The Leisurely Life of the Prince of the Tang Dynasty

Chapter 207 Martial Arts Performance
In addition to Liu Rengui, Du Zhenglun is also a killjoy. He speaks very little.

What on earth was he ashamed of? Li Chengqian stood up and walked into the Secretariat, where he sorted out the reports sent in from all over the country this year with officials from various departments of the court.

All provinces and prefectures in the Central Plains sent in reports on last year, which mostly dealt with issues such as population growth and land reclamation and distribution.

As usual, the Crown Prince would come to help review memorials during the busiest times of the court.

Li Chengqian asked Zhining, "Have the memorials from Hebei Province and Huainan Province been sorted out?"

"Your Highness, everything has been sorted and categorized."

"Distribute these memorials."

"Here."

In fact, I only have some free time during lunch to chat with Du Zhenglun.

Because I don’t like working while eating. Eating is just eating and should not be confused with work.

We can learn this from General Li Ji and concentrate on eating.

By evening, most of the officials from the Secretariat had left.

When Li Chengqian looked up again, he found that his teacher and uncle had left at some point.

After approving a bunch of memorials, some are still left. It looks like I have to work overtime again tonight.

Stretching lazily, Li Chengqian took a sip of tea, looked outside the door and saw a figure standing there without coming in.

When I looked again, I realized that it was an acquaintance, Li Dejian, the son of Li Weigong.

He also smiled in response.

"If you are not allowed to come in, how long do you plan to stand outside?"

Li Dejian walked into the Secretariat with a smile on his face. He was wearing a coarse blue shirt, and the old wrinkles on the clothes were faintly visible.

There was some stubble on his chin, apparently he hadn't trimmed it cleanly.

Li Chengqian stood up, relaxed his limbs and said, "You can just ask someone to report it."

"I dare not disturb the Crown Prince." Li Dejian added, "I heard that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is preparing for the imperial examination this year."

"Brother Dejian, are you ready? Are you going to take the imperial examination this year?"

After that, Li Chengqian added: "There are also sons of the imperial family who enter the government through family connections, but they also have to start from the bottom, just like Lord Ying's son."

Li Dejian bowed and said, "I am here to say goodbye to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

"bid farewell?"

"I am leaving Chang'an." He smiled somewhat ashamedly.

"where to?"

Li Dejian raised his head and straightened up, explaining, "Let's go to Mount Zhongnan first, and then go to Sichuan. I don't know where to go when I travel so far, so I'll just go wherever I go."

Seeing the prince's expression, he continued, "There are still a few brothers at home who can take care of my father, so Your Highness can rest assured."

"Alright."

Li Chengqian didn't want to keep him either. It would be good if Li Weigong's son was also a member of the Eastern Palace.

But everyone has ambitions, and sometimes winning people's hearts is like picking a melon, and forcing it is never good.

Li Dejian bowed again and said, "This is my farewell, and I will travel far away from now on."

Li Chengqian took a book from the bookshelf beside him and handed it to him, saying, "This is the content that I have sorted out in the past two years. I have asked someone to write it down. When you are out and about, it is a good thing to take out a book and read it in your spare time."

Li Dejian took the book and said with a smile, "Thank you, Your Highness."

Arriving at the gate of the Secretariat, Li Chengqian said, "I won't see you off any further."

"I'm leaving now. Your Highness, please don't see me off."

Li Chengqian looked into the distance and nodded.

Li Dejian left. He mounted his horse alone and headed south. Some people said that Mount Zhongnan was a place full of legends.

Even Mr. Wang Gui now has always dreamed of going to Mount Zhongnan to retire one day.

I don’t know when he will come back after this.

At night, Li Lizhi and Dongyang came to the Secretariat again, busying themselves with organizing and reviewing these memorials.

Li Chengqian was looking through the documents sent from Luoyang. Ma Zhou had recruited another 3,000 households. Now the government decrees were successfully sent to Luoyang. Li Yifu also arrived in Luoyang, and in addition to serving as the censor, he also temporarily served as the chief clerk of Luoyang.

This was an official position temporarily appointed by Ma Zhou, and he had to report it to the court according to the rules.

The Luoyang Palace has not been repaired for a long time and has been abandoned until now. Quan Wanji also submitted documents to see whether it is necessary to build the Luoyang Palace.

Many emperors ascended the throne in Luoyang in the past, so the old site of the imperial palace has been preserved.

Li Lizhi and Dongyang were accustomed to the rules of the court. To be precise, the way these two sisters reviewed memorials was taught by him, the Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace.

Their way of speaking is also more like the current prince.

