Chapter 351: Sleepy, Here Comes the Pillow

When the news came, not only Li Chengqian, but even Li Shimin was a little confused.

Old Li thought about it for a long time in the Lizheng Hall, but couldn't understand how Tubo had the courage to touch the tiger's whiskers of the Tang Dynasty.

Everyone knows that Tuyuhun is now called a vassal state, but in fact it is an internal vassal of the Tang Dynasty.

Attacking Tuyuhun is equivalent to slapping the Tang Dynasty in the face.

Old Li couldn't understand it, but Li Chengqian was ecstatic.

Damn, isn’t this just a pillow that comes in handy when you’re sleepy?

Although there were no major twists and turns during his Yonghui reign, he did not do anything that harmed the people. Under the guidance of Xiao Gui and Cao Zhui, people's livelihood during the Yonghui reign was even better than that during the Zhenguan reign.

Even the most picky scholars would give a thumbs up after carefully counting the people's livelihood during the Yonghui period.

The part about civil administration is a piece of cake, so you need to master it.

As for expanding territory, there was the land of Yindian that Li Yin opened up, which was no smaller than the area of ​​the Tang Dynasty, and there was also a piece of land in Nanzhou that was as large as two Eastern Jin Dynasties. This piece of land was also counted as part of his Yonghui Dynasty and was also under his control.

Now that he has achieved both, all he needs is a vigorous foreign war.

When he was originally planning to abdicate, Li Chengqian felt as if he had lost something.

But now it’s different. Li Chengqian now stands up straight.

beat! Must fight!
How can I swallow my anger if I don't give this bastard Tubo a good beating?

If he had achieved a great victory in the war against Tubo, Li Chengqian's contribution in history books would have been extraordinary.

Even if compared with all the emperors, kings or monarchs of the entire period, Li Chengqian could easily rank in the top ten.

If we ignore personal abilities and only look at political achievements, the six-dimensional graph will look like the following.

Civil governance: S (legacy of Zhenguan period), People's livelihood: SS (live and work in peace and contentment), Territorial expansion: SS+ (three continents), Military prowess: S (victorious in every battle), Political stability: SS+.

As for his influence on later generations, it must be at least S-level. After all, he did not cling to power, and he set an example for later rulers. Most importantly, his influence lies in the development of three continents, spreading the glory of the Han nationality to all corners of the world.

A few days later, the Tubo inspector finally sent news.

Li Shimin finally figured out why Tubo suddenly stopped pretending to be a good child.

It turned out that it was the Tibetan king, Mangsong Mangtsen, the grandson of the original king Songtsen Gampo, who, under the slander of a villain, lured and killed the prime minister Lu Dongtsen during a court meeting.

The reason is actually ridiculous. In the third year of Yonghui, Lu Dongzan led his troops to conquer Luowo and Zangerxia, and established the earliest administrative region in the history of Tubo - "Ru", and set up the position of "Kuiben" as the chief executive of these areas.

After this, Lu Dongzan appointed himself the Kuiben of Tubo.

This in itself was a bit taboo, but Mangsong Mangzan thought that he was young and needed the support of an old minister, so he didn't say anything.

But because his son Qinling was in the Tang Dynasty, some villains slandered him, saying that Lu Dongzan had a rebellious heart and wanted to take advantage of the young master's young age to sell out his master and seek fame and fortune by joining the Tang Dynasty.

Mangsongmangzan was already dissatisfied with Lu Dongzan's self-proclaimed position as Kuiben, and with the constant slander in his ears, he became furious and made a plan to ambush Lu Dongzan during the court meeting and killed him.

Afterwards, he killed Lu Dongzan's entire family to prevent future troubles.

As for the attack on Tuyuhun, it was actually because Mangsong Mangtsen was feeling unbalanced.

After all, when she proposed marriage to the Tang Dynasty, she was harshly rejected by the Tang Dynasty.

In addition, because of the marriage proposal, Mangsong Mangzan was not only dissatisfied with the Tang Dynasty, but also took his anger out on Lu Dongzan's family.

When the news reached the Tang Dynasty, Li Chengqian had a complicated expression.

"Look, this is what it means to destroy one's own Great Wall..." Li Chengqian said with a complicated expression as he held the report sent by the inspector.

"I really didn't expect that he could chop down Tubo's Optimus Prime." Li Xiang also had a complicated expression.

"The Tibetan king is rebellious and has committed a crime. It is time for the Tang Dynasty to punish the criminals." Li Chengqian put one hand on his chest and said with a sacred expression: "Upholding justice is what the Tang Dynasty should do as the suzerain state. Moreover, the Tibetans are still attacking our vassal Tuyuhun."

"Aye is right." Li Xiang said, "But it would be better if I talk to Li Qinling about this matter."

