Chapter 67: Invisible Predicament

Li Longji did not directly answer whether or not to let Fang Chongyong go to Hexi, but the next day he invited him to soak in the hot springs together, and dismissed everyone else.

As for Yang Yuhuan, she did not show up at all, and Fang Chongyong did not know whether she was here.

The Nine Dragons Hot Spring Pool was much smaller than expected. At this moment, heavy snow was falling outside, and Fang Chongyong soaked in the hot spring with an expressionless face, feeling not the slightest chill of winter.

The enjoyment of an emperor meant having spring-like weather in all four seasons, free from the suffering of hunger and cold.

A strange thought popped into Fang Chongyong's mind: what if this hot spring pool was too large and the emperor fainted from the heat while soaking and drowned?

When the time came, even rescue would be a troublesome affair.

Sure enough, a smaller one was better.

"Your official position as Acting Centurion General of the Thousand Bull Guard can also be raised a rank. We think it would be fitting for you to serve as Grand General of the Thousand Bull Guard."

Li Longji stroked the long beard on his chin and laughed heartily.

Fang Chongyong glanced at the other man's soft, flabby belly, his loose skin, and the flab that was plump but not fat, concealed once he put on a robe, and quickly averted his gaze without realizing it.

He clasped his hands in a salute and said, "I leave everything to the Sage's decision."

"Hmm, but can you tell Us what you want to do going to Hexi? Buy Kunlun slaves or buy goods from the Western Regions?

Liangzhou is nice, but you'll grow tired of it after a few days. Facing the yellow sand all day long is not very interesting."

Li Longji asked in puzzlement, still unable to figure out Fang Chongyong's true thoughts.

"To reply to the Sage, half of the Tang's grandeur lies in Hexi. If one does not go to Hexi, it is as though one was not born in the Tang. The Sage, burdened with affairs of state, has no time to travel to Hexi, but I am but a child with no pressing matters to attend to. While I am young, going to Hexi to experience the glory of the Tang would make this life worthwhile.

It would be far better than staying in Chang'an, walking horses and fighting crickets with the sons of the powerful and noble."

Fang Chongyong said with a formal bow.

"You just don't want others to open their mouths and immediately call you the son of Jiedushi Fang, that's all. Why say so many polite words to Us?"

Li Longji waved his hand smugly, then sighed: "Your father is a rare fine general. We hear you are engaged, and your future father-in-law is also a one-in-ten-thousand military talent. We imagine the pressure on you must be great."

"The Sage sees clearly. Nothing can be hidden from the Sage."

Fang Chongyong carefully bowed in salute.

"Although Hexi is very chaotic, Liangzhou City is still safe. You want a sinecure as a prefectural adjutant, so We shall give you a prefectural adjutant. Just follow beside Cui Xiyi and observe and learn. As for your father-in-law, We shall also dispatch him to serve as Commissioner of the Red Water Army, stationed in Liangzhou City. How does that sound to you?"

"Many thanks, Sage!"

Fang Chongyong said excitedly, not expecting that matters he had planned for a long time, along with follow-up arrangements, could actually be settled in advance!

"Oh right, entering officialdom requires a status. Since you are not taking the imperial examination, then We shall grant you the status of Funeral Pallbearer."

Li Longji chuckled.

After all, Fang Chongyong had carried the coffin for the former Crown Prince Li Ying and two others, so granting him the status of "Funeral Pallbearer" was not excessive.

Fang Chongyong thought it was because Fang Youde had accomplished many things in Youzhou, making the vain and arrogant Li Longji very pleased, which was why he was so easy to talk to.

But when he returned to his quarters within Huaqing Palace, Li Longji summoned another heavyweight court official to this place, and that person was Li Linfu, whom Li Longji nicknamed "Genu"!

Compared to the relaxed atmosphere just now, the conversation between Li Longji and Li Linfu at this moment was very heavy.

