As Kublai Khan struggles in the west, news is becoming more and more frequent. However, even the latest news is from a month ago.”

"Kublai will set up Apple City as the capital of the Western Capital," Cui Xiuning said, "Andang, the King of Anxi, replied that he would be appointed as the King of the West and be in charge of Apple City. Kublai Khan also recruited slaves from all ethnic groups in the Western Regions and built two more east-west stations."

"One is the inn from Yili to the Black Sea, and the other is the inn from Turpan to Qiermancheng (Persian Gulf)."

"Kublai's goal is that even if something happens in West Asia and Eastern Europe, the news will be transmitted back to Dadu within one month. Moreover, the cavalry heavy army group stationed in Gansu can support any part of the west, including Eastern Europe within three months."

After Cui Xiuning finished speaking, she handed the latest information to Li Luo. Li Luo did not look at it anymore, and Cui Xiuning had already made it clear.

It seems that Kublai Khan not only wants to restore control of the Western Regions and Eastern Europe by the "Great Khan Court" (Yuan Court) in the Ogedei era, but also wants to achieve more thorough control than Ogedei.

Li Luo was speechless. The Silk Road in the East and the West was originally connected, and it was very developed. The Silk Road starting from Chang'an can connect to India, West Asia, Europe, and North Africa.

Moreover, the Silk Road was more developed in the Yuan Dynasty and its prosperity was far more prosperous than that in the Song Dynasty. The Silk Road of the Yuan Dynasty was the third great glorious period after the Han and Tang Dynasties.

In addition, in order to control the West, several emperors of the Yuan Dynasty vigorously built post stations on the Silk Road, which made post stations from northwest to West Asia. The Yuan Dynasty attached great importance to the transportation of the station (post office), and could use force to recruit a large number of slaves for free, and built at low cost, so it was really "building thousands of miles of roads".

As early as the Ogedei era, the Mongolian Empire built a post station from Shangdu and Lin to the Golden Horde.

Then, with the two stations to be repaired, there are more than four major transportation arteries in the East and the West!

This project...is really awesome.

It has to be said that the barbaric nature of the Mongol Yuan also has objective "benefits". At least it can ignore labor and not be afraid of resistance from the bottom. It can do things well and do things.

Don't think about it? Such a big project? How much labor will it take and how many slaves will die. But where would the Mongolian nobles care about these?

Is this a change to the Han Dynasty? How many people dare to do so? Even if they do it, they will be criticized for thousands of years.

The reason is quite sad. Although the Mongol Yuan is brutal, it does not require its own people to serve labor, and those who serve labor are conquered. The Han Dynasty can only use its own people to do it? Of course, it dare not do so recklessly.

The Yuan Dynasty ruled for more than 100 years since the destruction of the Jin Dynasty? The mileage of roads was more than that of several great dynasties combined. Even many difficult places in the northwest and southwest were built, relying on force and brute force. One of the most important tasks of the southwest chieftains in the Yuan Dynasty was to build and maintain the post station? Many people of all ethnic groups in the southwest died for this.

"Building roads is not a bad thing for us. We also want to do the Western Regions? It depends on who will win at that time." Li Luo said. He was very confident, so he wanted the Yuan court to build roads.

Cui Xiuning said: "Kublai has returned to the east, and now he is probably in Gansu. Although the Yuan Dynasty lost the south, it has obtained Central and Western Asia. From a military perspective, it has become stronger."

"Analysis by the Special Inspection Bureau? The Yuan court will definitely send troops to the south next year."

"Next year's southern expedition?" Li Luo snorted, "I still want to go to the northern expedition next year? It depends on who will fight who first!"

Cui Xiuning smiled and said, "The south just got it, but hasn't he breathed a sigh of relief? The production has not recovered. I'll go to the Northern Expedition next year? It's too urgent. Ministers will also feel hasty. Next year, at most, it's to take Guanzhong and stay in seclusion."

"I think? Don't think about the Northern Expedition first. Within a year, just do a good job in internal affairs and training. Even if the Yuan army wants to fight, we must not be moved."

Li Luo also knew that Cui Xiuning was right. It was unrealistic to say that the Northern Expedition will be next year. It is already late July, and the second Zhongyuan Festival festival has been held.

Although the Tang Dynasty unified the southern country, everything was in trouble and its foundation was not stable. The Northern Expedition next year was obviously too hasty.

Li Luo is no better than Zhu Yuanzhang now. Zhu Yuanzhang occupied Jiangnan for many years and only fought against Chen Youliang a few years later. His foundation was already very stable. What about him? He had only been in power for more than two years and occupied Huguang for several months.

