"Murong Zhan, these files are all sent by the river chief a few days ago. His Royal Highness instructed you to record it in the book first, make annotations, and then submit it to the Imperial Reader. ”

Murong Xue nodded lightly, took a thick stack of official documents with both hands, and said, "There is a lao internal servant, and the official will immediately start to copy it." ”

The eunuch in charge of delivering the official document said a few polite words, and waited for Murong Xue to sign the receipt before giving a salute and leaving.

After sending off the chamberlain, Murong Xue turned around and sat back in front of the bookcase, quickly skimming through the various contents of the book, and couldn't help but shake her head and sigh.

Half a month ago, Shen Lie, the long-term historian of the reverse scale, broke into Ziwei Palace at night, spoke eloquently in front of the crown prince Li Bing, turned the tide, and stirred up the obscure and complicated situation even more confusing.

Out of political considerations, Li Bing decided not to delve into the matter of the White Horse Temple, and the next day he passed down an edict to inform the government and the opposition. The edict said that the case of the White Horse Temple was a forbidden act committed by Jiangyang thieves, and after the joint investigation of the East Palace and Dali Temple, the whole case has been revealed.

Soon after, a group of little-known thieves in the rivers and lakes were arrested by the government yamen one after another to confess their crimes, and finally they could not escape death, and all the personnel involved in the case, including Shan Tingxian and Shen Lie, were rewarded and promoted to one level.

Such an ending is acceptable to both Luoyi and the imperial capital.

To put it bluntly, except for Xie Guang and his group, no one wants to continue to be entangled, making chickens and dogs jump all day long, and there is no peace.

Since the facts of the case have been ascertained on the surface, Murong Xue, the Zhan affair of the East Palace, who was implicated in this matter, naturally does not have to accept the suspension investigation. On the day the edict was issued, Murong Xue was reinstated, reinstated, and returned to the East Palace Office to assist the prince in governing the government.

Everything reverts back to its original state as if nothing had happened.

Murong Xue sat in her signature room, looking at the familiar environment, and couldn't help but have mixed feelings in her heart. He was grateful to Shen Lie for making a move at the critical moment and pulling himself back from the edge of the cliff, and he was also annoyed that Xie Guang and Lao Jianhua were vicious and almost put him to death, and at the same time, he was secretly worried, not knowing whether he should investigate and test Rui Ji's details to see if she would really be an undercover agent sent by the other party.

The complicated and incomprehensible emotions kept pressing on her chest, making Murong Xue feel a little breathless.

Now, a more complicated problem is in front of him, that is, the dredging project of the main road of the Jinhe River.

At this time, the governance of Jinhe has entered an intense preparatory stage. Millions of people in 12 states along the river are involved; In the treasury of the Holy Tang Dynasty, nearly half of the funds were saved, and they began to use turnover; More than 400,000 people went into battle, and the rations used to feed them alone were piled up; In addition, a large number of stones, iron and timber are being transported from all over the country to the construction site, and the team of oxen, horses and camels is almost impossible to see.

Such a huge and complicated preparation was only a small beginning of this huge project, but it had already dragged Saint Tang out of breath.

The post of river chief was finally determined to be held by the crown prince Li Bing himself. However, everyone knows very well in their hearts that it is just a name, and the one who is really in control of the situation is Taifu Xie Guang, who is in charge of the river affairs.

Xie Guang's long-standing power to govern the river finally got what he wanted.

As Murong Xue expected, this ambitious guy took over the power in the name of governing the river, and extended his tentacles directly to the various functional yamen of the Shengtang Dynasty, asking for money, food, and people, and unscrupulously expanding his strength.

In this regard, Murong Xue never understood why the imperial court of the imperial capital would easily agree to the proposal to govern the Jinhe River, knowing that this was raising tigers for trouble, but he just let it go.

He wrote to Mr. Xu and Master Liu Ce Liu many times, asking them what the court really thought, but in the end, the replies he received were all clichés such as "be diligent and assist the prince with peace of mind".

This couldn't help but make him even more puzzled: Why did even Grandpa Xu say that? Could it be that he and the emperor are old and confused?

Before Shen Lie left Luoyi, he had met with Murong Xue. Murong Xue also asked Shen Lie at that time what he thought about the matter of controlling the river. Shen Lie's answer seemed meaningful: "General Murong, Shen doesn't know much about government affairs, so it's inconvenient to give you any advice." However, I think that after all, the river affairs are personally in charge of the affairs of the Crown Prince, so what do you have to worry about? ”

From Shen Lie's words, Murong Xue vaguely heard something unusual: The prince is in charge personally?

Could it be that the emperor wants to test His Highness by governing the Golden River?

However, the cost and risk of this test are too great!

For example, the twists and turns in front of him are simply ill-intentioned: the chief of river affairs is asking for a request to expand the establishment of the Xuanjia Legion in disguise!

The expansion of the army, for the country and the monarch, is by no means an ordinary trivial matter, especially in Shengtang.

Eight hundred years ago, before the establishment of the Shengtang Dynasty, the last emperor of the Great Yu Empire was unscrupulous, causing the entire country to fall apart. The emperor's once most trusted guard general personally led his troops to break through the Jiangzuo Palace and assassinate the last faint monarch directly on the golden throne.

