Baolin Temple was built in the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, there are more than 2,000 monks at the most prosperous time, three huge iron pots show the glory of this temple, now there are more than 300 monks, support the 20 hectares of temple fields at the foot of the mountain to feed, the drought since the beginning of the year has also affected this temple, the harvest is hopeless, the tenants have gone to the state city to beg for a living, the monks have to go around to survive the fate, there are only more than 30 elderly monks left in the huge temple at present, relying on the little surplus food left in the temple.

Due to the large number of monks' houses, Li Qing'an's 300 guards had enough shelter, everyone brought dry food, and a spring on the mountainside had not completely dried up, and several guards ran to fetch water under the guidance of a monk.

In the monk's room, Li Qing'an stood in front of a small sand table and stared at it for a long time, the sand table is a map of Lingxi, made of clay, usually disassembled into eight pieces and packed in boxes, and then put together when used.

Although Beiting and Broken Leaf are far away from him, his roots are still there, his relatives, his subordinates, and his unfinished business are all in Beiting, which is the hometown of his dreams.

When he left Xiangyang, he received a letter from Li Linfu to him, Gao Xianzhi was ready to attack Tocharo, and with the approval of the imperial court, Li Linfu asked him what the outcome of the battle would be.

In the past two days, Li Qing'an has been thinking about this problem, according to historical records, Gao Xianzhi should have met the envoy of Ning Yuanguo on the way back after the victory of the Shushi Kingdom, Ning Yuanguo told the secret that the Shi Kingdom had colluded with the Great Food, and wanted to seize the broken leaves, which caused Gao Xianzhi to be angry, Gao Xianzhi turned to the Shi Kingdom, and after wantonly slaughtering and plundering the capital of the Shi Kingdom, he returned to Chang'an to report on his work.

The Anxi army then attacked Broken Leaf in an attempt to restore the Broken Leaf military town, but it triggered the eastward advance of the Great Food Army, and finally the Battle of Talas broke out.

But history has been changed, and the broken leaves have been taken by him, so Gao Xianzhi chose to sweep Tocharian in order to compete with him, Tocharian is also the northern part of Afghanistan in later generations, and the northwest direction is the countries in the river, and the west of Tocharian is the Wuhu River, that is, the Amu Darya River in later generations, and across the Wuhu River is the old nest of the black-clothed eater Khorasan, the intelligence that Li Huichun brought him is that the Abbasids have stationed heavy troops there, the question is, it is now the ninth year of Tianbao, 750 AD, is the civil war of the Great Food over?

Li Qing'an is not very clear about this, but if the Great Food Civil War is over and Gao Xianzhi sweeps Tochar, it will inevitably trigger a counterattack by the Great Cannibal, which will not change because of his Li Qing'an's crossing, this is the inevitable collision of the two major empires of the East and the West for Central Asia, so what will be the consequences of this Tocharian battle?

Li Qingan gently tapped the sand table with a small wooden stick, if he was Gao Xianzhi, he would first transfer the Beiting Heavy Army to Broken Leaves, to prevent the big food from the North from breaking leaves, Beiting Anxi two military horses, all the way to guard Broken Leaves, all the way to fight Fire, he has this condition, he is also the envoy of the Beiting Festival.

The key is how high Gao Xianzhi's awareness of this battle is, will he be like Yang Guozhong, who only thinks about Tibet and not about the big food? Did he send someone to the Great Food to spy on the intelligence? Is he ready to fight on two fronts?

These all made Li Qingan very worried, in history, Gao Xianzhi was defeated at the hands of the Great Cannibal, largely because of his lack of understanding of the Great Eclipse, and will history repeat this scene? Li Qing'an was very conflicted in his heart, he hoped that the Tang army could win this battle, but he also hoped that Gao Xianzhi would be defeated by the Great Cannibal again.

Just when Li Qing'an was deep in thought, suddenly, 'Assassin! There was a faint shout in the distance, which was exceptionally clear in the silent night, Li Qingan was startled, he turned his head, but he heard a sound of breaking the air, and his body instinctively turned to the left slightly, which was a conditioned reflex that he had formed in countless battles, and broke out at the moment of life and death, 'Whoosh! A dark shadow passed his face in an instant, a powerful arrow that struck the wall.

