Living leisurely in Tang Dynasty

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.”

He raised his hand and looked at it.  “Even if I had a small cut, the pain is unbearable. How could they do it?”

“If it’s not the only resort, who would make this choice? This is probably the result of harsh rules  is more brutal than a tiger.” (Wei Shu)

Once Confucius and his disciples were passing by Mountain Tai. They met a woman who lived in a place where tigers roamed. After probing, they learned that three generations of the woman’s family had been killed by tigers. Confucius asked  why hadn’t she move away but the woman replied that they were more afraid of harsh tyranny.

And so Confucius lamented that “tyranny is fiercer than a tiger.”

Mei Niang had a different interpretation: “Compared to the end of Sui Dynasty, the taxation system in Tang has improved much. I believe some of these men self mutilate to avoid doing hard labour as they are then labeled as “handicap”. In the long run this practice is harmful if many adopt this and laws should be put in place to prevent it.”

Di Renjie agreed with Mei Niang after reading the article. When the tax is overly high and citizens are forced to result to such measure it is pitiful but now that the tax system has improved much such actions are just harmful in every way possible.

“His Majesty should be able to share his decision” (Tang Xuan)

Yuanying nodded. The newsletter might not be an official document but many officials do read it. Someone will definitely share this piece of news with the Emperor.

But sitting back with no action is not like Li Yuanying.

“This article is well written with much thoughts, I will share it with teacher Kong so that he can enroll such a talent into the Academy. Let’s be fast so that a talent will not go else where!”

The boy quickly action on his thoughts.

Coincidentally Kong Yingda was around. Seeing Li Yuanying walking towards him, he frowned and ask why he was here.  

The boy gave him a newsletter.

He read it and was affected emotionally. He might have lived through 2 dynasties but he made a name for himself at a young age. He hasn’t had much hardships and weren’t very up to date to the sufferings of the common citizens.

Finishing the article, he agreed that the author is talented. At the end of the article is written “Zhang Jianzhi, 17, here to the Capital to seek knowledge”. He instantly understood why the young prince is here.

“So many friends and yet you still want more people to play with you?”

“What do you mean to play? I’m doing serious matters here. When have you see me do mischievous things at the Academy?”

Kong Yingda thought hard, indeed the boy has been well behaved.

“Just based on this article, he should be qualified. I’ll make arrangements for his enrollment once he has arrived.”

Yunaying was glad and added more. “I think Lord Brother had not had time to read the newsletters from the Library, why don’t you show this to him and get his opinion?” He then shared all his friends’ viewpoint to Kong Yingda, it doesn’t matter if they think this practice is caused by high tax or laziness, the professionals at court should debate and come to a conclusion.

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)