Volume 5: Fellow Traveler Chapter 806 Brothers
The experience of riding a horse for a long distance was very fresh to the Third Prince at first, but after a long time, even with special pads on his buttocks, he still felt that some parts of his body were rubbed and painful. Moreover, compared with those who were skilled in riding, he had to concentrate on controlling his mount, otherwise, even if Ah Liu could rescue him in time, he would be exposed early.
Therefore, the young prince gritted his teeth and endured it, even if there was no rest in the middle, he did not say a word. Even so, Ah Liu on the side was still on guard, ready to help at any time, but until they finally arrived at the small Baijia Village, he never found a chance, and the third prince endured it all the way.
When he jumped off the horse, he found that the Third Prince had difficulty in moving after reining in his horse, so he stepped forward to help without saying a word . When he reached out and gently helped the man to the ground, he saw that the man was gritting his teeth and limping after taking two steps, and he couldn't help but sigh slightly.
"Don't be so stubborn. Take the carriage on the way back."
The Third Prince wanted to refuse, but then his eyes widened and he instinctively asked in a low voice: "Where did the carriage come from?"
Seeing several servants of the Duke of Zhao looking over here with surprise or curiosity, Ah Liu did not answer, but reached out and gently patted the Third Prince's shoulder as if to comfort him. Seeing his intimate behavior, others naturally thought that Ah Liu knew or had a relationship with this young eunuch from the palace, and quickly withdrew their observations.
When the Third Prince found that no one was paying attention to him anymore, he naturally breathed a sigh of relief, but he didn't dare to ask any more questions. When Ah Liu had assigned people to guard outside the village and led him into the village, and when he was completely out of sight of those people, he couldn't help but ask, "Sixth Brother, aren't you worried that I'll leave the palace without permission and cause trouble for the teacher?"
Ah Liu paused for a moment, then said without turning back: "After the eldest lady told me, I rushed to the public school and brought a message to the young master." Although there were only three words written on it, the young master should... be able to understand it, right?
When the Third Prince heard that Ah Liu had informed Zhang Shou, he was not angry but breathed a sigh of relief. He said to himself, "Although I was afraid that my father would blame my teacher and that he would stop me, so I didn't inform him in advance, but if he really didn't know anything, I might still be criticized by my father later... Sixth brother, thank you for sending me here today."
"You should thank the young lady." Ah Liu answered seriously. When he heard the Crown Prince behind him suddenly become speechless, he added calmly, "If the young lady hadn't told me until today and repeatedly begged me sincerely, I wouldn't have agreed."
The Third Prince thought about Ah Liu's position and knew that these words were from the bottom of his heart, not to please him. But the more he thought about it, the calmer he felt. The feeling of being suffocated in the deep palace since he was appointed as the Crown Prince was replaced by an indescribable comfort. Therefore, when he saw a familiar figure from a distance, he couldn't help but shout out: "Fourth brother!"
Cotton-padded jacket, cotton-padded trousers, cotton-padded shoes, and a thick felt hat, with his hands tucked into his sleeves, and his clothes, shoes, and socks all ill-fitting and oversized, this was the image of the Fourth Prince at this moment. When he heard the call, he couldn't help but shake his head, thinking that he was hallucinating.
Otherwise, why would his third brother be here? He is not the King of Jiangdu who has nothing to do. As the crown prince, his third brother is very busy and has so many classes to attend every day!
The fourth prince smiled to himself in his heart, thinking that he had been outside for so many days, suffering and tired, so he mistook anyone's voice as his third brother. However, he walked forward two steps regardless, and suddenly heard the voice of fourth brother again. This time, he couldn't help but look up and around in a daze, and soon caught a glimpse of a figure running towards him.
However, until the person hugged him tightly, he still felt that his head was a little confused. He wanted to ask if you recognized the wrong person, but the words seemed to be blocked when they came to his mouth, and he couldn't utter a word. It was not until the hands holding him gradually loosened that he finally saw the overjoyed face in front of him, and then he finally reacted.
