Chapter 401: Inside and Outside the Court (Part 2)

‘Du Huan,’ This is a strange name. Almost everyone did not hear of him. Soon, four old figures appeared at the gate of the hall. In the wide and tall His Highness Hanyuan, these four people seemed so small and lonely. The hall was silent, and only the rustling footsteps of the four people were heard.

With thousands of eyes on Du Huan and the other two seemed a little nervous, and even tripped for a while and almost fell down, but gradually their heads began to rise, and their steps became bigger and bigger, becoming more and more determined. Finally, they stood on the jade steps.

At this time, Zhang Huan slowly walked down the steps, pointed at the four people and said to the ministers, "I will introduce to you first. All four of them were captured soldiers in the Battle of Talas. I wonder how many of you can remember the battle that made us lose to the west of the Palacio Mountains in the tenth year of Tianbao."

The hall was quiet, and the four old men with white hair seemed to open the tunnel of time. The tragic battle decades ago began to appear before the eyes of the people again. The sound of golden swords and iron horses seemed to echo in everyone's ears. The era of the iron cavalry of the Tang Dynasty across thousands of miles has been quietly submerged by the long river of time and disappeared into everyone's memory.

But today the appearance of these four veterans made everyone realize that the glorious era of the Tang Dynasty was not long ago, but the spirit of iron-blooded battlefield and a broad mind had shrunk in this nation.

Looking at the white-haired heads of these four people, they remembered that they left their homeland thousands of miles away from their youth and blood to fight for the country, but unfortunately they were captured in a foreign country. More than thirty years have passed, but they have never forgotten their hometown. How should they miss their wives, children and parents when they stood on the high hills and looked at the east?

Some of the ministers began to sigh for their misfortune, and no one spoke. In the hall, only the passionate voice of the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty echoed: "For more than thirty years, they have never forgotten their homeland. They miss their hometown and relatives all the time. This time, they finally traveled thousands of miles to return to their homeland. They are lucky because there are still thousands of captured people who are still slaves in foreign lands. Many of them died in foreign lands. Many of them finally looked at the direction of their homeland before their death and left the world with great sadness. The reason why I asked them to come to the hall was to let everyone.

I remember that now is far from the time for us to enjoy ourselves. The shame and suffering of our Tang people happened yesterday. We still have thousands of compatriots who are still cannibalizing, being slaves in the hands of the Uighurs, and being bullied. Therefore, I want all my dear friends to work hard with me to make our Tang Dynasty become stronger as soon as possible. Only the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty can make those foreign races who are still bullying our Tang Dynasty compatriots put down their whips and return our compatriots voluntarily. If they still refuse to return it at that time, then let us use a sword and an iron spear to ask them for it and settle the old accounts with them."

The passionate and sacred words stirred up the blood in everyone's heart, and countless voices in the hall echoed, "We are willing to share the hardships with Your Majesty!"

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"The national humiliation will be avenged!"

Finally, countless voices gathered into one voice, and the hall was filled with enthusiasm, "I am willing to work hard with Your Majesty to govern and become a prosperous Tang Dynasty as soon as possible!"

Zhang Huan waved his hand slightly, and the hall immediately became quiet again. He bowed deeply to Du Huan and the other four, and then ordered people to send them out of the palace.

The atmosphere of the court meeting has been mobilized by Zhang Huan's wonderful opening remarks. At the same time, through his confession to the veterans of Talas, everyone understood the emperor's determination to work hard to govern. Under the righteousness, the reform of the supreme power system of the Tang Dynasty once again kicked off after the Kaiyuan period.

"The left and right ministers were abolished, and the ministers of the school were ordered. The ministers of the six ministries and seven ministers of the school were appointed as prime ministers. They discussed affairs in the political affairs hall and took turns in charge of the political affairs writing, each person was limited to ten days."

"The disciples have the right to refute, and the approval of the Holy Pen is no exception."

"The emperor has the right to directly appoint and remove officials from the fourth rank or above, but he cannot issue an edict on confidential government affairs, and the Hanlin edicts shall not increase the power of the six ministries. It is limited to the appointment of generals and ministers and orders to conquer the conquest."

