"Your Majesty!" Zhang Xingjin was the first to see Li Ye and led several people to greet him.

After not seeing each other for many days, Zhang Xingjin has become much more stable and capable.

"In just a few days, you have built a whole city." Li Ye scolded with a smile.

Zhang Xingjin was not at all restrained in front of Li Ye, "It's all up to His Majesty to plan the strategy, I'm just running errands."

Even though he knew that he was trying to flatter himself, Li Ye couldn't help but feel embarrassed. It was indeed his plan, but the bastards also played a major role.

The crowd was so busy, and Li Ye was wearing ordinary clothes, no one recognized him as the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty.

When I entered the city, I saw that it had a decent appearance. The soldier area and the residential area were each half occupied. The houses were well planned and neither crowded nor cramped. After a tour, I was very satisfied. Although the sparrow is small, it has all the internal organs.

Zhou Yunyi came over with a man who looked like a scholar in his thirties, "Your Majesty, this person's name is Yuan Jingcheng. The scene like this in Xiliu Camp is all thanks to Mr. Yuan's planning." Yuan Jingcheng hurriedly saluted the emperor and looked at him.

His salute gestures were unlike those of ordinary scholars.

"Mr. Yuan, there is no need to be polite. The country is in decline. It is indeed God's blessing that I received your help from Mr. Yuan." Li Ye also flattered him.

No matter how sober a person is, he will be elated when faced with the emperor's flattery. However, Yuan Jingcheng always had the same expression on his face, "It is a blessing for ordinary people to be able to work for the Tang Dynasty."

Li Ye saw that he behaved well and asked, "I wonder where Mr. Yuan is from? Mr. Guan's talent is definitely extraordinary."

Yuan Jingcheng's eyes darkened, "The grass-roots people were originally Wannian county magistrates. In the first year of Guangming, the yellow thieves captured Chang'an. The grass-roots people did not want to join the thieves, so they left the city and hid in the mountains. A few days ago, I saw someone appeasing the refugees, and the grass-roots people came out of the mountains.

Bo Caixiang helped the young generals build the city."

Li Ye remembers that Chang'an was divided into east and west with Zhuque Street, with Wannian County in the east and Chang'an County in the west.

Yuan Jingcheng was able to become the county magistrate under the emperor's feet at such a young age, either because of the family's protection or because of his talent.

It is actually very simple to judge whether a person has talent or not. It depends on his words and deeds. It is not ruled out that there are people who are particularly good at acting, but how can they escape Li Ye's eyes.

It is obvious that this Yuan Jingcheng is a capable person.

"Now that the feudal vassals and towns are divided, I want to revive the Tang Dynasty. Please teach me." Since he is a talented person, of course Li Ye is not willing to let him go.

However, Yuan Jingcheng looked very hesitant.

If you think about it carefully, it is not difficult to understand that the Tang Dynasty has declined to this point. In the eyes of most knowledgeable people, they have long been unable to recover. Following Li Ye is tantamount to seeking death. This is actually what most courtiers think, so

There will be people who continue to collude with the feudal town, which is actually leaving a way out for themselves.

This shows how rare people like Zhang Chengye, Han Xie, and Zhao Chongning are.

Li Ye has been in sales for many years, and observing people's emotions is a basic skill. "Sir, you are so talented, how can you let the people be displaced and starve everywhere?"

He knew quite a lot about scholars in this era. There was no use for high officials and generous salaries, and Li Ye couldn't get them, so he could only use the big hat of common people to frame him.

Sure enough, Yuan Jingcheng held up his hands and said: "The common people are only mediocre and only know a few techniques to calm the people and govern the land. Since Your Majesty will not give up, the common people are willing to be ruined."

Being able to calm the people and farm in troubled times is a great talent. Li Ye was very happy. The appearance of Yuan Jingcheng made up for the shortcomings of his subordinates.

Then you can let go and take action.

Yuan Jingcheng briefly told Li Ye about the population and composition of Xiliu City. There were relatively few young and strong people, and most were old, weak, women and children. However, they were able to live near Chang'an and were relatively strong. The fields by the Wei River were attributed to them.

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These fields were originally high-quality fields with owners, but they were gradually abandoned due to years of war.

Yuan Jingcheng led the people to plow the plows again and divert water from the Wei River for irrigation, so it was as it is today. They planted some wheat, vegetables, and even some taro.

Food is the most important thing for the people. Without food, the refugees will not be able to stay in Xiliu City with peace of mind.

However, according to Yuan Jingcheng, the food was still not enough. Li Ye thought for a moment, it was impossible to rely solely on Chang'an for relief, and it was not a long-term solution. The situation in Chang'an was not good either. It had long ceased to be the imperial capital it had been back then.

The Tang Dynasty also declined.

