Great Tang Southern Emperor

Chapter 41 Du Ruhui Explains Confusion

Li Shimin didn't know that Wu Youde had already thought of surrendering at this time, and he was worried now.

After going to court, Li Shimin called several of his confidants to the study, ready to discuss countermeasures.

"Your Majesty, why are you so frowning?" Fang Xuanling saw Li Shimin's eyebrows tangle up, but after thinking about it for a while, he understood his concerns and said with a smile: "If your majesty is about the King of Yue If so, please don't worry too much, Your Majesty."

"How do you say that?" Li Shimin couldn't help but relax a little when he heard the words. He knew Fang Xuanling too well, and he never told lies. , that means he has his own unique insights.

Fang Xuanling said with a smile: "What your majesty is worried about is that King Yue's plan is too dangerous. Using a silver mine that even your majesty is tempted to provoke a fight between the hostile forces of the Tang Dynasty, our court will sit firmly on the Diaoyutai However, King Yue’s bait can indeed arouse the jealousy of those powerful forces, but if they see through King Yue’s scheme and follow the plan, it will easily put my Tang Dynasty into a place of eternal doom.”

Li Shimin nodded when he heard this: "That's what I'm worried about. After all, it's a super silver mine. If the enemy gets it, their power will definitely grow by leaps and bounds, reaching a situation that even our Tang Dynasty can only look up to. Not only do we lose more than we gain, but we will also fatten our enemies. If they turn around and fight against Datang, even with the power of Datang, they may not be able to stop their attack, then it will really be a loss for Madam Another soldier."

"Hahaha……"

Unexpectedly, after learning about Li Shimin's worries, Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, Wei Zheng and others suddenly burst out laughing.

This smile immediately stunned Li Shimin: "My dear friends, why are you doing this? Is there something wrong with what I said?"

"Not really. Your Majesty's concerns are very reasonable. Such things may indeed happen, but your Majesty has overlooked a few issues." Du Ruhui said with a smile: "The first one is that the Yindao Silver Mine is huge. Super fat, there is no doubt about it. But the problem now is that there are too many people who want to eat this piece of meat, and each of them wants to eat this piece of meat for himself, and they are not willing to share it with others.

Even if we choose a proxy and release the silver mining rights, this can only be the beginning of the war.

The minister concluded that the forces that have obtained the mining rights will definitely not survive a month, and everyone will die. Without an agent, the mining rights will become unowned again.

Then we choose an agent again, and then they will be wiped out again... This cycle goes on and on, until there is only one survivor left in the end. "

Li Shimin raised his own question: "Could it be that they won't unite?"

"It's impossible to unite." Wei Zheng shook his head and said: "It's impossible for them to unite. The fat piece of Yindao is not only big, but also very tempting. No one can resist the temptation of the silver mine. Everyone They all want to swallow it all by themselves, and this alone is enough to make everyone's alliance fall apart.

Moreover, the ideas of the major forces are different, but their goals are the same. Even if they are forcibly united, there will definitely be many contradictions.Because everyone knows each other's thoughts, in this case, even if they are united, the two parties will only work without effort, and even stab each other in the back. The efficiency is not as good as working alone. How can someone unite? "

"That's right, Keming, go ahead." After Wei Zheng's explanation, Li Shimin finally relaxed a little, and motioned for Du Ruhui to continue.

"Yes." Du Ruhui bowed and continued: "The second problem that the emperor overlooked is that the silver mine in Yindao may be very large, but it requires a lot of initial investment to generate benefits. The mining of Yindao seems to be It's very simple, just need some miners and a few furnaces.

But don't forget, Your Majesty, Silver Island is a deserted island and far away from the mainland. It is full of silver ore and a little bit of floating soil, and there is not even a mouthful of water.

How can humans survive on such an island?

There is only one way, and that is to transport domestic water to the island within a certain period of time

.But the sky on the sea is unpredictable, who can guarantee that fresh water can be delivered in time every time?Water is no different than anything else. If a person does not drink water for three days, he will surely die.

Not only water, but also food and supplies also need to be transported from the mainland. This investment alone requires a lot of financial resources.

Only by solving these problems can the silver mine operate normally, but how long will it take?No one is sure, at least within half a year it is impossible to have any output. "

"It makes sense." Li Shimin nodded his head: "Go on."