The person who announced the reform of the regulations was Hu Yong, the Minister of Personnel. Although he was unable to squeeze into the prime minister this time, he was able to control the personnel appointment and removal of middle and lower-level officials. The power was extremely critical. Everyone knew that he was Zhang Huan's core confidant. It was a matter of time before he could become the prime minister. After reading the edict of the prime minister to divide power with the king and the prime minister, he immediately announced an important personnel appointment and removal.

He dismissed the position of Shizhong under the sect of the Left Prime Minister Cui Yu, and was appointed as Shizhong, and was appointed as Shizhong, and was appointed as Jinzi Guanglu Dafu, and was promoted to Pingzhang, which was obviously determined to cooperate with the reform of the ministerial system. Cui Yu himself did not neglect his duties, so after demoting Cui Yu from Shizhong, a third-rank official to Shizhong, a fourth-rank official, Zhang Huan also appointed him as Shizhong, a third-rank official, to show that his official rank is still the same.

Cui Yu immediately walked out of the court and stepped forward to bow to thank him, "I thank Your Majesty for your kindness!"

Zhang Huan smiled slightly and said to him: "Cui Aiqing, in the future, the provincial government will be responsible for deliberating and refuting the right, and the responsibility is heavy. Emperor Taizong once said that if there are any mistakes in the Secretariat's edict, the subordinates will naturally refute the right. If you avoid personal grudges, you will obey the wrongs and obey the face of a person, which is a great concern for the people. This is the policy of destroying the country. Therefore, I hope you can be strict and righteous, and do not relax with human feelings."

Cui Yu deeply felt Zhang Huan's trust in him. He bowed deeply and said solemnly: "I will never let down Your Majesty's grace. I should be strict with myself and others, and judge things based on the facts. There is no way to be favored for personal gain."

Zhang Huan nodded and ordered Hu Yong to continue announcing. Hu Yong coughed lightly, and then read about local institutional reforms:

"Abolish the county government established in the first year of Tianbao, restore the prefectures established before the first year of Tianbao, and the governors of each prefecture were directly responsible to the court, abolish the ten-road system of the world, cancel the observation envoys of each prefecture, and change it to the supervisory envoy and the Xuanfu envoy, and visit each prefecture from time to time; cancel the positions of other prefectures established in Shangzhou."

Before the Sui Dynasty, local governments were three levels of prefecture, county and county. However, after the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the county level was gradually abolished, and the two levels of prefecture and county were directly established. This was mainly to reduce the local officials' staff and strengthen the control of the central court over the local area. However, in the first year of Tianbao, the state was changed to a county. Although the level seemed to remain unchanged, it actually highlighted the role of Tao, and had the intention of restoring the three levels of road, the state and county level, just like today's province, city and county level. Therefore, the focus of local institutional reform today is to abolish the road level, change the county into a prefecture, and restore the two-level system of prefecture and county level to strengthen the court's control over the local area. The observation envoy is nominally a temporary system, but in fact it is the chief of Tao and generally serves for a long time. Therefore, after the abolition of the Dao level local government, the observation envoy was cancelled accordingly and changed to a temporary supervisory envoy and a propaganda envoy, which is also to strengthen the supervision and control of the local area.

The change of counties into states and the abolition of the ten paths in the world was not very meaningful. After all, it did not involve their own personal interests. However, the establishment of another institution announced by Hu Yong immediately caused an uproar in the hall as if it had stabbed a hornet's nest.

"Since Kaiyuan, land annexation has become increasingly serious. Emperor Xuanzong issued three orders to strictly prohibit land annexation, but it has achieved little effect. Due to the lack of the system, it has now changed from chaos to governance. The land that has no owner has increased by 4 million hectares, and the trend of equalizing the land has been established. In order to strictly control land annexation, the imperial court specially set up a land acre supervisor, and the position of the same salt and iron supervisor, and unified the management of the land acres in the world. Each state has divided the land acres, controlled the land acres, and directly affiliated with the imperial court's land acres."

As soon as this order was issued, it immediately caused an uproar, and there were many discussions in the hall. This was not only as simple as strictly controlling land annexation, but especially the three words in the middle: the master of renting will be of far-reaching significance.

