Chapter 198: Jingzhao Yin Li Xiang's First Fire (asking for monthly tickets)

On the 27th day of the first lunar month, Li Shimin officially issued a new round of appointments for Li Xiang.

In addition to being the Grand Commander of Dengzhou and the Grand Protector of Andong, Li Xiang also served as the Prefect of Jingzhao.

The so-called Jingzhao Yin was the chief executive of the capital area, similar to the Kaifeng Yin that Bao Zheng served as. The only difference was that in the Tang Dynasty, the Jingzhao Yin was generally from the fourth to the third rank, while in the Song Dynasty it was a first or second rank official title.

Considering that the first rank in the Tang Dynasty was generally not awarded to ministers other than royal family members, the rank was not much different from that of the prefect of Kaifeng.

There was also an unwritten rule for the Kaifeng prefectural governor of the Song Dynasty, which was that the prince who was the prefect of Jingzhao was the secret heir. This was the default rule since the Five Dynasties, and it was confirmed when Song Taizong Zhao Guangyi succeeded to the throne after he served as the prefect of Jingzhao.

Of course, don’t worry about how he ascended the throne, just say whether he ascended the throne or not.

In addition to Song Taizong Zhao Guangyi, Zhenzong Zhao Heng also served as the prefect of Kaifeng when he was a prince.

Li Shimin took into consideration that Li Xiang was temporarily serving as the Jingzhao Yin, so he temporarily promoted him to the third rank; and after Li Xiang stepped down, his official position was demoted to the fourth rank.

The first thing Li Xiang did after taking office was to change the cityscape.

As the capital city under the feet of the emperor, the appearance of Chang'an City must be well rectified.

Originally, he was planning to transfer some naval personnel to Beijing to help him maintain the appearance of the city. But then he changed his mind and thought, transferring troops to Beijing is a bit sensitive.

To put it nicely, you want to maintain the city appearance; to put it bluntly, your bloodline has awakened, right?
Thinking that his political quotient was not that low, Li Xiang temporarily gave up the idea.

At the same time, the specific losses of the navy in this war were also handed to Li Xiang's desk.

"The navy suffered heavy losses this time." Li Xiang looked a little sad as he held the list.

Every name here represents a living life.

"Brother, don't be sad. As the saying goes, everyone has to die, some are lighter than a feather, some are heavier than Mount Tai. They died for the cause of the Tang Dynasty, so it can be said that they died a worthy death." Li Jingren comforted him.

Li Xiang nodded and said, "Make a copy of this list and make sure these brothers are not treated unfairly in terms of compensation."

"Yes!" Li Jingren took the order and left.

The disabled soldiers of the navy were also sent to Chang'an under Li Xiang's order.

There are about a thousand people. Although they are missing fingers and hands, they are still alive.

The navy had good armor, so broken arms and legs were generally not an issue. At most, a finger or hand might be cut off due to carelessness. Or there were some unlucky people who slipped while walking on the road and fell down a ravine, breaking their legs.

It’s easier to deal with a broken leg. He can stay in the navy to recuperate, and then continue to serve in the army after he has recovered.

However, it is very difficult for people with broken fingers and hands to hold weapons, and it is impossible for them to join the army again. Li Xiang changed his mind and temporarily took these people to the farm where Li Shu grew cotton in Chang'an, the capital, to recuperate for a while.

After all, these wounded soldiers had been on the battlefield. If they were rashly used, they would probably be impeached.

Thinking this, Li Xiang prepared his horse and entered the palace.

When he met Li Shimin, Old Li was training the parrot that had just been tributed to the emperor.

Seeing the parrot biting Li Shimin's hand, fortunately Li reacted quickly and only his hand was slightly broken.

"You evil beast!" Li Shimin cursed the yellow parrot angrily, but he didn't want to hit it.

The yellow parrot imitated it, flapping its wings and cawing: "Evil beast! Evil beast!"

Li Xiang walked over, flicked the yellow parrot's mouth with his finger, and made it fall back.

"Ouch, what are you doing?" Li Shimin put his hand in front of the yellow parrot with concern. The parrot took a step forward, stood timidly on Lao Li's finger, and looked at Li Xiang with fear.

"If he's scared by beating him, he won't bite people." Li Xiang shrugged. This was the experience he gained from raising birds in his previous life.

He and his sister both raised birds. His sister held the bird in her hands for fear of it falling, and held it in her mouth for fear of it melting.

With deliberate indulgence, the bird became more and more lawless and would often bite his sister's hands.

