Chapter 1273 The Unforgiven Clan

Chapter 1273 The Unforgiven Clan

Not long after, two people were introduced into the hall, each with an angry look on their face and still glaring at each other. They waited until they came to the Supreme Seat before they stopped looking at each other and each leaned down to worship.

"Do you two know what an auspicious day today is? Everyone is gathering here to congratulate the newlyweds, but you two are so ignorant that you make a big fuss at the table and disturb the fun!"

Before the two people could speak, Li Tai poured his glass on the table and said in a deep voice.

These two people are not strangers. One is Poyantou Baolu, an old servant of Li Tai who returned to his sect after entering the customs, and the other is Liu Kuzhen, the chieftain of Hu from Lishi.

Seeing that the Supreme Being was angry, the two of them did not dare to be presumptuous anymore. They hurriedly bowed to the ground and kowtowed repeatedly: "The servants are really guilty of disturbing the Supreme Being and offending the master. I beg the Supreme Being to forgive you."

Seeing that the two people had a good attitude of admitting their mistakes, the anger on Li Tai's face subsided slightly. He saw that the two people did not seem to be drunk and making trouble, and he was a little curious, so he asked again: "Why are you two so noisy?" ?”

As soon as these words came out of his mouth, Poyantou Baolu immediately grabbed the ground with his head and shouted: "Please, my lord, be the master of your servant! The Marquis of Yiyang is really bullying others, relying on the power of his tribe , dared to bully men and women, even servants were humiliated and bullied by him..."

"My lord, please don't believe this thief slave's evil words. I am wronged! Poyantou slanders me more..."

Before Poyantou finished his lamentation and accusation, Liu Kuzhen on the side quickly kowtowed and began to cry out for injustice.

Each of the two people made more noise than the other, and they both looked full of grief and anger, but no one could explain the matter clearly. Li Tai's face, which had just improved, suddenly darkened again, and he raised his hand to signal to the bodyguard. The two of them were restrained and dragged out, then transferred to another room and detained first to prevent them from interfering with the wedding.

It wasn't until the newlyweds were sent to the bridal chamber after the wedding that Li Tai remembered the matter again, turned to the other room and asked: "What happened? Don't talk nonsense, come here quickly!"

The two were imprisoned for a while, but they did not completely calm down. For fear of angering the Supreme again, they each suppressed their emotions and told the story.

It turns out that the root cause of the conflict between the two lies in the matter of men and women. Poyantou Baolu introduced a Northern Qi aristocratic woman to his family, but when she was happily preparing at home, Liu Kuzhen also fell in love with the woman and took her back directly. At home, conflicts arose between them.

After Li Tai heard the whole story, his face suddenly sank. He thought that there was some kind of deep hatred between the two, but he didn't expect that it was such a romantic dispute, that he would fight at someone else's wedding regardless of dignity, which immediately made Li Tai furious.

This is really not in line with their atmosphere in Guanzhong, but it seems like something that people from Guandong would do. The moral standards of the people in Guanzhong may not be very high, but such sexual disputes rarely occur among upper-class people. On the contrary, since Gao Huan came to power in the east, there have been a lot of such romantic incidents. There have been many quarrels between colleagues, between friends, and even between father and son because of something in the crotch.

For example, Yuan Mingyue, who caused discord among Gao Huan's confidants, was killed by Yu Wentai not long after arriving in Guanzhong, without any pity for the beauty.

Therefore, from the Western Wei Dynasty to the present, the regime cannot be said to be happy and harmonious, but similar romantic disputes rarely occur. Li Tai did not expect that the relatively decent atmosphere that had been maintained in this regard would be disrupted soon after the new Tang Dynasty.

He directly asked the two guys to be dragged out and given ten lashes each as punishment for causing trouble in Li Quji's home. After the two men were whipped and dragged back to the room, he snorted coldly: " Which one of you is willing to give up that woman to fulfill the other?"