"Yes. The third question, Your Majesty, silver is just silver after all. You can't eat or drink it. It's too soft to even use it to make weapons. The reason why silver is liked by everyone is because it can be bought all over the world." Almost everything, otherwise, even if you have a mountain of silver, you will only starve to death. That is to say, if those forces want to convert the silver into combat power, they have to exchange the silver into weapons, but [-]% of the world Jiu’s arsenal is controlled by the imperial court and His Highness the King of Yue, they want to buy large quantities of weapons, they can only buy them from us, the question is will we sell the weapons to them?”

Li Shimin categorically denied it: "Of course not. Even if it is for sale, it will only sell some cold weapons. The quantity is not too much. As for the cannon grenades, let's dream."

"That's it, no matter how much money they have, if we don't sell them weapons, what can they do? Besides, as long as we have firearms in hand, no matter how many swords, guns, swords and halberds they are equipped with, how can they be ours?" opponent?"

"Yes, yes, what Keming said is too reasonable." Li Shimin hurriedly agreed, "Is there any more?"

"There is one last point." Du Ruhui said with a smile: "Your Majesty, don't forget that this is a world that speaks with fists after all, so what if one of the parties gets the Silver Island in the end?

Now our fists are the biggest. They can threaten His Majesty by harassing Silver Island, so why can't we use this method to deal with them?

Don't forget, my Tang Dynasty now has two powerful fleets, the Dengzhou Fleet and the Yuezhou Fleet, no matter which one appears, it is the strongest in the world.

And all the top shipyards in the entire Tang Dynasty are in the hands of His Royal Highness King Yue and us. Whoever they want to sell to and who they want to sell to, what kind of ship they want to sell, and what kind of ship they don’t want to sell, it’s up to me. No cannon, no Battleships, His Majesty thinks, will a fleet composed of civilian cannons and merchant ships be the opponent of our two major fleets? "

"It's reasonable, it's because I think too much." Li Shimin laughed at himself: "To be honest, my mentality is actually similar to those of those forces. It's a bit chaotic, but fortunately, you have all my loves to help me out of my worries, otherwise, I'm afraid I'll have to worry about gains and losses for the next few days."

"Hahaha……"

Chapter 577 The silver mine returns to Buddhism, and the fleet lands in Luzon

Chapter 42 Return the silver mine to Buddhism, and the fleet to Luzon (two in one)

Half a month later, under Du Ruhui's abbot, the auction in Chang'an City ended perfectly, and it was the rich and powerful Wantong Chamber of Commerce that finally won the mining rights of Yindao. The power behind this chamber of commerce was none other than Buddhism.

That's right, the second largest chamber of commerce in the Tang Dynasty, second only to Li Zhen's chamber of commerce, is not controlled by the aristocratic family, but by the Buddhist family. For the mining rights of Yindao, the Buddhist family spent 350 million taels, which is barely considered From the wolves looking around, snatched this piece of cake.

The auction ended perfectly, but everyone knows that now is the real start of the war. Aristocratic families, Confucianism, reactionary forces, subversives, restorers, Taoism, foreign consortiums, and even the imperial court... all forces will not Allowing Buddhism to mine silver mines safely.

Regarding this point, Buddhism is also very clear, so after competing for the mining rights of Yindao, they quickly organized five hundred stick monks to escort the representatives of Buddhism who participated in the auction this time. (Silver Mining License, similar to the role of Yanyin) to Lingnan.

Tan Zong was a famous monk in Shaolin Temple in the late Sui Dynasty and early Tang Dynasty. The most famous deed was the thirteen stick monks who rescued the Tang king. Of course, this story is fabricated, and there is no such record in history.

However, Tanzong and his thirteen stick monks did provide great help to the Tang army's attack on Wang Shichong.

The thing is like this, at the end of the Sui Dynasty, the world was in chaos, and the princes from all walks of life fought for the supreme artifact. At that time, there were three most powerful families, Li Yuan from Taiyuan, Li Mi from Wagang, and Wang Shichong from Luoyang. At that time, Shaolin Temple was located in Wang Shichong. sphere of influence.

In order to resist the Tang army, Wang Shichong changed Baigutun to Lizhou and ordered his nephew Wang Ren to station there.This Baigutun is about 25 kilometers northwest of Shaolin Temple. It was given to Shaolin Temple by Yang Jian, Emperor Wen of Sui Dynasty during the Kaihuang period of Sui Dynasty. It is an important grain production place from Shaolin Temple.When Wang Ren occupied Baigutun, the monks in Shaolin Temple also cut off the source of fasting food, and life became more and more difficult.

