TBFCWTE - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

After dining in the empress's palace, He Shu did not stay long and went straight back to the Eastern Palace where she resided.

Time in the Eastern Palace was when He Shu handled the properties under her personal name. Every day, several stewards would wait to report matters and request an audience.

This was also why He Shu so desperately hoped her father could have a son who could rightfully take over the position of crown prince. Her life in this life had truly been hard.

It was even harder than her previous life. In her previous life, at least, she had not begun to feel life was hard until after graduating from university, when she was studying for a graduate degree while working part-time jobs.

For the twenty-two years before that, she had lived rather easily and freely.

In this life, however, from the age of three she had borne burdens that should never have fallen on her, living with exhausting mental and physical labor.

But influenced by the worldview and habits of her previous life, He Shu knew well the position she was in and understood the responsibilities and duties she carried. There was no way she could choose to give up.

Moreover, in this life she lived in a feudal dynasty, and He Shu was very worried that if she could not assist her own father in being a good emperor, they would be overthrown.

After all, whether being crown prince or being a princess was built on the foundation that the person on the throne was her father. If her father could not sit firmly on the throne, her fate as crown prince would inevitably be miserable as well.

Not wanting to die young again in this life, He Shu could only choose the lesser of two evils and make herself work hard.

In his early years, the late emperor had been a wise ruler and had opened several decades of prosperity for Great An.

But as he grew older, his energy was far from what it had been, and at the same time he had to face more than ten sons under him contending for the succession.

All kinds of power struggles churned the court and the country into a foul mess. The national treasury was empty, the people's burdens were heavy, and life was hard. It was no exaggeration to say the people could not live.

When Emperor Zhengning ascended the throne, this was the predicament he faced. All of Great An awaited revival, yet the court could barely sustain itself. The ministers in the court were split into many factions, most thinking only of fighting for power and profit.

Faced with such a mess, Emperor Zhengning was completely at a loss, because he not only had no experience in government, but his personality, to put it nicely, was mild and kind; to put it bluntly, he was soft-eared, weak-willed, and lacking in opinions.

He Shu had no choice but to step forward. While racking her brains to help Emperor Zhengning get money out of the pockets of the great clans and powerful families, she wielded a great blade to sort out and rectify the forces in the court.

Fortunately, however muddled the late emperor became in his later years, he always kept military power firmly in his own hands, laying a certain foundation for Emperor Zhengning as his successor.

Of course, this was also the key reason the late emperor, in his old and weakened later years, could still defeat his sons.

Standing on the shoulders of giants from her previous life and having accumulated much theoretical knowledge, He Shu understood very well that holding military force could indeed let her and Emperor Zhengning enjoy a time of peace, but over time it would inevitably expose more abuses.

So after using somewhat less than honorable means to obtain some development funds and barely plug some of the current huge holes, she began to integrate the resources at hand and start doing business.

These businesses covered many fields, including highly profitable industries like soap and glass, as well as refined salt, white sugar, printing, and other industries upgraded from traditional techniques.

After two or three years of this, she finally succeeded in gradually making both the national treasury and the private treasury comfortable.

Now nine years had passed. As the businesses He Shu ran in cooperation with the court grew larger and stronger, the Eastern Palace properties under her personal name had also spread throughout Great An and beyond.

While the court and her own private treasury both took in gold by the day, the hard work He Shu had to put in for it was beyond what ordinary people could imagine.

After completing the basic layout in commerce and the military, He Shu no longer cared at all whether she could smoothly remain crown prince in the future or even inherit the throne. After all, she had now successfully grasped the lifeline of Great An in her hands.

And all this that she had prepared with such care was actually also to deal with the situation if Emperor Zhengning could give her a younger brother who could rightfully inherit the throne, or if the truth that she was a daughter were exposed.

Because both possibilities would bring unpredictable developments to her future, she definitely had to possess enough power to protect herself. After all, she had been crown prince for so many years, and this identity was truly sensitive.

Now, seeing that her father had little possibility of having a son in this life, He Shu had only one choice: continue being crown prince and ascend the throne in the future.

In this way, she only needed to cover up as best she could the disguise that could so easily make people harbor disloyal thoughts, while working even harder to build up her own power.

Only when her power in the court and country was strong enough, when she enjoyed sufficiently high recognition and reverence among the people, and when her influence in Great An was great enough to surpass the fixed impressions of gender in traditional thought, could she fear nothing.

She could even openly become a female emperor in the future, even though in her heart He Shu truly did not want to spend this whole life in the hard life of handling countless affairs every day.

Learning that the crown prince had returned, the Eastern Palace official Crown Prince Steward Xu Congyi immediately stepped forward quickly to welcome her. His duty was originally to manage the Eastern Palace's affairs on the crown prince's behalf.

But He Shu's situation was special. After she was made crown prince, she spent most of her time inseparable from the emperor, attending court with him or listening to and discussing governance in the Imperial Study. She was also the emperor's only "son."

With the crown prince's position incomparably secure, the whole set of Eastern Palace officials meant to give the crown prince practice basically lost their use.

