Living leisurely in Tang Dynasty

Chapter 142

Fang Xuanling only found out about Li Yuanying’s visit after returning to work. He has met much hardship both at home and out of home over Fang Jun and Gao Yang’s engagement and he is exhausted both physically and mentally.

Fang Xuanling is also not someone who  makes firm decisions easily. Now that Li Yuanying had conveyed His Majesty’s wishes coupled with his wife constant pestering, he finally agreed to write a letter expressing his guilt and to call off the engagement.

Things went  smoothly after that, all in accordance to Yuanying’s plans with no hiccups. It’s just that Fang Xuanling looks a little down ever since the fiasco was over. It’s easy to raise a kid but hard to teach him well. Fang Jun made such drama and made him lose “face” as a father. Behind his back, perhaps many were gossiping about him!

Although his other daughter became a princess after marrying Prince Li Yuanjia of Han and his eldest son is favoured by the Crown Prince; his second son is far lacking – neither good in books or martial arts. If he was able to honor his Lord, then maybe his children would all be guaranteed a life of glory and splendor. But with such drama, how will he get ahead in the future? If he has no future, whowill be willing to marry into the Fang family? If he marries someone from a low rank, he will never be able to hold his head high in the future!

Fang Xuanling was so furious that his liver ached but this son would cry like a wolf and howl like he sees ghost if he was reprimanded and would run towards mother. He is no longer young but is spoilt rotten by his mother! Fang Xuanling had no choice. His Majesty  is already taking a step back by proclaiming that Princess Gao Yang is no longer suitable for marriage and for both families to cancel the engagement.

Fang Xuanling is pale with worry but Li Yuanying was happy. Since Gao Yang is to be a female taoist priest, she needs a proper venue to do so. Li Yuanying asked for such a place nearby the palace from the Emperor and told Li Chunfeng to help clean up and make it Gao Yang’s new cultivation location.

The place is not big but there’s a high building that is reachable from climbing the palace wall to see the beautiful scenery outside.

According to Li Chunfeng, this place is actually used for stargazing. Since Li Chunfeng is a Taoist priest, it is appropriate that he set up this place. Yuanying had no worries and took his friends to celebrate Gao Yang’s return to single-hood!

Gao Yang too was happy. She brought out her fruit wine and drank to her heart’s content with her  friends and pushed them up to the star observation tower. They did not look at the stars, but were identifying places that could be seen from the tower. Although a curfew was in place, Chang’an City was still brightly lit at night. Some places they have visited and some they have not but it doesn’t stop them from discussing happily.

Yuanying and his friends ran down from the Observation Tower with cheerful footsteps. When Yuanying looked up, he saw His Majesty standing in the moonlight looking at them. God knows how long he’s been here.

Yuanying suddenly stopped and the people behind him didn’t have enough time to brake and all bumped into his back. Yuanying turned around and shouted: “Stop, stop, stop, we’re going to fall if you bump into me again!” He took the bunch of small radish heads to say hello to His Majesty and invited him to barbecue with them.

Li Er glanced at Gao Yang: “Aren’t you a monk? Don’t you have to follow rules?”

Li Yuanying replied on behalf: “Of course not. Master Sun and the others drink wine and eat meat too. It is natural for people to eat these. I’ve read many books and neither Laozi nor Zhuangzi care about these trivial matters. The Gods in heaven wouldn’t care about such things, don’t we offer meat and wine as offerings to them? There is no reason why the gods can eat but not his disciples.”

Yuanying thinks he made sense and continued: the livestock raised are originally raised for food. If the owner don’t eat them, who else would dare to. When livestock become old, you waste resources, so you have to take advantage of them while they are young and tender. That’s also the rule of the jungle, those that are slow or can’t hide well are hunted while the fast and alert ones have a chance of survival.

Therefore, whether a livestock is domestically raised or wild, eating meat is a sign of mercy and kindness!

Li Er thinks it’s utter nonsense but he did not leave immediately. He sat with his daughters around the barbecue pit and even ate food that Sizi offered him. It wasn’t until the charcoal fire gradually disappeared that His Majesty ordered his men to escort this bunch of youth back to their homes and to stop making noise.  

After solving Gao Yang’s problems, Yuanying quickly got busy again. They were to write their internship reports and to summarize their experience at Hu County.

For a wealthy county like Hu that is mature and developed, there weren’t many changes they could do. Yuanying asked Wu Mei to summarize two aspects –

One. They recorded down their experiences into books by volume which makes it more convenient that reading scrolls.

