"What is it? Someone was giving porridge again, and it was noodles?”
When the City Defense Army Commander heard that the refugees outside the city were not rebelling, a hint of disappointment flashed across his eyes.
If these 300,000 to 400,000 refugees rebelled, he would have an excuse to mobilize 30,000 elite soldiers to suppress them.
Rumors had been spreading in and out of the city over the past few days, saying that the Imperial Court was not settling these refugees and that the Emperor was incompetent.
He was the only one who knew that there was indeed a shortage of food in Chang 'an.
Food did not fall from the sky. It was all grown grain by grain.
Therefore, how were they going to settle these 400,000 refugees?
If they took out food.
What did the one million people in Chang 'an City eat?
What could General Yuchi's sixty thousand soldiers eat?
Could it be that he was eating dirt?
For now, he could only starve the refugees outside the city to death to prevent them from rebelling with the Turks when they moved south.
Therefore, the imperial court did not provide disaster relief to the people.
There was not a single minister in the city, nor was there a single aristocratic family that opened a relief porridge shop.
Except for Miss Gao of the Gao residence.
It was to let them starve to death faster.
These were all instructed by His Majesty, but only the higher-ups of the Empire knew about them.
Ordinary people only knew that the court was tyrannical and the Emperor was fatuous.
There were also people who made up the story that His Majesty kept the Yin family's refugees outside the city to take revenge and starved them to death.
However…
Now that someone was helping the refugees, the refugees died even slower. This was not a good thing. This person was very likely to recruit refugees with ulterior motives and bring disaster to the country.
"Wait, get ready. I want to enter the palace to meet the emperor.”
The commander of the City Defense Army thought about it again and again before instructing his subordinates.
Before he left, he left behind a sentence," If these 400,000 refugees riot, immediately suppress them with iron and blood. Take this opportunity to kill them all to prevent any more trouble. His Majesty can't afford to gamble, and neither can I."”
"Yes, sir!" The deputy general replied with a serious expression.
Compared to the stability of the Tang Empire, the lives of 400,000 refugees were insignificant.
Many years later, there would only be a single stroke left in the history books: In the second year of Zhenguan, the Turkic army massacred 400,000 people on the border.
......
"Your Majesty, the City Defense Army Commander Zhang Liang requests an audience.”
Li Shimin, who was reading memorials, heard the eunuch's report and his hands paused.
He thought about it. Zhang Liang coming personally was not a small matter. Could it be that the refugees outside the city had already rebelled? Or had they starved to death?
This was all good news.
"Invite him in and tell the Empress that after this matter is settled, he will go to the East City with her.”
Li Shi Min thought about the Guanyin maid and immediately felt a splitting headache.
Last night, the Guanyin maid was so excited to see her brother who had been separated for fifteen years that she couldn't sleep at all.
He even rummaged through the wardrobe, looking for something.
She took a final look and saw that there were several sets of old clothes. After careful questioning, she personally sewed them for her younger brother. There were five, ten, fifteen, and twenty years old.
Is this my daughter-in-law or whose daughter-in-law? The Guanyin maid has never made clothes for him.
He had never seen such a petite female Guanyin maid, and he was a little jealous of his dead brother-in-law.
Fortunately, she's dead and won't snatch the Guanyin maid from me.
However, Li Shiming couldn't bear to shatter her dream.
Tell her that the young man from the East City has the same name as her, he's not your brother!
Soon, Zhang Liang walked in and pulled Li Shi Min back from his thoughts.
"Your Majesty, yesterday afternoon, this general saw a black cloud falling from the east gate tower. After that, I sent people to search but found nothing.”
"Your Majesty, please forgive me."
"I know about this. How are the refugees outside the city?”
Li Shi Min didn't expect Zhang Liang to report this matter. Yesterday afternoon, he stood on the palace city and saw this scene. It was really unbelievable.
The black cloud that Zhang Liang was talking about was the black parachute attached to the 100,000 boxes of instant noodles.
Fortunately, Zhangsun Minzhi was quick-witted that day and ordered people to cover the entrance of the cave. Otherwise, it would have been discovered by the imperial court, and the 100,000 boxes of instant noodles might have filled the national treasury.
Seeing that His Majesty had taken the initiative to ask about the refugees, Zhang Liang cautiously said,"
" Your Majesty, the Gao family and the other 13 porridge shops should have run out of porridge and food in the next two days. Without relief, the nearly 400,000 refugees outside the city would starve to death in large numbers or launch a riot to attack Chang 'an."
As soon as he said this, Li Shiming's sharp eyes swept over Zhang Liang." What's wrong? What happened? Why aren't these refugees rioting? They really have no backbone!”
He wanted to see who was trying to ruin his plan.
Starving and killing 400,000 refugees was the decision of the upper echelons of the empire. All the prime ministers and officials above the third rank had agreed.
Even Wei Zheng, who had the toughest temper, had no choice but to accept it.
Chang 'an had no extra food, and the war in the north was tight.
In addition to the information on the delinquents, there were actually more than 200,000 Yin clansmen among the 400,000 refugees.
Thinking of this, Li Shi Min's eyes burned with anger. The actions of the Underworld Master were simply infuriating.
His Li family's ancestor had no corpse left, and his fifth brother had been killed by the Underworld Master and even hung on the city gate.
Now, he was going to give them a taste of their own medicine and let the family of the Netherworld Master experience it too.
Whether it was for the empire or for his family, Li Shi Min decided to give up on these 400,000 refugees and starve them to death.
Zhang Liang looked at Li Shiming, who was still uncertain, and replied,
"Originally, this general estimated that the refugees outside the city would be so hungry that they had nowhere to go that they would riot. Then, this general would mobilize 60,000 elite soldiers to suppress them.”
"Unfortunately, there was a young man at the east gate who teamed up with the Gao family's porridge shop to spread noodles outside the city today. Everyone had a bucket of hot noodles and almost all the refugees were fed.”
"What?"
Li Shiming, who had always been calm and steady, showed a rare look of shock on his face." Using hot noodles to relieve the disaster? And feed 400,000 refugees?"
Which family was it?
At this moment, he locked onto the five surnames and seven Wangs. Only they had such strong financial resources. Moreover, only they had always been against me and wanted to use this opportunity to buy people's hearts.
Wang Clan? Cui family? Lu family? Or the Zheng family?
"That's right. Looking at the situation, I'm afraid they can still feed 400,000 refugees for a period of time.”
Zhang Liang's eyes hardened and he made a gesture of cutting his throat." Your Majesty, do you want me to send someone to kill him to prevent future troubles? This person must be eliminated this morning."”
After Zhang Liang finished speaking, Li Shiming's eyes flickered.
At this moment, Li Er finally began to pay attention to this group of refugees. If the refugees and the aristocratic families joined forces, it would be easy to overthrow the Li family dynasty.
However, the most important thing now was to kill this youth and confiscate all his food. Then, he would force the refugees to rebel and kill them all.
He would slowly take revenge for the aristocratic families in the future!
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