Pretending to worry about the country and people had unexpectedly led to real anxiety, which proved that Yun Ye was still not a qualified bureaucrat. Everyone was now building ships. Even the boats running in the Qujiang Pond had become the kind where you stepped on pedals that drove the wheels behind to paddle water and move forward. The five-toothed great warships that Old Yan had built were completely invisible. Even the newly built ships didn’t qualify to transport goods on Dongting Lake. Now the largest cargo ship on Dongting Lake was the Great Emperor.
Li Er was very satisfied that the Great Emperor had become a cargo ship. He just felt waves of heartache when he thought of those expensive furnishings. There was no choice—the Great Emperor had to support itself. The expensive maintenance and upkeep costs had long ago made the Yuezhou Prefect Guan Tinglong furious. He had submitted three memorials in succession requesting that the court dismantle this useless giant boat. While the planks on top hadn’t been rotted by water yet, it would be good to recover some money. This giant boat belonging to the Emperor was like King Xuan of Qi’s fat ox—completely useless. Apart from wasting state funds, it had no benefits.
Li Er didn’t want to dismantle it. This ship was his personal glory. But Yuezhou submitted a memorial saying they would no longer bear the costs of this useless ship. Li Er had no choice but to order the opening of this ship to serve as a pleasure boat or cargo ship. The name Great Emperor was also cancelled at the same time.
The Empress’s phoenix boat was different. It sailed exceptionally happily in Qujiang Pond, and there were always two phoenixes circling above the boat. The sound of strings and bamboo came from the boat, along with women’s melodious singing voices.
Yun Shou had caught a phoenix once, because Father had told him that thing was called a bird of paradise, not any phoenix. He liked the three long tail feathers on the bird of paradise’s tail. The phoenix was caught, but taking it out through the palace gates was completely impossible. The foolish child casually stuffed the phoenix into his schoolbag. When the palace gate guards saw the phoenix that had been tormented half to death by Yun Shou and Li Yan Rong, they were so frightened their calves cramped. The eunuch from the Court of Imperial Entertainments who specially cared for the phoenixes, upon hearing the news, gurgled in his throat and fainted.
Zhangsun had no interest in beautiful clothes, no interest in jewelry, and even less interest in money—mainly because she had too much of these things. Only the twelve phoenixes that Li Tai had sent over were treasured like her lifeline. If she didn’t tease the phoenixes a few times each day, she felt uncomfortable all over. For this reason, a massive greenhouse was built in the palace. The temperature was kept constant at a fixed degree year-round. Several of the Yun Family’s banana trees were also planted here. Although they lived, they never bore bananas.
Upon hearing about it, Zhangsun was so angry she nearly fainted. She caught Yun Shou, stripped off his pants, and personally administered more than ten paddle strikes. Li Yan Rong received the same treatment. Even so, Yun Shou kept shouting something about wrongs having perpetrators and debts having debtors, telling Zhangsun to beat him all she wanted but not to hit Li Yan Rong.
Zhangsun was furious, but Li Er was exceptionally happy. He pleaded for Yun Shou, saying that a child with feelings and righteousness shouldn’t be punished. Then he ordered the manager of the phoenix garden from the Court of Imperial Entertainments to be beaten to death with clubs.
From then on, Yun Shou had no good feelings toward phoenixes at all. Whenever he saw phoenixes, he hid far away, afraid that if he got close to the phoenixes again and something happened to them, another person would be beaten to death. That eunuch had actually been a very decent person.
“Father, there are phoenixes.” Yun Shou pointed at the phoenixes circling above the Empress’s boat and said to his father who was strenuously pedaling. He suddenly didn’t want to see the Empress.
“Son, you’ve already been traumatized by that incident. Let me tell you, boy, phoenixes have no inevitable connection with death. What led to that eunuch’s death was your behavior. Beating a person to death over a bird—Father thinks the Emperor’s action wasn’t appropriate. But he’s the Emperor. He just likes using human lives to teach lessons. So son, when you do these things in the future, you must not implicate others. When we do these things, at most we get a beating. Those poor eunuchs and palace maids—when they do them, they only have the road to death. Human life is actually very fragile, especially in the imperial palace.”
“Yan Rong is also in the imperial palace. She’s never happy. Every time her mother sees her, she goes mad. Each time she vows not to go mad again, but when they meet, it’s still the same. Father, please go beg Empress Grandmother to bring Yan Rong to our house. At most I’ll promise you I’ll write twenty pages of large characters every day.”
Seeing his son looking at him so earnestly, Yun Ye felt terribly heartbroken. Damn imperial family rules had forced his fat son to use his ultimate trump card. What this child hated most was writing large characters. Two pages of large characters a day could kill him. Now, to get Li Yan Rong out, he actually opened his mouth wide like a lion and promised twenty pages of large characters in one commitment.
“Good, good. Yan Rong will be part of our family sooner or later. Father will ask the Empress and Crown Prince today. My son doesn’t need to write twenty pages of large characters every day. As long as you conscientiously write two pages well, that’s enough.”
Yun Shou cheered and nestled his head affectionately under his father’s armpit for a while, then raised his head and said to Yun Ye: “You’re the best father under heaven.” Yun Ye laughed proudly with satisfaction and rubbed his son’s head. His eleven-year-old son was finally acting like a child. What had those freaks Lishi and Xinyue taught the child to become?
