LFHYB -Chapter 45 Li Xuanba Deep in Debt

Li Xuanba was left with only a cough and no longer needed to take medicine—so Li Shimin fell ill instead.

He had nightmares at night and woke up several times; the next day his nose started running.

Li Xuanba handed the bitter medicine to Li Shimin. Li Shimin looked at his younger brother with an extremely resentful gaze.

Li Xuanba met his brother’s eyes without the slightest guilt.

What are you looking at? This has nothing to do with me!

Li Shimin silently drank the medicine, silently feeling wronged.

Li Xuanba asked curiously: [You’re not going to ask for more details?]

After finishing the bitter medicine, Li Shimin wore an expression of having seen through the emptiness of life. “I’m still young. I’ll wait until I grow up before I shoulder such heavy burdens.”

Li Xuanba agreed: [I already told you not to ask. I’ll tell you when you grow up.]

Li Shimin wanted to wipe his snot on his brother!

“What did I even ask?!” Li Shimin protested angrily at his brother’s twisting of the facts. “I didn’t ask anything at all!”

Li Xuanba thought for a moment, then covered it up with a string of coughs.

Li Shimin recovered his strength after only three days of illness.

Li Xuanba, however, was still coughing, sometimes even waking himself up at night.

Both the imperial physician and Physician Sun said that for someone with Li Xuanba’s constitution, taking too much medicine was not good. Since it was only a mild cough, it was best for him to endure it on his own. If the coughing became too severe, he could chew a few loquat leaves preserved in honey to soothe his throat.

Night coughing drained his energy, so Li Xuanba asked his teachers for leave. During the day, whenever he wasn’t coughing, he would catch up on sleep.

Li Shimin still had to attend classes. Li Xuanba’s night coughing didn’t affect him.

Although the two brothers still lived in the same courtyard, when they turned eight they had begun sleeping separately. Each of them had a small room of his own, which he could arrange however he liked.

Li Shimin was a little worried that Li Xuanba might not sleep well without him taking care of him at night.

But it was Li Xuanba who had insisted on sleeping apart, because as his second brother entered a phase of rapid growth, his sleeping posture had become terribly unruly.

At this age, children were right in the middle of growing taller. Their legs would sometimes cramp, and in their sleep they would thrash about wildly.

Li Xuanba was relatively quiet—at most, he just turned over a lot.

Li Shimin was another matter entirely. Once, in his sleep, he performed an entire set of long-fist boxing and literally punched Li Xuanba awake.

Li Xuanba sat up in disbelief. By the moonlight, he saw his brother first practicing punches on the bed, then kicking his legs back and forth as if running, and finally combining his arms and legs, running, flailing, and mumbling “Kill” in his sleep.

Who are you trying to kill?! Are you going to pull a “I like to kill people in my dreams” too?!

Growing kids really were terrifying sleepers.

When Lady Dou heard about it, she laughed out loud and promptly gave the two of them separate rooms.

Their rooms were next to each other. They still shared the study, and there was even a small door between their rooms, so they didn’t have to go outside to get to one another.

After that, Li Xuanba finally started sleeping well.

However, when it came to afternoon naps, the two of them still habitually made do together on the couch in the study. During the day, Li Shimin slept lightly and was fairly well-behaved.

Perhaps the little Tang Taizong wasn’t “I like killing in my dreams,” but rather “I like killing at night.”

When the two children had first started sleeping apart, Lady Dou worried whether they wouldn’t be able to get used to it.

Li Shimin also complained. He was used to waking up and first checking whether his younger brother had pulled his blanket over himself properly. If he instinctively reached to the side and found nothing, he was sure he would be startled awake.

Li Xuanba felt a little touched when he heard his brother say that, but he still firmly refused to sleep with a brother whose sleeping habits had deteriorated so badly.

That night, a very worried Lady Dou came to check on them, to see whether they were sleeping poorly. Both of them were sleeping soundly. Especially Li Shimin—he was sprawled right in the middle of the bed, flat on his back, limbs flung wide, sleeping so blissfully it was hard to describe.

Lady Dou’s feelings were complicated. So I’m the only one losing sleep over this?

Especially you, Erlang! Look how deeply you’re sleeping! I can pinch your nose and you don’t even wake up!

