After receiving his father's order, he deliberately changed into civilian clothes, Liu Sheng got into the car in Sima Gate, and went to the eastern suburbs of Chang'an with his father.

Looking at Tianzi Qi, who had also changed into casual clothes, and this ordinary carriage, Liu Sheng couldn't help but look at the furnishings in the carriage left and right.

Compared with the only one in the world, today's carriage is obviously more than a little smaller.

Liu Sheng clearly remembered: The Yellow House Zuoxu could allow Tianzi Qi to lie on the inside, and at the same time leave a desk and a position for three or five people to kneel.

But today, this carriage, whether in length, width, or even height, is much shorter than that of the Son of Heaven;

The father and son sat in the carriage, and they only knelt in front of the windows on the left and right sides, but there was a distance of about three feet in between.

They each looked out the window of the car, left behind by the order of the moving carriage, and the father and son also talked about something from time to time.

"Old Seven, are you still in the Jiaofang Palace?"

"-Well, go back to Guangming Hall once in a while."

"Hmm······"

···

"Recently, have you been to Changle Palace?"

"—every day."

"Hmmm······"

···

"King Liang's matter, what does the queen mother mean?"

"-I can't bear to be punished, and I'm embarrassed to plead with my father."

"Oh······"

···

"What about you?"

"What do you think?"

After a few short conversations, Tianzi Qi asked coldly, and finally pulled Liu Sheng's gaze back from the car window.

Turning his head a little suspiciously, Liu Sheng looked at Tianziqi's gaze, and couldn't help but be a little suspicious.

"Father, do you really want to punish Uncle Liang?"

Seeing that Liu Sheng didn't answer the rhetorical question, Tianziqi still looked out of the car window with a worried face, and didn't forget to ask again: "What?" ”

"You also think that I shouldn't punish King Liang?"

Hearing Tianziqi's words, with a trace of annoyance that was difficult for people to find, Liu Sheng thought for a moment, then shook his head with a wry smile.

"Father, I won't punish King Liang."

"Even if it is to make the emperor's grandmother feel at ease and successfully issue the edict of the crown prince and queen, the father and emperor will open up to Uncle Liang······"

The calm tone of his words finally made Tianzi Qi turn his head indifferently;

stared at Liu Sheng meaningfully, looked at it for a long time, and then took a little breath and leaned back.

"If it were you, what would you do?"

"If you were the emperor now, what would you do with this?"

"What do you need to do to ensure that this matter can be resolved in the best possible way???

Tianzi Qi asked in a deep voice, and Liu Sheng's face couldn't help but be stunned again.

After lowering his head and thinking about it for a while, he replied with some hesitation: "The key to Uncle Liang's incident is not the assassination of Yuan Ang itself; ”

"It's this incident, which reveals that today's Uncle Liang has been carried away by the position of the prince."

"If you want to solve this problem at the root, you should not punish Uncle Liang Wang, but think of a way to make Uncle Liang let go of that undesirable thought."

"As long as Uncle Liang is no longer the prince and his father's previous 'promise', then Uncle Liang Wang, it is better not to punish the crime."

"-After all, no matter how you say it, Uncle Liang Wang is still the younger brother of his father and mother, and he is the favorite son of the emperor's grandmother."

"If Uncle Liang is punished, then the father will suffer the stigma of 'mistreating brothers and siblings', not to mention, the emperor's grandmother, the father is not easy to explain······"

The more Liu Sheng spoke, the more confident his tone became, which made Tianziqi on the other side subconsciously nod his head slightly.

After a while, he asked again: "Then how to control this degree?" ”

"-If it is just a simple non-punishment, then the king of Liang is likely to think that I dare not punish him, so he will intensify it;"

"What can we do to not punish King Liang, but also let King Liang know that he is afraid, so that he can get lost and return to his hometown, and no longer have thoughts that he shouldn't have?"

When this question was asked, Tianzi Qi's tone was already faintly a little proud.

Liu Sheng didn't pay much attention to this, he just lowered his head full of confusion, and thought about it for a while before frowning and raising his head.

"Father, maybe you can talk to Uncle Liang."

"Know it with affection, move it with reason, and beat it a little more."

"-If you can, it's better to scare Uncle Liang Wang 'unintentionally'?"