Besides, the Yuan army at this time was extremely different from the Yuan army at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. Once it was defeated, the consequences would be extremely serious.

Hundreds of thousands of infantry ran to the north to fight hundreds of thousands of cavalry... Let alone whether the Tang State has this strength, how lingering it would be?

It is already very good to win Guanzhong next year. Even this goal will take a long time to prepare, and logistics of food and supplies is not that easy.

"Let's go around in the palace." Cui Xiuning suggested.

The two of them didn't ride on the carriage, and just took a few guards and palace servants to relax in the palace.

Xiaoliang has plants and trees, and he thinks it is a virtue of wood, so the characteristics of the palace are green trees and prosperous flowers and plants. Xiao Yin, who likes to enjoy it, even transplants all the ancient trees outside Jiangling City into the palace, which also leads to a lot of chan in the summer, which makes people feel annoyed.

The palace where the two of them live now was called Longzhang Palace. It was originally the palace where Xiao Yin summoned the minister and rested. Its duties and functions were integrated with the functions of the bedroom, similar to the Qianqing Palace in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

As the queen, Cui Xiuning should have lived in Fengzi Palace where Queen Xiaoliang lived. However, the two did not want to separate, so those who were not etiquette lived in Qianqing Palace.

Looking out from the Longzhang Palace, the most majestic place is the Guangzheng Hall used to celebrate the meeting. Before Guangzheng Hall, it was Qinglong Gate, one of the inner palace gates.

According to the system of the Tang Palace, the palace city is inside the Qinglong Gate, and the imperial city is outside the gate. The yamen of the three palaces and nine ministries and the Tang Dynasty ancestral temples are all in the imperial city. The imperial city area is large, with four gates of Qinglong, White Tiger, Vermillion Bird and Xuanwu. Each gate is stationed with a mixed independent imperial guard regiment.

Outside the imperial city is the city area. Jiangling City is a big city, with an imperial guard brigade stationed at the four gates in the southeast, west and north. In addition to the three thousand tiger-fanged imperial guards, 30,000 troops were stationed in the entire Jiangling City.

Outside the city, there are two camps from east to west, each stationed at 30,000 troops. In other words, there are nearly 100,000 troops defending inside and outside Jiangling.

This is not the eight hundred guards in the palace.

It can be said to be as solid as a god.

Now, the Tang Palace, which has accepted the people of Xiaoliang Palace, has reached 4,000 people in the palace, and the guards are already very popular.

Li Luo streamlined the various corpses in the palace according to the Ming Dynasty's institutions, and removed eight corpses including the rituals, military affairs, and imperial horse corps among the twenty-four corpses of the Ming Dynasty's inner court, and only retained sixteen, which was called the "Sixteen Inner Court".

The abolition of these inner corpses is equivalent to abolishing the institutional platform for internal officials to interfere in politics, making them no longer able to interfere in the regime and military power.

In order to give the eunuchs and palace maids the ability to serve, Li Luo also summoned many outstanding craftsmen from all walks of life to the palace to teach them cooking, garment making, brewing, gold making, printing and dyeing and other technologies. After all, many royal items in the royal family still need to be customized in the palace.

At this time, the two of them went to a place called Siyuan Bureau.

Siyuan Bureau is a small yamen responsible for vegetables, fruits and other things in the palace.

As soon as the two of them arrived at the door, they heard the scolding inside: "Blind slave! Haven't you seen this watermelon not round enough? The color is not good, so you still have to pick it in! Are you looking for death!"

It was the voice of Qian Long, the chief servant, who was scolding people.

The Central Officer Changshi was the newly appointed chief of the inner officials of Li Luo, similar to the eunuch in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Li Luo set up four chiefs of the inner officials and four female chiefs in the palace, but did not set up a chief general manager, so that these eight people could check and balance each other.

Qian Long's official position is: the official attendant in the supervision of dietary affairs.

All food and drinks are responsible for the official service of the food and food supervision, from procurement, planting and feeding management, quality inspection, processing and production, related personnel and yamen, etc.

Qian Long was pointing at a little eunuch and scolding Qi Jing. Suddenly, he saw everyone kneeling down in horror. His voice immediately stopped abruptly. He turned around quickly and bowed: "I, Qianlong, come to see the king, empress!"

Li Luo glanced at the eyes and saw a watermelon that was not very round on the wooden table.

