Living leisurely in Tang Dynasty

Chapter 102

Of course, such a thing will never be allowed to happen. As soon as the Emperor mentioned it, Wei Zheng fought back hard. He followed the Emperor around nagging him: while you love your precious son and want him to live nearby, this puts him in a dangerous position. This Wude palace is situated West from the East Palace and was previously the residential home for your brother Prince HaiLing which we also found unsuitable. Things now are different; can you keep everyone’s mouth shut over this? Can you confirm that your other sons won’t have an opinion over this?

Prince Hai Ling was the forth prince Li YuanJi and was a candidate who fought over the throne. In the end he was slayed along with the  Crown Prince Li JianCheng during the XuanWu gate incident by the current Emperor.

This discussion brought the XuanWu gate incident to the forefront.

This is a topic that many will never dare bring up and only Wei Zheng would do such a thing to stop the Emperor’s action.

Naturally Li Er wouldn’t feel good hearing about this incident but Wei Zheng cannot and will not have second thoughts about bringing it up. He must speak of it and stop the Emperor from sparking anything.

The current peaceful days are built on sweat, blood and tears. Therefore, the ministers cannot keep quiet and watch brothers slay each other and father and son fight each other again.

Li Yuanying heard about this story in full and motioned for his men to leave. He sat alone looking at the candle flame dancing within the lamp.

This incident might have already passed but those who had lived through it will not be at peace- Chenqian, Forth Brother, Civil servants or generals; everyone would have their own thoughts about it.

Yuanying got lazy after thinking for a bit and decided to sleep. Since the next day is a holiday, Yuanying went to the East palace to bring Li Xiang along to meet with Xiao Deyan as he wanted to know if the teacher is okay with teaching at the East Palace.

Who wouldn’t love such a caring child? Xiao Deyan smiled and replied that all is good and then asked the young prince how he was doing at the Academy.

Yuanying spoke a ton when the teacher brought up the Academy. He praises all his teachers one after another. Last time when he had class inside the palace, every lesson was identical and the topic dry and boring. But at the Academy, there is much freedom to speak about many things from law to mathematics, so much fun.

He also told the old teacher about his thoughts: “My classmates are also great. Do you know that Minister Tang’s son sleeps next to me and his name is Tang Guan? At first I found him really fierce but I later realized that he’s a good person with a warm heart. No wonder Confucius always mentioned to not judge a book by its cover, you really need to go deeper than the surface!”

Li Xiang sat obediently at their sides, and he asked curiously: “What does it mean by not to judge a book by its cover?”

The child had just started learning and had not learn about idioms yet.

Besides chit chatting with Xiao Deyan, Yuanying also took the effort to take care of his young grandnephew. Some statements that he has utter tonight is actually directed at the toddler. Seeing that the child is now curious, Yuanying share a story behind this idiom with him: In the past Confucius accepted many disciples, among them is a man called Zai Yu who is good with words and uses them to make others happy. There was another disciple called Zi Yi who looked rugged, speak very little and didn’t know how to buy people’s heart with words.

Yuanying asked Li Xiang: “When I put it this way, which person do you prefer?”

“I prefer Zai Yu!” (Li Xiang)

“In the beginning, Confucius picked the same as you. However, upon knowing both better, he realized that Zai Yu had ulterior motives and only schemes about how to do less work daily. When others were studying, he hides away to sleep and had no intention of studying hard. On the other hand, Zi Yi doesn’t speak except when necessary, but he has the right attitude and values. Afterward he opened a school and passed on his knowledge to others. One time Zi Yi planned to travel and 300 of his students were willing to follow him!

Yuanying then asked Li Xiang again: “Now, which gentleman do you prefer?”

Li Xiang struggled slightly before changing his mind: “I prefer Zi Yi!”

“Confucius thought similarly, therefore he said, “to judge based on words, you overlook Zai Yu, to judge based on looks, you overlook Zi Yi”. This means that we shouldn’t judge others based on 1 point only, you tend to be bias if you only look at words or looks alone.”

Li Xiang nodded his head indicated that he now understands.