This means that the state-level government offices will no longer directly manage the physical rent and tax items, but will only summarize and report the rent data of each county. The physical rent and tax items will be directly handed over by each county to the land and land department of each state, and the separation of accounts and actual accounts and supervision will be carried out, and the interest link between prefectures and counties will be cut off with one knife.

Amid the discussion, Hu Yong raised his voice and announced loudly: "One person in charge of land and land, with Pei Mingyuan, the supervisor of the hall, and two junior supervisors were appointed as auxiliary, which will be promoted to the Ministry of War Wu Yuanheng and the Ministry of Veteran Niu Sengru as the young supervisor."

Outside the court.

At the same time when the court held its first new emperor dynasty, five strange people also came in Tongjifang in Chang'an. The so-called strangeness was just from the eyes of ordinary people. These five people were all tall and tall, walking with their heads raised, and their eyes were sideways, with a sense of coldness and arrogance in their bones. The five people lined up, and the momentum brought by the pedestal vendors who set up stalls at the entrance of the house dodged to both sides.

The first person among the five people was obviously their leader. He was about thirty years old, with a calm temperament and a serious expression. He was the intelligence leader of the Cui family in Chang'an: Cui Lianxing, he was ordered by Cui Yuanzhi to investigate the assassination of the Zhang Mansion. The government had no records of the assassination of the Zhang Mansion. The information from the Supervision Office had been completely destroyed. Some of the case information given to him by Cui Yuan was also oral by some Zhang Mansion family afterwards. Some of the information on the scene was also a few words that Cui Ning told Cui Xuezhu.

But even with this little pitiful information, Cui Lianxing found a clue based on his strict reasoning. The assassin was familiar with the defense in the mansion and could escape. He must have done a lot of preparations in advance, and it is certain that there were their inner men in the mansion. According to common sense, since the assassin was arranged so carefully, he would kill the inner men in the mansion to silence him later. Therefore, as long as the person missing in the Zhang Mansion was seen, the inner men could be found. However, no one in the Zhang Mansion disappeared afterwards, and they were investigated one by one. In this way, Cui Lianxing's attention was focused on the people who died that night. There were three people dead that night, a pair of sister maids, one of them was a wet nurse. The sister maids were said to have been bought by Zhang Huan from the Fengxiang slave market that year. He had no relatives and was always loyal to Cui Ning. Moreover, from the scene, they sacrificed their lives to protect the little master, and had no money after death, so they should have no motivation to be an inner men.

Finally, Cui Lianxing's eyes were on another dead man, Li Gui's wet nurse. She died in the outer room and ran out with Li Gui. Her reaction seemed to be a little too sensitive. With a hint of suspicion, Cui Lianxing found the coroner who had autopsy for the three deceased overnight. From his mouth, he learned that the wet nurse had been killed in total, with one sword in front of her chest and four swords on her back. The deceased had face down, which means that the assassin was afraid that she would not die, and he also had four swords on her back. But at that time the child was already carried away by the maid. When the time flew, the assassin did not rush to chase him, but he attached so much importance to an irrelevant wet nurse, for fear that she would not die. Why? The answer was almost immediately out of the question.

Since she discovered this important clue, Cui Lianxing decided to ask her the truth. The wet nurse first served Cui Ning in Cui's mansion, so her information can be found in Cui's mansion. The wet nurse's surname is Chen, her family is in Tongjifang, Chang'an, her husband sells meat in the market, and she has a pair of children at home. Her daughter was married last year, her son was fourteen years old, and she was studying in school. There are so many information about Cui's mansion, and the rest need to be visited.

"Head! It's this one."

A subordinate who arrived early in the morning pointed at a small door and said, "We are very lucky. I heard from the next door that this man has not seen him for more than ten days, but I saw him in the morning and never went out after entering."

Cui Lianxing nodded and looked up at the house of Chen's lady Chen. This was an extremely ordinary Chang'an family. Two people entered and a small yard. The house was a little old. He whispered to his subordinates, "Go up and call the door!"

Two people immediately went to shoot the door, but after taking a long time, there was no movement inside, and no one came to open the door.

Cui Lianxing glanced around and there were not many passers-by. He immediately ordered: "Come over the wall!"

