The world of film and television starts from the flow of money

Yi Huwei personally set the tone: "Investigate things and apply them to practical use." The Tiangong Academy was not only a hall of fame for top craftsmen, but also attracted a large number of scholars interested in the principles of nature. It made great progress in fields such as mathematics, astronomy, calendar systems, geography, medicine, and agriculture.

Improved papermaking and woodblock printing techniques significantly reduced book costs and accelerated the dissemination of knowledge. The compass was applied to navigation, and although gunpowder was not widely militarized, its applications in mining were recognized. Various "ingenious skills and ingenious crafts," as long as they proved to have practical value, could be appreciated and even rewarded, leading to a new social atmosphere.

Nearly two decades of overall peace, production development, and improved healthcare (the Affordable Pharmacy system provides basic medical services) have led to an explosive population growth.

At the beginning of its establishment, the empire's population was around fifty million (after recovering from war). By the twentieth year of its rule, after several censuses, the registered population had exceeded three hundred million and was still rapidly increasing by millions each year. This huge population was both a pressure and provided an endless labor force and market, supporting a massive standing army and bureaucratic system.

The cities expanded rapidly, with both Luoyang, the capital, and Chang'an, the western capital, boasting populations exceeding one million, becoming undisputed world-class megacities. The urban class grew, cultural life flourished, and entertainment industries such as opera, storytelling, and acrobatics thrived. Although land consolidation was beginning to emerge with economic development, the equal-field system, the vibrant industry and commerce, and the policy of continuous migration to the frontiers (the court encouraged people to cultivate land in Liaodong, the Hetao region, and the Western Regions, offering land and tax breaks) largely alleviated internal population pressure.

By the time the Hua Empire had established its rule for twenty years, it had entered its first golden age. It was a super empire with an unprecedentedly vast territory, efficient centralized power, a vibrant economy, a confident and open culture, steady technological progress, and an incredibly large population.

With his prophetic abilities and iron fist as a time traveler, Yi Huawei successfully elevated a classical empire to near the limits of its natural conditions and social structure. The empire's bureaucratic machine operated smoothly under a meticulously designed system, and tributes and commercial taxes from all directions flowed into the central government like blood, supporting massive expenditures and construction.

Of course, even in times of prosperity, there are hidden worries. A massive bureaucratic system inevitably breeds corruption and bureaucratic inertia. Despite the enormous power of the Control Yuan, the cat-and-mouse game has never stopped.

The cost of governing the frontier regions was high, and occasional friction occurred during the process of ethnic integration. The pressure that the population explosion placed on resources and the environment began to emerge. After the borders stabilized, the relationship between the empire and its western neighbor, Sassanid Persia, gradually became more complex due to competition for trade routes and subtle overlaps in spheres of influence.

In any case, at this juncture of twenty years since the establishment of the dynasty, the Chinese Empire is like a blazing sun at midday, its light shining on everything, where all things flourish and the world is full of wonders.

...............

In the spring of the twenty-first year of the reign of Emperor Dingding.

Lingnan Road, southwest of Yongzhou (now Nanning), on the banks of the Zuojiang River.

Spring comes early to Lingnan, but it doesn't always mean sunshine. It's March, and the incessant rain has lasted for half a month, soaking this river valley basin surrounded by mountains into a vast, damp blanket of moss. The air is so thick you could wring water out of it, mixed with decaying leaves, silt, miasma, and a lingering sense of decay.

In the distance, the bluish-gray stone peaks characteristic of karst landforms appear and disappear in the rain and mist, like the back of a silent behemoth, coldly overlooking this forgotten corner.

There is no exact place name here. Official documents refer to it as "Siguoli". The local Li Liao (ancestors of the Zhuang people) call it "Guikudong" because a special group of "noble prisoners from the north" lived there. It does not mean that there are actually ghosts crying, but rather that these outsiders always have a sad face and sob softly like ghosts.

A cluster of low, haphazard houses, clearly lacking any unified planning, spread out along a turbid tributary of the Zuojiang River. The houses were mostly built with local materials, using bamboo and wood as frames, plastered with yellow mud, and covered with thick thatch or scavenged broken ceramic tiles, barely providing shelter from the wind and rain.

Many houses had dark water stains on their walls from days of rain, and their thatched roofs drooped, dripping water. Between the houses were muddy dirt roads, rutted and cratered by countless muddy feet, filled with puddles of murky water that reflected the leaden sky.

This place is the place of exile for the Li family, the descendants of the former Tang imperial family and its core clan members, as well as some loyal ministers. Since the fall of the Tang Dynasty in the first year of its establishment, they have been relocated here in batches for a full twenty-one years.

Morning, the first quarter of the hour of Mao (5-7 AM).