For no clear reason, Lady Dou felt a little sad. Only when she saw that, even though the two children now slept in separate rooms, they were still as close as ever, did she finally feel better.

Gao Jiong, Yuwen Bi, and Yu Shinan reduced Li Shimin’s class load a little, letting him come home earlier to teach his younger brother.

Li Shimin would bounce out of class and run straight home to tutor Li Xuanba.

Ever since he had started learning riding and archery, Li Shimin’s mind had become harder to settle. He was no longer as able to sit quietly and read as he had been at five or six, and his attitude toward academic studies had grown more perfunctory.

Only when Li Xuanba was sick did Li Shimin turn back into the diligent, focused student he used to be.

“Because right now I’m not just a student—I’m also your teacher,” Li Shimin said, rolling up his book and imitating Gao Jiong’s lecturing manner. “Study properly. Don’t slack off.”

Li Xuanba listened obediently.

Li Zhiyun, whose personality had grown more mischievous with age, was sprawled on Li Xuanba’s back, his head poking out over Li Xuanba’s shoulder, also listening obediently.

Li Shimin complained, “That can’t really count as obedient, can it?”

Li Zhiyun said, “Xiao Wu is obedient!”

Li Xuanba said, “Isn’t a clinging Xiao Wu obedient too?”

Li Shimin rolled his eyes. If Xiao Wu ever turned into a little hooligan like Li Yuanji, it would definitely be A-Xuan’s fault.

By the time Li Xuanba’s cough had completely healed, Yang Guang had already arrived in Yulin and was preparing to return to Luoyang.

At the same time, Yang Guang changed the name of Eastern Capital Luoyang. From then on, it would be called “Dongdu”—the Eastern Metropolis.

No one at court really knew what the difference between “Eastern Capital” and “Eastern Metropolis” was. It was probably just because the emperor liked it.

The emperor didn’t just change “Eastern Capital” to “Eastern Metropolis.” He also changed many other designations, such as renaming provinces as commanderies and reverting weights and measures back to the Han system. Perhaps he was using these changes to show his determination to make Great Sui as powerful as the Great Han.

By the time Li Xuanba was able to attend classes again, the floods had already subsided. The refugees ended their wandering and returned to their devastated homelands, rebuilding from the mud.

Yang Guang did not distribute relief through Buddhist temples this time. Instead, he directly issued relief grain in the name of imperial benevolence.

He even specially had troops escort the refugees to Yulin, and in front of Qimin Khan and other Turkic nobles, he personally bestowed food upon them.

There was so much food that the refugees could not finish it all and were even allowed to take some away. They knelt and thanked the emperor for his boundless grace.

The Turkic nobles were astonished by the wealth of Great Sui and praised the emperor’s benevolence.

They said that on the steppe, if disaster struck, herdsmen who could not feed themselves would simply be abandoned. Their worth was even less than that of cattle and sheep. Only a Central Plains dynasty so wealthy could bestow precious grain upon lowly commoners with no value.

Although it was meant as flattery, the Turkic nobles were also telling the truth.

Yang Guang sighed to those at his side, “The Turkic khan is truly too cruel. The people of Great Sui should be glad they are my people.”

The ministers around him all voiced their agreement.

Although Gao Jiong was no longer at the center of court politics, he had friends everywhere in the bureaucracy, and news of the emperor’s northern tour soon reached his ears.

For example, that the emperor had demanded that the refugees be brought before him so that he could personally bestow grain upon them;

For example, that just as he had done on his tour to Jiangdu, the emperor again demanded exquisite tribute foods along the route. Because the governor of Yanmen, Qiu He, presented especially fine food, he was promoted; because the governor of Mayi, Yang Kuo, failed to please the emperor, he was dismissed. Along the route, officials competed with one another over who could present the most luxurious delicacies—

For example, the emperor ordered Yuwen Kai to build the Watching-the-Wind Mobile Palace and the Mobile City. These “palaces” and “cities” were essentially land-based “dragon boats”—so heavy that even horses could barely pull them. Only with large groups of people hauling together could they be moved across the ground.

For example, when the emperor reached Yulin, he suddenly decided on a whim to build a Great Wall. He conscripted a million laborers, starting from Yulin in the west to the Zi River in the east, and finished an entire stretch of wall in just twenty days.