“Everyone can comprehend such statement but not everyone is able to put it into practice.” Yuanying then looked towards Xiao Deyan. Seeing that the teacher did not have objections to his sharing he continued: “I studied <<LunHeng>> last year and in this book it mentions about Zai Yu too. It says that Confucius then came up with another saying for him due to his laziness “Rotten wood cannot be carved, wall that is made of dung and mud cannot be plastered over!”. This statement is quite bias for “rotten wood & wall of dung and mud” are useless things beyond repair, a big mistake but sleeping during the day is just a small error. If you’re really a benevolent teacher, how can you use such evil words to criticize a student who had only made a small mistake? “

Li Xiang had never once imagined a angry Confucius scolding someone so his eyes were wide open.

Yuanying then continued: “You think about it, If a senior you really respected calls you a piece of useless wood or dung mud wall, wouldn’t you feel awful too?”

The toddler grew up surrounded with praises and even if for 1 day he doesn’t get affirmation he would feel bad. If he were to get pointed at in the face and called a “useless wood” or “dung mud wall” he would definitely burst into tears over it.

Li Xiang nodded: “Yes, I feel bad.”

“Hence you need to take the initiative to view things or a person thoroughly. Do not depend on hearsay but listen to multiple opinions and review multiple strategies that is shared with you. When you hear much and see much you would be able to make better decisions based on your experiences.”

Li Xiang noted down granduncle’s advice seriously

After his speech, Yuanying looked towards to old teacher to seek his opinion on whether he got things right

Xiao Deyan smiled: “Your Highness is correct, this relates to the idiom “If you listen to both, you will be clear, if you believe partly, you will be left in the dark.”

Yuanying was happy and shared more queries to the teacher seeking his guidance. The old teacher explained everything with much patience. In the end, not only did Yuanying benefite but the young toddler learned much too.

After this meet up, Yuanying moved on to play with Sizi and the rest. Now that Yuanying has grew much taller, he is able to now join Gao Yang and the older children in a polo match on the field! The other children were all taking a break so Yuanying dragged along his friends for a game. The weather was still rather cold, but the group of royal children were sweating much.

Nonetheless things have been rather quiet in the palace. Many princes were reaching the age of 13 and had to be send away to their own land. Meanwhile the most troublesome one (Li Yuanying) was already shipped away to the Imperial Academy. How can the palace not be quiet? With him back, the whole palace sounded noisy and lively again, you would be able to hear children’s laughter and playing from a mile away.

Li Er visited his younger brother once at the Academy. Lately he has been targeting by Wei Zheng due to Li Tai and since then the Emperor had been in a bad mood. Hearing that his younger brother is playing polo, he went to watch them from a distance.

He saw Sizi and the girls clenching their small fists in support of Li Yuanying and Gao Yang while they were playing happily on the field, the Emperor suddenly thought about his eldest and fourth son.

Chengqian is his eldest and he loves him very much. But Chengqian must be the Crown Prince first, before being his son. To be a qualified heir, Chengqian needs be be dealt with strictly.  Qinqque on the other hand is cute and smart since young and has no throne to inherit, so what if he favors him a little more? Wei Zheng is taking this matter too seriously, things are different from the past. Whether it is Chengqian or Qingque, they both do not have military power, so how can there be another coup?

In His Majesty’s heart, he believes that his sons would never have such thoughts.

But seeing Li Yuanying playing happily with the group of radish heads, Li Er tied recalling but he can’t remember if his two older sons had played together like this before. When they were both eight or nine,Li Er took the throne and were so busy that he hardly had time to see them. In a blink of an eye, Cheng Qian is now 23.

What was he doing when he was 23?

HE was leading his troops to cross the Yellow River to regain territory on the east of the river.

He defeated Song Jingang, and won a fierce general Yuchi Jingde.

At the age of twenty-three or four, a person can achieve many things.

Li Er stood outside the field and watched but didn’t go over. He came and left quietly without disturbing anyone.

Yuanying didn’t realize that Li Er had come. He had fun and then went out to pay a visit to Sun Simiao.