"Yes, you are right." Li Chengqian nodded.

Of course he had heard of Li Qinling. The young man was very talented and had excellent abilities.

From the perspective of military talent, Li Jing praised him highly during his lifetime.

It may sound a bit unfair, but sometimes Li Chengqian was thinking in his heart that the Tubo's killing of Lu Dongzan had, to some extent, completely made Li Qinling loyal to the Tang Dynasty and cut off all his escape routes.

As the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Li Chengqian also knew Lu Dongzan.

For Tubo, Lu Dongzan's greatest achievement was not conquering all directions to expand Tubo's territory, but demarcating field boundaries and establishing Tubo's feudal system.

Since Lu Dongzan demarcated the boundaries of the fields, the free people who originally made up the majority of the people were allocated land, engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry, and assumed feudal obligations to the state. From then on, the objects of exploitation by the ruling class were mainly these farmers and herdsmen, not a minority of slaves, and Tubo began to enter a feudal society.

Interestingly, Tubo was even more open-minded than Tubo during the Meng Kingdom period.

After Li Xiang left the Daming Palace, he asked someone to call Xue Rengui and Li Qinling.

When Li Qinling came, he was laughing and joking, and was playing and joking with Xue Rengui. He didn't look like an adult man at all, but rather had the personality of a young boy.

"Your Highness." The two of them saluted together.

"Stand up." Li Xiang nodded, looked at Li Qinling solemnly and said, "Qinling, there is something I just heard from Tubo. I hope you can be strong."

"What's wrong, Your Highness?" Li Qinling's heart skipped a beat.

Shit, what’s going on? Why is Your Highness so serious?

Li Xiang took the censor's report from the table and handed it to Li Qinling.

Then he gave Xue Rengui a wink.

Xue Rengui was such a smart man that he immediately understood what Li Xiang meant.

Li Qinling took the report and unfolded it.

Then he returned it to Li Xiang.

"Your Highness, you know me. I can speak the Tang dialect... I can even speak some of the characters..."

Li Xiang sighed, took the report and said, "Then I will read it to you."

After he narrated what happened, he put down the report and looked up to see Li Qinling standing there in a daze, not reacting for a long time.

After a long while, Li Qinling came back to his senses with a grim face. His nose and tears were streaming down, and he knelt on the ground with gnashing teeth, pounding the ground continuously.

"Rengui." Li Xiang gave Xue Rengui a wink.

"Brother." Xue Rengui hurriedly went up to hug Li Qinling, fearing that he would hurt his hand. "Brother, brother, please accept my condolences."

Li Qinling kept breathing heavily, staring in the direction of Tubo with red eyes.

"Little thief...you and I...will never coexist!"

"Your Highness!" He turned his head again and said angrily: "I am willing to lead 3,000 elite soldiers to go straight to Luoshui and cut Mangsong Mangzan into pieces to vent my hatred!"

"No." Li Xiang stretched out his hand to stop him.

He added: "Three thousand men are too few. I will give you thirty thousand men and let Rengui come to assist you."

"Your Highness, I will never forget your great kindness!" Li Qinling knelt on the ground and kowtowed continuously.

"Please accept my condolences. The deceased is gone. Qinling, you must take care of yourself." Li Xiang said with emotion: "You are the only child in your family now. We have to rely on you to carry on the family line."

"I know!" Li Qinling nodded heavily.

"This time when you go to support Tuyuhun, you must pay attention to safety." Li Xiang reminded again: "Eight years ago, I sent people to Tuyuhun to train the army there. We have trained a group of elite soldiers who can fight on the plateau. You must make good use of them. Do you understand?"

"I understand!" Li Qinling and Xue Rengui clasped their fists together.

In fact, according to the historical process, Tubo has always had ambitions towards Tuyuhun.

In the fourth year of Xianqing, Lu Dongzan began a large-scale invasion of Tuyuhun in the Qinghai Lake area.

At that time, Murong Nuohebo, the Prince of Heyuan County of Tuyuhun, asked the Tang Dynasty for support. However, after receiving the message, Li Zhi ignored it and did not care about the situation there at all.

In the third year of Longshuo, Tubo completely destroyed Tuyuhun, and Heyuan Prince Murong Nuohebo and Princess Honghua led the remnants to flee to Liangzhou.

At this point, most of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was under the rule of Tubo, and no other regime could compete with it.

After that, Lu Dongzan lived in the former territory of Tuyuhun, recruited Tuyuhun's former subordinates, and dealt with the aftermath. It was from here that Tubo gradually became a thorn in the side of the Tang Dynasty.

