Chastity Layman

Tianjin harbor.

There was thick ice for a mile along the coast, more than a foot thick, and the port entered an ice age that lasted for about three months.

Qin Lang sat in the Jinmen teahouse with his sleeves covered and listened to a book. Ever since the Emperor triumphantly returned to Tianjin from the Liaodong Sea, the imperial driver had been stationed in Tianjin temporarily.

The prosperity of Jinmen was in the Sui Dynasty. After the Grand Canal was built, a city was erected at the intersection of the South Canal and the North Canal, which was called Sanhui Haikou in history. And after the Tang Dynasty unified the world, especially after the great prosperity of industry, commerce and sea trade since Zhenguan, Tianjin, as an important seaport in Hebei, also quickly prospered.

The imperial court also set up important salt fields and salt warehouses here. At the same time, it also became an important commercial port for north-south commercial goods. Sea ships entered the port and then entered the Grand Canal along the river.

It was the twelfth lunar month of the fifteenth year of Zhenguan, and the king of Goguryeo sent a prince to Tang to plead guilty, claiming to be a minister of dung and earth, to accept donations, and to ask Tang to withdraw from Liaodong.

It's just how could Datang agree to such a request. In fact, after the emperor of the Tang Dynasty withdrew his troops from Anshi City, there was good news from another side of the division. After burning the four cities, he took down the empty Black Bone City again.

When Niu Jinda's generals arrived, the Goguryeo army was terrified and withdrew across the Yalu River one after another.

Millions of Goguryeo people in Liaodong could only hide in various mountain castles.

If it wasn't for the Tianhan Tang army's voluntary evacuation, only more than 20,000 troops stayed behind. With the power of the Tang army, especially the danger of Tianlei shattering Anshi City, the entire Liaodong could almost be determined. After its main force, the remaining fortresses and mountain cities were powerless to resist.

Qin Lang can't be quiet when he stays in Tianjin Port. Several wealthy families in Hebei come to see him every day. They used to occupy a large share of the trade of the eastern countries.

And after the emperor's personal conquest, which swept Liaodong with the force of thunder, these wealthy families rushed like cats smelling fishy.

Everyone knows that Liaodong has changed, and Datang is about to take over the entire Liaodong. Everyone knows what such a fertile land of thousands of miles means.

There are countless fertile grain fields and pastures, countless mines, cattle and horses, who doesn't want to get the moon first if they are close to the water?

Relying on their kinship with the Qin family, the Cui family of Boling walked diligently with Qin Lang, and did not regard themselves as outsiders. Although Qin Qiong is gone, Qin Lang still has to maintain this relationship.

This year, Datang passed away two prime ministers, Cen Wenwen and Li Daliang, one after another. There are many people staring at this position. Cui Dunli, the servant of the Ministry of war, and Cui Qian, the servant of the Huangmen, are qualified to go further.

The crown prince Chengqian was in Dingzhou to supervise the country, and now he is rushing to Tianjin to visit. During the Eastern Expedition, the crown prince performed well and handled things in an orderly manner.

Chengqian also sent someone to mention to Qin Lang about the fact that the number of prime ministers in the political affairs hall is small. Chengqian wanted to promote Xu Jingzong to the political affairs hall. Xu Jingzong was also on the list of staying behind this time. Advance by leaps and bounds, has won the trust of the prince.

Changsun Wuji also came to Qin Lang, and he wanted to recommend Chu Suiliang to take over the vacancy left by Cen Wenwen. In exchange, he was willing to support Qin Lang in recommending someone to replace the vacancy left by Li Daliang.

Surrounding the several key positions vacated in the center, the Eight Immortals of various forces are now crossing the sea, each showing their magical powers, and they are all trying to win over Qin Lang, hoping to get the support of Qin Lang, the favorite minister of the emperor.

For these people, although Qin Lang met most of them, they all just said that he would definitely not be able to help with such a big matter, but he was willing to do his best.

In fact, Qin Lang's return to court this time was not to seek further progress, but to think about how to get rid of the golden cicada's shell.

Qin Lang actually didn't have much thought about these things in the court.

The emperor has been staying in Tianjin these days, and he is not in a hurry to return to Luoyang. He has been studying Liaodong with Fang Xuanling's grandson Wuji all day long, studying the matter of awarding honors and lands to honored officials and soldiers in Liaodong.

Qin Lang had no intention of participating.

For him, the emperor's plan of conferring honors and conferring soil this time is actually a refined or popularized version of the previous system of feudal feudalism. The previous feudal feudal system was only limited to meritorious officials above the state duke level and the royal clan, but now it is necessary to It is popularized to all ranks of honored officers.

It's just that the honored officials get much less land, ranging from a few hundred acres to several thousand acres.

Of course, even the twelfth-class honorary officer can get a noble land, and the ninth-class title of the Great Tang Dynasty can naturally get a larger portion of the noble land.

But these are not very attractive to Qin Lang.

With such a large piece of extraterritorial land in Luzon, how could the hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Liaodong attract him?

"Why are there cheers in front?"

"It seems that the prince of Jian Guo has arrived in Tianjin!"

······

On the first day of the twelfth lunar month, the prince arrived in Tianjin from Dingzhou. The emperor wore the brown robe to meet the prince and fulfilled his original promise.

"I ask the sage to bestow this collection of robes!"

Li Shimin smiled and agreed.

The father and son had been apart for a few months, and when they saw each other again this time, their relationship was actually very good, and many of the previous estrangements and awkwardness seemed to have disappeared a lot.

When the night walks in the imperial banquet.