But his reaction was to take a step back in panic, then raised his hand to rub his eyes, stared at the other person for several times, and finally stammered, "Third... Third brother? Why...why are you here?"
Facing the tongue-tied Fourth Prince, the Third Prince could not help but feel confused. He took two steps forward again, but asked an irrelevant question: "Are you unhappy that I came here?"
"No, no, no!" The fourth prince shook his head like a rattle, and then looked around as if asking for help. However, Zhang Shou, who he thought would be here, and his father who would come with him were nowhere to be seen. Even the villagers and children who were the most common in the village during this winter were nowhere to be seen.
He couldn't help but swallow hard, then he stepped forward and grabbed the Third Prince, then ran away. However, when he and his men ran to the back of a house, he saw that there was really no one there, so he immediately asked nervously: "Third brother, how did you get here? Why are you alone? Where is the teacher? Where is the emperor? Where are the people who followed you? How many people did you bring out..."
Seeing the Fourth Prince's barrage of questions, the Third Prince was at a loss whether to laugh or cry. Finally, he had to interrupt his brother and said word by word, "Father didn't come, and neither did the teacher."
The fourth prince almost popped his eyes out. He was not relieved, but panicked. Fortunately, the third prince's next words reassured him: "But I brought a lot of guards with me, and my sixth brother also sent me here."
But this sense of security only lasted for a moment. The next moment, when the third prince told him the follow-up, he almost jumped up in shock.
"But I sneaked out during class. Senior Brother Lu stayed in Ciqing Palace to cover for me. Father didn't know anything about it. The teacher probably didn't understand the whole story either, because he only got the letter from Sixth Brother. Grandmother and Sister Yingying helped me sneak out together."
The Third Prince seemed not to notice his Fourth Brother's mouth, which was so big that it seemed like it could swallow an egg. His expression was calm but also a little bitter. "Father and grandmother had a big fight. I have not lived in Zhaoren Palace these days. I have lived in my grandmother's Qingning Palace."
The Third Prince told his Fourth Brother all the details of the argument that night, which he had not even told Zhang Shou. As expected, the Fourth Prince was simply stunned, especially when he learned that the Emperor had threatened to seal off the palace. The brat who claimed to be fearless could not help but wipe the sweat from his forehead, and finally swallowed hard.
"Father... Father seems to be going too far... But what Grandmother said was not right in the first place!"
Although the fourth prince had a quarrel with the emperor, he had never been close to the empress dowager and subconsciously still helped his father. However, he did not expect that his third brother, who was not as talkative as himself in the past, would vividly retell the empress dowager's story about his father. Now, he forgot to defend his father.
After all, although he and his third brother grew up by the emperor's side and saw a side of him that many ministers, and even the queen and the eldest and second princes, could not see, and when their father was free from government affairs, he would tell them some stories from the past, but those were all scenes of wits battles with ministers, and would never involve the ups and downs of their childhood.
Hearing the two brothers exchanging stories about the emperor's embarrassing childhood, Ah Liu, who was watching from the rooftop, couldn't help but touch his chin in annoyance.
He didn't want to hear about the emperor's childhood stories, but couldn't the third prince be more cautious? He knew that he might be watching nearby, but he still told them... Or maybe the third prince had completely forgotten about him? But when the third prince remembered it later, wouldn't he feel uncomfortable? Would the emperor want to silence him if he knew...
But it wasn't that serious. In fact, many people knew about the emperor's childhood. He had only heard Hua Qi talk about it a little bit, but because it had nothing to do with him, he just forgot about it.
Thinking of this, Ah Liu shook his head in annoyance, but he did not leave to avoid suspicion. Instead, he waited patiently until the two brothers finished talking about the emperor.
Fortunately, the third prince knew that he was not here just to share his father’s embarrassing childhood stories with his fourth brother, so he just picked a few to talk about and then paused.
"Fourth brother, I came here today because I haven't seen you for a long time and I miss you. I also came here for another matter. You tricked me into sending Luo Sanhe to another village, right?"
