response, but he is only responsible for delivering news, and will not do any other substantial help, and they will definitely not be soft when they should suppress industry and commerce, Li Su also expressed his understanding of this.

After finishing the business, Li Su stayed in Taiyuan for a few days, accompanied Wen Xin and them to play around, until Li Shimin sent someone to urge him, and then set off to go back, of course, in Taiyuan these days, he and Taiyuan Wang did not have much contact on the surface, just visited according to the number of etiquette, and then there was no contact on the surface.

Returning to Jinzhou with Wang An and his wife, Wang Guo was ready to break with the clan, but he didn't want to reconcile with his father and the clan, and Li Yu reached an agreement with Wang Tong, so he still stayed in the clan as the liaison between the two sides, but this situation did not last long, and when Li Su returned to Dengzhou from Chang'an, Wang Guo would take his own forces and assist Li Yu with his father, as for Cui Yu, he went north with the goods and went to the grassland to earn the money of those Hu people.

When they arrived at the boundary of Puzhou, Li Su and they got off the boat again to change the carriage, and along the first cement road built in the Tang Dynasty, that is, the road from Chang'an to Luoyang, they rushed all the way to the west, and soon arrived at the city of Chang'an.

After coming to the Tang Dynasty, it was here that he met a lot of friends, and it was also here that he laid a solid foundation for himself to develop so smoothly in Dengzhou. After more than a year, today is finally back!

Li Su and they entered Chang'an from the Tonghua Gate of Xicheng, which happened to be the closest to Li Su's Qi Palace, and after entering Chang'an City, Li Su did not stop at all, all the way to the mansion, immediately closed the door, and did not have contact with anyone along the way. Originally, Cheng Huailiang and the others were going to hold a welcoming ceremony for Li Su, but they were also rejected by him. Entering the city in such a low-key manner, except for some well-informed people, many people even did not know that Li Su, the king of Qi, had returned to Chang'an.

The main reason why Li Su entered the city in such a low-key manner was that he received a message before, that is, after Li Shimin returned to Chang'an, he immediately learned about the good things that Li Chengqian and Li Tai had done in Chang'an.

Lao Tzu scolded his son, it was a very common thing, especially for people like Li Shimin who don't be a father, scolding his son is even more commonplace, but he scolded a little differently this time, scolding Li Chengqian and Li Tai, the two sons, for misbehaving and ignoring the overall situation, but in the end, Li Su was pulled in for comparison, and Li Su's achievements in Dengzhou were laid out one by one, and the two sons were scolded for nothing, and finally even pointed out that he took Li Su to fight bloodily on the battlefield of Goguryeo, But the two of them are fighting in the rear, compared with Li Su's younger brother, where do they have a little bit of an elder brother?

Li Shimin was happy after scolding, but the words he scolded in the hall caused endless trouble to Li Su, everyone originally thought that Li Su and Li Tai were Li Shimin's two favorite princes, but after this incident, everyone knew that the most favored prince of His Majesty the Emperor today was Li Su, no wonder he was only allowed to accompany him on the battlefield.

Although being favored does not mean that he will succeed to the throne, but Li Su is different from Li Tai's little fat man who does not understand the world, from the beginning when he co-founded the brewery with Hejian Wang and others, Li Su has used his interests to weave a network of contacts for himself, plus he is modest, and he is a group of people who laugh when he sees him, and he has nothing to say about his talent, so he has no martial arts in the court, and he has an excellent impression of him. Therefore, if Li Su can sit on the throne, it will naturally be expected by everyone.

As a result, rumors about Li Su began to spread in Chang'an City, although there are various versions, but most of the rumors have one thing in common, that is, Li Shimin deliberately let Li Su come back from Dengzhou this time, in fact, it was to find an opportunity to abolish the prince, and then put Li Su on the throne of the prince. Although this is just a rumor, it has been rumored by many people to have noses and eyes, and even among the high-level leaders of Datang, the possibility of this matter is being discussed.

And when Li Su got this news, he couldn't cry or laugh, he knew that he would be in trouble when he returned to Chang'an this time, but he didn't expect that this hadn't arrived in Chang'an, first received the news that the five surnames and Qiwang were ready to suppress industry and commerce, and then he was attacked again on the way, and finally arrived in Chang'an City, but he encountered such a thing, does God still think that things are not messy enough, and he has to mess everything up to feel fun?