Chapter 5 Meet the King
Daxingshan Temple is located on the side of Zhuque Street, occupying a single square in Jingshanfang. This is the royal temple of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, one of the three major scripture translation venues in Chang'an, the imperial capital, and the temple is the most extensive in the capital.
At this time, in the southeast corner of this huge Buddhist temple, in a green and cool bamboo forest, under a gazebo with slanted eaves, two people were standing side by side.
One was Su Guogong Cheng Yaojin, who was dressed in a blue robe, and the man next to him was dressed in a white robe, looking like a young Confucian scholar, but if there were honorable officials around, he would be able to recognize him immediately, this young man Confucian scholars are none other than Li Shimin, king of Qin, who is well-known in the dynasty and must be heard in the state.
The two stood in the hidden gazebo in the bamboo forest, leaning on the railing, as if admiring the artistic conception of the Buddhist temple and Zen forest, but if you can listen closely, you will find that what they are talking about has nothing to do with this.
"The son of Qin Qiong personally told you that this is the news that Qin Qiong obtained from the East Palace?"
Li Shimin is much younger than Cheng Yaojin, and he holds multiple positions, including Tiance Admiral, Taiwei, Chief Situ, Shangshuling and Zhongshuling, Shandong Road Daxingtai Shangshuling, Yizhou Daoxingtai Shangshuling , Yongzhou Mu, Liangzhou general manager, left and right twelve generals, left and right generals Wuhou, Shangzhu Kingdom, King Qin.
However, he is only twenty-seven years old this year. He rebels at the age of sixteen and has fought for more than ten years. Although he is still young, he is extremely calm, but at this time his face is full of worry.
Cheng Yaojin bowed slightly, and said to the King of Qin, "I have already said that Shubao is not a person who betrays the Lord and seeks glory. I have always believed in him. This information is very important and timely."
Li Shimin is tall and tall. He has the blood of the Xianbei Hu people. He learned riding and archery when he was young, and he has excellent riding and archery skills. But his mind is also amazing, he patted the railing of the gazebo lightly with his palm, and sighed, "Shubao returned to Tangqi with you, and he was under my command. He has worked with me for seven years, he is brave and loyal, He has always been the general I trust and rely on the most.”
He sighed, "Shubao's information is too important, but I still have to verify it."
"My lord, it's only been three days. The crown prince has always wanted to put the king to death. If he rises up in three days, we will have no way to deal with it. We can't sit still and wait for death."
Cheng Yaojin is Li Shimin's confidant, so there is no need to hide many things at this time, but Li Shimin also has his own considerations.
This is Chang'an, at the feet of the emperor, not to mention the twelve armies in Guanzhong, they are mainly in the hands of the emperor, even the imperial guards in Chang'an city are basically in the hands of the emperor and the prince. There are only 800 guards left in the village, which is not enough to protect themselves.
"I also felt that the storm was coming. I sent Wen Daya out of Luoyang, Qu Tutong to assist me, and secretly sent Zhang Liang to Shandong to recruit heroes and righteous men. But under the current situation, His Majesty never gave me a chance to leave Chang'an. "
"Beasts are about to devour people, so don't care about other things!" Cheng Yaojin also knew that Li Shimin had been planning to seize the crown through the emperor, but now it is obvious that the emperor has long since lost the intention of easy storage, and the emperor has begun to completely cut off the wings of King Qin. up.
Before Li Shimin and the generals of the Qin Palace did not make the worst plan. The worst plan they made at the time was that if the easy storage was not feasible, they would use Luoyang as their base camp and prepare to stabilize Shandong in order to compete with the prince for the world in the future.
But now, this way of retreat is also difficult, and Li Shimin cannot leave Chang'an at all.
"Is Qin Sanlang outside? Tell him to come over." Li Shimin's face sank like water, his brows twisted into a "Chuan", feeling very irritable.
Qin Lang waited outside the bamboo forest for about half an hour before seeing Cheng Yaojin calling him over.
"King Qin is inside. You go to see him yourself. I still have things to do." Cheng Yaojin patted Qin Lang on the shoulder before leaving. Just now, King Qin gave him a task, which was to contact the The secret hidden stake in the East Palace to verify the news brought by Qin Lang.
Following the path in the bamboo forest, Qin Lang came all the way to the gazebo, and saw the young man standing with his hands behind his back from afar.
He looked so young, tall and strong.
"Qin Lang greets the king!"
Li Shimin turned around upon hearing the sound, and Qin Lang carefully sized up the future Tian Khan. He saw that he was handsome and handsome, and besides being handsome, he was also very mighty.
The most distinctive feature is that Li Shimin has a curly beard and a curly beard, which is very characteristic of Xianbei Hu people, but his eyebrows and eyes are very handsome.
Qin Lang suddenly thought of an adjective, the appearance of a dragon and a phoenix, the expression of the sun. According to the aesthetics of this era, he is definitely a handsome and mighty handsome man. Even if viewed from the aesthetics of later generations, Li Shimin is definitely a handsome guy.
Seeing that Qin Lang was in a daze, he took two steps forward, reached out and patted Qin Lang on the shoulder and sat down.
"Shubao's loyalty to me is as solid as a mountain. I never doubt it. Even if the gold gifted to Shubao by the prince piles up to the Big Dipper, I know that Shubao's loyalty to me will not be shaken. Shubao does He accepted the crown prince's gold and silver, and accepted his recommendation award. This way, he gained the trust of the prince and was able to understand his conspiracy. In this respect, Shubao did a better job than Jingde and Zhijie. There are many of them, they just refused blindly, but let the disaster happen, and Shubao pretended to surrender to the prince, but he was able to detect their plot and report to me in time, Shubao is really brave and resourceful, he is worthy of being the number one general of my Qin Palace! "
As he spoke, he directly took out a gold knife from his body and gave it to Qin Lang, "I also want to thank you for risking the news."