In the ninth year of Kaiyuan, the Sogdian mixed-barbarians of Shuofang rebelled. After the rebellion was pacified, to eliminate future troubles, the Tang court relocated the Sogdians of six prefectures en masse: "Over fifty thousand remnants of the barbarians of the six prefectures of the Yellow River bend were moved to the prefectures of Xu, Ru, Tang, Deng, Xian, and Yu, emptying a thousand li of land south of the Yellow River and in Shuofang."

Now these barbarians had begun colluding with the Dangxiang to cause trouble again, and Li Linfu suggested relocating the barbarians of the six prefectures back to their original homes, pulling the firewood from under the cauldron to solve the problem of the six-prefecture barbarians' rebellion.

Back then, the six prefectures' lands had already been fairly well developed by these mixed barbarians. The Tang court's relocation of these Turkicized Sogdians was, frankly speaking, a somewhat disgusting thing to do. Taking back someone's good farmland and then forcibly relocating them to clear wasteland—this was indeed not an honorable thing to do.

And now, after twenty years of development, the mixed barbarians had developed their new territory, and the Tang court wanted to relocate these people back again!

This operation was a bit like fattening a piglet and then having the shop take it back, trading an old pig for a young one to continue raising—slightly despicable.

Even Li Linfu felt embarrassed, coming to seek Li Longji's opinion.

"What do you think would be the best way to handle this?"

Li Longji asked indifferently. He did not want to bother with this kind of matter at all. As long as Li Linfu's solution was workable, then they would just carry it out accordingly.

"Niu Xianke, in his years in Hexi, dealt frequently with the Sogdians and was known for his trustworthiness and good faith. He could be sent to the six prefectures to pacify the mixed barbarians, thus resolving the difficult problem without expending a single soldier."

Li Linfu, without his face reddening or his heart skipping a beat, sent Niu Xianke straight to his doom.

The key was that all of this conformed to the court's rules and regulations. Niu Xianke's position as Minister of Works, plus the additional commission of "Pacification Commissioner," would be enough to get started, requiring no troublesome procedures at all.

You are a minister of the court, one of the Six Ministries' ministers. What's wrong with sending you to pacify the barbarians? Is it beneath you, or do you just not want to go?

The character "official" has two mouths. Let alone Niu Xianke being merely a "honest man" with no backing—even if he were as slippery as Zheng Shuqing, he still could not escape such a commission.

Pacifying the mixed barbarians to settle in the borderlands—if successful, it would naturally be a great merit. But who said those mixed barbarians couldn't take a dislike to the court's envoy and chop him down with a single blade?

One could only say that Li Linfu's methods for ruining people were truly too brilliant, impossible to guard against. He did not even need to play the bad cop or whisper slander, yet he could engineer the death of a high court official.

"Then send Niu Xianke. But Genu, We feel that Prince Shou cannot be established as Crown Prince."

Li Longji suddenly changed the topic, his expression turning solemn.

"Prince Shou is benevolent and loves others, making him the first choice for Crown Prince. We beg Your Majesty to think thrice."

Li Linfu clasped his hands in a salute with a calm expression, making it impossible to tell what he was thinking.

"Never mind, we shall discuss this matter later. Last time you told Us that Wang Zhongsi was associating too closely with Prince Zhong, and therefore was unsuitable to serve as General of the Left Army of the Dragon Martial Army. We have thought about it these past two days and feel what you said makes great sense.

Therefore, We are transferring him away from Chang'an to serve in the Red Water Army. What do you think?"

Li Longji asked in a relaxed and casual manner while paddling the warm spring water with his palm.

"Your humble servant has no objections. This measure is excellent."

Li Linfu smiled and bowed in salute.

"Fang Youde submitted a memorial recommending Wu Zhiyi as General of the Left Army of the Dragon Martial Army. What do you think?"

Li Longji asked again.

"Your humble servant believes that Li Shizhi, Vice Censor-in-Chief, could replace Wu Zhiyi as Jiedushi of Pinglu."

"Hmm, We think so too. Then you shall be responsible for drafting the edict."

