Li Longji's body stiffened suddenly, and he hurriedly took a deep breath to dispel the acidity, and then snorted coldly, as if he hadn't heard it, and continued to fiddle with it as a matter of course.

Xiao Jiangyuan couldn't stand it anymore, and said with a wry smile: "The bookshelf is from left to right, and it is an important piece of music, copies of edicts and articles that everyone likes from the fourth to the seventh year of Kaiyuan. The minister will rearrange the bookshelf once a year, so that the files on this bookshelf are the contents of the past four years, and the previous ones will be included in the Zichen Hall Library. Like the general greetings, after everyone has reviewed them, most of them will be sent back to the courtiers, and some of them, because everyone especially likes their writing or calligraphy, also left in the Zichen Palace Library. The hill next to the imperial case is often placed in the important notes of the year, and the ones placed on the imperial case are often the notes of the past three days. ”

Li Longji knows all this. Earlier, he saw that Xiao Jiangyuan could quickly find Zhang Jiazhen's recital to remind him of the real candidate for the prime minister, so he thought about getting rid of her, and asked Bian Lingcheng to ask her about the placement of the bookshelf and the imperial case. He thought that Bian Lingcheng would be able to do it in the future, but he didn't expect that he was too timid, thinking that it was better not to do it than to make a mistake, which led to such a mess today.

- Did she think he had such a bad memory that he forgot about it after only a few months?

Li Longji coughed lightly and didn't look back: "I know." ”

Xiao Jiangyuan sighed lightly again and walked to Li Longji's side: "What are you looking for?" ”

Li Longji felt that he was very embarrassed to hold a bunch of songs, so he immediately threw all the notes in his arms on the ground, and sat back behind the imperial case: "In the past twenty years, the debriefing of those who have entered the phase will be sparse. ”

"Do you want to choose a new husband from among them?" Xiao Jiangyuan said and began to tidy up. Now that the scrolls of all the years were mixed together, she also felt a headache, but she had to patiently sort them out first.

Seeing Xiao Jiangyuan sitting beside him, lowering his head and tidying up carefully, Li Longji really felt that his emotions had calmed down a lot: "...... Oh, yes. ”

Xiao Jiangyuan said again: "In the past twenty years, everyone is not afraid that after the selection is made, they will find that the prime minister has long been gone? ”

Li Longji said: "Then what can be done?" If I narrow down the scope and only look for the last ten years, the last eight years will be left out, and the earliest is when Emperor Zhongzong was in power, not to mention the prevalence of oblique feudal officials, it is difficult to find a good prime minister, even if there is, for the sake of Wei Shuren, he will almost die. ”

Xiao Jiangyuan was stunned and said, "That's the same." ”

There was nothing to say in the hall. After being silent for a long time, seeing that Xiao Jiangyuan had already divided the scrolls into categories, he was about to start moving them to the bookshelf, leaving his side, Li Longji hurriedly said, "Hey......"

Xiao Jiangyuan turned his head to look at him: "What do you command?" ”

That smile, that tone, as if she had never left. Li Longji couldn't help but look away, and said in a low voice: "You have a lot of strength, when you finish serving alone, I won't be able to find the ones I want tomorrow morning." After speaking, he picked up a stack of music from the ground, "How many years has this been in Kaiyuan?" ”

"Four years of Kaiyuan." As soon as Xiao Jiangyuan finished speaking, he saw Li Longji walking to the far left of the bookshelf. His back is tall and straight, full of reassuring power. Xiao Jiangyuan looked at it fixedly, and it took a long time to come back to his senses.

- Didn't he just finish speaking, in the past eight years, what he was looking for was not something that could have been found here, but he still said that, maybe he couldn't think of any other excuse.

