Living leisurely in Tang Dynasty

Chapter 124:

Yuanying felt  annoyed. I have not done anything bad lately, why is the Emperor looking for me?

Although he had some thought in his heart, he still casually told Lady Liu that “Brother must miss me, I’ll go look for him.”

Lady Liu was worried. Hearing Prince Teng make such a shameless statement the men laughed. Lady Liu quickly helped him put on the right clothing to meet the Emperor.

Once the boy arrived at the Emperor’s palace, he realized that there was a familiar face: Yan Liben

Yuanying obediently went and pay his respect and then sat down next to Li Er.

Li Er gave him a glance and continued his conversation with Yan Liben and Chu Suiliang. Turns out the Emperor wanted to include ministers who had contributed greatly to Tang onto a mural on a palace building called Lingyan Pavilion. He has the name list ready, approved after much discussion with his cabinet and will make up of 24 individuals.

Now the main task is to draw out the 24 men and this job is awarded to Yan Liben and he had to visit each person personally. Since this is an favourable opportunity, everyone was supportive of it

But lately there is challenges to this task. When Yan Liben visited Li Jing, a leopard pounced at him giving him trauma. Although the leopard did not attack him, Yan Liben still fell and hurt his hand. He will not be able to pick up a brush in the meantime. Li Jing stays the furthest and this is the last picture to be drawn.

Lingyan Pavilion is still undergoing renovation so it is always possible to delay the work. However Yan Liben is a person of character, when he was working he was attacked by a leopard and so he refuses to go back to work.

He is here today to inform the Emperor of his decision. He also casually mentioned to the Emperor that Prince Teng and Li Jing had a good relationship so why not appoint him as the painter. Yuanying is a great painter that even his older brother Yan Lide praises.

Yan Liben didn’t say these things with good intentions but said it to push the blame to Li Jing and Li Yuanying as he didn’t like both. Previously when Yan Liben travelled to Louyang, Prince Teng and his brother had such a good relationship that he felt left out. Now let them both finish this drawing!

But the Emperor hearing someone praise his younger brother was proud and so invited Yuanying over.

Hearing this, Yuanying put aside his initial worry. He’s not being called because something bad he did got discovered. He quickly agreed to the task and requested Yan Liben to share the 23 completed drawings so that he is able to draw in similar style.

The Emperor sense Yan Liben’s hostility and so casually mentioned: “Just one look and the boy will learn?”

“That’s not possible. It’ll definitely look different. Every individual is different so they cannot look identical. However when they are all put together they need to look uniform and not weird.” (Li Yuanying)

The Emperor was also curious about the progress and so agreed to Yuanying’s request and both visited the Pavilion to look at its progress. Li Yuanying couldn’t recognize all 23 faces as some had already passed away before he was born.

He observed Du Ru Hai’s drawing carefully then asked: “This is Du Ru Hai? It’s a pity I was born too late to know him.”

The Emperor looked at the drawing that look like it was alive and sigh: “Yes, you were born too late.”

Li Yuanying carefully studied all 23 paintings and praised Yan Liben: “ Xiao Yan, you’re doing a great job, I don’t think I can match your skills.”

Yan Liben thought in his heart: how old are you? If you were to draw like me, then how will others live? But on the surface he still carried himself with humility. “Don’t mention it, don’t mention it.”

Yuanying wanted to leave after this but he was stopped by the Emperor. They had some tea before Yuanying carefully probed: “Lord Brother, you have something else to say to me?”

“The task of drawing, what do you think about it? If you cannot I’ll get someone else to do it.’

“It’s a little hard but I wouldn’t know until I try. Anyway the pavilion is still under renovation, maybe Xiao Yan’s hand will heal in time. Worst case scenario, we can look for Big Yan (Yan Lide) to help out.”

Although Yuanying hasn’t draw much human but he had good basic fundamentals in art. When others were young they would chase after butterfly to play but he chased after them for drawing. His late father also praised his skills and this made him work harder. Somehow he managed to built up a solid foundation in arts.

“Great, then you have a go.”

Li Yuanying probe again if the Emperor had other matters with him.

“Are you that unwilling to have a cup of tea with me? When you used my name to sell tea, you weren’t like this.”

Hearing this, the boy happily sat next to big brother: “ When I sold tea it’s not fully for myself. Didn’t I help the court secure tea taxes? Now the Turks and the Tibetan Empire likes tea and the Tang society has also pick up this habit, don’t you get much tea taxes now!”

He then seeded an idea to the Emperor: “I think we should secure the tea mountains in the South. Let’s collect more taxes and then get people to export them. Those who didn’t get our permission is not allowed to plant tea. This way we can prevent people from destroying land in the name of tea planting and prevent people from evading taxes!”

