Loulan was not an important town, at least in Li Hong's mind, Loulan's role was far less important than the four towns of Anxi. However, all the Tang Dynasty materials that came out of Yumen Pass from the Central Plains were transported to Loulan, and then Li Hong distributed them from here and transported them to various places.

Li Hong of Loulan never thought of investing a penny, because in his opinion, even a copper coin would be wasted in the end. After all, this city would disappear sooner or later, and it was not something that could be changed by human power.

Although he had tried his best to protect Loulan City, even including asking the people to protect trees and vegetation such as the poplar forest and saxaul, the diversion of the Peacock River was still happening unnoticed.

Li Hong naturally could not pay attention to these things. It was not until Yuwen Rong, Liang Xiaoren, and Lou Yu, who came to Loulan for a short time, that they discovered them. It was also from that time that Li Hong completely gave up on Loulan.

Except Wang Bo, the other four great poets of the early Tang Dynasty were exiled to the four towns of Anxi by Li Hong one by one. Thanks to the efforts of the first batch of students who completed their studies at Chongwenguan, Pinyin has now begun to spread slowly in Anxi and is showing signs of becoming popular.

Li Hong's ultimate goal was naturally to allow Chinese characters and Tibetan script to appear among the Tibetan people at the same time, or even replace Tibetan script.

The reason why Li Hong could have such an idea was that the Tibetan writing system had only been developed for a few decades. With the Chinese characters of the Tang Dynasty supplemented by the easier-to-learn pinyin, it was very likely that the Tibetan writing system would replace the Tibetan writing system in due course.

Pei Xingjian appeared in Loulan City in a hurry, with sweat on his forehead and an anxious and flustered look. He even hurriedly showed the token at the city gate and ran into Loulan City without waiting for his soldiers to check it.

In the Governor's Mansion, Xia Zhi was hurriedly looking for ice. It was already summer, and the temperature here during the day was already so hot that it made people breathless.

...

...

Seeing that the front and back of Pei Xingjian's robe were wet due to his hurried journey, and the robe stuck tightly to his body, he hurriedly greeted him and went to find some ice.

After Pei Xingjian found out where Li Hong lived, he no longer cared about etiquette and hurriedly greeted him and walked towards the courtyard behind.

Hua Meng and Mang Zhong were accompanying Li Hong at this time, and standing in front of him was Dou Yi, a wealthy businessman from Chang'an City, the businessman who had rescued Li Hong and his son in Taiyi City.

"Your Highness, those goods have already been sold, and someone is escorting them until they enter their territory."

When Pei Xingjian arrived, he heard Dou Yi reporting to Li Hong about the resale of goods. Hearing this, he couldn't help but feel heavy in his heart and sighed helplessly.

"Grand Protector..." Pei Xingjian looked at Li Hong who was deliberately ignoring him. He had been standing there for almost a cup of tea, and Li Hong had always treated him as invisible.

But no matter how anxious he was, Li Hong just didn't give him a chance to speak. After discussing business matters with Dou Yi, they started chatting about family matters. The topic was naturally whether Dou Yi had married another concubine.

But no matter how Dou Yi explained that she was his son's concubine, not his own, Li Hong seemed not to hear him and continued to ask gossipy questions. He almost started digging up his ancestors' graves to trace his roots.

"Your Highness the Crown Prince..." Pei Xingjian had no choice but to raise his voice and shout helplessly.

He knew why the Crown Prince had disliked him since the summer began this year, but the imperial edict was difficult to disobey. As a subject, he had to fulfill his duties.

"What are you doing here again?" Li Hong rolled his eyes at him, unwilling to pay attention to him, and asked with an expression of disgust on his face.

"Your Highness, look, this is the emperor's edict, ordering you to set off for Chang'an immediately." Pei Xingjian took out two imperial edicts, one of which he had shown to Li Hong when he came to Loulan a month ago, but His Royal Highness the Crown Prince did not take it seriously and refused to leave.

Today, it still stays in the Western Regions and in the city of Loulan, causing trouble to other city-states outside the Anxi Protectorate, such as the White Arab Caliphate, Tubo, Bolor, Tocharistan and other small countries.

Two days ago, he received the second imperial edict from His Majesty, ordering him to urge His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Li Hong to return to Chang'an immediately. So he had no choice but to brave the scorching heat and hurried to Loulan, gritting his teeth and begging His Royal Highness the Crown Prince to return to Chang'an as soon as possible.

Li Hong looked indifferent, looking at Pei Xingjian, and said lazily: "Are you impatient with my presence in Loulan? I'm not a problem for you, or do you think the four towns of Anxi are now stable, so you want to get rid of me and let me go back quickly?"

"Your Highness, how dare I chase you away? This... this... isn't there an imperial decree from His Majesty? I wish you could stay here." Pei Xingjian had to say something against his will. If it wasn't for His Majesty's decree, he would have planned to submit a memorial to see if he could ask Your Highness to go back.

Pei Xingjian now truly and deeply felt what it meant to be easy to invite a god but difficult to send him away, and he also understood better the depression and helplessness of countries such as the White Arabs and Tubo.

