Li Yuanying was puzzled, since he hadn't done anything bad recently, why His Majesty Li Er specially asked someone to summon him. Although his heart was pounding, Li Yuanying still said to Liu Baolin: "Brother Huang must have missed me, I'll go see him right now!"
Liu Baolin was worried. Hearing Li Yuanying's unobtrusive words, he hurriedly smiled at the servant who sent the message, and tidied up Li Yuanying's somewhat messy clothes.
Li Yuanying let Liu Baolin tidy himself up, and followed others to see His Majesty Li Er.
When he arrived at the place of His Majesty Li Er, Li Yuanying discovered that there was an old acquaintance: Yan Liben.
Li Yuanying obediently stepped forward to pay respects, and then sat down on the empty seat next to His Majesty Li Er without being greeted.
His Majesty Li Er glanced at him, said nothing, and continued to discuss business matters with Yan Liben and Chu Suiliang. It turned out that His Majesty Li Er planned to name a building in the palace Lingyan Pavilion, and display the portraits of heroes since the founding of the Tang Dynasty. He had already made the list, discussed it with Changsun Wuji and others, and finally selected twenty-four heroes including Changsun Wuji.
The first task now is to draw the portraits of the twenty-four heroes. This job fell into Yan Liben's hands, and Yan Liben ran from family to family without any complaints. Because this is a great event that will last forever, everyone's enthusiasm is quite high.
But now there is a small problem. When Yan Liben went to Li Jing's house to paint Li Jing's portrait, a little leopard suddenly jumped out and startled Yan Liben. Although the leopard didn't bite anyone, Yan Liben broke his hand and couldn't hold his paintbrush for a short time. Because Li Jing's family is relatively remote, Li Jing is the last family, and now the portrait of him is missing!
Lingyan Pavilion has not been repaired yet, and it is not impossible to paint at another time, but Yan Liben is also temperamental. During the portrait, Li Jing let the leopard jump out, obviously because he didn't want him to paint! Animals are ignorant, and people are also ignorant? Then he won't draw!
Yan Liben came here this time to express this meaning to His Majesty Li Er tactfully. He also mentioned something to His Majesty Li Er, saying that Li Yuanying and Li Jing had a good friendship, let Li Yuanying go to paint, Li Yuanying has a very high talent for painting, and his brother Yan Lide even praised him.
Yan Liben's words were actually a bit angry, and he was going to deceive Li Yuanying and Li Jing at once. Li Jing was a new enemy, and Li Yuanying was an old enemy. Back then when he drove to Luoyang, Li Yuanying and his brother were so good that they only wore the same pair of pants, which made him sulk by himself. Just let these two guys get together to solve the portrait problem!
As a result, His Majesty Li Er was very happy to hear people praise his poor brother for his talent, and he really ordered someone to call Li Yuanying over.
When Li Yuanying heard that this was the case, his heart was in suspense. It's not that it's good to find out that he has done something bad, and everything else is easy to talk about. Li Yuanying agreed immediately, but in order not to be awkward together, he asked to see the 23 portraits that Yan Liben had painted, and he would compare them with the paintings.
His Majesty Li Er saw that Yan Liben's expression was not very good, and joked, "Can you learn it just by looking at it?"
Li Yuanying said: "That's not true. I definitely can't draw the same picture, but people are different from each other. It doesn't matter if there are some differences, as long as they don't look strange when placed together."
His Majesty Li Er was also curious about what the painting looked like, so he agreed to Li Yuanying's request, and the two brothers went to see the twenty-three heroes of Lingyan Pavilion together. Li Yuanying couldn't recognize the people above him. For example, Du Ruhui, Duke of Lai Kingdom, died when he was born, so he had never seen him before.
Li Yuanying carefully looked at Du Ruhui's portrait, then turned to His Majesty Li Er and said, "This is the 'Du' in 'Fang Mou Du Duan', unfortunately I was born too late, so I didn't see it."
Seeing the lifelike portrait of Du Ruhui, His Majesty Li Er was both sad and nostalgic, nodded and said, "You are born too late."