When the two of them heard this, they both bowed their heads and remained silent. As things have developed now, it is no longer just a woman's problem. Their respective faces and emotions in their hearts also make them unwilling to give up.

Seeing that the two of them just bowed their heads in silence, Li Tai was curious and amused for a moment, and then said again: "What kind of woman is like a disaster, causing discord in my family? Is it a stunningly beautiful woman, or a lady from a famous family?" "

"This girl does have some beauty, but she is not enough to make people fall in love with her. The servant is not angry. It is obvious that the servant made the reservation first, but the thief chief came to fight for her. It is unbearable."

Poye lowered his head and muttered.

On the other hand, Liu Kuzhen said: "Poyantou is just greedy, but the servant really has his own reasons. A few days ago, I went to the Duke of Xingyang's mansion and asked his disciple Lu Yu to choose a girl from the thieves in Jinyang as a servant. Concubine. Your Majesty should know the life story of this servant. The servant’s clan lived peacefully in Xihe in the past. However, they were attacked by the East Bandit He Liuhun and his minions and they had no choice but to flee. Fortunately, the master took him in and protected him, so he was able to spread the news. Clan power.

There is a deep hatred between the servants and the bandits in Jinyang, so when the master conquered the bandits, the servants also sacrificed their lives to kill the bandits for the master. Now that all the thieves have finally been eliminated and the great revenge has been avenged, it will naturally be even more satisfying if I can play with my enemy's wife and daughter again. The servant Lu visited the thief Zhangwu King Shedi Qian's granddaughter. She was charming and charming, and she suited my liking, so the servant accepted her.

This matter has a long history, and it is not a deliberate provocation to Poyantou. If he refuses to part with this girl, the servant is willing to exchange for another kind of beauty as compensation. But Poyantou refused to listen to his ministers' opinions, and just kept being vicious and noisy. The servant accepts this girl for the sake of gratification and gratification. How can it be that he is obsessed with lust like a wild man! "

Your feelings are reasonable!

Li Tai did not expect Liu Kuzhen to have such a reason. Although the logic of this matter is a bit unorthodox, it is not difficult to understand from the perspective of human feelings. In troubled times, the winners are the kings and the losers are the bandits. The winners are glorious and have their wives and children covered, while the losers are inevitably separated from their wives and children, and their families are destroyed.

She Digan and his group of Jinyang nobles did kill many Lishi Hu like chasing dogs. Now that Lishi Hu has followed him and won the final victory, he must vent his hatred and resentment.

"You two should handle this matter properly in private. If you still quarrel about it in the future, make a fuss in front of people, deprive me of your positions, imprison me, and prohibit me from holding an official position, don't embarrass me again!"

In addition to their respective official positions, these two people are also Li Tai's disciples and servants, so Li Tai reprimanded them. As for him, he was too lazy to help them coordinate disputes and conflicts.

However, Liu Kuzhen's words made him feel moved. He looked at this guy and said in a deep voice: "You want to visit the women of Qi's noble families to entertain yourself, why do you want to visit the house of Duke Xingyang? Duke Xingyang still has close contacts with these old Qi noble families?"

"I don't know how Duke Xingyang is related to those slaves of the fallen country. I only heard that there is a clever woman named Lu under his tutelage who is very smart and knows a lot about the people of Qi. If the people of the time want to find noble women and girls of Qi, they can go to her and most of them can get what they want. It is said that four or five out of ten marriages in the capital are facilitated by this Lu."

Liu Kuzhen did not hide this and answered immediately.

After hearing this, Li Tai frowned immediately. Although he was happy to see the marriage between Guanzhong and Guandong, from what Liu Kuzhen said, so many marriages were made through similar channels, which gave people a sense of organization and purpose. Moreover, Sima Xiaonan was involved in this, which naturally led to more associations.