If we slow down the camera, at the moment when Li Qingan heard the void, his right script was able to move a little bit, his body deviated to the left with the help of force, and the window paper was broken at this moment, a blue poisonous arrow pierced through the window paper and shot straight at his head, his face was exactly two inches to the left, and the poisoned arrow grazed his face, and it only took half a second for all this to happen.

Li Qing'an rolled on the ground and dodged another arrow, when the roar of his guards was heard outside the house, followed by the clash of swords, and it seemed that more than one assassin had come.

Li Qing'an grabbed the bow and arrow on the head of the bed, he quickly ran to the outhouse, put the quiver on his back, took out an arrow and wound the bow, and hid in a dark corner.

The courtyard where Li Qing'an lives is the largest monastery in Baolin Temple, the courtyard can accommodate more than 500 people, there are two groups of people fighting in the courtyard, both are black-clothed people, the only difference is that the opponent's arm is wrapped with a white cloth, and masked, the assassin is about 40 people, all of them are strong in martial arts, although his personal soldiers are several times the other party, but they still can't take advantage of the slightest advantage, they are far from being the opponent of the assassin when they fight alone, but they have rich battlefield experience and tacit cooperation, like a copper wall and iron wall, blocking the assassin from hitting the inner room.

Li Qing'an was furious, he squinted his eyes and opened his bow to make an arrow, and the long arrow shot like lightning towards one of the most fierce people, and two brothers had already fallen under his sword.

This is a thin man, his swordsmanship is sharp, as agile as a monkey, he fights, jumps in the air, ready to climb over the human wall formed by Li Qing'an's personal guards, at this moment, an extremely powerful iron arrow roared, an arrow shot from the top of his head, straight into the neck cavity.

The man screamed and fell from the air to his death, and just then, Li Qing'an's second arrow arrived, and one shot into the eyebrows of a female assassin, nailing her to the ground; In the third arrow, an Assassin who had just jumped off the wall was crucified to the wall, and an iron arrow was shot into his mouth; The fourth arrow pierces a tall assassin through the heart; At the fifth arrow, there was a terrible scream from the wall.

Li Qing'an's iron arrows were one arrow after another, the arrows were extremely fierce, the arrows and arrows took people's lives, his arrows were so fast that no one could dodge them, only a moment later, twenty-eight assassins had died under his arrows, and the rest of the assassins were so frightened that they turned around to flee, but Li Qing'an's three hundred guards had surrounded them from front to back, and a burst of arrows shot through, and the last dozen assassins all fell in a pool of blood.

A quarter of an hour later, a sudden assassination ended, and the guards were busy cleaning up the bodies and searching around, and Jiang Xiaonian, the captain of the guards, was reporting to Li Qing'an on the final battle situation.

"Tell you, forty-five of the assassins have been killed, and two are still alive."

"How many of our brothers were killed or wounded?"

"Two people died, Chen Biao and Lou Balang, three were seriously injured, and fourteen were lightly injured."

Li Qingan nodded and sighed: "According to the old rules, the ashes will be sent home after cremation, and the family will be well cared for." ”

At this time, another guard ran over and said: "Report to the envoy, those two have been recruited, a total of fifty of them came, and five of them did not come in, they all came from Luoyang Qingwang Bepfu." ”

"King Qing?"

Li Qing'an couldn't help but sneer, needless to say, he could guess that it was sent by King Qing, and they wanted to get rid of themselves, the surviving tide stalls, to prevent Li Heng from restoring.

"So what did these two people do?"

"They turned out to be Jiangyang thieves, who were imprisoned in Chang'an Prison, and were later bought by King Qing with a lot of money and have been kept in Luoyang."

At this time, Zhao Yansi, the deputy lieutenant of the pro-military battalion who led people to search, came back, and he bowed down and reported: "Envoy, we have found a very strange thing. ”

"What's strange?"

"We have checked all the people, the first one with the sound of an assassin was not our people, nor the monks in the temple, and what is even more unbelievable is that we found five corpses in the woods, it should be the five assassins who did not enter, and in the body of one of the assassins, we found this."

Zhao Yansi handed a folded note to Li Qing'an, who unfolded the note and saw two words written on it: 'King Qing'.

