Tang Dynasty: Father, if you don't rebel, I will!

"Your Highness, I have come to retrieve the Ministry of Revenue's budget approval document for this year's major repairs to the official roads in Hedong Circuit..."

Tai Chi Hall.

Feng Deyi, the Minister of Revenue, had just entered the hall. His old face was full of tension and fear as he bowed to the figure on the dragon throne.

Meanwhile, he kept glancing nervously at the leisurely figure beside the dragon throne.

He couldn't help but swallow hard.

Li Chengqian took a deep breath and gestured to the eunuch Wang De beside him. The latter immediately picked up a document that had been approved and handed it to him.

Upon receiving the document, Feng Deyi quickly clasped his hands in gratitude.

However, the nervous look on his face immediately intensified. After swallowing hard, he trembled and forced a smile as he took out two new folded papers from his sleeve.

"Your Highness, the Ministry of Works has already planned the route for the new official road from Guannei Road to Jiannan Road, and several new bridges have been added. Therefore, the Ministry of Revenue has recalculated the budget... Also, this is the construction period and approximate manpower required for the bridge construction, provided by the Ministry of Works..."

Li Chengqian: "......"

Li Chengqian's hand, which was reviewing documents, immediately paused.

Before he could say anything, a sarcastic voice, full of schadenfreude, came from the side.

"Oh, Your Majesty, what's with that expression? This memorial is only at the first level, second level. I've witnessed the affairs of the first level, tenth level, before. Tsk tsk tsk."

"Brother, have you ever experienced that feeling where you painstakingly and meticulously finish approving one document, only to find ten more appearing in front of you...?"

Li Chengqian: "......"

Qingque held a cup of nourishing soup in his hand. The faint aroma of medicinal food wafted into Li Chengqian's nostrils as he gently stirred it with a spoon, causing Li Chengqian's lips to twitch slightly.

In the end, he couldn't bring himself to say a single word criticizing the other party's attitude.

He obediently allowed Wang De to take the document from Feng Deyi and place it on his desk.

Then, like a tireless old ox, he continued with his work.

People come and go in front of the Taiji Hall.

A eunuch returned the documents that Li Chengqian had approved to their original offices.

New documents from the Six Ministries or the Cabinet are also being sent here.

Inside a side hall.

The crown prince's three tutors, Kong Yingda, Li Gang, and Yu Shinan, as well as Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui, who had now joined his ranks, all had furrowed brows, and the pile of documents in front of them was taller than they were.

Meanwhile, at the Xiande Hall of the Eastern Palace, the Crown Princess Qian Yingying was also keeping busy.

Numerous ledgers related to the Eastern Palace's businesses await her inspection and review, forcing Li Xueyan, Wang Yuyan, Hou Qianya, and others into a busy period following their honeymoon.

Time flew by, and Li Chengqian's back ached from sitting for so long. With the help of his officials, he finally finished his work shortly before lunch.

They hadn't even had a chance to catch their breath.

A dozen or so figures carrying boxes walked in from outside the hall.

The eunuch Gao Hai looked embarrassed and nervous.

"Your Highness... a memorial from Taiyuan Prefecture has arrived."

Li Chengqian: "!!!"

He stared in horror, pointing incredulously at the three boxes.

Even though he had anticipated this and knew he would be busy with official business, he finally broke down on the spot.

"How could there be so many?!"

He turned his head instantly to look at his younger brother, Qingque, who stood calmly to the side, but whose eyes clearly held a playful smile.

"Before I returned, didn't you review any of the government affairs in Taiyuan Prefecture?"

Li Tai rolled his eyes, gently put down the bowl and plate in his hands, and wiped his mouth.

"Your Majesty's words have truly chilled my heart a hundredfold!"