For example, when the emperor finally arrived in Taiyuan, he found the place delightful and immediately demanded the construction of the Jinyang Palace.

For example, the emperor then wanted to visit the home of the minister Zhang Heng, but he didn’t want to take a detour—so he urgently conscripted the people of Taiyuan to build a brand-new ninety-li straight imperial road leading directly to Zhang Heng’s house…

As for extravagantly entertaining Qimin Khan, who had accompanied him into the interior, that was considered a trivial matter by comparison.

All of these were orders issued before August twenty-third, before the emperor arrived at the Eastern Capital, Luoyang. Yet he had only left the capital at the end of April or the beginning of May to begin this northern inspection tour.

By the time the emperor returned to his palace in Luoyang, both the Great Wall and the imperial road had already been completed. Only the Jinyang Palace was still under frantic construction, but it was expected to be finished very soon.

When Gao Jiong received this news, his face turned ashen.

He was now absolutely certain that he was destined to die during this northern tour.

Because if he had gone along with the emperor, he would have spent the entire journey remonstrating nonstop. Instead, now that he learned what the emperor had done, even the Great Wall and the imperial road were already finished.

Now that everything had already happened, any remonstration would only amount to complaining. Knowing full well that the emperor would not listen, they could not even be bothered to submit memorials anymore.

Gao Jiong almost felt like giving up completely. Out of sheer curiosity, he wondered: what else could Yang Guang possibly do that would surpass even this?

The common people had only just emerged from an age of chaos, having experienced only a brief period of peace under the late emperor. As a result, their tolerance for hardship was extremely high.

The late emperor’s rule had not been especially gentle, but compared to the chaos of the war-torn years, life had been much better. The people certainly did not want to return to that era of disorder.

Still, even such endurance had its limits.

The fall of the Sui in its second generation would not be like that of Qin. When Qin was founded, it was already fatally flawed, teetering on collapse, so the moment it encountered a cruel and absurd tyrant, it plunged straight into the abyss.

The late emperor had already given Yang Guang the prototype of a prosperous age—this was the dynasty’s period of ascent. What on earth would Yang Guang have to do to end up standing shoulder to shoulder with Qin Ershi?

When Li Xuanba heard of all this, he too marveled at the endurance and capability of the Sui people.

Yang Guang could tour the empire while simultaneously ordering the people to build imperial roads, without delaying the tour at all. The construction of the Great Wall was also ordered on a whim, and by the time the tour ended, the wall was already complete.

Compared with the speed at which Qin Shi Huang built his roads and walls, Sui productivity had clearly made tremendous advances, giving rise to this terrifying “Great Sui speed.”

Judging solely by how efficiently the Sui launched and completed massive infrastructure projects, Yang Guang truly deserved to be shortlisted as a “Millennial Emperor.”

Li Shimin, Fang Qiao, Du Ruhui, and Changsun Wuji all raised their thumbs at Li Xuanba after hearing his commentary.

His sarcasm was truly on another level.

Among the group, aside from the naïve Changsun Wuji, Du Ruhui was the only one who still held some hope for the emperor.

After all, the emperor had only been on the throne for four years, and the era name had been in use for just three. In Du Ruhui’s view, it was still too early to pass final judgment on what kind of ruler he would become.

From his perspective, some of the emperor’s policies had perfectly sound intentions—the problem was that their execution was brutally crude. Perhaps this was simply because the emperor had only recently ascended the throne and was not yet skilled in handling state affairs.

Though Du Ruhui came from the Du clan of Jingzhao, he was not from the main branch and thus had limited access to court intelligence. Now that he was hearing firsthand accounts from Li Shimin and Li Xuanba, the rose-tinted filter he had placed over the emperor shattered completely.

He began to consider that rather than waiting to become some sort of reserve official through the selection system, he might as well go home, live off his family, and retire into seclusion.

Many people at court felt the same sense of disillusionment. Even Gao Jiong and Yuwen Bi had been pushed to the sidelines—no one dared to oppose anything the emperor wanted to do anymore.

Not even the kind and benevolent Crown Prince dared.

Gao Jiong had once held a very high opinion of Crown Prince Yang Zhao. He believed that if Yang Zhao could successfully inherit the throne, he would surely be able to continue the Sui dynasty.

