"Why?" Wang Sili asked in surprise: "Li Siye is a man of pure nature and open-minded. Even Li Twelve Niang chose him as her husband, which is enough to illustrate his character."
Huangfu Weiming glanced at him and said: "When did the sword-dancing woman become your standard of measure? I never said that his character was lacking, but...it's just that Li Kang in the Wei and Jin Dynasties said that the wood is beautiful in the forest, but the wind will destroy it.
, piled up on the bank, the current will be turbulent; if you are higher than others, everyone will be wrong. I have never given anyone a rating of above or above. Even Fu Meng Lingcha and Gao Xianzhi are only top, bottom, middle and top. If I give it
Li Siye has risen to the top, far surpassing his colleagues and superior officials, which is not good for him."
"Moreover, Zhongshu ordered Li Linfu to be a treacherous man and the most jealous of talents. In order to prevent the generals from joining the court and becoming prime minister, all the generals recommended by your majesty during his tenure as prime minister were barbarians, such as An Lushan, Shi Siming, An Sishun, and Fu Meng Ling.
Cha and others. I am worried that the praise will be too great and that Li Siye will fall into this person's sight. He will be wary and suppress him before he has achieved success. It is really not worth the gain."
"So I have decided." He unfolded a booklet, started writing on it, and said at the same time: "I will give Li Siye one of the three most good deeds, and the best and the best evaluation. This evaluation is very rare for me, so I value it particularly."
While Wang Sili expressed regret, he also deeply admired Huangfu. He didn't expect that he would think so deeply about just giving someone an evaluation.
People like him don't have so many twists and turns, and they don't have so much foresight. I'm afraid they can only fight as a general in this life.
Huangfu Weiming held the carriage and said regretfully: "Although I admitted him to middle school on the surface, here." He pointed to his heart, "I want to educate him here. And after returning to Chang'an this time, I want to
Recommending him to His Highness the Crown Prince is also a good opportunity for His Highness the Crown Prince to select capable ministers."
After saying these heartfelt words to Wang Sili, he stretched out his hand to open the carriage window and looked out. The horse pedaled on the dry and hard rock surface, leaving the oasis far behind, and began to walk up the barren and desolate Gobi Desert.
The last poplar tree that could be seen was already ten miles away. It would be extremely unlucky to go in the wrong direction and plunge into the Tulum Moraine Desert where even wild animals cannot survive.
At the end of March, the interview team came to Khotan Town. Since this was also Li Siye's jurisdiction, Huangfu only sent Wang Sili to take the team to Khotan City to evaluate the veteran general Li Zan. He secretly gave him a mid-to-high rating on par with Gao Xianzhi.
This feels like a consolation prize for the veteran general, who is already in his early fifties after all.
The route the team took back to Longyou was on the South Silk Road, that is, the section from Khotan Town across the desert to Yangguan, which stretches for thousands of miles. Whether it is close to the Tulum Moraine or southward to the Kunlun Mountains, it is a wilderness.
of no man's land.
Huangfu Weiming had never been to Qixi, let alone such a desolate place at the southern end of the commercial road. On this land where the rocks are exposed to the scorching sun, except for the station that is thirty miles away, the entire horizon is dry.
sandy and hard rocky terrain.
He secretly regretted that his evaluation of the examinations given by the officials in Anxi was too low. He always subconsciously compared the officials in Qixi with the state and county officials in the mainland, but he was divorced from their working environment. There were nearly a hundred officials here.
The state is geographically equivalent to the combination of several border towns in Hedong, Hexi and Longyou. It is not easy for the Anxi Army with only 24,000 people to maintain the rule of Qixi.
The remoteness of Qixi also means that news lags behind. What happened in Chang'an and Luoyang will not reach here until two or three months later.
They entered Yumen Pass and transferred to Zhangye City. They stayed in the city overnight and learned that two minor events had happened in the court, both of which were related to An Lushan, the military envoy of Fan Yang.
The first thing was that in the first lunar month, An Lushan went to court to report that there was a locust plague in the prefecture where Fan Yang Jiedu envoy was governing last year. He personally set up an altar to worship heaven, burned incense and prayed: "If my heart is not right and I am unfaithful to you,
May the worms feed on your heart; if you live up to the spirit, may the worms disperse."
As soon as he finished speaking, a flock of birds flew from the north and pecked away all the locusts. That's right, it was a flock of birds that pecked away all the locusts, not a single one was left.
The emperor actually believed this kind of thing.
