Chapter Fifty: At the Height of Intoxication

Li Ke, seeing this, did not blame Fang Jun for his lack of manners. He picked up his chopsticks and took a slice of mutton as well, imitating Fang Jun by dipping it in the sauce before placing it in his mouth and biting down lightly...

He nearly scalded his tongue off!

Yet the freshness of the mutton and the pungency of the sauce combined into a perfect taste. Li Ke blew several breaths of cool air, then eagerly put the meat into his mouth again and chewed it carefully.

His eyes lit up.

“Truly delicious!” he praised.

But after saying this, he realized that no one had echoed him. His Highness the Prince of Wu, accustomed to being flattered, felt somewhat awkward. He glanced around, only to find the other three men grabbing vegetables and meat with sleeves rolled up, eating until they were drenched in sweat. Where did they have the time to pay him any attention?

Li Ke burst out laughing and abandoned the dignity of a prince. With one sweep of his chopsticks, he snatched away a piece of meat Fang Jun had just picked up.

“How dare you fight me for meat? Have you grown tired of living?”

Fang Jun stared at Li Ke speechlessly, so depressed he could have died.

Even while eating, he had to flaunt his princely authority?

What a lowlife...

How could hot pot possibly be served without wine?

Fang Jun waved his hand and called, “Bring out the wine!”

A maid soon carried over a ceramic wine jar, set it on the table, bowed, and withdrew.

Fang Jun looked up. It was not Qiao’er. For some reason, he felt faintly relieved. If that girl caught sight of Li Ke a few more times, she probably would not be able to sleep that night...

He broke open the mud seal on the jar and poured everyone a full bowl.

The wine was clear and bright, its color resembling the green bamboo of the southern hills. White foam shimmered across it as it filled the bowls. Though it was the color of bamboo leaves, it was not the cloudy wine described in the Tang poem about freshly brewed wine with green ants floating upon it. Rather, it was Xinfeng wine, a local specialty of Xinfeng.

Legend had it that Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, was born in Fengli. After raising an army, destroying the Qin and defeating Xiang Yu, he established the Great Han dynasty and honored his father with the title of Supreme Emperor. When the old man missed the scenery and flavors of his hometown while living in Chang’an, Liu Bang ordered a skilled craftsman named Hu Kuan to build a city modeled after Fengli. He named it Xinfeng, meaning “newly relocated Feng.”

After Xinfeng was completed, the old Supreme Emperor still longed for the wine of his native land. Liu Bang therefore moved the brewers from their hometown to the new city. From then on, Xinfeng’s fine wine became famous throughout the world.

Their tongues had been numbed by the spice. When the faint fragrance of wine reached them, they naturally lifted their bowls and drained them without bothering with the usual polite remarks.

Tang white wine was limited by the brewing techniques of the age and was generally not very strong. Liquor reaching fifty or sixty degrees was distilled liquor, and that technology would not be developed until the Song and Yuan periods. It certainly did not exist in the Tang dynasty.

Since crossing into this world, Fang Jun had hardly drunk at all. He had once gone to a pleasure house hoping to sample the fine wine and beautiful women of the Great Tang, only to get into two fights and fail to drink a single mouthful.

He lifted his bowl and took a sip. The Xinfeng wine was soft and smooth on the tongue, almost as thin as water. It was probably weaker than beer. He smacked his lips thoughtfully and discovered that it even had a slight sweetness.

Fortunately, Fang Jun was not a complete fool. He did not slam his bowl on the table and proclaim that this was counterfeit wine diluted with sugar...

Even the strongest wine of the Tang era would not exceed twenty degrees. Most of the grain fermented with wine yeast was converted into sugar, and only a small portion of that sugar could go on to become alcohol. Thus, Tang wine was chiefly sweet rather than fiery.

Fang Jun suddenly understood. No wonder people were always talking about “a jug of wine and a hundred poems.” Drinking this sort of wine generally tested not one’s liver, but the capacity of one’s stomach...

He thought the wine was a little weak, but its flavor was surprisingly good. He began wondering whether he should study the distillation process and produce authentic liquor to make a little money. He continued picking up food with one hand and pouring wine with the other. By the time his belly was swollen, he realized that he had unconsciously drunk half the jar.

Weak wine was still wine. Even though Fang Jun in his previous life had been hardened by alcohol, he had been reborn in a different body and had yet to adapt. His head was spinning. He had drunk too much.

At that moment, Li Ke also set down his bowl and let out a long breath.

“‘I taste the wine of Xinfeng and toast from afar the lady upon the sunlit terrace’... This Xinfeng wine truly is the finest of wines, with a lingering aftertaste. Paired with hot pot and spicy sauce, it is a delicacy fit for the immortals!”

