Although Li Shimin punished Zhou Shaofan and removed the other party from his post, he did not say the reason why Zhou Shaofan detained Liu Rengui. However, even if Li Shimin didn't say it, Li Xiu could guess something. The party who was wrong with this matter must be Zhou Shaofan, otherwise Li Shimin would not have no explanation and would have directly punished Zhou Shaofan.

Sure enough, after hearing Li Xiu's inquiry, Liu Rengui also showed a bit of anger on his face: "I received an appointment from the court before, and there was also a letter from your son-in-law, saying that I was in charge of minting money, so on the way I came, I went to various places for inspection, and found a lot of problems, especially the problems in the Taiyuan minting money bureau were the most serious!"

"As expected, what's the problem with the money minting bureau in Taiyuan?" Li Xiu nodded first when he heard Liu Rengui's words. He had already expected this.

"Qi Bi Gong, the copper coins cast by my Tang Dynasty are called Kaiyuan Tongbao. The imperial court has long stipulated that it must be copper nine-by-one. Because using pure copper to cast coins in this way, the cost is too high, and the other is that the pure copper is soft, which lead and tin are easy to damage. Therefore, metals such as lead and tin are needed to be added to the copper coins. However, whether it is lead or tin, they must be added according to the regulations of copper nine-by-one. However, according to the investigation of the officials, the copper coins cast in Taiyuan did not follow this ratio!" Liu Rengui reported very seriously. At the end of his speech, his face also showed an angry look.

"Nine coppers are mixed with one, has the people in Taiyuan reduced the proportion of copper without authorization?" Li Xiu immediately understood when he heard this. Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, copper has been used as coins, which has also caused high copper prices. Therefore, some coin minting bureaus have reduced the amount of copper for profit, and the resulting money produced is of poor quality, which is the so-called bad money. However, after the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Kaiyuan Tongbao was changed to mint coins, and there were strict regulations on minting coins, so the quality of Tongbao coins was also guaranteed.

"Yes, according to my investigation, the people from the Taiyuan Money Making Bureau changed the copper nine-phase one to copper eight-phase two without authorization. The one-point copper saved was greedy by the Hedong Jiedushi Zhou Shaofan and became private money. After I learned the news, I was very angry and immediately wanted to set off to respond to his book, but I didn't expect that the news would be revealed inadvertently, and the result was detained in Taiyuan and could not escape!" Liu Rengui spoke again at this time, and when he talked about Zhou Shaofan, his face became even more annoyed.

"Zhou Shaofan is corrupt and abused the law. Your Majesty has issued an order to remove him from the position of Hedong Jiedushi and ordered him to return to Chang'an to reflect. It can be regarded as venting his anger for Zhengze!" Although Li Xiu was also very annoyed, he thought that Zhou Shaofan had been dismissed and said with a smile.

"Has Zhou Shaofan been dismissed?" Liu Rengui couldn't help but show an ecstatic expression when he heard the news. Although Li Shimin had issued an order, the news had not been spread yet. Many powerful people in Chang'an didn't know about this, let alone Liu Rengui who had just rushed back to Chang'an.

"Yes, Zhou Shaofan not only corruption and abuse of power, but also detained the imperial officials without authorization. These two items alone are enough for him. I guess he will not have the chance to be assigned to an official in the future!" Li Xiu explained with a smile. In fact, he didn't care about punishing Zhou Shaofan and Li Xiu. His real purpose was to let Li Shimin limit the power of the governor, but Li Shimin has not made up this decision yet, so it is probably not the time.

"That's great. Thank you for being fair to the prince!" Although Liu Rengui was a square man, he was not stupid. He immediately knew that it must be Li Xiu's support for him. This made His Majesty dismiss the post of a rank-level official like Zhou Shaofan. Otherwise, it would be difficult for him to move Zhou Shaofan down with just a small sixth-rank official.

"Actually, you are too polite. You are my subordinate now, so I naturally cannot let you suffer grievances. What's more, Zhou Shaofan is corrupt and abused, and we also have the word "reason". Of course, the most important thing is that Your Majesty reports to the Duke to deal with it, so that he can take down a huge corrupt like Zhou Shaofan!" Li Xiu did not take the credit, but pushed it to Li Shimin. As for the facts, there is no need to tell Liu Rengui.

Hearing Li Xiu's last words, Liu Rengui hurriedly praised His Majesty for his wisdom. Then the two of them chatted while eating. At the beginning, they did not talk about official duties, but Li Xiu was very interested in Liu Rengui's official career in another place, and Liu Rengui also answered one by one.

Liu Rengui was an official in Hebei, which was the ancient land of Yan. Li Xiu's title of Duke of Yan was considered destiny. Li Xiu was most concerned about Goguryeo in the northeast. After all, the Hebei area was originally close to Goguryeo, especially Cangzhou where Liu Rengui later worked, which was across the sea from Goguryeo.

According to Liu Rengui, when the Tang Dynasty was newly established, Goguryeo was still very arrogant and would raise troops to plunder from time to time. Because Goguryeo was half farming and half hunting, every winter, there would be insufficient food. So before winter came, the people of Goguryeo would go south to grab grain. For this reason, not only were there heavy troops stationed in Hebei, but there were also strong folk customs, and militias could be seen everywhere. If a small group of Goguryeo army came in from the gaps of the Tang army, these militias would have to rely on these militias to kill the enemy.

However, as the Tang Dynasty became increasingly powerful, Goguryeo did not dare to go south as blatantly as before. Especially in the past few years, some problems seemed to have occurred within Goguryeo, and it was even defeated by the coalition forces of Silla and Baekje. Therefore, Goguryeo's strength in recent years has also declined greatly, and before, he even took the initiative to send envoys to pay tribute to the Tang Dynasty.

"About the principle, from your perspective, is Goguryeo sincerely obeying our Tang Dynasty?" Li Xiu was silent for a moment after listening to Liu Rengui's story, and then asked again.

"Absolutely not. Goguryeo's wolf ambitions are just declining now, and Silla and Baekje are competing to get along with our Tang Dynasty, which makes Goguryeo in danger of being attacked from both sides. The Goguryeo people are not fools, so they naturally dare not offend our Tang Dynasty. But if their strength recovers in the future, they will definitely rebel against our Tang Dynasty again!" Liu Rengui said almost without hesitation.

"It's right. It seems that we are heroes who have similar opinions!" Li Xiu couldn't help laughing when he heard this. He also thought that Goguryeo was just showing weakness for the time being. In addition, not only him, but Li Shimin must have the same idea. Therefore, in the original history, Li Shimin sent troops to attack Goguryeo twice despite the opposition of everyone. However, although many Goguryeo territory were laid and a large number of Goguryeo's army were destroyed, they failed to completely destroy Goguryeo, which only laid the foundation for Li Zhi's destruction of Goguryeo later.
Chapter completed!