“Your Majesty, you are a sage ruler for all ages. The great development of Xizhou Prefecture, Longyou Road and Taiyuan Prefecture of Bingzhou will naturally provide a lot of support. Didn’t Your Majesty also say that you would let Grandpa suffer a little? Grandpa is gone, so Bingzhou will naturally provide a lot of support.”

Li Tai counted them off on his fingers as if they were his own treasures.

The smile on his face grew wider as he spoke.

"We don't have enough manpower to repair the railway for now, but building bridges and paving roads is unavoidable, isn't it?"

"Xizhou Prefecture will be the largest cotton-producing area in our Great Tang Dynasty in the future. Shouldn't an agricultural college be built there? When Fifth Brother went to Lingnan Road, he took half of the faculty of the Imperial University's Agricultural College with him. The college needs to expand its enrollment and train more talents, right?"

"This year is the fourth year of Zhenguan in Zhenbei Road. The animal husbandry and food processing industries are doing very well, but the market demand for meat and dairy products among the people of our Great Tang is still very large. Shouldn't we expand them?"

"These new grasslands and pastures, along with the herders of Zhenbeidao who govern their own territories, surely need officials, right?"

"Will the promotion assessments for clerks and the new civil servant assessments be expanded this year?"

"Oh, right, due to the Yellow River water conservancy project, Yanzhou has a lot of new fertile land. We need to distribute the land to the people or set up local military farms, which will require manpower."

"My imperial brother will surely become a more outstanding emperor than Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han, whose name will be recorded in history and who will be worshipped by the Chinese people for ten thousand generations. Look, it looks like General Li Ji is about to take over Liaodong."

"Hey hey hey..."

Li Tai paced slowly, his face filled with undisguised resentment towards his elder brother for deceiving him for a month and forcing him to endure such a hellish life for a month.

Li Chengqian's expression was stiff as he listened to the other party recount a long list of things, much like Tang Sanzang chanting sutras.

Then I felt my head spinning.

Li Tai walked up to him and gently patted the box on the ground.

"Your Majesty, do not worry. These will be delivered from Taiyuan Prefecture every day from now on. During the time you are in Lingnan Circuit, I have decided to designate one of the newly launched Zhenguan trains as official business."

"All I need to do each day is send the documents from Taiyuan Prefecture that require your approval to Chang'an, and then return them via the same route after you've finished reviewing them..."

"Hehe, Your Majesty, aren't I clever? I know Your Majesty is diligent, and I don't want Your Majesty to waste time and energy on arduous travel. From now on, Your Majesty will have so many documents to handle every day~"

Li Chengqian: "......"

every day?

so much? !

Even Li Chengqian couldn't help but gasp in shock at this moment.

This isn't even a question of whether someone is diligent or not, nor is it a matter of whether they live or die!

There's simply no way to approve them all!

Li Chengqian hastily finished his lunch and dinner that day in the Taiji Hall, and even his daily lunch break, which was only a pitiful twenty minutes long, was not taken.

He had no choice but to cancel it.

"Qingque... Gaoming is still your elder brother, isn't this a bit inappropriate?"

Everyone thought that Li Chengqian would have no choice but to cut some projects to reduce the burden of government affairs, but who would have thought that half a month would pass in the blink of an eye.

I was immediately taken to the Taiji Hall to review official documents as soon as I returned.

Now, Emperor Li Er, who had previously harbored some resentment towards his son, is now working almost like a slave for half a month straight.

Now, I can't help but feel worried and heartbroken.

At lunchtime, the family was seated, but only Li Chengqian was absent, busy with government affairs in the Taiji Hall. Everyone's gazes couldn't help but drift toward Prince Wei, Li Tai, who harbored the most resentment towards Li Chengqian.

Li Tai pursed his lips, took a deep breath, and remained silent.

He wasn't angry that Li Chengqian had dumped so many tiring government affairs on him; after all, if he were angry about that, he wouldn't have agreed to help him oversee the country for three years in the first place.

Now, the second year is almost over.

