Cui Wenxiang had already waited in the study first, Li Yuanji entered the study, dismissed everyone, and then stretched his body for a long time and said: "Pretending to be sick is really uncomfortable, let me recover quickly!" ”

Cui Wenxiang stood up and saluted, and said with a smile: "In terms of time, His Highness has also recovered, but he needs to behave a little weaker, and there will be no loopholes." Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ”

Li Yuanji waved his hand to invite Cui Wenxiang to sit down, and asked in a low voice: "It's going well over there in Jiucheng Palace!" ”

Cui Wenxiang smiled slightly, "Planning for so long and preparing so well, how can it not go well?" This time the action is two-pronged, and the prince can't say it clearly even if he has a hundred mouths. ”

Speaking of this, Cui Wenxiang took another sip of tea and said: "Actually, the Son of Heaven has long had the intention of abolishing the prince, let's just push the boat down the river and help the Son of Heaven, so that the Son of Heaven can get the handle of the abolished prince, as long as it is not seriously exposed, the prince will not be able to turn the tables this time." ”

Li Yuanji pondered for a moment and said, "Then do we have any places where we are exposed?" ”

Cui Wenxiang said coldly: "I still say the same thing, all those who know must be silenced in order to be foolproof." ”

Li Yuanji nodded, he also supported Cui Wenxiang's suggestion, but there were a few people he didn't want to kill, so he hesitated and said: "Imperial Doctor Wang Xiao is very effective in cooperating with us this time, killing him will make people suspicious, and Ma Yaozong, I still have something to use him, except for these two people, the others will be handled by the military division!" ”

Cui Wenxiang wants to talk about these two people, the others are all small minions, most of them know a little bit, it doesn't matter if they kill or not, but Cui Wenxiang didn't dare to be too strong in front of Li Yuanji, he was also afraid that Li Yuanji would turn around and clean himself up in the future, so he nodded, "Your Highness will have a good talk with them again, encourage them, let them be loyal to Your Highness, and it doesn't hurt if you don't kill them." ”

Li Yuanji became excited in his heart, and said to Cui Wenxiang: "I have an idea, why don't we hide a little paper figurine in the East Palace, so that the people who search the East Palace can find it, will it be more effective?" ”

Cui Wenxiang lowered his head and thought about it: "Actually, two big cases are enough, and if you do it again, it will be a bit of a trick, and if you don't get it right, you will ......be exposed."

Cui Wenxiang found that Li Yuanji's face was a little unhappy, and he hurriedly changed his words: "The meaning of lowly duty is that it is okay to do it, but don't put the little paper man, because the prince has not been in Chang'an for the past few months, and it is impossible to put the little paper man, but you can put a few long rusty steel needles under the bed in the prince's bedroom, I believe that the saint will associate it with the little paper man." ”

Li Yuanji said with a smile: "This is okay, just let us do this in the inner line of the East Palace, and please ask the military advisor to work harder." ”

"The humble position should be, in addition, the humble duty should remind His Royal Highness that the Holy Lord will return to Beijing tomorrow, I believe that the people who support the prince will behave, His Royal Highness should try to keep a low profile, it is best not to see anyone, there is something to do in the humble position."

Li Yuanji nodded, "Of course, I was poisoned, and my body has not yet recovered, so I am sure that I will not see anyone." ”

The two looked at each other and laughed together.

Cui Wenxiang went to arrange the steel needle, and Li Yuanji asked Ma Yaozong to come in, praised him well, rewarded him with three hundred taels of gold, and gave him ten days off to enjoy himself.

Ma Yaozong was grateful to Li Yuanji and left with great gratitude.

Li Yuanji's heart was so full of joy that he couldn't hold back any longer, so he found a few beloved concubines and went into the bedroom to play together.

.........

The next day, just after dawn, with the bell of the Vermilion Bird Gate, the major gates and fang gates of Chang'an City were opened in turn, and a new day for Chang'an came.

A few years ago, when the gate of Chang'an City opened, it would immediately bring great prosperity, and thousands of vegetable farmers outside the city would flock in, filling the streets of the city with vegetable stalls on both sides, and the housewives of Chang'an City would also know one after another, and choose the side dishes for their families for the day.

A few years ago, the most popular places were the East and West Markets, where countless pawn vendors and laborers flocked to the East and West Markets every day at dawn to find a job and earn a small amount of money to support their families.

But today's Chang'an City in addition to the vegetable farmers every day to sell vegetables as usual, other aspects have completely changed, the east and west markets were officially closed half a year ago, thousands of shops in the two cities are almost closed, Chang'an materials are scarce, copper money is overflowing, prices have skyrocketed, even dozens of rice shops are closed down, at present, by the regular closing of the supply to the people every day a little cheap grain, each household is limited to five buckets per month, but even if it is parity grain, it is also worth 400 rice.