The courtyard wall was very short. Except for two people leaving the air, the other four jumped into the room. The yard was very quiet, but the ground was not clean. It was obvious that the owner had not cleaned it for a long time. Suddenly, a "click!" sound came from the wing room. The sound was extremely light. Cui Lianxing immediately stepped forward and kicked open the door of the wing room. The light immediately poured into the dark room. The room was filled with debris, and a middle-aged man was curled up in a corner of the room. Chen's husband Chen Butcher, who was looking at them with horror.

"Please, don't kill me!" Chen Butuhuo stuttered.

"Don't kill you." Cui Lianxing smiled coldly, "It seems that you did something wrong and said nonsense in broad daylight."

The sword was unsheathed, and the cold tip of the sword pressed against his chest, "Say! How much did you charge them?"

Chen Butcher Chen hesitated for a moment, and a blood flowed out of his chest. He was so scared that he screamed wildly, "Don't kill me, I'll say! I'll say!"

Cui Lianxing was slightly weaker and shouted loudly, "Tell me quickly! Where is the money?"

Chen Butuhuo trembled all over, he pointed to the corner and said, "Everything is there."

Immediately, a man stepped forward and cut the wall with his sword, took out a cloth bag from the wall, put it on the table and opened it. It was all shining gold ingots, and at least four or five hundred taels. Cui Lianxing glanced at the gold and said coldly: "The money is gone, then you should tell the truth. Who gave you the gold? What did you betray?"

Chen Butuhu turned over and knelt down and begged, "I really don't know who gave it to me. I took out all these and asked me to put them away. I don't know anything else!"

"Then how do you know someone will come to kill you?" Cui Lianxing slowly lowered his head, stared at his eyes and said fiercely: "I think you'd better tell the truth, otherwise even your daughter won't live."

"My wife is dead, I know there must be something wrong with the gold. I just sent my son away a few days ago and came back last night. When I heard you knock on the door, I thought it was them." Chen Butcher Chen realized that the person coming was not going to kill him to silence him. He was shocked and spoke quickly.

But Cui Lianxing suddenly heard the loophole in his words. With a wave of his hand, Chen Butuhu's left ear was cut off halfway, and blood gushed out. His left face suddenly turned bright red. All he could hear was wailing in the room. Cui Lianxing was not soft-hearted and kicked him over, pressed his throat with a sword, and said coldly: "I'll give you another last chance. If you don't tell me what you know, I'll chop you into meat sauce and force your son to eat it in one bite."

After saying that, he winked, and immediately a man began to cut half of his ear on the ground with a sword. Chen Butuhuo finally collapsed. He was limp and said crying: "I only heard Er Niang say a little bit. Those people only asked her about the situation in Zhang's mansion. Although they spoke very well in Chinese, Er Niang always felt that they did not look like people from Central Plains, and they threatened Er Niang. If they said it, they would kill our whole family. We began to be scared. Er Niang discussed with me and went to Taiyuan to buy a house first. If things were not good, they would run away immediately."

"Isn't a native of Central Plains?" Cui Lianxing pondered for a while, and asked again: "Do they know where to live here?"

Chen Butcher Chen nodded with lingering fear, "My wife never told them, but I just discovered this morning that someone had already entered the house when I was not at home."

"What if it's a thief?"

"It's impossible that it's a thief. The money in the box is a lot, and they left this." Chen Butcher trembled and took out a dagger from his arms. There was a piece of paper inserted on it, and a word was written in blood, "Die!"

Cui Lianxing carefully looked at the dagger. It was a cheap product that you could buy everywhere and had no value. He put it aside and suddenly remembered something again and said, "Do the neighbors around him know where your daughter is married?"

Chen Butcher was shocked all over. He suddenly jumped up like crazy and rushed out. He had already understood Cui Lianxing's words. His son was now hiding with Fengxiang's daughter. Cui Lianxing pulled him back with one hand. Chen Butcher fell to the ground and cried loudly, "It's over! My son is over."

"Don't cry! Things may not come to that point." Cui Lianxing thought about it again, put the paper with blood on his nose and smelled it, and then placed it in front of Chen Butuhu's nose. "You are a pig slaughter. Can you tell how long the smell of blood has been?"

Chen's butcher's cry gradually stopped. He sniffed carefully and said, "It still smells a little. It should be the blood of yesterday, and it is sheep's blood."
Chapter completed!