Fortunately, He Shu had always followed the principle of making the best use of everyone. When she herself had no leisure, she could not bear to see others idle, and she was best at assigning all sorts of work.

Xu Congyi became the manager in charge of the Eastern Palace properties. As the Eastern Palace properties grew larger and stronger, his status as the chief manager rose with the tide.

He had studied hard for many years through cold windows before passing the imperial examination as a palace graduate and entering the court.

Though he had not managed to become a powerful great minister holding real authority, he had been able to stand firm in the previous chaotic court situation and gradually rise to third-rank official. Xu Congyi's ability was absolutely not to be underestimated.

When he had been pushed out to the Eastern Palace back then, he had thought being sidelined to the side of a crown prince only three years old was already a considerable blow.

What Xu Congyi had not expected was that an even greater blow was yet to come. The crown prince actually had him, a full third-rank official, open workshops and set up shops and engage in the affairs of merchants.

Fortunately, the treatment the crown prince gave him was extremely generous. The workshops he opened produced exclusive specialty goods with extremely rich profits, and the products were in short supply. Business flourished, giving Xu Congyi great comfort.

Now nine years had passed. At the crown prince's instruction, he had opened one workshop after another, one tavern, inn, and shop after another.

He managed thousands upon thousands of employees and handled tens of thousands of strings of cash, even more than a hundred thousand strings, every day. This had long made Xu Congyi forget his former resentment at feeling unrecognized and unable to fulfill his ambitions.

In his view, the crown prince had been born with a discerning eye and was his Bole. Only such a person could have seen at such a young age that he was a business genius, more suited to commanding the winds and clouds in the sea of commerce.

As for his official rank being stuck at third rank and unable to advance for years, in Xu Congyi's view, that was no matter at all.

People often spoke of rising in office and getting rich. Though he had not risen in office, serving as chief manager of the Eastern Palace properties these years had made him a great fortune, and an open and honorable one at that.

As one of the trusted close officials of the crown prince, Xu Congyi knew very well how formidable his master was. As the crown prince grew older, this reverence did not diminish but increased.

"Greetings, Your Highness."

Just as she reached the palace gate, she saw Xu Congyi coming out from the side hall beside it. Stepping into the hall, He Shu lifted a hand to untie her thin cloak and said casually.

"Minister Xu, there is no need for such ceremony. This inspection ended early. Is there some problem over at Ming'an? Sit down and tell me."

"Please rest assured, Your Highness. Everything over there is completely normal. This subject hurried back for another matter."

He Shu took the teacup presented by a palace attendant and first placed it before Xu Congyi, who had just sat down.

"If it makes you so cautious, it must be no small matter."

Though he had received this nearly ceremonial treatment many times, Xu Congyi still felt uneasy accepting it. He bowed and thanked her earnestly before replying.

"It is mainly the matter of the Ministry of Revenue drawing money from our side."

Speaking of the real business of this trip, Xu Congyi, full of resentment, could not help becoming somewhat agitated.

"Those fellows in the Ministry of Revenue are truly outrageous. Whether it is the expenditure of paying officials' medical expenses at a corresponding rate based on their years of service, or the decision to provide interest-free loans for medical expenses to poor commoners, both were national policies passed after joint discussion in court at the time."

"This portion of expenditure should rightly be paid by the national treasury. His Majesty also explicitly proposed setting up corresponding funds for dedicated use. But according to the information this subject has obtained, the Ministry of Revenue is actually planning to have our Eastern Palace advance it all."

As he spoke, Xu Congyi signaled his deputy to open the chest he had brought, revealing neat stacks of account books inside.

The Eastern Palace had long known about this matter. What it had not known was that the other side's appetite would be so great. They actually dared to push this entire expenditure onto the Eastern Palace, and in every region at that.

So after realizing the seriousness of this matter, Xu Congyi had become this angry. He casually picked up an account book and opened it.

"Look, Your Highness. Relying on Your Highness's kindness, their table manners are truly ugly. How much money has our Eastern Palace made with the Ministry of Revenue these years? They are still not satisfied and even have their eyes on our Eastern Palace's private property."

He Shu casually flipped through a few pages. Her focus was on another aspect.

"Are these expenditures all clear? Have people been sent to verify them one by one?"

"Please rest assured, Your Highness. We have sent people to verify the situation of every applicant household. This is a major matter concerning whether their descendants can enter school and take the imperial examinations, and the punishments for all involved are very severe. So far, no fraud has been discovered."

After explaining, Xu Congyi remembered another key reason he had hurried back.

"Your Highness, the most outrageous part is that this subject sent people to inquire, and whether it is the money our Eastern Palace has successively advanced to the Ministry of Revenue before, or the money paid out this time, no one knows how it was spent. In other words, our Eastern Palace is completely making a bridal dress for the Ministry of Revenue, which gains the name and profit, and for all the parties spending the money."

Speaking of these things, Xu Congyi was furious. He was truly unwilling to let the Eastern Palace be taken advantage of so greatly, with the crown prince not receiving even a bit of credit.

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