Unfortunately, the crown prince’s health was poor—he would probably not outlive Yang Guang.

But now, seeing Yang Zhao pretend to be deaf and mute, Gao Jiong was deeply disappointed.

He understood the crown prince’s difficulties and his fear of arousing the emperor’s suspicion. Still, even a token gesture—a single memorial expressing his stance—would have been something.

If the crown prince had done that, the officials and the people would at least have had a glimmer of hope, believing that the heir was still generous and humane, merely constrained by his position as a son and crown prince.

If Yang Zhao was truly so afraid of provoking the emperor, he did not need to remonstrate on everything—just one issue would have been enough. For example, he could have pleaded for more lenient deadlines on the Great Wall project.

But the crown prince did nothing.

Even disaster relief only came after the refugees had already reached the gates of Daxing. Only then did he, at the request of Gao Jiong and Yuwen Bi, finally dare to advise the emperor.

The crown prince was kind and humane to people—but he was far too cautious.

Perhaps that was the correct choice.

After all, his first priority was to preserve his position and his life. Only by becoming emperor could he hope to realize his ideals. If he displeased the emperor, then no matter how virtuous or talented he was, it would all be meaningless.

Gao Jiong understood rationally that the crown prince’s decision was correct, yet he could not help feeling disappointed.

Whenever he thought of the crown prince now, he would unconsciously rub Li Shimin’s head.

Though Li Shimin did not know why his teacher suddenly started ruffling his hair, he could sense that his teacher was unhappy, so he obediently let him do it.

Watching Li Shimin’s filial, respectful behavior toward his elders, Gao Jiong felt both happy and bitter.

Li Shimin was excellent in every way—except that he was far too young.

This northern tour not only made Gao Jiong utterly despair of Yang Guang and Yang Zhao, it also made him look at Li Xuanba with fresh eyes once again.

Yang Guang’s final actions had actually been very close to what Li Xuanba had predicted.

In other words, although Gao Jiong’s remonstrations had failed, Li Xuanba must have done something that led Yang Guang to follow along with his scheme.

Even though, judging from Li Xuanba’s expression, Yang Guang’s final move had still exceeded his expectations, Li Xuanba’s grasp of Yang Guang’s thinking was clearly far deeper than Gao Jiong’s own.

Is it because Li Xuanba knows chenwei (prophetic apocrypha)?

To be carrying a prophetic book of fate was terrifying enough—but the fact that this book was actually called The Book of Sui made it even more frightening.

When Gao Jiong thought about the place he occupied in The Book of Sui, his mood finally improved a little.

Yuwen Bi, however, felt even worse. He had already made up his mind never to remonstrate with Yang Guang again.

That said, Yuwen Bi had said this before too. Li Xuanba could only hope his teacher would hold out for a bit longer.

As far as Li Xuanba was concerned, Yang Guang’s northern tour was completely over.

And he had suffered a huge loss.

All the money he had saved from the soap shop and the bookstore was gone. He had even written IOUs to his mother and his elder sister, and now he was drowning in debt.

This money was not lost on buying slaves.

When there was no famine, ordinary slaves were very cheap. Those with average looks and no special skills cost less than one guan.

During a famine, the brokers would say, “The whole family can come together,” and with nothing more than a bowl of food, many people were willing to follow them without even asking for a purchase price.

Even for relatively “high-quality” slaves who truly needed money, the price had dropped to around a hundred qian, more than ninety percent cheaper than usual.

So in times of famine, it was always the perfect moment for powerful and wealthy families to happily increase their number of servants. Even after the Tang Duke’s household bought all the slaves it could hold, it still hadn’t spent as much as the profits from a single limited presale at the soap shop.

Li Xuanba’s money had all gone to bribing Yuwen Shu.

He knew Yuwen Shu was a greedy but trustworthy official: as long as you paid enough, he really would do things for you.

So under the pretext of delivering new soap and skincare products, Li Xuanba prepared a large batch of boxes inlaid with rare jewels. The empty spaces inside the boxes were stuffed with pearls and gemstones. Then, using his connection through Yuwen Shiji, he successfully got Yuwen Shu to agree to help.

The treasures that Yuwen Shu found worthy of attention were far beyond what Li Xuanba could have earned from just a few months of selling soap and books.

