I am Li Shen and Li Shimin, the free kings of the Tang Dynasty

After a while, Shitou came over with a jar of wine, sealed with mud.

Shitou put the wine on the table, and Li Shen pointed at the wine and said:

"This is good stuff. You should also know that the medicinal wine that Aye is drinking now is this, but it is three years younger than the wine that Your Majesty drinks.

The efficacy is somewhat poor.

I don't have the kind that Your Majesty drinks anymore. I sent it all to my mother. You can just drink it."

Wang De immediately smiled happily, just like your majesty, it must be a good thing.

He also didn't think that it could be exactly the same as His Majesty's, except that the year was just right, otherwise His Majesty would be unhappy if everything was the same.

"My Lord, you are embarrassing me. How can I always ask for your things?"

"We are all family. You can take these ten gold bars back and share them with them to save some money."

Li Shen was generous when he was giving money. He gave ten gold bars worth one hundred strings of cash as soon as he said he would.

"Oh, Your Highness, this is not possible." Wang De quickly declined.

"Take it. You can buy a house for your retirement in the future. What if His Majesty doesn't care about you? He is such a stingy person."

Li Shen pushed the gold bar over. Wang De didn't dare to respond and could only thank him:

"Thank you for the reward, Your Highness Prince Ji. If I leave the palace in the future, I will come to the palace to serve you, Your Highness. I hope Your Highness will not despise me."

After Wang De finished speaking, Li Shen quickly shook his head:

"Come on, you come to serve me, do you think I've lived too long? Don't repay me with evil.

This king will not take you in.'

Li Shen could take in any eunuch from the palace except Wang De.

One is that he has a special status. He serves the emperor, so how can he serve Li Shen?

Secondly, Wang De knew too many royal secrets. If Wang De stayed by Li Shen's side, everyone would worry whether Wang De would tell the secrets to Li Shen.

Li Shen is just confused sometimes, but that doesn't mean he is stupid. He doesn't dare to ask for Wang De.

"Your Highness, since there is nothing else to do, I will take my leave. I still have to go to the King of Jin to announce his order."

Wang De took the gold and put it away. He picked up the wine jar and said to Li Shen:

"Well, go ahead. Shitou will see Chief Steward Wang off."

Li Shen nodded. He and Wang De had been friends for more than ten years, and he could still be very useful when something happened.

The beating of Li Tai yesterday was one of them.

Wang De carried the jar of wine and left Prince Ji's mansion. As for how to divide the gold bars, that was Wang De's own business and had nothing to do with Li Shen.

~~~~~~~

Prince Jin's Mansion,

Li Zhi also received the news that Li Tai was severely beaten, and he was now a little restless.

For some reason, he always felt that someone was watching him and everything he did was known.

"Your Majesty, I have already found out that it was Prince Wei who went to Prince Ji's mansion yesterday.

After King Wei left, King Ji entered the palace. King Ji met His Majesty and the Crown Prince.

Not long after Prince Ji left the palace, Prince Wei was beaten by the chief steward himself, with forty strokes of the cane. I heard that they used some kind of family law.

Li Yifu reported in Li Zhi's study.

"That is the family law of my Li family, similar to a ruler, which was made by His Majesty himself specifically for Li Shen.

I never thought that the family rules that were originally used to teach that bastard Li Shen a lesson would now fall on our legitimate prince.

It’s a humiliation.”

Li Zhi had a headache. He had always been proud of being a legitimate son, but now in front of Li Shen, it seemed that legitimate and illegitimate sons were the same.

He had seen that ruler before. It was a two-finger-wide board and very sturdy.

He could imagine how painful it would be to be hit hard by such a board.

"Your Majesty, I have inquired again and again but have not been able to find out what His Royal Highness Prince Ji said when he entered the palace.

I also didn’t find out what the Prince of Wei said when he went to Prince Ji’s mansion.”

Both places were heavily guarded, so Li Yifu had no way to deal with it.

"It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with me. The conflict between Fourth Brother and Li Shen may be of some use to us.

We can just watch the show with peace of mind."

Li Zhi shook his head and waved his hand nonchalantly.

Whether Li Tai was beaten or not was not a big deal to him. What made him angry was that he, who was also a legitimate descendant, was harmed by Li Shen, a bastard.

In this era when classes were clearly defined, the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children was very serious.

"Your Highness, the palace's chief steward has arrived and said that there is a message from His Majesty."

The servant outside the study reported.

"Here it comes again?" Li Zhi felt a bad feeling in his heart. Could it be that he was implicated again?

When he arrived at the front hall and saw Wang De, looking at Wang De's expression, Li Zhi felt that his guess was almost right.

Sure enough, after some polite conversation, Wang Dexuan Li Shimin's oral instructions:

Just like last time, they found an excuse, using etiquette and law as the reason, to confine him to his home for a month and fine him half a year's salary.

After Wang Dexuan finished conveying Li Shimin's oral instructions, he did not stay for long and left with his men.

Li Zhi returned to the study with a gloomy face.

“Damn it, damn it, I have been implicated by these two people again.

I don't know what Aye was thinking. Why did he have to punish the three of us for something that happened between the two of them?"

"My Lord, is this another order of punishment?"

Seeing Li Zhi's angry look, Li Yifu asked cautiously.

"That's right, just like last time, one month's house arrest and a six-month salary fine.

Tens of thousands of strings of cash a year were lost because of them.

This king is really unwilling to accept this."

Li Zhi sat down angrily and slammed the table hard.

In his opinion, Li Tai and Li Shen must have had a conflict, which made their Aye angry and led to the punishment.

Li Tai was beaten, and Li Shen would probably be punished as well, but he felt a little wronged.

"Your Highness, it's just a few tens of thousands of strings of cash. Just be patient." Li Yifu advised.

"Only a few tens of thousands of strings of cash? Do you think I'm that prodigal son of Li Shen?

The annual revenue of my Prince Jin’s Palace is only a few hundred thousand strings of cash.

I still have to pay back the money I borrowed from my mother a few years ago, even though my mother never asked me to pay it back.

But I have to return it, I have to save face."

At this point, Li Zhi became a little excited. Several tens of thousands of strings of cash were enough to cover the expenses of their Prince Jin's Mansion for a year.

He owed Empress Changsun a lot of money, all of which was cheated away by that bastard Li Shen.

“Your Majesty, if we want to accumulate wealth quickly, we have no other way except the goods from Prince Ji’s Mansion.

Even if we expand throughout the Tang Dynasty like the Prince Ji's Palace, there are too many competitors for the products we sell.

In addition to those merchants, there are also aristocratic families and many nobles.

Unless we can obtain the formula of the products of Prince Ji's Mansion, we will not be able to compete with Prince Ji's Mansion."

Li Yifu knew that Prince Jin wanted to make more money, and only with money could he do more things.

"Of course I know this, but we can't get Li Shen's formula at all, and the people we can bribe are all peripheral personnel.

There are only a few who are truly core.” It’s not that Li Zhi didn’t try, he just failed.

"Your Majesty, the recipe of Prince Ji's Mansion is not only available in Prince Ji's Mansion, but also in another place."

Li Yifu lowered his voice and approached Li Zhi to remind him.