He kept this in mind, waved his hand to dismiss the two people, and then summoned Li Xiaoyong, asking him to quickly arrange personnel to carefully investigate and summarize the recent family affairs of Ma Xiaonan of Xingyang Company and such matters of matchmaking and report them.

Li Xiaoyong has not followed Li Tai to take up any military and political positions in recent years, but it does not mean that he has been idle. Since Li Tai arranged him in the Chang'an Guard in his early years, Li Xiaoyong has basically stayed in Guanzhong to manage the family industry and deal with some personnel affairs under the table, such as going to Longyou to rob in his early years.

Li Tai's prestige is now high, so naturally he does not need to develop any spy agencies to maintain his authority and rule, but he also needs a force of ears and eyes to enrich his channels for obtaining information, so as to ensure a more comprehensive understanding of the whole world. As for this force, Li Xiaoyong is responsible for the preparation and construction, and now it has become quite large in the capital.

As these spies intensified their surveillance of Sima Xiaonan's family, relevant information was constantly presented to Li Tai. After learning more about the inside story, Li Tai couldn't help but sigh that the world was really strange. He didn't expect that Sima Xiaonan, who had already gone west, would get involved with Luo Chao, especially his wife Lu Lingxuan.

In the current world, because Li Tai conquered Northern Qi many years in advance, the strange things in the late Northern Qi Dynasty were unable to step onto the historical stage to fully display the unevenness of human nature and had to end hastily. For example, this Lu Taiji had not made any name for herself in the evidence of Northern Qi, and she had already come to Guanzhong as a prisoner of war.

However, this woman made a lot of noise soon after she came to Guanzhong, which shows that she is also a bit real.

There are many people in this world who are self-important and think that they are talented but not appreciated, and they only need an opportunity to soar to the sky, as if this opportunity is a dazzling and eye-catching thing. But many times, opportunities are always there, but few people can discover them.

Of course, even if an opportunity is discovered, it is also difficult to use the opportunity to obtain sufficient value if one's own ability and resources are insufficient.

This Lu Lingxuan was able to discover the strong demand for the integration of Eastern and Western personnel in a very short period of time, and used marriage as a starting point. She is really a scheming talent. No wonder she was able to flourish in the late Northern Qi Dynasty in history. Her ability is much stronger than her husband Luo Chao.

However, it is obvious that the reason why her career was able to develop smoothly and she enjoyed a considerable reputation in the capital is also because of the personnel resources provided by Sima Xiaonan. Otherwise, it would be difficult for Lu Lingxuan to make a big noise, let alone contact a person of Liu Kuzhen's level!

Although Li Tai did not have a good impression of Lu Lingxuan, it was obvious that this woman would not be able to mislead the country and the people under the current Tang Dynasty. He was also happy to see anyone obtain a stable and prosperous life through their own efforts on the premise of abiding by the law.

Lu Lingxuan has such ability and is willing to be a matchmaker, which is not a big deal. However, he chose to rely on Sima Xiaonan to curry favor with him. While he gained convenience, he also had to bear the danger of high waves and strong winds. The bigger the wind and waves, the more expensive the fish, because there were many fishermen whose boats were destroyed and people died, not because rainy days were more suitable for eating fish!

Putting aside Lu Lingxuan, the woman who made Li Tai more memorable, her deeds only accounted for a small proportion of what he knew. The reports from his spies were mostly about Sima Xiaonan.

Li Tai had known for a long time that Sima Xiaonan had been quite active during this period, but he had not fully understood him before. Now, after asking around, he realized that Sima Xiaonan had done a lot of things. In addition to using Lu Lingxuan to help the East and West Shiliu to arrange marriages, Sima Xiaonan also frequently held banquets in his mansion to help Guandong people settle down in Guanzhong, etc., just like the president of a hometown association.

However, in addition to some positive behaviors, Sima Xiaonan also had some other behaviors that were more negative and even had some ulterior motives. For example, he threatened the Guandong Shiliu who entered the pass, spread rumors that the court would severely punish those who had lost their country, and forced them to get close to him, and also accompanied by some blackmail and exploitation.