Apart from the difference in the running script handwriting, no one even thought that this was a memorial reviewed by the two princesses.

The two sisters were reviewing memorials and whispering to each other, mostly about Xiao Wu and Xu Hui.

Because Princess Changle accepted them both as her disciples, Li Lizhi wanted to teach them not only mathematics, but also the governance strategies of Guanzhong.

It was almost midnight when the three siblings finally finished the tasks at hand.

Li Chengqian took his two sisters out of the Secretariat and closed the door.

Li Lizhi was holding a lantern, the flame of which could only dimly illuminate her cloth shoes. She whispered, "Sister has re-annotated the documents of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of War. The clerks in the court are still not detailed enough."

Dongyang also walked beside him with a lantern in his hand and whispered, "Yes, sister is right."

After saying a few words, they were silent for the rest of the journey. The fatigue of the three siblings was evident on their faces.

After finishing these things today, tomorrow should be a little easier.

Normally, as long as the emperor returned to the East Palace on time in the evening, they would not come to the Secretariat to help.

If they did not return at night, they would have dinner in the East Palace and then come to the Secretariat to help, under the pretext of delivering food to their brother the Emperor.

After returning to the Eastern Palace, Gao Yang, Li Zhi and Li Shen were washing their clothes with bitter faces.

Li Shen was younger, only eight and a half years old, not yet ten years old. In Li Lizhi's words, it wouldn't matter if he was born a year or two earlier.

In fact, Li Lizhi, the eldest sister of the Eastern Palace, also has a very hard life. She has to take care of her younger brothers and sisters at night.

When they went to bed, they had to make sure that the lights in their brothers and sisters' palaces in the East Palace were turned off. Only then did Li Lizhi return to her own Changle Palace to sleep.

Changle Palace was named by her herself. Originally, the princess was supposed to build a princess's palace after she came of age, but Li Lizhi had no such plan. Her younger brothers and sisters followed suit.

Half a month later, Guanzhong entered March. The sun became warmer and the wind was not as cold as in the previous two months.

Li Chengqian and Li Lizhi were sitting in Ganlu Palace. Today Dongyang was going to follow Dr. Sun to practice medicine, so he did not visit his father.

The hall was very quiet. The brother and sister sat aside eating zongzi (dumplings of rice cake). The zongzi (dumplings of rice cake) their father had made with the finest ingredients and were specially made by their mother.

Li Shimin read the report sent by the Hexi Corridor and said: "The Hexi Corridor was only completed this year, and Li Daliang sent 30,000 coins of market tax."

Li Lizhi took a sip of tea and said with a smile on her face, "It has only been two months since the Hexi Corridor was completed. I would like to congratulate you, father."

"The rest of Jiuquan County has not been repaired yet, don't be too happy too soon."

Li Lizhi nodded and said, "My brother is right."

Li Chengqian continued, "What do you think, father?"

Li Shimin avoided looking at his son and daughter and said in a deep voice, "Are the stores in the Hexi Corridor so expensive?"

Li Lizhi explained, "Father, it costs money for the court to build the four counties in Hexi. These costs need to be recovered. According to the money and grain that my brother has allocated to the Hexi Corridor, at least 80,000 strings of cash are nothing. What are these tens of thousands of coins?"

Li Chenggan coughed.

Li Lizhi was about to criticize her father again, but when she heard her brother cough, she stopped criticizing him. It was because her father had no idea about money and didn't even know what 80,000 strings of cash meant. If the money was divided, building a county town at a cost of 20,000 strings of cash would be a very cost-effective arrangement.

Moreover, the two counties of Wuwei and Dunhuang can now accommodate 100,000 households. What a great development this is.

It's just that he is not in front of the emperor. The allocation of money and grain in these years has been arranged by my brother alone. How could the emperor know the difficulty of it?

She was going to tell these words to her father, but she held back for the sake of her royal brother.

The costs must be recovered, and the targets of exploitation are the merchants and Hu people who travel between the Western Regions and the Tang Dynasty.

The brother and sister were sitting here when they saw a figure standing outside the hall.

This person was none other than Du Zhenglun.

Du Zhenglun handed a memorial to the eunuch outside the hall and was about to leave.

Li Chengqian stared at him, but Du Zhenglun seemed to be blind at this moment and turned away.

The eunuch handed the memorial to His Majesty and stepped aside.

Li Chengqian withdrew his gaze and continued to eat zonggao with his sister.

Li Shimin took the memorial and read it, then asked, "Du He allowed Murong Shun to sell goods in the Hexi Corridor, and Murong Shun was the one who paid the market taxes. Is this inappropriate?"