The sky remained gloomy, the rain having subsided slightly, turning into a bothersome drizzle. The damp, cold air, like invisible icy needles, pierced through the thin linen clothing, penetrating to the bone. At the eastern end of the settlement, a relatively "neat" bamboo and wooden house emitted a dim, yellowish light from an oil lamp.

The interior was sparsely furnished. There was a rough wooden table, a few creaky bamboo stools, a simple earthen stove, and some farm tools and firewood piled in the corner. Several faded, patched clothes hung on the wall. The air was filled with the smells of mildew, herbs, and the distinctive decay of an old man.

Li Yuan, the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty who once ruled the world, now huddled on an old bamboo couch covered with dry grass, a thin, stiff, faded old cotton quilt covering him. His hair and beard were completely white, sparse and disheveled, like withered grass in late autumn clinging to his deeply wrinkled face. His once sharp and piercing eyes were now cloudy and sunken, often staring blankly at the leaky roof or the geckos crawling in the corner of the wall.

He looked older than his actual age, his back was severely hunched, and his thin, bony hands, with their prominent veins and age spots, trembled slightly.

Twenty-one years of exile not only ravaged his body but also utterly extinguished the last vestige of his imperial spirit. His initial anger, resentment, and humiliation had long been replaced by endless fear, anxiety, and regret. He was no longer the once-powerful Duke of Tang, King of Tang, and Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, but merely an old prisoner, clinging to life in a land plagued by miasma, living in constant fear. He feared the annual summer and autumn plagues (miasma) that ravaged Lingnan, feared the occasional ill-intentioned Li and Liao mountain people, and even more so, feared the unfathomable Emperor Hua, thousands of miles away in the deep palace of Luoyang, the capital!

He always felt that the young emperor who had easily defeated all the top masters of Buddhism, Taoism, and Demonism, and unified the world, spared their lives not out of mercy, but for some more terrifying kind of torment and torture, like a cat playing with mice. He feared that one day, a cold imperial edict would suddenly descend, declaring the Li family guilty of "treason," "forming a faction," and "harboring resentment," followed by... the execution of the entire family, leaving no one alive!

This sword hanging overhead, ready to fall at any moment, was more agonizing than an immediate execution. He often woke in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat, dreaming of armored soldiers bursting through the door, their blades flashing, his children and grandchildren crying out…

"Cough cough cough..."

A violent cough interrupted his thoughts, a heart-wrenching cough that seemed to rip out his internal organs. Li Yuan struggled to cover his mouth with a handkerchief, which was stained with dark red blood.

"Father!" A similarly aged but still fairly upright figure hurriedly entered from the outer room, carrying a bowl of steaming, dark herbal soup. It was Li Shimin.

Li Shimin was already over fifty years old, his temples were streaked with gray, and his face was weathered by life. The heroic spirit of the former Prince of Qin and General of the Heavenly Strategy had been worn away by life, leaving only a deep and melancholic fortitude. He wore a faded coarse cloth short coat, his trousers rolled up and stained with mud, and a pair of worn-out straw sandals on his feet.

"The medicine is ready, drink it while it's hot."

Li Shimin carefully helped his father up and brought the bowl of medicine to his lips. The medicine had a bitter and pungent smell, mixed with the herbal aroma unique to Lingnan, which Li Yuan could never get used to.

Li Yuan frowned, forced a few sips of his drink, then pushed the bottle away, panting as he asked, "Shimin... today... is there any news from Luoyang? Or... is there any word from the Yongzhou Prefectural Governor's Office?"

He asked the question almost every day, even though he knew the chances were slim.

A flicker of pain crossed Li Shimin's eyes as he softly comforted him, "Father, there's no news yet. Chengqian, who went to the Dongkou market to exchange salt yesterday, returned and said everything is normal. The officials from the Prefectural Governor's office... haven't paid any special attention to us either."

He concealed the scolding and extortion from the constables, as well as the curious or disdainful glances from other vagrants or local clerks in the market.

"As usual...as usual..."

Li Yuan murmured repeatedly, his eyes growing even more vacant: "The most terrifying thing is the normalcy... What exactly does he want? Twenty-one years... Twenty-one years!"

He suddenly became agitated, his withered hand grabbing Li Shimin's sleeve: "Shimin, tell me, is he waiting for us... waiting for us to give up and die in this godforsaken place?! Or... waiting for one of our unworthy descendants to do something wrong, giving him an excuse to eliminate us completely?!"

"Father! Be careful what you say!"

Li Shimin's expression changed, and he quickly lowered his voice, glancing warily outside. Although the settlement was inhabited by his own people, who could guarantee that there weren't spies planted by the Hua Dynasty? The long-term imprisonment and fear had already caused suspicion to fester and spread like vines in everyone's hearts.

