An Lushan leaned against the wall of the carriage, cold sweat flowed down uncontrollably, holding Tuowen in his hand as if holding a piece of hot potato, the seven words on Tuowen were both a strong temptation and a call to destruction.

When Yan Zhuang and Gao Shang saw this situation, they quickly knelt on the ground excitedly, and said with their hands crossed: "Congratulations to the lord, congratulations to the lord, this is the destiny of heaven, and it will help the lord to achieve great things."

An Lushan gradually regained his composure, but his eyes flickered and wandered, staring at the faces of the two for a long time, shaking his head coldly and saying: "In this wilderness, it is not appropriate to talk about such a big thing, and wait until we return to Fanyang."

Yan Zhuang and noble glanced at each other, and at the same time crossed their hands and said, "Oh."

A look of joy flashed on their faces, it seemed that An Lushan was silent on the surface, but he was extremely concerned about this matter in private, and their plans for many years were estimated to be coming to fruition.

Yan Zhuang followed up and added: "I'm afraid that the saint will know about this, and he will definitely not be able to tolerate us, and the lord should have made plans early." ”

"You know, the saint is now old and faint, and he only wants the comfort of his old age, and he will not believe it unless it is an imminent danger. Don't be impatient, and wait for us to return to Fanyang to make plans. ”

He suddenly frowned again and said, "In order to prevent Yang Guozhong from offering slander, it is better for us to speed up, order the team to roll up the honor guard flag, and arrive at the Yellow River day and night. Gao Shang, you first ride two fast horses to the water post, arrange fast boats along the Yellow River, go quickly!"

Gao Shang replied with a crossed hand: "Huh." ”

Although An Lushan behaved very calmly, the journey back to Fanyang was very anxious and embarrassed, and the journey from Tongguan to the Yellow River was 100 miles away, and it was reached in one day. He couldn't wait to board the ship and go down the Yellow River, passing through the county and the state without stopping, and it only took more than 20 days to return to Yingzhou

……

Li Longji sat quietly in the sandalwood Dan Hall of the Jiaotai Hall of Xingqing Palace, with a rubbing text printed with white characters on the opposite wall, and his face showed tangled sorrow.

Gao Lishi entered the hall with a dust whisk in his hand, and when he saw the sorrow on the saint's face, he already understood seven or eight points.

"Your Majesty, please go to the palace and dine with the mother."

The emperor opened his eyes, pointed to Tuowen on the wall and asked, "Gao Lishi, you should tell me who forged this thing?" ”

Gao Lishi pondered his words and said: "An Lushan has been operating in Fanyang Pinglu for many years, and there are many people who have offended in the court, and anyone can possibly do it, but at the moment the contradiction between him and Li Siye is the deepest, this may be Li Siye's doing, and it is not known." ”

Li Longji asked again: "If An Lushan sees this tuowen, what do you think he will think?" ”

"Your Majesty, An Lushan has always been loyal to you, but people's ambitions will change with growth, at the beginning he was just a small envoy, but now he is a three-town festival envoy with more than 200,000 soldiers and horses, and his thoughts are definitely different from before. The slave knows that His Majesty uses his hand, and now he suddenly takes him away, which may cause a lot of inconvenience. However, supporting Li Siye to restrain each other with him made the northwest feudal towns also rise strongly, and the situation of the two powers was not stable, once one was weakened, the other side would definitely swell. ”

The old emperor's face was a little unhappy: "I'm just asking you, what will An Lushan think when he sees this tuowen?" ”

Gao Lishi knelt on the ground, crossed his hands and said heartily: "If An Lushan sees Tuowen, he will make him unsubordinate." ”

The master, servant, monarch and minister have a clear understanding of the current situation, but one has an optimistic and negative attitude, and the other has a pessimistic and positive idea, just as the saying goes, the emperor is not in a hurry, and the eunuch is in a hurry. The current crisis is like an undercurrent surging under the lake of stability, and the old emperor in front of him is hardly prepared to do anything, he pins the hope of the empire on two unstable factors, believing that it will be stable until the last years of his reign, and as for what kind of mess the crown prince will inherit in the future, he may not have thought about it at all.