In addition to the money he borrowed from his mother and third sister, even the money from selling Li Shimin’s little colt had gone into this.

Li Xuanba only told Li Shimin after it was already done.

Li Shimin was depressed for a long time.

He had sold the colt so that disaster victims could have something to eat—not to give money to corrupt officials.

He said to Li Xuanba, “A-Xuan, you should have told me: the money for buying slaves came from selling my colt, and the money for bribes came from what you borrowed. That way I’d feel much better about it.”

Li Xuanba replied, “Then don’t feel better. Share the suffering with me.”

Li Shimin sulked.

Yuwen Shu! I’ll remember this! Even if you’re the father of the Yuwen imperial consort, I’ll still remember you!

Seeing Li Shimin’s petty little expression, Li Xuanba tried to comfort him. “It’s fine—after all, in the future he will—”

Li Shimin immediately covered Li Xuanba’s mouth. “Don’t say it! Don’t even think it! I’m still young—wait until I grow up before saying things like that!”

Whenever Li Xuanba mentioned “the future,” Li Shimin would think of how tragically Changsun Wuji died. These days, every time he saw Changsun Wuji, he couldn’t help sighing deeply, which left Changsun Wuji utterly confused.

Li Xuanba thought, [All right, I won’t say anything. Let go—you’re suffocating me.]

Li Shimin released him and warned, “Don’t say it. Never say it again.”

Li Xuanba sighed helplessly. “Fine. I promise I won’t say it on my own initiative.”

If it slipped out by reflex, though, that wouldn’t be his fault.

Now burdened with heavy debt and fully recovered in health, Li Xuanba had to work hard.

At last, he managed to produce floral essential oils.

Fresh-flower essential oils were extracted by distillation. The only real technical difficulty was the separator.

Li Xuanba only remembered roughly what a separator looked like. Since there was no glass, the craftsmen experimented for a long time before finally managing to fire a crude ceramic separating vessel.

This separator wasn’t nearly as efficient as the modern kind. When separating essential oil from hydrosol, a lot of oil was left mixed into the hydrosol.

But that was fine. The essential oil was meant as tribute and for sale to nobles—scarcity made it precious, so it could simply be sold at a higher price.

The hydrosol was also a “luxury item.” It could even be diluted with water and sold, making enormous profits.

Roses were already available. Li Xuanba had long been growing them, and he packaged rose essential oil and rose hydrosol as the most precious of all. Once Yang Guang and Empress Xiao tried them, Yang Guang said nothing, but Empress Xiao— for the first time ever—asked Yang Guang for money, manpower, and land to help Li Xuanba expand production.

“After using rose essential oil and rose hydrosol, I can’t use any other ointments anymore,” Empress Xiao said, touching her face that had been treated with them. “It takes a thousand roses to produce a single drop of essence. Only a flourishing empire like the great Han could afford such treasures in its palace.”

Yang Guang, on the other hand, felt the rose scent was too lush and seductive.

It was very pleasant when he went to the harem—more stimulating than aphrodisiacs—but he didn’t want to smell like that himself.

That was fine. Li Xuanba had already prepared men’s exclusive “herbs and woods” essential oils, such as cedarwood.

Cedar was widely cultivated in the Western Regions and India. Because it was so fragrant, monks often used common cedar branches from those areas to scam people by passing them off as rare items.

When Li Xuanba was planning his soap business, he had already thought of the hugely popular cedarwood oil of later ages, so he spent money to buy seeds and saplings from Western Region merchants and planted them in large quantities.

For now, however, his so-called cedarwood oil was actually extracted from ordinary local pine trees. The effect was unknown, but at least it wouldn’t ruin anyone’s face.

As for why it was called “cedar”—why can’t a pine tree in the snow be called cedar? “Cedar” sounded far more aloof and elegant than “pine.”

And sure enough, His Majesty was very satisfied with the name “cedar.”

Li Xuanba’s collection of “cedar” had already reached Yang Guang’s ears.

Li Xuanba told him that the cedar used for tribute was real cedar from the Western Regions, while the cedar essential oil sold to ordinary nobles came from locally produced “cedar.”

The same went for rose oil.

The nobles used roses that were already common locally, but the tribute rose oil came from palace roses of a mysterious empire even farther west than the Western Regions. He warmly welcomed His Majesty and the Empress to visit and inspect the cedars and roses he was cultivating specially for tribute.