Li Qing'an slowly crumpled the note into a ball, and this note was a bit of a snake to add to the snake, which made him suddenly suspicious in his heart, "Are these assassins really sent by King Qing?" ”

Lin wants to be quiet and the wind does not stop, it seems that this trip to Henan Road will not be so simple.

"Envoy, what about those two living mouths? Killed? ”

"Nope! He healed their wounds and sent them to the mansion of the Gaolishi in Chang'an, along with the heads of the fifty Assassins. ”

Li Qingan snorted coldly, who spent a lot of money to buy them out of prison, you can find out at a glance.

．．．．．．．．．．． Kaifeng County covers a very large area, the circumference of the city wall is more than 60 miles, the population is more than 200,000, of which Sancheng Renkou is dependent on the water of Caoyun, but the drought of several months has reduced the water of the Bianhe River to the minimum, it has been impossible to sail, the Caoyun has stopped for four months, which has brought a great impact to the life of the people of Bianzhou.

In Kaifeng County, in addition to the county government, the state government and the transfer of the envoy yamen, there is also Henan Province to interview the government officials, the number of interviews with the government officials is not much, more than 20 officials, a judge, four interview envoys.

On the morning of that day, Li Qing'an arrived in Kaifeng County, but he was greeted not by civil and military officials from Henan Province, but by a large-scale sit-in protest of more than 20,000 Caoyun coolies along the Bianhe River.

The main road of Kaifeng County is called Baishui Street, at this moment the street is densely filled with Caoyun coolies, everyone wears a white scarf on their heads, ** upper body, dark and shiny skin, everyone's eyes are full of anger and stubbornness, they are not exactly Caoyun coolies in Bianzhou, there are also from Songzhou, Bozhou, and even some are from Xuzhou.

At the gate of the city, Li Qing'an met Liu Sisong, the judge of the Yamen who came to greet him, a rather shrewd and capable black and thin man, about thirty years old, who had been working here for six years and knew the local situation very well.

"Envoy, I don't know who revealed the news that you came to take office, these Caoyun coolies came from all directions a few days ago, no, they are blocked in the city to put pressure on you!"

"Pressure me?" Li Qingxin couldn't help but feel a little strange, so he smiled and said, "What kind of pressure is on me, I'm not the Dragon King." ”

Judge Liu Sisong smiled bitterly and said: "Henan Province is drought, the Cao Yun in the capital is changed to the Yangtze River, and then the Han River goes north, the coolies are very worried that the Cao Yun will be rerouted, and their lives will be lost, so they united to put pressure on the envoy and did not allow the imperial court to change the Cao Yun." ”

"I see!"

Li Qing'an looked around, except for a few officials brought by Liu Sisong, there were no officials, so he asked, "What about the Taishou and the county order, why don't you see it?" ”

"Li Yuanjun, I'm here!"

I saw more than a dozen officials running in the distance, all sweating profusely, led by a middle-aged man in his fifties, who was Wu Qing, the Taishou of Bianzhou.

He stepped forward and bowed his hand and said with a smile: "Wu Qing is too guarded in Bianzhou, and Li Yuanjun is welcome to come to Bianzhou." ”

There is no tone of superiority and superiority in the tone, and it is no wonder that Li Qing'an's Tingguo Duke is only a title, which only indicates an identity, not an official position, and the champion general is just a loose official, if there is no corresponding real power and official matching, it will not make any sense.

Li Qing'an's current official position is the imperial history doctor, from the third rank, and there is no real power of the imperial history platform in the imperial history, it is just a fictitious position, and Bianzhou is Shangzhou, and Taishou is also from the third rank, and the two are equal in terms of official rank, but Taishou has more real power.

The administrative level of the Tang Dynasty is three levels: county, prefecture, and province, and the province refers to the central Shangshu province, and the Tao is not an administrative level, and the observer is not the top boss of the Taishou, but only a minister of the Imperial Mission, who cleans up the prison and supervises the officials, and has the power of impeachment, recommendation, and punishment of prisons, but cannot interfere in local political affairs.

It was for this reason that Wu Qing's attitude towards him was respectful and disrespectful, he sighed and said with a wry smile: "These workers came from all directions, indicating that they wanted to see the envoy, but we did not dare to forcibly drive him away, for fear of causing a riot, and the envoy would face such a tricky matter as soon as he came, and he was really sorry not to go."

