In the twenty-fourth year of Zhenguan, Songtsen Gampo, the lord of Tubo, died of depression, when Tubo was surrounded by the Tang Dynasty from the northeast and west, and the south was facing the threat of Tianzhu, it can be said that the whole Tubo could no longer expand, and even if it were not for the Tang Dynasty and Tianzhu needed Tubo as a buffer zone for the two empires, Tubo would have been wiped out by them.

However, although Tubo was not destroyed, but under the squeeze of the two empires, life became very difficult, especially the Tang Dynasty and Tianzhu encroached on the territory of Tubo from all directions, although the annual loss of land is not very much, but it is enough to make Songtsen Gampo vomit blood for it, and it is precisely because of this that in the last few years of his life, Songtsen Gampo also lived very aggrieved, and even later some people believed that the most important reason why Songtsen Gampo died in the prime of life was depression in the next few years.

After the death of Songtsen Gampo, his young grandson Mangsong Mangzan succeeded to the position of Zampu, assisted by the great minister Lu Dongzan, in fact, because the lord of the country was young, so the power of Tubo completely fell into the hands of Lu Dongzan, this old acquaintance of Li Su finally mixed up, holding the power of a country, which also made him a little ambitious, ready to use his own strength to lead Tubo out of the current predicament.

In fact, Lu Dongzan also did a good job, he changed the conservative strategy of Songtsen Gampo before, began to actively learn from the Tang Dynasty, develop the country's industry and commerce, and at the same time actively contact with the Tang Dynasty and Tianzhu, strengthen the exchanges between the two sides, increase the understanding of the two empires of Tibet, and reduce the hostility between the three kingdoms.

Lu Dongzan's series of measures have indeed greatly improved the situation in Tibet, and a number of people in Tibet have also become wealthy because of industry and commerce, and the people's lives have also been improved. Even the attitudes of the Tang Dynasty and Tianzhu towards Tubo have changed, and the garrisons on the border of the three countries have also decreased year by year. Everything seems to be going in a very good direction.

But as Mangsong grew up, that finally changed. Mangsong Mangzan, as the lord of the country, naturally wants to take back power from Lu Dongzan, and Mangsong Mangzan is young and vigorous, he has long been unaccustomed to the domineering of Datang and Tianzhu, and he is naturally very disgusted by Lu Dongzan's behavior of befriending Datang and Tianzhu.

So in this case, Mangsong Mangzan secretly prepared for a long time, and finally staged a coup d'état at a court meeting, killing Lu Dongzan and his two sons in one fell swoop, and then Mangsong Mangzan quickly took control of the power of Tibet. and slaughtered the Lu Dongzan family.

After Mangsong Mangzan took power, he immediately reversed Lu Dongzan's previous practice of taking the initiative to befriend Datang and Tianzhu, and began to actively prepare for war, and there were still several provocations on the border, which was very much a feeling of 'newborn calves are not afraid of tigers'.

Datang and Tianzhu naturally could not tolerate the provocation of the little Tubo, so in the tenth year of Li Zhi's accession to the throne, he joined forces with Li Yun and Li Zhen of Tianzhu to send troops to attack from the north and south, and the result was crushed by 300,000 coalition troops. The Tibetan army organized by Mangsong Mangzan was completely vulnerable, and it was defeated in just one month.

After the fall of Tibet, the land was divided between the Tang Dynasty and Tianzhu, but in this way. The border between the two countries is also bordered. In the beginning, this situation also promoted exchanges between the two countries to a certain extent, and all parts of the south of the Tang Dynasty could directly reach Tianzhu. Although the road on the Tibetan Plateau is difficult to walk, it is much closer than the sea route.

But with the increase in this exchange. There are often some contradictions and disputes on the border between Datang and Tianzhu, and at the beginning it was only some civil disputes. But then it slowly turned into a confrontation between small armies, and even a conflict between armies broke out later, which made the high-level leaders of Datang and Tianzhu very embarrassed, and later the two countries resolved the conflict after many consultations. But with this precedent, the conflicts on the border between the Tang Dynasty and Tianzhu began to become more and more frequent.

The above are the contradictions and conflicts between the Tang Dynasty and Tianzhu, and similarly, there are the same problems between the Tang Dynasty and the Great Qi, the Great Qi and Tianzhu, and even between the Tang Dynasty and the Mediterranean Empire.

For example, in recent years, with the rise of the Datang Navy, it has slowly strengthened its defense of its own coastline, and at the same time, Datang also needs to expand its maritime power, which will inevitably have an impact on Daqi's maritime supremacy, so the two countries have produced a lot of contradictions in the waters east and south of Datang.

It is also because of the maritime problem, the expansion of the Tianzhu Navy has also violated the interests of Daqi, so the two countries often have some friction in the Tianzhu waters, and even this friction has had a certain impact on the security of the Tianzhu waters.

The contradiction between the Tang Dynasty and the Mediterranean Empire mainly stems from the territorial dispute between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea is the traditional sphere of influence of the Roman Empire, so in the eyes of the Mediterranean Empire, the land around the Black Sea also belongs to them, but after the Tang Dynasty conquered the Caspian Sea, it believed that the land around the Caspian Sea belonged to them, and as a result, the land ranges on these two sides just coincided, so a battle for land began.

