The Wu family became the biggest joke in the entire city of Chang'an in the first month of the sixth year of Zhenguan.
Although it was only circulated within a certain range and could not be known to ordinary people, it was the source of laughter for the nobles during this boring period.
Everyone is saying that the Wu family was obviously hit by the Jinshan, but they threw the Jinshan away themselves.
The world is so vast that it is rare for a sand sculpture to reach this level.
Those railroad tracks that were stolen and sold seemed to be worth a lot of money, but compared to the big business of Lijiazhuang, they were nothing.
Many heads of honorable families have used this incident to warn their children that anyone who dares to do such a ridiculous thing will have their legs broken.
The children from other families had not had their legs broken, but a group of idiots from the Wu family were escorted back to Chang'an City and quickly handed over to Duke Ying's Mansion, where they all had their legs broken.
Then Li Er sent an imperial edict, appointing the warrior Xun as the governor of Jingzhou, and directly sent the Wu family to the desolate and barren land of Jingzhou.
Compared with Guan Nei, Jingzhou, which has not yet been developed on a large scale, is indeed desolate and barren.
There are many swamps and lakes, where mosquitoes, tigers and leopards are rampant, and crocodiles are everywhere.
At least in the eyes of the nobles, these places are places of exile.
According to the practice of the imperial court, at this time, someone will definitely chase and beat someone, and it is common for someone to be unlucky and unable to recover.
But this time it didn't happen. Everyone kept quiet and watched silently as the Wu family left Chang'an City and went to Jingzhou to take office.
The reason is naturally simple. The shameless warrior Yu actually entrusted his eldest daughter and second daughter to Master Li.
In the words of Changsun Wuji, "Ying Guogong's vision is still so good."
The warrior Xun was only a merchant in his early years, but when Li Yuan started his army, he immediately spent all his family property to support Li Yuan, and thus became a hero of Conglong and was granted the title of Duke Ying.
Now he made a decisive decision to seize the key point of the matter. He didn't do anything to recover the stolen rails. He directly broke the legs of Wu Yuanqing, Wu Yuanshuang and other idiots as an explanation, and then sent the eldest daughter to Lijiazhuang.
Not only did it successfully resolve this crisis, it even deepened its relationship with Lijiazhuang.
This can be seen from the fact that the rumors and jokes in Chang'an City immediately disappeared without a trace after the news came out.
Many people secretly said that it was a pity that their own daughter was not bad, so why didn't Mr. Li look down on her?
Time flies, and it’s the time of spring plowing, when the whole year begins with spring.
Unlike last year's autumn harvest, when almost all the workers on the construction sites went home to harvest, this time around the construction sites from Chang'an City to Shengzhou, there were still many people left busy working.
It is not compulsory, but it is a voluntary application to stay.
The reason is that Li Yunze paid double his salary as overtime pay.
After many calculations, many peasants took out a sum of money to hire people from the same town and village to help with spring plowing work. Not only could they make a fortune by working on the construction site, but they could also eat three meals a day.
The extremely high salary has attracted many people to take the initiative to work on the construction site, but unfortunately there are not many people to recruit when there are enough manpower.
Although they all do physical work, skilled manual workers are much more useful than newcomers.
With sufficient material support and enough manpower to devote themselves enthusiastically to it, the railway project from Chang'an to Shengzhou is progressing rapidly.
Li Yunze was not idle either. He personally led the team eastward and began to prepare for preliminary exploration and surveying of the railway between Chang'an City and Luoyang City.
As for the spring plowing in Lijiazhuang, all the matters were left to Wu Meiniang.
Wu Meiniang, who was in her prime year, was like a young adult, going back and forth to various dignitaries' mansions to discuss the matter of renting land this year.
In each mansion, the owner of the house personally receives the guests and negotiates the price in a serious manner.
This year, the fields in Lijiazhuang are mainly used to grow forage soybeans, while the main cash crops are cotton.
The sugar cane fields, the original flagship product, have all been transferred to Lingnan.
As for cotton, when the Tang army gradually regains the Western Regions, it will all be transferred there.
When each family's fields were leased to Lijiazhuang, in addition to collecting rent, they also exchanged good varieties of seeds.
In the past few years, they had also thought of various ways to obtain Lijiazhuang's high-quality seeds, but they were okay at first, but in the second year there would be a large-scale reduction in production, and various problems emerged one after another.
By the third year, there is basically no harvest.
Now everyone understands that they have special skills in seeds, and it is basically impossible to make money through breeding.
In desperation, I had no choice but to buy it.
After all, the acres of land leased to Lijiazhuang are only part of the land, and the nobles also have to grow valuable and good things in their own acres.
For example, Lijiazhuang has always underwritten the sales of soybean, rapeseed, etc. Lijiazhuang will buy as much as the price has been set.
Compared to growing food in the past, you can earn a lot more.
On this day, Wu Meiniang went to the palace in a carriage, preparing to rent acres of land in the palace from the royal family to plant cash crops.
When Wu Meiniang got off the carriage and formally stepped into the palace gate, a strange phenomenon suddenly occurred in the world.
The bright sunshine in the sky suddenly dimmed, and the wind on the ground suddenly rose with alarming force.
Everyone looked up and saw that the sun was gradually being swallowed by the Tengu, and a black shadow gradually blocked the sun.
This is a celestial phenomenon that was extremely taboo in ancient dynasties: the Tengu eating the sun!
In scientific terms, it's a solar eclipse.
Zizhi Tongjian records, "In March of the sixth year of Zhenguan, there was an eclipse on the sun."
Originally this was just a very common astronomical phenomenon, and there had even been several solar eclipses in the past few years.
But a rumor swept the entire Chang'an City in a short period of time.