Take the dispute between Poyetou Baolu and Liu Kuzhen, for example. It was because Lu Lingxuan, who was under his control and instructions, often matched one woman with multiple men in order to get close to more powerful people or get more rewards, so that the Shiliu would compete for power, thus breeding a lot of disputes.

Li Tai was originally annoyed that some bad habits had developed among his disciples. Now it seems that these habits were also infected from the people of the Eastern Dynasty.

However, these things generally did not cause much impact on the real political ecology, so if Poyetou and Liu Kuzhen had not quarreled, he would not have understood this series of things in the short term. And as he understood these things, he would naturally not let them go.

The fundamental reason why Sima Xiaonan dared to stir up these things in the capital was that the court had not yet faced up to the issue of accepting the Guandong Shiliu into the current situation, and no relevant decrees and measures were issued, which made many Guandong Shiliu feel uncertain and naturally wanted to get comfort in their own way.

However, this problem was not ignored by Li Tai and the court, but they had not had time to take care of it. Previously, a series of things such as changing dynasties and rewarding meritorious people occupied a lot of energy of the court, and these relatively less urgent things were temporarily postponed.

The progress of the world is endless, and the evolution of various personnel will not stop because the people in power do not pay attention, but will spontaneously form a new order.

Because the court did not respond to the demands of the people entering the pass, these personnel demands naturally gathered around the targets they could reach, and Sima Xiaonan became a choice at this stage because of his life experience and status.

If Sima Xiaonan could correctly guide these personnel demands and help the court to make up for the deficiencies, Li Tai would not be disgusted, but would be rewarded.

However, after Sima Xiaonan got such an opportunity, he did not handle it correctly, but followed the past style to form a clique for personal gain, extort and other operations, which inevitably made Li Tai unhappy.

In a group, some people are extremely sensitive to their own interests and try every means to grab more benefits into their own hands. Such people are not stupid, but they are not very meaningful to the group. Instead, they will cause uneven distribution of internal interests and increase internal friction.

Some people may not be good at seeking personal gain, but they have the ability and willingness to make the group bigger and stronger. Such people are the core key figures for the existence and development of a group.

Sima Xiaonan obviously belongs to the former. He saw such a situation in the world, and he also had the ability to intervene in it, but he did not consider this matter from the standpoint of the entire Tang Dynasty court, but completely conceived and acted from his own interests. Regardless of whether it would cause damage to the overall situation, it was obviously lacking in the overall view.

Li Tai was not clear about Sima Xiaonan's idea of ​​seeking to be a prime minister, but such a style of behavior was obviously not worthy of being a prime minister. Even Li Tai did not intend to keep him in the court to avoid corrupting the personnel atmosphere in the court.

Not only Li Tai was dissatisfied with Sima Xiaonan, but other people in the court also noticed Sima Xiaonan's style. Liu Fan, the Imperial Censor, impeached Sima Xiaonan for embezzlement and stealing the public treasury of Guanglu Temple to support his students, and requested the court to conduct an in-depth investigation and severe punishment.

Taking advantage of Liu Fan's impeachment, Li Tai suspended Sima Xiaonan's Guanglu Qing post and ordered officials to investigate. It was finally determined that Sima Xiaonan did use a certain amount of Guanglu Temple treasury, and the amount was quite considerable. Considering that he had returned to justice, he was ordered to make up for the stolen treasury within a few days and fined him, and he was stripped of his title and returned home, and no more crimes were added.

The punishment of Sima Xiaonan was only secondary. The more important thing at the moment was to formulate a comprehensive implementation plan for the absorption and integration of the Northern Qi survivors.

Although Li Tai had previously sent Cui Zhan, the Minister of Rites, to Hebei to recruit tribute scholars from various states, it was mainly aimed at the Hebei people who stayed in the countryside. There was no disposal plan for some officials who had come to Guanzhong and the former Northern Qi.