Even though they were both called cedarwood essential oil and rose essential oil, what His Majesty and the Empress used was completely different from anything else. Those were true tribute goods—things you couldn’t buy even with money, nor obtain through connections.

Prince Qi, Yang Xian, was unhappy. “Even I can’t get them?!”

Li Xuanba took Yang Xian to the special cedar and rose gardens he had set aside for the Emperor and Empress.

Next to the gardens, someone even played soft Western Regions music at fixed times.

Li Xuanba said, “People from the Western Regions believe that even plants have feelings. If they hear the music of their homeland, Western plants grow better.”

Yang Xian was deeply shaken.

Li Xuanba sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want to give some to Your Highness. It’s just that the yield is so small—if I grow more, they won’t survive. How about you help me buy more seeds and seedlings from Western Region merchants? I can have people try planting them.”

Yang Xian walked around the garden once. Seeing that it was even smaller than his own household courtyard, he had no way to blame Li Xuanba.

He had gone through all of Li Xuanba’s “raw-material planting bases” and really only saw these two tiny plots.

With so little, it wasn’t even enough to make essential oil and floral water for Father Emperor and Mother Empress alone.

Yang Xian said angrily, “I refuse to believe that Western Region plants can grow there but not in Great Sui! Just you wait—this prince will send people to buy more rare flower seeds and tree saplings from the Western Regions!”

Li Xuanba clasped his hands. “Then I’ll trouble Cousin. And there’s no need to be too angry. His Majesty dotes on you—why not write to him and ask directly? I’m sure he would grant you one or two bottles of essential oil or floral water.”

Yang Xian originally wanted to say, How could one or two bottles be enough? I’d use them all in one go.

But when he looked at the narrow little garden, he felt that even his father probably couldn’t use essential oils and floral water every day. Being able to get a bottle to dab on his nose and smell daily would already be pretty good.

So Yang Xian wrote to Yang Guang, complaining about how hard it was to get the raw materials. This was the first time he couldn’t freely use tribute goods; even the soap back then hadn’t been this scarce.

He also sighed to his attendants, telling them not to waste money trying to buy tribute rose or cedar oil outside. He had seen it himself—the raw materials for essential oils and floral waters were extremely limited. Even Father Emperor and Mother Empress didn’t have enough. When palace servants came to take the tribute goods, they didn’t even dare skim any. The so-called “tribute” rose and cedar oils sold outside were all fake.

“Even I and the Crown Prince can’t get them—who else could possibly buy them?”

After those words from Prince Qi spread, many people went to ask Crown Prince Yang Zhao.

Yang Zhao sighed. “Ordinary rose and cedar oil works just fine. Why insist on Western Region roses and cedars? Are roses and cedars from the Western Regions really better than those from Great Sui?”

There— the Crown Prince had indirectly confirmed that Prince Qi was telling the truth.

“Brother, I don’t understand. Why are you telling everyone that tribute roses and cedars are rare and exist only in the palace?” Li Shimin was puzzled. “Can’t we keep some to sell? We used to sell tribute goods before.”

Li Xuanba read while thinking to himself:

[We can’t monopolize the technology for extracting essential oils and floral waters. I’ll soon present it to His Majesty and sell it to other nobles and great families. Unlike soap, extracting essential oils and floral waters isn’t complicated. What’s sold on the market won’t be that different from what we sell. If our oils are to sell better and at a higher price, the only route is to make the raw materials seem scarce.]

Li Shimin still didn’t get it. “If we’re not selling them at all, what’s the point of making them scarce?”

Li Xuanba smiled and looked up:

[Once the reputation of the tribute oils and floral waters is established, customers will think that all our other oils and floral waters are also special. And heh—the more we emphasize that they can’t be bought outside, the crazier people will become about them. Then we just sell products that are ‘90% similar,’ ‘80% similar,’ ‘70% similar,’ and so on.]

What he didn’t say was that the fake “tribute goods” circulating on the market were actually sold by people he himself had secretly arranged.

The “smugglers” never claimed they were real tribute—only that they were stolen from the workshops. Who knows? Maybe some of them really were tribute goods.

This year’s small goal of paying off his debts would probably be achieved.