During Han Dynasty, when various places were engaged in planning, they had to use carts to deliver  books. Yuanying recruited people in the county who were educated and got them to reorganize the household and land registration. He told them to arrange the documents using templates he created for better efficiency. He locked up all the complicated and vague records as scraps and once the Ministry of Finance approves his reports, he will discard the scraps to people who can’t afford paper to practice writing!

As for how the template came about, it is naturally done with the help of the system. The system is really good at recording and could easily sort out data by just scanning and then instantly pinpoint the problematic areas to Li Yuanying.

Yuanying compared the results with the last review report prepared by the Ministry of Revenue and found that the data matches. The system even identified problems that the ministry couldn’t! Yuanying calmly picked out several records and entered them and now he has a working templates!

This futuristic recording method is indeed clear and efficient.

Yuanying returned with several templates and examples and prepared to turn them in along with his internship report.

Another aspect of the internship report is about Li Yuanying’s unconstrained development methods. There are relatively few who can copy these methods, mainly because ordinary people do not have the financial resources and charisma of Li Yuanying! But both Wu Mei and Di Renjie firmly believe that these needs to be recorded. If not, who would know the hard work that they have done?! If we do something, we must make it known.

Otherwise, the general public might think that Prince Teng made citizens to pay for the palace renovations. But the reality is that Li Yuanying has no problem paying for it himself as he makes much money from the watermelon business. Actually, Li Yuanying is the one who pays the most and suffers the most losses!

Is it too much to ask for people to show some sincerity before he helps them to make more money? No, not at all!

The group of six divided the work and quickly finished the internship report with references and supporting evidence. Li Yuanying returned to the Imperial College with a thick stack of manuscripts, and presented it to Kong Yingda.

Kong Yingda is someone who worked on literary research and education all his life, he is not very proficient in governing affairs. However, after reading several volumes his eyes brightened!

In the report it is mentioned that Li Yuanying had ordered his templates to be engraved so that future copies can be quickly printed and bound into volumes at a very low cost. These sample booklets are created with clarity and even layman can use it and identify problems with it!

This is good stuff!

Kong Yingda has also read Li Yuanying previous 2 books and only thought that they were convenient to flip through and that was all. Not very special and even took sometime to get used to.

Looking at the orderly records this time, Kong Yingda suddenly realized the benefits of this book: if all household and land registration and accounts were recorded like this, it will be hard for the project team to fool the County officials.

Kong Yingda then read the parts written by Wu Mei and Di Renjie which is mainly about what Prince Teng had done in Hu County. It listed down the things Li Yuanying did and the praises he received such as being down to earth and loving his citizens and assimilating with them. They were not shy in painting all his generosity and selflessness!

Kong Yingda’s face twitched.

Did Li Yuanying write these himself? or did he asked someone to write praises to blow his own trumpet?

Kong Yingda pinched his nose and read on. He wanted to return the report and make Li Yuanying remove the 2^nd half but when he thought carefully, everything written is not a lie. People think that Prince Teng is fooling around but the little devil seems to be doing better than many.

In the very least not many is willing to travel from village to village to meet the town people and speak with them in person.

Ever since Li Yuanying took over Hu County, he built a restaurant, a library, sent in two groups of breeding and planting experts for agriculture exploration in an attempt to develop the land and to provide for the people.

After these are implemented, if the people don’t love him, then they are selfish white-eyed wolves!

Kong Yingda realized that the boy has potential to be a good official! But it’s amazing how Li Yuanying always manage to make people think he is incompetent even though he does things that deserve praises!  

Kong Yingda pondered over the thick internship report and finally decided to submit it to Fang Xuanling. Fang Xuanling is in charge of internal affairs and he has been in a bit of trouble lately. Kong Yingda thinks that Fang Xuanling should keep himself occupied so that he can stop thinking about his son who is now a laughingstock!

Fang Xuanling quickly saw the “internship report” and knew it was a new invention from Li Yuanying.

Just thinking about Li Yuanying makes Fang Xuanling uncomfortable. After reading, he felt even more uncomfortable: Both boys were brats with horrible reputation but why did Li Yuanying suddenly became enlightened and made such rapid progress? Why is he improving but not his son?!

Not being happy is one thing but Fang Xuanling is a professional so he studied the book written by Li Yuanying for a long time. After reading it carefully, he went looking for the Emperor.

Li Er is in a good mood. The main reason being watermelons growing in his greenhouse, sent by Li Yuanying so that the Emperor can eat as much as he wants. Seeing Fang Xuanling, His Majesty invited him to talk as usual and did not treat him coldly despite the failed marriage engagement.

Fang Xualing felt even worse when he saw the Emperor’s graceful attitude. This drama arose from his inability to control his son! Fortunately he is here this time for work.

Notes from the Author:

Little Prince: Yes! I am brilliant like that!