Living Leisurely in Tang Dynasty - Chapter 193

According to Li Yuanying’s early virtues, he would never go out after being killed in winter. This year is different. This year, he feels that he has endless energy all over his body. He doesn’t feel cold in winter, and he bounces outside all the time. As the weather gets colder, there are gradually fewer people outside who can’t afford thick winter clothes.

After the winter, Li Yuanying personally named the heads of various charcoal shops and asked them to increase the price of refined charcoal. It doesn’t matter if the price of ordinary charcoal is not allowed to be raised, so that the people can afford it. After balancing the charcoal price, making sure that no one deliberately bid up the price, Li Yuanying asked people to send over the list of widows, widows and loneliness, and small family members, according to the usual practice of the previous two years. He doesn’t know about other places, he only knows that no people are allowed to freeze to death in Tengzhou.

I didn’t want to send back a batch of things this year.

Tang Jing was responsible for the implementation of this matter. He went to explain to Li Yuanying as soon as possible what was going on: “The charcoal they accepted, but the winter clothes were not needed. They said that they were given away last year and the year before, and the winter clothes are still new and you can continue to wear them. They don’t need the new winter clothes this year and give them to those who need them more.”

The winter clothes of the common people are worn year after year, even if it is broken or leaked, it can continue to be worn, even if it is passed from brother to brother, father to son, and a winter coat is worn by several people in turn. It’s just enough to wear it!

If something is sent by someone else, many people will definitely think “don’t give it for nothing” and will never return it. But the things were sent by Li Yuanying. In the past two years or so, Li Yuanying asked people to break up every decree and tell them to the people. After hearing this, the people felt that everything their Highness King Teng did was for the sake of the people. They are good, and their days are indeed getting better.

People can’t be white-eyed wolves. Li Yuanying sent people carbon and winter clothes to keep them from freezing. How could they continue to accept them without their conscience? If anyone secretly gets ignorant, they will be looked down upon by others!

Therefore, many people returned their winter clothes, and only those who had a new baby left their winter clothes.

Li Yuanying grew up in a nest of wealth and did not understand these things. After listening to Tang Jing, he would understand. It seems that winter clothes do not need to be given out every year.

Well-made winter clothes will never be useless, not to mention, they have so many soldiers in Tengzhou, and more winter clothes are not enough.

Li Yuanying asked someone to send the returned winter clothes to the army.

Tang Yong himself led some propaganda. First, he said that Li Yuanying gave clothes and charcoal to the little scholar’s ​​family, and that he had no worries and family safety after serving as a soldier in Tengzhou. He also said that Li Yuanying was well-educated. Those who know how to be grateful, otherwise a piece of winter clothes can be sold in exchange for a lot of rice, who will take the initiative to return it?

Li Yuanying didn’t do these things to win the hearts of the people and stabilize the military, but since he did it all, Tang Jing felt that people still had to know it. He praised Li Yuanying’s benevolence, and praised the gentleman’s conscience and gratitude. The soldiers were put on winter clothes and felt warm. He felt that this Tengzhou military camp was as warm as home, and he was full of enthusiasm. Defeated Tengzhou with all his loyalty and responsibility.

Tang Yong, a white-faced scholar who was less than a weak crown, spoke in front of the army and did not show any weakness. Li Dejian looked a little surprised. When he asked, he knew that Tang Yongzu had also had a general, and he had a lot of family history, but they These generations have inherited the family by poetry and books, and have not re-emerged as a general.

Li Dejian felt that Li Yuanying’s luck was really extraordinary, even the seemingly weak and gentle Tang Ying was really unusual in doing things. A few words helped Li Yuanying to hold his military heart firmly.

After another half month, Dong Xiaoyi came to report that after the autumn harvest, manpower is sufficient, and all localities will free up servicemen to repair roads, and the straight road to Chang’an will soon be fully connected.

There are many prefectures and counties involved in this road, and it is not all built by Fengtai Building. The names of people who participated in the construction of the road are recorded on the monuments along the way. Li Yuanying asked people to write down all the counties along the way, and took Yan Lide to design a set of stamps to celebrate the completion of the straight road. The price of the stamps was set based on Chang’an as a starting point and six stations. Each additional six stations would add one cent.

Chang’an is about 1,800 miles away from Mount Tai. The normal post sends six posts a day, and each post is 30 miles apart, that is, one hundred and eighty miles a day. So normally, it takes only ten cents to send the letter to the end of the straight road in ten days, and send the letter from Mount Tai to Chang’an!

