Lu banknote is actually just a part of Li Xu's thoughts, the emperor has more plans, but he can't spread them out one by one, things are done little by little, and the emperor has time.

After chatting for so long, it's time to get to the main topic tonight, dinner.

The prepared dinner was not a sumptuous meal for the four henchmen, with six dishes and some hot soup with melons and fruits. Li Deyu himself was born in a wealthy family of Zhong Mingding, and the dishes in the palace may not be able to enter his eyes.

Li Shen is now a poor man and rich, but he is the most particular about food and clothing. As for Yuan Zhen and Li Congxian, they want to pay more attention to it, but they are actually more particular than Li Xu.

Therefore, this meal is not about eating dragon liver and phoenix marrow, leopard fetal scarlet lips, but just a means to symbolize the emperor's favor for these four people.

Li Xu knew the hobbies of these people here.

Li Deyu loves flowers and plants, especially plants and trees, and has a grass garden at home, which takes care of exotic flowers and plants collected from all over the world. Whenever she has something on her mind, she loves to sit alone in this garden and use this lonely private space to think.

Li Shen loves fine wine and beautiful women, precious food and jade, and his simple prison envoy fully embodies the human desire for material life, of course, it is a bit expensive.

It's okay to spend a lot of money, and it's a good thing to be able to spend and earn. However, although the officials of Dayu were well paid, Li Shen's money was not enough to support this life.

So where this money came from is a bit debatable, and it is nothing more than corruption and bribery.

Li Xu has no moral cleanliness, and even has a very open-minded attitude towards Li Shen's corruption and bribery.

Raising the prison sentence makes this position really hard work. Bai Yujing's gang and the people of the rivers and lakes regarded this yamen as the eagle dog of the imperial court, and the underworld forces offered a lot of bonuses to buy Li Shen's head.

The ministers of the imperial court regarded Li Shen as a combination of luck and cool officials, and there were always one or two recitals for Li Shen every day, and those officials were always looking forward to getting rid of Li Shen.

Even among the officials he used, many of them were jealous and resentful, or overlapped in authority, and they did not have a good impression of Li Shen.

In other words, Li Shen took on a lot of pressure for the emperor.

Such officials should let them live a good life where they can live a good life. As long as Li Shen is not too excessive, the emperor can tolerate his arrogance and lasciviousness.

Yuan Zhen's hobbies are too ordinary, and they can be simply summarized as money and power.

Li Congxian, on the other hand, cares more about his status and fame, he vaguely regards himself as a representative of the clan, Li Xu heard that he is secretly colluding with some clans to serve as middle and high-level officials such as Assassin Shi, and hopes to increase the number of clan officials in the imperial court.

One of Dayu's previous national policies was to let the Yuanzhi clan serve as high-ranking officials, and there were not a few of them who became prime ministers. This can not only improve the centripetal force of the clan, but on the other hand, the emperor also has an extra helper to beat the officials, after all, they are all his own family.

Li Xu hopes that he can take care of all these demands from all sides, after all, the emperor's duty is not only to round his fists and beat people, but also to bridge all parties and let the power of the court work in one direction.

While eating, a lot of news is still being transmitted.

"The price of silk has been falling, but a few Hu merchants in the city have begun to have enough of it. Yuan Zhi said.

Li Xu knew that Yuan Zhen had been very close to those Hu businessmen recently.

The Dayu court did not encourage the people to engage in business, because with the development of commercial activities, it became more difficult to rule. The truly perfect mode of governance should be the "small country and widowed people" in the style of Lao Tzu. Everyone is content with their own side of the world, and the male cultivator and the female weaver do not cause trouble to the imperial court.

But the rewards of business are so great that no one can refuse.

Dayu's silk has always been the hardest luxury in the world, and in the Mediterranean world, silk from Seris is a highly coveted luxury in the market.

In the past, this trade was in the hands of Hu merchants from the Western Regions for various reasons.

These people have a natural advantage in trade. First of all, the small countries in the Western Regions from which they were born, such as Shi and Cao, were all city-states based on commerce and trade, and commerce was originally their main business.

Moreover, their home countries were also important nodes on the Silk Road, and as an important source of Uighur culture, even if the Tibetan control of the Western Regions cut off the Silk Road, they could also sell silk silk through the culturally similar Uighurs along the steppe road.

"That's right. Li Xu looked at Yuan Zhen's meaningful eyes, and laughed a few times: "Are they ready to go through the Silk Road again?"

Along with the Uighur civil strife, the Silk Road of the Steppe, which departed from Chang'an and Luoyang to the grasslands, was also constantly disputed by various tribes vying for supremacy. Therefore, a large amount of silk that originally flowed to the international market was left in China, and the price of silk has not been able to rise, and the price of silk is declining day by day.

Especially before the emperor won the battle with Tubo, rewarded the three armies, and allocated a lot of silk silk to reward the soldiers and horses of the foreign domains who entered the guard, as well as the meritorious Shence army and Fengxiang army.

The number of silk silks circulating in the Baiyujing market has increased a lot. However, although the price of silk continued to fall, the Hu merchants who had a foothold in the silk trade did not take action.

It stands to reason that now is the time to buy silk silk, but the Hu merchants still restrained their desire to buy silk silk.

In fact, since Li Xu defeated Tubo, there was one more voice in the court, and some officials wrote to the emperor, hoping that the emperor would take the opportunity of the great victory over Tubo to march into Longyou and Hexi, drive out the power of the Tubo people from the entire Western Regions, and finally rebuild the two protectorates of Anxi and Beiting.

