Travel to the early Tang Dynasty and become a salted fish

While Chu Mo was hiding on Liuqiu Island and engaged in construction in full swing, the territory of Datang was in dire straits.

First, in March, there was a severe drought in Guanhai.

Since most of the grain on the market this time was purchased in advance by several major families with five surnames and seven hopes, even if Li Shimin finally bought it back at a price several times higher than the market price, it would only be a drop in the bucket.

For this reason, at the beginning of the disaster, there was basically no effective treatment, so starvation and death occurred all over the country, and people exchanged their children for food.

Not only that, Chu Xin, who was hiding in Zhengzhou, also took this opportunity to send people to secretly drive a wedge between the victims and the local government, and continued to intensify the relationship between the two.

In the end, they even directly encouraged the victims to attack the local county government, killed all the local officials, and started an uprising.

But when the court got the news and wanted to send troops to suppress it, these rebels were like mice and disappeared without a trace overnight.

As a result, most officials believed that these victims had to rush into the county government office as a last resort. Now that they realized they were wrong, they naturally retreated.

Based on the concept that punishment should not be punished, all the officials of the imperial court wrote to Li Shimin overnight, asking him to issue an edict of amnesty to appease the local people.

In desperation, Li Shimin had no choice but to issue an amnesty order in accordance with the officials' request, stating that he would not be held accountable for this incident.

However, Qian Niuwei was secretly sent to the scene of the incident to conduct a secret investigation.

However, as soon as the Qianniu Guards sent out entered the realm of Guannai, they were like mud cows entering the sea, and were never heard from again.

There was no other way. In order to prevent another accident and stimulate the local people, Li Shimin had no choice but to suspend the investigation, step up the allocation of grain, and allocate part of the grain reserves from various treasuries regardless of the cost.

It was originally thought that these grain reserves could be used to temporarily calm the emotions of the people in the pass, let them wait for a while, and give the court a chance to breathe.

What no one expected was that this batch of food, escorted by 3000 well-equipped soldiers, was robbed by a group of mobs who rushed out from nowhere as soon as they entered the pass.

The most irritating thing is that after the mob looted the food and grass, they did not transport it away, but directly burned it to the ground.

Li Shimin, who got the news from several escort soldiers who desperately escaped, was so angry that he vomited blood on the spot.

The next day, Li Shimin asked Li Jing, who had been preparing to go north to exterminate the Turks, to lead his 30000 troops into the pass, vowing to kill all these mobs.

I don't know whether it was out of caution or for some other reason, but after receiving Li Shimin's order, Li Jing sent all his troops to the scene of the incident that day and got there within three days.

However, after Li Jing arrived at the scene of the incident, he directly ordered the army to be stationed there, with no intention of moving forward.

When the officials knew the news, the memorial to impeach him was sent to Li Shimin's court like snowflakes.

Li Shimin was also very angry at Li Jing's negative attitude. In addition, because he had failed in his previous proposal to marry Li Zhenying, he was insulted by the villain Chu Mo.

New and old grudges were added together, so Li Shimin immediately sent Li Daozong to replace Li Jing, and removed his position and asked him to go back to his hometown to think about it behind closed doors for three months.

After Li Daozong took over Li Jing's affairs, his first order was to arrest all the people, men, women, old and young, within a ten-mile radius.

In his opinion, even if the people around him were not participants in the murder that day, they must have witnessed it.

If it's the former, then they are accomplices; if it's the latter, then they know it and fail to report it.

No matter what, these people are guilty, and it is not wrong to arrest them yourself.

Sure enough, after a round of torture and interrogation, some people who could not bear the torture finally confessed.

Not only did they tell that the mob that looted grain and grass that day had all been reduced to pieces and hidden among the local people, they also told Li Daozong that now more than [-]% of the people in the pass had joined a group called the Universal Sect. A cult, and threatened to destroy the Li family dynasty.

Li Daozong was stunned on the spot after receiving the news, and then sent the news back to Chang'an City.

Then, he sent out his 30000 soldiers and began to arrest everyone around him who was related to the mob, or even those who were suspected of being a mob.

Anyone who looks fierce, has a bad temper, speaks loudly, or has an arrogant attitude, and who is disliked, from an 80-year-old man to a seven- or eight-year-old child, will be taken back to the camp for interrogation on the spot.

Because Li Daozong learned from those tortures that Universal Religion accepts people regardless of age or gender, as long as they are breathing, he wants them.

Moreover, the Universal Religion will distribute food to each person who joins the religion on a daily basis to help them.

For this reason, he can guarantee that basically no one in the local population would be able to resist the temptation just for this mouthful of food.

Not to say that 100% of them have joined this cult, but at least [-]% of them have.

Sure enough, after some severe torture, the captured people basically all admitted that they were members of the Universal Religion.

Except for one or two stubborn people who refused to admit it until their death, no one else dared to quibble anymore, and they continued to provide lists of other members of the Universal Church for Li Daozong to arrest.

As a result, the snowball of Universalism grew bigger and bigger under Li Daozong's torture and questioning.

At first, Li Daozong only arrested members of the Universal Sect in the Ding'an and Pengyuan areas.

But as the number of arrests increased, and the number of people confessed by the "religionists" increased, this area slowly began to radiate to the surrounding areas.

In the end, there was even a faint tendency to go beyond the mainland.

Finally, another report from his lieutenant said that the prison area built in the circle was not enough for use, and a group of "sinful" parishioners needed to be killed again to free up more places to hold new prisoners.

Li Daozong finally realized that he might have been fooled and used as a weapon by those true universal believers.

At the same time, Li Shimin, who was far away in Chang'an, also received news from Li Daozong.

When he first read the report above, it said that countless cultists had been discovered. Li Shimin was so angry that he ordered Li Daozong to drag all these people to light sky lanterns.

But soon, he noticed something was wrong again.

If it is said that Universalism takes advantage of the catastrophe to win over people's hearts and lure ignorant people into the religion, he believes this.

But it would be unreasonable to say that all the people who joined the sect have turned into cultists who have dehumanized themselves.