Chapter 112:

Chapter 112:

After he has shared his idea, Li Yuanying ran back to school and returned to his usual studious nature and led his friends to annoy the teachers every day. Lately, he has 1 more thing on his plate – to plan a travel route to the Tibetan Empire, give each location a story, and to connect it into a complete and inspiring tale to attract people to travel.

The boy is great at making up stories, but to make it believable, a story must be based on reality. Yuanying collected information and sorted out the story line. Occasionally, he would write letters to ask Prince Jiangxia and the others to ask about specific details.

After a month, he compiled the story of <<Wencheng’s marriage>>. He first compared the various examples of Han princesses marriage to highlight the difficulties of being married and then focused on describing Wencheng’s intelligence and the generosity of Tang.

The section that talks about Tibet’s culture and customs were realistic in pictures and texts as they were brought back by the group of traders who visited in person. The clothing of the Tibet people were simple mostly made of fur – practical but lacks in ornamental value in contrast to the clothing worn in Tang which were more exquisite. The Tibetan people also do not have a habit of cooking extensively, often eating simply without exquisite tableware. The most important of all is the fact that they lack advance medical knowledge and most still believe in ethereal witchcraft. If you get injured, you either live through it or go to a wizard for help.

The doctors, craftsmen and artisan following Wencheng made a difference.

Tibetan Empire also had things that were impressive and interesting. Ferocious beasts like yaks and horses, unlimited fields of green pastures, snowy mountains that do not melt. Playing is Li Yuanying’s forte so he picked out things that he wanted to try and brag about them. His concluding statement was: If you do not visit Tibet, you are not worthy of being a Tang citizen. If you do not ride the horses in Tibet, you are not manly.

By the time he finished writing and drawing it was already early June. He quickly passed the manuscript to Li Chungfeng to get it printed urgently. He will then give some to his relatives and then sell the remaining to earn travelling funds.

After he is done working hard on his interest and before he had time to go play wildly, he caught sight of an interesting article from Mei Niang.

The author of this piece is a foreign scholar named Zhang Jianzhi, 17 from Xiang Prefecture. He was visiting Chang’an and was enticed so deeply by the library that he queue daily to enter it and finished reading all the monthly updates that was available.

After reading everything, he wanted more and so he started writing. He has long thought about what to write and so wrote quickly and smoothly. He proofread his work and then submitted it to the committee.

Although Mei Niang is now living in the Academy, she still gets updated about the library. When she saw Zhang Jianzhi’s article she was impressed and handed it over to Li Yuanying.

The article was about “blessed hands” and “blessed feet”.

At the end of the Sui Dynasty, Emperor Yang repeatedly conquered Goryeo and embarked on many high cost major projects. This led to heavy taxes and made the life of the common people difficult. In order to evade taxes, many would mutilated their own limbs to get away from paying taxes!

Li Yuanying had never heard of this before. Just because the citizens couldn’t bear the heavy taxes, they would rather mutilate their limbs and then calls them “blessed hands” and “blessed feet”. How terrible is the government?

What’s even more frightening is that this trend that emerged in the late Sui Dynasty is still prevalent during the founding years of the Tang Dynasty. For example, there were still people doing this in Zhang’s hometown.

Zhang Jianzhi came from a poor family but was smart. He received many recommendations and so had the opportunity to study in Chang’an.

As the young man left home, he wanted to make a name for himself. This article was the pebble he is throwing to test water.

Now it seems that this pebble was thrown well. At least Li Yuanying thinks that the article was well written, organized and thought-provoking.

“I’ve never thought that such things can happen.”

Kong Yingda agreed. Although he was in charged of education but the Emperor highly valued good governance. Since this piece is so well written, the likelihood of it being fake isn’t very high. We should share it with his Majesty.

Getting rid of Li Yuanying, Kong Yingda got ready to enter the palace.

The Emperor was surprised with this sudden visit, it’s mid day and Minister Kong shouldn’t have anything to update him. He invited him in nonetheless as requested.

He passed the newsletter to the Emperor for his reading.

Li Er is aware that the library collects news and from time to time they do get good articles. But these newsletters are not an official source of news as they are written freely by the educated class. The quality of it varies from month to month and although he gets a copy every month, he doesn’t consistently read them all.

But since Kong Yingda came with it, the Emperor read through it carefully. As he finished, he sighed. “I’m not doing the best that I can and that’s why my citizens suffer.”

Of course Kong Yingda cannot agree with that statement. He praised the Emperor and then share his students’ viewpoint to his Majesty. He agrees with their thought that this practice should be banned.

Li Er agreed. He saw the author’s name on the article and made a small impression of this young fella.

“This boy writes well, you teach him well in the Academy.”

Kong Yingda promised to do so and intentionally added. “Prince Teng is already impatiently wanting to make friends with him and bring him around playing.”

“That brat is like that, he wants to be friends with everyone.” Bringing up his brother, the Emperor felt a sense of pride. “But luckily he has good taste, all his friends are decent and there hasn’t been any bad apples in his group.”

What can Kong Yingda say to that statement? He can only agree with it that Prince Teng has good taste in making friends and all of them are talented.

The Emperor was satisfied so he ask for Wei Zheng and his men to discuss on this issue of “blessed hands and feet”. The Crown Prince was invited too.

The group all agreed that a law should be put in place to ban this brutal practice. The Emperor then subtly sang praise of his younger brother. This piece of information came from the library and who doesn’t that place belong to? His younger brother! Who also shared this article to Kong Yingda? His younger brother! The things they are now discussing, his younger brother also discussed with his friends, the people around his younger brother are so talented!

The little demon king is now sparkling in goodness, it is not enough to only praise him to Kong Yingda. He must praise him publicly and get the Crown Prince to listen too so that he learns from it!

Everyone was silent listening to the Emperor’s speech.

Zhangsun Wuji silently thought, yup! Your younger brother has such an eye in spotting talents that he even stole your Lady of talent. Continue spoiling him and one day he will have his nose high up towards the sky!

Notes from the author:

His Majesty Li Er: Talk bad of his brother in front, Talk good of his brother at the back.

Little Prince: Shitty brother (pointing and scolding)