Li Yuanying is the main investor, of course, secretly twisting the straight to make a bend to the door of Tengzhou’s house and then turn to Mount Tai.

At present, the post boxes outside the stations along the way are all set up, and the specially trained postmen and good horses are also ready to go. If there are many letters, they can also ask someone to collect it and pull it with a carriage! There is an old servant guard next to each mailbox. They don’t need to do heavy work. They just need to explain to the sender how to operate and unlock the lock regularly so that the postman can take away the daily letters.

Li Yuanying rode a horse for a round on the spacious and flat straight road. She was in a very good mood. She went back and called her friends to ride a horse in the breezy wind. She didn’t stop until she ran out of Tengzhou. Everyone was sweating, and they didn’t feel cold at all.

Li Yuanying turned her horse’s head and looked at the straight and spacious official road that could accommodate several carriages in parallel, feeling a strange feeling in her heart. He had seen some pictures of the future in the Wanjie Library. At that time, the road was wider and flatter than the one in front of him. At that time, the cars on the road were no longer horse-drawn carriages. At that time, people could not only walk on the ground. , The water rises, you can fly to the sky, and you can even explore the vast universe. You can board the moon that illuminates the night sky every night to see its dim and uneven surface with your own eyes.

All that was far away from Datang, Li Yuanying never told anyone about the bizarre sights. But when his horse hooves stepped on this new and straight official road, he felt that he was a little closer to everything. As long as the children and descendants of Datang can unswervingly walk in that direction, one day they will go to that future, and they will arrive far ahead.

Li Yuanying turned his head to greet the friends: “Let’s go back.” He pinched the horse’s belly and galloped ahead.

Seeing that Li Yuanying was in a very good mood, the others all smiled and rode forward, catching up with Li Yuanying.

Along the way, many people deliberately walked along the newly-expanded official road. Seeing Li Yuanying and his party riding a horse, they stopped and watched them go away before continuing.

Not long after Li Yuanying returned to the city, Gao Yang and Lu Zhaolin and his group appeared on the official road again. Not only did they bring a lot of people, they also brought a lot of things. A long line of men and horses galloped toward Tengzhou City in an orderly manner.

Li Yuanying originally wanted to follow up on the progress of the stamp pre-printing. Hearing that Gao Yang and the others had arrived, they immediately turned their horses to meet each other. The newly-married couple was radiant, and each strand of hair exuded a sweet breath. Although Li Yuanying was sour, she still happily called a banquet to celebrate the return of the two friends.

Knowing that His Majesty Li Er generously allocated 50 people to him, Li Yuanying was very happy, not to look at the list, not to look at the rank and origin of these fifty people, and warmly greeted them to have a reception banquet first. .

Not all of the fifty seconded people came here willingly, but they did not hit the smiley people with their hands. Li Yuanying was so enthusiastic about them, and they didn’t have a cold face.

Li Yuanying recognized the past one by one and found that there were some acquaintances, including Wei Shu, her brother Wei Yin and former classmate Zhang Kanzhi. Although they were older than him, they didn’t take the test with him. They were taken out late this year. They just got an unimportant mission this year. As a result, they were still packed to Tengzhou when their work was not dry and hot!

When Li Yuanying meets strangers, she can get acquainted with herself. When she meets Wei Ying, of course she doesn’t see the outside world. She graciously took Wei Yin’s hand and said, “Uncle brother, you can count it. Usually you have to ask sister-in-law to come and talk to sister Shu. Talk.” Wei Yin is a few years older than Wei Shu, and they got married a year ago, but they couldn’t go back to drink in Tengzhou.

Wei Ying persuaded himself not to compete with Li Yuanying. Hearing that Li Yuanying opened his mouth, it was the elder brother and sister-in-law. Although his cheeks twitched, he still responded.

Li Yuanying was also accustomed to Wei Yin’s stinky temper, turned around and continued to greet Zhang Jianzhi, and eagerly asked Zhang Jianzhi a lot about whether the old hole and hemorrhoid fistula had been committed again. Let him move around early and don’t sit all day. Zhang Jianzhi felt that if Kong Yingda knew that Li Yuanying missed him so much, he would be moved or would be so angry that he wanted to chase him and beat him, and then, everyone knew that Kong Jijiu had a hemorrhoidal fistula!

