The Fifty-Eighth Emperor Li's Ambition

  No one can fully understand another person, people are independent individuals, may have some well-known habits, but that's just a habit, absolutely not their true self deep down; even with the closest people to oneself, there will be some subtle estrangement, and in the heart, reserve a piece of land that completely belongs to oneself, an absolute domain that others cannot enter no matter what.

  So, speculating about a person's nature based on their birth date and time, using things like star signs and the eight characters of their birthdate to tell fortunes, is just for entertainment. A person may not even know what kind of person they are themselves, let alone someone writing a book. How can the writer of history books be clear about it? Therefore, no matter how historical records describe a person, there may be huge differences with reality, whether it's praise or criticism, and it's even possible that it's completely opposite to the truth.

  Time flies, and countless truths cannot be pursued, especially the truth of human beings has been unattainable since ancient times. So, it's not necessary to pursue them at all, just like trying to truly understand Emperor Taizong of Tang through reading a few history books or watching some brainless historical dramas is definitely not enough. However, by observing his behavior and actions, we can infer something about Li Shimin's character and style.

  According to historical records, in the tenth year of Zhenguan, Wei Ren's comrade-in-arms submitted a memorial pointing out that Emperor Taizong "gradually hated straightforward words". This shows that Emperor Taizong was not always wise and saintly, but a normal person with his own shortcomings, having his own joys and sorrows, his own likes and dislikes, and his own troubles. As for the emperor's job, which is difficult to do well, he also had his own helplessness, after all, he was still human.

  In the 17th year of Zhenguan, the case of Crown Prince Li Chengqian's rebellion broke out, which means that Emperor Taizong was a failed father, with failed family education, to the point where his own sons wanted to rebel against him. The Li family had always been like this. In the 11th year of Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong admired the Zhou Dynasty's feudal system and wanted to "follow the example of the ancients". He wanted people loyal to himself to guard the four corners, with all the stars surrounding and protecting the Tang imperial court. Therefore, he issued an edict making twenty-one princes, led by Prince Jing of Jin, who was also the Governor of Jingzhou, hereditary governors, as well as fourteen meritorious officials, led by Longsun Wuji, who was also the Governor of Zhaozhou, hereditary governors.

  This is not just a blatant counter-current, everyone knows the outcome of the Zhou Dynasty's feudal system, no one knows why Li Er would come up with such an idea, the feudal system can no longer conform to the progress of history, and the emperor of a centralized empire would actually come up with such an idea, what does Li Er want to do?

  Of course, this was also a political purge launched by Emperor Gaozong of Tang after seeing that there would be officials with great merits in the court who would not be dismissed. It can be seen that Emperor Gaozong is an impatient person who does not consult with his trusted advisors and tries to make decisions on his own, but he ignored that the world of Great Tang is not just his own world alone. Just one department under the Secretariat could reject his edict, so he provoked all his trusted officials to collectively oppose him, remonstrance officials risked their lives to see him, and high-ranking officials collectively submitted memorials in protest. If Emperor Gaozong's prestige had not still been there, it would have almost reached the point of forcing him to abdicate. It was only after Chancellor Longsun Wuji pleaded with Emperor Gaozong through his daughter-in-law Princess Yong'an that he finally stopped.

  Several sleepless nights were spent studying the biographies of Tang Dynasty figures, especially those from the Zhenguan era. This gave Su Ning a more comprehensive understanding of Li Er's character. After all, people are still human and will inevitably make mistakes they need to make in order to know what mistakes they've made and have a chance to correct them. Therefore, Su Ning decided not to prepare for everything and absolutely could not leak the news to Li Er! Otherwise, this big mouth would definitely spread it throughout the imperial court!

  Li Er is a man with great ambition, full of boundless aspirations. Give him some sunshine and he will shine brightly; give him some floodwaters and he will overflow...

  It turned out that Su Ning's guess was correct, because by noon, when the students of Hongwen Academy had lunch together, Kong Yingda alone held a dozen or so sheets of Xuan paper and walked into the palace where Li Erba handled affairs, looking at the Xuan paper in his hand with a dazed expression, while walking and drawing on the paper with his fingers, his footsteps getting faster and faster, it was impossible to see that this was the pace of a man approaching sixty...

  Hongwen Academy is a full-time school, which also reflects the strength of teacher resources and educational resources. At noon, students cannot go home, and the school provides meals. In addition to the small kitchen used by the concubines in each palace to please Emperor Li, there is only the Imperial Kitchen. This means that the second-generation emperors and officials at Hongwen Academy eat the same food as Emperor Li, which can be said to be a kind of disguised favoritism.