Having finished handling state affairs, Li Longji waved his hand somewhat wearily. Li Linfu put on his clothes and left the hot spring pool, taking a carriage back to Chang'an without lingering for a single moment.

Almost imperceptibly, he had already driven Huangfu Weiming, Wang Zhongsi, Niu Xianke, Li Shizhi, and all these people out of Chang'an. What remained was to use the matter of Luoyang's Hanjia Granary to slowly cut flesh with a dull knife.

Now, more than half of the central administration in Chang'an were his people, and Li Longji tacitly allowed various factions to conduct official business outside without interfering with Li Linfu's governance.

Building a canal between Chang'an and Luoyang, reforming the existing legal provisions, deleting those that were outdated, gradually reducing the proportion of the Zu-Yong-Diao tax system in overall tax revenue, and slowly increasing the household tax to make up the difference.

Li Linfu calculated in his mind one earth-shattering matter after another.

The household registers for the Zu-Yong-Diao grew more falsified year by year, and the number of fleeing households increased year by year. The more people fled, the heavier the Zu-Yong-Diao burden placed on those who did not flee, which then drove even more households to flee—and since the registers were all fake anyway, local officials had no way to stop it. Not every place was like Kuizhou, a commercial port that could easily make up the shortfall with commercial taxes.

The state's expenditures also grew larger year by year, the proportion of militia soldiers rotating for duty became ever smaller, and the Ministry of War's ledger no longer identified soldiers' origins using the militia system. They were uniformly labeled with terms like "Long-Campaign Elite" and "Local Reserve."

Even the Dragon Martial Army was no longer composed of militia soldiers.

The military expenditure for recruited soldiers required at least ten million strings of cash per year, accounting for the bulk of central government spending—far exceeding the two million strings of the early Kaiyuan era.

Li Linfu pondered one troublesome matter after another; none of them seemed easy to resolve.

"The Sage has spread his undertakings too wide."

Inside the carriage, Li Linfu could not help but sigh.

……

Within Luoyang city, goose-feather snow likewise fell flake by flake.

At this moment, Zheng Shuqing stood before this grand granary, his feelings complicated. He had a belly full of grievances with no one to vent them on.

Because Zheng Shuqing realized he seemed to have been set up by either Li Longji or Li Linfu, yet had no way to salvage the situation.

Fortunately, it was now winter, not the grain-harvesting season, so there was still time to think of a solution. If he still could not come up with a good plan by early summer next year, then his tenure as Vice Minister of Revenue would truly have reached its end!

Hanjia Granary was the foremost granary of the Great Tang. At its peak, it stored half of the entire national reserve grain of the Tang.

It was indeed a colossal granary renowned far and wide, unmatched in all the world—at least it had been, even ten years ago or even five years ago—but now it was more than half empty.

When Zheng Shuqing arrived, Li Linfu had said that simply auditing the granary's inventory would suffice, and he need not concern himself with anything else. As a result, after those officials were investigated and dealt with, the task of transporting grain to Hanjia Granary fell upon him—the Vice Minister of Revenue and Transport Commissioner!

Originally, the management of Hanjia Granary was governed by mutual checks and balances: led by the Court of National Granaries, guarded by the Gate Guard, and supervised by the Censorate. The granary's own officials were responsible only for inspection, weighing, tallying, recording, and storing in pits, with the Chief Minister of the Court of National Granaries providing the final verification and sign-off—it never would have been Zheng Shuqing's place to intervene.

But now the former Chief Minister of the Court of National Granaries, Huangfu Weiming, had been transferred to Longyou to serve in a military post, leading the campaign against the Tibetans.

There was no one to take the lead.

Moreover, the office of Transport Commissioner had only recently been established precisely to coordinate operations across different departments. So this blame fell squarely on Zheng Shuqing's shoulders.

If it were an ordinary granary, he might have found a way to muddle through. But Hanjia Granary was different—it was too large and too important to be taken lightly.