"Let Uncle Liang know that his father can let Uncle Liang die at any time, but he can't bear to mutilate his siblings, so he tolerates Uncle Liang again and again."

"In this way, with the combination of grace and power, Uncle Liang should be able to wake up and no longer have the sweet dream of the prince's brother······"

"Up?"

Full of hesitation and really unconfident words, Liu Sheng finally didn't forget to shake his head.

"Erchen doesn't know, this won't work."

"But there should be no better way than that······

A little lonely to say this, Liu Sheng lowered his head, as if he was really thinking of other ways.

So much so that Liu Sheng didn't notice that as early as when he said the words 'scare and scare Uncle Liang Wang', the corners of Tianziqi's mouth had already curled up in a playful arc······

"Not bad······"

"Not bad·········

subconsciously murmured twice, causing Liu Sheng to raise his head;

That is, at the same time that Liu Sheng raised his head, Tianzi Qi naturally turned his head to the side and looked out of the car window again.

The face full of appreciation, recognition, and even a little relief was also hidden in an angle that Liu Sheng couldn't see.

The carriage continued to move forward, and the father and son in the carriage fell into silence again.

After a while, Tianzi Qi asked again, which made Liu Sheng come back from his thoughts, and his face was immediately full of helplessness.

"I heard that you saved Yuan An's life?"

"Don't you plan to tell me, where did you learn that Yuan Ang was going to be assassinated by King Liang?"

I saw Liu Sheng shaking his head and smiling bitterly and lowering his head, helplessly explaining this matter.

"It's the fifth brother······"

"-That armor, the fifth brother originally planned to give it to the eldest brother;"

"After that, the eldest brother stopped being the prince, and the fifth brother wanted to give me that armor, and I thought that the armor was made by me and given to the fifth brother······"

"As a result, as soon as they discussed, they sent the armor to Yuan Ang in my name······"

As he spoke, Liu Sheng couldn't help but shake his head again, and let out a short sigh full of embarrassment.

"Coincidentally, just a few days after Najia was sent, Yuan Ang was assassinated outside Anling, and he was lucky to save his life······"

"——Half an hour ago, Yuan Andu was still outside the Guangming Palace, and thanked his sons for this incident······"

"Hi;"

"It's so bad that I don't know how to explain it to Yuan An······"

Liu Sheng looked like he was hard to argue, but it made Tianziqi feel inexplicably comfortable!

Especially when he thought of the past, Liu Sheng choked himself from time to time, and Tianziqi was even more gloating.

pretended to look out the window, but in fact secretly laughed a few times, and finally held back the smile, before turning his head with a strange face.

"If you can't explain it, don't explain it."

"This kind of thing is getting darker and darker the more it is described."

"Even if you tell Yuan Ang the truth, Yuan Ang will only think that you are 'righteous and awe-inspiring', and you don't want Yuan Ang to owe him favors."

"—Rather than this, it is better to recognize it generously;"

"After all, I'm about to be the prince's man······"

"There is no close minister in the DPRK and China, and many things will be inconvenient·········"

Pretending to be relaxed, Tianziqi's gaze had long since glanced in front of him without a trace, locked on Liu Sheng's face.

But Liu Sheng's next words made Tianzi Qi completely lose the nature of continuing to be tempted······

"The son is not the father~"

"Where do you have so many things that need to be done by the hands of your courtiers?"

"Even if there is something, the sons themselves have hands and feet, and they can also recognize the way to the Xuanshu Palace, so they can directly play their father."

"Anyway, Erchen didn't plan to find a 'henchman' and smash the temples of Emperor Taishang and Emperor Taizu Gao······"

Liu Sheng said indifferently, only to provoke Tianzi Qi's face to turn dark!

When Liu Sheng finally couldn't hold back his laughter, gnawed and smirked, and threw a playful look at himself, Tianzi Qi gritted his teeth in anger!

Then he turned his back and looked out the window······

"Bastard thing!"

·

Liu Sheng held back a laugh, Tianzi Qi was incompetent and furious, and the father and son each looked out of the car window, each thinking about it.

When the carriage drove out of Chang'an for only ten miles, and stopped leisurely outside a field, the faces of the father and son inexplicably brought the same faint smile.

Compared with the recent days, Chang'an City is a little bleak, and the fields near the autumn harvest season can be described as crowded.

Almost everyone is busy with their own business.