Xiao Jiangyuan pursed his lips and smiled, then simply told Li Longji where to put the rest of the music, and then turned around and left. When Li Longji saw it, he immediately stopped Xiao Jiangyuan: "I was kind enough to help you, you actually arranged everything for me, is there any difference between the monarch and the master and the servant?" ”

Xiao Jiangyuan said innocently: "The minister wants to save time, hurry up and go to the library to find out all the notes that everyone needs." ”

This reason is reasonable, but Li Longji is still unconvinced: "Then you can't ...... You can call Ah Cheng in and help me. ”

Xiao Jiangyuan bowed his head and retreated, and after a while, Bian Lingcheng walked in quickly with his body bowed. Li Longji immediately put down all the music in his hand, and according to what Xiao Jiangyuan just said, he instructed Bian Lingcheng to do it, causing Bian Lingcheng to be scolded a few times.

In just an hour, everything around the imperial case was sorted out, and Xiao Jiangyuan also returned here with more than a dozen volumes. Li Longji immediately rushed to Bian Lingcheng and said, "Don't go and pick it up quickly!" ”

Bian Lingcheng hurriedly rushed to Xiao Jiangyuan, took the song and returned to Li Longji, carefully put the song on the imperial case, and then placed it in front of Li Longji one by one.

When Xiao Jiangyuan came in, Li Longji only felt that it was too much and too heavy, but when he looked at it on the imperial case, how could it be that there were only more than ten volumes? Li Longji counted back and forth twice and asked, "That's all?" ”

Xiao Jiangyuan said: "The minister has searched all the generals from the first year of Kaiyuan to twenty years ago, and only one person has taken one volume, and then discarded those who have died, and only these are left." ”

Li Longji waved his hand to let Bian Lingcheng retreat before he sighed deeply. He also hoped to choose a more suitable candidate for prime minister, but the choice is so limited, how can he be good?

Seeing that Li Longji was speechless for a long time, only solemnly looking through the music one by one, Xiao Jiangyuan could understand his worries, so he said: "Why do you have to look for talents in the past, is there no one in the court now?" ”

Li Longji said: "That's not it, it's just that some of them are too young, and once they are appointed, they are easy to go wrong." ”

"For example?"

"The secretary is a foreign man, Zhang Zishou. With such a good-looking appearance, such an unearthly demeanor, and such outstanding literary talent, he can be described as a perfect candidate for prime minister, but it is a pity that he lacks experience and prestige. Speaking of Zhang Jiuling, Li Longji immediately thought of another person, and at this time, he also found the name of that person in the recital in front of him. He raised his eyebrows, immediately picked up the scroll, looked at it for a long time, and finally smiled again.

Li Longji ordered someone to take the rest of the music back to its original place, but he left this volume and put it in the place where he could most reach on the imperial case.

Seeing that he was almost busy tonight, and Xiao Jiangyuan had no intention of leaving, Li Longji was very surprised, and just about to ask, he saw Xiao Jiangyuan bowing down to him, and made a big bow abruptly.

"You're ......"

"I beg everyone, let the minister come back."

This worship greatly satisfied Li Longji's vanity.

He had already moved such a mind, intending to make a temporary compromise with the ruthless reality, but because he was more sincere and unwilling, he had been awkward until now. Since Xiao Jiangyuan took the initiative to speak, there was nothing he couldn't agree to, but ......

"You begged me to let you come back, but I didn't ask you to come back."

Xiao Jiangyuan couldn't help laughing: "Yes." ”

The next day, Xiao Jiangyuan officially said goodbye to Queen Wang and returned to Li Longji. Since this day, the Zichen Hall has regained its long-lost harmony.

Zhang Jiazhen saw the role of Xiao Jiangyuan as he wished, and after retiring from the dynasty on this day, he also specially said hello to Xiao Jiangyuan, who was sent out of the palace. With Zhang Jiazhen as an example, other permanent staff officers also became more and more polite with Xiao Jiangyuan, and Xiao Jiangyuan no longer refused humbly and politely as before, but accepted it with his head and returned the salute.

Only Yuan Qianyao found out that Xiao Jiangyuan was different, although he was the last one, he still kept up with the footsteps of others, and respected Xiao Jiangyuan a little more, but saw Xiao Jiangyuan holding his hand, and said softly: "Don't dare to be." ”

This voice was too soft, and no one else heard it, and Yuan Qianyao didn't feel a little more confident because of the uniqueness of Xiao Jiangyuan's treatment.