Although he said that he didn't want to go, but a touch of imperceptible pride flashed in his eyes, Li Qingan also smiled and replied: "I am a soldier and have no experience in local affairs. ”

"Definitely! Certain! ”

Wu Qing's smile was extremely sincere, and he hurriedly said: "The envoy might as well enter the city from the East City Gate, there are no Caogong blocking the road there." ”

As soon as he finished speaking, Li Qing'an's three hundred personal guards suddenly launched, and their war horses galloped forward, their swords unsheathed, their bows and arrows wound, and shouted loudly: "Who dares not to step forward!" ”

Only then did Li Qing'an find that the workers had rushed up, and I don't know who told them that the observation had arrived, and they came forward to complain.

"We want to see the Observer! We want to see Li Yuanjun! ”

The Caogong was densely packed, and there was no edge in sight, the crowd was angry, the roar was like thunder, and they were surging forward desperately, and some of the three hundred guards couldn't stop it, and the war horses couldn't help but retreat.

Li Qing'an glanced at Wu Qing, only to see him take a few steps back without saying a word, these workers came to find Li Qing'an, and they had nothing to do with him.

Li Qingan couldn't help but sneer, what a dismount!

"Listen to me, everybody!" Li Qing'an shouted twice, but his voice was immediately drowned out by a tsunami-like shout, at this moment, the voices of tens of thousands of workers are getting louder and louder, their emotions are getting more and more excited, and they are roaring, you push me, and they start to shake, tens of thousands of workers have a tendency to get out of control, and now no matter the shouting of the servants or the leaders of the workers, they can't control the situation, if they don't quiet them down, they will make trouble.

Wu Qing didn't expect that the momentum of tens of thousands of people was so terrifying, sweat flowed down his forehead, he was a little at a loss, all the officials looked at him in panic, what should he do now?

At this moment, Li Qing'an glanced at Zhao Yansi, the deputy lieutenant of the guard, and made a gesture, and a personal soldier with a long arm set a small gunpowder bag on fire, and he threw it into the air, throwing it twenty zhang high.

The small powder bag exploded suddenly in mid-air, like a thunderclap on the ground, a thick smoke rose up, and tens of thousands of workers fell silent for a moment, and everyone was stunned.

In a moment of silence, Li Qingan shouted loudly: "I am the observer Li Qing'an, everyone listens to me!" ”

He was riding on a horse, full of energy, and his voice spread far away, more than 20,000 Caogong were shocked in their hearts, everyone looked at him blankly, even Taishou Wu Qing was so frightened that he couldn't say a word for a long time.

"I will definitely protect the Bianhe Caoyun for everyone, the Holy God has given me a will, let me ensure that everyone survives the drought safely no matter what, I Li Qingan promised everyone that I will not let a person starve to death, I will not let you leave your hometown and leave your homeland, please believe me!"

I don't know who applauded first, then dozens, hundreds, thousands, and finally thunderous applause and cheers resounded in the sky.

．．．．．．．．． Tens of thousands of workers were still gathered at the Caoyun wharf in Bianzhou, and Li Qing'an's promise could only appease their anger for a while, but the pressure to support their families made these men who had been working on the Caoyun for many years anxious, waiting for food to survive.

Observing the embassy's palace, the judge Liu Sisong and several officials were reporting to Li Qing'an about the people's situation under the drought, the price of rice in Kaifeng County has risen to 700 wen per bucket, and it is rising at a price of 50 wen per day, the wind of panic buying has been repeatedly prohibited, because the river water is cut off, the grain in Jianghuai cannot be transported, there are groups of thieves on the land route, many merchants who go to Jianghuai to transport rice have died halfway, their property has been lost, the government has not much rice in the warehouse, and there is a possibility of stopping disaster relief at any time.

Now the local government is waiting for the arrangement of the imperial court, and the arrangement of the imperial court is to send him Li Qing'an to Henan Province to investigate the situation.

A myriad of things are coming together, and everything is imminent, but what Li Qingan is most worried about is the 20,000 Cao laborers gathered on the Caoyun wharf, once they make trouble again, it is very likely to cause turmoil in Bianzhou.

He was about to get up and go to Wu Qing to discuss how to deal with it, but at this time, Liu Sisong told him something that he didn't expect.

(To be continued)