'That young lady from the Wu family is the reincarnation of an evildoer. When she steps into the palace, the color of heaven and earth changes!'
'No wonder Lord Li accepts him as his disciple, only someone as powerful as Lord Li can suppress him.'
'I heard that the Queen immediately kicked him out of the palace.'
'Everyone still doesn't understand why the young lady from the Wu family has no problem going in and out of various palaces, but she is warned by heaven and earth just like the palace. That's because God has said that she will never be allowed to marry into the palace.'
'I really want to see what kind of grace it is that can actually cause changes in the world. Is it someone like Bao Si Daji?'
‘.’
All kinds of comments made Wu Meiniang become the most famous person in Chang'an City.
The news reached Li Yunze who was at Hangu Pass, and he immediately wrote a letter to Li Er with a heavy face.
The meaning of the letter is very simple, 'It's okay if you want to deflect the adverse effects of the solar eclipse, but don't use my disciples as a shield. I assure your majesty that if you anger me, the consequences will definitely be more serious than the solar eclipse.'
The letter was quickly sent to the palace, and soon a large number of officials began to clean the streets. Anyone who spoke about this matter would be arrested and punished.
Even a few dandy boys from noble families were beaten up.
Soon, relevant news disappeared from the streets.
Incidentally, the news about the solar eclipse also disappeared.
Solar eclipses in ancient times were often used by literati to make a big fuss, saying that they were warnings from heaven that the emperor was immoral, and the emperor was very embarrassed every time.
Li Er was tired of coping with the previous solar eclipses during the Zhenguan period. The most recent one was the year before last, and he never thought that it would happen again now.
This time, a fat man who did not want to be named took the initiative to ask Wu Meiniang to help take the blame, and Li Er's acquiescence successfully diverted attention and did not give the civil servants a chance to use the topic.
However, it is obvious that Li Yunze has been offended, and it is not known how he will take revenge after he comes back.
Wu Meiniang, on the other hand, behaved very calmly, doing whatever she had to do on weekdays, as if there was no impact at all.
But in the letter written to Li Yunze, he poured out all his grievances.
Li Yunze's response was also very simple. He directly asked her to hand over the work, and he took his sister Wu Shun on a luxurious carriage and headed east to Luoyang City to meet Li Yunze.
There are not so many things to do and not so many eyes. She spends the whole day either eating, drinking, having fun or going out for an outing. In Wu Shun's words, the girl has more smiles on her face than all before combined.
Luoyang City, the former capital of the East, was in ruins and withered after experiencing the chaos at the end of the Sui Dynasty, especially the bloody battle between Li Tang and Wang Shichong.
Fortunately, the population returned after the war, and the place's position is so important that it has gradually recovered after these years.
Walking in the bustling city of Luoyang, Wu Meiniang with a bright smile repeatedly sighed, "It's so nice here. It's not as depressing as Chang'an City, where even taking a breath feels as heavy as a stone."
"Chang'an City is actually a military city, built specifically for fighting."
With his hands behind his back, Li Yunze stepped onto the Tianjin Bridge. "Luoyang is the real capital that Yang Guang built specifically to fight against the Guanlong military group. Of course it is different."
"Those nobles." Wu Meiniang thought for a while and said, "It's really annoying."
"Actually, the honorable nobles can barely make sense." Li Yunze looked around at the rows of shops. "What is really disgusting is the family members, because whether they want to do things for themselves or want to do things for the people of the world, they will oppose and disrupt them.
.”
"Why is this?"
"Because it affects their interests. After hundreds of years of accumulation, they have controlled all the interests they can control. Later, if people want to get ahead, they can only rob them, which will inevitably cause disputes."
Looking at Wu Meiniang with a curious face, Li Yunze waved his hand, "Forget it, if you don't talk about this, you probably won't need it in the future. Let's go shopping first, and then go to the Buddhist temple outside the city tomorrow. I want to find out if there is any Jing Nian Zen sect.
"
"Jing Nian Zen?" Wu Meiniang was very confused and had never heard of it.
Fortunately, she quickly put all this behind her and took Wu Shun to make the candy man.
In history, Wu Zetian also lived in Dongdu all year round in order to get rid of the suppression of the Guanlong military group.
Her attack on the aristocratic families headed by Wu Xingqi Wang was also because these aristocratic families ate too much, took too much, and refused to give out some of their profits.
All the benefits have been taken and you still don't want to share the profit. If it were someone else, no one would do it.
It is only natural that the aristocratic families have been cleaned up on a large scale.
Li Yunze visited almost everything inside and outside Luoyang, but unfortunately he could not find the Jing Nian Zen Sect, nor did he meet the barefoot elves flying across the Tianjin Bridge, nor did he see any Buddhist saints disguised as men.
"It's not bad. It's better than entering the world of Journey to the West."
Li Yunze comforted himself. With his current ability, if he really entered the world of Journey to the West, he probably wouldn't be able to defeat even the little monsters patrolling the mountains.
During his days in Luoyang City, it was not that he did nothing. Li Yunze also accepted the second batch of teams returning to the Spice Islands, and they brought back millions of kilograms of spices.
The reason why there is much less than before is because Li Er is determined to occupy the spice-rich island for a long time.
A lot of living supplies and personnel in the fleet were left behind there.
A large amount of spices were sold along the way, and when they arrived in Luoyang City, only a million kilograms were left.
Li Yunze did not let them send it to Guanzhong, but directly stocked it in Luoyang City for sale.
Guanzhong has stocked up on so many spices, and they haven’t finished them yet, so there’s no need to increase the inventory.
They stayed like this until after the autumn harvest, and then at Li Er's urging, Li Yunze took Sister Wu Meiniang on the journey back to Guanzhong.