Then the court issued a series of punishment and reward orders to systematically deal with the former Northern Qi civil and military officials, and formulated a set of standards for absorbing the former Northern Qi people.

First, in the war to destroy Qi last year, those who had already returned to the country before the capture of Yecheng and Jinyang, regardless of their deeds during the confrontation between the two countries, were rewarded according to their merits.

The meritorious soldiers who returned to the country were divided into three categories, namely, those who entered Yecheng, those who entered Jinyang, and those who were within the first year of Kaihuang, and each had different reward specifications. After this time limit, no comments on the merits of returning to the country were made.

The reason why the time limit of the first year of the founding of the Emperor is left is because there are still several remaining forces of the Northern Qi Dynasty, which are the targets that need to be targeted in the next step. Naturally, those who have been abducted must be given a time and opportunity to abandon the dark side and turn to the bright side.

But not all people in Hebei had the opportunity to abandon the dark side and join the bright side. After Guiyi's merits were announced, the trial and punishment of the Northern Qi survivors also began. The punishments for the survivors of the Northern Qi Dynasty were mainly divided into three levels: punishment, exile, and unpardon. Generally, recalcitrant persons were sentenced to hard labor imprisonment ranging in length, and for more serious crimes, they were sentenced to exile. The most serious thing is to be beheaded without mercy.

If criminals were not pardoned, their political future within the Tang Dynasty would be completely cut off. The first to be on the unpardoned list and designated as an unpardonable clan was Gao Sihao and others who had previously faked surrender in Dingzhou City to lure Wang Shi there.

Although these people have been executed for evil, the remaining clan members are still not spared. The Gao Yong clan of the Bohai Gao family and the Li Xian clan of the Li clan of Zhaojun are all listed as unpardonable clans. Except for those who have already been executed, the rest All relatives were exiled to Xiangzhou, Ningzhou and other places in Shannan. Among the unforgivable clans is the Bohai Feng clan and the Fenglong clan.

With the various decrees issued by the imperial court against the survivors of the Northern Qi Dynasty, these relevant people also experienced joy and sorrow. But no matter how they feel, they have to accept it in the end.

After the announcement of these orders, the imperial court began to recruit soldiers and soldiers to carry out the second phase of the mopping up operations after the destruction of Qi. The combat missions at this stage are also very important. Although the Northern Qi regime has been destroyed, the remaining forces are still quite stubborn.

Although Guanzhong completed the dynasty change in this new year, Li Tai officially ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor. But at the same time that he proclaimed himself emperor, three emperors appeared directly in the hometown of Northern Qi in the east, namely Gao Jun who was entrenched in the south of Ye, Gao Zhan who fled to Qingzhou, and Gao Ji who fled to Yingzhou.

Just when the court was preparing to make an all-out effort to wipe out the remaining bandits, a frustrated family was preparing to embark on their new journey.

"Where is Ningzhou? I won't go, I won't go, I will only stay in Chang'an..."

In an unfinished house in the center of Chang'an City, Luo Tipo was holding a newly transplanted locust tree trunk and howling. Next to her stood a livid-faced Luo Chao and a sad-looking Lu Lingxuan.

"Are you going to wait for death if you stay here? Duke Xingyang bluffed and was greedy for money, which ruined his reputation. As soon as my family started to improve, he was implicated. Fortunately, today's Supreme Being still misses the past and has not severely punished my family. He will also I am appointed as the magistrate of Jianling County in Ningzhou, and I will support my family with this position... Go quickly, otherwise I will not have a son like you!"

Luo Chao ignored his son's behavior and roared fiercely with eyes wide open.

Although the family was reluctant to leave, they still had to leave Chang'an and embark on the road to Dianchi Lake. In later generations, this was an interesting literary and artistic route, but now, it is a difficult road leading into a damp, barbaric and barbaric land. I don't know if there is still a time to return.