After eating a banquet, all the strangers after a long absence are gone, and all the strangers they first met are gone. Everyone has a very good impression of Li Yuanying. Whether it is real or pretending, at least Li Yuanying is very enthusiastic about them and portrayed them with a beautiful future. She patted her chest and said that as long as they work hard in the future, she will personally write them a letter of sponsorship.

Newcomers like them are not afraid of too many things, they are afraid that they have nothing to do. If there is nothing to do, there will be no merit, and no political achievements can prove their talents. Since Majesty Li Er ordered them personally, Li Yuanying has planned for the future. Tell them clearly, they have nothing to hesitate, roll up their sleeves and just do it!

Li Yuanying looked at the extremely young and full of energetic faces, and was excited. On the banquet, he toasted a lot of wine to these seconded talents and drank himself completely.

Wei Shu entertained the female relatives on the other side, by the way, to see if there were any good seedlings among them who were willing to come out to do something. When they were about to leave the table, they heard that Li Yuanying was drunk, so they hurriedly went to see Li Yuanying.

Li Yuanying is actually not good at drinking, but he doesn’t know anything in his heart. Every time he gets happy, he can’t help booing.

Some people get drunk and crazy when drunk. Li Yuanying is different. He is very well-behaved when he is drunk and falls asleep. You can only tell from his red face that he is drunk.

Wei Shu wiped his face with a hot towel, and sat on the side of the cave to poke his blushing cheek with his finger.

The two are not married yet, so she shouldn’t enter Li Yuanying’s room, sit on Li Yuanying’s couch, or even do anything with Li Yuanying, but they are free in Tengzhou, and they can do whatever they want. Do. Wei Shu also poked Li Yuanying’s face on the other side, making Li Yuanying rub his head on the pillow with an unhappy expression on his face. She retracted her hand and coaxed: “Go to sleep, get a good night’s sleep, or you will have a headache tomorrow.”

The drunk Li Yuanying was obviously so coaxed, and immediately stopped moving, and fell asleep after a while.

Li Yuanying woke up the next day, her head was a little bit painful, and it was better after eating a bowl of tea. Thinking of how his emperor brother had called him so generously, Li Yuanying immediately asked someone to grind the ink and spread the paper. He wanted to write a letter to His Majesty Li Er. This time he wanted to exaggerate 10,000 words, and he didn’t repeat the same sentence! This is not flattering. When the letter is sent back, it should be his emperor brother’s birthday. What’s wrong with the brother’s saying something nice to congratulate him on his birthday?

He is also ready for this year’s birthday gift. A set of special stamps embedded with gold threads, painted by Yan Lide and inscription by Chu Suiliang, is of great collection value. Pick it down and walk along. Although he asked people to make a thousand sets, this was the first set sent out. Brother Huang was the first one to get it. He was sincere! If you want to buy it, you can buy a set of commemorative souvenirs; if you think it is too expensive, you can also get a set of ordinary stamps. Although there is no gold thread, it is also painted by Yan Lide and inscription by Chu Suiliang. The paintings are beautiful and the characters are beautiful. Can also be used to send letters!

Of course, the gold stamp is not the point, the real point is that the road is repaired!

Li Yuanying has a lot of inspiration for her creation. She worked behind closed doors for a whole day, and she actually made him write a ten-thousand-word long letter. He enthusiastically asked Wei Shu to check him for any typos, and he was only allowed to correct the typos without moving a single word inside, otherwise his sincere emotions would not be reflected!

Wei Shu still remembered that Li Yuanying sent the wrong letter, and would not refuse to help, but when she read a thousand words, she began to regret it.

Li Yuanying’s literary talent is getting better and better, but the core of the content has not changed at all. It is still tightly focused on “Brother Emperor, you are really a wise martial artist, like a **** coming down from the sky.” The theme of “the luck of the common people cultivated from generation to generation” is unfolded.

Wei Shu struggled to see three thousand characters, and finally defeated. He quietly said to Li Yuanying, “I’m a little tired from seeing it. Why don’t you ask Mei Niang to see it tomorrow.”

Li Yuanying knew that Wei Shu was very busy recently, and nodded her head to indicate that there was no problem, and she would ask Wu Mei tomorrow to help her pick the wrong word.

Wu Mei’s receptive ability was much stronger than Wei Shu. The next day, after getting the letter, she read it all without changing her face, indicating that there was no typo, and she could directly send it to Chang’an.

Li Yuanying was satisfied, and happily sealed the stamps and sent them to Chang’an with the set of golden silk stamps.