He guarded such an ancestor here and occupied the main road from the Western Regions to the heartland of the Tang Dynasty. All the goods bound for the White Arabs or Tubo were seized by him in Loulan, and he then required the people to pay taxes and bridge tolls.

The level of shamelessness is as high as that of a robber who says: I opened this mountain and planted these trees, and if you want to pass this road, you have to pay for your passage.

No, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has already done so. His subordinate, General Quan Yi of the Left Guard, has been roaming in the desert or in the area between Khotan and Shule during this period, disguised as a robber and specializing in robbing goods from the White Arabs, Tubo and other countries.

What’s most infuriating is that after stealing the goods, they asked people to pay to redeem them. If they didn’t want to redeem them, they could just give them to Dou Yi, and then Dou Yi would find a seller to sell the goods.

Or they would secretly throw the goods at the city gates of Khotan or Shule and donate them to the people in the city for free. As a result, in the past two months, the people of Khotan and Shule have been waiting at the city gates before dawn every day, waiting for the moment the city gates were opened so that they could go outside to pick up the goods.

"Don't pay attention to that imperial edict. If you like imperial edicts, I have a lot more here." After saying that, Li Hong threw eleven imperial edicts in front of Pei Xingjian while he was stunned.

Pei Xingjian was so shocked that his soul almost left his body. He picked up an imperial edict and saw that it was an imperial edict from the emperor ordering him to return to Chang'an.

To sum up the eleven imperial edicts, get back to me right away. You have caused chaos in the Western Regions over the past year!

Impeachment memorials from envoys of various countries fell onto Li Zhi's desk like snowflakes.

Pei Xingjian was holding the eleven imperial edicts in his hands. He was completely dumbfounded this time. He felt that the two imperial edicts were like a knife on his neck, giving him a chilling and life-threatening feeling.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is worthy of being His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. He is so powerful that he actually ignored eleven imperial edicts. I wonder what His Majesty, who is deep in Chang'an City, is thinking at this moment.

"I will deal with him sooner or later. If you don't believe me, just wait and see!" Li Zhi was holding a thick stack of memorials handed over through the Honglu Temple. He didn't need to read them, as they were all impeaching Li Hong.

Wu Mei was flipping through the memorial in her hand, but she kept laughing. It would be great if the Western Regions were not in chaos and confusion now.

The little idiot has been in the Western Regions for a year and a half, almost two years, and has become a complete scourge to the Western Regions.

The reason for this pile of impeachment memorials was simply because Li Hong not only robbed the goods they bought from the Tang Dynasty and sent back to their country, but also robbed the local goods they brought when they came. Fortunately, he left them money so that they could go to Chang'an to buy goods from the Tang Dynasty.

However, all of this was just suspicion from the White Arabs, Tubo and several small countries, because no one had solid evidence to prove that it was the Grand Protector of the Anxi Protectorate who ordered his men to do it.

But all clues point to the Grand Protector of Anxi Protectorate!

Even Tubo and Baiyi Daqin sent envoys to Anxi to negotiate with the Grand Protector of Anxi Protectorate, hoping that the Tang Dynasty could crack down on the bandits in the desert, but each time they were rejected by the Grand Protector on the grounds that they had no money.

If you want to fight the thieves in the desert, that's fine. Each of your families can contribute some money and we can fight the thieves together.

At first, both Tubo and Baiyi Daqin really believed it. Each family gave a lot of silver to the Great Protector of Anxi, and then agreed to gather in Khotan and go into the desert together to fight the thieves.

But when a month passed, only the Tang cavalry came out intact, while all the troops of the White Arabs, Tubo and other foreign countries were wiped out.

The Grand Protector of Anxi was still terrified and sighed, "Fortunately we ran fast, otherwise we would have been killed."

“What’s in the desert?”

"It's such a long and big crocodile that it can swallow a camel in one bite."

“…”

From then on, various countries put the Grand Protector of the Anxi Protectorate of the Tang Dynasty on the blacklist, never had any contact with them again, and even put the name of the Grand Protector together with terms such as shameless.

Wu Mei watched and smiled, as if the young man with a ponytail and riding a skateboard in the palace appeared before her eyes again.

"You can still laugh! He has brought shame to the Tang Dynasty! The great power of the Tang Dynasty and my lifelong reputation will sooner or later be destroyed in the hands of that little idiot! Just wait and see how I will deal with him when he comes back! This time I must let him know how powerful I am!" Li Zhi said with anger in his eyes and gritted teeth.

"Then you can issue an order to let him return to Chang'an."

"I have ordered it."

"How many courses did you take?"

"Well... eleven."

"Are you back yet?"

"……No."

"Well...that's it. The influence of the Anxi Protectorate has never been as important as it is today since the rule of the Tang Dynasty. Now that the four towns of Anxi are in an important period of reconstruction, if you really call him back, who are you going to hand over the four towns of Anxi that he built? If he hadn't provided Pei Xingjian with all the necessary supplies, how could the Ashina branch be suppressed so quickly?" Wu Mei's beautiful and gentle eyes stared at the big tree that was originally planted in front of her palace in Taiji Palace, and later when Daming Palace was completed, it was secretly moved by the little idiot to the gate of Penglai Palace in Daming Palace, and she asked.