Tibet

Xiao Hua said goodbye first, but Wei Jiansu and Zhang Li stayed. King Nanzhao had come north to Chang'an to apologize, and they needed to understand the emperor's attitude towards Nanzhao.

Wei Jiansu said: "Your Majesty, Nanzhao is now a piece of fish on the chopping board. What are you considering to do with it?"

Li Ye smiled and said, "I would like to hear the opinions of the two prime ministers?"

Wei Jiansu smiled slightly and said: "Before the Northern Expedition, Zhuge Liang was still trying to appease the barbarians in the south. But now we are not in the Three Kingdoms era. It is not a taboo to cross the Lu River and go south. Nanzhao is also mainly about farming, not traces. The nomadic Hu people are easier to manage, so it is not impossible to destroy Nanzhao and establish prefectures and counties. However, leaving a harmless Nanzhao to manage various ethnic groups for us, Weichen thinks it is also a good strategy. The key is To balance the gains and losses!”

"In accordance with Zhang Xiangguo's opinion?" Li Ye asked Zhang Li again.

Zhang Li bowed and said: "Wei Chen believes that the harmless Nanzhao in Wei Shangshu's opinion is extremely important. There are not many Han people in Nanzhao, almost all of them are Yi barbarians. Some are better Hanized and are basically the same as the Han people. But some of them are still in the barbaric era. If the imperial court directly establishes prefectures and counties, it is actually not easy to manage. I still support the Hexi Dudu Prefecture model, where ethnic minorities are autonomous, but the imperial court has garrisoned troops in key cities, and the whole belongs to the imperial court. "

Li Ye nodded, "You two are right. They basically agree with me. I put forward four opinions, and then the political hall will discuss them based on my four opinions and come up with a plan!"

"Your Majesty, please speak!"

Li Ye said slowly: "First, in principle, the Nanzhao Kingdom can be retained, but it cannot have an army. The army can only be the imperial garrison; second, the borders that existed before Tianbao nine years ago are restored, and the imperial court establishes Yaozhou and Kunzhou, and appoints Provincial officials were responsible for managing Han-populated areas; third, Nanzhao's heirs must live in Chang'an before ascending the throne; fourth, the imperial court did not need to collect taxes from the Nanzhao autonomous area, but all mineral deposits in Nanzhao were owned by the imperial court, including salt wells. , Nanzhao’s salt price should also be unified with that of Bashu.”

The four plans proposed by Li Ye were completely in line with the interests of the Tang Dynasty, especially the prohibition of the existence of the army, which actually ruled out the possibility of Nanzhao's re-emergence. Nanzhao eventually became an agent, managing the Nanzhao area for the Tang Dynasty.

Wei Jiansu and Zhang Li resigned. Li Ye stood in front of the sand table with his hands behind his hands and remained silent for a long time. The Nanzhao issue was a problem that any ruler of the Tang Dynasty had to face and solve. It was actually an extension of the struggle between Tang and Bo. The invasion of Xichuan has always been a line for Tubo to peek into the Tang Dynasty. In addition to Longyou, Hexi, and Anxi, Xichuan was the fourth point of Tubo's eastward invasion, and controlling Nanzhao was part of Tubo's invasion of Xichuan.

However, Tubo's investment in Xichuan and Nanzhao was far less than that of the Longyou area. This time it lost Nanzhao and lost 50,000 troops in Jianchuan. For at least ten years, Tubo would not dare to touch Xichuan again.

However, Li Ye's eyes were not just on Nanzhao, but also on the farther south.

In the hinterland of Indochina, there is a plain of 250,000 square kilometers. The land is fertile and the water and heat are abundant. That vast land can support hundreds of millions of people.

Advancing southward from Nanzhao was blocked by mountains and virgin forests, which was obviously unrealistic. Li Ye turned his attention to Jiaozhou. Jiaozhou is the Red River Delta, a fertile alluvial fan plain with sufficient water and heat, but the area is slightly smaller. a little.

But the biggest advantage is that it is the territory of the Tang Dynasty. It can be used as a foundation to establish a huge naval base in Halong Bay at the mouth of the sea.

Walking south along the coastline, you will soon reach the Mekong Delta. From here all the way to the northwest, there are endless plains with sufficient water and heat to produce three crops of rice a year.

How could Li Ye not be tempted?

But this was not a great undertaking that could be accomplished in a short time. It would take at least twenty years for the Tang Dynasty to completely annex this rich and fertile land.

Li Ye took out a red flag and planted it on the land of Jiaozhou.

At this time, Wei Gao reported at the door, "Your Majesty, the inner guard Li Dutong wants to see you!"

Li Ye nodded, "Announce her appearance!"

Not long after, Li Chenghua hurriedly walked in, bowed and saluted, "See Your Majesty!"