All the heroes and officials gave a banquet.

Tianjin City is rich in materials, and the imperial banquet is also very rich.

Wei Zheng, who came with the prince, did not advise the emperor to be extravagant. Who would spoil the atmosphere when the emperor personally conquered Liaodong?

Compared with such great victories, the recovery of Liaodong City, which had been lost for more than two hundred years, is nothing.

What's more, as a landlord in Hebei, who is stingy among the Cui, Lu, Zheng and Li families? Especially when the emperor once again showed his power, all the families were competing for financial resources. They donated countless materials to the industry, one by one to show their loyalty to the emperor.

These rich noble families of thousands of years were incomparably docile in front of the emperor at this time, as docile as a cat, constantly rubbing against the feet of the emperor, even turning over to reveal their belly.

Several families don't have the slightest idea and courage to fight against the emperor now, they only think about how to let themselves also enter the decision-making center of Datang.

With five surnames and seven families, they don't even have a seat in the Tang Political Hall, so how dare they call themselves powerful?

Although they have also supported several prime ministers through marriage and so on over the years, how can they compare with their own family members sitting in the prime minister?

For an aspect, they will do anything at all.

It's a pity that Li Shimin has already seen through these thoughts of theirs.

That great king was deliberately fishing for five surnames and seven families, both using and suppressing, just not letting them do what they wanted.

However, Qin Lang also knew that the Emperor Li's suppression of the Guandong gentry would not last for a few years. In history, during the era of Emperor Gaozong and Wu Zetian, he completed the last lore of the Guanlongmen Clan and completely drove them into the dust. Completely trample the five surnames and seven families into the mud.

However, it didn't take long for the five surnames and seven families to finally rely on the imperial examination system to complete the counterattack. From the early Tang Dynasty, none of the five surnames and seven families entered the central government as prime ministers, and later half of the prime ministers were all five surnames. The eight great clans in the Tang Dynasty almost monopolized the position of prime minister, and the politics of the noble clan reached its peak in the middle and late Tang Dynasty.

This is the nature of the system.

The world is peaceful, and it will inevitably gradually become the world of civil officials and scholar-bureaucrats.

However, the imperial examination system in the Tang Dynasty created the further strength of those famous noble families for thousands of years. Only when the imperial examination system in the Song and Ming Dynasties made it difficult for the old noble families to continue, a new class of scholar-bureaucrats was formed. Then it is characterized by family status.

At the banquet, a group of military upstarts and Shandong Guanlong gentry sat and stood on both sides, but everyone was talking about the land of Liaodong.

The Zhenguan new system does not suppress mergers, and the nobles and famous families love the land and like mergers.

It's just that the cost of land mergers in the Central Plains has been getting higher and higher in recent years. The high land transfer deed tax and land rent are restricting their mergers and expansions. But now that there is such a big cake in Liaodong, who can hold back?

The aristocrats are powerful and not short of money, but no one likes to deposit money in the bank or throw it in the cellar to mold. They prefer to turn the money earned by business and industry into land. Only land makes them feel The most down-to-earth.

Even if the cost of land holding is getting higher and higher, the deed tax, land tax, free warehouse grain, and the distribution of the land into the mu, etc., cannot dispel their passion.

Whether it is a new rich or an old family, or a noble family, which one is not a landlord?

Even if the harvest is peaceful and bumper every year, and the grain in the field is not valuable, what everyone cares about is not the superficial output of the land, but the root of the land. The food produced in the field can only be regarded as an additional dispensable income.

Land is as important as people.

Nowadays, apart from robbing land, nobles and famous families just like to buy people. Buy slaves everywhere, the short-term cost of buying slaves is higher than that of hiring workers, but the long-term benefits are high, and every family buys people.

Which of those great nobles didn't have thousands of slaves?

Although the imperial court did not completely restrict the trading of slaves like land, but only passed some laws to increase the cost of holding, but it could not hold back everyone's enthusiasm.

The land policy that does not suppress mergers not only stimulates the aristocrats, but also stimulates the imperial court's external expansionism.

The price of land in the Central Plains continued to rise, so a large number of people at the bottom sold off the little land they had in their hands, and chose to settle in the frontier, re-grant land, and obtain a full amount of average land grant, even in some more remote areas. In frontier land, they can still staking the land, as long as you can reclaim wasteland, then as much as you can reclaim is yours.

On the other hand, the large-scale annexation of the Central Plains also promoted the urban economy and prospered the industrial and commercial industries. A large number of manpower entered the industrial and commercial industries. Many skilled craftsmen simply gave up farming and completely became industrial workers.

The current Datang, under the prosperity shown, is a somewhat strange scene.

In the land of the Central Plains, the manors of the nobles and powerful people are one after another, and there are large manors everywhere, mainly manor plantations. There are very few small scattered lands, and the towns and cities that are blooming everywhere are also extremely prosperous. There are abandoned industrial workers everywhere.

In the frontier areas, there are a large number of people who migrated out. They left their hometowns and became a new frontier landlord with sufficient land, working hard here.

In the surrounding areas of the Tang Dynasty, those barbarians who are barbarians are now becoming one by one under the rule of the Tang Dynasty, and they are quickly integrated into the Tang Dynasty. The nomadic tribes have also begun to divide the pastures into designated nomads, and the mountain barbarians have also moved down the mountain. Start farming, or even step into the workshop.

Datang is exporting its own culture and values ​​to the world, and Li Shimin is pushing the idea of ​​whether it is the king's land, the guest of the land, or the king's ministers to the extreme.