He narrowed his eyes and smiled confidently, "Don't worry too much, there is nothing wrong with my arrangement. Li Siye has always been able to recruit and fight well and have the style of a famous general, but he was in charge of Hexi for a short time, and the officers and men of the three armies were loyal to the imperial court. An Lushan lives in the land of Huhua, Hebei, although he has a self-respecting army, but I have given him glory and wealth, but because there is Li Siye in the northwest, he will not dare to abandon his wealth and take this risk. ”

"I've worked hard for half my life, I hope that my old age can be spent comfortably, and you don't have to work too hard."

The emperor was about to sit up from the ground, Gao Lishi hurriedly stepped forward to help him, the two staggered out of the Dantang, and the eunuch Yuan Siyi hurriedly greeted him and helped the emperor from his godfather's hands.

Li Longji turned around and said, "You are old now, don't follow me all day long, just take care of the affairs in the palace." Let's go back to our house tonight. ”

Gao Lishi retracted his hand helplessly, bowed down and crossed his hand towards the emperor: "In this way, the old slave will retire first." ”

The old eunuch staggered to the palace gate step by step, looked back at the old back of the emperor who was gradually moving away, and couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

……

When Li Siye and Yan Xiaosi returned to Hexi, they passed through the Qing Palace in Huichanghua, and the hot spring palace sandalwood concubine soup that Cen Shen presided over the construction here has been completed, just waiting for the emperor to take the concubine here to spend the autumn and winter in October this year.

He left Huichang with Cen Shen, and only Michagan and Cao Anding remained in Chang'an. For Chang'an, which left not long ago, he did not have too much nostalgia, although when he looked back at the palace group on Lishan Mountain, the green glazed tiles under the sun were dazzling, as if the empire was returning to the light.

Li Siye was happy to talk to Cen Shen about some strategic matters, and also told him about his experience of fighting with An Lushan in Chang'an with public opinion warfare, and when he heard that the stone tablet was used to write a proverb, Cen Shen immediately expressed his worries: "This method is too violent, if An Lushan is aroused in it, wouldn't he want to speed up the pace of rebellion." ”

He raised his horsewhip and proudly pointed to the northwest and said: "An Lushan has long had the intention of rebellion, and in recent years, he has raised Hu soldiers, privately cast weapons, and rewarded them all by himself. Although a proverbial extension can make An Lushan strengthen his anti-will, it can also make Yang Guozhong completely understand the situation and know who is more of a threat to the imperial court. I am also helpless, Yang Guozhong has always been profitable, if An Lushan rebelled against it, he would be angry and play the opposite, if An Lushan intersected with laughter and profit, he would forget the previous evil. Now that the situation has reached a critical juncture, we must tie Yang Guozhong to the same chariot all the time, even if we lose some money and reputation, we must take into account the overall situation. ”

……

After returning to Liangzhou, Li Siye decided to strengthen the cohesion of the army, especially loyalty to himself. Although he doesn't have much ambition for the time being, he will order the absolute standard for building an army out of one person, and it is best to make the soldiers know the moderation and not know their king, and the implementation is the most basic thing is team building and rewards and punishments.

He has enough financial resources to do this, the annual income of the Western Regions Chamber of Commerce is one-tenth of the income of the Tang Empire, and the rich four counties of Hexi also bring a lot of income to the local finance. Since the beginning of the first century, the supply of food and salaries for the local armed forces has been transferred from the central government to the localities, and the Jiedu envoy has also served as the highest local governor, and the income from the rent adjustment does not have to be handed over to the central government, but is directly used for local construction and military expenditures.

When the local army can be self-sufficient, the army commander controls the life, old age, sickness and death of the soldiers, forming a super cohesive force like food and clothing, and the combat capability increases exponentially, which is the advantage of professional soldiers.

Cold weapon warfare is the cohesion of the army, the most common army in the battle loss of five percent, it is enough to make it defeated, more than one-tenth of the casualties do not collapse, this is the army led by famous generals, more powerful generals such as Qi Jiguang's Qi family army, once killed up to two percent since the insistence on fighting.

Therefore, it is very important to strengthen the ideology and loyalty of the army, and in the Confucian value system, there is such a loyal idea as the civil servant admonishes the military general to fight to the death, and the second minister and thief will be despised. For example, Su Wu was used as an example to preach, and Guan Yu was also pushed to the altar again and again with correct values. However, the propaganda of values is only effective for middle- and upper-level generals, and for low-level officers and soldiers with a low level of illiteracy, it is still the most important thing to have enough to eat.