Sun Simiao was treating someone who was a bit strange. He had a ring of wool-like thin white hair on his waist and hips. Not only was the hair long, but it hurts too. His neighbors thought this disease was strange, so they introduced him to Sun Simiao for treatment. Since the doctor was busy “removing hair”, Li Yuanying didn’t bother him. To hear all about this strange sickness from the doctor’s apprentice made him curios.

“Doctor Sun always encounters strange diseases!” 

Yuanying came by coincidence and Sun Simiao quickly cured the patient with white hair.

He went up to ask if the patient was cured and Sun Simiao shared about the symptoms and treatment methods to him. I took out the lesion and prescribed medication for recuperation. It should be cured in a few days. Yuanying hadn’t visited in a long time but he did take time to read about a few medical books at the Academy. He then took the opportunity to ask questions.

After that, he said regretfully: “I really hope you teach at the Academy, Teacher Sun. Then I can ask you questions anytime!”

“The Imperial Academy focuses on principles for governing a country and self-cultivation, why would people want to learn about  medicine?”

“If a person is sick, he can’t govern the country or cultivate anything, so studying medicine is important!”

He then told Sun Simiao what he had heard last night: “Let me tell you, isn’t Xiangcheng Palace used to raise elephants now? I’ve instructed people to make changes the surrounding area and this needed a lot of big stones, so we went to the mountains to dig for stones. As a result, they dug up big bones in the mountains that looked bigger than an elephant! I don’t know what it is. It’s such a big skeleton that I can’t deliver it into the city. Dong Xiaoyi is arranging for it to be transported to sunflower garden. Would you like to go and have a look? Maybe, that bone can be used as medicine?”

Li Yuanying came up with this idea after studying medicine with Sun Simiao. This is because he discovered that all kinds of metal, stone and plants can be used as medicine, the difference is the dosage. Of course different bones have different uses! Even if unknown bones were dug up in the mountains and ground into powder, they could still be used as medicine and would fetch an expensive price!

Sun Simiao became interested when he heard it was bigger than an elephant. Seeing that it was still early, he left with the prince to the sunflower garden to take a look at the bones.

The bones were embedded deep into a rock and was hard to remove so Dong Xiaoyi brought both back. The children from the surrounding villages were curious about this big rock and often ran over to look at it. Li Yuanying was also curious to know if what Dong Xiaoyi said was true, so he led Sun Simiao to observe it with great interest.

The  old doctor was still agile depite his age and had no issue keeping up with the lively little prince. Reaching their destination, the stone was really huge and the bones embedded inside were strange looking. Sun Simiao was immediately attracted. He had practiced medicine for many years and had a deep understanding of bones, he immediately recognized that these bones should be a vertebrae.

The odd thing is that one bone of this thing is 3-4 feet long. Sun Simiao struggled in his heart, this pile only had a few bones but if all of it were aligned properly, this animal is as high as several floors! Even Sun Simiao, who was well-informed was stumped and couldn’t recognize this skeleton.

Could it be that there really are dragons in the sky?

Sun Simiao could only stroke his beard and sigh: “It’s amazing, it’s amazing!”

Li Yuanying asked Sun Simiao if he knew what it was.

Sun Simiao shook his head: “I can only say that it is the vertebrae.”

He gestured to Li Yuanying to look at the bones, this should be a cervical spine.

Li Yuanying asked enthusiastically: “Can that be used as medicine?”

Sun Simiao touched it with his hands and found that the vertebrae had long been integrated into the rock. It’ll be hard to get it out, such a skeleton is no longer a bone but a fossil!

Sun Simiao disagrees with Li Yuanying’s idea: “If you don’t know the nature of the medicine, how can you use it as medicine?”

Hearing that it could not be used as medicine, Yuanying felt that the bones were big but useless. Such a waste to ve so big! If it was alive, this big guy can pass as eye candy but what’s so good about a few bones? What a waste of effort in bringing them back!

Li Yuanying was about to tell Dong Xiaoyi to throw it back into the mountain but his system suddenly reminded him after a long absence: “Dinosaur vertebra was found. Should we scan it into the Myriad  Realm Library?”

Notes from the author:

Little Prince:?

Little Prince: What are dinosaurs?