His anger stemmed from his elder brother's deception of him, his younger brother.

They clearly agreed on two months, but you ended up wandering around outside for so much longer...

Empress Zhangsun, standing nearby, could also see that Li Tai's behavior was entirely out of spite towards his elder brother, Li Chengqian, and sighed softly.

“Qingque, your brother the emperor is indeed wrong, but... in the five years since the ninth year of Wude, how many days has he had a moment of leisure? He has governed the Tang Dynasty in an orderly manner, creating a prosperous era, but how many times has he actually seen this land?”

"I heard from Wang De and the others that your brother said he went to Lingnan Circuit for sightseeing, but in reality, he spent the last two months working with the officials of Lingnan Circuit to arrange and implement new policies."

"That's a lie. That extra month was just his only break in the past five years."

"You should be understanding of him... He just got married, after all."

Empress Zhangsun spoke gently and persuasively, until Li Tai's hand, which was gripping the chopsticks, unconsciously stirred the rice grains in the bowl. His breathing became heavy, but he remained silent with his head down.

Beside her, Princess Chang Le, who was also heartbroken for her brother who had been working tirelessly every day, was also listless and had little appetite for the delicious food on the table.

Hearing his mother's advice, he chimed in from the sidelines.

"Fourth Brother, when the Emperor went to Lingnan Road in the second month, he sent me a message by carrier pigeon, asking me to arrange manpower for the medicinal herb planting base as soon as possible. He said that he had already selected the site for me in the southern capital of Lingnan Road."

"Brother, if the northern part of Lingnan is developing well, you know better than I what the southern part of Lingnan is like, don't you? If this counts as sightseeing, then what about the纨绔 (spoiled brats) who ride recklessly outside Chang'an every day?"

"Snapped!"

Li Tai slammed his chopsticks on the table and glared at his younger sister with slightly reddened eyes.

He stood up instantly and gave a cold snort in annoyance.

"Very well, you are all good people! Your eldest brother is a good person too, but I, your fourth brother, am a bad person! The worst person in the world!"

Seeing his angry figure walking away, Chang Le knew that she had gone too far and hurriedly chased after him to make amends and apologize.

But Empress Zhangsun sighed and reached out to stop him.

"Forget it, your fourth brother is still angry. Let him calm down. The one who tied the knot must untie it. Hopefully, Gao Ming can help him calm down..."

"These arrangements need to be made as soon as possible. Expanding the agricultural college's enrollment seems stingy. For all colleges within the Imperial University, I need to devise a maximum enrollment quota that can maintain teaching quality. I will personally decide that, starting this year, I will double the funding and faculty bonuses for all colleges of the Imperial University!"

"Principal Lu, please convey my message when you return. I know the workload will be heavy, but rest assured, I'm not leaving you to shoulder this burden alone."

"For the eternal prosperity of the Tang Dynasty, I stand with you!"

Unknowingly, the King of Wei staggered to the gate of the Taiji Hall. Before he could even enter, he was called back by a voice coming from inside.

He couldn't help but sneer inwardly.

As he approached, he saw Lu Kexin, the first president of the Imperial University, who had come from Taiyuan Prefecture, receiving his elder brother's orders with utmost respect and trepidation.

He was about to make a sarcastic remark about his elder brother, who was known for making empty promises.

Then, upon seeing Li Chengqian's expression, his pupils suddenly contracted.

Pale, with obvious signs of fatigue and weakness...

"Oh dear, Qingque, what brings you here... Someone! Wang De, bring tea!"

When Li Chengqian saw Li Tai appear, a kind and gentle elder brother smile immediately appeared on his face. Li Tai pursed his lips and walked to the side of the imperial desk on the stage. Just as he picked up the hot tea that Wang De had brought, he suddenly smelled a somewhat pungent odor.

Following the direction of the smell, I saw that the tea in my elder brother's teacup was so thick that it had turned black.

Li Tai: "......."