Now the summer is hot, and Li Luo and his wife and children eat iced watermelon every day. In fact, they don’t care at all, as long as the watermelon is ripe and sweet enough. But unexpectedly, when you arrive at Siyuan Bureau, Qian Long’s requirements are so harsh.

Not only should it be big enough, but it should also be round enough, and the color should also look good!

Just a watermelon, what about it?

However, Li Luo had no intention of fined Qian Long at all.

He is not afraid of being harsh when talking, but he is afraid of not being harsh!

Besides, if you scold Qian Long in front of the young eunuch, then he can't do his job. In front of grassroots employees, the big leader must protect the face of the young leader.

This is management, you cannot break the rules. Otherwise, it will be difficult to manage and things will be difficult to handle.

Unless the young leader goes too far and crosses the line, this will be done to the end in one go.

"Get up. Qian Long, they will recite the hygiene regulations in the palace. Do they abide by them?" Li Luo asked.

Qian Long quickly replied: "Report to the king, I don't know that the others who I care about are all able to recite and abide by it. Just in the morning, a palace maid did not wear a mask when cutting vegetables, so she punished her tenth and started again."

Masks, sanitation regulations, and points system are all things made by the couple.

However, the Central Officer General has no right to physically punish them. Once anyone commits a serious matter, he will be handed over to the Gongfatang for disposal, and the eunuch has no right to deal with the small eunuch at will.

In the Tang Palace, whether it is palace maids or eunuchs, human rights are much better than in previous dynasties. The couple manage them in the model of modern state-owned enterprises, rather than slaves.

Li Luo nodded and left with Cui Xiuning.

"Great the King! Great the Queen!" Qian Long hurriedly bowed.

"We have really become a decadent ruling class." Cui Xiuning smiled with a complicated expression, "It's so much to eat watermelon."

The follower followed her in a distance and could not hear her speak.

Li Luo said: "Isn't this good? I think it's good. In modern society, there are a lot of people serving others, and their destiny is merciless. They are all for the sake of eating. There is no difference in essence."

"They serve us well, so that we can have more energy and better manage our country, which is their value."

"Okay." Cui Xiuning said, "We can still maintain this view. When Li Zheng, Li Zheng's son would not see it like this. They would think that palace servants are slaves."

Li Luo said indifferently: "Then we don't have to worry about it. We can't tell them what universal values ​​and human rights are. We can only lead by example and give them the minimum respect for their servants. Some things can only be done, not said."

The two of them visited a yamen in the palace. When they returned to Longzhang Palace, Wen Tianlong was already waiting.

"King." Wen Tianxiang stood up and wanted to salute, but was supported by Li Luo. "Mr. Wen, don't be too polite. When you enter the palace, what's wrong?"

Every time Wen Tianxiang enters the palace, there must be something important, and it must be related to military affairs.

Wen Tianxiang said: "The military information reported by Liu Tuo, the governor of the Jiaozhou Navy, was about the news about Tianzhu. Annan... Jiaozhou maritime merchants heard the news in the Western Ocean (then referred to the Indian Ocean) that many people came to the east in May, and suddenly attacked Ah Hong Kingdom, killed the king of Ah Hong Kingdom, and occupied the nest."

"I think it should be what Dali and the remnants of Xiaoliang."

It was not surprising that Li Luo and Cui Xiuning looked at each other.

The Xiao brothers and sisters spent two months passing through the Rukai Mountains and suddenly appeared on the east coast of the Indian Ocean. They spent another month to destroy the unprepared Ah Hong Kingdom. It was completely time. After all, they had more than 100,000 troops.

Crossing mountains and ridges is a daunting road for others, but what does Dali people count as a person? Walking from the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau to the lower part, you are originally a native of the mountains in the southwest, and you are still afraid of old forests?

It is said that later expeditionary forces fought with the Japanese army in Myanmar, and the most powerful one was the Yunnan army. You should know that in history, the entire northern Myanmar was from the Dali Kingdom. Dali was the real owner of the Burmese rainforest. Unfortunately, that large area of ​​primeval forest was given to British Burma by our Qing Dynasty, and then it became Myanmar.

"It should be them." Li Luo said with certainty.

Wen Tianxiang said: "The navy wants to fight one at a time on the expedition. I mean to let them go and let them do it first. But this matter is important, so please make the king's decision."

The navy wants to fight? That won’t work!

Li Luo shook his head without thinking, "If you don't fight, just let them mess around. Not only do you have to mess around, but you have to help them if necessary!"

Wen Tianxiang smiled and said, "I understand."
To be continued...