Li Chengqian looked calm, but he crushed the walnut in his hand with force, and some residue fell out from between his fingers. This Du Zhenglun was indeed his father's intelligence chief.

"Your Majesty, Murong Shun works for Du He. I don't think this is a conflict."

"But Murong Shun is the Khan of Tuyuhun after all, and he is a Tuyuhun person."

"Father has restored Murong's surname. It doesn't matter whether he is a Tuyuhun or not. As long as Father can give him a household registration, he can become a Tang citizen, and more Tuyuhun people can become Tang citizens."

Li Shimin shook his head and said, "Cheng Qian, this matter is not that simple."

"I still have a lot to learn, and I will ask you for advice in the future. At worst, I can ask Du He to provide an account of the commission paid to Murong Shun to prove that he is Du He's employee." Li Chengqian looked a little more hesitant, and then said, "If people knew that a Tuyuhun Khan worked for the Tang people, I don't know what the other Khans would think."

Li Shimin faced his son in distress and had no way to refute him.

Li Lizhi ate the walnuts leisurely, "Father, the walnuts in the Western Regions are quite big, but they are not as fragrant as the walnuts in Guanzhong."

Li Chengqian nodded in agreement.

There were heavy footsteps and the sound of armor outside the palace. It was General Yuchi who stood outside the palace. He said loudly, "Your Majesty is ready."

Li Shimin stood up, put down the memorial and said in unison: "I am going to see the military formation today, and you should come with me."

"Okay." Li Lizhi agreed immediately, and she added: "My daughter has long wanted to see the military formation of our Great Tang."

Li Shimin had a smile on his face again. In daily political affairs, his son and daughter had made rapid progress and grown incredibly.

But in military affairs, the emperor who controls all the troops in the world is more confident.

Today's martial arts performance will be held in Qujiang. Some of the markets in Chang'an City today have not been fully built, just like the markets near Qujiang today, which are still somewhat deserted.

The brother and sister sat in the carriage, while their father and General Yuchi rode ahead on horseback.

Li Chengqian leaned against the carriage and looked at the scenery outside. When they got closer to Qujiang, they could see many war horses running along the way.

Li Li asked, "Brother Emperor? Father is here to see the army today. Is it time for a war?"

"I don't know. I have been busy in the Secretariat recently, and I don't know what arrangements my father has made for the outside world."

"That's because the power that my father gave my brother was too small."

As the words fell, it was obvious that General Yuchi's horse speed suddenly slowed down a bit. The general obviously heard these words.

After the carriage stopped, Li Chengqian got off first. Seeing her sister nimbly jumping down from the shaft, she clapped her hands happily. The girl's gentleness was not revealed at this moment, but instead she showed a dashing temperament.

Perhaps influenced by the atmosphere in the army, she raised her head and followed her father, her pace becoming much faster.

The emperor walked onto a high platform, and the current crown prince and Princess Changle also stood on the platform together. The platform was six feet high. Standing here and looking into the distance, one could see two rows of soldiers in formation.

After the emperor sat down, Li Chengqian and his sister also sat down.

Yuchi Gong waved the command flag in his hand, and the cavalry in the distance began to move, and the square formation also moved with it, raising a lot of dust.

Li Shimin nodded and said, "Cheng Qian, if I gave you an army, how would you arrange it?"

Li Chengqian frowned and asked, "Father, are you going to give me soldiers and horses?"

"You are a prince, eighteen years old. Although I have ordered the Zhechongfu to only recruit generals over twenty years old, this has nothing to do with you."

Li Lizhi said: "Then father, please give all these troops to my brother."

The command flag in Yuchi Gong's hand suddenly stopped. The soldiers in the distance saw the flag suddenly stop, and the martial arts performance scene became inexplicably chaotic.

It was not until Yuchi Gong put down the command flag and the drums sounded that the army continued to perform martial arts.

Li Shimin asked: "There are 30,000 soldiers and horses here, Cheng Qian, can you still lead them?"

"Your Majesty, you are joking. I am still not good at archery and I am afraid I cannot convince others."

Li Shimin snorted coldly: "You are the crown prince, who dares not obey you?"

Li Chengqian looked at his father's back in silence.

In fact, military power has been a double-edged sword since ancient times, and it is even more dangerous for a prince who is in charge of the army.

And there were 30,000 soldiers and horses, all of whom were stationed in the permanent guard post in Chang'an. This was enough to launch a rebellion. It was a very scary thing to hear the emperor laughing.

(End of this chapter)