The immortal of the Tang Dynasty, but the game starts at Xuanwu Gate?

"this......"

Faced with Li Shimin's apology, the palace maid was terrified and stood there at a loss for what to do.

An emperor apologizing to a palace maid—this was unheard of, yet it happened to them.

Li Shimin knew that these palace maids probably wouldn't dare to answer, so he didn't make things difficult for them. He waved his hand and said, "You may all leave now and go back to rest."

"Yes, Your Majesty." The palace maids, as if granted a pardon, bowed and withdrew.

"Guanyinbi," Li Shimin called out, "Give those palace maids some rewards. See if there are any others who have been punished by the Emperor. Give them all some rewards. As for what to reward them with, you can decide for yourself."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Empress Zhangsun felt relieved. Seeing that Li Shimin seemed to have important matters to discuss with his ministers, she left without delay.

Chen Huai'an and Wei Zheng remained silent.

How many palace maids were there in the imperial palace?

Why were these palace maids, who were punished by Li Yuan, assigned to serve Li Shimin?

Who would believe that this wasn't a fight between the father and son?

"Alas," Li Shimin shook his head, "I'm sorry to have made you laugh."

They dared not respond to that, so Chen Huai'an changed the subject: "Your Majesty, as far as I know, Emperor Yang of Sui was a womanizer who took in countless palace women."

"After you ascended the throne, you released three thousand palace maids, but the number of palace maids in the palace is still quite large."

"Moreover, I've heard that there are still many useless palace maids in the Emperor Emeritus's palace and the inner palace. Isn't that a huge waste? The amount of food and clothing they need to consume every day is just too much."

After speaking, Chen Huai paused, "Furthermore, with so many palace maids confined together, the yin energy accumulates, which can easily lead to natural disasters such as drought."

Wei Zheng immediately understood Chen Huai'an's meaning and continued, "Your Majesty, I believe this statement is reasonable."

"Isn't this precisely what is meant by the interaction between Heaven and humanity?"

"Furthermore, if so many young women were released from the palace and allowed to marry normally, wouldn't they be able to have children and increase the population of our Great Tang Dynasty?"

Upon hearing the two men discuss this matter, Li Shimin considered it seriously for a moment, nodded, and agreed that it made sense.

There were indeed too many palace maids in the imperial palace, all because of some... well, it's hard to say, during the reigns of Emperor Yang of Sui and his father, Emperor Li Yuan.

Even if we release another three thousand people, the remaining population will be sufficient.

Moreover, it can greatly reduce the pressure on Empress Zhangsun.

Chen Huai'an's reasons were just right, and Wei Zheng pointed out the benefits, so he had no reason to refuse.

"You two ministers are right," Li Shimin agreed. "There are indeed too many palace maids in this palace, and the yin energy is too heavy. It's time to release a batch of them."

He thought for a moment and said, "Then let's release another three thousand people."

"Your Majesty is wise," Wei Zheng said, bowing.

Li Shimin sighed. For him, releasing the palace maids was probably more important to Li Yuan.

Everyone knows this, but no one has said it.

But it doesn't matter, there are some things he and Li Yuan need to resolve.

It's impossible for him to live in the Eastern Palace forever; that's absurd.

After a while, Changsun Wuji and the others arrived.

"Your Majesty, we, your humble servants, pay our respects."

"No need for formalities," Li Shimin said, raising his hand. "Please sit down."

The ministers were already used to this, and calmly sat down.

Li Shimin took out the folded document handed to him by Chen Huai'an: "Take a look. The canal transport between the Central Plains and Lingnan regions has been initially opened up. As the Minister of Revenue, Huai'an's first consideration is commercial tax and the salt and iron monopoly."

"This is the system he proposed; take a look."

"So fast?" Xiao Yu was somewhat surprised. "Is it really that easy to open up the canal transport between the Central Plains and Lingnan?"

"It's only a preliminary opening," Chen Huai'an replied. "In some sections of the waterway, only one boat is allowed to pass at a time. Once that boat has passed, other boats can continue to pass."

"However, the canal transport system was eventually opened up."

"As for how to manage Lingnan, that's not within my scope of responsibility; I'm only in charge of taxation."

Xiao Yu expressed his understanding and said nothing.

Then, seemingly thinking that it was too slow for them to read it one by one, Li Shimin called Zhang Anan back and asked him to read it to the ministers.

The audience listened with great interest, sometimes praising the speaker, and sometimes looking puzzled.

After Zhang Anan finished reading, Wen Yanbo was the first to ask a question: "According to Minister Chen's idea, the court wants to divide the grain transport from the Central Plains into four routes."

"The entire line is divided into four sections, with warehouses set up in each section for transshipment. Ships do not cross sections and people do not leave the territory. Each section is managed and its own contribution is recorded."

"Among them, there are eight major transit warehouses, each with one warehouse supervisor, two warehouse assistants, and one clerk, who are in charge of loading, unloading, storage, inspection, and issuance of certificates."

"What's the point of doing this? Why must it be divided into four sections?"

"Good question." Chen Huai'an praised first, then explained, "The reason why I divided the canal route into four sections is actually very simple."

"Think about it, if you were to transport goods to Guangzhou in Lingnan via the Grand Canal, where would you begin?"

"The Wei River?" Wei Zheng offered an answer.

"That's right, it's the Wei River." Chen Huai'an nodded. "In my plan, the route goes from the Wei River to the Yellow River, then to the Bian River, and finally to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. This is the first section of the route."

"The Bian River is shallow, the Yellow River is full of sand, and the Wei River dries up seasonally. Boats must use flat-bottomed cargo boats to cross the Yellow River, and then transfer to narrow canal boats. Only in this way can we pass through the first section of the route, right?"

At this point, everyone had a pretty good idea and looked enlightened.

Li Shimin gestured and said, "My dear minister, please continue."

Chen Huai'an said slowly and deliberately, "After passing through the first section of the route, the second section is from the Yangtze River, into Dongting Lake, and into the lower reaches of the Xiang River."

"This section of the route has a very large volume of water, a wide river surface, and wind and waves, making it suitable for large ships. In other words, this route is fully capable of navigating ships with a load capacity of over a thousand shi (a unit of dry measure) to transport the corresponding goods."

"Now that you know all this, aren't the benefits obvious?"

"If you use a flat-bottomed cargo boat, you can indeed reach Guangzhou, but what is your carrying capacity? How much cargo can you take on one trip? Whether it's for merchants or for us officials, it's extremely uneconomical, right?"

"That makes sense." Fang Xuanling agreed. "If we set up a transit warehouse there, then after the first leg of the journey, if small merchants can't continue, they can sell their goods to large merchants and make some profit, while the efficiency of our government's ships will be greatly improved."

"A cargo ship traveling from the Wei River to Guangzhou and back would probably take at least three months, which is not cost-effective."

"..."