In March of the fourth year of Wude (AD 621), the Tang army surrounded Luoyang on a large scale. At Xuanyuan Pass, Li Shimin and Wang Shichong's troops fought fiercely.Xuanyuan Pass is located at the gate of Taishi Mountain and Shaoshi Mountain, and it is the main throat from Luoyang to Xuchang and Nanyang in the southeast.The city of Lianzhou that Wang Renze was defending, namely Baigutun, had a dangerous terrain and was a strategic point for guarding the [-]th battle. It was easy to defend but difficult to attack.After Li Shimin won the [-]th set, he attacked Quezhou City again, but he couldn't attack for a long time.

Zhicao, the master of Shaolin Temple, has a far-sighted vision. He judges the situation and believes that Li Yuan won the hearts of the people and will rule the world, while Wang Shichong and Wang Renze are as cruel as tigers and wolves, and it is difficult to achieve great things.Therefore, he discussed with the monks to help Qin Wang Li Shimin seize the city of Guzhou. The monks had long been dissatisfied with Wang Renze's evil deeds of oppressing the people, and they hit it off immediately.After planning, a group of Shaolin monks sneaked into the city and bought off the guard officer Zhao Xiaozai; another group of Shaolin monks lay in ambush outside the city, waiting to move.On the twenty-seventh day of the fourth month, Shaolin monks joined forces inside and outside, and entered the city of Lianzhou.Tanzong and others with high martial arts skills captured Wang Renze, Zhao Xiaozai and others opened the city gate, Tang Jun and Shaolin monks swarmed and captured the city of Lizhou.

Of course, this is just an official statement. In fact, it is that Wang Renze occupied the territory of Shaolin Temple and seized their land property. After going down the city gate, Wang Renze was captured alive, and the city of Lizhou was broken.

But regardless of what Shaolin Temple thought at the time, they did provide a lot of help to Li Shimin in attacking Lizhou City and eliminating Wang Shichong. So three days later, Qin King Li Shimin sent Li An, a distant relative of Shangzhu Kingdom, to visit Shaolin Temple, and received ten meritorious deeds. Three monks.The thirteen monks are Shangzuo Shanhu, Temple Master Zhicao, Duvina Huichang, General Seng Tanzong, Puhui, Mingsong, Lingxian, Pusheng, Zhishou, Daoguang, Zhixing, Sengman, Seng rich.Li Anyuan also read Li Shimin's personal letter.The original copy of Li Shimin's handwriting was later handed over to Shaolin Temple by Tang Xuanzong and Yiyi Zen Master. It was engraved on a stone tablet and stood in Shaolin Temple.

The reason why the Buddhist sect chose Tanzong to escort Yinyin was that besides the fact that Tanzong's martial arts were really strong, he also took this aspect into consideration-he made a lot of contributions to the establishment of the Tang Dynasty. Even if you don't support Buddhism, at least you have to stand on the sidelines and don't add obstacles to Buddhism.

As long as the imperial court does not act, the rest of the forces are certainly strong, but it should not be a problem if they want to deal with it.

But, is it really that simple?

We will talk about what will happen to Buddhism after getting Yinyin, but now we will set our sights on the Luzon Islands.

Orika was once the son of a chief of a tribe in the west of Luzon Island, the largest island in the Luzon Islands. He's just a homeless dog.Because his tribe was wiped out by the hostile Akara tribe, all his relatives were killed, and all the people of the tribe became slaves. Only he escaped by chance because he was away from home at that time.

However, as a well-known warrior in the tribe, he was not let off so easily by the enemy. After he came back, he immediately fell into the trap set by the enemy for him. As a price for being scrapped, he escaped from the trap, killed two enemies, and took their weapons and equipment.

It's a pity that although he escaped successfully, it only delayed his death, because the trap was triggered, and within a quarter of an hour after he escaped, the enemy chased after him.

The Akara tribe is a large tribe with a population of more than 1000 people. There are more than 300 soldiers in battle alone, but he has only one person. But this can only irritate the other party even more, and because the broken arm has been bleeding non-stop, in fact, he himself has almost reached his limit.

Fortunately, his tribe is not far from the sea. Relying on the experience of being familiar with the terrain, Orika finally succeeded in throwing off the enemy and fled to the sea alone.

He didn't have time to rest, because he knew that although he had temporarily thrown off the enemy, but with his own blood, the enemy would soon follow the blood.He must bandage his arm before the enemy arrives, and then find a way to find a boat and escape to the opposite island.