Li Xiang was different. His bird was completely obedient after being trained by him. It would just stretch out its finger and turn over to beg for mercy. But it did not become unfriendly because of this. Instead, it became closer to Li Xiang. It would chase and stick to him wherever he went. It was also very measured in its playfulness and never dared to bite him.

"No, if you beat it, it will no longer be friendly." Li Shimin reached out and rubbed the little bird's head.

The little bird yawned comfortably, "Ahhh."

As a veteran bird breeder, Li Xiang certainly knew the breed of the chick.

The Moon-wheel Parrot, also known as the Yingying Monster, is very cruel. I never dared to raise one in my previous life. I could only raise a legal monk and a little sun.

Of course, asking him to distinguish the breeds of cats and dogs would be a bit too much, after all, he has never had much contact with them.

He only knows a Ragdoll cat...

"That's a wrong idea. You just don't know how to raise a parrot." Li Xiang put his hands on his hips and said, "You have to learn how to control the amount of food a parrot eats. Then, no matter how hard you beat it, it will stay close to you, Aung."

"Really?" Li Shimin asked suspiciously. This grandson had never raised a parrot, so how did he know how to train a parrot?

"Did your grandson lie to you?" Li Xiang rolled his eyes. "Take away its food now, feed it from your hand at a fixed time every day, every hour, or every two or three hours. The most important thing is to let it know that you are the only source of food, then it will get close to you."

Li Shimin took a deep breath...

It makes so much sense that I can't refute it.

"This has been scientifically proven." Seeing that Old Li didn't quite believe it, Li Xiang added, "I learned it all from my dreams."

"Oh." Li Shimin nodded. Since it was Emperor Kangxi who taught him, it was not surprising.

"In fact, there are many ways to train a parrot. When my grandson is free, I will tell you how to train it." Li Xiang said, reaching out to pinch the yellow moon's beak: "In addition to calling its name from a distance... that is, calling its name from a distance to let it come over, you can also let it spread its wings, roll over, pick up things, and all kinds of skills can be trained, not just teaching it to talk."

"Great! Great!" Li Shimin was overjoyed when he heard this.

I, Old Li, have no other hobbies in my life except birds.

Besides falcons, my favorite is the parrot.

Parrots are great. I thought they could only learn to talk and call far away, but I never expected that they could learn so many skills.
"Where did this parrot come from?" Li Xiang asked curiously again.

"It was brought back by Wang Xuance today. You still remember it - he was sent to the south to look for Champa rice?" Li Shimin rubbed the parrot's forehead with his hand and said to Li Xiang with a smile.

Oh I got it.

Li Xiang knew that parrots are not only native to South America, Australia and Africa, but are also distributed in Asia. For example, the moon-shaped parrot standing on Li Shimin's shoulder is distributed in my country.

For example, Ni Heng, who beat the drum and scolded Cao in the past, once wrote an "Ode to the Parrot", describing the bright colors, intelligence and noble taste of the parrot, and by the way, used the parrot to express his own miserable experience and mood.

"Don't take this parrot out. It's a tropical bird. Fortunately, Chang'an isn't very cold recently." Li Xiang sighed again, "It seems that Wang Xuance has put a lot of thought into it. Otherwise, this parrot would definitely not have made it here alive."

"He brought five in total, all of different colors, and only this one is still alive." Li Shimin said with regret. When he talked about the death of four parrots, his face was full of heartache, and it didn't seem fake.

The second phoenix, the phoenix is ​​the king of birds...

Li Xiang: …

Bird lovers can't bear to see this!
"If you want to take it out, you have to wait until spring when the flowers bloom. You also have to tie an iron chain to its legs to prevent it from flying away." Li Xiang added: "You can't tie it up with ordinary things. The parrot's beak is very strong. Things like wood can't resist its pecking at all."

"If you hadn't told me, I would have been planning to take it out for a walk at night." Li Shimin scratched the parrot's head with some fear.

"What's its name?" Li Xiang asked.

"I haven't named it yet." Li Shimin told the truth. He was only busy admiring the bird and didn't even think about naming it.

"Why not call it Banana? Look at its yellow color." Li Xiang said, pointing at the bird.

"What is a banana?" Li Shimin asked puzzledly.

"It's the bow banana." Li Xiang said another name for banana.

After hearing this, Li Shimin understood.

my country is one of the origins of bananas, and has a cultivation history of thousands of years. According to ancient records, bananas were already cultivated in Guangdong in the Western Han Dynasty.

