In April of the twenty-fifth year of Kaiyuan, Prince Li Ying knelt on the cold bricks of Xingqing Palace. What awaited him would be the understatement of four words in the history books - "Give death to the east of the city".
That night, he broke the jade to stall for time. Zhang Jiuling's blood spattered the imperial steps and he finally walked out of the palace alive, only to see the flames of the experimental field outside the city rising into the sky - three years of hard work turned into ashes. The deposed prince who should have been mentioned in the history books has since embarked on the road to rewrite his destiny.
He improved the curved shaft plow, increasing the yield per acre from one and a half stones to two stones; he used work as relief in Henan Province and resettled 17,000 households of refugees; he banged his head against a pillar in the court hall to save the lives of loyal ministers; amidst Li Linfu's sneer and Wu Huifei's murderous intention, he was startled at every step and never gave in.
In the fourteenth year of Tianbao, Anlu Mountain raised troops in Fan Yang. Xuanzong was hunting in the west, and Li Ying knelt down and asked to stay in Chang'an. That kneeling was followed by eight years of bloody battle. He guarded the isolated city, beat the war drums, sent off his eighteen-year-old son who died in the war, and waited for the news of regaining the two capitals.
After the war, he opened schools, resettled refugees, and pushed forward the two-tax law. On the night of his death, frogs could be heard outside the window - that was the place where he worked on water conservancy projects. He said to Liu Yan: "This frog's sound is better than any power."
Historically, Li Ying died in the 25th year of Kaiyuan. But this time, he wanted to live well for those who died in the war.