It is said that this matter is not an empty talk by An Lushan. According to reports from various officials last year, the area where locusts invaded was not only Yingzhou, but several Yingzhous were the most harmful. Fan Yang Jiedushi did not know what method he used to eliminate the locusts.
But it was definitely not a bird catching an insect. The crops in Yingzhou did not suffer much damage that year.
Huangfu Weiming didn't know why An Lushan insisted on making up a supernatural story for Li Longji about the human feat of clearing the locust plague.
If one goes by Li Siye's explanation that auspiciousness and supernatural powers are intended to strengthen the people's attachment to the dynasty's rule, there is nothing wrong with this matter.
Huangfu Sinong didn't see it that way. He believed that An Lushan would rather cover up his achievements and abilities than maintain the character of a loyal minister. He made up such lies to tell the emperor that it was his loyalty to the emperor that moved heaven.
Sending birds to catch the locusts was far more effective than Li Siye worshiping the well.
After much thought, Huangfu decided to report the water from Geng Gong's well to the emperor as an auspicious sign. This would also be the first time in his life that he broke his own rules and reported auspicious signs. Why he did this, even he himself didn't know.
The second incident was a scientific examination scandal, which also occurred in the first month. At this time, Li Linfu was also the Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and was responsible for scientific examination matters. He worked in the political hall every day and entrusted all scientific examinations to the ministers Song Yao and Miao Jinqing.
.
Today, the censor Zhongcheng Zhang Yi is very popular in front of the emperor. In order to curry favor with Zhang Zhongcheng, these two guys decided to give Zhang Yi's son a back door.
This year, there were ten thousand people who applied for the scientific examination in Chang'an, but only sixty-four were successful. Zhang Yi's son Zhang Xi was the first, which caused the crowd to boil over and the scholars were in a panic. Who in the whole of Chang'an
I don’t know that Zhang Zhongcheng’s son is a loser who only knows how to eat, drink and have fun. Choosing him as the number one pick is a slap in the face. It’s too bold.
It happened that the son of Su Xiaoyun, the former magistrate of Jixian County, also failed in the examination. Perhaps the old Mingtang was so angry that he told An Lushan about the matter. An Zhongcheng decided to speak out and went into Nannei to report to Emperor Li Longji.
Li Longji suppressed his anger and summoned all the winners to the palace for interviews. The idiot Zhang Shi had his secret revealed. He sat in front of the desk in the examination room with the test paper in hand. He didn't miss a word for the whole day and directly handed in the blank paper.
At that time, people called it Baibai.
The emperor canceled Zhang Shi's qualification as the number one scholar, demoted Song Yao and Miao Jinqing to the prefecture of Wudang and Ankang respectively, Zhang Yi was made the prefect of Huaiyang, and all the officials of the Ministry of Rites, including the examiner and judge, were demoted to Lingnan as officials.
Such punishments were much lighter than those in the later Ming Dynasty, which also shows that the political importance of scientific research in the Tang Dynasty has not yet reached the level that it was implemented into the bones in the Ming Dynasty.
In this scientific expedition scandal, the only beneficiary may be An Lushan.
When An Lushan was appointed as Pinglu Jiedushi, he also served as Yushi Zhongcheng, with the power to perform special reports. In this incident, he established an image of not fearing the powerful and speaking out and admonishing, even at the risk of offending Li Linfu, Song Yao, and Miao.
The risks taken by Jin Qing and others exposed the scientific examination scandal to the world, which also made Emperor Xuanzong love and trust him even more. After all, during the period when Li Linfu was in power, there were not many people who dared to tell the truth.
Hearing these two things made Huangfu Weiming feel a little more favorable towards An Lushan, a barbarian general. This man seemed rough and unintentional, but he was honest and forthright. He had previously made up supernatural events like birds pecking locusts, maybe
His motive, as Li Siye said, was to consolidate the empire's rule and to make the emperor more confident in his loyalty. This move also won him a lot of reputation.
At the end of April, Huangfu Weiming went south along the Hexi Corridor to Chang'an to report his examination results to the emperor.
At the same time, the recruitment order issued by the Anxi Protectorate from Kucha was delivered to Li Siye by horse. He opened the letter under the lamp and opened the official letter. The content of the letter was to temporarily appoint him as the commander-in-chief of the left and right Yuhou armies to lead the Shule army.
Five thousand men under his command went to Suiyechuan to annihilate the Huang surnamed Tu Qi Shihe Modagan.
The war is about to begin again. The scars on his back have long since fallen off, although they are still painful to the touch. This time he will be hit by several more bullets and arrows.