"What's important?"

Li Ye knew that there must be something urgent when Li Chenghua asked to see him.

"Reporting to Your Majesty, when the internal guards were investigating the largest underground slave market in Chang'an, they discovered a shocking incident. This underground slave market not only sold people from abroad to Chang'an, but also sold a large number of people from the Tang Dynasty abroad, especially girls. It has been going on for twenty years, and the number of girls being sold has reached an alarming level.”

One of the key points in the abolition of slavery is to close slave markets in various places. However, it is easy to close the official or public slave markets, but it is the underground slave market that is difficult to close.

The underground slave market has always existed, mainly for tax evasion, and the number of slaves it buys and sells every year far exceeds the open slave market.

Almost everyone knows about the underground slave markets in Chang'an. There are several, and the largest one is in the West Market. Young women smuggled from Japan and Silla are sold to major brothels in Chang'an through the Chang'an West City underground slave market.

Therefore, after the promulgation of the abolition of slavery, many industries have been greatly impacted, such as brothels and brothels. Now there is no such thing as selling one's body. Contracts are signed once a year. When the one-year contract expires, prostitutes can leave whenever they want. There is no need to If the madam dares to stop him from redeeming his body, the defendant will be given a light punishment when he goes to the government. He will be sentenced to three thousand miles of exile, basically to guard the border.

So the only way for brothels to retain people is to improve treatment and share money. In the past, prostitutes did not get paid for sleeping with others. They could only rely on patrons to give them some extra rewards and save some money.

Now it is not possible. Brothels receive 500 coins from customers, and at least half of them must be given to prostitutes. They also have to take care of prostitutes' food, accommodation, cosmetics and clothes. If the treatment is not good, prostitutes will jump directly after the expiration of their contract.

So the abolition of slavery is easy to deal with slaves in the open, but it is difficult to deal with some underground human trafficking that is not visible to the public.

They cannot implement the abolition of slavery to cancel human trafficking, so they need to rely on the internal security to crack down on it.

In the past, there were two ways for Western Hu women to come to the Tang Dynasty. One was that human traffickers bought slaves from Persia and then resold them to the Tang Dynasty. With the abolition of slavery in the Tang Dynasty, this method will become less and less, and finally disappear.

Another way is that girls from various Sogdian countries spontaneously come to Chang'an to work, which is the same as people going to work in the West now. They come to Chang'an and Luoyang to work for more than ten years, save some money and return to their hometown to get married.

This method is actually the mainstream. This trend of yearning for the prosperous land in the East lasted for nearly a hundred years throughout the heyday of the Tang Dynasty. It gradually faded after Tubo occupied Hexi and Anxi. The fundamental reason was the decline of the Tang Dynasty.

Li Ye supported this method. Whether it was a Hu girl from the West or a girl from Silla or Japan, Li Ye hoped that they would come spontaneously, work happily, and go home happily without leaving humiliation and tears.

Therefore, Li Ye has always been clear about cracking down on the slave trade in the black market, and there is no room for ambiguity. There is no flexible statement.

"Are you saying that a large number of Han girls were trafficked to the West?"

Li Chenghua nodded, "That's right! And it has lasted for nearly 20 years, and there are signs of intensification in recent years."

At this time, Li Ye suddenly thought of the young lady Xiaokang he met in Kangguo that year. She was sold to the Hu people by her uncle and brought to Kangguo by the Hu people.

Li Ye frowned and said, "Tell me more about how you found it?"

"Your Majesty, there was a slave trader named Xu Wuliang who continued to secretly buy and sell slaves after the abolition order was issued. He was caught by the inner guards. In order to reduce his crime, he confessed to the inner guards that he was selling girls. This had been going on since the Tianbao period. It was most rampant during the An-Shi Rebellion. It has been a little less in recent years, but it still exists.

According to his account, there were five or six gangs in total. They bought girls from remote mountainous areas and trained them in the music studio in the way of training musicians. When they grew up to twelve or thirteen years old, they sent these girls to the West under the pretext of learning Huxuan dance. They could make a net profit of more than 100 guan for each person sold, which was much more than selling them to buyers in Chang'an and Luoyang."

"How many people were sold?" Li Ye questioned.

"At least 10,000 people!"

There were so many people that Li Ye took a deep breath and asked immediately: "Do you know which music houses are involved?"

Li Chenghua bowed and said: "Your Majesty, there are many music houses involved, some of which are run by themselves, and some of which they asked other music houses to train on their behalf."

Li Ye immediately ordered: "Immediately check all music houses and dance houses in Chang'an and Luoyang, and strictly investigate the origins of all underage girls. If there are more than three girls in a music house whose origins are unknown, the owners of the music houses will be arrested and interrogated."

"I obey your order!"