Hanjia Granary was located within the Great Tang's eastern capital of Luoyang, forming its own small walled city with its own gates, known as "Hanjia City."

The granary compound was rectangular, enclosed on all sides by high walls. The north and south walls measured 615 meters long, the east and west walls 725 meters, the walls were 15 to 17 meters thick and 1 to 6.5 meters high, and the compound covered approximately 430,000 square meters—an astonishing storage capacity!

Even at only twenty to thirty percent of its maximum capacity now, the grain reserves were still a terrifying astronomical figure.

Before Pei Yaoqing rerouted the Tongji Canal, the transshipment hub for the north-south canal had always been Hanjia Granary in Luoyang. All grain from the Jianghuai and Jiangnan regions had to first be stored in Hanjia Granary before being transported overland to Chang'an.

The Great Tang had separately opened a dedicated "imperial road" between Chang'an and Luoyang, specifically responsible for conveying provisions into Guanzhong.

However, the situation at Hanjia Granary was not as simple as ordinary people imagined. The main reason for the current grain shortage was not dereliction of duty by officials.

There was no such thing in the world as a granary that could supply the empire for a century without collapsing; such notions were fantasies conjured by those ignorant of the inner workings.

In reality, there was a crucial yet concealed figure of data that made it impossible for a granary to exist in isolation. It was precisely this that had led to Hanjia Granary's present predicament.

This key figure was that all grain had a shelf life, and relative to the lifespan of a dynasty, that shelf life was not long.

Hanjia Granary was an underground granary, built to the highest standards from the start, and the shelf life of its stored grain was considered long—but even so, it was only "in dry areas, millet can be stored for 9 years and rice for 5 years; in damp areas, millet for 5 years and rice for 3 years."

The granary system operated on the principle of rotating out the old and bringing in the new. If the canal transport no longer passed through Luoyang, then Hanjia Granary would inevitably empty—it was that simple and straightforward a logic.

If the grain was not transported out, and its shelf life was nearing expiration, it could only be sold locally in Luoyang. But the granary was only responsible for storing grain; the agencies for disaster relief and grain procurement were separate entities.

It seemed everyone bore some responsibility, yet it also seemed no one had done anything wrong—and in the end, it became an unsortable mess.

The Supervising Censor and the Granary Warden of Hanjia Granary standing before Zheng Shuqing did not even dare to breathe heavily. If this Transport Commissioner submitted a single memorial, they would be finished instantly.

"Do either of you have anything you can teach me?"

Zheng Shuqing looked at the two men who dared not raise their heads and asked with a sigh.

"Vice Minister Zheng, when Lord Pei rerouted the canal transport passage, the operating rules of Hanjia Granary remained as before and never changed. Now all the grain goes to Heyin Granary at the Biankou crossing—we have no way to do anything about it."

The white-haired Supervising Censor said with a sigh.

Everyone knew that Biankou had become the new transshipment hub, with provisions piled in heaps. But no one was willing to step forward and propose abandoning Hanjia Granary, which had been in operation for a century—abandoning this colossal national strategic reserve granary.

Li Linfu had told Zheng Shuqing to find a way to "restore the blood" of Hanjia Granary within a few years—at the very least, fill it back up to half capacity.

And while handling this matter, he also had to continuously transport grain to the "dedicated granaries" outside Chang'an to supply the military needs of Hexi.

How was he supposed to manage this!

Zheng Shuqing had absolutely no idea where to begin—he could not conjure grain out of thin air!

"I have already written a memorial to the Sage. When the court's decrees go unfulfilled, it will simply be a matter of me dragging you all down with me.

At worst, I will be dismissed from office. The grain shortage at Hanjia Granary was discovered by me; I bear no responsibility for it. But as for what will happen to you two in the end, go home and think it over carefully."

Zheng Shuqing flicked his sleeves, turned and left, and boarded the ox cart.

Should he use the He-Di procurement system?

He mulled over those conventional methods in his mind, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt he would end up dying miserably.