Some of these anachronistic voices were encouraged by the imperial court's victory over Tibet, and some were behind the scenes by those Hu merchants.

Commerce and trade are the foundation of these Hu merchants, and if there is no trade brought by the Silk Road, the foundation on which the Hu merchants will stand would be gone.

Li Xu heard that Yu Fuguo was clearing the acres of land in the east of the river, and at the same time messing around with a showdown, making the people bored, and also set up cards along the line, and all the caravans passing through the east of the river, he had to draw 10% of the goods as tolls.

Yu Fuguo's enthusiasm for frying the oil made Li Xu wonder if he was going to make a big move behind his back.

"I'm afraid it's a little movement over there that makes these people think. Yuan Zhen's answer was similar to what Li Xu had guessed.

"Yao Luo?" Li Congxian put down his chopsticks and looked at Yuan Zhen: "Could it be that these Uighurs are not dead?"

Yuan Zhen shook his head: "Yao Luo can split the clan with a spicy hand, how can it be a good stubble?"

"I think I'm still to blame for that. Li Xu said with a smile. "We tossed the Tubo people too much in Guanzhong. Shang Dongzan went to Luo to toss the Zanpu royal family as Cao Cao, and Yao Luo naturally took the opportunity to bite them. The Uighurs and the Tibetans had been fighting for the Western Regions for many years, but this time the Tibetans were fully contracted, and they naturally had to find a way to bite the dogs who had lost their roots. ”

Li Deyu thought thoughtfully: "So those Hu merchants are ready to gamble on a medicine loss to be able to exert their might? If that's the case, you have to keep an eye on them, don't buy food and medicinal materials and send them to the Western Regions." ”

"There were originally two Silk Road routes through the Western Regions, one north and one south. Li Xu thought for a while: "I guess it's okay for Yao Luo to take the North Road." After all, an emaciated camel is bigger than a horse, and a divided Uighur is enough to kill those small countries with the surname Zhaowu Jiu. ”

Yuan Zhi sneered predictably: "These people are gambling that Yao Luo can win, and now that the Silk Road has not been opened, they will quickly buy silk silk, and when the Silk Road is passed, they will make a lot of money." ”

Li Shen looked at Yuan Zhen thoughtfully, he had already guessed what Yuan Zhen wanted to do.

"Let them earn the money. Li Xu thought about it for a while and decided to restrain his greed first: "Congxian, hurry up and finish the reorganization of the Shence Army, and after you get it done, I will appoint you to be the envoy of the Jiannan Xichuan Festival." ”

Li Xu had checked Dayu's coinage records before, except for the Taizu Taizong Dynasty, which had minted a large number of copper coins, the scale of coinage in the back was not large.

This is because there is no copper.

Although it was often boasted that the emperor was wealthy, there was a lack of large copper and silver mines in the territory of Dayu, and precious metals flowed into the country mainly through trade.

And in addition to coinage, a lot of copper is used to cast a variety of utensils, such as incense burners, Buddha statues, and the like. In addition, a lot of gold and silver were made into various ornaments and withdrew from circulation.

The existence of these Hu merchants in the Western Regions can objectively absorb gold, silver and precious metals from Persia, Daqin and other places in the market of Dayu. So the emperor's attitude towards them was close to raising pigs.

When you are fattened, you will drag it out and kill it, as for the kind of thing of buying low and selling high, as long as you knock on his door hard, it can be regarded as a change of direction for the people to pay taxes.

"Wechen ......"

Hearing that the emperor was going to send himself as the envoy of the Jiannan Xichuan Festival, Li Congxian was a little inarticulate for a while. It can be said that it is one of every man's dreams, and now that the emperor is ready to send him as such an important festival envoy as Jiannan Xichuan, Li Congxian is also a little in a trance.

There have indeed been various voices recently, and Li Congxian also knew in his heart that he might be able to become a party like Han Rui, but he didn't expect this day to come so quickly. Moreover, Jiannan Xichuan, which led Yizhou, was much more important than the Fengxiang army used to defend against Tibet.

"Guanzhong's feudal town, I'm ready to remove it as much as possible. The envoys and defense envoys of those feudal towns must be transferred to the forbidden army. Li Xu looked at the four people in front of him: "When you go to court in a few days, let the wind out first." ”

Most of the military towns in Guanzhong are used to defend against Tibet, and now that Tubo has suffered heavy losses, Li Xu is not only going to rectify the forbidden army, but also preparing to remove all the towns in Guanzhong.

These were originally the products of the previous political pattern, and now Li Xu believes that it is time to change.

Li Shen said: "Your Majesty, don't be too anxious, Weichen just heard a news that someone in the rivers and lakes has formed a 'Dongshan Society', and the leaders seem to be those who are not subordinate in Hebei, and they want to assassinate Your Majesty." Now the pressure on the Guanzhong Domain is too fierce, and I am afraid that there will be unforeseen changes. ”

"Dongshan will be all gutless rats who don't have to worry about it, if you don't act vigorously now, it will be too late to get it later." This term made Li Xu suddenly think of an evil way to make money.

"We'll finish eating in a while, and I'll open your eyes and let you see the Black Cloud Iron Guard I recently compiled. Li Xu laughed: "There are also some gadgets for self-defense." ”