Because the fruit is shaped like a bow, it is also called bow banana.

It’s just that the bananas nowadays… have big cores, and to be honest the taste is pretty average.

Modern bananas are all seedless bananas that have been selectively bred and taste many times better than those with seeds.

Old Li pondered over the name and felt it was damn weird.

But the weird thing is, this name is so damn descriptive.

"Okay, then I'll listen to you. This parrot will be called Banana from now on." Li Shimin nodded.

He looked at Li Xiang and asked, "You were so busy talking about the parrot. I saw you were in a hurry just now. Is there something wrong?"

"Yes." Li Xiang then remembered the main matter: "It is... about the placement of the wounded soldiers of the navy."

"Well, go ahead." Li Shimin motioned Li Xiang to continue.

Li Xiang organized his words and said, "Some of the soldiers in the navy were disabled in the war and lost their fingers or hands. It is impossible to get them to return to the army and fight again. After all, they can't hold their weapons firmly, so my grandson wants to find a way out for them."

"It's good that you have this idea." Li Shimin nodded with satisfaction: "This shows that you are a responsible person... Then how do you want to place them?"

"I want to recruit some of them who are not seriously injured as temporary workers in Jingzhao Prefecture to help me clean up the appearance of Chang'an." Li Xiang complained: "Chang'an is the capital of our Tang Dynasty after all, and it is a place of face. Although we can't be like that prodigal Emperor Yang of Sui, who hung silk all over Chang'an to show off his wealth, we can't ignore the appearance of the city."

"What do you mean?" Li Shimin asked with raised eyebrows.

"It's nothing. My grandson just wants to set up a department specifically responsible for sanitation, which will be responsible for maintaining the hygiene of the streets and markets in Chang'an City and keeping Chang'an City clean." Li Xiang said.

Li Shimin thought about it for a moment and thought this was a good idea.

The Tang people attached great importance to urban sanitation.

After all, the lessons of the past were too tragic. Before the Sui Dynasty, Chang'an City did not pay much attention to garbage. The residents gathered all the garbage together, dug a big pit, buried all the garbage in the soil, and then filled the surface of the pit again.

In this way, the annoying garbage disappears.

However, this method caused great harm to the city of Chang'an. Although there was no garbage on the surface, all kinds of garbage were buried together, and the decomposed harmful substances all entered the groundwater system of Chang'an City. As a result, during the Sui Dynasty, Emperor Wen of Sui had to build a new Daxing City in the southeast of Chang'an City. This temporarily solved the problem of insufficient water supply in Chang'an City.

Never forget the past and learn from it. When Yang Jian was building the city of Chang'an, he also did not forget to add a drainage system to Chang'an.

During the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan and Li Shimin also paid more attention to this issue. They enacted laws to prohibit residents of Chang'an from littering. If officials failed to supervise properly, they would be punished.

However, there was a shortage of manpower in the early Tang Dynasty, so although the laws were stipulated, their implementation was more flexible.

Generally speaking, Chang'an and Wannian counties are in a state of out of sight, out of mind.

"Since Xiang'er is determined to revamp Chang'an City, I will allow you to let those..."

At this point, Li Shimin suddenly looked at Li Xiang and asked, "How many disabled soldiers are there in your navy?"

"Not much, less than a thousand." Li Xiang scratched his head and said, "Now we are all staying temporarily at Aunt Gao Yang's farm..."

Li Shimin stretched out his hand and pointed at him: "You, really are..."

What else can I say? How can I say it?
Li Xiang smiled and said, "Could it be that Grandfather thinks his grandson will do something great?"

Li Shimin thought about it and agreed.

In his eyes, Li Xiang would never cause trouble no matter what.

"You act without thinking, be careful of being impeached!" Li Shimin threatened Li Xiang with a fierce face.

"As long as Grandfather trusts his grandson, he won't lose a single piece of meat even if he is impeached a few times." Li Xiang Xiaoxiang spread his hands.

Upon hearing this, Li Shimin stroked his beard and smiled.

"Hahahahahaha..."

He trusted Li Xiang, and why didn't Li Xiang trust him?
There was no suspicion between the grandparents and grandchildren, just like the grandparents and grandchildren in an ordinary family. Li Shimin enjoyed this kind of relationship very much.

"Alright, then this matter is settled. I will allow these wounded soldiers to enter the capital to help Chang'an City improve its appearance!"

(Ask for monthly ticket)

(End of this chapter)