The first group of postmen trained by Tengzhou were thrilled when they learned that the first letter they sent was sent to the imperial palace. That’s the palace, they haven’t seen it before, but now they can send the letter to the palace, and it’s worth having them run back and forth in the future!

The postmen, dressed in uniforms and riding horses with the same saddles, lined up and set off for Chang’an arrogantly. The people who didn’t know the truth thought they were soldiers who were going to expedition. They stopped and found out that they were not. After inquiring, they knew that they could spend a few dollars to send the letter to Chang’an in the future!

Most people in Tengzhou already know what postage stamps mean, and are ready to experience it. Anyway, stamps are not expensive, and they can be sent several times without a bite of meat.

This is something new from Tengzhou, they have to write to their relatives and friends to show it off!

Some people regret that the letter only went to Chang’an. You must know that the transportation is inconvenient these years. If the brothers and nephews in the family go far away, it may be ten or twenty years—or even a lifetime. It will be difficult to see each other again. With such a convenient and cheap way of sending letters, even if they can’t meet people, they can always communicate to comfort their long-term goodbyes!

Near the end of the year, everyone saved up for a year. As the stamps began to go on sale, people from poor families only bought a penny of face value to join in the fun, and people from wealthy families bought them one package at a time. If it wasn’t for Li Yuanying that he hadn’t sold the gold stamps, they would definitely choose the gold stamps. After all, a full set of ordinary stamps would only add up to fifty-five cents. What’s the point of spending it?

Compared with home and book exchanges, another target group of stamps is naturally scholars. They love to share all their works with their friends. Having this delivery channel is very convenient for them. As the literati spread word of mouth, even if they were to copy books for money, they would have to buy a set of stamps, or else how embarrassed to say that they are scholars? When the letter is ready, they have to send a new piece of their own to a friend as soon as possible!

As a result, the post offices in various places have not yet officially opened the delivery business, and stamps have jumped to the top of the top-selling products in Tengzhou.

Tengzhou was welcoming the New Year in a lively manner. Waiting for the official mailing day of Lunar New Year’s Day, Chang’an also welcomed the special messenger sent by Li Yuanying.

The postman responsible for delivering Li Yuanying’s letter excitedly delivered the letter to the Imperial City Post Office, but the excitement has not yet calmed down.

Many people were unwilling to do this kind of back-and-forth drudgery, but now the roads are smooth and the postmen are paid very well. Their daughter-in-law can also be trained to work at the post office, sitting behind the counter, selling stamps, and instructing those who want to send letters. People, decent and profitable! When they finish these years, they will surely be able to save a lot of money for their sons and wives, dowry for their daughters, and their lives will be prosperous!

Just thinking about that kind of future, their hearts are hot and hot, and they don’t even feel hard to go back and forth every day, and they even feel that the scenery along the way is extremely beautiful.

Xin arrived on time, and the next day happened to be the birthday of His Majesty Li Er.

The person in charge of the Huangcheng Post Office entered the palace as an envoy from Tengzhou to celebrate his birthday.

When he arrived outside the palace banquet, the Envoy of Tengzhou was arranged in the pile of envoys of other vassals without discrimination. Compared with the birthday gifts piled behind others, what he carried was really shabby: a thick letter and a thin set of messengers. Gold silk stamps, a map of Chang’an straight roads with the locations of sixty post stations along the way.

The so-called upward and downward effects still make sense. Li Tai and Li Yuanying didn’t deal with it. Li Tai’s messenger also saw that Li Yuanying’s uneasy messenger was not pleasing to the eye, and sneered: “I heard that so many of the princes are counted as the richest, so why only give Your Majesty offers something like this? A few thin sheets of paper are used as birthday gifts. What do you consider your Majesty?”

The envoy of King Teng was a bit rich. He looked at a fat man with a good temper. He was not angry when he heard the words. He only expressed his trust in Li Yuanying with a certain face: “His Royal Highness must have the truth in choosing such a birthday gift.” They trust Li Yuanying. It’s almost blind, not only because Li Yuanying is the Prince of Tang Dynasty, but also because Li Yuanying is Li Yuanying-Li Yuanying who can always make good results even if he is fooling around.

When I thought of this, the anxiety and tension of the emissary of King Teng disappeared, replaced by a straight waist and a proud face.

At this time, it was finally their turn to enter these gift-giving messengers.

The author has something to say:

Fourth nephew: Why do you pull me out every time?

Little Prince: Maybe you look more like a villain