The word "side by side" king of the Tang Dynasty

Wu Meiniang's sword dance stunned the audience and left a deep impression in everyone's hearts. At the same time, the name Wu Meiniang was also remembered.

The gifts from other concubines pale in comparison to Wu Meiniang's"gifts" from elsewhere.

Many concubines have the idea of ​​​​wanting to be queens. If this idea was not obvious before, then after Wu Meiniang came out, a sense of crisis arose in the hearts of all the concubines.

The threat of Wu Meiniang was too great. After the eldest grandson Wugou left, her appearance was the best in the harem, and today's sword dance will definitely leave a deep impression on Li Changqing.

However, Wu Meiniang seemed to turn a blind eye to the hostile looks from the many concubines. After stepping down and putting on normal clothes, she returned to her seat.

What she did today was just to make Li Changqing notice her, and in order to deepen Li Changqing's impression, she also deliberately put on makeup that was sixty-six percent similar to Changsun Wugu's.

Wu Meiniang had been her maid with Changsun Wuguo for three years, and she already knew the latter's personal habits, temperament and appearance.

If she wanted to, she could even impersonate Chang Sun Wugou perfectly, but she was smart and knew that the intention of doing so was too obvious and would arouse Li Changqing's resentment.

After the gift-giving part, there was nothing more. Many guests drank and drank, chatted and laughed.

Li Changqing specially called Wu Meiniang over and praised with a smile:"Your sword dance is very exquisite. It can be said that you are as graceful as a startling dragon, as powerful as a swimming dragon, and as a goddess of the lotus. I want to ask you, what are you doing?" Where did you learn the sword dance?"

Wu Meiniang felt blessed and lowered her head and said,"Back to Your Majesty, I heard that Your Majesty is the best at using swords and also likes to dance with swords, so she taught herself for a period of time and practiced in front of His Majesty."

Everyone. Everyone knows that Li Changqing has the courage of an overlord, and his swordsmanship is extremely exquisite. He had to fight his way out of the Hongmen Banquet hosted by the false emperor Li Shimin.

In order to cater to Li Changqing's preferences, she had already started planning everything and learning sword dance from the beginning when she entered the palace and was still in Beijing.

"It is extremely difficult for a woman to practice swordsmanship to such an extent, but you have some of Xiuning's demeanor back then."

Li Changqing smiled, but the last words he said were to Li Xiuning.

"Not bad indeed."

Li Xiuning also smiled and praised a few words, but the look he looked at Wu Meiniang had some inexplicable meaning.

Li Changqing praised Wu Meiniang a few more words and rewarded her with some valuable jewelry and then stopped paying attention.

The banquet went smoothly until the evening. It was just over, and many guests returned with joy. Not to mention the rewards they received today, just watching this sword dance was worth the trip.

……

……

The birthday held by Li Xiuning was very successful. After the banquet, Li Changqing's mood improved a lot, and he got over the sadness of the disappearance of his eldest grandson Wugou.

After that, Li Changqing devoted himself to political affairs again. All industries in the Tang Dynasty were waiting for prosperity, and he, the emperor, was not allowed to be lazy.

If you want to get rich, build roads first.

To be precise, the so-called road is the network that connects the economy across the country. Only with this network can the economy develop better.

The Ministry of Household Affairs has already put the light rail carriage project into practice. All the money spent on this project is raised from the private sector, or in other words, from the rich and famous families.

Light rail carriages can greatly increase the speed of travel between places. It is very simple to travel thousands of miles a day and are very important for both commerce and military.

As long as the rich and distinguished families invest in the construction, they can get corresponding free time to use the light rail based on the amount of money they invest.

Anyone with a longer-term perspective can see how promising the light rail carriage is, and some prominent families are even willing to invest huge sums of money to gain the opportunity to use the light rail for free forever.

But the light rail carriage is one of the future cash cows of the imperial court. How could Li Changqing allow it? He ordered that it could only be given free of charge for a maximum of five years.

But even so, there are still countless people willing to invest.

In addition to building light rail across the country, Li Changqing also started to expand the Grand Canal.

Today, there is only one Grand Canal in the Tang Dynasty, and that was the one built by Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty. Although it was initially criticized as a waste of money and people, in fact, this Grand Canal is a very important channel connecting the north and the south.

Today, 40% of the trade in various parts of the Tang Dynasty is carried out through the Grand Canal, which shows how important it is.

However, the expansion of the Grand Canal still caused a lot of controversy in the court.

Chang'an, Tai Chi Hall

"Your Majesty, it is absolutely inappropriate to expand the Grand Canal. Although the benefits that the Grand Canal can bring are countless, the Grand Canal was dug by Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty and killed and injured countless people. In the end, it caused the anger of heaven and the resentment of people.……"

Wei Zheng was an upright person and spoke out about the disadvantages of expanding the Grand Canal, but he was somewhat restrained. He did not directly say that expanding the Grand Canal might make the people resentful of the court, thus repeating the fate of the Sui Dynasty.

Many officials had the same idea as Wei Zheng, believing that it was unwise to dig the Grand Canal.

Li Changqing shook his head and said:"Expanding the Grand Canal, connecting water veins in various places, and vigorously developing water transportation. This is one of the century-old national policies set by me, and I must implement it.

Wei Qing's concerns are known to everyone. Although I want to dig the Grand Canal, But we won’t force the people to do corvee labor."

Wei Zheng was stunned and asked in confusion:"If we don’t recruit civilian laborers, where will the manpower come from?"

Li Changqing smiled and said nothing. Among the hundreds of officials, Fang Xuanling stood up and chuckled:" Mr. Wei, although our Tang Dynasty is short of population, those conquered countries are not short of people, don't you think?"

Wei Zheng is not a fool, Jingfang Xuanling immediately woke up at this point and said in surprise:"Your Majesty wants to conscript Slaves from other countries came to dig the Grand Canal?"

Li Changqing did not deny it, nodded and said:"That is true, not only the Grand Canal, but also the manpower needed to build the light rail carriages. Today, our Datang is most in need of labor, and those countries have The labor force is extremely abundant, and it would be a pity not to make good use of it.

Of course, the Tang Dynasty is a kingdom of heaven, so naturally we will not follow the example of Persia, Rong and others to enslave the people. I will give them appropriate remuneration and basic human rights."

Using the sufficient population of other countries to make up for Datang's labor shortage was an idea that Li Changqing had long ago.