Seeing that the Fourth Prince immediately revealed an extremely guilty expression and avoided his gaze unnaturally, the Third Prince said frankly: "I know that he is a little self-righteous and a little unrealistically naive, so he is not likable... Of course, I don't like him either. But, just like I don't like Chu Kuan but have to keep him, sometimes you can't just do whatever you like."
"Fourth brother, we need to have someone around us who dares to speak harshly... just like the Imperial Censors that Father kept."
The Third Prince said to the Fourth Prince that he felt it was right, but in fact it made some awkward sense. After the Fourth Prince was stunned, he nodded hesitantly. He sighed and said, "Of course, you can also think that I am spying on you."
The fourth prince was shocked and was about to explain that he didn't mean that, but his third brother suddenly changed the subject and said, "There is one more thing I want to tell you. There is a foreign boy who is attending the teacher's class. This is what happened..."
Although he was a little confused, the usually erratic Fourth Prince was delighted when he heard the Third Prince tell him the whole story. He even pounded the wall beside him and said with a gloating look, "He was so reckless to get on the ship. If he is thrown into the sea, he won't even have a chance to complain! He is lucky to be able to get ashore alive... and it's also because you, Teacher and Third Brother, are kind-hearted!"
Seeing the fourth prince talking about his feelings with great relish, and finally adding a sentence as if to please him, the third prince couldn't help but smile. But then he looked at his fourth brother and said in a very serious tone: "So, fourth brother, are you willing to learn those foreign languages?"
The fourth prince was a little dumbfounded. He stared at the third prince blankly for a long while before he said with a bitter face: "Third brother, those strange words are said to be difficult to learn... Besides, what can you do after learning them?"
"Teacher once demonstrated at the lecture a boat that could move automatically on the water without wind or oars. If such a boat can really be built in the future, places that were once far away will not be far away. Moreover, if a steel ship can be launched, the sea will be much safer, right?"
The Third Prince, who had never seen the sea and did not know its violent side, spoke with complete assumptions, as if he had not noticed the Fourth Prince's expression that gradually changed from surprise to a bit of longing. He said, "In the past, I always thought that Emperor Taizu was too reckless and unwise to sail out to sea after abdicating the throne and then never heard from him again."
"But later, when I heard the teacher talk about the country thousands of miles away, the different customs and habits from China, and the various celebrities, I gradually felt that it was no wonder that Emperor Taizu would take a ship to the sea. With such great ambitions, he must have felt that the current Ming Dynasty was still too small."
The world is so big that the two brothers, who could only see it from maps in the past and from globes now, never had a very real concept of it. However, the third prince now increasingly understands the importance of being the crown prince, so he listens particularly carefully to history and geography classes, and sometimes even takes the initiative to ask Zhang Shou to explain something.
Because he had deeply realized that compared with other lecturers, Zhang Shou's light-hearted stories were easier to remember, and the opinions that Zhang Shou expressed from time to time were also very unique.
This is why he said Daming is too young. At this moment, he looked at his younger brother, who was about the same age as him and had a different kind of brilliance on his face, and suddenly smiled and said, "But sailing is still too dangerous. My teacher once told me that in the pre-Qin period, wooden tracks were laid on the post roads, and then horses were used to pull carts, which was very fast."
"If ships can be powered by machinery in the future, then what about horse-drawn carriages?"
"It is said that Zhuge Wuhou once built wooden oxen and flowing horses to transport supplies, so why can't we do it now? If we build tracks all the way to the far west, and then use machines like wooden oxen and flowing horses to drive them, then according to the map on the globe, wouldn't we be able to reach those western countries? Land routes are not as risky as sea routes."
The Third Prince talked about something very far away, then smiled at the Fourth Prince and said, "Why, do you think I want you to lead the team to the west by boat? Of course not. When everything is not safe, how can I let my brother take this risk! But, once, twice, three times... many times, it has been proven to be absolutely safe, then you can go!"
"Then you can go see the vast world in my place!"
