wordpress displaying the post in a specific categories

[Hagelaria]

I have this php code below for displaying the post from the specific categories.\[code\]<ul id="sliderx"><?php query_posts('category_name=slideshow&showposts=10');while (have_posts()) : the_post();echo "<li>".the_content()."</li>";endwhile;?></ul>\[/code\]as you can see, it display those post in the category slideshow and the structure of that should be this.\[code\]<ul id="sliderx"><li>the post 1</li><li>the post 2</li><li>the post 3</li></ul>\[/code\]but the output that is generated is this.\[code\]<ul id="sliderx"><p>three</p><li></li><p>two</p><li></li><p>one</p><li></li></ul>\[/code\]and the generated structure should not look like that and it looks nasty at all, so im having a problem on this on how to display it properly like to display into this structure.\[code\]<ul id="sliderx"><li>the post 1</li><li>the post 2</li><li>the post 3</li></ul>\[/code\]So Im wondering if there's someone who could tell me how to fix this.Im open into any suggestions, recommendations and suggestions. Thank you.