On the corridor outside the Wude Hall, King Qin Li Shimin walked quickly towards the Tianxia Imperial Study Room with a blue face. The anger in his heart could not be concealed. The eunuch leading the way in front of him was frightened. I don’t know who caused the furious anger of His Highness the King of Qin.

Just half an hour ago, Li Shimin received an emergency report from the garrison of Shangluo County. Another fleet full of pig iron was destroyed in Xiyang County. Three hundred ship escort soldiers were destroyed and only five boatmen escaped.

In just forty days, this was the second time the fleet was sunk. How could Li Shimin not be angry? The army was going to attack Xiyang County, but something happened in Bingzhou, which made his father change his plan, suspend his attack on Xiyang County, and stop pursuing Dugu Huaien's death.

The father's series of passive decisions made the Dugu family seriously dissatisfied, and also endangered the existence of the Tang army in Jingzhou, which made the Tang army deeply frustrated.

Li Shimin is no exception. He is in charge of the battlefield in the east, and both Luoyang and Jingzhou are the areas he is responsible for. Now his father gave up the Jingzhou strategy for Bingzhou. In Li Shimin's view, this is undoubtedly a loss of attention and being led by the Sui army. It is really passive. This second ship destruction incident is enough to prove their mistakes in dealing with them and their strategic passiveness.

Li Shimin waited outside the imperial study room for a while, and an eunuch came out and said, "Your Highness, the Lord summoned me!"

Li Shimin took a deep breath, restrained his emotions, tidied up his clothes, and then walked into his father's imperial study.

To his surprise, there were actually many people in the imperial study room. In addition to the eldest brother Li Jiancheng, there were Pei Ji, Liu Wenjing, Chen Shuda and Tang Jian. Everyone looked at him in with a serious expression.

This made Li Shimin feel a little uneasy. Has something happened again?

He walked forward quickly and knelt down and saluted: "My son is paying homage to my father!"

"The emperor is exempt from gifts!"

"Thank you, Father!"

Li Shimin stood up and reported: "My son has important information to report to his father."

Li Yuan said slowly: "You are going to talk about what happened in Xiyang County!"

Li Shimin was stunned. How did the father know?

But after a second thought, he realized that this must be a quick report from the Shangluo County government. Li Shimin received the report from the garrison, and the government also had to report to the court for the same matter. Obviously, the speed of the government reporting was one step faster than the military.

This is not because the government is more efficient than the military, but because the government first caught several boatmen who fled back to Shangluo County to report the news. It was only two days after the interrogation that Li Shimin would certainly be one step slower to get the news.

This made Li Shimin a little dissatisfied. His father summoned everyone to discuss why he didn't inform him. Don't he want to ask himself to inquire about this matter again?

Li Jiancheng saw a little unhappy expression on his brother's face and explained to him: "We just learned about what happened in Xiyang County. After we were about to arrange the autumn harvest, we notified our second brother to come and discuss it."

Only then did Li Shimin realize that they were discussing the autumn harvest. His dissatisfaction was slightly calmed down and he hurriedly said: "The emperor's brother misunderstood. I am just anxious that Jiangxia County pig iron and crude copper stocks are under a large amount of backlog. If the shipping problem of Xiyang County is not solved, Chang'an's pig iron and copper materials will be out of stock again."

"How much pig iron and thick copper are accumulated in Jiangxia?" Li Yuan asked.

"Reporting to my father, there are about five million kilograms of pig iron, and there are one million kilograms of thick copper."

Li Yuan looked at Chen Shuda again, and Chen Shuda hurriedly said: "Last time we exchanged gold for the major households in Guanlong and Bashu for millions of kilograms of copperware. Now there is no shortage of copper materials for minting coins, but pig iron is really nervous."

"How is the preparations for hematite?" Li Shimin asked Tang Jiandao.

"Report to your Majesty, it's almost over and it should be mined soon."

Li Shimin was stunned. He was confused when he heard it and asked quickly: "Father, what kind of hematite mine?"

Li Yuan smiled slightly, "Didn't I tell the emperor?"

Li Shimin quickly shook his head, "My son has been training new recruits in Yong County for a while, and he doesn't know anything."

"No wonder! Prime Minister Tang, come and tell the King of Qin!"

Tang Jian smiled and said, "God really blessed our dynasty. A month ago, the officials who were looking for the mine found a large iron ore vein in Yanchuan County. It was shallow in burial and high iron content. At the same time, it was accompanied by copper ore. The court ordered the Yanchuan County government to immediately recruit thousands of workers to prepare for mining ore, so we had another source of copper and iron."

Li Shimin then suddenly realized that his father was not in a hurry to open the Nanxiang Road. It turned out that he had found a new source of copper and iron, but if he didn't open the Nanxiang Road, what should he do in Jingzhou? Did he just give up like that?