Li Shimin settled his father back in bed, tucked him in, and looked at the old man's fragile, frightened state, his heart aching. How could he not be terrified? How could he not be tormented? But he was the head of the family (at least in reality), the backbone of his father and hundreds of clansmen; he could not collapse like his father. He had to hold on, to lead his people to survive in this desperate situation…

As dawn broke, the drizzle continued.

The settlement began to see activity and activity, but this activity was also accompanied by a lingering sense of stagnation and apathy.

The women, dressed in patched, coarse cloth dresses, carried bamboo baskets or wooden basins to the river to wash clothes, or braved the rain to pick wild vegetables barely growing in their small plots of land behind their houses. Most of them had sallow complexions, dull eyes, and hands covered in calluses and cracks from their labor, a far cry from the elegant and luxurious lives they once enjoyed in the palaces and mansions of Chang'an and Luoyang. Many spoke in hushed tones, their conversations revolving around today's meals, the joint pain brought on by the rain, a child's fever, and… vague and fearful speculations about Luoyang.

The able-bodied men, in twos and threes, carried simple hoes and machetes to the barren hillside on the outskirts of the settlement. This was their allotted land, poor in soil, mostly gravel, and located on a hillside, prone to severe soil erosion. They needed to cultivate enough grain to feed hundreds of people, though the harvest often barely covered subsistence. Many more were organized, under Li Shimin's leadership, to perform communal labor—repairing flood-damaged field ridges, clearing clogged drainage ditches, and reinforcing dilapidated houses. These tasks were arduous and menial, but for these once pampered and powerful nobles, they were essential for survival.

Li Jiancheng, his back hunched, was laboriously chopping damp firewood behind his house. He looked older than Li Shimin; the sharpness he once displayed in his struggles with Li Shimin had long been worn down by his exile, leaving only the sickly frailty and dejection ravaged by the weight of life and years of melancholy. He coughed a few times, his movements slow, stopping to catch his breath after a few strokes. His sons, the former grandsons of the Tang emperor, were mostly taciturn, their eyes filled with alienation and bewilderment towards the world.

Li Yuanji had died several years ago from a sudden bout of malaria, leaving behind a widow and her young children, making life even more difficult. His widow, Yang, a similarly haggard middle-aged woman, was trying to straighten the seedlings that had been bent over by the rain in the muddy vegetable field with her two young sons. Rainwater and tears mingled and slid down her numb face.

The situation is even more complicated for the younger generation. Most of them have extremely vague memories of "Tang Dynasty," "Chang'an," and "Imperial Palace," or even none at all. They were born or raised in this pestilent land, and for them, "Emperor," "Prince," and "Duke" are just distant and pale words from their parents' mouths, as well as the inescapable shackles of being "remnants of the previous dynasty."

On the one hand, they bear the heavy burden of their family's history, living cautiously for fear of breaking taboos; on the other hand, the restlessness of youth, curiosity about the outside world, and dissatisfaction with the status quo surge like an undercurrent in their young hearts.

Li Chengqian (Li Shimin's eldest son, over thirty years old) was considered one of the more prestigious among the younger generation. He inherited some of his father's fortitude, and also possessed a greater degree of pragmatism honed by his long years of life at the bottom of society. He was responsible for dealing with the outside world (mainly the markets at the village entrance and the occasional visiting officials), exchanging simple bamboo utensils woven by the women of his family, gathered herbs, or the pheasants and rabbits he occasionally hunted for necessities such as salt, ironware, and cloth. He witnessed some changes in the outside world, knowing that the Hua Dynasty was growing stronger, new policies were being implemented, and the lives of ordinary people seemed far better than those of them, these "convicts." This filled him with a complex and indescribable feeling.

It contains both a de facto acknowledgment of the Hua Dynasty's rule and a hint of barely perceptible envy, as well as a deep sense of resentment and powerlessness regarding the fate of the family.

The younger generations, such as the descendants of Li Tai (Li Shimin's fourth son) and Li Ke (Li Shimin's third son, deceased, whose son is here), showed a more pronounced divergence. Some, disheartened and only seeking survival, learned the Li Liao language and survival skills early on, becoming almost indistinguishable from the locals; others secretly hid the tattered books left by their fathers. These were mostly fragments of classics, histories, philosophical works, or some governance strategies and military insights that Li Yuan and Li Shimin had transcribed from memory, the paper already yellowed and brittle.

In the stillness of the night, by the dim light of an oil lamp, they would greedily read, as if they could touch a glorious past they had never possessed but were destined to bear from those blurred words, and draw from it a trace of illusory solace and a spark of resentment.

However, such behavior was absolutely forbidden; being discovered possessing "banned books from the previous dynasty" could bring utter destruction to the entire family. Therefore, these young people's "studies" were conducted underground, fraught with tension. (End of Chapter)