Some merchants found a business opportunity and planned to transport grain from the middle capital of Doumi to Chang'an to sell, but the Great Zhou Dynasty, which initially advocated free trade, issued a long list of embargoes, including grain, meat, cloth, timber, salt, camellia and other hundreds of materials related to people's livelihood are within the scope of the embargo, only porcelain, jewelry, silk, fat powder and other luxury goods are allowed to be transported into the customs, and even pig iron can only be bought and sold by officials.

In fact, this is to use unfair trade to completely hollow out the materials in Guanzhong, without commerce, the people at the bottom of Chang'an have almost lost their way to make a living, coupled with the shortage of various living materials, food prices have skyrocketed, so that the people in Chang'an and Guanzhong are not able to make a living, complaining, more and more people choose to leave, and the population of Chang'an has dropped sharply from one million people when the Tang Dynasty was founded to more than 200,000.

Although Li Yuan gained a year's respite through armistice negotiations, he also paid an extremely heavy price, the economy of the Tang Dynasty has been destroyed, the most embarrassing thing is the imperial examination held in February, only more than 1,000 scholars came to participate, and at the same time the imperial examination held in Zhongdu, but more than 100,000 scholars rushed to Zhongdu from all over the world, destroying not only the economy, but also the confidence of the Tang scholars.

However, there are five or six liquor shops outside the gate of the East City that are open for business, and the business is actually good, and the dozens of green buildings and music shops in the Pingkang Fang opposite the gate of the East Market are even more prosperous, making the East Market area a prosperous bright spot in the dead silence of Chang'an City, and the powerful and rich people of Chang'an have gathered in the East City and Pingkang Fang to have fun and seek a life of drunken dreams and death.

The grocery store opened by the Chang'an Intelligence Agency also closed down because of the cut off supply, but the flag given to them by Li Shentong was hung in front of a wine store called 'Huashanke', because Li Shentong also invested a little money in this wine store, this wine store immediately had a strong backstage and became one of the five major wine stores in Chang'an in one fell swoop.

But Li Shentong never dreamed that this businessman from Lujiang County, who was not good-looking and desperately fooled him into investing money and shares, turned out to be the fifth-ranked general of the Great Zhou Empire.

Lu Ping, alias Lu Tong, has been quite famous in the business community of Chang'an, known as Lao Lu, everyone's evaluation of him is courageous, visionary, dare to invest money, can make money, he is currently the proprietor and big shopkeeper of Huashan Liquor Shop, can speak well, has a wide range of contacts, Chang'an magnates and officialdom no one knows him.

In the early morning, the Huashan liquor store opened its doors as usual, dozens of bartenders were busy cleaning the liquor store, the cooks were cutting meat and washing vegetables in the kitchen, and more than a dozen ox carts were escorted by twenty samurai to transport all kinds of ingredients to the liquor store, their ingredients were bought from nearby counties, and twenty martial arts samurai guards were specially hired.

Lu Ping smiled and stood in front of the steps to greet the arrival of more than a dozen ox carts full of ingredients, he opened the oilcloth and looked at it, all kinds of meat and vegetables were quite fresh, he nodded with satisfaction, turned around and shouted: "Come out to carry things!" ”

Dozens of bartenders ran out of the liquor store to carry all kinds of ingredients, Lu Ping asked people to go to the account room to get twenty yuan and hand it to the samurai, saying okay, take a trip with the same money per person, the road is not safe, the samurai are also making money on the knife, the city gate guards may know the Li Shentong banner on the car, and dare not rub the oil, but the road bandit ruffian who blocked the road and robbed did not know the broken flag.

At this time, Lu Ping suddenly saw Ma Yaozong riding a horse from a distance, and he greeted him quietly, "Yo! Isn't this General Ma, which fragrant wind blew you here? ”

"If you want to eat something, may I ask Shopkeeper Lu if the wine shop is open now?"

Lu Ping was embarrassed: "There will be wine and food at noon, or make a bowl of noodles for the general!" ”

"Yes! Another jug of wine. ”

Lu Ping immediately asked people to go to the kitchen to order noodles to be made, and he smiled at Ma Yaozong again: "The first and second floors are being cleaned, please ask the general to go up to the third floor to eat!" ”

A bartender stepped forward to lead the horse, and another led Ma Yaozong to the third floor, but Lu Ping was not in a hurry to leave, and chatted with the samurai about the situation.