Almost at the same time, thousands of miles away in Bingzhou, 400,000 ironclad heroes were secretly gathering at the Yunshan Fortress, which was known as the "No. 1 Xiongguan in the world".

A diminutive black-armored general, guarded by his three sons, proudly ascended to the highest beacon tower in the fortress.

Facing the silent warriors all over the mountains, he drew the sword at his waist and shouted at the sky: "From today on, I will lead you to conquer the world and live happily together!" Let's die happily! Our banner is - St. Don! ”

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, also dressed in black clothes and black armor, raised swords, guns and flags like a sea of forests, and shouted hoarsely: "Long live! Banzai! Banzai! ”

The founding emperor of the Holy Tang Dynasty, who was born in the Guanlong military group, relied on the powerful army in his hands to fight in all directions, put down one opponent after another, and finally stepped on the corpse of the enemy and ascended to the throne of the Supreme Universe.

Because of this, the emperors of the Holy Tang Dynasty were most concerned about the control of the army.

In the 800 years of Guozuo, the entire imperial system set up three types of standing legions: the forbidden army corps to protect the safety of the imperial power; The Son of Heaven Army, which crusaded against the Quartet and expanded its territory, and the border army that defended the frontier.

In addition to these three categories, the rest of the armed forces are composed of the "government military system" of the prefectures.

The soldiers of the Zhichong Mansion, farming in their spare time and going out on expeditions in wartime, all relied on the tiger talisman issued by the emperor to recruit and assemble. Once the war is over, they will disarm and return to their homes, for any commander of the army, there is no "lineage allegiance" at all, which avoids the possibility of the general's self-respect to the greatest extent.

And those standing legions, whether it is the forbidden army of the imperial capital, or the legions of Xuanjia, Qilin, long knife, fierce blade, etc., as well as the border army such as the Zhenjiang Protectorate, strictly limit the scale of the establishment of soldiers according to the different tasks of their respective tasks.

If it is not for a very special reason, it will definitely not be easily expanded.

As an important minister of the military, Xie Guang certainly would not fail to understand this truth, so it was naturally clear that with the current situation, the imperial capital would categorically not agree with him to change the status quo of the Xuanjia Army.

Therefore, what Xie Guang invited was not the expansion of the Xuanjia Army on the surface, but a trick of detouring the flanks.

He advised the crown prince to approve the establishment of the "River Army".

The core content of the concept of forming the river army is to reorganize the government troops of the 12 prefectures along the river, and to be specifically responsible for the military support of the main road control project of the Jinhe River. Their tasks include: monitoring the bomb and pressure river laborers, maintaining law and order on the construction site, escorting materials, grain and grass, guarding important warehouses, and so on.

The reasons are very strong. In particular, it is extremely necessary to carry out the work of impeachment and river labor. Think about it, if tens of thousands of people get together, as long as they are instigated and bewitched by people with ulterior motives, it is easy to provoke a popular uprising and break out into large-scale riots.

At that time, not to mention the suspension of the project, even the Shengtang Kingdom may be shaken.

However, Xie Guang's plan is too big. According to what he said in his compromise, almost all the government soldiers in the twelve states along the river were recruited, which meant that he suddenly formed a huge army with a size of about 150,000 or 60,000.

What's even more exaggerated is that he also specifically proposed that the newly formed Hewu Army should change its clothing and equipment different from the soldiers of Zhichong Prefecture, and those new military uniforms are almost exactly the same as those of the Xuanjia Army!

Doesn't this mean that another Xuanjia army has been formed?

Murong Xue was so angry that she slammed the fold on the case, got up and paced back and forth in the room.

Because of the impact of the White Horse Temple incident, although he was suspended for a short time, he missed a very critical period. Several major policy decisions that shook the government and the opposition and had a bearing on the world were made during this period.

The Jinhe Project was officially launched, and a pattern of "the prince taking the lead and Xie Guang assisting" was clearly formed, and Murong Xue was excluded, which was considered a loss;

At the same time, the candidate for the commander of the Long Knife Legion has also been decided.

After several fierce games, the crown prince Li Bing finally made a decision: Cheng Kaiyang, the eldest son of his maternal uncle, Cheng Qianli, the prince of Fuguo, and the elder brother of Empress Huilin, succeeded Feng Yiwei.

Cheng Kaiyang had previously served as the governor of Huainan Province, and he was a local military and political official, coupled with the status of a hereditary duke and the status of a relative of the emperor, he took over the Long Sword Army, and there was not much opposition in the court. The only fly in the ointment is that Cheng Kaiyang is not a military general, but a scholar, and now he is old and old, and he has traveled thousands of miles to guard the border passes, which is really worrying.

After this game, although Xie Guang did not win, he did not lose. After all, his nephew Xie Biao was also promoted to the deputy commander of the Long Knife Legion at the same time, and he was also in charge of the three main battalions, and he was still in power.

In addition, the chief examiner of this year's imperial examination and the commander-in-chief of next year's school military examination are also served by people recommended by Xie Guang.