  Su Ning spent the entire morning writing in a hurry, thinking about the types of pinyin, their uses and readings, as well as the possible obstacles and problems that might arise when promulgating it to the world. He also suggested to Emperor Li that without sufficient paper and special funds, he should not rush to promulgate it, otherwise he might end up shooting himself in the foot.

  Ten sheets of Xuan paper, the first eight are all about discussions related to Pinyin, although it has been fifteen years since Su Ning left elementary school second grade, and almost forgot many things, but now Pinyin only needs to be practical, as for the origin of Pinyin, these questions Su Ning knew, but there is no need to say them out.

  The last two pages were the memorials written to Emperor Li, and Su Ning had anticipated that Kong Yingda would immediately report this news to Emperor Li. Although he suggested not rushing to present it, Su Ning specially used two pages to write a memorial, hoping that Emperor Li would privately instruct the Hongwen Academy to start experimenting with phonetic notation to see if it really had such wonderful uses, and then summarize a set of teaching experiences, waiting for the right moment to issue it to the world for trial implementation, and not to be overly hasty.

  After handing over the ten sheets of paper to Kong Yingda, it was time for lunch. To be honest, although Su Ning didn't think that the imperial cuisine of the Tang Dynasty could compare to a small restaurant in modern society in terms of taste, variety, or cooking methods (which only included boiling and roasting), the food was absolutely exquisite, clean, healthy, green, pollution-free, and did not contain any preservatives. It definitely did not contain gutter oil, nor would they dare to use inferior meat to pass off as superior meat - that would be a capital offense! Joking aside, serving gutter oil to the emperor?

  So that dish of stir-fried greens was so tender and delicious, that dish of fish stew was so flavorful and juicy, and the millet rice was incredibly fragrant! That bowl of light vegetable soup was so refreshing.

  Alas! Pure natural green food, even without good seasonings, is delicious, that's the natural flavor. Compared to those toxic foods with various colorants and tenderizers, it's infinitely better.

  Su Ning eats is shaking head and brain, for a foodie, being able to eat purely natural green food is the greatest happiness!

  Su Ning had no idea how shocked Li Er was after seeing what he wrote on the ten sheets of Xuan paper, nor did he know that Kong Yingda started copying Su Ning's handwriting with pen and ink as soon as he arrived at Li Er's study. Speaking of Su Ning's handwriting, thanks to the old man, writing calligraphy has always been one of the symbols of a scholar's identity, and since the old man considered himself a superior person, he naturally couldn't fall behind in this aspect either.

  Starting from the age of eight, the old man forced Su Ning to practice calligraphy with a brush pen. During holidays, he would practice every day and was not allowed to eat until he had written 1,000 characters. When school was in session, he would write a letter of over 3,000 characters once a week and mail it to the old man, who would personally check it. If it wasn't done well, there would be no dinner! Normally, Su Ning boarded at school and went to the old man's house on weekends, occasionally returning home. Therefore, not having dinner was an extremely frightening thing for Su Ning.

  Writing a thousand words with a brush pen is not an easy task, and it's even more difficult for young people. Being punished was a common occurrence, but progress was also expected. At the age of 15, Su Ning won first prize in the city's middle school soft pen calligraphy competition, one of the few awards he received during his student career. Through this event, his teachers and classmates seemed to have confirmed that "the character is not a universal truth"

  But without understanding Su Ning's true identity and past, how could the old man Kong Yingda and Li Erbai know all this? Kong Yingda was shocked by the calligraphy at first sight, and then deeply fascinated. Li Erbai was captivated by this beautiful calligraphy after reading ten characters. Su Ning wrote in regular script, which evolved from ancient clerical script, originating from the Han Dynasty. After the Eastern Jin Dynasty, due to regional differences and personal habits, the calligraphic styles of the Northern and Southern Dynasties were vastly different. The northern style was strong and straightforward, while the southern style was elegant and refined, each with its own unique charm, without distinction between superior or inferior.

  The Tang Dynasty unified the world, but since the Northern Dynasties were mostly non-Han Chinese kingdoms, the Tang Dynasty, which considered itself a Han Chinese kingdom, regarded the Southern Dynasties as the orthodox succession. Although the Tang Dynasty was the most important in the north for a time, culturally speaking, many things were inherited from the Southern Dynasties.

  So the calligraphy of the early Tang Dynasty did not get rid of the lingering atmosphere of Jin and Southern Dynasties, but instead inherited more, with bold and beautiful strokes, soft and delicate. Although there were changes later, it was never satisfactory until the appearance of Yan Zhenqing, a straightforward and powerful official, whose robust and majestic regular script finally established an unshakeable position.

  As for Suning...