-- In this field, the harvest of crops has basically been completed.

The whole day of bending over and working made the farmers in the fields sweat and have a sore back.

But even so, no one dared to leave his field and sit down and rest on the ridge under the shade of the trees;

Every peasant household was on guard, surrounding the corn pole that he had tied up with his own hands, and his eyes were fixed on the tax collector and the official not far in front of him.

was stared at by the peasants with such obviously unkind eyes, and those tax collectors and officials were not annoyed;

Only the same serious gaze was locked on the grain bundle behind the peasant.

- Both sides are worried about the same thing.

- Both sides are worried that the other side will steal part of the grain from this pile······

Not long after, in the pavilion in the distance, two officials with swords at their waists ran and waved to the five farmers adjacent to the left and right of the field.

Then I saw the five peasant households, each under the strict supervision of the tax collector and the official beside him, picking up the grain bundle one by one, and repeatedly going back and forth between their own fields and the pavilion.

In this process, these five farmers, without exception, left a half-sized child to take care of the grain bales in their own fields.

It took about half a stick of incense for the grain of these five farmers to be carried outside the pavilion in order.

When Tianzi Qi and Liu Sheng, father and son, stepped forward, they saw the agricultural tax payment method that belongs to this era.

- The grain of each farmer is weighed on the spot.

Moreover, the farmers themselves pull the grain from the grain stalk and weigh it directly into the wooden square measuring tool - 'bucket'.

Each bucket was filled, the grain in the bucket was poured into the farmer's own sack.

Just like that, bucket after bucket weighed, until the high bales of grain turned into straw on the ground, and a loud cry was heard in the pavilion.

"Guangming Chengcheng Jiali, Cheng Dalang, 100 acres of land, 216 stone of grain~"

I saw that in the pavilion, the tax collector was sitting on the ground, holding a brush, and on the desk in front of him, there was also a roll of bamboo slips.

After a call, the brush in the tax collector's hand was not in a hurry to fall, but hung in the air on the bamboo slips, slightly raised the corners of his eyebrows, and glanced at the peasant in front of him.

After the farmer nodded solemnly, the tax collector put down his pen and wrote something on the bamboo slip in front of him.

"Two hundred and sixteen stones of grain, one of thirty taxes, and two buckets of taxes: seven stones and two buckets~"

While writing, he issued another call sign, and saw the official in front of the pavilion step forward.

He took the money from the previous 'bucket' and dug out bucket after bucket of grain and rice from the farmer's grain bag.

After digging seventy-two buckets, Cheng Dalang's family was a little distressed, and the official stopped moving.

Then, the tax collector in the pavilion raised his head and beckoned to Cheng Dalang: "Come, press a handprint." ”

"If you press your handprint, your family's agricultural tax this year will be considered to have been paid."

That Cheng Dalang obviously did not pay taxes for the first time, and almost at the same time as the tax collector beckoned, he stepped into the pavilion.

Under the admiring gaze of the children, he pressed the thumb dipped in the ink on the bamboo slip, and Cheng Dalang turned around with a solemn face and walked out of the pavilion.

At this time, the entire tax payment process of Cheng Dalang's family finally came to an end.

But Liu Sheng on the side was deeply attracted by the scene in front of him, and he couldn't take his eyes back from Cheng Dalang's family who were holding the grain bag away for a long time.

- In his previous life, Liu Sheng was also a farmer's child.

When he was young, Liu Sheng also bent over to work in the fields, helping his parents share the burden of the family.

But Liu Sheng doesn't remember what agricultural taxes his family paid in his previous life.

Not to mention that it is like what I saw in front of me, he collected taxes directly on the spot during the autumn harvest, and even took the money to the tax bureau to pay taxes, which is an experience that Liu Sheng has never had.

Seeing Liu Sheng looking intently at the inside and outside of the pavilion, he showed a very strong interest in the scene in front of him, and a little joy quietly welled up between the eyebrows of Tianzi Qi.

But soon, Tianziqi's attention moved back to the distance, and Cheng Dalang, who was dragging his family away with a grain bag, but there was no joy on his face······

"Two hundred and sixteen stone ······"

"If you remove the tax, it is less than 210 stone ······"

···

"One, two, three, four······"

"Four children, two husband and wife, plus an elderly person to support······"

"Alas·········"

muttered to himself inexplicably for a while, and the Son of Heaven was full of solemnity on his face again.

