Tang Dynasty: Starting at Xuanwu Gate, this prince is better off not being one.

"I don't care who your grandfather is! You're dead!"

After the registrar finished speaking, he found that Li Yu was still looking at him with a smile.

This gave him a sense of impending doom, so he looked up to examine Li Yu. And what he saw was the goldfish charm hanging from Li Yu's waist.

"What? Not saying anything now?" Li Yu tugged at the registrar who was lying on the ground pretending to be dead. "My grandfather was the retired emperor. What was your grandfather again? The Prefect of Yongzhou?"

"No... I dare not..." The registrar scrambled to his feet, his head still on the ground, too afraid to look up.

He was truly terrified at that moment.

He wasn't afraid of offending Li Yu in his actions. At worst, his grandfather would plead with His Majesty and then personally apologize to Li Yu. Out of respect for His Majesty, Li Yu would probably let it go.

But he just referred to himself as "Laozi" in front of Li Yu, which is a serious offense of disrespect! His whole family might be exiled.

"I remember now! The Prefect of Yongzhou is now Wen Yanbo, the Duke of Xihe, isn't that right?"

Upon hearing his grandfather's name mentioned by Li Yu, the registrar was instantly terrified and hurriedly kowtowed, saying, "It was I who offended you, Your Highness! Please punish me!"

At this point, he could only hope that Li Yu would punish him as soon as possible, otherwise, if this matter were to escalate to the imperial court, his whole family would be implicated.

"What is your name?" Li Yu asked, looking down at him.

"Your Highness, I am Wen Yu," the registrar replied, trembling with fear.

"The name is not bad." Li Yu nodded, then said with a gloomy face, "Remember this well, I, Li Yu, am the Prince of Wu, personally appointed by His Majesty. I don't care how you all entered officialdom, and I am not your superior."

As he spoke, he looked around at the people and raised his voice, saying, "I don't care what you do at other times, but I have consulted His Majesty before teaching you mathematics, so you must listen to me here. I'm too lazy to make things difficult for you."

After saying that, he returned to his seat.

Looking at the silent crowd below, Li Yu felt that he had achieved the effect he wanted.

He definitely didn't want to put on a show of showing off and getting slapped in the face to satisfy his own ego; he wanted to explain things clearly to save himself a lot of trouble.

Below, the registrar named Wen Yu stood there, stunned, unable to believe that Li Yu had simply gone back after saying all that.

"What are you standing there for, you bastard? Come over here and listen!" Li Yu yelled at Wen Yu, who was dumbfounded.

Wen Yu nodded blankly and returned to his seat. After a moment, he asked, almost as if possessed, "Your Highness, are you not going to punish me?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them and wanted to slap himself.

Isn't this just being a jerk? What if the other person clearly doesn't intend to punish me, but I ask them this question, and then how am I supposed to save face if they don't punish me?

Sure enough, upon hearing this, Li Yu laughed in anger: "This is the first time I've heard of such a request. In that case..."

Upon hearing this, Wen Yu's heart leaped into her throat.

However, Li Yu's next words immediately put his mind at ease: "That beating you just received was your punishment."

After saying that, Li Yu ignored the tearful Wen Yu and continued talking to himself...

After this farce, everyone obeyed Li Yu's orders.

As they spent more time with Li Yu, they discovered that this twelve-year-old prince was indeed very approachable.

Not only were they highly capable, but they also didn't abuse their power to bully others. In the past, they had to be extremely respectful to high-ranking officials and couldn't afford to offend them in the slightest. If they treated high-ranking officials this way, it goes without saying that they treated members of the royal family with the same respect.

But someone like Li Yu, who could joke freely in his presence, even joining in the jokes himself. As long as it wasn't during class time, there was no need to consider his feelings; everyone could do whatever they wanted without restraint. They had never seen a prince like this before.

Moreover, this Prince Wu even ate lunch with everyone else, without taking advantage of his princely status to do anything special. At most, he would occasionally complain about how bad the food at the Ministry of Works was, which was perfectly normal, since they often complained about it too.

So, by virtue of these skills, Li Yu successfully became friends with them. Later, he learned more and more arithmetic, which not only attracted officials from the Imperial Workshop and the Ministry of Works, but these people even brought their younger relatives to study with them.

Li Yu also became unusually diligent, and in just ten days, he taught everyone Arabic numerals and basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division...

.........

Li Er has been quite relaxed lately. As the situation in the court gradually stabilizes, he naturally has fewer official duties to deal with every day.

Because of this, he also had the leisure to deal with other matters, such as stripping Pei Ji of his real power as prime minister and gradually making him fade out of the court.

Li Yuan was powerless to intervene in this matter. After all, Pei Ji, that old fellow, had been at odds with Li Er for quite some time, and the fact that Li Er hadn't killed him was only because of Li Yuan's sake.

But Li Er didn't need to consider anyone's feelings when it came to Feng Deyi.

This guy was originally in cahoots with Pei Ji, and under Pei Ji's instigation, he foolishly used the fate of King Wuling of Zhao to advise Li Yuan not to abdicate at the banquet. So now that Pei Ji is in trouble himself, he naturally won't have a good ending either.

So, not long ago, news spread throughout the capital that Duke Feng Deyi of Mi State had suddenly fallen ill with a heart ailment while working in the Ministry of Personnel, and soon after died at his desk.

No one would believe that this old fellow died of illness; Li Yu certainly didn't. But disbelief aside, Li Er bestowed upon him the posthumous title of "Ming," meaning foresight, wisdom, and the ability to distinguish right from wrong—a rare and highly honorable posthumous title.

However, no one knows when this posthumous title will be changed by Li Er.

Having resolved these matters, Li Er was left with only the question of whether Dou Jiande and Wang Shichong remained alive.

For the Tang Dynasty at present, this matter is not something urgent.

The purpose of killing them was to warn the separatist forces that had already surrendered, not to say that they would not be killed even if they were defeated, and that if they wanted to rebel, then they should try.

Now that the world has just been pacified by Li Er, and the Tang Dynasty and the Turks have temporarily reached a new alliance, no one will jump out to rebel at this time. Otherwise, in order to make Li Er temporarily believe in their ability to keep their promises, the Turks will definitely intervene in the matter of suppressing the rebellion.

This gave Li Er some temporary leisure time. On this day, he suddenly remembered that Li Yu had been working at the Ministry of Works for more than half a month, so he decided to come to the Ministry of Works.

So when he brought his eldest grandson to the Ministry of Works, he witnessed this breathtaking scene...

.........