Li Yuanying looked at the portraits of the twenty-three heroes one by one, and said to Yan Liben with admiration: "Little Yan, you are really good at drawing people. I can't draw so well."
Yan Liben thought, how old are you, how can others live if you can paint like this? Of course, on the surface Yan Liben was quite modest, stroked his beard and said, "Where is that?"
After seeing the portrait, Li Yuanying was about to leave, but His Majesty Li Er left him to talk. Li Yuanying obediently followed His Majesty Li Er back to have tea, and after eating half a bowl, he secretly looked at His Majesty Li Er and asked, "Brother, do you have anything else you want to tell me?"
His Majesty Li Er put down his tea and asked him: "Are you sure about the portrait? If you can't do it, I'll find someone else."
Li Yuanying said: "It's a bit difficult, I have to try it to know. Anyway, Lingyan Pavilion hasn't been repaired yet, maybe Xiaoyan's hand will be fine later, if it doesn't work, you can ask Dayan to paint later." He There are few portraits, but the foundation is not bad. It was good at a young age. When he was young, others were chasing butterflies, so he drew butterflies. The emperor praised him for his good paintings. With a good foundation.
His Majesty Li Er said lightly: "Okay, then let you try."
Li Yuanying asked His Majesty Li Er again if he had anything to do.
His Majesty Li Er raised his eyebrows and said, "Why are you so unhappy when I ask you to have a bowl of tea with me? That's not what you said when you sold tea under my name."
Hearing what His Majesty Li Er said, Li Yuanying immediately moved along the pole and sat down in front of His Majesty Li Er. He said happily, "I'm not only selling tea for myself. Don't I also increase the tea tax for the imperial court? Tea is becoming more and more inseparable, and the trend of drinking tea has also set off in various parts of the Tang Dynasty, and the annual tea tax is getting higher and higher!" He gave His Majesty Li Er another idea, "I think the tea mountain in the south should be They surrounded the whole place, collected the tea tax directly and asked them to transport the tea abroad, and they were not allowed to grow tea as long as they were allowed. In this way, it can prevent people from trying to improve the tea field into a tea farm, and secondly, it can also prevent people from leaking tea. Tax!"
His Majesty Li Er said: "You have quite a lot of ideas."
Li Yuanying said proudly: "That's natural, I like to think about problems the most." He continued to express his opinion to His Majesty Li Er, "There is a third advantage of doing this, that is, there are many more positions to be placed in the local area." Talent. Didn’t Mao Sui say it in his self-recommendation? As long as you give him a sack, he can show his sharpness. So we need to find some sacks that can show people’s ability, so that talents from all over the world can practice and do well. , those who are capable, let them be high officials. If they can't do a little thing well, then let them keep doing things that they can do with their eyes closed."
His Majesty Li Er said: "It means to know people well."
"That's right, know people well." Li Yuanying was very happy, "Anyway, there will be more and more talents. If you find something for them to do, they won't be thinking about other things. They should think about how to perform well, how can they Let you see their talents! This is what I learned after I got the workshop and Fengtai Building. As long as I find the right person to take the lead, things can be done naturally. As for those who have no ideas, they are not useless , as long as you tell them what to do, they can still do it."
The two brothers discussed the establishment of tax customs in the tea farm until they finished drinking the brewed tea, and His Majesty Li Er sent Li Yuanying away.
As soon as Li Yuanying left, His Majesty Li Er rubbed the center of his brows, rested on the bed for a while, and asked Chu Suiliang to copy the conversation just now and send it to the prince.
Although Li Yuanying often comes up with some wild ideas, but after careful consideration, he feels that the feasibility is quite high. With the hot sale of tea, the tax on tea has indeed risen. The number of children is less.
Since the profits of tea are huge, it should be put on the agenda to set up tax customs in major tea farms. For such a profitable thing, it is best to firmly control it in the hands of the imperial court. Maybe in a few years, the military expenses for conquering Goryeo will be collected! If it's not enough, then let Li Yuanying think of another way, anyway, he said last time that Dang Renhong "doesn't want to be greedy for that one million dollars", and he must not be short of money or a way to make money.