After preparing in Chang'an for half a month, Li Qinling and Xue Rengui left Chang'an and headed towards Tuyuhun, preparing to fight against the invading Tubo army. At the same time, they were also ready to launch a counterattack against Tubo at any time.

At the same time, the Tang Dynasty's war machine also began to operate at full capacity. Food and fodder were quickly prepared and ready to be sent to Tuyuhun to supply the army at any time.

In the Lizheng Hall, Li Xiang went to find Lao Li with chess pieces in his hand.

Chess is a board game recently 'invented' by Li Xiang, and is deeply loved by Lao Li.

In Li Shimin's view, this kind of game with clear boundaries between Chu and Han and clear distinction between chariots and horses is most suitable for a veteran general like him.

When he had nothing to do, he would call up a few old friends and have them fight each other in the Lizheng Hall.

Old Li and his brothers are now living a very comfortable retirement life. When they have nothing to do, they play chess, drink tea, and walk the birds. Their life is quite comfortable.

Except in winter when bananas cannot fly around, they can also wander around the yard when the temperature is high in spring, summer and autumn.

It did try to fly higher, but was spotted by a falcon circling in the sky, which was about to catch it in its claws. In desperation, Lao Li drew his bow and shot the blind falcon through.

From then on, bananas became even more sticky to Lao Li.

That day, Lao Li walked around the harem with the eagle and boasted to his concubines about how he shot the eagle's eye with an arrow and saved the banana.

Concubine Xu Hui loved bananas very much. After hearing that the banana was almost caught by a falcon, she hugged the banana and cried for a long time, almost suffocating the banana.

Fortunately, Banana had a good temper and didn't bite a hole in her.

"Li Qinling and the others have left?" Old Li asked without raising his head.

"Yeah, I just left." Li Xiang put down the chessboard and said to Lao Li, "Before he left, I asked Xue Rengui to persuade him not to panic when encountering things, but to treat them calmly. After all, the dead cannot be resurrected, right?"

"It's easy to say, but you don't know how difficult it is until you experience it." Li Shimin shook his head and sighed, "When your fifth uncle Weng Zhiyun died in Chang'an, I almost overturned the city of Chang'an and crushed the family of Yin Shishi to ashes."

"Then why did you keep Concubine Yin?" Li Xiang squinted at Old Li. "It would have been fine if you kept Concubine Yin, but you also kept Yin Hongzhi, this scourge. If it weren't for that idiot Yin Hongzhi, Qi Shuren might not have gotten to where he is today."

"You are right." Li Shimin nodded in agreement: "If I had not made a mistake and spared Yin Hongzhi because he was still young, perhaps the fifth brother would not have resorted to rebellion."

"Who said it wasn't?" Li Xiang spread his hands and said, "Look at your third uncle and sixth uncle. Your mother's family didn't have that jerk uncle to be close to, so naturally they didn't grow up crooked. Even though your sixth uncle is a jerk, he is a blank slate. He will become what he is like with whoever he hangs out with."

"I see, you are just bragging, right?" Li Shimin looked at Li Xiang.

"Don't you think you have a good grandson?" Li Xiang said with his hands on his hips.

“Hahahahahaha…” Li Shimin stroked his beard and laughed. After a while, he pointed at Li Xiang and said, “Yes, you are my good grandson, the good grandson of the Tang Dynasty!”

"Look, this is it." Li Xiang smiled and pushed the chessboard in front of Li Shimin: "Here, old man, look at this."

"Is this chess?" Li Shimin became interested.

"Yes, the chessboard and chess pieces are made of genuine mutton-fat jade. They are guaranteed to be impressive." Li Xiang said with a smile, "As the emperor, you must spend a lot. I think this chess piece fully demonstrates your status."

"Isn't this a bit too extravagant?" Li Shimin murmured.

The old Tang people are afraid of poverty...

"Extravagant?" Li Xiang rolled his eyes. "Could it be possible that Grand Tutor Wei could come to you in your dream tonight? In your dream, he would point his finger at your nose and advise you that you are still so extravagant even though you are the retired emperor?"

Li Shimin thought about the scene and shuddered.

"It's hard to say."

Li Xiang: …

Oh, teacher, look at you, you have cast a shadow on my grandfather...

"You can use it now." Li Xiang said with a smile, "Wealth lies in its flow. Besides, if you don't use this chess piece one day, you can sell it and it will be a top-notch cultural relic. Its value will increase a hundredfold immediately."

"Really?" Li Shimin was shocked.

Li Xiang nodded seriously: "Of course."

He was still thinking that if a chess piece was made of the same material in later generations, it would only cost tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands at most; but if one said that this thing was from the Tang Dynasty, adding a zero at the end would not be a problem.

But if you say that this thing was once touched by Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, then it would be hard to say how many zeros should be added to the end.

(End of this chapter)