"Father, has the plan of Xiyang County stopped there?"

Li Yuan said lightly: "I know that the emperor is good at military affairs, but Xiyang County does not have to rely on military solutions. Zhang Xuan sent people to attack the Danshui fleet twice and sent people to assassinate the Tang envoy. The purpose is to provoke a war between us and Wang Shichong. But we all agreed that it is not appropriate to turn against Wang Shichong now. We must concentrate on resolving the Bingzhou crisis with national strength, and deal with Wang Shichong when we look back."

Li Shimin was extremely disappointed. Opening up the Nanxiang Road and pursuing Jingzhou was once the national policy of the Tang Dynasty. Since it was a national policy, we should persevere. How could we give up a new iron mine just because of discovering it? Is the meaning of Jingzhou only lies in pig iron?

Li Shimin came out of Wude Hall, and his initial anger was gone. He had only disappointment and depression. As soon as he walked down the steps, he heard someone calling him behind him. When Li Shimin turned around, he saw that it was Liu Wenjing running towards him. He stopped.

Liu Wenjing ran forward panting, "Your Highness, please slow down, I have something to say."

Li Shimin looked at Liu Wenjing and nodded silently. The two of them slowly walked towards the corridor side by side.

"I can understand that Your Highness is unhappy in the matter of suspending Nanxiangdao's strategic suspension, but Your Majesty does not know the importance of Nanxiangdao, but Your Majesty also has unspeakable difficulties."

"What's the hardship?" Li Shimin asked in confusion.

"The main reason is that the national strength does not support our two-line combat."

Liu Wenjing sighed and said, "Wang Shichong ordered his nephew Wang Renze to lead 30,000 troops to Xiyang County. Obviously, he did not want to give in on Nanxiang Road. If the two families broke out in a war to seize Xiyang County, it would mean that the war between the Tang and Zheng families broke out. Once Zhang Xuan supported Wang Shichong from behind and Xiao Xian took the opportunity to attack Jingzhou, the Tang army would fall into a protracted war, and the Sui army was fighting with us for Bingzhou. If we fought on both sides, our national strength would not be able to be consumed."

"Is it just because of insufficient national strength?"

Liu Wenjing shook her head and whispered: "I heard from the Prime Minister Chen that the Guanlong nobles are also putting pressure on Your Majesty, asking Your Majesty to concentrate their troops to protect Bingzhou. If Bingzhou is in a loss, they will stop supporting the Tang army's money and food."

Li Shimin was a little puzzled. Dugu Huaien died in Luoyang. It is logical that the Guanlong nobles should put pressure on their father to destroy Wang Shichong first. How did it become Bingzhou priority?

Liu Wenjing understood Li Shimin's confusion and explained: "The Guanlong nobles had a large number of farmlands in the southern part of Bingzhou. Once the Sui army captured Bingzhou, it would seriously threaten his vital interests. Therefore, they collectively wrote to the emperor to ask for the protection of Bingzhou, and did not hesitate to threaten the emperor with the threat of cutting off money and food assistance. Everyone understood the difficulties of the emperor, so they did not persuade the emperor, but supported the emperor's decision, suspended the strategy of opening up the Nanxiang Road, and concentrated their forces to protect Bingzhou."

Li Shimin didn't speak for a while. He never thought that his father's abandonment of Nanxiangdao was the result of pressure from the Guanlong nobles. He finally understood his father's helplessness.

After a moment of silence, Li Shimin asked again: "What should I do if the inventory of Jiangxia pig iron and thick copper? How to transport it back to Chang'an?"

"Chen Xiangguo came up with a plan to directly build troops and cast copper coins in Xiangyang County, so he didn't have to transport them to Chang'an. If there were excess fine copper and pig iron, he could transport them by land. From Jingling County through Dangyang County, we once transported tens of thousands of stones of grain to the Tang army in Yiling County, with experience and transportation convoys, and then transported from Yiling to Bashu. Anyway, the south also needs resources, and the copper and iron produced in Jiangxia County is used to support the south."

Li Shimin shook his head. Instead of avoiding the Nanxiang Pass, it would be better to reach a compromise with Wang Shichong. The two sides shared the Jiangxia mine. Then Wang Shichong ensured the safety of the fleet. Escape was definitely not done by Shangguo. Can we avoid the raid of the Sui Army's Fenglei Cavalry by taking land?

But Li Shimin also knew that if Dugu Huai'en's karma was not untied and Wang Shichong did not give Tang Dynasty an explanation, it would be difficult for both sides to reach a compromise.

At this time, a eunuch rushed over and bowed to Li Shimin and said, "Your Highness, the Lord, please return to the imperial study as soon as possible."

...
Chapter completed!