At this time, Li Yuanying had already walked halfway, and suddenly sneezed. He said to the left and right strangely: "It's not cold today, why did I suddenly sneeze?"
Said left and right: "Perhaps the princess misses Your Highness."
Li Yuanying was very beautiful in his heart, but still said modestly on his face: "I haven't seen you for a long time, how could sister Shu miss me? It's okay to think about it, I'll go back tomorrow, and I won't make her think about it for too long!"
Everyone laughed when they heard it.
Li Yuanying went to talk to Liu Baolin, then rode out of the palace again and went straight to Li Jing's house. In fact, Li Yuanying's eyes lit up just now when Yan Liben said that a little leopard had sprung up, and she couldn't wait to go to Li Jing's side to lick the leopard!
However, he still had to put on a show in front of his imperial brother, lest his imperial brother feel something was wrong and not let him go. After all, his imperial brother had a previous record of forbidding him to ride an elephant at Li Jing's house!
At the same time, at Li Jing's home, Hong Fu was arranging the ceremonial robe that Li Jing hadn't worn for a long time, complaining about his leopard running around. Li Jing said: "It's just that the people below didn't close the cage door properly, who would have bumped into Yan Shilang?"
The man has already offended, Hong Fu can only sigh and say: "He will go back and tell the sage, the sage will not let your portrait enter the Lingyan Pavilion, right?"
Li Jing said succinctly: "No." Although he has been half-disarmed and returned to the field, since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, he has made many military exploits and written military books for the court. His Majesty Li Er will not exclude him for such a trivial matter. He said, "I just don't know who will replace it?"
While the couple were talking, someone outside reported that Li Yuanying had come, saying that he was ordered to paint for Li Jing.
Li Jing and Hong Fu looked at each other, both a little surprised. However, both of them welcomed Li Yuanying's arrival, mainly because Li Yuanying took the initiative to help Hongfu invite Sun Simiao, and rescued Hongfu who was dying. After getting to know him better, Li Jing felt that the little prince was very angry with him, and he welcomed Li Yuanying every time he came.
Li Yuanying didn't meet Li Jing either, and ran in excitedly, looked left and right, but didn't see the leopard, so he asked Li Jing, "Didn't you say there is a little leopard? Where is it? I want to see it!"
Li Jing was not in a hurry to ask for a portrait, so he got up and took Li Yuanying to see the little leopard he had just acquired. He said: "This leopard's parents are gone. When it was brought back, it still hadn't opened its eyes. I asked someone to feed it with goat milk. I didn't expect it to be quite wild."
Li Yuanying was not afraid of the wild little leopard at all, and eagerly offered to touch it.
Li Jing asked the person who raised the leopard to trick him out for Li Yuanying's enjoyment.
Li Yuanying touched the leopard smoothly, and felt that the hand felt pretty good, but he ravaged it vigorously for a while, feeling very satisfied. After pawing the leopard, he went to see the yak that Dai Ting brought back from Tibet last year. The people under Li Jing were very good at raising things. Even the yak that might not survive off the plateau has lived for almost a year, although it has lost weight. Not much, but still able to eat and run. The weather is about to turn hot, and the people who take care of the yak are helping it shave, so that it can survive the hot summer refreshingly.
Li Yuanying was also very interested in shaving, so he rushed to catch the white yak and cut off handfuls of white hair, having a great time. It wasn't until Li Yuanying was pushed up by a very insecure white yak and fell down, that Li Yuanying went to discuss the portrait with Li Jing contentedly.
Li Jing had already asked someone to prepare his pen and ink, and he put on his formal gown again, looking very formal.
Li Yuanying put forward his own opinion: "I don't think this outfit is majestic enough. It's better to wear armor! It's better for the general to wear armor and hold a weapon in his hand! I think everyone else is dressed in the same way. It's too inconspicuous for everyone to look the same. , I will give you the most conspicuous picture!"
Li Jing said: "Alright."
The two discussed and discussed, and finally turned into a heroic posture of Li Jing wearing armor and riding on horseback.