“You really do have lots of ideas” (Li Er)

“That’s right. I love thinking about problems. Doing this has a 3^rd benefit, you have created more jobs to be filled with talented people. Didn’t Mao Sui mentioned that as long as you give him a gunnysack he can show his strength? We need to scout for talents and give them a platform to showcase it, if they do well we reward them with better position in the government. Those that can’t perform we keep them in places that only requires mundane task that can done with your eyes closed.”

“This is called using people according to their strengths.”

“Yes, Yes. Using people according to their strengths. Anyway we will have more and more talented people so we need to find tasks for them. That way they will only think about how to best perform and wouldn’t have time to think about irrelevant things. I learned this after establishing my paper factory and restaurant. As long as I find a right leader to guide the team, everything else falls into place smoothly. As for those who have not much talent, they are still not useless. As long as you tell them what to do, they can still perform well.”

The two brothers discussed taxes over a bowl of tea. After that Li Er sent Li Yuanying away.

As soon as Li Yuanying left, Li Er rubbed his brows, rested on the desk for a while and asked Chu Suiliang to send a copy of their conversation to the crown prince.

Although Li Yuanying often comes up with wild ideas, after further consideration they are feasible ideas. With the popularity of tea rising, tax collected has indeed increased. Tang Jian, the Minister of Household Affairs is now smiling every day. He has even reduced his frequency of pretending to be sick to hide from courtly affairs.

Since the profit of tea is huge, let’s put it on the agenda to set up taxes for major tea farms. It would be best for profitable industries to be firmly controlled by the government. Maybe in a few years, the expenses needed by the military can be raised sufficiently! If it’s not enough, let Li Yuanying think of other ideas, didn’t he criticized Dang Renhong over being greedy for just one million yuan? He definitely is not short of money or have more ways to make money.

Li Yuanying was walking halfway when he started sneezing. He said strangely to the servants following him: “That’s strange, it’s not even cold. Why am I sneezing?”

“The future princess may be thinking of Your Highness.”

Yuanying felt good but still humbly reply: “”We haven’t met each other for just half a day, how can Sister Shu miss me? It’s okay if she’s thinking about me, I’ll meet her tomorrow. I won’t let her miss me for too long!”

Everyone laughed.

Yuanying informed mother of his plans and left the palace for Li Jing’s home. Yuanying left with shinning eyes and big anticipation, he cannot wait to meet the leopard that Yan Liben brought up.

But in front of Brother he had to pretend to be serious, lest brother finds out his true motive and prevents him from visiting. After all, brother did this before and stopped him from riding elephants at Li Jing’s house.

At the same time, Hong Fu was sorting out the ceremonial robe that Li Jing hadn’t worn for a long time complaining about his leopard running around.

“The guardian just didn’t close the cage door for a moment, who knew that it would attack Yan? (Li Jing)

The man is already offended so Hong Fu could only sigh: “Will his Majesty remove your portrait from the mural because of this?”

“Nope.”

Although Li Jing is half-retired, he has greatly contributed to the country. The Emperor will not exclude him over such a trivial matter.

“Just not sure who’s going to replace him for the task.”

As the couple were talking, someone informed that Prince Teng is here and is responsible to complete his painted portrait.

Li Jing and Hong Fu looked at each other, both a little surprised. However they both welcomed him because of his previous initiative of inviting Doctor Sun over when Hong Fu was seriously ill and dying.

Knowing the boy better, Li Jing likes his attitude and welcomes him every time with open arms.

Yuanying had no shame and ran in happily looking left and right but didn’t see any leopard.

“Didn’t you say there was a little leopard? Where is it? I want to see it!”

Li Jing was not in a hurry too so he brought the boy to meet his little leopard

“The leopard’s parents are no more. It had not even opened its eyes when it was brought here. I feed it goat milk but didn’t expect it to be quite wild.”

Li Yuanying was not afraid of the wild little leopard at all and eagerly wanted to touch it.

Li Jing asked the leopard’s guardian to trick it out and give it to Li Yuanying for fun.

Yuanying successfully touch a leopard and it was furry, he was satisfied after petting it for awhile. After that, he visited the Yaks. Li Jing’s men were good at raising wildlife, the yaks were thin but well. The weather is getting warmer and the Yaks will need some fur shaving so that it can survive the hot summer well.

Yuanying was also interested in shaving. He rushed to catch the white yak and cut off handfuls of white fur having a great time. It was only after the impatient white yak knocked him down did Li Yuanying  finally go into the main topic with satisfaction.

Li Jing had already prepared pen and ink and put on his formal ceremonial robe, looking extremely formal.

Yuanying put forward his opinion: “I think this outfit is not majestic enough. It is better to wear armor! A general wearing armor and holding a weapon! I think everyone else is wearing similar clothes and looks the same. I will give you the most eye-catching picture!”

“Works too.”

The two discussed and finally decided on Li Jing wearing an armor and riding a horse in a heroic posture.