Although the golden knife was only about the size of a palm, it was very delicate and weighed about a pound, especially since it was inlaid with a lot of precious stones, so it was worth a lot at first glance.
Qin Lang thanked him for accepting it, and he was not polite.
"Our Qin family is willing to go to the fire for King Qin, and we don't hesitate. There were a lot of rumors in the market before, and my father never explained anything. Since he was transferred out of King Qin's mansion, he hasn't had any contact there again. Firstly, he was ordered by the court. Restriction, inconvenient communication, and secondly, I want to take the opportunity to pretend to break up with Qin Wangfu and switch to the Eastern Palace, so as to gain the trust there. Fortunately, my father bears the infamy and bears the humiliation. He finally gained the trust of the Eastern Palace, and found out the important conspiracy of the Kunming Pool Change It's finally worth it if you can tell His Highness in time." Qin Lang showed a sincere look, and even said that his father Qin Qiong was lonely and loyal.
Li Shimin was greatly moved by what he heard. Right now is the most difficult time for him. Qin Wangfu's wings have been cut. Although many old ministries are still connected with him, the situation is indeed getting more difficult every day. No one knows what will happen tomorrow. You will lose your life.
After Qin Qiong was transferred away, he no longer interacted with Prince Qin's mansion. It is true that many subordinates, including Hou Junji, said that he was a traitor. He immediately let go of this important news, and no longer doubted Qin Qiong's loyalty.
"There are thirty collars of gold here, you can take them later." Li Shimin pointed to a small box in the pavilion.
"What is the meaning of this, Your Highness? Our father and son are loyal to His Highness because of the great achievements of the great king, who should inherit the world and benefit the common people in the future, not because of the golden official reward from His Highness!" Qin Lang refused loudly with a righteous attitude.
Li Shimin said with a smile, "You are all my confidantes, how can I be so indifferent? But now is the critical time, your father is now in the East Palace for me, find a way to get more information, this gold collar can be used Be the one to buy the East Palace."
Speaking of it this way, the money is regarded as activity expenses, so Qin Lang couldn't refuse it. The golden knife just now was rewarded to him by Li Shimin, but the thirty collars of gold were for Qin Qiong's activities, so he took it and looked at it.
It was found that it was a gold collar cast into twelve taels and one ingot. This box was worth three hundred taels of gold. According to the current price of gold, silver and copper, it could be worth thousands of coins. It is indeed a large sum of money. It seems that Li Shimin came prepared. , Carrying so much gold with him, spending so much money, I guess it really feels like burning his eyebrows. Of course, guessing at the worst, it is estimated that he also wanted to spend a lot of money to win Qin Qiong, lest he really switch to the East Palace.
"Your Highness, my father has something to tell me."
"you say."
Qin Qiong didn't know that he would come to see Li Shimin in secret, so these words were actually just what he wanted to say. He organized his words in his mind, "Your Highness, my father said that it is now the autumn of life and death, and the East Palace is even more dead. In this situation, once a disaster strikes secretly, not only the Qin Palace will be out of control, but the survival of the country will actually be a problem."
"My father said that if you should break it, you must break it. You must not have the benevolence of a woman, and don't have any illusions about His Majesty Yi Chu. You should act first to be strong, and then you will suffer. Even if Your Highness can avoid the Kunming Pond in three days. Maybe there will be other disasters, so it is better to take Zhou Gong's action to fix Guan Shu and Cai Shu, so as to stabilize the royal family and the country."
"The life and death of His Royal Highness and the brothers of Prince Qin's Mansion is now."
Li Shimin didn't expect Qin Qiong to let his son bring him these words, he frowned and thought. After a long time, he said bluntly to Qin Lang, "Actually, Wuji once told me the same thing, Xuanling and Ruhui once said that I should not waver and hesitate, but now I have lost all my wings and all my soldiers and horses are gone." Transferred away, people are trapped in Chang'an, and there is no way to return to Luoyang to raise troops!"
"Why don't your Highness launch a trouble in Chang'an?"
Qin Lang didn't expect that even at this time, Li Shimin still wanted to run back to Luoyang to gather the old troops and separate the party.
"Chang'an?" Li Shimin shook his head. He explained to Qin Lang, "Chang'an has tens of thousands of soldiers and guards. To the north of the palace gate is the Emperor Yuan Cong's forbidden army, with a total of 30,000 horses. There are also tens of thousands of soldiers in the twelve guards, not to mention the relatives of the guards, Xun Yi and the three guards in the palace, a total of 200,000 people in the palace."
According to Li Shimin, even if these soldiers take turns to be on duty at ordinary times, the number of Chang'an Suwei soldiers is often maintained at more than 30,000, not to mention that there are twelve roads and twelve armies in Guanzhong, commanding more than 260 soldiers. The soldiers outside the Wei Mansion, once something happens in Chang'an, they can come immediately.
The East Palace still has six rates and three guards, plus the prince's Changlin soldiers, etc., Li Shi's 800 personal soldiers are really not enough to fit his teeth. How can he cause trouble in Chang'an?
Qin Lang knew that Li Shimin had made a mistake.
He only thought that he only had 800 soldiers in his hand, with all his wings clipped, so he only thought about going back to the Luoyang base camp, wanting to swim in the sea with dragons and leap in mountains with tigers.
"Your Highness is wrong, very wrong!" Qin Langlang said.
(end of this chapter)