Hunting dogs cannot be fed full, otherwise they won’t chase prey. Cormorants also need ropes tied around their necks to prevent them from swallowing large fish. Li’er desperately wanted to play the roles of hunter and fisherman, but wasn’t very successful. The great clans still flourished—pressing down the gourd made the ladle float up. It was truly one chicken dies, another chicken crows, like malignant tumors growing on the body. You couldn’t cut them all out—cutting them all out would be fatal. You could only cut bit by bit, not letting them grow large enough to endanger life.

So everyone was making do. As long as things were passable for now, there was no need to make a huge fuss. In the palace, Yun Ye and Li’er had a very deep conversation. This time, Li’er finally displayed his vigorous ambitions to Yun Ye. With woolen cloth, attacking the grasslands was no longer unprofitable. Boundless grasslands meant endless wealth. Xueyantuo and Tuyuhun would be the next conquest targets. Having seen the benefits of trade, he prepared to clear away those stumbling blocks obstructing trade route extensions. It was just that domestically there were still countless wounds and financial exhaustion. War was all about momentum—once dragged out too long, generals would grow soft and weak, and it would be very difficult to take up the horizontal blade again.

Moreover, Goguryeo was eyeing them covetously from the east. This nation that had defeated the great Sui Dynasty had its ambitions expand to the utmost degree for a time. It had already begun systematically extending its tentacles westward. War would come sooner or later.

Striking first was Li’er’s consistent principle. As long as you held enmity toward him, you were his enemy. As long as the opportunity was right, Li’er would even stab from behind. So this time, rather than saying it was to make money for himself, it was better to say it was to raise military funds.

When academy students secretly compiled statistics on Chang’an’s wealthy, thoughtful students actually made another statistic: in the three counties near Chang’an, officials and nobles occupied thirty percent of the land, the imperial family occupied fifty percent. In this most densely populated place, millions of common people only possessed twenty percent of the farmland.

This was Ma Zhou’s investigation report. Without uncovering matters, everyone didn’t know how severe things had become. Once there was detailed data, even the most wonderful language couldn’t conceal the cruelty of truth. An awl will always poke through—this time, even without Chang He’s recommendation, Ma Zhou was still the most outstanding figure among all the academy’s students.

Once “Memorial on Land Distribution” came out, it immediately separated Ma Zhou from the full court of noble officials. Yun Ye read this memorial—it could be called written word by word in blood and tears, every part a pearl. Not only did it have detailed materials from successive dynasties, it also had Chang’an’s current farmland situation. He even gave a solution method—that was to exchange the nobles’ fields from Guanzhong to other places needing development. This way, one could borrow their financial resources to properly develop remote, impoverished lands. The farthest place he suggested was actually Hainan Island.

Yun Ye didn’t care. Even if you gave him Phuket Island, taking his whole family to live in that place with a heavenly reputation wasn’t unacceptable. But this single pole overturned more than one boatload of people—even his fellow students disagreed with doing this.

The academy was a place for reasoning, so they set up a battlefield for them in the dining hall, letting them debate. The coursework Yun Ye assigned was that they must mutually compromise and mutually concede until finally reaching an agreement.

The students divided into two camps, engaging in verbal warfare with neither side yielding. No one dared easily relent. Once an agreement was reached, the academy would present it to the court in memorial form, requesting the full court of civil and military officials and His Majesty the Emperor to decide.

Passing by the academy dining hall, he saw it was packed with people. Some were still intensely debating. Yun Ye didn’t want to hear the content. Ma Zhou’s ability to raise problems was very strong, but his ability to solve problems was very poor—too idealistic.

Zhangsun reacted quickly to money matters. At noon she received Li Chengqian’s report, and in the afternoon imperial guards came to the house to arrange security. Fortunately, the young ladies had all been taken to Yushan by Grandmother. Only Yun Ye and his aunts were home—let them do as they pleased.

The next day at dawn, Zhangsun’s carriage arrived at the Yun estate. Without even exchanging pleasantries, she went straight to the rockery cave. The garden was full of imperial guards. The cave had also been carefully searched. Last night, the Yun family had moved the perfume workshop out of the cave.

Zhangsun looked at the brilliant, radiant glass products. One could see her legs were somewhat weak. She drove out all her close attendant maids and guards, closed the door, leaving only Yun Ye and the Crown Prince.

“How do you plan to dispose of these things?” Zhangsun asked Yun Ye very seriously.

Yun Ye smiled, casually grabbed a glass swan, applied force with his hand, and the swan’s neck snapped off. Zhangsun watched with heartache. Throwing the swan broken in two pieces into the corner, he said to Zhangsun, “Your Majesty, these things aren’t worth much money. This whole room of glass is actually fired from sand. The barbarians’ glass is also fired from sand, and it’s not even as good as ours. They all use it to cheat money. How laughable that people still fall for it.”

After speaking, he deliberately glanced at the green glass ornament at Zhangsun’s waist—it was said she had spent a large sum to obtain it.

Zhangsun yanked off the ornament irritably and said, “Did you know all along? Watching this empress make a fool of herself without saying a word, laughing at me every day?”

“Your Majesty, who has nothing better to do than look at your ornaments all day? I’m just saying this glass isn’t valuable. I’ve emphasized this repeatedly because I want to tell you—I plan to use it to cheat money. In two years it won’t be worth anything. Like the porcelain at home, it will all become necessities.”

