Prince Li You of the Great Tang Dynasty begs the noble families to their deaths!

Li Chengqian was slightly taken aback. Besides Hou Junji, this was the second minister tonight to urge him to ascend the throne.

The problem is, he wasn't wrong either.

The old emperor has been sitting on that throne for too long; it's time for him to step down.

This time, even a hothead like Prince Li You of Qi couldn't tolerate it any longer. It seems...

Thinking of the humiliations he had suffered over the years, the slander he had suffered at the hands of that bastard King of Shu, and the growing favor shown to Consort Yang and Consort Wei after his mother's death, Li Chengqian felt that he could no longer endure it.

"Chengji, are your men ready?"

"My men are all ready; we await Your Highness's command!"

"good!"

……

Two days later, the sun rose as usual.

The bright sunshine shone on the walls of Chang'an, and carriages and pedestrians passed through the city gate towers in droves.

Princess Qi, Dugu Yanran, sat in the carriage, clutching the letter written by Li You tightly in her hand.

She was in a state of utter confusion.

While worrying about Li You, she was also worried about her own fate.

Will the emperor kill him? Will the Dugu family be implicated?

Dugu Yanran looked at the pedestrians outside the window and smelled the long-lost aroma of cooking in the air, but the fear in her heart continued to accumulate.

She couldn't help but wonder if she could have avoided this calamity if she hadn't married the King of Qi, but instead married into an official family in Chang'an like her sister.

After a while, they arrived at the Dugu family's residence in Chang'an.

Dugu Yanran alighted from the carriage and went inside with a nervous heart.

Half an hour later, Dugu Kaiyuan, the current head of the Dugu family and Li You's father-in-law, hurriedly ran out of the house and rode his horse toward the palace.

Riding a horse recklessly in Chang'an is punishable.

But at this point, Dugu Kaiyuan could no longer care about any of that.

……

"A golden-armored divine general? How could he even come up with that?"

As Li Shimin read the letter sent by Dugu Kaiyuan, his dislike for Li You deepened even further.

If you're going to rebel, then rebel openly. Why resort to these superstitious and ghostly tricks? Who are you trying to fool?

There was another point that infuriated Li Shimin.

Li You only cared about writing letters to his father-in-law, but was unwilling to write letters to his own father.

This is clearly a lack of fatherly affection, disrespectful and unfilial, truly beastly!

Li Shimin tossed the letter aside and then saw Dugu Kaiyuan kneeling on the ground, sweating profusely.

"Dugu, it was I who issued the edict ordering your daughter to marry the Prince of Qi. Your Dugu family has done nothing wrong. Rise!"

"Thank you... thank you for your great kindness, Your Majesty!"

Knowing that the emperor had not taken his anger out on him, Dugu Kaiyuan finally felt relieved.

"Your Majesty... Your Majesty, I take my leave."

Li Shimin waved his hand, dismissing Dugu Kaiyuan.

As Dugu stepped out of the palace, he bumped into Xiao Yu, the Grand Secretary, and quickly bowed to him.

Old Master Xiao was also in a hurry. He nodded to Dugu and then continued running into the hall.

"Your Majesty, the Prince of Qi... the Prince of Qi is plotting a rebellion!"

"Oh, I already know about this."

"The King of Qi... The King of Qi killed Pei Hong, the governor of Qizhou, and then led his troops to slaughter the entire Wang clan of Langya and the Xi clan of Gaoping!"

"What?!"

"Your Majesty, this is a letter from my good friend Xi Ping. He is from a collateral branch of the Xi clan, which is why he was spared."

Li Shimin immediately stood up, took the letter, and began to read it.

"...The rebel army massacred the masses and distributed hundreds of thousands of acres of land to the people. King Qi raised his arms and shouted: 'The noble families are guilty, but rebellion is justified!' Such utter depravity and madness truly makes him the most rebellious and madman of all time..."

Xiao Yu received the letter this morning.

The old man came from the Xiao family of Lanling, a family with impeccable lineage and close ties with various Shandong aristocratic families.

Upon receiving the letter, Xiao Yu immediately realized the seriousness of the problem and rushed to the palace to inform the emperor.

Just then, Fang Xuanling rushed in, having just learned of the matter himself.

Li Shimin fell into deep thought upon reading the line in the letter, "The aristocratic families are guilty, and their rebellion is justified."

The Wang family was wiped out, the Xi family was wiped out, this... this is a good thing!

As the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Li Er was outwardly polite to the powerful families, but inwardly he deeply resented them.

In this rebellion, Prince Li You of Qi eliminated two powerful families and seized hundreds of thousands of acres of land!