There is no source of taxation, no blood transfusion from the Central Plains and the southeastern half, and the entire Guanzhong is in decline. This is why Zhu Wen looks down on Guanzhong. Since the late Tang Dynasty, Guanzhong has been completely marginalized.

The Huangchao Rebellion was the most poisonous in Guanzhong, and a large number of people died. Later, there was the Zhumei Rebellion, which stirred up troubles and attacks in several vassal towns in Guanzhong. You can imagine what kind of life the people lived.

It was precisely the sharp decline in Guanzhong's population that allowed the Shatuo and Dangxiang people in the northwest border areas to gradually rise.

Li Ye's idea was to rely on Chang'an to build Xiliu City and vigorously recruit refugees.

This was his first step in pulling out all the stops.

Li Ye gave some words of encouragement and immediately asked Xin Silang, Yang Jian, and Tuoba Yungui to go back to Chang'an to find Zhang Chengye to ask for some food and weapons.

In addition to planting, Li Ye also took them hunting everywhere and let people fish on the Weishui River. There are only some small hills in the north of Chang'an. Fortunately, there are few people these days, and there are gradually more wild animals, including yellow sheep, rabbits, fat rats, etc.

, there are countless of them, and wild wolves and hyenas are even more common. They hunt a lot and catch a lot of fish. The total amount of meat and fish every day is more than 500 kilograms.

Of course, the meat is first provided to the rabbits. There are more than 200 people, which consume about 300 kilograms. The rest is distributed to the residents of the city.

With meat available, the need for food is smaller.

Zhang Xingjin was recruiting more and more refugees. Fortunately, Yuan Jingcheng planned in advance so that the city would not be overcrowded.

For Li Ye, the more people there are, the better. No matter how old or young, everyone will be welcome.

But food is always a big problem.

Xin Silang came back from Chang'an with 500 shi of grain, as well as fodder, weapons, armor and other supplies. Zhang Chengye was impeccable in his work and was thorough in everything.

In order to avoid leaking the details of Xiliu City, the transfer was always done at a place more than ten miles south of the Weishui River.

Except for a few people on Li Ye's secret front, no one knew about the existence of Xiliu City and Tuzizi.

The people in Chang'an knew that there was a group of refugees stationed north of the Wei River.

The ministers in the court also heard the news, but how could this matter catch their eyes? These days, there are refugees from all directions in Chang'an City. As long as they don't come to Chang'an City to beg for food, who will care about them?

In the eyes of the court ministers, the emperor was out hunting.

This is also a classic hobby of the Li and Tang royal family. Hunting itself is a kind of training. People are smart these days, and wild beasts are neither stupid nor honest. Rabbits bite people when they are in a hurry. Some carnivorous animals are used to eating human flesh and are extremely cruel.

Hunting is not easy and requires proficiency with bows and horses. Sometimes when you encounter wolves, you have to go up and fight them in close combat.

The boys grew up rapidly in this environment.

Suffering is always the most tempering.

However, several groups of bandits around often came to spy, but they were all driven away by Ashina Zhenyan.

This guy deserves to be of Turkic descent and has first-rate equestrian skills.

Every time he saw this Turkic young man, Li Ye would recall the domineering power of the Tang Dynasty in sweeping away the Turks.

In fact, the Shatuo people are also a branch of the Turks, called the Chuyue tribe. They moved from the grasslands and continuously merged with the Han people in the interior to form the Shatuo people.

It was only a matter of time before people took notice of him. Even if they didn't come to see Li Ye, Li Ye would still go and meet them. After all, bandits and horse thieves were also fat sheep.

The New Army wants to see blood, and Li Ye also wants to see blood.

So Ashina Zhenyan's team became scouts to find out the details of the bandits and thieves around them.

After almost ten days, Ashina Zhenyan completed the task.

Those with horses are called horse bandits, and those without horses are called bandits.

Bandits are relatively poor, so they plunder everywhere. There are twenty-three groups of bandits, large and small, hidden in the hills on the Loess Plateau. The big ones have one or two thousand people, and the small ones have four or five hundred people. Their names are quite scary.

There are some who claim to be kings and hegemons, and there are also villagers who call themselves Grass Immortal and Barefoot Immortal. I wonder how the immortals in the sky will feel when they hear these names.

The situation of the horse bandits is somewhat special. Some of them are officers and soldiers who were dispersed by Huang Chao.

There are also some party members.

What they have in common is that they come and go like the wind, and they are skillful with bows and horses.

The first few times those who spied on Xiliu City were mostly horse bandits. It wasn't that they didn't want to conquer Xiliu City in one go, but because Xiliu City was well-defended and the location was advantageous, they couldn't get any benefits.

But if they knew that the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty was in this earth city, they would probably attack with all their might.

These days, anyone who understands the official dialect of Chang'an will know that there is a man named Cao Cao who coerces the emperor to command the princes.

They didn't have the ability to command the princes, but it was okay to ask the emperor to grant them high officials.
Chapter completed!