Xiao Jiangyuan took the opportunity to take a closer look at Yuan Qianyao's appearance, and nodded secretly - she asked Li Longji before, in the past eight years of Kaiyuan, other prime ministers have only used it once, but this Yuan Qianyao has been used for the second time, what is the reason, at that time, her family Ah Lang only asked her back: "Don't you think Yuan Xianggong looks like a person?" ”

Xiao Jiangyuan took a closer look today, and realized that Yuan Qianyao really resembled Xiao Zhizhong - that was the prime minister who was loyal to Princess Taiping back then, and he was also handsome and extraordinary. Her family Ah Lang is still thinking about it, and even because of this, he loves Yuan Qianyao and Wu, and he doesn't have any suspicion for Princess Taiping, and he can be regarded as open-minded.

If only he could be so open-minded to her.

When she returned to the Zichen Palace, Li Longji actually began to look at the selected letter from last night again. She walked to Li Longji's side, and as soon as she lowered her head slightly, she could see the payment of this sparse - Zhang said?

Before the change of Yuan Kaiyuan, didn't her family Ah Lang remove him from the prime minister and demote him to the place? Eight years have passed, and Zhang said that now he is the next governor Shi and the second ambassador of the Heavenly Soldiers Army after Zhang Jiazhen, is it just because he wants to develop Wenzhi, he must be reinstated?

Presumably, her family Ah Lang has not yet determined his inner thoughts, otherwise he would not always watch this recital, but directly issued a book. Or perhaps, her family Ah Lang is still waiting to see if there are other suitable candidates.

The candidate soon emerged.

Since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, there have always been two serious problems, and they are getting worse, that is, the false population and the tight finances. Most of the financial constraints stem from the false population, so in Li Longji's view, if the population problem is solved, the financial problem will be solved.

In the five years leading up to the Great Cause, there were more than 8.9 million households with a population of about 46 million. Until the first year of Emperor Zhongzong's Shenlong, there were 6.15 million households in the Tang Dynasty, totaling more than 37.14 million people. Where is the population less? Of course, there are deaths caused by the wars during the founding period of the Tang Dynasty, but after nearly 100 years of recuperation, Li Longji believes that even if the current national strength is still unable to catch up with the five-year period of the Great Cause, the more than 9 million people who are missing cannot all be dead or unborn.

What's more, there was such a thing as an error in the household registration statistics, and although they also vigorously rectified it, but later the dynasty was changed, and as soon as the jurisdiction was relaxed, the people were not honest again. In order to evade military service, conscription and taxation, most of the people worked hard to falsify their household registration, such as changing their age to be older or younger, or even directly changing male to female, and some even more simply, fleeing with their families and becoming fugitives or even black households.

In Datang, there is a rule that if there is a deserter, his neighbors will bear all the military service, conscription and taxes left behind, and the neighbors will not be able to bear it, and will eventually choose to flee. In addition, in the early Tang Dynasty, the people had land per capita, and many natural disasters caused the people to either sell their land and become tenants, or abandon the land and become fleeing households. The Tang Dynasty confirms the population according to the land, and then carries out the implementation of military service and conscription according to the population, and collects the corresponding taxes at the same time. Now that this phenomenon has spread across the country, how can the state finances not be tightened?

Li Longji is determined to create a real prosperous era of the Tang Dynasty, and he also has the same strict requirements for himself. He hoped that he could do better than every previous emperor, so this kind of problem that his predecessors could not or did not have the energy to solve, he must solve during his reign.

When Li Longji raised this question at the court meeting, none of the courtiers dared to answer. After the scattered dynasty and the corridor to give food, not long after Li Longji returned to the Zichen Palace, he saw Yuan Qianyao bring a green-shirted Langjun with a bit of beard in his eyebrows and eyes to come to him.

Li Longji recognized this person, he was the supervising imperial history of the eighth grade, and he was still in the corridor just now to supervise whether the officials were dining in accordance with the rules.

His name is Yu Wenrong.