“You’re not allowed to cheat the blood and sweat money of Great Tang’s people! You’re the world’s biggest swindler. Being with you is all sin. Farmers face the yellow earth with their backs to the sky working for a year—it can’t compare to what you fire with a handful of sand. You’re already very wealthy. Show some mercy and spare those farmers.”

As long as the situation wasn’t under her control, Zhangsun would immediately change her attitude and negotiate with Yun Ye, using a mother hen protecting her eggs attitude to guard against Yun Ye harming those vulnerable farmers.

“Your Majesty, what kind of person do you think I am? Even if you squeeze farmers into human jerky, how much oil can you get? My target this time is those barbarian merchants and extremely wealthy families. They have too much money and always bury it in pigsties without taking it out. This time I plan to hold a grand auction.”

Seeing that Yun Ye wasn’t scheming against common people, Zhangsun relaxed more than half her worries. Those extremely wealthy merchants and barbarians from all over the world were all figures Zhangsun very much disliked. Taking some money from them didn’t seem improper.

“This is where your confidence to bet with Wei Zheng that you can rake in two million strings of cash comes from? Have you thought about it—once you sell these things at high prices, when the price drops in two years, how will you establish yourself in Chang’an? Are you planning to take this one haul and then retire to Yushan, ignoring worldly affairs? Does your Yun family want any face at all?”

Very good—Zhangsun was finally willing to consider things for the Yun family. If every item sold at a high price, the Yun family would be called the biggest swindler family afterward. No one would be willing to deal with such a family. Given the chance, everyone would stomp on them twice to vent their anger.

“This time the officials at court have probably broken your heart. You’re also a petty person. Without venting your anger, you won’t give up. I only hope you’ll strike lightly and think more about your future. Don’t destroy everything you’ve worked so hard to build for a moment’s anger. Also, those things you did a few days ago—you can’t do them anymore.”

“Your Majesty doesn’t know—I’ve always been weighing pros and cons, only choosing what’s beneficial, not choosing what’s right. A few days ago when my friend came, I suddenly learned something from him. Do you know? He has twenty-one wives, all obtained in one night. They were all starving refugees from Hebei. He didn’t refuse—he agreed with a smile, deciding to properly raise twenty-one wives and eight children himself. He considers it a blessing. Such a person—does Your Majesty still think letting him go is a loss?”

Zhangsun sighed, touching the icy wall, patting it and saying, “Good people and bad people are relative. Yun Ye, sometimes people do things they themselves don’t want to do. Being born into prominent wealthy families—rather than saying it’s fortunate, it’s better to say it’s tragic. A family head like you—there’s only one in all of Chang’an. Some people say you’re a spendthrift. How would they know whether you’re really squandering? Some people say you’re an idiot. Who would know you’re actually meticulous as hair? Look at this room full of rare treasures—it’s actually transformed from sand. The mediocre and the miraculous are truly only one step apart.”

After personally viewing the glass, Zhangsun took two pieces back to the palace. She left the remaining matters for Crown Prince Li Chengqian to handle. The Emperor must have already made arrangements. There would definitely be a detailed plan for the distribution of money, when to release it, and who to trap.

When darkness fell, Yun Ye had no desire to sleep. He went to the academy with Old Jiang along the stone-paved path. He hadn’t seen Grandmother and Xinyue for several days and missed them terribly. Passing the academy gate, he saw Ma Zhou sitting alone at the entrance of Huang Shu’s small shop drinking sweet fermented rice wine, holding a scroll in his hand, chanting aloud. Huang Shu’s wife and daughter had long since gone back, leaving only Huang Shu dozing with his head on the table. His small shop never had the habit of driving people out.

Shaking his head, he avoided them and passed through the shadows. Before long, he arrived at the Yun family’s small building. Standing downstairs looking at the brightly lit home, he wanted to go up but also wanted to enjoy this warmth alone, becoming hesitant.

He heard Yiniang catching Xiao Ya to wash her feet, also heard Runniang complaining about Daya’s voice. From time to time fighting sounds came down—needless to say, this was Xiao Xi and Xiao Bei causing trouble. Xinyue’s silhouette reflected on the white window gauze—she was embroidering something. Thinking of Xinyue’s needlework made Yun Ye want to laugh. Who knows what she was embroidering now? Hopefully when his son wore it out in the future, it wouldn’t be embarrassing.

Shishi was like a nimble large cat, appearing silently behind Yun Ye. Opening her mouth, she said, “Master, why don’t you go in? Mistress has been complaining about you these past two days.”

Tugging Shishi’s small braid, Yun Ye said softly to Shishi, “Master is about to do something big, so right now I can’t be distracted. Shishi is a good girl—help Master take care of them.”

He decided not to disturb their happy lives after all. Bitter, dirty, tiring work was originally what men should do. As long as they were happy, that was enough. Thinking of this, his heart actually obtained enormous satisfaction. Carefree, he patted Shishi’s head, turned and went down the mountain. He had seen what he needed to see—this was enough. Tomorrow he would sharpen his claws better to catch more prey to support his family.

Gazing toward Chang’an, thinking of those local tyrants still in their dreams, Yun Ye grinned and smiled. Could the information bombardment of the economic era pry open your greedy hearts?