The two countries first held negotiations, but in the end they could not reach an agreement at all, and neither country was willing to give up their ownership of this land, after all, if this land was lost, then Li Ke's Black Sea and Li Zhi's Caspian Sea would become very unsafe. As a result, the land between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea became a condominium between the two countries, where both countries had troops stationed and conflicts broke out from time to time.

Most of the above are territorial or territorial sea conflicts, in addition to commercial, demographic, economic and other problems, which also plague the five Li Su brothers of the four empires, and even because of the problems in the relationship between these countries, it has affected the relationship between their brothers, for example, because of the matter on the southern border, Li Zhi and Li Zhen had a big quarrel, and later, although after the mediation of Li Su and Li Yun, although the two of them nodded and admitted their mistakes, but the feelings between each other are much stranger than before.

In the palace in Keelung, Taiwan, Li Su sat behind his desk, the fingers of his right hand tapped lightly on the table, as if he was thinking about something? Now Li Su is over forty years old, with three short beards under his chin, and he looks more mature and stable than back then, but he has not been dragged down by those heavy government affairs over the years, and with proper maintenance, he now looks like a young man in his early thirties.

Wang An, who was over the age of six, sat on the sofa next to him, his eyes seemed to be closed, as if he was asleep. According to the law of Daqi, the prime minister can only serve two consecutive terms at most, each term is four years, Wang An has been the prime minister for eight consecutive years when he was in Yongwei for three years, so he can no longer serve as the prime minister, so Liu Renliang, who has outstanding performance in politics, was nominated by Li Su, and more than half of the officials agreed, so he became the second prime minister of Datang.

Although Wang An stepped down as prime minister a few years ago and now serves as Li Su's personal adviser, he still has a strong influence in Daqi. Moreover, now he is still the teacher of the princes and princesses of Great Qi, and he is in a high position as the prince, and sometimes his words may change one of Li Su's decisions.

And next to Wang An, there is Liu Renliang, the second prime minister of the Tang Dynasty. Compared with Wang An's old age, Liu Renliang has just reached the age of 50, which is still quite young for the position of prime minister. In addition, Liu Renliang was a civil and military all-rounder, and the first firearms unit under Li Yu was brought out by him, and later the Great Qi stipulated that the civil and military forces were not subordinate to each other, so Liu Renliang completely gave up his military position and became a thorough civilian official.

Speaking of Liu Renliang's square personality, coupled with the fact that he had led soldiers before, his ruling skills were very tough, and sometimes he didn't even give Li Su face, and the two often quarreled in the court because of disagreements. One of them, Li Su was really angry and was ready to remove Liu Renliang as prime minister, and then ask him for guilt. But I didn't expect that although Liu Renliang has an old-fashioned personality, but being old-fashioned does not mean being stupid, after receiving the news, he immediately published an article in the newspaper, comparing himself to Wei Zheng, never flinching in the face of imperial power, and insisting that his point of view is correct!

When Li Su saw this article, he first angrily scolded Liu Renliang for being treacherous, and then raised his head in the hall and laughed a few times, and then exposed the matter, and never troubled Liu Renliang again. After all, everyone has already compared themselves to Wei Zheng, if Li Su dares to ask him for guilt, isn't it clearly telling others that his son is not as good as Lao Tzu Li Shimin's bearing?

Although Liu Renliang's temper is very stinky, his style of doing things is very much in line with Li Su's appetite, especially his military style, which is also more suitable for the current situation of Daqi.

For example, a few years ago, the Japanese people on Honshu Island rioted because they were jealous of the wealth of the Han Chinese, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese people were involved, but fortunately, the army reacted quickly, so there were no too many casualties. Later, Liu Renliang personally ordered that all the Japanese who participated in the riot be hanged on both sides of the road, and as a result, decades later, several dried corpses could still be seen fluttering on both sides of some roads in Wuzhou. With this bloody example in front of them, all the Japanese people are honest, and no Japanese people have dared to have any dissatisfaction with the government for hundreds of years.

In addition, Liu Renliang was more tough when he expanded abroad, he incorporated those who belonged to the Americans into the army, and then used these people to open up colonies in the Americas, all the Americans who did not want to belong to them would be ruthlessly attacked, men were arrested to work as miners, and the situation of women was even more miserable.

It is also Liu Renliang's iron-blooded style that reminds Li Su of Bismarck, the iron-blooded prime minister of Germany in later generations, so at a court meeting, he personally called Liu Renliang the iron-blooded prime minister, and as a result, this title was spread by the newspapers, and for a time the name of Liu Renliang's iron-blooded prime minister spread all over the world.

No matter how tough Liu Renliang's wrist is, there are some things that he still has no right to deal with, such as today's matter, he personally came to ask Li Su to take an idea, but Li Su was also a little hesitant after hearing it, so he invited the elderly Wang An over to see what he thinks? (To be continued......)