Cen Wenshu drank with considerably more refinement. Holding his bowl, he sipped slowly and said, “Your Highness, that verse was composed by Emperor Yuan of Liang, was it not? Cao Mengde said, ‘How may sorrow be dispelled? Only by Du Kang.’ In my humble opinion, this Xinfeng wine can dispel worry and sorrow just as well.”

Once their stomachs were full and their thirst quenched, their tongues loosened.

Li Ke’s handsome face had been stained a wine-red flush. He sighed softly.

“One drunken night may banish a thousand sorrows, but when the wine wears off, sorrow returns even heavier...”

His words were thick with resentment and frustration.

Cen Wenshu gave a bitter laugh, fell silent, and continued drinking slowly.

Li Siwen, the broad-minded fool, paid no attention to the conversation at the table. He slurped down food and wine without once lifting his head.

Fang Jun, however, could understand Li Ke’s mood.

Born to the imperial clan, blessed with extraordinary intelligence and overflowing talent, he was naturally proud and ambitious, with great aspirations in his heart.

Unfortunately, fate had placed him third in line. The position from which one held the world in one’s hands and directed the course of the realm would forever remain beyond his reach. Anyone would feel at least a little unwilling to accept that.

At last he had come of age and established his own residence, appointed Commander-in-Chief of military affairs in five prefectures—An, Sui, Wen, Mian, and Fu—and invested as Governor of Anzhou. He had been eager to accomplish something worthy of showing his imperial father, only to be impeached by the censorate and dismissed from office, forced to return to the capital.

Then the snow disaster struck. By imperial command, he had been sent to inspect the various counties of Xinfeng. Watching countless commoners freeze and starve to death without clothing or food, how could Li Ke remain unmoved?

Xinfeng lay at the feet of Heaven, in the capital’s immediate environs. It controlled the passage by which the lands east of the passes entered Chang’an through the Wei River. Wealth gathered there, and most of the great clans maintained branches in the city. Their influence was deeply rooted and intricately entangled, making the situation extraordinarily complicated.

Was Xinfeng rich or not? It certainly was. From the county seat to the banks of the Wei, shops stood in dense rows and docks crowded one against another. Grand residences followed grand residences, and in all Guanzhong, Xinfeng’s prosperity ranked among the top three.

Yet the taxes collected from Xinfeng each year ranked near the bottom among all the counties of Guanzhong.

The reason was simple: most of the county’s highly profitable industries were monopolized by the great clans. Some possessed exemptions from taxation; others relied on their high positions and influence to refuse payment altogether.

When Li Ke first arrived, he had been filled with ambition and determined to make a great effort to relieve the refugees’ desperate plight.

But the county treasury had already been exhausted by the snow disaster and was on the verge of collapse. The only way to raise money and grain was through donations. He had gone from household to household until his tongue nearly fell off, yet had managed to collect very little. Even that much had been given only because people wished to show some respect to a prince.

Meanwhile, Prince Wei, Li Tai, was handling the disaster relief effort with thunderous momentum. Li Ke’s own work, by contrast, was advancing with crippling difficulty. How could he not feel depressed?

If anyone claimed that Li Ke was inferior to Li Tai, he would sooner die than admit it!

Li Ke took a sip of wine and sighed. Before long, he had made Fang Jun depressed as well.

“Well, Your Highness, is something troubling you?” Fang Jun had no interest in court politics. Such matters had nothing to do with him. The obsessive drive to claw his way upward that had consumed him in his former life had long since vanished. In this life, his greatest wish was simply to become a happy little landowner.

Li Ke glanced at him, wondering whether the man was truly foolish or merely pretending. Still, watching Fang Jun spend his days carefree and at ease, doing whatever he wished and beating anyone he pleased, Li Ke thought that perhaps this too was a kind of happiness.

He slowly told them what was weighing on his heart.

Cen Wenshu gave a bitter smile.

“Although I am the magistrate of Xinfeng, the great clans in this city do not take me seriously at all. Seeing the refugees and disaster victims inside and outside the city, I feel as though my insides are burning, yet I am utterly helpless and have no solution!”

“I had originally hoped that Your Highness’s arrival in Xinfeng would cow those aristocratic clans into donating some money and grain for relief. Who could have known that although they did make donations once Your Highness arrived, the amount was so pitiful that it would not even fill the gaps between the refugees’ teeth!”

“These leeches clinging to the empire’s body and sucking its blood possess not the slightest trace of humanity. Their eyes are fixed only on profit. They are hateful and despicable beyond measure!”

Fang Jun finally understood. He scratched his somewhat dizzy head, thought for a moment, and said, “I do have an idea...”

Li Ke nearly spat out the wine in his mouth. He gave a succession of bitter smiles inwardly.

Forget it. Fang Er was good at fighting, but ask him to come up with a solution? Ha...

Cen Wenshu was equally speechless. Was Fang Er’s brain even functioning at all?