A moment later, when the harvest of the rest of the families was also howled out by the water conservancy in the pavilion, Tianziqi's face sank completely.

- Looking at these five households alone, except for one of them, which has an output of 170 stone from 80 acres of land, the situation of the other four households is basically the same.

100 acres of land, about 200 stone output, the average yield per mu will be more than 2 stones.

This is one-third less than the average yield per mu in Guanzhong in the past.

Tianziqi doesn't know how many households in Guanzhong this year, like these five households just now, have suffered a huge blow of 'the harvest has been reduced by more than 30%';

But Tianzi Qi is very sure: this year, the life of the people in Guanzhong may not be easy······

"Erchen heard that my father plans to exempt this year's agricultural tax?"

While thinking about it, Liu Sheng finally withdrew his reluctant gaze from the gazebo where agricultural taxes were being collected;

asked softly, but it only provoked Tianzi Qi to slowly nod his head with a solemn face.

"This year, the farmland in Guanzhong has been completely failed, and every household in Guanzhong, regardless of whether they have sent men to participate in the pacification of the Wuchu Rebellion, has suffered varying degrees of losses."

"So this year's agricultural tax must be exempted from ······"

Tianzi Qi's increasingly low tone did not let Liu Sheng quickly notice it, just like a curious baby, he hurriedly asked again: "Since you have to be exempted, why do you want to accept it?" ”

"Wouldn't it be better if you didn't accept it?"

"Collect first and then retreat, not to mention the time-consuming and laborious efforts, in case there are officials who get in the way and fill their pockets, wouldn't it be ······"

Hearing Liu Sheng's question, Tianzi Qi only sighed with vicissitudes on his face, turned around, put his hands behind his back, and walked into the distance by himself.

When Liu Sheng hurriedly followed, he finally heard Tianzi Qi and gave an answer to his question.

"First, the matter of exempting agricultural taxes needs to be passed by the third reading of the court council, and no one in the public secretary and hundreds of officials will oppose it, and I will issue an edict to implement it before it can be determined."

"Although this matter is almost entirely up to me, the procedures that should be followed still have to be followed."

"-No rules, no square ······"

···

"Second, there is a difference between directly not collecting agricultural taxes and collecting them first and then retreating."

"If you don't collect it directly, it's okay to do it once or twice, but if you come a few more times, the people will forget that this is a tax exempted by the court, and they will only think that they shouldn't have paid the tax in the first place."

"And if you take it and then return it, you will make it clear to the people that they ought to have paid this tax."

"—But because I was concerned about their livelihood, I returned the taxes they had already paid, and they returned them intact······"

···

"This is because the grace and authority of the Son of Heaven must be clearly known to the people, and even experienced by themselves."

"It is like a prisoner who has committed a serious crime, and must not be executed secretly, but outside the market, in the presence of many people, as a deterrent;"

"It's like tax exemption, you can't just not take it, but you should take it first, and then retreat, so that they can remember: this is not a matter of course, but a gift from me······"

A very philosophical voice also provoked Liu Sheng to fall into contemplation.

It is also rare that Liu Sheng did not have the idea of ridiculing because of the 'philosophical thoughts' of the Son of Heaven.

Liu Sheng knew that what Tianzi Qi said was right.

After all, the emperor is kind to the world, unlike ordinary people who are kind and giving.

——Ordinary people are willing to give, and they can 'go to their clothes after the incident, and hide their merits and fame', and only care about their own thoughts.

But the emperor's grace and prestige must be understood as deeply as possible by as many people as possible.

Because only in this way will there be no situation such as 'I am scolded while doing good deeds, and you enjoy the fruits of my labor and scold me again and again'.

Realizing this, Liu Sheng nodded again;

was about to open his mouth to say, 'Erchen knows', but saw that at this time, Tianzi Qi was already squatting on the side of the road.

Leaned down, grabbed an abandoned millet stalk from the mud and dust without any scruples, and looked at the obviously sparse millet grains, Tianziqi's brows were only tightly screwed together.

"The rebellion that lasted only three months almost shook the national capital of my Han family······"

"Alas······"

I went to the hospital, but it was a little late, so forgive me.

Next chapter 11:30

(End of chapter)