Father and son worked together to pedal. Those idiots who built the ship hadn’t even installed a power-assist device. Pedaling this thing was even heavier than pedaling rowing machines from later generations.
They weren’t the only father and son pedaling the boat desperately. Li Tai with his child, Li Chengqian with two children were also strenuously pedaling boats, along with countless princesses and princes consort. Xue Wanche, who was about to leave the capital, was also among them.
Today was an imperial family banquet. Now Zhangsun no longer avoided the relationship between Yun Ye and Li Anlan. Yun Ye’s name was prominently marked on the list of banquet attendees. All imperial relatives in the capital had to come today.
“When there’s rain at the spring equinox, every household is busy; plant melons and beans first, then transplant seedlings.” For the usually frugal Zhangsun to hold a banquet, it could only be on her birthday or on this day of the spring equinox, because from tomorrow, great busyness would begin. Holding a banquet on this day also had the meaning of rewarding the troops and encouraging everyone to work hard.
Her boat had oars and ran very fast. Yun Ye and the others could only run blindly behind. Who knew if Zhangsun was having a great time playing around, toying with these people—no matter how they chased, they couldn’t catch up.
Yun Ye and his son Yun Shou simply stopped pedaling the boat and parked the small boat in the middle of Qujiang. Anyway, the Empress’s boat was going in circles. Only a fool would chase the boat and be walked like a dog.
Li Tai also stopped his boat in the middle. His son was only two years old and held in his arms. The child watched Yun Shou making faces at him with the wariness of a small beast. After just a couple of times, he started crying, very spineless, pointing at Yun Shou to complain to his father.
“Haha, Qing Que, you can’t raise a child like this. People say raise sons poor and daughters rich. Boys should be let go to tumble about by themselves. After falling a few times, they won’t cry anymore.”
“Get lost! My son is only two years old. How can he compare with your monkey-like fat son? Besides, my family’s child will become a graceful and elegant handsome man in the future. He won’t grow as fat as your son.”
“Give me a break. Looking at your appearance, you know this child won’t be that handsome. If you don’t instill a bit of manly heroic spirit, what if he runs off to sing the Yue People’s Song? Those boatmen all like to sing this song to the imperial family.”
Li Tai angrily threw over a plate of pears. Yun Ye caught two. Father and son each took one. Being able to see pears in spring was really rare. Even the Yun Family didn’t have them. Who knew where Li Tai had gotten them from.
Li Chengqian saw Yun Ye and Li Tai slacking off and also felt it wasn’t worth following those fools circling Qujiang. He also brought his boat over. Yun Shou happily stood up and took a step, nearly capsizing the boat, because he saw Li Yan Rong.
“Son, seeing your wife doesn’t require such excitement. If you capsize the boat, we father and son will have to swim to shore. I don’t want to swim in such cold water.” Hearing Yun Ye’s words, Li Tai laughed cackling. Only Yun Shou’s face turned red. The half-grown child already knew shame.
Li Chengqian also saw this scene and chuckled as he brought his boat over, saying to Yun Ye: “Having daughters also has benefits. Ye Zi, look at your fat little boy. Seeing my daughter, he doesn’t even want his own father anymore and is preparing to throw you into the lake water to drown you. How eyesore must you be for the child to treat you like this?”
Li Chengqian’s words were vicious. This fellow had been full of resentment toward Yun Ye lately. After Yun Ye returned to the capital, he hid in Yushan and wouldn’t come out. After taking over the Ministry of War some time ago, he became even busier. He’d rather run far every day than stay overnight in Xinghua Ward. Now whenever he mobilized, it would be with large numbers of people and horses—very inconvenient. The number of times the two of them met was pitifully few.
Especially now that he himself was frantically busy, the flaws of the money house had finally erupted. The ratio of copper to silver had already reached a dangerous level. Although the Yun Family would rather take losses and had exchanged all their wealth for silver, which could be considered the greatest support for him, Li Chengqian believed that Yun Ye should go to work at the money house at this time rather than go to some Ministry of War. What the world lacked least was Left Vice Ministers of War. Any general pulled from the Sixteen Guards could be competent. But the talent the money house needed was as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. He himself had recently felt somewhat overwhelmed.
At the beginning of spring, common people needed large amounts of copper coins to purchase production materials. Copper coins became precious. Those who suffered most were the farmers. In and out, ten percent of their harvest was gone. Li Chengqian didn’t want to see this scene and used all his abilities to deal with this disaster.
“Come to the money house and help me. I can barely hold on.” When talking to Yun Ye, Li Chengqian wouldn’t be polite.
“Can’t do it. This official now controls the Ministry of War. All the military guards under heaven are under my control. When one order goes out, ghosts and spirits are startled. When one order is withdrawn, mountains and rivers change color. Who has time to fiddle with a few copper coins?”
“Nonsense! If you have the ability, issue an order that startles ghosts and spirits for me to see. I guarantee your head will be hanging on the flagpole tomorrow. You’re an official not even as big as a turtle in the Jinshui River, yet you have the nerve to show off.”
Yun Ye threw away his pear core and said quietly to Li Chengqian: “Make preparations. Starting tomorrow, mountains of copper coins will arrive in Chang’an, Luoyang, Yizhou, Yangzhou, and these places. Yongzhou and Guangzhou definitely won’t be lacking either. Do you think my Lingnan naval forces didn’t go out to sea to suppress pirates but were hiding in inland rivers doing nothing?”