The key issue is not the act of dividing up land, but the number of hundreds of thousands of acres.

Hundreds of thousands of acres!

This number is terrifying.

The Guanzhong Plain is a vast and fertile land, but all the land combined is only a little over 20 million mu.

In Shandong, each of the prominent families could own more than 100,000 mu of farmland!

They occupy so much land, yet they refuse to pay taxes to the national treasury!

The "hereditary system" inherited from the Western Jin Dynasty allowed powerful families to provide hereditary privileges to their relatives and tenant farmers based on their official rank; these people were exempt from paying taxes. The Tang Dynasty followed this system to appease these powerful families. Under this premise, despite the "equal-field decree" issued by the court, the conflict between people and land remained extremely acute, causing the emperor a major headache.

The policy of equal land distribution was flawed; the imperial court didn't actually own much land, so what could it use to distribute it equally?

The King of Qi's rebellion was certainly hateful.

Your family, as parasites on the nation, is even more hateful than the King of Qi!

Therefore, in Li Shimin's view, the clashes between the Prince of Qi and the powerful families in Shandong were rather amusing, like dogs fighting each other.

"Uncle, please calm down. I have already dispatched Li Ji as general to lead troops to punish the traitor."

Old Master Xiao was a close relative of the Li family of Taiyuan. Li Shimin was a generation younger than him, so he had to respectfully address the former as "uncle".

"Your Majesty, the rebel army is formidable; surely 30,000 men are insufficient?"

"Uncle, you need not concern yourself with the matter of sending troops to fight. I know my own mighty army; thirty thousand men are sufficient."

Xiao Yu was stunned.

Upon closer examination, the emperor's words made sense.

When the emperor was young, he once led 800 elite cavalrymen to scatter 100,000 troops.

In terms of military capability, Li Er was definitely a professional.

Li Shimin chatted with the old man for a while, and after a while, a large group of people, including Changsun Wuji, Crown Prince Li Chengqian, Prince of Shu Li Tai, Minister of Civil Affairs Pei Ju, and Vice Minister of the Imperial Stud Wang Fangqing, arrived.

Among them, Pei Ju is Pei Hong's uncle, and Wang Fangqing is a member of the Langya Wang clan. These two are considered to be Li You's nemesis.

As emperor and father of the Prince of Qi, Li Shimin could only try to appease his ministers. At the same time, he summoned Li Ji and instructed him to capture the Prince of Qi and bring him to the capital to appease the people.

Crown Prince Li Chengqian sat at the lower end of the table, observing coldly.

Today they're plotting to take down the King of Qi; tomorrow, will they be plotting to take down themselves?

Prince Li Tai of Shu squinted at the Crown Prince for a while, his mind seemingly preoccupied with something.

After talking for another half hour, Li Shimin felt that he had said enough, so he ordered his ministers to leave, leaving only his two trusted ministers, Changsun Wuji and Fang Xuanling.

Some things can only be said to close confidants.

"The powerful families of Shandong... actually manage to own so much land."

"Your Majesty, the actual situation is likely even more serious," Changsun Wuji said with concern.

"The more land aristocratic families own, the less tax revenue the country receives. In recent years, the taxes in the various prefectures of Shandong have barely broken even. Now that the Prince of Qi has suddenly rebelled, this year's taxes and corvée labor... will probably have to be adjusted." Fang Xuanling not only held the duties of the Grand Secretary but also served as the Director of the Department of Revenue, making him very sensitive to matters of numbers.

"The powerful clans are guilty, but their rebellion is justified... The first part is not wrong. The powerful clans have become too powerful to control, and if this continues, they will surely erode the foundation of our Great Tang. It's just a pity that these things can only be done by Chengqian and Qingque!"

Li Shimin's tone was quite low.

Although he was a wise and capable ruler who ruled the world, time waits for no one, and Li Er could clearly feel his body aging.

Not only Li Er, but Changsun Wuji and Fang Xuanling have also grown old. Their comrades-in-arms, Du Ruhui, Wei Zheng, and others, have passed away even earlier. Perhaps in a few more years, they will meet again in the afterlife.

Listening to the emperor's sentiments, Fang Xuanling had some other thoughts in his mind.

Because his family, the Qinghe Fang family, is also a prestigious family from Shandong with impeccable lineage, and they have a very good relationship with the Cui family, one of the Five Surnames and Seven Noble Families, with intermarriages between them for generations.

Therefore, Lao Fang's heart leans slightly towards the aristocratic families. But at the same time, he also bears the responsibility of ruling the country, and he cannot help but think about the safety of the people and the nation, so he is somewhat... conflicted.